Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => Announcements => Topic started by: Alex on October 16, 2020, 01:26:39 PM

Title: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 16, 2020, 01:26:39 PM
Blog post/download links here (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2021/03/26/starsector-0-95a-release/).

Changes as of Hotfix #6 (-RC15), April 22, 2021, 3:40pm EST

Fixed an issue with the main storyline.

Changes as of Hotfix #5 (-RC14), April 21, 2021, 1:20pm EST




Changes as of Hotfix #4 (-RC12), March 30, 2021, 6:45pm EST


Changes as of Hotfix #3 (-RC11), March 29, 2021, 6:00pm EST


Changes as of Hotfix #2 (-RC10), March 27, 2021, 7:40pm EST

Changes/fixes:


Changes as of Hotfix #1 (-RC9), March 26, 2021, 9:30pm EST

Bugfixing:




Changes as of March 26, 2021

Combat:

Weapons:

Hullmods:

Modding:

Bugfixing:


Changes as of March 08, 2021

Campaign:


Pirate raids, punitive expeditions, etc:


Miscellaneous:


Combat:


Ship AI:

Ships:


Weapons/fighters:


Hullmods:


Modding:


Bugfixing:





Changes as of October 16, 2020

Campaign:

Colonies/exploration/related:

Revamped ground raid mechanics

Combat:

Ships/systems:

Weapons/fighters:

Hullmods:


Ship AI:

Miscellaneous:

Modding:

Bugfixing:
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on October 16, 2020, 01:30:42 PM
I literally said in another thread I felt like something was coming soon holy ***, finally the sacred text! Damn this is gonna take forever to read.

EDIT:
Quote
Added unique capital-class ship that can be acquired by the player. Good luck.
Legion LXIX here I come :O

Quote
Light Dual AC: reduced OP cost to 5 (was: 6)
But it already is 5 OP? I know the patch notes are in progress but just making sure.

Quote
Light Needler: reduced OP cost to 7 (was: 9)
Railgun: increased OP cost to 8 (was: 7)
This is the only thing that I don't get. I mean we all know Light Needler wasn't worth 9 OP currently, but lowering it to 7 AND increasing Railgun to 8 seems a wee bit too much. It makes sense to me that they have the same OP cost at least, then you have an option between burst and sustained damage. With these changes Light Needler seems like a no-brainer unless I'm missing something crucial.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zuthal on October 16, 2020, 01:58:59 PM
  • Asteroid fields: chance for moderately damaging asteroid impacts on ships when not moving slowly
    • AI will move slowly through asteroid fields
  • Hyperspace storms: slow-moving fleets do not attract storm strikes
    • AI will move slowly through storms instead of trying to avoid them

Does that also apply to the player's fleet when flying to a destination under autopilot?[/list]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Botaragno on October 16, 2020, 02:02:30 PM
Quote
Onslaught:

    Reduced arc of side-facing large turrets
    Added built-in Heavy Ballistics Integration

Enforcer:

    Increased armor to 900 (was: 750)
    Increased hull to 6000 (was: 5000)
    Reduced shield flux/damage to 1 (was: 1.2)

YUP
IT'S LOW TECH TIME
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 16, 2020, 02:05:30 PM
I literally said in another thread I felt like something was coming soon holy ***, finally the sacred text! Damn this is gonna take forever to read.

(Sorry but also not sorry!)

Quote
Light Dual AC: reduced OP cost to 5 (was: 6)
But it already is 5 OP? I know the patch notes are in progress but just making sure.

... is it? If it is, then I probably got mixed up at some point, but it'll be 5, regardless, whether it's a change from 6 or not.

Quote
Light Needler: reduced OP cost to 7 (was: 9)
Railgun: increased OP cost to 8 (was: 7)
This is the only thing that I don't get. I mean we all know Light Needler wasn't worth 9 OP currently, but lowering it to 7 AND increasing Railgun to 8 seems a wee bit too much. It makes sense to me that they have the same OP cost at least, then you have an option between burst and sustained damage. With these changes Light Needler seems like a no-brainer unless I'm missing something crucial.

I think the Railgun is a touch better due to being a good all-arounder that's also kinetic, and the extra point reflects that. It's ok vs fighters, light armor, etc.


Does that also apply to the player's fleet when flying to a destination under autopilot?

No, but you can hold S to move slowly without overriding the laid-in course.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Draba on October 16, 2020, 02:09:00 PM
Awesome as always, can't wait to try it!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Cycerin on October 16, 2020, 02:10:06 PM
Hell yeah!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FooF on October 16, 2020, 02:20:04 PM
Yep. Today is a good a day.

I'll comment specifically when I have more time but there a lot of good changes in there and a lot of things are (heavily) understated. "Skill system revamp." "New enemy" "New contact system." "Story points." "Megastructure mission." Lol.

Tons of QoL improvements. I'm surprised by the "Move slowly" function but think it's a good addition. Also a (very welcome) surprise is the "historian." That's just a neat touch.

Anyway...good, great, and fantastic stuff. Can't wait to try it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Cathair on October 16, 2020, 02:28:45 PM
oh god it's finally happening. I'M VERY EXCITED NOW.


It's surprising, and cool, to see so many modding additions in a patch that already has so much on its plate with reworking base game systems.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Eji1700 on October 16, 2020, 02:30:27 PM
"Moving Slowly"

Love all of it.  More depth to movement is something i've rambled about a ton, and this is exactly the kind of stuff that I was hoping for.  Intuitive changes that can make looking at the map more interactive as you figure out how to approach something, and what skills you might use to do so.

"Skill system revamp:"


Obviously hype to see how this goes.  I'm sure there will be some initial rough spots but in general i think skills systems are something that should be fun, and often aren't, so any game experimenting there is heading in the right direction in my book.

"Officers:"

Great.  Love that they're capped at 5 now, felt kinda tedious before.

"Added "personal contacts" mechanics:"


Very hype for this.  I'm hoping it gives some depth to the fleet communication/relations that exist. 

"Adjusted AI fleet compositions:"

Glad to hear this.  "ALL THE CAPITALS" felt odd in a lot of ways, but especially for pirate armadas.  Power should scale without having to just send X of the biggest thing.

"Can use a story point to recover an otherwise unrecoverable derelict ship (only applies to derelict ships found in the campaign, not during a combat encounter)

    Some ships (such as REDACTED ships when the player doesn't have the proper skill) are not recoverable this way"


Maybe i'm reading this wrong, but won't this lead to "always have 1 story point" situations because you don't know when it'll come up and matter?

"Requires fuel and heavy machinery (consumed) and an Alpha Core (not consumed
)"

In general i love the idea of expanding the uses of items like this.  Having X item in inventory lets you do Y is often decently interesting progression, especially when its something like a core that can get you in trouble.

"Pirate bases should no longer spawn in systems with neutron stars/pulsars"


Have to say i'm kinda sad to see this.  I was hoping for a more creative solution, such as making it kinda rare/special and with some wonky effects.  Something like having a few results where either they're totally unprepared so their fleets are just a mess, or they have some special feature/items that you normally wouldn't find at a pirate base so it's worth visiting, or even them being some sort of super high tech pirates so the base is actually a high tech with high tech ships sort of thing. 

"Colonies/exploration/related:"

All sounds interesting.

"Revamped ground raid mechanics"

As always love all of this for adding more depth and not just being a dialogue option you mash through.

"Combat:"


In general lots of qol and i've already talked before about how I like that buoy's are now going to introduce beginners to the idea of post combat start deployments/retreats.

"Ships/systems:"


Brawler- losing damper field feels sad.  Maybe it's more fun to pilot but it made it a great AI ship.
Onslaught- awesome.
Gemini- Interesting.  It's a favorite of my early game so i'm curious to see how it plays out.
Drover- I like this, especially more cargo nerfs in general.  The "support" section of your fleet feels incidental right now, and it really should be more of a cost.

"Weapons/fighters:"


I like basically all of this.  Feels like trying to bring things in line rather than just playing wack a mole with what's currently good. Always more interesting because it keeps fun things fun.

"Hullmods:"


As always i love anything that makes civilian ship sprites more likely to wind up on screen.  If time is going to be spent making it then it should have a reason to show up in battle even if it's niche.  Very curious how the "remove fighter bays" thing will play out.  Shield shunt also seems like it should be fun to play with.

"Ship AI:"

Quality of life heaven.

"the rest"


All good.

Can't wait until we can mess with it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Nextia on October 16, 2020, 02:39:51 PM
Very nice changes, can't wait for this!  ;D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Auraknight on October 16, 2020, 02:46:29 PM
Always excited for patchnotes! Already sending highlights to friends.

Man, the skill points system keeps getting leaner and leaner! At this rate, it might vanish entirely!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Dostya on October 16, 2020, 02:52:46 PM
Quote
Improved cargo screen performance when taking or leaving a VERY large number of items

Much appreciated. Thank you.

Quote
Maximum post-Collapse colony growth limited to a maximum of colony size 6

Sick of all those systems filled with size 10s within a decade, huh? :P

Are there any plans for a story mission to break this?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Space Dynamics on October 16, 2020, 03:03:27 PM
Ohh Exciting!  ;D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 16, 2020, 03:10:01 PM
Thank you all!


"Pirate bases should no longer spawn in systems with neutron stars/pulsars"


Have to say i'm kinda sad to see this.  I was hoping for a more creative solution, such as making it kinda rare/special and with some wonky effects.  Something like having a few results where either they're totally unprepared so their fleets are just a mess, or they have some special feature/items that you normally wouldn't find at a pirate base so it's worth visiting, or even them being some sort of super high tech pirates so the base is actually a high tech with high tech ships sort of thing.

This mostly has to do with fleet AI just not being able to handle pulsars. If I ever have the time (ha) to dedicated to making it handle them, that might be reconsidered, but the likelihood of this seems low. It's just a complicated problem to solve. (And now that I'm talking about it, I kind of want to try. Must. Resist.)

Brawler- losing damper field feels sad.  Maybe it's more fun to pilot but it made it a great AI ship.

Yeah, that's the goal, to have a midline frigate that's fun to pilot for the player, since there wasn't one. I think the Centurion is also pretty good in the general "hard to kill frigate that works in larger fleets" role and this spreads ship roles out more nicely, but I see what you're saying in general; it's definitely a tradeoff.


Sick of all those systems filled with size 10s within a decade, huh? :P

Are there any plans for a story mission to break this?

Well, you have to admit it's a bit... unreasonable. But you get as many industries on a size 6, so mainly it's about taking the scale down a notch while keeping the options about the same.

As far as breaking the limit - no, nothing I'd call plans. I wouldn't rule it out if a story element called for it, but I don't particularly feel the need to have extra-large colonies in the game. Just that by itself doesn't feel like it adds anything and isn't a "goal", if that makes sense.

(Also, consider that there's a variety of nanoforge-like items that buff various aspects of colonies, which wasn't possible before.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Dal on October 16, 2020, 03:12:05 PM
Exciting changes! Truthfully, I'm apprehensive about the new skill system because I find archetypal characters boring, but I trust there will be mods to address that. The content additions sound very enticing.  ;D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 16, 2020, 03:12:16 PM
Sounds lovely already.
Glad you added the two phase support ships.And the bit about pirate bases no longer spawning in neutron/pulsar systems.
And the industry softcap, too!

Alex, you fixed the fleet composition so pirate fleets wouldn't have too much Atlas MKII, right? And the bounty fleets?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 16, 2020, 03:15:31 PM
Exciting changes! Truthfully, I'm apprehensive about the new skill system because I find archetypal characters boring, but I trust there will be mods to address that. The content additions sound very enticing.  ;D

Hmm - I'm not sure how the new skill system is different from the old in that regard, really. The aptitudes are what make characters "archetypal", no?

Alex, you fixed the fleet composition so pirate fleets wouldn't have too much Atlas MKII, right? And the bounty fleets?

There's less capital ships in high end fleets, if that's what you mean (and more officers instead, to power them up some). This is mentioned in the 700+ lines of patch notes, how could you miss it?!?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Dal on October 16, 2020, 03:18:52 PM
I modded the old system too, so as long as I can mod this one I'll be happy.  ;D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 16, 2020, 03:21:51 PM
I modded the old system too, so as long as I can mod this one I'll be happy.  ;D

Fair enough, and you sure can!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: braciszek on October 16, 2020, 03:30:19 PM
Important question...

Will there be a Champion (XIV)?

On a more serious note, will there be an improvement to the Codex such as search functions literally anytime in the future? After a couple mods, the Codex is not enough and it leaves a bit to be desired. Of course, the ability to see fighter weapon stats and compare between weapons in refit is great.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Wolfyharvell on October 16, 2020, 03:31:11 PM
"Moving Slowly" -- How about Tactical Speed, Cruising Speed, or Thrusters Only for a name?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on October 16, 2020, 03:40:29 PM
Love most of the changes. I see a few things that could be expanded (maybe a story option to steal extra loot when you don't join in the pursuit :P) Few questions

Quote
Brawler:

    Changed ship system to Maneuvering Jets (was: Damper Field)
    Increased shield arc to 270 (was: 150)
    Increased supply cost to 6 (was: 4)
    Increased flux dissipation and capacity (200 -> 250, 2500 -> 3000)

That is a pretty big supply cost increase. How does this work for the Brawler Variants?

Quote
Onslaught:

    Reduced arc of side-facing large turrets
    Added built-in Heavy Ballistics Integration

How much is this? Can you still overlap one of the side facing larger turrets with the front?

Quote
Light Needler: reduced OP cost to 7 (was: 9)

That is a pretty big buff. The LN was already one of the better small ballistics due to its burst and accuracy. It had the same DPS/OP as the HN (though -100 range) and the HN was one of the better medium ballistics. Do the OP changes to light AC really make up for it?

Quote
IR Pulse Laser: reduced flux cost per shot to 40 (was: 50)

Those are some pretty big changes to small ballistic weapons. -1 OP for a light AC can be translated pretty cleanly to another capacitor or distributor. Does 25% less flux on IR pulse compensate?


Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Beinsezii on October 16, 2020, 03:44:50 PM
Added "personal contacts" mechanics .....
Really looking forwards to this. The NPCs on planets always felt sorta faceless, as I never really was able to build the relation meter. Quests from the bar and similar always have you running everywhere instead of working with your one bro in your favorite command station.

Added unique capital-class ship that can be acquired by the player. Good luck.
Good luck? Good luck?

Added skill that allows recovery of REDACTED ships
Yes. Yes. Yes.

* Joining an ongoing battle, winning, and then your allies pursue: leaving (instead of joining the pursuit) will now give you salvage
* Laying in a course for a star in the hyperspace map will now lay in course for the closest jump-point into the system rather than the star's gravity well
* Added support for 4k resolutions
Lots of excellent QoL this patch! I'm a big fan of 'smoothness of operation', and I think it's worth being excited over.
\[also if 4k and/or X11 support is borked you'll definitely hear from me.\]

Added a new, very rare and powerful enemy
13 new special weapons specific to this enemy
wtf is that monstrosity. sounds like some kind of dreadnought/mobile station horror.


officially hyped. I've been looking at another Star Sector campaign after other unnamed nerdy space games have disappointed.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: sinistrem on October 16, 2020, 03:48:20 PM

Maximum post-Collapse colony growth limited to a maximum of colony size 6


Kinda sad about it. I agree, it felt silly to get such big colonies so quickly, but with this limit you will get to the max level even faster. Also, having all colonies limited to the same size feels a bit, i don't know, immersion breaking? You'd expect some planets to be population centers with high cap, while others to be limited to lower cap due to conditions and infrastructure (or lack thereof).

In example - planet doesn't automatically upgrade to the next level, and you have to "upgrade" infrastructure, rising the cap. Maybe make first X upgrades cost progressive amount of credits, and after a certain point require special items (similar to nanoforge), AI cores and story points. That would make colonies more diverse and defined by player choice, instead of every single colony having same population and industry limit.

Anyway, thanks for great work!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on October 16, 2020, 03:57:07 PM
Sick of all those systems filled with size 10s within a decade, huh? :P

Are there any plans for a story mission to break this?
Well, you have to admit it's a bit... unreasonable. But you get as many industries on a size 6, so mainly it's about taking the scale down a notch while keeping the options about the same.

As far as breaking the limit - no, nothing I'd call plans. I wouldn't rule it out if a story element called for it, but I don't particularly feel the need to have extra-large colonies in the game. Just that by itself doesn't feel like it adds anything and isn't a "goal", if that makes sense.

(Also, consider that there's a variety of nanoforge-like items that buff various aspects of colonies, which wasn't possible before.)
Is there an ingame reason for why new colonies can't grow past size 6? Because I feel like it'd be just as unreasonable if your colonies slowly but steadily grow to size 6 and then just...stop. Even after you keep playing for multiple decades.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SaberCherry on October 16, 2020, 04:01:28 PM
Goodbye, Drover, I hardly knew ye.  Let's welcome our new star, Heron!  (kidding, I'll have to try it out.)

I'm really excited about almost all of the changes - lots and lots of irritants removed (like hunting down tiny evasive fleets).  Not sure about Needler/Railguns, though.  And I suspect that without a reduction in OP the nerf to Deck Crews might be a bit harsh, and just lead to dropping it altogether (which is fine with me).

Piloting REDACTED ships sounds like fun, too.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on October 16, 2020, 04:02:00 PM
Sure. Size is logarithmic and at some point the ability of immigration to produce new colonists is exhausted in favor of natural growth. Which is much slower. Size 6 is 1 million to 10 million and size 7 is 10 million to 100million.

Maybe you could make growth slow down to like 2% per year(or lower) but this effectively caps growth at size 7 since it would take 35 years to grow from 6 to 7 and 7 to 8.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 16, 2020, 04:16:53 PM
Important question...

Will there be a Champion (XIV)?

Hmm. I don't know! There isn't one right now, at least.

On a more serious note, will there be an improvement to the Codex such as search functions literally anytime in the future? After a couple mods, the Codex is not enough and it leaves a bit to be desired. Of course, the ability to see fighter weapon stats and compare between weapons in refit is great.

The Codex is super old and needs a going-over; exactly what that'll entail, I can't say, but, yeah, it just needs work.


"Moving Slowly" -- How about Tactical Speed, Cruising Speed, or Thrusters Only for a name?

Hmm - it's currently just presented as "slow-moving" in tooltip descriptions etc. I guess I could see changing it to something "cool", but, well, we'll see.

Quote
Brawler:

    Changed ship system to Maneuvering Jets (was: Damper Field)
    Increased shield arc to 270 (was: 150)
    Increased supply cost to 6 (was: 4)
    Increased flux dissipation and capacity (200 -> 250, 2500 -> 3000)

That is a pretty big supply cost increase. How does this work for the Brawler Variants?

I'm not sure what you mean. Ahh - do you mean the Pather variants? They're just, well, more expensive. I don't think this really changes much, and they're frankly quite scary at times, so it might not be unwarranted.

Quote
Onslaught:
    Reduced arc of side-facing large turrets
    Added built-in Heavy Ballistics Integration
How much is this? Can you still overlap one of the side facing larger turrets with the front?

They overlap a lot. The reduction is small, just enough so they don't try (and fail) to fire at stuff in front of the ship.

Quote
Light Needler: reduced OP cost to 7 (was: 9)

That is a pretty big buff. The LN was already one of the better small ballistics due to its burst and accuracy. It had the same DPS/OP as the HN (though -100 range) and the HN was one of the better medium ballistics. Do the OP changes to light AC really make up for it?

It's more about balancing the LN with the railgun.

Quote
IR Pulse Laser: reduced flux cost per shot to 40 (was: 50)

Those are some pretty big changes to small ballistic weapons. -1 OP for a light AC can be translated pretty cleanly to another capacitor or distributor. Does 25% less flux on IR pulse compensate?

Hmm - those are not related; both changes compensate for the weapons being sub-par, but the changes aren't related to each other. The IR pulse laser change may be more impactful than 1 OP, though, since it's, what - 30 flux/second less after the change?


Added unique capital-class ship that can be acquired by the player. Good luck.
Good luck? Good luck?

I mean, you will need it


Kinda sad about it. I agree, it felt silly to get such big colonies so quickly, but with this limit you will get to the max level even faster. Also, having all colonies limited to the same size feels a bit, i don't know, immersion breaking? You'd expect some planets to be population centers with high cap, while others to be limited to lower cap due to conditions and infrastructure (or lack thereof).

In example - planet doesn't automatically upgrade to the next level, and you have to "upgrade" infrastructure, rising the cap. Maybe make first X upgrades cost progressive amount of credits, and after a certain point require special items (similar to nanoforge), AI cores and story points. That would make colonies more diverse and defined by player choice, instead of every single colony having same population and industry limit.

Anyway, thanks for great work!

The way it works out IIRC is a colony has a natural size limit based on its hazard rating; I forget the details right now but it's something like more of a growth penalty from hazard at higher sizes. And then you can overcome it by paying a monthly premium (i.e. toggling on "Hazard Pay"), which is roughly analogous to what you're saying. And while you technically could go to 6 in ever case, you might not necessarily want to, if, say, your mining colony is already providing enough thanks to improvements, special items, and so on - the extra +1 from size might not be worth the investment.

Also, IIRC getting to level 6 will be slower than getting to level 6 is now, especially with growth incentives being replaced by hazard pay.


And I suspect that without a reduction in OP the nerf to Deck Crews might be a bit harsh, and just lead to dropping it altogether (which is fine with me).

You may well be right; this is definitely a case where it's better to err on the side of over-nerfing, though. I suspect/hope it may be situationally useful, still, but we'll see.

Piloting REDACTED ships sounds like fun, too.

(Just to be clear, you can't pilot them yourself!)


Sure. Size is logarithmic and at some point the ability of immigration to produce new colonists is exhausted in favor of natural growth. Which is much slower. Size 6 is 1 million to 10 million and size 7 is 10 million to 100million.

Maybe you could make growth slow down to like 2% per year(or lower) but this effectively caps growth at size 7 since it would take 35 years to grow from 6 to 7 and 7 to 8.

Hmm - yeah, but then you know someone will feel forced to do it, and I don't want to have that on my conscience :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Eji1700 on October 16, 2020, 04:21:27 PM
Thank you all!


"Pirate bases should no longer spawn in systems with neutron stars/pulsars"


Have to say i'm kinda sad to see this.  I was hoping for a more creative solution, such as making it kinda rare/special and with some wonky effects.  Something like having a few results where either they're totally unprepared so their fleets are just a mess, or they have some special feature/items that you normally wouldn't find at a pirate base so it's worth visiting, or even them being some sort of super high tech pirates so the base is actually a high tech with high tech ships sort of thing.

This mostly has to do with fleet AI just not being able to handle pulsars. If I ever have the time (ha) to dedicated to making it handle them, that might be reconsidered, but the likelihood of this seems low. It's just a complicated problem to solve. (And now that I'm talking about it, I kind of want to try. Must. Resist.)


Well to be fair that's why i was shooting for the age old developer solution of "Feature! Not a bug".

In lore reason either being they're just falling apart because they don't know how to handle living next to a pulsar, or they're all equipped with solar shielding in and the like and thus immune/special.

Either way doesn't require an AI rework, just a gameplay tweak (super weak, or high tech and unusually strong.  Both ways you could tell from the fleet that you should be dealing with pulsar systems).  Then make it rare because it's odd enough you don't want it happening all the time.

Anyways just spit balling here. Ripping it out/waiting until you feel like tackling the AI side are both legit too.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 16, 2020, 04:24:29 PM
Ah, ok, I see what you're saying now! Seems like maybe too minor a thing to make a detour for (or maybe I'm not in the right headspace for it; trying to be more focused on what *has* to get done, etc), but I get where you're coming from now. This was kind of supposed to be a thing for the Sindrian Diktat, btw, what with access to Solar Shielding and Sindria being almost in the corona, but it's more of a backstory-level thing at the moment than something that's strongly represented in-game.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: RustyCabbage on October 16, 2020, 04:33:27 PM
Really interesting patch notes!!

One question: from what I can tell the Buffalo got some significant stat increases while the Tarsus, which in the current version is effectively equivalent, got an increased fuel/LY nerf.
It looks like
Buffalo: 400 capacity, 2 fuel/LY
Tarsus: 300 capacity, 3 fuel/LY

Is this what the stats should look like at this point?

Edit: also, does the Atlas Mk.II still have the 10 fuel/LY, or was the Atlas reduction to 6 also meant to apply to it?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 16, 2020, 04:38:55 PM
One question: from what I can tell the Buffalo got some significant stat increases while the Tarsus, which in the current version is effectively equivalent, got an increased fuel/LY nerf.
It looks like
Buffalo: 400 capacity, 2 fuel/LY
Tarsus: 300 capacity, 3 fuel/LY

Is this what the stats should look like at this point?

Edit: also, does the Atlas Mk.II still have the 10 fuel/LY, or was the Atlas reduction to 6 also meant to apply to it?

Correct on both counts! The Mk.II has 10 fuel/LY.

Re: Buffalo and Tarsus, it's meant to reflect that the Tarsus is a lot safer should it ever need to run away, where the Buffalo basically stands no chance in that kind of situation. Their supplies/month cost is the same at 3, though.

(Edit: ahh, I see now, two conflicting entries in the notes for the Buffalo; cleaned that up.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 16, 2020, 04:39:42 PM
Will there be another Damper Field-equipped ship?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 16, 2020, 04:42:41 PM
There's already a couple, so I'm not sure what you mean.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on October 16, 2020, 04:43:03 PM
Quote
Brawler:

    Changed ship system to Maneuvering Jets (was: Damper Field)
    Increased shield arc to 270 (was: 150)
    Increased supply cost to 6 (was: 4)
    Increased flux dissipation and capacity (200 -> 250, 2500 -> 3000)

That is a pretty big supply cost increase. How does this work for the Brawler Variants?

I'm not sure what you mean. Ahh - do you mean the Pather variants? They're just, well, more expensive. I don't think this really changes much, and they're frankly quite scary at times, so it might not be unwarranted.

The pather variants but also the TT variant. Which loses a good deal of value here. it has plasma jets(and IEM built in) which are better than maneuvering. But its still running the same (well new)flux stats with medium energy weapons instead of being able to use ballistic. Its not gaining +50% flux/capacity after fitting and its not like the Brawler is particularly mobile as it is, at 100 base speed (150 for the wolf, 120 for the lasher)

The Pather variant probably could use to be more expensive but i am more OK with a harder to obtain variant being overly strong than i am with a base ship being lackluster.

Quote
Sure. Size is logarithmic and at some point the ability of immigration to produce new colonists is exhausted in favor of natural growth. Which is much slower. Size 6 is 1 million to 10 million and size 7 is 10 million to 100million.

Maybe you could make growth slow down to like 2% per year(or lower) but this effectively caps growth at size 7 since it would take 35 years to grow from 6 to 7 and 7 to 8.

Hmm - yeah, but then you know someone will feel forced to do it, and I don't want to have that on my conscience :)

Yea i was just giving a reason. Also i only doubled pop in my examination if growth is 2% year it would take 116 years to go from size 6 to 7. 231 years at 1% growth and 461 years at .05% growth. Might as well just cut it off... Though super projects (or bonuses from having particularly low hazard rating and some extra stability penalties for being big might be fun so that not all colonies cap at the same size(but also that its unfeasible to have more than one out there? Maybe let you designate one place as your faction capital that ignores size growth limits)
Will there be another Damper Field-equipped ship?

The centurion has damper field (and 500 armor) its probably the superior damper field ship anyway due to its less forward focused design and higher speed edit: and 5 extra OP edit: and higher armor
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 16, 2020, 04:48:14 PM
Nice, lots of stuff in there that wasn't hinted at before either, as far as i'm aware. Consider me hyped.

Tons of QoL improvements. I'm surprised by the "Move slowly" function but think it's a good addition. Also a (very welcome) surprise is the "historian." That's just a neat touch.

For what it's worth, move slowly is already a thing in the current version. Makes you travel at the same speed as go dark right now, i think. Hold S to "activate" it.
IIRC the main use i get out of it is when hiding from a pulsar behind a small planet, where doing nothing makes you enter orbit and moving at normal speed increases the chance of misclicking/moving out of your cover.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on October 16, 2020, 04:53:29 PM
Sure. Size is logarithmic and at some point the ability of immigration to produce new colonists is exhausted in favor of natural growth. Which is much slower. Size 6 is 1 million to 10 million and size 7 is 10 million to 100million.

Maybe you could make growth slow down to like 2% per year(or lower) but this effectively caps growth at size 7 since it would take 35 years to grow from 6 to 7 and 7 to 8.
I'd be fine with very slow growth, even if it's to the point where it's effectively soft capped. But what I'm imagining (and which obviously might not be accurate to how it actually is ingame) is that my colony will grow to size 6 and then just...stop. Population growth stuck at 0% forever no matter how many decades pass or what happens in those decades. It'd just look off.

Actually, as far as ideas to make very large colonies possible to get but limited/hard/expensive/etc., what about Cryosleepers? New colonies without a Cryosleeper can only get so much growth from natural population growth and immigration before even Chico on it's worst day is able to make much of a dent, but Cryosleepers (optional: and an AI Core/Story Point to speed up the process) can push a colony to size 7/8/9/10/whatever makes the most sense?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 16, 2020, 04:55:35 PM
The pather variants but also the TT variant. Which loses a good deal of value here. it has plasma jets(and IEM built in) which are better than maneuvering. But its still running the same (well new)flux stats with medium energy weapons instead of being able to use ballistic. Its not gaining +50% flux/capacity after fitting and its not like the Brawler is particularly mobile as it is, at 100 base speed (150 for the wolf, 120 for the lasher)

Ah, Brawler (TT); wasn't really thinking about it. Hmm. It might be ok, actually, with some of the buffs to energy weapons, and with the possibility of getting the high-flux bonus to energy weapons. And it did technically get the same buffs as the base Brawler, though I get what you're saying about the relative utility of those being somewhat less there.

For what it's worth, move slowly is already a thing in the current version. Makes you travel at the same speed as go dark right now, i think. Hold S to "activate" it.
IIRC the main use i get out of it is when hiding from a pulsar behind a small planet, where doing nothing makes you enter orbit and moving at normal speed increases the chance of misclicking/moving out of your cover.

"Move slowly" is pretty bugged in the current version, iirc. Also, it's slower than "go dark"; having "go dark" make the fleet "move slowly" is new, and also "move slowly" is faster.

(Brain's a bit of a mush right now, so maybe I'm not making too much sense.)

One of the things I'm happy with here is at Tech 1, you pick Sensors vs Navigation, and the Sensors skill gives you a burn bonus to "moving slowly". So you can pick to either be a bit faster overall, or to be significantly faster while sneaking, which I think is a more interesting choice than "move faster" and "don't move faster", since we know how that one would go.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arakasi on October 16, 2020, 04:56:18 PM
Amazing stuff! I am really looking forward to this update.

Now that these are added (I believe in-part due to a conversation we had):
Ships/systems:
  • Added Phantom-class phase troop transport
  • Added Revenant-class phase hybrid freighter/tanker
Are you considering increasing the sensor range of [REDACTED] fleets to make sneak salvaging in those systems more difficult? (I have been personally modding my game so that their burn level is increased by 2 to make them more punishing, since they don't have a burn drive ability).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 16, 2020, 04:57:01 PM
Heh, i don't think the Cryosleepers are supposed to be big enough to make that much of an impact, lore-wise. (i.e. outside of gameplay mechanics there would be a moment where they run out due to everyone being awakened.)
Remember that size 9 means billions of people and size 10 between 10 and 100 billion.


"Move slowly" is pretty bugged in the current version, iirc. Also, it's slower than "go dark"; having "go dark" make the fleet "move slowly" is new, and also "move slowly" is faster.

(Brain's a bit of a mush right now, so maybe I'm not making too much sense.)

One of the things I'm happy with here is at Tech 1, you pick Sensors vs Navigation, and the Sensors skill gives you a burn bonus to "moving slowly". So you can pick to either be a bit faster overall, or to be significantly faster while sneaking, which I think is a more interesting choice than "move faster" and "don't move faster", since we know how that one would go.

Ah yeah it was clear from the patch notes that the functionality in the next version will change.
As to how it works right now (bugged or not), and how that relates to "go dark", i wouldn't be able to tell, considering how limited my use of it is.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Ishman on October 16, 2020, 05:01:00 PM
Thanks for the patch notes Alex, and g'luck on assembling everything together for this release!

I imagine you must be itching to get the post-patch bug fixes out of the way too, lol.

Also I just wanted to say I'm excited you've thrown me a bone with the megastructure stuff in this release, and I can't wait to engage with what's there in the release, and to see more in future versions. Also, I don't know if David or you are doing the story elements/descriptions for them, but don't forget to check out Charles Sheffield's work - his novels (Summertide) partly inspired my lifelong fascination with them (and the ideas in Jack McDevitt's stuff, even if I found all his novels dry as a desert).

The first thing I'm doing is still changing the Apogee's shield efficiency back to .6 though, the suspiciously combat effective long-range exploration vessel checks every one of my favorite science fiction tropes, and I love her so much.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: bananana on October 16, 2020, 05:01:13 PM
still no way to restrict maximum AI fleet power?
sad
fighting a fleet with 10+carriers is not fun, it just turns game into a turn based strategy
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AsterPiano on October 16, 2020, 05:03:38 PM
The addition of phase logistics ships makes me very happy, and the changes to Phase Field and High Resolution Sensors, the Go Dark ability and the Sensors skill, along with the addition of "Salvaging and Scavenging now briefly increase the fleet's sensor profile by 1000 units" sound like a really well thought out combination.
In the current version I'm a fan of sensor strength/profile focused exploration fleets and I imagine this is going to make for some dynamic gameplay, forcing you to choose between what to salvage and what to leave behind.. I guess generally this is going to create a sort of hard cap for how close to enemy fleets you can sneakily salvage stuff, but improve your ability to be undetected in other situations. I never thought about it, but it definitely makes more sense this way, since it's weird that an enemy fleet could detect something like a derelict ship, but not think something's off when that derelict ship suddenly turns into a debris field.

Quote
Scarab:
Increased flux dissipation to 250 (was: 150)
Increased flux capacity to 2500 (was: 2000)
Removed the two less than optimally placed weapon slots
It makes me happy to see the most (?) underwhelming ship in the game to get a nice buff. Also another feasible ship for slamming beams onto..

Quote
Paladin PD System
Burst PD Laser
Heavy Burst Laser
Mining Laser
The changes make me very happy. I still have a gut feeling that with these changes the Heavy Burst Laser will end up being underwhelming for its cost compared to the small Burst PD and the Paladin PD, but it's been some time since I last looked at the stats. And also a buff to some beam based weaponry makes me happy, goes well with that improvement of the Scarab ;)

Quote
Ion Pulser:
Increased range to 500 (was: 450)
Increased damage to 100 (was: 75)
Increased emp damage to 600 (was: 400)
I'm surprised about these changes, I've always thought the Ion Pulser was one of the most effective energy weapons (and also a lot of fun to use).
This change along with the decrease in OP for the Light Needler makes me wonder if you want to promote the use of more burst weapons, or if the reasons for the changes are completely something else.

Quote
Heavy Armor: reduced maneuver penalty to 10%, moderately increased armor bonus
As I was saying with burst weapons.. seems suspicious :P (but nice to see :D)
This is a juicy sounding buff, I'm excited to build some loadouts around these changes. Also becomes a more attractive choice for insurance to save AI pilots from their own mistakes.

Quote
All types of contacts allow you to order ships/weapons/fighters, without having a colony
Trade: use your own blueprints only
Military: use own, or faction's blueprints
Underworld: order good stuff regardless of blueprint availability; more expensive
Underworld contact functions as "arms dealer"; not selling production capacity
Is a way to get access to rare ships/items that might otherwise be too hard to find

Especially being someone that is unnecessarily picky about picking a colony spot and end up spending way too long deciding on a good system, I think that after the Skill System revamp and everything to do with Story Points, this is the most interesting addition for me. Being able to use your blueprints early on like that really opens up some nice options, like if you found a Buffalo (M) blueprint (did that even have a blueprint or am I making stuff up?) but you're having trouble finding good freighters for sale. Ahh that's going to be helpful,
And then the Military and Underworld options sound even more exciting on top of that... I'm curious, is this also going to mean that we don't need to be commissioned + high relations with a faction if we want to buy their good weapons or even ships?

Quote
Increased XP gain from fighting more challenging battles

Does this mean challenging in the sense of really high end late game battles, or challenging in the sense of battles against fleets much bigger/higher tier relative to your fleet? If it's the latter then that sounds really exciting and a lot of fun :D, a really nice boost for the early game and a satisfying reward for spending the time to load out a fleet efficiently, and not as many downsides to keeping a small fleet.
Also if it's the latter, does it take into account both fleets' officer levels? I wonder, would it also take into account the player's combat skills level?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on October 16, 2020, 05:15:10 PM
Can you talk a bit more about the reasoning behind increasing the growth penalties for hazard rating? It already felt to me like it could be hard to justify trying to make a colony on high hazard worlds. I noticed that the synchrotron requires no atmosphere, are there other new industry boosters with similar requirements that incentivize high hazard colonies, or are they just becoming even less desirable in the next release?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Hiruma Kai on October 16, 2020, 05:23:04 PM
First, thanks very much for the patch notes. They look exciting.

Can you talk a bit more about the reasoning behind increasing the growth penalties for hazard rating? It already felt to me like it could be hard to justify trying to make a colony on high hazard worlds. I noticed that the synchrotron requires no atmosphere, are there other new industry boosters with similar requirements that incentivize high hazard colonies, or are they just becoming even less desirable in the next release?

Sounds like the old pay to increase growth which is now hazard pay lets you close the gap?  Since its whatever the hazard penalty is + a few?  So really high hazard worlds are no worse than zero hazard worlds.  Habitable and Mild change that on top of that, but really high hazard growth isn't that bad off?  Or maybe I'm misunderstanding something from the notes.

I feel like higher hazard worlds tended to have more mineral/fuel resources.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 16, 2020, 05:38:04 PM
Population growth stuck at 0% forever no matter how many decades pass or what happens in those decades. It'd just look off.

(Pretty sure it'll stop showing the progress bar at max size; if not, it should.)

Actually, as far as ideas to make very large colonies possible to get but limited/hard/expensive/etc., what about Cryosleepers? New colonies without a Cryosleeper can only get so much growth from natural population growth and immigration before even Chico on it's worst day is able to make much of a dent, but Cryosleepers (optional: and an AI Core/Story Point to speed up the process) can push a colony to size 7/8/9/10/whatever makes the most sense?

It just comes down to me thinking that size 6 is about what's appropriate on the high end, feel-wise. You can have as many industries in a size 6 as you can now on a bigger colony, and items gives you industrial bonuses you wouldn't have had access to before. I'm not really sure why you'd want bigger colonies, beyond just "it's a bigger number". I mean, if you just want to have the largest colony in the Sector, that's already achievable with a size 6 colony :)


As to how it works right now (bugged or not), and how that relates to "go dark", i wouldn't be able to tell, considering how limited my use of it is.

Makes sense, it's got very limited usefulness right now.


Thanks for the patch notes Alex, and g'luck on assembling everything together for this release!

Thank you!

Also I just wanted to say I'm excited you've thrown me a bone with the megastructure stuff in this release, and I can't wait to engage with what's there in the release, and to see more in future versions. Also, I don't know if David or you are doing the story elements/descriptions for them, but don't forget to check out Charles Sheffield's work - his novels (Summertide) partly inspired my lifelong fascination with them (and the ideas in Jack McDevitt's stuff, even if I found all his novels dry as a desert).

Oh, funny - I'd recently read a bunch of McDevitt (the entire Hutchins series, and then the... other one about the antiques guy? Benedict, that was it) and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Lots of cool ideas! Will check out Sheffield, thanks for the rec!

The first thing I'm doing is still changing the Apogee's shield efficiency back to .6 though, the suspiciously combat effective long-range exploration vessel checks every one of my favorite science fiction tropes, and I love her so much.

*thumbs up* Honestly, I'm happy that you can easily tweak it to your liking.

still no way to restrict maximum AI fleet power?
sad
fighting a fleet with 10+carriers is not fun, it just turns game into a turn based strategy

Hmm? The patch notes talk about AI fleet composition changes.


I never thought about it, but it definitely makes more sense this way, since it's weird that an enemy fleet could detect something like a derelict ship, but not think something's off when that derelict ship suddenly turns into a debris field.

Yeah, the idea is that it should create for some suddenly-exciting situations :)

Quote
Scarab:
Increased flux dissipation to 250 (was: 150)
Increased flux capacity to 2500 (was: 2000)
Removed the two less than optimally placed weapon slots
It makes me happy to see the most (?) underwhelming ship in the game to get a nice buff. Also another feasible ship for slamming beams onto..

(I had one in a recent test run - funnily enough, found a blueprint and then had a contact make one - and it's such a beast of a ship. Total glass cannon, but in one fight it literally blew up 4 ships in under 10 seconds, and two of them were destroyers. I need to make a gif of it at some point if I can recreate even a similar situation, it was just so ruthlessly efficient.)


Quote
Ion Pulser:
Increased range to 500 (was: 450)
Increased damage to 100 (was: 75)
Increased emp damage to 600 (was: 400)
I'm surprised about these changes, I've always thought the Ion Pulser was one of the most effective energy weapons (and also a lot of fun to use).
This change along with the decrease in OP for the Light Needler makes me wonder if you want to promote the use of more burst weapons, or if the reasons for the changes are completely something else.

Honestly, I might end up pulling some of this back - it seemed underpowered, but using it with the changes, it's *very* good, to the point of possibly being too good.


I'm curious, is this also going to mean that we don't need to be commissioned + high relations with a faction if we want to buy their good weapons or even ships?

Right - though it'll be less reliable access, as this custom production through contacts won't always be available.

Quote
Increased XP gain from fighting more challenging battles

Does this mean challenging in the sense of really high end late game battles, or challenging in the sense of battles against fleets much bigger/higher tier relative to your fleet? If it's the latter then that sounds really exciting and a lot of fun :D, a really nice boost for the early game and a satisfying reward for spending the time to load out a fleet efficiently, and not as many downsides to keeping a small fleet.
Also if it's the latter, does it take into account both fleets' officer levels? I wonder, would it also take into account the player's combat skills level?

It's based on relative fleet size and officers etc. So you could absolutely take advantage of it in the early game. Notably, it's not based on what you deploy, but on your actual fleet, so it's more encouraging a leaner fleet composition than it is smaller deployments.


Can you talk a bit more about the reasoning behind increasing the growth penalties for hazard rating? It already felt to me like it could be hard to justify trying to make a colony on high hazard worlds. I noticed that the synchrotron requires no atmosphere, are there other new industry boosters with similar requirements that incentivize high hazard colonies, or are they just becoming even less desirable in the next release?

IIRC it's so that higher-hazard colonies have a lower natural size that they get to without additional incentives. It also gives you more control over growth so you e.g. don't attract attention too early or don't have a colony grow and then start paying more upkeep than you wanted to (which is more of a concern on high-hazard worlds).

Most items have some kind of requirement that's often less-than-ideal. High-hazard worlds are obviously less desirable due to the hazrd rating, but they're also more desirable due to often having better quality resource deposits etc.

Mainly, though, it's because I think "small mining colony" should be a thing.

Sounds like the old pay to increase growth which is now hazard pay lets you close the gap?  Since its whatever the hazard penalty is + a few?  So really high hazard worlds are no worse than zero hazard worlds.  Habitable and Mild change that on top of that, but really high hazard growth isn't that bad off?  Or maybe I'm misunderstanding something from the notes.

Right, but closing the gap is also more expensive on high-hazard worlds.

I feel like higher hazard worlds tended to have more mineral/fuel resources.

They absolutely do, yeah.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on October 16, 2020, 05:43:46 PM
Wooo patch notes! Tons of great stuff in here, and lots of teasers for mission content I see. I am super pumped for the Xyphos having a range of 0! (Yes this is a tiny change, but I don't care, its wonderful.)

Unless I've missed something, higher hazard worlds will still make for higher maintenance costs, which is then reduced by having goods supplied in faction. It will depend heavily on the exact values everything ends up at, but there is the potential for "early" colonies wanting to be habitable in order to avoid maintenance and high hazard colonies being profitable "late", once demanded goods are supplied. Just a bit of theorycraft.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Piemanlives on October 16, 2020, 05:44:45 PM
Alex I love you.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Drazhya on October 16, 2020, 05:46:51 PM
"Number of recoverable ships shown not limited by maximum number of ships in player fleet"
As a long-time user of mods that add special ship bounties, this'll save a ton of trouble.

"Can use a story point to recover an otherwise unrecoverable derelict ship (only applies to derelict ships found in the campaign, not during a combat encounter)"
And having encountered a few modded ships that I would have loved to recover, that will also have a big impact.

"Emergency Burn no longer makes the fleet ignore terrain penalties"
Are we going to get a hyperstorm map layer on the sector map? I don't remember how it was without Adjusted Sector, but at least with it, there doesn't seem to be any way to figure out where the hyperstorms are without almost flying into them. If I could, I'd try looking at a map and navigating around, but as it is, it's too much bother and I'd rather burn through.

"Moderately reduced sell price of ship blueprints and special items such as Nanoforges"
Blueprints, I can understand. Corrupted nanoforges, I can understand. Pristine Nanoforges though... I'm pretty sure most factions in the sector would gladly trade 5 or more capital ships for one pristine nanoforge. On the same note, it's kind of odd that you can only trade them to factions through the open market for static profit and no rep gain, while the relatively unremarkable AI cores can be traded to contacts for variable profit and some rep.

"Maximum post-Collapse colony growth limited to a maximum of colony size 6"
Kind of sad about this, but mostly because I like making things bigger and better. Find a big, dark planet orbiting a black hole, build a blazing sun-moon, terraform in some green, add a couple astropoli...

"Colossus (all versions): increased fuel/ly to 4 (was: 3)
Atlas: reduced fuel use to 6/ly (was: 10)"
It amuses me that so very many mod logistics ships were so carefully, precisely tuned so as to be not overpowered, so closely matched to their vanilla equivalents, and often so hard to find to boot that I usually just went with stacks of the old, vanilla Colossus... and then you went and nerfed the Colossus and made the Atlas king of fuel economy. Welp. Glad it happened.

"Phase Field: now also reduces the fleet's sensor profile, in addition to its current effect
Diminishing returns from multiple ships, based on value from largest phase ship
High Resolution Sensors:
No longer affect individual ship's sensor strength
Now increase fleet's sensor range, with diminishing returns based on value from largest ships"
On the one hand, you no longer need to specialize all your ships to get good value out of these mods. On the other hand, it means less to have a specialized fleet. Dunno how to feel about this. Probably good?

"Added: Converted Fighter Bays
Removes built-in fighter bays, adds cargo capacity and reduces required crew per bay removed
Ship must only have built-in fighter bays for hullmod to be installed"
Great to see this one going vanilla. Though I say 'this one', it's clearly not quite the same. No reduction in maintenance. Curious what the final numbers will be.

"Added: Shield Shunt; removes shields and increases EMP resistance by 50%
EMP resistance is multiplicative with other sources"
This one, on the other hand... just EMP resistance is pretty light. I can see the use, I guess, but I'd like to see a little bit more. Eh well, see how it shakes out I guess.

(AI tweaks)
Hopefully this will mean less herp-a-derp in my future.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: pairedeciseaux on October 16, 2020, 05:55:17 PM
Very, very, very promising. Surely a great release coming our way!

As always the attention to details is awesome.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 16, 2020, 05:57:44 PM
I am super pumped for the Xyphos having a range of 0! (Yes this is a tiny change, but I don't care, its wonderful.)

Ha! Fair enough :)

Unless I've missed something, higher hazard worlds will still make for higher maintenance costs, which is then reduced by having goods supplied in faction. It will depend heavily on the exact values everything ends up at, but there is the potential for "early" colonies wanting to be habitable in order to avoid maintenance and high hazard colonies being profitable "late", once demanded goods are supplied. Just a bit of theorycraft.

It will *heavily* depend on which items you find. The idea here, really, is that you find some items, and your colony strategy for that playthrough is based off that - so that there's less of an optimal plan going in, and more variety/adapting to what becomes available.


Are we going to get a hyperstorm map layer on the sector map? I don't remember how it was without Adjusted Sector, but at least with it, there doesn't seem to be any way to figure out where the hyperstorms are without almost flying into them. If I could, I'd try looking at a map and navigating around, but as it is, it's too much bother and I'd rather burn through.

If you press "1" on the map, it turns off the Starscape view and you can roughly see where the deep hyper areas are.


Kind of sad about this, but mostly because I like making things bigger and better. Find a big, dark planet orbiting a black hole, build a blazing sun-moon, terraform in some green, add a couple astropoli...

I mean, if you're playing with a terraforming mod, it's not too much of a stretch to assume it might up those numbers, too.


On the one hand, you no longer need to specialize all your ships to get good value out of these mods. On the other hand, it means less to have a specialized fleet. Dunno how to feel about this. Probably good?

It's more about making sure that, say, having an Omen in your fleet matters even if you have a bunch of large ships (which with the old mechanics would overshadow it entirely).


Alex I love you.

(Should I go with the Han Solo reply here? Sorely tempted.)

As always the attention to details is awesome.

Thank you!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: huhn on October 16, 2020, 06:04:09 PM
Quote
Recall Device: now has a 30 second cooldown

NO. i guess i have to play doom again.
i was using this every 5-30 sec. i was using it sometime just to make sure they are in formations.
and yeah it was a bit strong just flying through an armada and pressing the DELETE key from time to time.

RIP Astral for been the strongest ship you will be remembered still good i guess.

edit: iw as thinking that phase transports where missing int he game (expesive upkeep but hard to detect/hard to catch) so i guess that only leaves one ship type missing and that's a mid line capital carrier.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arakasi on October 16, 2020, 06:06:14 PM
Are you considering increasing the sensor range of [REDACTED] fleets to make sneak salvaging in those systems more difficult now that you've introduced the strategic phase ships? (I have been personally modding my game so that their burn level is increased by 2 to make them more punishing, since they don't have a burn drive ability).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 16, 2020, 06:08:22 PM
Salvaging/scavenging temporarily boosts you sensor profile by 1000; it's in the patch notes - so, no, but also yes.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arakasi on October 16, 2020, 06:13:38 PM
Salvaging/scavenging temporarily boosts you sensor profile by 1000; it's in the patch notes - so, no, but also yes.

I missed that! Not sure if that will give the phase ships that much of an advantage in that situation but it certainly makes the whole process harder and is appreciated, thank you!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 16, 2020, 06:20:49 PM
How many admin skills are there in the next update? Four?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 16, 2020, 06:22:28 PM
Three, same as now.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Histidine on October 16, 2020, 06:23:04 PM
*happy dance*

Gonna comment on some specific things, mostly the things I feel have problems.
So first I gotta say: this is almost entirely good news! I had to scroll down three pages to find a thing I specifically objected to.

Quote
Greatly decreased pirate base bounty payouts
eeeee
I mean, not having easy money is good! But taking on any kind of base (especially now that one-module bases are no longer a thing) requires a considerable investment and risk in the early to mid game. It sounds like the problem was more that person bounties and LP base bounties weren't paying enough.

Quote
Maximum post-Collapse colony growth limited to a maximum of colony size 6
Random thought: Cryorevival Facility is an obvious candidate for raising its planet's limit by 1.
(EDIT: Ah, I see this was already mentioned)

Quote
Nanoforges: add Pollution when installed; becomes permanent after three months
Synchrotron: requires "No atmosphere" condition
Ow. Is this a way to incentivize colonies on non-habitable worlds?

Does pollution from nanoforges requite the Habitable condition (like the pollution from bombardment)?

It feels like the heavy industry itself should be the source of pollution, not the nanoforge. Was that deemed too punishing?

Quote
Spaceport: removed "No spaceport" accessibility penalty when under construction or disrupted
*happy dance*
Although I fear that straight-up reducing the penalty to zero swings the pendulum to spaceport disruption being too weak. With the +5 in-faction trade capacity bonus, disrupting a core world spaceport will likely have no effect whatsoever on commodity scarcity on the planet or elsewhere in the faction.

Quote
High Tech orbital station:
    Fixed issue with wrong type of weapon slot
    Added Fighter Chassis Storage to hangar module
Can you also do something about the shield modules dying early on in autoresolve? This has awkward effects when a player joins an ongoing battle with/against the station.

Quote
Tarsus: increased fuel use to 3/ly (was: 2)
Buffalo: increased cargo capacity to 400 (was: 300)
I feel like only one of those changes should have been implemented.

So the idea is that Tarsus is the safe option and Buffalo is the cost-efficient option. But past a certain point, having to fight a disengage scenario at all is a sign you did something wrong (which is why people like me keep suggesting ways to drag civ ships into fights). So the Tarsus's strength will very rarely be relevant.

...unless this is intended to work with the new options to turn civilian ships into combatants?

Quote
Drover:
    Deployment/maintenance cost increased to 15 (was: 12)
Drover was overdue for an adjustment, but with Reserve Deployment already having the run-in with the nerf bat, isn't the DP increase on top of that really punitive?

Quote
Light Needler: reduced OP cost to 7 (was: 9)
Railgun: increased OP cost to 8 (was: 7)
This is probably actually bad!
The attachment is gone now (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18065.msg283004#msg283004), but bobucles made a graph which shows Light Needler significantly out-DPSes Railgun early in a fight (for like 20 seconds or such) due to having the large damage spike at t=0. Mind, that's a double-edged sword since it also adds flux to the firing ship, and you pay 2 more OP for the privilege, but it persuaded me that LNs are actually worth using over railguns sometimes. And Needler is more efficient and has faster projectiles.

More frivolous stuff
Quote
Added Fury-class light cruiser, high tech
Added Champion-class heavy cruiser, midline
Added Phantom-class phase troop transport
Added Revenant-class phase hybrid freighter/tanker
Ha ha ha this is three mod ships and one mod weapon that will now need renaming

Quote
Afflictor: changed two of the front-facing hardpoints from Universal to Hybrid
Noooooo my Reaper backstab bus
[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Nighteyes on October 16, 2020, 06:24:20 PM
Quote
Added UI scaling setting

4k time?!?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: florg on October 16, 2020, 06:38:01 PM
Kind of bummed about the hammerhead rear turrets not being able to face forward but it's pretty understandable considering how great safety overrides chaingun hammerheads are at ripping enemies to shreds
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 16, 2020, 07:00:10 PM
Gonna comment on some specific things, mostly the things I feel have problems.
So first I gotta say: this is almost entirely good news! I had to scroll down three pages to find a thing I specifically objected to.

Thank you, and gotcha! Stuff that's good, there's not much to talk about, right.


I mean, not having easy money is good! But taking on any kind of base (especially now that one-module bases are no longer a thing) requires a considerable investment and risk in the early to mid game. It sounds like the problem was more that person bounties and LP base bounties weren't paying enough.

Well, this was a direct reaction to suddenly finding myself swimming in credits during a test run, for what felt like no good reason. It's entirely possible that it's an "overnerf" but consider that 1) it's probably fine not to have a bounty on pirate bases *at all*, and 2) beating one gets you a fair amount of salvage, too.


Quote
Nanoforges: add Pollution when installed; becomes permanent after three months
Synchrotron: requires "No atmosphere" condition
Ow. Is this a way to incentivize colonies on non-habitable worlds?

Does pollution from nanoforges requite the Habitable condition (like the pollution from bombardment)?

It feels like the heavy industry itself should be the source of pollution, not the nanoforge. Was that deemed too punishing?

Part of an effort to incentivize colony world variety, yeah; most items have requirements or interactions with planetary conditions.

Pollution doesn't require habitable - consider corrosives, radiation, etc. Good point re: bombardments, though; let me remove the "habitable" requirement there. Hmm. On the other hand, what this does is instead of disincentivizing industry on habitable worlds, it more incentivizes (somewhat) industry on a world by itself. So, actually, let me make a note to check tomorrow; it seems offhand that requiring habitable for pollution is probably the right way to go.

Re: whether it's heavy industry or a nanoforge, I'm not sure it actually matters all that much which one causes it, since a nanoforge of some sort is almost required. But I suppose this leaves the option of having a safer, low-tier heavy industry, not that it's going to generally be a good option.


Quote
Spaceport: removed "No spaceport" accessibility penalty when under construction or disrupted
*happy dance*
Although I fear that straight-up reducing the penalty to zero swings the pendulum to spaceport disruption being too weak. With the +5 in-faction trade capacity bonus, disrupting a core world spaceport will likely have no effect whatsoever on commodity scarcity on the planet or elsewhere in the faction.

One thing to consider: the in-faction bonus doesn't matter as much for exports. So while a spaceport disruption won't be crippling (i.e. raiding it on Jangala gives it a deficit of one in a couple of commodities), and doesn't interrupt too much of its ability to supply in-faction colonies with organics (though it interrupts some of it - more of an effect for things that are a colony's specialty, really), it *also* gives it something like 6 or 7 units of surplus organics since it can't export them out of faction. So, still opens a major opportunity, just not one that cripples a colony/faction.

It might seem a lot weaker - and it is - but I think that's also to do with just how incredibly crippling it was before.

Can you also do something about the shield modules dying early on in autoresolve? This has awkward effects when a player joins an ongoing battle with/against the station.

Let me make a note to take a look; that could be a bit hairy.


I feel like only one of those changes should have been implemented.

So the idea is that Tarsus is the safe option and Buffalo is the cost-efficient option. But past a certain point, having to fight a disengage scenario at all is a sign you did something wrong (which is why people like me keep suggesting ways to drag civ ships into fights). So the Tarsus's strength will very rarely be relevant.

...unless this is intended to work with the new options to turn civilian ships into combatants?

Hmm. Yeah, looking at it again maybe the Tarsus could use, say, 350 capacity or something. It *does* make a reasonable chassis for a civ-combatant (really, a damage sponge brick) but I'm not sure that's enough to really swing things in its favor.

And, yeah, I get why the suggestion about dragging civ ships into fights comes up. Just, I don't think that it works out in a way that's generally better than "civ ships are usually stat slots" - which, while unexciting, is also not actively a negative.

(Also: you can force a running enemy to fight now, with a story point! So at least enemy civilian ships can be dragged into a battle.)


Drover was overdue for an adjustment, but with Reserve Deployment already having the run-in with the nerf bat, isn't the DP increase on top of that really punitive?

Even with the RD change, it's still quite good, so: I think it's reasonable. The RD change isn't an outright nerf, right, and having a critical mass of Drovers with wing-size-boosting RD early in a fight could even be stronger than before.

Quote
Light Needler: reduced OP cost to 7 (was: 9)
Railgun: increased OP cost to 8 (was: 7)
This is probably actually bad!
The attachment is gone now (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18065.msg283004#msg283004), but bobucles made a graph which shows Light Needler significantly out-DPSes Railgun early in a fight (for like 20 seconds or such) due to having the large damage spike at t=0. Mind, that's a double-edged sword since it also adds flux to the firing ship, and you pay 2 more OP for the privilege, but it persuaded me that LNs are actually worth using over railguns sometimes. And Needler is more efficient and has faster projectiles.

Hmm. The thing with the LN is, beyond pure DPS, it's pretty much only good vs shields. I think it's ok for it to be a bit cheaper *and* to be worth using over railguns sometimes, since it's more specialized where a railgun is just always good.


Ha ha ha this is three mod ships and one mod weapon that will now need renaming

(Ahh, apologies to all affected parties. Just, hard to avoid.)


Quote
Added UI scaling setting

4k time?!?

Indeed!


Kind of bummed about the hammerhead rear turrets not being able to face forward but it's pretty understandable considering how great safety overrides chaingun hammerheads are at ripping enemies to shreds

(Yeah, it's a bit much, plus it looks kind of silly.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: miniusAreas on October 16, 2020, 07:10:19 PM
Woooo, 0.95a! It couldn't come sooner! But there's some things to address!

The Conquest! From using it alot because midline bestline, I've noticed it tends to just keep itself pointed directly at a target and fire torpedos (in the case of Reapers) until it runs dry, rather than attempting to broadside till flux is driven up, then torpdeo the living smitherines out of things like it really should.

It's cool to see the onslaught get changes! Do the two side mounts now point forwards, or is it still just another glorified place to put a Devastator (but now with less OP cost)

A few other random thoughts now that we're in the story update - Previously when dropping bombs on small raiders, rescuing people from planets, etc - the "Answer the Hail" option you occasionally get from planets with ruins - there was texts saying "Hopefully this was a good idea, hopefully they don't bring sickness, etc" or something of that nature.... With this update, can my people catch the space pox, eat rocks and die, if I accept a buncha refugees?

can I put a hat on that AI core? Like a beret? Please?

AI core officers for the player? It makes sense in a way - if you're putting an alpha core in charge of an entire enterprise, and it keeps quiet about it, surely its loyal enough to you to fly some giant toilet with laser beams!

Decreased Pirate Base Bounties. Oh. Why did you do this? It generally takes 3-4 cruisers to kill a pirate station - unless you have the skills to do it yourself, alone - and usualy by the time you have one to two cruisers, the money is mediocre at best.

I probably have more crap to say, but I'm playing Space Station 13, and my minds sidetracked, so here's a start to it all...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FooF on October 16, 2020, 07:11:50 PM
Very few head-scratchers now that I've had a chance to digest the whole thing. Overall, excellent stuff and I can't wait to see some of the new (hidden) stuff in action. I'm quite curious about the new enemy type but I'm sure I won't get anything out of you (yet!)

- The Buffalo/Tarsus thing didn't make much sense initially but you already explained why.

- The Railgun/Light Needler change is a little weird to me. I consider them different but equal: one is burst-y with no ability to harm armor while the other is a generally
excellent all-rounder kinetic. Both are very good. I think I'd be fine with both being 8 OP.

Quote
Added the chance to be able to promote a junior officer to a ship command position after battle, uses a story point
-I presume this means that in an RNG post-battle prompt, you'll get the chance to recruit an officer for "free" via story point. Or is this one of those "mentor" things?

- Assault Chaingun being brought back down to Earth. Ion Pulser being being buffed. Warthog being brought back. All good changes.

- IR Pulse being flux efficient is actually a huge change. It makes Small Energy slots Less Bad (I still won't call them "good"). A ton of High Tech ships rely on Small Energy to get things done and none of the options are good for breaking shields.

- Out of curiosity, since I didn't see anything mentioned, but any update on the "Orders" tab?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Warnoise on October 16, 2020, 08:03:12 PM
I was expecting the sabot to be nerfed. It is now anti low tech ships because its burst outranges small ballistic PD's and AI always tries to block it with shield which makes end up being overfluxed all the time.

It would be great if sabot burst range gets significantly reduced considering the amount of damage it does.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: peppermeth on October 16, 2020, 08:29:02 PM
Would it be possible to change the max size of (of one or some or all) player colonies in the setting? 
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Mayu on October 16, 2020, 08:39:44 PM
How about changing the faction color of the player? Is it still possible?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 16, 2020, 08:52:12 PM
The Conquest! From using it alot because midline bestline, I've noticed it tends to just keep itself pointed directly at a target and fire torpedos (in the case of Reapers) until it runs dry, rather than attempting to broadside till flux is driven up, then torpdeo the living smitherines out of things like it really should.

Hmm, not seeing this behavior; it does what seems like a reasonable mix of both.

It's cool to see the onslaught get changes! Do the two side mounts now point forwards, or is it still just another glorified place to put a Devastator (but now with less OP cost)

They're still facing sideways. But there's some good broadside Onslaught builds! If you're into the Conquest, you might want to experiment with that, too.

A few other random thoughts now that we're in the story update - Previously when dropping bombs on small raiders, rescuing people from planets, etc - the "Answer the Hail" option you occasionally get from planets with ruins - there was texts saying "Hopefully this was a good idea, hopefully they don't bring sickness, etc" or something of that nature.... With this update, can my people catch the space pox, eat rocks and die, if I accept a buncha refugees?

Ah - that's from a mod!

Decreased Pirate Base Bounties. Oh. Why did you do this? It generally takes 3-4 cruisers to kill a pirate station - unless you have the skills to do it yourself, alone - and usualy by the time you have one to two cruisers, the money is mediocre at best.

Hmm, not in my experience. It felt like way too many credits way too early.


- The Railgun/Light Needler change is a little weird to me. I consider them different but equal: one is burst-y with no ability to harm armor while the other is a generally
excellent all-rounder kinetic. Both are very good. I think I'd be fine with both being 8 OP.

Since this was mentioned a couple of times: I'll keep an eye on it!

Quote
Added the chance to be able to promote a junior officer to a ship command position after battle, uses a story point
-I presume this means that in an RNG post-battle prompt, you'll get the chance to recruit an officer for "free" via story point. Or is this one of those "mentor" things?

You get an intel item about an officer promotion candidate after closing out the combat dialog. Then you can act on it within a month or so; it is indeed a story point option, granting 100% bonus XP.

- Assault Chaingun being brought back down to Earth. Ion Pulser being being buffed. Warthog being brought back. All good changes.

I'm actually thinking about backing out some of the Ion Pulser changes; it's feeling a bit too good. Need to also play with the same loadout with the Heavy Blaster, though, and see how that feels.

- IR Pulse being flux efficient is actually a huge change. It makes Small Energy slots Less Bad (I still won't call them "good"). A ton of High Tech ships rely on Small Energy to get things done and none of the options are good for breaking shields.

I'm hoping it'll help a few ships, yeah!

- Out of curiosity, since I didn't see anything mentioned, but any update on the "Orders" tab?

Not at this point, no. Not sure exactly where in the UI it'll end up, either; ultimately it'll be something you funnel colony income/excess credits into to help you face some tougher challenges, but the exact details are TBD.


I was expecting the sabot to be nerfed. It is now anti low tech ships because its burst outranges small ballistic PD's and AI always tries to block it with shield which makes end up being overfluxed all the time.

It would be great if sabot burst range gets significantly reduced considering the amount of damage it does.

I think it's about 50/50 as far as whether an AI ship can drop shields in time to avoid the overload or not - unless it's paired with sufficient HE damage to make the overload a sure thing, that is. It's a good missile, but ... well, I'm keeping an eye on it. It's tricky because while it's effective, it also deals little permanent damage and requires follow-through - it just creates an opportunity. Something like what you're suggesting - making it be able to be shot down by typical ballistic PD - would I think make it nearly useless.


Would it be possible to change the max size of (of one or some or all) player colonies in the setting?

Literally the patch notes item next to the one about colony size being limited to 6 says how to do that :) That said, I don't think it makes too much sense; colony production and industry counts are by and large the same as before (with relevant booster items, that is), and size 6 takes longer to reach than before. So, it's mainly just the "colony size" number that is smaller.


How about changing the faction color of the player? Is it still possible?

By editing the player.faction file, yeah.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on October 16, 2020, 09:07:01 PM
Is there a cap on how many story points you can have at once?
And has the XP curve been flattened or changed so you don't need millions of XP, even with +XP%, to get the next Story Point?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 16, 2020, 09:22:54 PM
Is there a cap on how many story points you can have at once?
And has the XP curve been flattened or changed so you don't need millions of XP, even with +XP%, to get the next Story Point?

There's no cap, and the XP curve flattens out completely for the purposes of SP gain once you reach max level, but you still need a lot of XP at that point.

(Oh, that reminds me, someone mentioned earlier that you might feel like you need to keep a story point around to use for stuff, and I hadn't responded to it directly: yeah, that's probably true, and it doesn't seem like a problem?)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Kanil on October 16, 2020, 09:30:11 PM
So, actually, let me make a note to check tomorrow; it seems offhand that requiring habitable for pollution is probably the right way to go.

Re: whether it's heavy industry or a nanoforge, I'm not sure it actually matters all that much which one causes it, since a nanoforge of some sort is almost required. But I suppose this leaves the option of having a safer, low-tier heavy industry, not that it's going to generally be a good option.

I'd personally like this option the best.

As for the planet size, I think it's unfortunate that your colonies will never be as large as the core world ones. Probably doesn't matter for gameplay, but it feels bad.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Drazhya on October 16, 2020, 09:49:09 PM
There's one thing I've been meaning to bring up that slipped my mind - filter options. Will we get more of them? I'm specifically thinking of two cases. First is where I've surveyed all the planets in the sector and want to know where all the vast ruins are. Scrolling through the list and trying to spot them all is a pain.  Second is rather mod-oriented, but when I'm mounting weapons on my ships I'd like to be able to filter for weapons that match the tech category of the ship, and filter for tech category when mounting weapons in general.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Jonlissla on October 16, 2020, 10:06:03 PM
  • Added a number of story-related missions and a hint of an endgame threat

If the threat is not a herd of vicious migratory Buffalos I will be severely disappointed, Alex.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 16, 2020, 10:38:24 PM
With the new colony changes.....
It seems that players will prefer systems with large amounts of planets over individual planet class.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Minitialize on October 16, 2020, 11:25:37 PM
Quote
Added unique capital-class ship that can be acquired by the player. Good luck.

Reading this, I'm getting a bad omen that something big and scary is coming on top of the hinted end-game threat...

Quote
Campaign fleet AI/behavior:
          In general a bit worse at avoiding being intercepted; was too good at it
Not gonna lie, I thought this was pretty funny. I personally had no issues with this even with a large fleet, as long as I'm able to roughly calculate the speed & direction a given fleet is taking and whether or not was I going to be able to catch up depending on the course of my fleet.

Overall, I had no plans to update the game since my current campaign is going pretty well (I am the type of player that does one, extremely long playthrough. Not so fond of having to restart). But after reading the changelog... I'm starting to contemplate my decisions.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on October 16, 2020, 11:56:08 PM
Yeah as Histidine mentioned, the graph comparing the LN and Railgun came to mind. Just loading up the simulator with a ship with 2 LNs and then 2 Railguns will show you a drastic difference. Sure the Railgun is more versatile but who cares about that when you have a Sabot in gun form almost. Also every other Needler weapon is the most expensive on OP in their respective tier, so this would just look wrong. I agree with Foof, 8 OP for both would be perfect, 7 is too low for such elite weapons.

Also I kinda forgot about Mk IX, surprised there weren't any changes to it when most of the people agree it's very underwhelming. It really doesn't justify having 1.15 efficiency, sure the dmg/shot is respectable for a kinetic weapon but it's also wildly inaccurate. I'm glad Devastator got some love tho, one meh large ballistic less :)

EDIT: Maybe I missed it, but you forgot to add that the High tech blueprint package now has Fury instead of Apogee.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on October 17, 2020, 12:23:36 AM
>Added a number of story-related missions and a hint of an endgame threat
I have a feeling that there's way more effort put into this, than this simple entry implies.
>Added 10 heavy machinery on game start so some scavenging can be performed right away
>Salvage effectiveness with no heavy machinery is now 25% (was: 0%)
Nice things. It was hard to salvage anything from 0, since getting heavy machinery was possible, but relied on luck much.
>Onslaught: Added built-in Heavy Ballistics Integration
I've got a feeling that there's an issue not with Onslaught and Conquest, but with large ballistic weapons instead...
>Heavy Armor: reduced maneuver penalty to 10%, moderately increased armor bonus
Just get rid of manoeuvrability penalty! It has no point, it just makes it hard to use on ships that benefit from it the most.
>Fury, Champion, Phantom, Revenant
Alex, you sly mod-name-taking devil!
>Brawler changes
I will miss my ballsy little frigate.
>Xyphos has no range now
Any particular reason for that change?
>Pollution doesn't require habitable - consider corrosives, radiation, etc. Good point re: bombardments, though; let me remove the "habitable" requirement there. Hmm. On the other hand, what this does is instead of disincentivizing industry on habitable worlds, it more incentivizes (somewhat) industry on a world by itself. So, actually, let me make a note to check tomorrow; it seems offhand that requiring habitable for pollution is probably the right way to go.
Very much makes sense. Pollution is only a concern, if the environment was habitable. Polluting a toxic or volcanic world would be like *** in a sewer.

That's all I can address quickly, I'm somewhat busy now.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on October 17, 2020, 12:42:28 AM
>Onslaught: Added built-in Heavy Ballistics Integration
I've got a feeling that there's an issue not with Onslaught and Conquest, but with large ballistic weapons instead...
It really does seem weird players prefer to use medium weapons when large slots are available. When on the other hand, you'd do anything to have a large energy mount instead of the medium one. I think the biggest problem are flux costs, where the majority of ships that can mount these weapons, really cannot use them decently. I'm not saying all of the large ballistics are bad, but half of them are either unusable or extremely niche where you could only fit them on one ship, and it's not even low tech.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Golde on October 17, 2020, 12:57:53 AM
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

NOT THE SMALL RAILGUNS

NO NO N N NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on October 17, 2020, 03:15:26 AM
Well, a few mods are getting eaten in this release.
Spoiler
Alex pictured yesterday:
(https://i.imgur.com/sUHukOe.png)
[close]

Quote
Ruins in core systems now start out as explored
Will Tia, Duzahk, and Penelope's still have searchable ruins (should they generate any)?

Quote
Nanoforges: add Pollution when installed; becomes permanent after three months
Is this going to be permanent as in absolutely final, or will you be able to 'upgrade' to a better version of the same thing later?

Quote
Added 10 new items conditionally boosting various industries
    Found where currently you would find a synchrotron or a nanoforge - so, larger pool of items
Yes! Hopefully this will be the end of having multiple items stacked in a corner removing any difficult choices.

Quote
Debris fields: can only be scavenged through once; explored fields marked on map
Quote
Entities / mission targets / etc spawning in the "outer system" will now generally spawn orbiting a far-out jump-point or planet at a medium range (3000-5000 units)
Very welcome changes.

Quote
Hammerhead:
    Fixed slight alignment issue for left medium hardpoint, this is Very Important
Highest priority change. Consider highlighting in notes to reflect importance.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on October 17, 2020, 04:05:16 AM
Population growth stuck at 0% forever no matter how many decades pass or what happens in those decades. It'd just look off.

(Pretty sure it'll stop showing the progress bar at max size; if not, it should.)

Actually, as far as ideas to make very large colonies possible to get but limited/hard/expensive/etc., what about Cryosleepers? New colonies without a Cryosleeper can only get so much growth from natural population growth and immigration before even Chico on it's worst day is able to make much of a dent, but Cryosleepers (optional: and an AI Core/Story Point to speed up the process) can push a colony to size 7/8/9/10/whatever makes the most sense?

It just comes down to me thinking that size 6 is about what's appropriate on the high end, feel-wise. You can have as many industries in a size 6 as you can now on a bigger colony, and items gives you industrial bonuses you wouldn't have had access to before. I'm not really sure why you'd want bigger colonies, beyond just "it's a bigger number". I mean, if you just want to have the largest colony in the Sector, that's already achievable with a size 6 colony :)
It's not that I need to see colonies 100+ times more populous than Chico everywhere, I just don't want colonies to hit a complete brick wall when it comes to growth when there's not really any reason why it shouldn't be able to keep growing. Growing very slowly because of the 10^x curve, sure, but growing surely all the same.

A bigger concern with this change is that it'll have some kind of unexpected result that leads to me having to babysit my colonies even more than they currently need it. To name one thing, fleet size and ground defence strength are both tied to colony size, and I have no idea if a size six colony can defend itself against a -3/-50% pirate raid without me needing to drop everything and rush to it's aid every single time. Sure, Alpha Cores to boost stuff, but than I'd have the Hegemony and their extra buff ships knocking down my doors instead. And Alpha Cores aren't exactly burning holes in my stockpile anyway. Alternatively, Red Planet, but I'd like that to not be a requirement before I start putting down colonies that can defend themselves. And especially with all these profitability nerfs I probably won't have millions of credits burning holes in my pockets for a very long time either anyway...

Incidentally, with Pather cells now fixed is there any way to stop their constant attempts at sabotage beyond riding out to destroy their bases every...what was it, 230-365 days I think? Because that's another thing that might end up getting me caught in a cycle of babysitting, if Pathers keep blowing up my Orbital Works and whoops, -3/-50% pirate raid pops up before however long it takes to get fixed.

Also also:
  • When recovering ships after combat:
    • In an officer was in command, they will be reassigned back to that ship
Typo ;).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: arwan on October 17, 2020, 04:53:25 AM
not going to lie, i see that post and feel even more now that "SOON TM" cant come soon enough, I had just started a new game a few days ago after putting it down for a while, you know to not burn out. and now this tease drops. and i just want to get my hands on it just that much more now. I mean if you need us to beg I'm sure many of us will get on our knees and shamelessly cry and beg lol.

I am very curious to see all the changes realized, especially the character level progression and all the things that go with that.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Cycerin on October 17, 2020, 05:52:25 AM
Quote
Added Revenant-class phase hybrid freighter/tanker

Alex I'm having such a hard time imagining this thing and I love it.

I could go through the entire list and nitpick but overall I think all the changes and additions are great. Its gonna be fun to go in blind to good ol' vanilla and experience new stuff once again.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Lith on October 17, 2020, 05:53:56 AM
Overall looks really damn good.
However there were a few things i was hoping for that do not seem to be present.
I remmeber reading somewhere that you said you would look into pirate fleets their composition and behavior in general as in at the moment they do not "feel" like pirates but more like a zombie faction - they have alot of ships, theyre bad and theyre suicidical to kill you, rather than being raiders trying to profit.
Also someway to permanently deal with pather cells (such as destroying the faction as a whole or maybe a dedicated industry required either per planet or system) rather than the periodically having to destroy their bases.

most importantly however... RELEASE WHEN?

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on October 17, 2020, 06:18:23 AM
Cool, cool, cool :D Thanks for keeping spoilers to a minimum!

I like that there are now more unique industry items to find while exploring. The "unique stuff to find" was really not enough for all the "places to find stuff in". (I also wouldn't mind if there were some really unique stuff to find for the explorer who's currently not that interested in founding a colony, like hulls and weapons.)

Added Phantom-class phase troop transport
Added Revenant-class phase hybrid freighter/tanker

Raiding grants significant XP

Added story option (50% bonus XP) that removes reputation penalty from raiding

Arrrph, I am a Pillaging Phase Pirate now!  ;D


 
Moving slowly":
Now at half the burn level of the slowest ship rather than being fixed at burn level 2
"Sensors" skill gives bonus to this burn level
Go Dark: forces "moving slowly" instead of having a separate movement penalty
Active Sensor Burst: can move slowly while charging it up
Still reduces sensor profile while in applicable terrain (rings, asteroid fields, debris fields)
Asteroid fields: chance for moderately damaging asteroid impacts on ships when not moving slowly
AI will move slowly through asteroid fields
Hyperspace storms: slow-moving fleets do not attract storm strikes
AI will move slowly through storms instead of trying to avoid them

Mhh, is there even enough difference left between "moving slowly" and "going dark" to warrant them being separate options? Seems like turning off your transponder and moving slowly archives almost the same thing as going dark. Minus the 50% detection range reduction, which could just be added to moving slowly.

I just had the though that it might be cool if only "go dark" would extend the phase field of phase ships around the entire fleet (and more effectively), but it would cost them CR at a slow rate. So without phase ships in your fleet there would be no "go dark" option and "move slowly" would take over that function.





Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: ArkAngel on October 17, 2020, 06:35:27 AM
Oh god, a phase transport? Time to be the best smuggler ever. No one will be able to catch my sales of illicit wares!

This update looks awesome though.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: TaLaR on October 17, 2020, 07:57:32 AM
>Onslaught: Added built-in Heavy Ballistics Integration
I've got a feeling that there's an issue not with Onslaught and Conquest, but with large ballistic weapons instead...
It really does seem weird players prefer to use medium weapons when large slots are available. When on the other hand, you'd do anything to have a large energy mount instead of the medium one. I think the biggest problem are flux costs, where the majority of ships that can mount these weapons, really cannot use them decently. I'm not saying all of the large ballistics are bad, but half of them are either unusable or extremely niche where you could only fit them on one ship, and it's not even low tech.
It's only rational. Onslaught's side slots have very limited coverage, so I see no point in investing much OP there. No flux to use that many large guns either, as you also noted.

Besides, Onslaught really needs flak in side large slots. The only 2 other options to cover these angles are front medium slots (but these reach forward enemies, if onyl barely so, thus can be used for offensive weapons) and central medium side slots (which easily reach front, so offensive weapons are also high priority).
Heavy Ballistics Integration would incentivize using large guns there, but... There is no good alternative to flaks in large slot (outside mods anyway). Devastator is horrible PD.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 17, 2020, 08:06:49 AM
So much stuff.  Few things that catch my attention.

So the reborn not-Aurora is named Champion.

Onslaught getting Heavy Ballistics built-in looks nice.  Currently, I have incentives to fill them up with medium weapons.  With Conquest, Heavy Ballistics is the only reason I use Mark IX instead of more Heavy Needlers.

Light Needler being at 7 and Railgun at 8 seems fine.  With that, I probably would use Light Needler much more.  If they were both at 8, I probably would still favor Railgun over Light Needler.  Railgun has more going for it (accuracy, better DPS and shot power, steady stream of shots for suppression AI cannot weasel its way out with shield flickering).

Questions, since the notes had no info:
* What are the maximum colonies player can own, and maximum admins he can hire?
* With max player colony size at 6, do we get the cute size 7 images at size 6, or are they reserved for NPC colonies?

Quote
Incidentally, with Pather cells now fixed is there any way to stop their constant attempts at sabotage beyond riding out to destroy their bases every...what was it, 230-365 days I think? Because that's another thing that might end up getting me caught in a cycle of babysitting, if Pathers keep blowing up my Orbital Works and whoops, -3/-50% pirate raid pops up before however long it takes to get fixed.
That would make total sector colonization annoying.  The only reason I bother with alpha cores and stuff is because the Pathers are broken.

Quote
A bigger concern with this change is that it'll have some kind of unexpected result that leads to me having to babysit my colonies even more than they currently need it. To name one thing, fleet size and ground defence strength are both tied to colony size, and I have no idea if a size six colony can defend itself against a -3/-50% pirate raid without me needing to drop everything and rush to it's aid every single time. Sure, Alpha Cores to boost stuff, but than I'd have the Hegemony and their extra buff ships knocking down my doors instead. And Alpha Cores aren't exactly burning holes in my stockpile anyway. Alternatively, Red Planet, but I'd like that to not be a requirement before I start putting down colonies that can defend themselves. And especially with all these profitability nerfs I probably won't have millions of credits burning holes in my pockets for a very long time either anyway...
If this becomes a problem, I probably will aim for total core kill to eliminate the babysitting.  Babysitting is lame.  With that said, size 6 is the smallest size I would consider able to defend against expedition spam, since (without cores), star fortress has high demands that I can only comfortably meet with a size 6+ colony.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Kentington on October 17, 2020, 08:09:26 AM
You've outdone yourself again, Alex! It's difficult to pick my favorite aspect of these patch notes, but the story points system in particular seems like something the genre as a whole has been missing: a way for the player to directly say "this, here, is what's most meaningful to my playstyle."

Not such a fan of the changes to colonies, though. Putting a hard cap on colony size basically forces the player to play "wide" rather than "tall" (in the parlance of 4X games). Given that the current version of Starsector already requires quite a bit of babysitting your colonies, bouncing back and forth across the Sector as threats pop up, I'm concerned that this will end up being an additional tax on the player's time. Especially since planets that are appropriate for particular industries just got rarer, thanks to the restrictions on industry-boosting items. And this change doesn't play well with an existing cap on colonies: the number of administrators/alpha cores the player has access to.

If I may offer a couple of suggestions:
One last question: with the introduction of megaprojects, is there a chance we'll eventually see some kind of terraforming option introduced into the base game?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Cyan Leader on October 17, 2020, 08:17:10 AM
Not much to comment this time around, looking solid. Thank you for your hard work.

Good luck with the playtests Alex, I know they can be quite time consuming.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 17, 2020, 08:27:47 AM
Not such a fan of the changes to colonies, though. Putting a hard cap on colony size basically forces the player to play "wide" rather than "tall" (in the parlance of 4X games). Given that the current version of Starsector already requires quite a bit of babysitting your colonies, bouncing back and forth across the Sector as threats pop up, I'm concerned that this will end up being an additional tax on the player's time. Especially since planets that are appropriate for particular industries just got rarer, thanks to the restrictions on industry-boosting items. And this change doesn't play well with an existing cap on colonies: the number of administrators/alpha cores the player has access to.
Unless Alex changed colony limits, playing "wide" is only possible with alpha core admin spam, which may be threatened by fixed Pather cells.

Pathers are a zombie faction just like pirates.  In other words, major babysitting problem when they can break stuff.  Pirates were already a headache without Pathers on top of them.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Artay on October 17, 2020, 08:31:16 AM
Quote
• Added a new, very rare and powerful enemy:
     • 13 new special weapons specific to this enemy
• A very limited number and subset of these can be acquired by the player during each campaign

What's this, we gettin' Blade Breakers official?  ;D
Very curious about this new enemy.

As for all the other changes - I love 'em. Especially contacts, skills revamp and story points. Also, thanks for QoL changes, these are great!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 17, 2020, 08:39:19 AM
Quote
When producing ships at a colony, an additional fee will be charged based on the weapons/fighters installed on the ship
This extra cost does not count against the monthly production capacity
Can we tell production not to build these extra weapons (i.e., build empty hulls)?  Often, when I can build ships, I have more than enough weapons on hand, or I order the extra weapons I want too without relying on weapons provide by some random variant.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Avanitia on October 17, 2020, 09:00:50 AM
In current version, I've noticed that with -10% range (level 1 ECM skill) AI still performs decently, but with -20% (maxed ECM skill) AI just gives up and gets mulched into paste without too much of an issue - it becomes really skittish and can't fight back outside of capitals and fighters.

So here's the question - what is the max range debuff without any skills in next update?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on October 17, 2020, 09:13:44 AM
I support Megas's objection. I don't want to pay for weapons I won't use anyway.
On another note, High Scatter Amplifier. Is it still there? If it is, its 50% range decrease is pretty punishing for energy point defence weapons. Will you do anything about that?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Cyan Leader on October 17, 2020, 09:19:49 AM
Supporting this as well. By the time I have a colony I'm drowning in weapons, I only need to build a few.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Histidine on October 17, 2020, 09:38:03 AM
I think the idea is that the ship is ready to use on delivery if you send it somewhere other than your main stash, but I never do that.

On that note, should producing fighters/weapons also generate supplies/fuel/crew like ship production does?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 17, 2020, 10:42:22 AM
Quote
Pirate bases should no longer spawn in systems with neutron stars/pulsars
That should be a relief.  Pirates that repeatedly respawn in those systems are a pain, and made Navigation nearly mandatory to avoid crossing pulsars twice per visit.

Quote
Bombardments will cause other in-system colonies to stops trading with the player for some time, depending on their relationship with the bombarded colony
Does that mean if I sat bomb an annoying core world, that my own colonies within a system will stop trading with each other?

Would like to see core worlds suffer shortages if they bomb worlds, too.

Quote
Added a new, very rare and powerful enemy
What does "very rare" mean?  Limited spawns like Legion14s, or (re)spawns rarely like rare drops (e.g., high-end uniques) in a Diablo game?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: sergei on October 17, 2020, 11:55:37 AM
This is feels like an early christmas present. Can't wait to test it all out and start a new vanilla run. Really like the look of the new officer mechanics and i'm excited for the new raiding and marines.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 17, 2020, 12:03:53 PM
Part of an effort to incentivize colony world variety, yeah; most items have requirements or interactions with planetary conditions.

Pollution doesn't require habitable - consider corrosives, radiation, etc. Good point re: bombardments, though; let me remove the "habitable" requirement there. Hmm. On the other hand, what this does is instead of disincentivizing industry on habitable worlds, it more incentivizes (somewhat) industry on a world by itself. So, actually, let me make a note to check tomorrow; it seems offhand that requiring habitable for pollution is probably the right way to go.

Re: whether it's heavy industry or a nanoforge, I'm not sure it actually matters all that much which one causes it, since a nanoforge of some sort is almost required. But I suppose this leaves the option of having a safer, low-tier heavy industry, not that it's going to generally be a good option.
Heavy Industry is a great filler for boosting production limits.  If I am avoiding Pather cells (I did before I knew about the Pather bug), I do not use forges on additional Heavy Industries.  Anytime I have spare industry slots, I build a Heavy Industry.  Also, heavy industry produces machines, and it is nice to have a regenerating stack of machines in colony resources.  (Waystation only handles supplies, fuel, and crew if demand is met.)

In my last game, I had three or four Heavy Industries, but only one or two of them had forges.  The rest were there to boost production so I can build a bunch of ships (or a capital) and/or weapons in a month or less.

It would be annoying if Heavy Industry alone (no forge) caused pollution.  Might as well have eco-terrorist Pathers form permanent cells if Heavy Industry alone is that destructive to the planet.  Would also make the Ludds (both of them) total hypocrites, since the Church has Industry and corrupted forge on Asher.

P.S.  Allowing pollution on non-habitables means bombing such planets is no longer a clean and easy way to destroy and steal a non-habitable enemy world.  (For habitables, I would want to decivilize it with raids then abandon it to get a clean planet to seize instead of sat bombing it.  Of course, with that abandon bug fixed, probably just bomb habitables too since Pollution is less punishing than Decivilized.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FooF on October 17, 2020, 12:22:10 PM
Question re: "Revenant"

This is such an odd combination of attributes I'm trying to wrap my head around it. I imagine a phase logistic ship has higher maintenance and you pay a premium for both the reduced sensor profile and the ability for a phase ship to escape from battle.

It's also a tanker/freighter hybrid meaning it likely won't be as good as dedicated freighters or fuel tankers in those specific tasks but something like 2/3rds as good as either in both categories (i.e a Destroyer-sized ship would have 200 cargo and 400 fuel capacity). I suppose if you have a phase fleet, you'll just want to keep adding more and more of these ships.

The real questions I have is whether or not its combat worthy and/or if it's counted as "next size up" like other phase ships in terms of logistical profile. Will I want a Revenant in my fleet if I'm not going "all phase?" Does it offer anything that having both having a Buffalo and Phaeton wouldn't?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 17, 2020, 12:28:36 PM
The main reason for me to use a phase hauler is to haul the vendor trash away after a raid with a pure phase fleet.  It is no fun being able to haul away only blueprints and not the vendor trash along with it from a raid because the current phase ships have atrocious capacity that make normal warships look like freighters in comparison.  As for hullmods, the crew and either EO or Augmented Drive took priority.  Needed crew hullmod to carry enough marines, and EO so my pure phase fleet could eat less while flying around.

I do not know if pure phase fleet will be so good at sneaking into heavily defended core worlds as they are now.  Currently, it is almost unfair stealing blueprints from Culann or Sindria with a pure phase fleet because profile is so low and shaking off patrols is so easy.

Come to think of it, how big is the Phantom and Revenant?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Golde on October 17, 2020, 12:35:32 PM
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/697223479459577926/767108377850544143/needledicker.png)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Faeren on October 17, 2020, 02:19:29 PM
Kinda hoped there might be a few new frigates but I'm stoked regardless. Can't wait for release.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: nb8 on October 17, 2020, 02:47:04 PM
do you really want upgrade superpower Brawler, who can destroy the strongest ship in the game - paragon alone?
and nerf an Onslaught which is as bad as possible?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on October 17, 2020, 02:48:12 PM
>Onslaught: Added built-in Heavy Ballistics Integration
I've got a feeling that there's an issue not with Onslaught and Conquest, but with large ballistic weapons instead...
It really does seem weird players prefer to use medium weapons when large slots are available. When on the other hand, you'd do anything to have a large energy mount instead of the medium one. I think the biggest problem are flux costs, where the majority of ships that can mount these weapons, really cannot use them decently. I'm not saying all of the large ballistics are bad, but half of them are either unusable or extremely niche where you could only fit them on one ship, and it's not even low tech.

I think this is a problem with players. Large Ballistics are amazing and should always be fit (even if you're only using two for a broadside). They're absolutely superior than medium as primary weapons per OP

re: Railguns/LN's

As i said in my first post. I already consider LN's one of the best small kinetic option despite their 9 OP cost. Like, if we remember our insights from the capacitor/dissipation tests LN's are the small kinetic that lets you dump the most damage out immediately. Sure they spend flux faster but that doesn't matter in the end because spending flux faster is often ideal. I do fear this kinda just makes them clearly the best
>Onslaught: Added built-in Heavy Ballistics Integration
I've got a feeling that there's an issue not with Onslaught and Conquest, but with large ballistic weapons instead...
It really does seem weird players prefer to use medium weapons when large slots are available. When on the other hand, you'd do anything to have a large energy mount instead of the medium one. I think the biggest problem are flux costs, where the majority of ships that can mount these weapons, really cannot use them decently. I'm not saying all of the large ballistics are bad, but half of them are either unusable or extremely niche where you could only fit them on one ship, and it's not even low tech.
It's only rational. Onslaught's side slots have very limited coverage, so I see no point in investing much OP there. No flux to use that many large guns either, as you also noted.

Besides, Onslaught really needs flak in side large slots. The only 2 other options to cover these angles are front medium slots (but these reach forward enemies, if onyl barely so, thus can be used for offensive weapons) and central medium side slots (which easily reach front, so offensive weapons are also high priority).
Heavy Ballistics Integration would incentivize using large guns there, but... There is no good alternative to flaks in large slot (outside mods anyway). Devastator is horrible PD.

If you have IPDAI you do not need flack

As an example. My Broadside Onslaughts from the "why can't the onslaught be a real battleship" in which i showed an Onslaught being a real battleship did not have any flack and were still absolute stonkers.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 17, 2020, 03:41:57 PM
As for the planet size, I think it's unfortunate that your colonies will never be as large as the core world ones. Probably doesn't matter for gameplay, but it feels bad.

That's quite subjective, so: fair enough! I just don't think it makes in-fiction sense.


There's one thing I've been meaning to bring up that slipped my mind - filter options. Will we get more of them? I'm specifically thinking of two cases. First is where I've surveyed all the planets in the sector and want to know where all the vast ruins are. Scrolling through the list and trying to spot them all is a pain.  Second is rather mod-oriented, but when I'm mounting weapons on my ships I'd like to be able to filter for weapons that match the tech category of the ship, and filter for tech category when mounting weapons in general.

Hmm, maybe - I've been meaning to have another look at the planet screen, but honestly that's been low-priority and I'm not sure when/if that'll happen. Weapons-wise, that seems less likely; the UI for that would be tricky and it's not really a "functional" category, just visual.


Quote
Added unique capital-class ship that can be acquired by the player. Good luck.

Reading this, I'm getting a bad omen that something big and scary is coming on top of the hinted end-game threat...

Hmmm.

Overall, I had no plans to update the game since my current campaign is going pretty well (I am the type of player that does one, extremely long playthrough. Not so fond of having to restart). But after reading the changelog... I'm starting to contemplate my decisions.

Well, it's not out yet - these are in-dev notes - so you don't quite have to worry about it :)


>Added a number of story-related missions and a hint of an endgame threat
I have a feeling that there's way more effort put into this, than this simple entry implies.

(Yeah, that's... very accurate.)

Just get rid of manoeuvrability penalty! It has no point, it just makes it hard to use on ships that benefit from it the most.

Ah - I think it's thematic, and can be countered in many ways. I'd rather the hullmod be strong enough to warrant it; I think that's more interesting. Hmm - maybe upping to 25% and reducing the hullmod cost might be a more interesting way to go, actually, since 10% is mostly thematic anyway. Will likely leave it as-is for now, though.


>Xyphos has no range now
Any particular reason for that change?

Yes, but - please bear with me - I forget exactly what it was.


>Onslaught: Added built-in Heavy Ballistics Integration
I've got a feeling that there's an issue not with Onslaught and Conquest, but with large ballistic weapons instead...
It really does seem weird players prefer to use medium weapons when large slots are available. When on the other hand, you'd do anything to have a large energy mount instead of the medium one. I think the biggest problem are flux costs, where the majority of ships that can mount these weapons, really cannot use them decently. I'm not saying all of the large ballistics are bad, but half of them are either unusable or extremely niche where you could only fit them on one ship, and it's not even low tech.

To me it seems like a clear-cut case of "HBI goes on ships where the large mounts point every which way so you can actually justify putting large weapons in all of them".





Quote
Ruins in core systems now start out as explored
Will Tia, Duzahk, and Penelope's still have searchable ruins (should they generate any)?

I believe so, yeah.

Quote
Nanoforges: add Pollution when installed; becomes permanent after three months
Is this going to be permanent as in absolutely final, or will you be able to 'upgrade' to a better version of the same thing later?

Hmm, I don't quite understand the question. The Pollution condition will be permanent and nothing removes it, if that's what you're asking.

Quote
Hammerhead:
    Fixed slight alignment issue for left medium hardpoint, this is Very Important
Highest priority change. Consider highlighting in notes to reflect importance.

(Yeah, good call probably.)


It's not that I need to see colonies 100+ times more populous than Chico everywhere, I just don't want colonies to hit a complete brick wall when it comes to growth when there's not really any reason why it shouldn't be able to keep growing. Growing very slowly because of the 10^x curve, sure, but growing surely all the same.

I mean, they stop regardless of the system, the question is just when that happens.

A bigger concern with this change is that it'll have some kind of unexpected result that leads to me having to babysit my colonies even more than they currently need it. To name one thing, fleet size and ground defence strength are both tied to colony size, and I have no idea if a size six colony can defend itself against a -3/-50% pirate raid without me needing to drop everything and rush to it's aid every single time. Sure, Alpha Cores to boost stuff, but than I'd have the Hegemony and their extra buff ships knocking down my doors instead. And Alpha Cores aren't exactly burning holes in my stockpile anyway. Alternatively, Red Planet, but I'd like that to not be a requirement before I start putting down colonies that can defend themselves. And especially with all these profitability nerfs I probably won't have millions of credits burning holes in my pockets for a very long time either anyway...

Incidentally, with Pather cells now fixed is there any way to stop their constant attempts at sabotage beyond riding out to destroy their bases every...what was it, 230-365 days I think? Because that's another thing that might end up getting me caught in a cycle of babysitting, if Pathers keep blowing up my Orbital Works and whoops, -3/-50% pirate raid pops up before however long it takes to get fixed.

Fair! More of a reason to tweak those mechanics, though, than it is to allow stuff that makes no in-fiction sense. (Also, there's an item that boosts fleet sizes *a lot*, so I'm pretty sure it'll be doable anyway. But I need to have a look at the frequency of expeditions etc, regardless, so those things become an "interesting event" that you interact with and aren't so frequent that it's a chore.)

Also also:
  • When recovering ships after combat:
    • In an officer was in command, they will be reassigned back to that ship
Typo ;).

Thank you, fixed!


not going to lie, i see that post and feel even more now that "SOON TM" cant come soon enough, I had just started a new game a few days ago after putting it down for a while, you know to not burn out. and now this tease drops. and i just want to get my hands on it just that much more now. I mean if you need us to beg I'm sure many of us will get on our knees and shamelessly cry and beg lol.

I am very curious to see all the changes realized, especially the character level progression and all the things that go with that.

:D


Quote
Added Revenant-class phase hybrid freighter/tanker

Alex I'm having such a hard time imagining this thing and I love it.

Phase ships gotta do something weird, right? It's their motif!

I could go through the entire list and nitpick but overall I think all the changes and additions are great. Its gonna be fun to go in blind to good ol' vanilla and experience new stuff once again.

Cool! If something in particular does seem "off", I definitely don't mind hearing about it.

I remmeber reading somewhere that you said you would look into pirate fleets their composition and behavior in general as in at the moment they do not "feel" like pirates but more like a zombie faction - they have alot of ships, theyre bad and theyre suicidical to kill you, rather than being raiders trying to profit.

Hmm, I'm fairly sure I didn't say anything that specific. If I was talking about fleet composition, then it feels likely that this is covered by fleets being less top-heavy etc. As much as what you're saying makes sense, you also kind of just need some enemies to blow up, so... I mean, I'm not opposed to nods in that direction here and there, but just in general, going for a "real" pirate feel has downsides, I think.

Also someway to permanently deal with pather cells (such as destroying the faction as a whole or maybe a dedicated industry required either per planet or system) rather than the periodically having to destroy their bases.

Being able to deal with them permanently doesn't seem like a good idea. Going to look at the frequency of these types of events (and, in fact, I think I might've made some tweaks already; not sure if it's in the patch notes or not.)

most importantly however... RELEASE WHEN?

When ready!


Cool, cool, cool :D Thanks for keeping spoilers to a minimum!

(I try! Have to spoil things sometimes, though, since it's kind of tough to not show off stuff that might get some attention... just in general, doing any sort of "marketing" (even in a broad sense) and "not spoiling things" are... not entirely at odds, but somewhat at odds.)

I like that there are now more unique industry items to find while exploring. The "unique stuff to find" was really not enough for all the "places to find stuff in". (I also wouldn't mind if there were some really unique stuff to find for the explorer who's currently not that interested in founding a colony, like hulls and weapons.)

Who's to say there isn't? :)

Arrrph, I am a Pillaging Phase Pirate now!  ;D

Excellent, excellent!

Mhh, is there even enough difference left between "moving slowly" and "going dark" to warrant them being separate options? Seems like turning off your transponder and moving slowly archives almost the same thing as going dark. Minus the 50% detection range reduction, which could just be added to moving slowly.

I just had the though that it might be cool if only "go dark" would extend the phase field of phase ships around the entire fleet (and more effectively), but it would cost them CR at a slow rate. So without phase ships in your fleet there would be no "go dark" option and "move slowly" would take over that function.

"Go dark" is a bit easier to use for a longer period, just usability-wise, and it auto-toggles the transponder off, so that's more convenient, too. "Move slowly" is more of a thing you do intermittently. Still, I get what you're saying, hmm.


but... There is no good alternative to flaks in large slot (outside mods anyway). Devastator is horrible PD.

It did get buffed. And if it costs as much as regular flak, I'm not sure that I can agree that it's worse there. Regardless, it's certainly not worse *not*, it deletes fighter wings.


* What are the maximum colonies player can own, and maximum admins he can hire?

2 and 2, with +1 to each from a skill.

* With max player colony size at 6, do we get the cute size 7 images at size 6, or are they reserved for NPC colonies?

Ahh, good catch! Made those show up at 6 (and moved the small image to only show up at size 3, instead of 3 and 4).



Yeah as Histidine mentioned, the graph comparing the LN and Railgun came to mind. Just loading up the simulator with a ship with 2 LNs and then 2 Railguns will show you a drastic difference. Sure the Railgun is more versatile but who cares about that when you have a Sabot in gun form almost. Also every other Needler weapon is the most expensive on OP in their respective tier, so this would just look wrong. I agree with Foof, 8 OP for both would be perfect, 7 is too low for such elite weapons.

Also I kinda forgot about Mk IX, surprised there weren't any changes to it when most of the people agree it's very underwhelming. It really doesn't justify having 1.15 efficiency, sure the dmg/shot is respectable for a kinetic weapon but it's also wildly inaccurate. I'm glad Devastator got some love tho, one meh large ballistic less :)

Hmm, I will keep it in mind. Wasn't really thinking about the Mark IX - it kind of seems the default, cheap, and somewhat subpar option. I'll give it a look.

EDIT: Maybe I missed it, but you forgot to add that the High tech blueprint package now has Fury instead of Apogee.

Ah yeah, one of those things that didn't make the notes - there's lots of minor stuff like that.


You've outdone yourself again, Alex! It's difficult to pick my favorite aspect of these patch notes, but the story points system in particular seems like something the genre as a whole has been missing: a way for the player to directly say "this, here, is what's most meaningful to my playstyle."

Not such a fan of the changes to colonies, though. Putting a hard cap on colony size basically forces the player to play "wide" rather than "tall" (in the parlance of 4X games).

Thank you!

Re: colonies - I don't think that's actually true, and in fact I don't think changing the colony size limit has many *gameplay* ramifications at all! Not in the presence of items that boost production, and story-point based industry improvements. You can do basically the same things as before, some maybe a bit worse, some a bit better. It's literally just a "number got smaller for feel reasons" sort of thing, mostly. I mean, colony income *will* be less - but not because of the size change, but rather because of the removal of the stability bonus to income.

(Well, if you build like 50+ colonies with AI Cores etc for income, then that will have less income than before because there won't be enough booster items to go around. But that's kind of a degenerate case that I'm not concerned about, if that makes sense.)

One last question: with the introduction of megaprojects, is there a chance we'll eventually see some kind of terraforming option introduced into the base game?

Maybe! Nothing I'd call a plan, but if it looks necessary for story reasons, or there's something particualrly compelling about it that comes up. This isn't something I'm actively aiming for, though.


Not much to comment this time around, looking solid. Thank you for your hard work.

Good luck with the playtests Alex, I know they can be quite time consuming.

Thank you! (And, ah, need to get through a number of things before even getting to those...)


Can we tell production not to build these extra weapons (i.e., build empty hulls)?  Often, when I can build ships, I have more than enough weapons on hand, or I order the extra weapons I want too without relying on weapons provide by some random variant.

You can't, no. You can however sell them and weapon sell price is a lot better now. I'd also imagine weapon stockpiles will be a bit lower because selling looted weapons can be a significant portion of your income.


In current version, I've noticed that with -10% range (level 1 ECM skill) AI still performs decently, but with -20% (maxed ECM skill) AI just gives up and gets mulched into paste without too much of an issue - it becomes really skittish and can't fight back outside of capitals and fighters.

So here's the question - what is the max range debuff without any skills in next update?

Hmm, interesting, I'll need to keep an eye on it. The max debuff is 20%, but deployed ships grant a flat +2% each. Gunnery Implants also grants +6%/+3% when in frigate/destroyer. Given both of these, it'll be a lot easier to hit the limit if you have smaller ships on hand, which also means they have a shorter range, which may go some ways towards alleviating this.


On another note, High Scatter Amplifier. Is it still there? If it is, its 50% range decrease is pretty punishing for energy point defence weapons. Will you do anything about that?

It's still there. There's a tradeoff with using it; I'm not sure that's something that needs anything done about.



On that note, should producing fighters/weapons also generate supplies/fuel/crew like ship production does?

Since it does that, I'm going to go with "yes" :) IIRC that's "free" anyway, I don't think you pay for it.


Quote
Bombardments will cause other in-system colonies to stops trading with the player for some time, depending on their relationship with the bombarded colony
Does that mean if I sat bomb an annoying core world, that my own colonies within a system will stop trading with each other?

Hmm? No, it's just the usual "your recent hostile actions around <market> blah blah" and you can't buy/sell things there for a while.


Quote
Added a new, very rare and powerful enemy
What does "very rare" mean?  Limited spawns like Legion14s, or (re)spawns rarely like rare drops (e.g., high-end uniques) in a Diablo game?

I'll just say that it's not farmable.


This is feels like an early christmas present. Can't wait to test it all out and start a new vanilla run. Really like the look of the new officer mechanics and i'm excited for the new raiding and marines.

Thank you :D Really looking forward to getting it out there, actually - super excited about it!


Question re: "Revenant"

This is such an odd combination of attributes I'm trying to wrap my head around it. I imagine a phase logistic ship has higher maintenance and you pay a premium for both the reduced sensor profile and the ability for a phase ship to escape from battle.

It's also a tanker/freighter hybrid meaning it likely won't be as good as dedicated freighters or fuel tankers in those specific tasks but something like 2/3rds as good as either in both categories (i.e a Destroyer-sized ship would have 200 cargo and 400 fuel capacity). I suppose if you have a phase fleet, you'll just want to keep adding more and more of these ships.

The real questions I have is whether or not its combat worthy and/or if it's counted as "next size up" like other phase ships in terms of logistical profile. Will I want a Revenant in my fleet if I'm not going "all phase?" Does it offer anything that having both having a Buffalo and Phaeton wouldn't?

You're mostly on the right track here, yeah. It's not a combat ship *at all*, and what it offers over other freighters is "phase field".


Come to think of it, how big is the Phantom and Revenant?

Destroyer and cruiser, respectively.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on October 17, 2020, 03:56:40 PM
Re: Ballistics Integration on the Onslaught (and large ballistics in general on the Onslaught):

The reason this is needed in my opinion is for 2 reasons:

1) For frontal builds, side mounted guns detract from the ship's ability to deal with frontal targets by taking up OP. This is mitigated if there are options which are cheap but good at dealing with smaller threats that might get in close to flank the ship. A large ballistic mount that is cheap, can hit small targets, has relatively short range, and is reasonably flux efficient just doesn't exist. Something like a Mk IX (relatively low DPS, but cheap high impact kinetic) would be good if it wasn't for the poor efficiency and terrible accuracy. Devastator for anti small ship/fighters is ok, but flux hungry for that role. If the goal is for good frontal Onslaughts to actually use large mounts on the sides, a 20 OP rebate is pretty nice, because there aren't really any appropriate guns.

2) The only really good option for the center large mount in a frontal build that correctly balances with the TPCs for a frontal build is the hellbore, then piling on medium kinetics. Even this is slightly more than the rule of thumb 1/3 flux budget dedicated to anti-armor/hull, but thats ok. I have a whole spiel of flux and efficiency calculations, but it comes down to this: All large kinetics are worse than medium kinetics for flux limited, mount plentiful ships (Onslaught, Dominator), and a Haephastus/Mjolnir + the TPCs is too much of the flux budget dedicated to non-kinetic for a general purpose ship. Devastator is a possibility for frontal anti-fighter/small ship might work as well, but leaves the ship reliant on its missiles for armor breaking.

Broadside Onslaught doesn't really care about the TPC's for the combined main battery so ignores the above, but they are their own special kind of magic.

Quote from: Goumindong
Large Ballistics are amazing and should always be fit (even if you're only using two for a broadside). They're absolutely superior than medium as primary weapons per OP. ...

2 comments:
1) Onslaughts have plenty of mounts and enough OP to take 50 vents and the flux boosting hullmod every time, so what they care about is flux efficiency in their kinetics. Large kinetics, for the Onslaught, are simply worse than medium kinetics. Mk IX: accuracy is bad, efficiency low, damage/OP medium (if it can hit). Storm needler: range bad and windup/flux cost extremely AI unfriendly. Efficiency good, but noticeably worse than Heavy Needler. Damage/OP great, but does not make up for downsides. Gauss: efficiency is terrible, despite great range and high penetration (great on Conquests because they have the flux). Low damage/OP.

Contrast to the Heavy needler and all lose. Even contrast to the the Heavy Autocannon and they lose. Theres just no good kinetic large for the Onslaught.

2) For HE weapons the Large Ballistics are pretty good. Hellbore is efficiency king and while low DPS will crack armor wide open, and the Hephaestus is pretty good HE and a great hull crusher (its comparison to the HIL is an entirely different matter...). BUT for non-broadsiders, the TPCs take up much of the available budget for this (see above).



IMO a lot of the large ballistic weapon problems would be solved if the Mk IX were a slightly more expensive, but better weapon. I'd pay 25 OP for the same gun at a tighter spread and 1.0 efficiency.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Avanitia on October 17, 2020, 03:58:43 PM
Hmm, interesting, I'll need to keep an eye on it. The max debuff is 20%, but deployed ships grant a flat +2% each. Gunnery Implants also grants +6%/+3% when in frigate/destroyer. Given both of these, it'll be a lot easier to hit the limit if you have smaller ships on hand, which also means they have a shorter range, which may go some ways towards alleviating this.

Try getting a cruiser and max ECM skills, ships of same size will try backing off because of being outranged even more than they normally do.

That change will make game way easier for competent players, which is a shame in my eyes - I personally enjoy battles where AI puts up decent challenge. I hope it will be something I could change in the config files at very least.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 17, 2020, 04:02:26 PM
@Thaago: I appreciate the detailed analysis! Made a few notes re: the Mark IX.

Try getting a cruiser and max ECM skills, ships of same size will try backing off because of being outranged even more than they normally do.

Will do; thanks! (Actually, I'll probably just hack in 20 ECM for the player side for test purposes, but, right, thanks for pointing out a scenario to look at.)

Edit: giving it a quick try with some cruiser-vs-cruiser mirror matches, not seeing much functional difference between 10% and 20%; the side with the edge wins reliably, but it's kind of expected. I guess it may play differently in a not 1-1, though.

That change will make game way easier for competent players, which is a shame in my eyes - I personally enjoy battles where AI puts up decent challenge. I hope it will be something I could change in the config files at very least.

Hmm, how so? You're paying for getting 20% by needing overall weaker ships, so I'm not sure how this makes things easier - could you clarify? I mean, I could see how it might not eliminate the problem, but that's different.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 17, 2020, 04:03:03 PM
The Xyphos change to have 0 range might be so the AI won't send them off but is instead forced to keep them close where they act as a compliment to said ship's own weapons.

I remember that being discussed in the past at least, and it made a lot of sense to me since it happens to be the way in which i tend to use Xyphos myself.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 17, 2020, 04:04:06 PM
... ah, yeah, that sounds very much right.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on October 17, 2020, 04:26:43 PM
All large kinetics are worse than medium kinetics for flux limited, mount plentiful ships

So... i don't think this is true but it also doesn't have to be false in order to make large ballistic make sense.

There are two reasons its not true

1) Ships can be OP limited in addition to being flux limited and mount plentiful. A HN produces 250 DPS for 15 OP to 800(16.6 DPS/OP). A Mark IX produce 348 DPS for 18 OP to 900 range(19.3 DPS/OP). (The Mark IX at 100 armor damage also penetrates fairly well).

As we established in the cap/distributor thread we don't really care as much about flux limiting on DPS we care about cap and raw DPS. We want to trade our flux into theirs as fast as possible. This is especially valuable on a ship like the onslaught. So the HN (probably the best medium kinetic) does 16.6 DPS/OP. The Mark IX does 19.3 and it starts shooting earlier due to its higher range. There are better medium kinetics (HA is slightly better at 21.4) but we still have the range issue as if we're willing to drop down to a lower range the storm needler offers an absurd 26.78 DPS/OP

2) Because of the value of hull mods(and capacitor) it is functionally impossible to not be OP limited. In my Broadslaughts as an example i was still heavily OP limited (didn't get a chance to fit the Omni shield i wanted!) and i even would have empty slots. If i had fit medium slots in my large i would have had more OP sure, but i would have been better off using large slots and leaving the mediums empty because the large slots were just more OP efficient and that was my limiter.


-----

The reason that your supposition can be true while still making the overall conclusion false is because you don't need to fit kinetic into large slots on ships that have lots of slots. Kinetic damage does not have exponential scaling due to its lack of utility against armor. HE damage does. As a result, larger HE weapons just tend to be better OP for OP. You need about 3 Heavy Maulers to make a HAG.(or a bit over 2 mortars*) Which is 36 OP. the HAG takes up 20. The HM's do have better range and penetration (400 vs 240) but only 400 vs 480 DPS. Either way a Hellbore is 15.625 DPS/OP while a Mauler is 11.083(with much worse penetration) So if you're trying to be efficient you're probably fitting HE in your large ballistic anyway. Either HAG or Hellbore. It just makes sense given that you're not slot limited.

*which while great for OP does mean you're going to need a high efficient high DPS/OP 700 range kinetic weapon and that means you're fitting a storm needler.

edit: You might say "but ships back away was also a thing that mitigated it" and the answer is sure. But flux dumping with the most efficient combination of HE/Kinetic reduces the likelihood that ships get to back away. Once a ships shields are down you want to pour in as much HE as you can. And to do that you need efficient HE and as much OP as possible for extra caps.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: xenoargh on October 17, 2020, 04:34:55 PM
1.  Holy changelogs.

2.  Uh, is JDK 8 supported yet?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on October 17, 2020, 04:42:05 PM
Quote
Fair! More of a reason to tweak those mechanics, though, than it is to allow stuff that makes no in-fiction sense. (Also, there's an item that boosts fleet sizes *a lot*, so I'm pretty sure it'll be doable anyway. But I need to have a look at the frequency of expeditions etc, regardless, so those things become an "interesting event" that you interact with and aren't so frequent that it's a chore.)
True, although are those items usable enough that I don't need to find a ridiculously specific system to put down my first colonies and/or have to compromise in some way to actually use them? For instance I wouldn't fancy using those items if it caused factions to send expeditions or ticked off the now fixed Pathers, since that would only replace one problem with another.

Speaking of expeditions, "interesting event that you interact with" just sounds like "annually mandatory babysitting session" to me, honestly. And like it'd limit playstyle because if I have to intervene with my own fleet I'd pretty much be on a timer to amass a final endgame doomfleet whenever I put my first colony down. That or try to keep my colonies small enough to avoid getting targeted by expeditions, but that either defeats the purpose of having colonies (industry to build your own ships, large enough stable income to support your fleet, (re-)supply points with sufficient items to keep the fleet going and/or grab stuff to fulfil the odd trade contract) or merely move the goalposts (small colonies can't defend themselves against -3/-50% pirate raids, so instead of dealing with expeditions I'd be routinely dealing with them).

Basically, I'm worried about colonies being overly nerfed in terms of them becoming a permanent ball and chain for the player, like I could be called to drop everything and rush over whenever the Luddites randomly decide that my Extreme Tectonic Activity Extreme Heat High Gravity volcanic mining colony is too much of a "free haven for various undesirables". PS: Any chance of getting a mechanic where you can capture rival faction people and condemn them to a prison colony? Just, you know, curious ::). Ignore the heavily guarded transport ship being prepared in the background...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Avanitia on October 17, 2020, 04:44:12 PM
giving it a quick try with some cruiser-vs-cruiser mirror matches, not seeing much functional difference between 10% and 20%; the side with the edge wins reliably, but it's kind of expected. I guess it may play differently in a not 1-1, though.

Yes, it's more noticeable in fleet combat where entire fleet might back off due to losing large chunk of range.

Hmm, how so? You're paying for getting 20% by needing overall weaker ships, so I'm not sure how this makes things easier - could you clarify? I mean, I could see how it might not eliminate the problem, but that's different.

With capital ships being less prevalent in next update (from what I understand at least?) player getting ECM cap can be frequent occurence in early- and mid-game.

Smaller ships doesn't mean weaker <.< I can deploy more (especially with soft cap in next update, efficiency be damned!)
Groups of frigates and destroyers don't care about losses as much and have more missiles to throw at enemy, heh. Officers help too.

If enemy cruiser loses 20% range, my ships will engage it more readily, which isn't exactly a bad thing, but issue is bigger when you compare 2 ships of same size and apply that across entire battlespace - my Lasher beats up enemy Lasher without issues due to range disparity and finishes it off with missiles and so on. It's the initial hard flux buildup that plays a big role - one ship builds up hard flux of another before it can even fire. I feel by incentivizing using smaller ships more often, it makes game easier in a way? I don't really know how to explain that.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 17, 2020, 05:11:40 PM
...

Speaking of expeditions, "interesting event that you interact with" just sounds like "annually mandatory babysitting session" to me, honestly. And like it'd limit playstyle because if I have to intervene with my own fleet I'd pretty much be on a timer to amass a final endgame doomfleet whenever I put my first colony down.
...

I've read things like this a lot while lurking in these forums and i still don't understand it. In some of my playthroughs i've started colonizing as soon as half a year into the game and even then i've never found expeditions to be a problem. When fighting them myself i've usually found them to be underwhelming and by the time they might get bigger the colonies tend to be defended enough that they don't even need me.
Maybe they become a problem once they send multiple "very strong" fleets but in my experience they're not in any kind of a hurry to do that. Maybe they will eventually if you keep playing but by that time you'd have all the ships you want in your own fleet anyway.

Now the first pirate fleet, that appears to be scripted to be sent within a few months and tends to be a lot bigger than the ones that spawn from bases afterwards, *that* can be a challenge if you rushed for colonies.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SafariJohn on October 17, 2020, 05:21:06 PM
I think maybe ECM should apply straight to the enemy fleet instead of competing with their ECM. This would make ECM less of a battle-winner, but it would still shift how battles work by making long range builds relatively weaker than normal.


RE HBI on Onslaught: I don't think it addresses the ship's core issues with flux usage and armor vs. shields.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on October 17, 2020, 05:45:51 PM
I greatly enjoy the debate we are having on this topic! I think we both agree that large ballistic HE weapons are in a good place, with the Hellbore and Hephaestus occupying two different, but valuable, niches. I disagree on the kinetics however. (Spoilers so those not interested don't need to see all this...)

Spoiler
Quote from: Goumindong
... As we established in the cap/distributor thread we don't really care as much about flux limiting on DPS we care about cap and raw DPS. We want to trade our flux into theirs as fast as possible. This is especially valuable on a ship like the onslaught.  ...

I don't agree with this interpretation. If its true than optimal ships should have max caps, filling vents with leftovers... and yet extensive playtesting has not settled on that as optimal outside of a few very special ships. I note that your own Broadside Onslaught has 60 vents and 6 caps.

I will agree that it is important to quickly damage enemy ships in order to mitigate incoming damage, and so Onslaughts should be overfluxed.

Even going with it as the goal though:

Quote
... So the HN (probably the best medium kinetic) does 16.6 DPS/OP. The Mark IX does 19.3 and it starts shooting earlier due to its higher range. There are better medium kinetics (HA is slightly better at 21.4) but we still have the range issue as if we're willing to drop down to a lower range the storm needler offers an absurd 26.78 DPS/OP.

I take issue with this, because DPS/OP without taking into account efficiency is an oversimplified stat to the point of being meaningless: it leaves out information which is critical to a complete evaluation. Consider for example the HN vs the HA: as you state, 21.4 DPS/OP is better than 16.6 DPS/OP... but the HN is a better weapon than the HA for a lot of reasons, including that it can output 25% more damage on the same flux pool. A HN can output 43% more damage to a target than a Mk IX on the same flux pool. Even Onslaughts have limited flux pools, and the efficiency with which they spend them is much more important than DPS/OP, because once they are maxed more OP cannot buy more flux stats.

If DPS/OP is what matters, then Storm Needler is the best weapon by a mile with its very high DPS (and decent efficiency even). But... its easy to test and AI Onslaught variants with it just don't perform that well because of its other downsides. The contradiction shows that a premise is false: DPS/OP is not the most important stat, and analysis based on DPS/OP is invalid without other data.

Then there is accuracy. Against a capital Mk IXs are going to land most shots. Against smaller targets, they are going to miss most shots: both their DPS and efficiency go down considerably. Its hard to exactly quantify this without data from combat analytics, which I don't have right now. It would be an interesting project to compile some real play accuracy data on these guns so we could put some numbers here!
[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 17, 2020, 05:55:52 PM
2.  Uh, is JDK 8 supported yet?

You can edit settings to let the game run with it already, but you'd probably want to tweak GC behavior etc (via parameters) to get it to a good place.

Speaking of expeditions, "interesting event that you interact with" just sounds like "annually mandatory babysitting session" to me, honestly.

Eh, that really depends. I mean, I get where you're coming from, but e.g. (numbers totally made up) if an expedition comes once every ten cycles and is a huge problem you have to scramble to deal with, then that's going to feel differently than a drop-feed of weaker stuff every couple of months. So it's definitely a thing where how much of it there is and what it does/what kind of response it requires changes it qualitatively.

Basically, I'm worried about colonies being overly nerfed in terms of them becoming a permanent ball and chain for the player

Like I said, fair concern, but per my previous response, I think it'll be ok. And if not, it'll need tuning!

(I don't think the item restrictions are *that* punishing, that is, you should be able to find a planet that you can use any given item on without too much trouble. An optimal one is another question, but that's already the case...)

... I feel by incentivizing using smaller ships more often, it makes game easier in a way? I don't really know how to explain that.

Hmm, alright - I'm not sure that makes sense. Not saying it's wrong or anything, but, as you probably realize, that didn't quite clear it up :)

Consider that you're also much more likely to be facing some EW from the enemy fleet, too, from random frigates/destroyers that have an officer with Gunnery Implants - so it's not something that, say, requires the specific faction to have EW as a commander skill.


I've read things like this a lot while lurking in these forums and i still don't understand it. In some of my playthroughs i've started colonizing as soon as half a year into the game and even then i've never found expeditions to be a problem. When fighting them myself i've usually found them to be underwhelming and by the time they might get bigger the colonies tend to be defended enough that they don't even need me.
Maybe they become a problem once they send multiple "very strong" fleets but in my experience they're not in any kind of a hurry to do that. Maybe they will eventually if you keep playing but by that time you'd have all the ships you want in your own fleet anyway.

Now the first pirate fleet, that appears to be scripted to be sent within a few months and tends to be a lot bigger than the ones that spawn from bases afterwards, *that* can be a challenge if you rushed for colonies.

FWIW, what you're describing sounds exactly right to me. If I had to guess, I think there's a tendency to gloss over this interval - which probably makes up for most of the playthroughs for many players - because it's not a "stable end state", if that makes sense. Which, I mean, fair enough on that count, but also a grain of salt.


I think maybe ECM should apply straight to the enemy fleet instead of competing with their ECM. This would make ECM less of a battle-winner, but it would still shift how battles work by making long range builds relatively weaker than normal.

Hmm - that'd just effectively reduce range by 20% across the board for everything, no? At least in many, many cases.


RE HBI on Onslaught: I don't think it addresses the ship's core issues with flux usage and armor vs. shields.

Well, you're right about that - but those are ship features rather than ship issues! Which isn't to say that it's a perfectly balanced ship or whatever, but rather than anything that's done to balance it ought to work around these, imo.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Histidine on October 17, 2020, 06:11:32 PM
IMO a lot of the large ballistic weapon problems would be solved if the Mk IX were a slightly more expensive, but better weapon. I'd pay 25 OP for the same gun at a tighter spread and 1.0 efficiency.
I don't want Mk. IX fundamentally changed (like "premiumizing" it); it's nice to have a cheap 'n practical option for large kinetics in contrast with Gauss Cannon and Storm Needler. Less recoil and more efficiency certainly wouldn't hurt though.
(It's possible that many of the times I'm currently using Mk. IX, I should downsize to a Heavy Needler instead...)

P.S. Is the version number supposed to be 0.95 or 0.9.5?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 17, 2020, 06:14:26 PM
P.S. Is the version number supposed to be 0.95 or 0.9.5?

0.95a - the way I've been using it, 0.9.5a would imply a 5th hotfix-and-balancing patch of the 0.9a release. ... did I mess up and say 0.9.5 somewhere?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Histidine on October 17, 2020, 06:21:57 PM
P.S. Is the version number supposed to be 0.95 or 0.9.5?

0.95a - the way I've been using it, 0.9.5a would imply a 5th hotfix-and-balancing patch of the 0.9a release. ... did I mess up and say 0.9.5 somewhere?
No uses of 0.9.5 somewhere, it just struck me as strange compared to 0.9.1, 0.8.1, 0.7.2, 0.7.1 etc.
But I noticed that a previous version used 0.65 as well, huh.

(It just looks odd, mathematically speaking I'd expect the number comparison to go e.g. 0.95 > 0.90 > 0.10 > 0.9)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on October 17, 2020, 06:25:44 PM
IMO a lot of the large ballistic weapon problems would be solved if the Mk IX were a slightly more expensive, but better weapon. I'd pay 25 OP for the same gun at a tighter spread and 1.0 efficiency.
I don't want Mk. IX fundamentally changed (like "premiumizing" it); it's nice to have a cheap 'n practical option for large kinetics in contrast with Gauss Cannon and Storm Needler. Less recoil and more efficiency certainly wouldn't hurt though.
(It's possible that many of the times I'm currently using Mk. IX, I should downsize to a Heavy Needler instead...)

P.S. Is the version number supposed to be 0.95 or 0.9.5?

For me its a matter of gunnery implants 1 to reduce recoil: With the skill, the gun is a decent budget option when premiums aren't available - as you say cheap and practical. (Even though I complain about efficiency, its still kinetic so will get the job done 'ok ish'). Without the skill, it misses an improbable number of shots (as does the HAC - was just testing and its firing arc at capital ranges is wider than an Onslaught, so it will even have a significant miss rate against enemy capitals).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 17, 2020, 06:27:30 PM
(Hmm - I guess I'm just thinking of it as a decimal point number. At least, of the first part that's inching up towards 1.0)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Octal on October 17, 2020, 06:30:43 PM
Honestly, the thing I'm most excited for, before everything else, is simply the UI scaling.

I've basically stopped playing until the next update because I dislike the workaround for now.
Good stuffs though!


Also, to add onto the version naming talk:
If you're using "0.9.1" and "0.9" for example, as far as I recall it makes sense to show it as "0.9.0" instead of just "0.9"
Like, if you're showing iterative hotfix versions then that position should be kept as 0 if none have occured yet..

maybe im just dumb tho
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on October 17, 2020, 06:42:11 PM
I don't agree with this interpretation. If its true than optimal ships should have max caps, filling vents with leftovers... and yet extensive playtesting has not settled on that as optimal outside of a few very special ships. I note that your own Broadside Onslaught has 60 vents and 6 caps.

Yes but this isn't because i don't want to trade my flux for theirs as fast as possible. Its because i don't face things for which i need 60 caps(more than i need extra hull mods) and because i am not limited by being at maximum cap due to being an armor tanker as a shield tanker is. Edit: my shields don’t turn off, they were already off.

But this does not mean that having more cap isn't good even at the expense of less efficient weapons. you can even figure a pretty reasonable breakeven for the weapons. (its like 6 seconds for DPS equivalent HN's vs mark IX, which is about 3400 shield damage not counting the extra time the mark IX gets to make use of your full dissipation which is pretty significant)

At the end of the day i have found that mark IX's are pretty good. I used to be in the boat you were but found that they performed a lot better than i was giving them credit for. Like, ships where i wanted kinetic damage just did better with Mark IX's than they did with HN. The extra range on HN's(140 to 160) make them really valuable even at slightly less efficiency. They even do decent damage vs things that put their shields down and have high armor. If you make them better accuracy/recoil they will be obscene even at higher OP. As an example there is a mod with an 'estus Assault Gun, which is less flux efficient compared to a Mark IX and has HAG fire profile. And its just simply the best kinetic damage weapon in the game to a ludicrous degree

You could maybe reduce its flux use if you wanted to give it a buff but its still a very competent weapon for ships that are slot limited (and for ships that really need to eek out every last ounce of range).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SafariJohn on October 17, 2020, 07:10:41 PM
I think maybe ECM should apply straight to the enemy fleet instead of competing with their ECM. This would make ECM less of a battle-winner, but it would still shift how battles work by making long range builds relatively weaker than normal.

Hmm - that'd just effectively reduce range by 20% across the board for everything, no? At least in many, many cases.

Wouldn't it usually be 0% vs. 10% or 10% vs. 20%, or did you remove the cap increases? Even 20% reduction across the board sometimes could be interesting in its own way, I think.

RE HBI on Onslaught: I don't think it addresses the ship's core issues with flux usage and armor vs. shields.

Well, you're right about that - but those are ship features rather than ship issues! Which isn't to say that it's a perfectly balanced ship or whatever, but rather than anything that's done to balance it ought to work around these, imo.

I'm not against HBI, but I put mediums on the Onslaught's side larges mainly to save flux, not OP. If the movement AI considered turning to face its best PD towards incoming missiles instead of preemptively throwing up shields, overfluxing with more larges might be more viable.


Mark IX is fine in my book, btw. It is really effective against destroyers and up.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 17, 2020, 07:13:22 PM
Please let us have Size-7 colonies through cryosleeper!
And +1 industry when a colony reaches size-7
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 17, 2020, 07:40:18 PM
Also, to add onto the version naming talk:
If you're using "0.9.1" and "0.9" for example, as far as I recall it makes sense to show it as "0.9.0" instead of just "0.9"
Like, if you're showing iterative hotfix versions then that position should be kept as 0 if none have occured yet..

maybe im just dumb tho

Makes sense! But since it hasn't been that way, I'll just stick to how I've been doing it :)


Wouldn't it usually be 0% vs. 10% or 10% vs. 20%, or did you remove the cap increases? Even 20% reduction across the board sometimes could be interesting in its own way, I think.

Ah, right - it's now 20% max, and the max isn't affected by skill. But since Gunnery Implants gives an EW bonus when used on smaller ships, you'd get some EW in many battles. Sorry about not providing enough context :)

I'm not against HBI, but I put mediums on the Onslaught's side larges mainly to save flux, not OP. If the movement AI considered turning to face its best PD towards incoming missiles instead of preemptively throwing up shields, overfluxing with more larges might be more viable.

Not sure an Onslaught could really pull that off, turn-rate wise. But yeah, I see what you're saying. Still, I think this opens up more variety, especially if those arcs don't try to fire front and so aren't as much of a flux drain.


Please let us have Size-7 colonies through cryosleeper!
And +1 industry when a colony reaches size-7

Well, if you really want 'em, you can edit settings.json! But vanilla-wise, I don't think it makes sense. (Edit: you'd feel forced to only colonize near the cryosleeper; that'd be really bad for the game. Unless you could move the sleeper around etc, but that's a whole other separate thing.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 17, 2020, 08:29:19 PM
Do some industries have multiple options for story-point based specialization/improvement? Mutual exclusivity between options?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: bananana on October 17, 2020, 08:30:40 PM
Hmm? The patch notes talk about AI fleet composition changes.
Less top-heavy (i.e. fewer large ships), more even mix of ship classes on the high end
    Use "mercenary" type officers to augment the fleets and go above the 10 officer limit
that doesn't seem to address the problem, it only affects composition of a fleet, not the size of it
or am i not understanding something
we have that already, in "maxShipsInAIFleet", but if i set it lower it will not make fleets smaller in the late game, it will only make them to consist of the largest ships possible
i'm talking about hard restrictions of how much fleet points a fleet can possibly have, overriding any other factors(vanilla or modded).
because late game battles can take several hours real time to fight, when combined fleet points of ai fleet exceed maximum possible battle size multiple times over, it's just reinforcements after reinforcements after reinforcements over and over again, all at 10fps at best.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Schwartz on October 17, 2020, 08:32:17 PM
It is already strange that colonies can summon thousands or millions of new people out of thin air within a timespan of just a few cycles. Frankly, I get where you're coming from re: larger colonies being fun. We all want to rule the galaxy. But it won't play well with the timescale.

Also, give Conquest some love plz. Now that Onslaught stole its hullmod, it's even more of an odd-man-out.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 17, 2020, 08:51:35 PM
Do some industries have multiple options for story-point based specialization/improvement? Mutual exclusivity between options?

Search the OP for "make improvements"!

Hmm? The patch notes talk about AI fleet composition changes.
Less top-heavy (i.e. fewer large ships), more even mix of ship classes on the high end
    Use "mercenary" type officers to augment the fleets and go above the 10 officer limit
that doesn't seem to address the problem, it only affects composition of a fleet, not the size of it
or am i not understanding something
we have that already, in "maxShipsInAIFleet", but if i set it lower it will not make fleets smaller in the late game, it will only make them to consist of the largest ships possible
i'm talking about hard restrictions of how much fleet points a fleet can possibly have, overriding any other factors(vanilla or modded).
because late game battles can take several hours real time to fight, when combined fleet points of ai fleet exceed maximum possible battle size multiple times over, it's just reinforcements after reinforcements after reinforcements over and over again, all at 10fps at best.

I think you may be missing the "less top heavy" part? The max number of ships is the same but a top-end fleet will have a few capitals (along with smaller ships filling it in) and a bunch of officers rather than a *ton* of capitals and a few token something-elses.

This also reminds me - I may have toned down the number of fleets in the high-end expeditions, but it didn't make it into the patch notes. I seem to remember making some changes with these; will have to have another look.

(Edit: just to be clear, we're very much on the same page as far as what you're describing not being good.)

Also, give Conquest some love plz. Now that Onslaught stole its hullmod, it's even more of an odd-man-out.

Hmm, I think the Conquest is already pretty great, so I'm not so sure about that!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 17, 2020, 09:00:49 PM
Re: Mark IX
If I do not need 900 range, I prefer Heavy Needler over Mark IX because of efficiency.  Heavy Ballistics Integration is the only reason why I put Mark IX on Conquest.  Otherwise, I would use more Heavy Needlers.  In case of Onslaught, I usually put Heavy Needler in the center heavy because of accuracy and efficiency.  (On the other hand, four heavy needlers firing at once is a huge flux spike that can self-destructive.)

I would not mind Mark IX being a bit more efficient.  (Aside from that, Mark IX gets the job done.)  Arbalest is efficient for a cheap 8 OP weapon.  Unlike small and medium in which autocannons have superior competitors, there is no heavy kinetic upgrade better than Mark IX.  Gauss is too slow and inefficient, and Storm Needler has terrible range (at 700) for its size.  If I need a simple medium range kinetic in a heavy mount, either Heavy Needler (medium weapon!) or Mark IX are it.

Speaking of Arbalest, with 7 OP light needlers, I might shove them in medium mounts instead of Arbalests.  (I mount railguns instead of arbalests sometimes.)  1 more OP to spend may be worth more than steady anti-shield suppression.

It is already strange that colonies can summon thousands or millions of new people out of thin air within a timespan of just a few cycles. Frankly, I get where you're coming from re: larger colonies being fun. We all want to rule the galaxy. But it won't play well with the timescale.
It would be nice if player could start a colony at size 4 (instead of 3) if player somehow brought more than 10k crew with him.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Histidine on October 17, 2020, 10:00:04 PM
Hmm? The patch notes talk about AI fleet composition changes.
Less top-heavy (i.e. fewer large ships), more even mix of ship classes on the high end
    Use "mercenary" type officers to augment the fleets and go above the 10 officer limit
that doesn't seem to address the problem, it only affects composition of a fleet, not the size of it
or am i not understanding something
we have that already, in "maxShipsInAIFleet", but if i set it lower it will not make fleets smaller in the late game, it will only make them to consist of the largest ships possible
i'm talking about hard restrictions of how much fleet points a fleet can possibly have, overriding any other factors(vanilla or modded).
because late game battles can take several hours real time to fight, when combined fleet points of ai fleet exceed maximum possible battle size multiple times over, it's just reinforcements after reinforcements after reinforcements over and over again, all at 10fps at best.

I think you may be missing the "less top heavy" part? The max number of ships is the same but a top-end fleet will have a few capitals (along with smaller ships filling it in) and a bunch of officers rather than a *ton* of capitals and a few token something-elses.

This also reminds me - I may have toned down the number of fleets in the high-end expeditions, but it didn't make it into the patch notes. I seem to remember making some changes with these; will have to have another look.

(Edit: just to be clear, we're very much on the same page as far as what you're describing not being good.)
I think the only vanilla fleets that are clearly oversized are some of the pirate distress call ambushes* (like three fleets of 8-10 capitals + support each) and possibly pirate raids from max level bases. (EDIT: also level >10 person bounties)
 
If mods are making fleets with excessive FP, that's either necessary for the desired function or an issue with the mod.

*possibly due to the fleets being spawned with the fleet size multiplier of the nearest pirate market?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: TaLaR on October 17, 2020, 10:35:20 PM
Mhh, is there even enough difference left between "moving slowly" and "going dark" to warrant them being separate options? Seems like turning off your transponder and moving slowly archives almost the same thing as going dark. Minus the 50% detection range reduction, which could just be added to moving slowly.

I just had the though that it might be cool if only "go dark" would extend the phase field of phase ships around the entire fleet (and more effectively), but it would cost them CR at a slow rate. So without phase ships in your fleet there would be no "go dark" option and "move slowly" would take over that function.

"Go dark" is a bit easier to use for a longer period, just usability-wise, and it auto-toggles the transponder off, so that's more convenient, too. "Move slowly" is more of a thing you do intermittently. Still, I get what you're saying, hmm.


Could "Move slowly" be an automated additional stance on top of normal move/sustained burn? When you enter asteroid field/etc it activates, but otherwise you move at speed of other stance.
I mean there seems to be absolutely no reason to use "Move slowly" in clear space, and constantly triggering it on/off can get very annoying (to the point that I'm likely ignore it and just eat asteroid hits if penalty is not too bad).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 18, 2020, 02:35:17 AM
Anyone here believe that medium ballistic weapons which cost 8 OP or less need to be readjusted now that railguns are now 8 OP? Do their OP costs and performance need to be increased? Or it is fine for medium weapons to cost less OP than a light weapon?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on October 18, 2020, 02:58:50 AM
I don't see why would that be a problem. Even before we had Needlers at 9 OP while Heavy mortar costs 7. That way you have some useful cheap options without having to downsize mounts. I think it's fine for the game to have budget and super elite options for each mount size. Otherwise you'd just be seeing Needlera in almost every medium slot.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on October 18, 2020, 02:59:27 AM
Quote
Nanoforges: add Pollution when installed; becomes permanent after three months
Is this going to be permanent as in absolutely final, or will you be able to 'upgrade' to a better version of the same thing later?

Hmm, I don't quite understand the question. The Pollution condition will be permanent and nothing removes it, if that's what you're asking.

Wait. Is this the pollution being being made permanent?
I read that as the nanoforge getting 'locked' in place and thus becoming permanent, and was slightly concerned that this might introduce 'gamey' behaviour regarding never using 'inferior' versions of things.

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on October 18, 2020, 03:07:48 AM
Whew! That's some nice patch notes you got there!

Obvious excitement about the new story and ship/weapon content aside, I am really looking forwards to

1)Improved AI behaviour. Having the AI handle itself better and better every patch would provide us with what I think is a much needed difficulty and quality of life bump at the same time. I am looking forward to my aggressive ships to boost into the enemy with even less abandon also  ;)

2)The much needed carrier spam has finally arrived. Not only we got notoriously overperforming carriers like Drover and Astral dialed back but we also have reinforced deck crew Rebalanced and the most cancer inducing fighter in the game actually cut down to serve it's intended role. Bravo!

I've only got back to being active on the forum for a month but I could easily spot changes done out of suggestions and discussions we had. The thread about the Gladius resulting in buffing both Gladius and Warthog, the thread about armor resulting in the Heavy Armor modspec being buffed and I could go on! I am so glad you guys value direct feedback from a loving community as much as you do. I am probably buying Starsector to some of my friends this Christmas!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on October 18, 2020, 03:33:02 AM
...

Speaking of expeditions, "interesting event that you interact with" just sounds like "annually mandatory babysitting session" to me, honestly. And like it'd limit playstyle because if I have to intervene with my own fleet I'd pretty much be on a timer to amass a final endgame doomfleet whenever I put my first colony down.
...

I've read things like this a lot while lurking in these forums and i still don't understand it. In some of my playthroughs i've started colonizing as soon as half a year into the game and even then i've never found expeditions to be a problem. When fighting them myself i've usually found them to be underwhelming and by the time they might get bigger the colonies tend to be defended enough that they don't even need me.
Maybe they become a problem once they send multiple "very strong" fleets but in my experience they're not in any kind of a hurry to do that. Maybe they will eventually if you keep playing but by that time you'd have all the ships you want in your own fleet anyway.

Now the first pirate fleet, that appears to be scripted to be sent within a few months and tends to be a lot bigger than the ones that spawn from bases afterwards, *that* can be a challenge if you rushed for colonies.
In the current version of the game they're indeed not a problem (aside from making the other factions seem incredibly selfish, suicidal and petty, maybe). But with the upcoming changes I'm afraid of them becoming a problem, if not directly than because of another change indirectly resulting in them being harder to deal with. For example, if the profitability nerfs make it so you just cannot afford to build up colony defences in time they might end up becoming an issue. Of course that specific example I don't think will be an issue, since it should be easily countered by the increased profitability of weapon sales and available work through contacts. But something else unexpected might crop up.

In my experience the scripted pirate base that always spawns and very quickly sends a fleet your way is always a mere level 1 base, even a fledging colony can handle a -1/-10% raid...though they'll start at level 2 in the upcoming patch, and a -2/-30% base will send 2.5× bigger fleets, so...yeah. Anyway the issue isn't -1/-10% bases, it's the existing -3/-50% bases randomly deciding to raid your colonies long before you're ready to handle the fleets they send.

Speaking of expeditions, "interesting event that you interact with" just sounds like "annually mandatory babysitting session" to me, honestly.

Eh, that really depends. I mean, I get where you're coming from, but e.g. (numbers totally made up) if an expedition comes once every ten cycles and is a huge problem you have to scramble to deal with, then that's going to feel differently than a drop-feed of weaker stuff every couple of months. So it's definitely a thing where how much of it there is and what it does/what kind of response it requires changes it qualitatively.

Basically, I'm worried about colonies being overly nerfed in terms of them becoming a permanent ball and chain for the player

Like I said, fair concern, but per my previous response, I think it'll be ok. And if not, it'll need tuning!

(I don't think the item restrictions are *that* punishing, that is, you should be able to find a planet that you can use any given item on without too much trouble. An optimal one is another question, but that's already the case...)
True. And honestly the "fewer, but more problematic" angle would probably work better in a "the universe actually makes sense" sort of way, because honestly I'm not sure why the various factions repeatedly send these massive doomfleets to die against the vastly superior defence fleets and (Alpha Cored) star fortresses that they died on the last many times they tried. Especially instead of protecting their own colonies against the many pirates that raid them into decivilizing. To name one particularly egregious example, in one save I've got...four or five size 10 colonies (good system Cryosleeper ;D) each with an Alpha Core admin, Alpha Core star fortress, Alpha Core military base (high command in one case), Alpha Core heavy batteries and Alpha Core Red Planet Device. You'd think the factions would learn that sending two fleets is not going to stop me from cutting into their ore export, and yet...

If the option remains to bribe off these fleets, either with money or with favors, that'll also help. Just in case I get caught unprepared (I...might have a bad tendency to cut the defence budget in favor of more growth sometimes ::)) or really don't want to bother right that moment. Especially now that building up faction relationships should be easier with contacts (before like 99% of all mission only boosted the Independents) it'll be easier to grease the wheels with something other than a giant pile of...recycled pirate fleets whenever a system bounty pops up.

And yes, however the situation will end up actually playing out ingame it'll probably need and get tuned afterwards. Given the number of changes and especially completely new/overhauled features I'm fully expecting a few patches to fix the inevitable mistakes. And they'll be great fun to try out.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: pairedeciseaux on October 18, 2020, 05:42:15 AM
Jumping into the Mark IX (and Onslaught) side discussion: Mark IX Autocannon is in a good place, IMO.

Spoiler
Basically it is a large size Heavy Autocannon. What they have in common:
  • Both shoots a volley of projectiles with no charge-up delay and with the same projectile speed.
  • Both provide sustained kinetic pressure, whereas Heavy Needler provides strong kinetic bursts.
  • Per-projectile damage is mid-range compared to other kinetic weapons of the same size, neither high nor low. This tends to not only damage shields, but also slowly strip armors and hulls.

What is different:
  • Mark IX Autocannon has faster turn rate: 10 vs 7. It does matter on Onslaught.
  • Mark IX Autocannon shoots 4 projectiles per volley vs 3 for HAC.
  • Mark IX Autocannon has much higher per-projectile damage: 200 vs 100, so higher armor stripping power and longer shield overload duration.
  • So the per-volley shield damage is 1600 vs 600 (if all projectiles hit).
  • Mark IX Autocannon has longer range: with ITU on capitals, that’s 1440 vs 1280, 160 more, so Mark IX will always fire at least one volley before HAC fires its first volley.
  • Mark IX Autocannon has better accuracy and it shoots its 4 projectiles in a tighter time frame, so better effective DPS against small/moving targets.
  • Mark IX Autocannon has a longer overall volley re-fire delay: 2.3 seconds vs 1.4, which is a drawback (but not as bad as with Heavy Needlers). I still consider this to be sustained fire, especially when shot at long range.
  • Mark IX Autocannon delivers 348 DPS vs 214 (if all projectiles hit).
  • Mark IX Autocannon has a 230 per-projectile flux cost, HAC has 100.

Considering Mark IX is 18 OP and HAC is 10, I would say we got a decent deal. You could reduce the per-projectile flux cost to, say, 220, but I suspect it would not really matter in the end. Hmm, and/or maybe raise the per-projectile flux cost of HAC to 110. :)

On Onslaught, my typical load-out has: 1 Mark IX Autocannon in the center and 2 Heavy Autocannons in the front side. This never disappoints. Both gun types work well-enough together. This way the Mark IX provides superior kinetic front range (which I consider important on this ship) and good overall kinetic effectiveness.

On Conquest, my typical load-out has: Mark IX Autocannons in the front large ballistic slots on both sides, and Heavy Autocannons in the next medium ballistic slots on both sides.

On Dominator I often use either a pair of Mark IX Autocannons in large slots together with medium HE guns in the medium slots, or a pair of Heavy Autocannons in the medium slots together with large HE guns in the large slots. Sometimes I mix 1 Mark IX Autocannon with another large gun, and a least 1 Heavy Autocannon.

Same general approach on Legion as on Dominator.

(notice I did not mention using Heavy Needler on any of those ships)

My points being,
  • overall Mark IX and HAC serve the same purpose in a similar way
  • Mark IX has clear performance advantages compared to HAC, and some downsides too
  • needlers are entirely different beasts.
[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on October 18, 2020, 06:37:51 AM
I don't get how you not using Needlers on those shipa proves anything. You also said you don't use flaks on Dominator medium slots so I'm taking it all with a grain of salt. And yes obviously Mark IX is stronger than the HAC, if it wasn't, something would be very wrong. Now you listed all of the differences but forgot the most important one, losing efficiency (aren't large weapons supposed to be efficient anyways?). So you get a choice like this: Use a weapon with better sustained damage and better shot/dmg and worse everything, or the opposite which is cheaper than the first.

Again, it's not a bad weapon, but it shouldn't have 1.15 efficiency for its performance.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 18, 2020, 06:47:44 AM
...
In my experience the scripted pirate base that always spawns and very quickly sends a fleet your way is always a mere level 1 base, even a fledging colony can handle a -1/-10% raid...though they'll start at level 2 in the upcoming patch, and a -2/-30% base will send 2.5× bigger fleets, so...yeah. Anyway the issue isn't -1/-10% bases, it's the existing -3/-50% bases randomly deciding to raid your colonies long before you're ready to handle the fleets they send.
...

The base is always a small one indeed, at least afaik. But the first fleet it spawns/that gets spawned along with it seems to be independant from that base and/or the normal rules.
I haven't done *that* many playthroughs, but in my experience that scripted fleet usually comes with multiple capitals (5+ iirc) and decent support fleets, while the "normal" fleets for a freshly spawned base like that have maybe 2 or 3 plus weak support fleets.
If you rushed hard enough that you only have a handful of combat ships with maybe 1 or 2 cruisers at the higher end that can still pose a real problem. Especially if the fleets arrive a few weeks *before* you're able to complete an orbital station, as it tends to do more often than not.

Luckily it's not the end of the world even if you get raided though. For that reason i don't think it's a problem if a -3 base randomly switches to your system either, since that's pretty rare in the first place.

As for the original point, about expedition forces and them maybe becoming stronger (relative to the colonies). Could be that that happens, and could be that they become so strong it's too much, but i don't really fear it from reading the various changes. So i guess we'll have to wait and see on that one. (Also remember that playtesting doesn't even seem to have started yet)


...
FWIW, what you're describing sounds exactly right to me. If I had to guess, I think there's a tendency to gloss over this interval - which probably makes up for most of the playthroughs for many players - because it's not a "stable end state", if that makes sense. Which, I mean, fair enough on that count, but also a grain of salt.
...

Ah yeah makes sense. I think i've only done one playthrough where i played for 15 years or so, and probably colonized pretty late on that one, because there isn't enough "endgame" to keep things interesting/challenging once you start running multiple capitals (plus fully fleshed out support fleet/maxed officers/etc) imo. So might be that i've only dipped my toe in that "stable end state", or never even seen it yet.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 18, 2020, 07:13:25 AM
Again, it's not a bad weapon, but it shouldn't have 1.15 efficiency for its performance.
If there will not be an elite medium-range heavy kinetic, I agree.  With small, we have light needler and railgun.  With medium, we have heavy needler.  With heavy, we have... nothing.  Closest Mark IX has to a useful medium-range alternative is downsizing to Heavy Needler.

If there will be a new heavy kinetic, or Storm Needler upgraded to 800+ range (why is Heavy Needler the only needler with 800 range), then Mark IX being mildly inefficient may not be a problem.

Quote
If the option remains to bribe off these fleets, either with money or with favors, that'll also help. Just in case I get caught unprepared (I...might have a bad tendency to cut the defence budget in favor of more growth sometimes ::)) or really don't want to bother right that moment. Especially now that building up faction relationships should be easier with contacts (before like 99% of all mission only boosted the Independents) it'll be easier to grease the wheels with something other than a giant pile of...recycled pirate fleets whenever a system bounty pops up.
Patch notes says story points will be required for bribes (that I like to call extortion payments).  Urge to kill all of the core worlds rising!

It is stupid that the "massive doomfleets" sent to invade your systems are bigger or stronger than their system defense fleets.  It should not be easier to destroy Chicomoztoc (or other major faction's capital world) and the rest of their worlds than it is to defend my colonies.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: ArkAngel on October 18, 2020, 07:41:25 AM
It is stupid that the "massive doomfleets" sent to invade your systems are bigger or stronger than their system defense fleets.  It should not be easier to destroy Chicomoztoc (or other major faction's capital world) and the rest of their worlds than it is to defend my colonies.
I mean it makes sense if you think about it. For the doomfleet task forces, they take a bit to prepare and bring together ships from where they need to across the faction. Where as, ships defending there territory are just garrisons. I can’t help but think of the Mayasura story mission.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 18, 2020, 07:58:53 AM
It is stupid that the "massive doomfleets" sent to invade your systems are bigger or stronger than their system defense fleets.  It should not be easier to destroy Chicomoztoc (or other major faction's capital world) and the rest of their worlds than it is to defend my colonies.
I mean it makes sense if you think about it. For the doomfleet task forces, they take a bit to prepare and bring together ships from where they need to across the faction. Where as, ships defending there territory are just garrisons. I can’t help but think of the Mayasura story mission.
It may make sense, but it is unsatisfying for gameplay.  My first priority is to amass enough military strength so that my colonies can take care of themselves and my fleet can be free to do fun things like explore and do quests (or raid enemies like Ordos) instead of being forced to babysit my colonies for an extended period of time.  By the time my system defenses are strong enough, killing all of the core worlds becomes trivial.

Some of those doomfleets ought to be sent to pirate bases and their mortal enemies too.

The strongest named bounties too are overpowered compared to core worlds' system defenses.  If the player's fleet can smash the strongest bounties, that same fleet can sneeze on the core worlds and they all burn down.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: TheDTYP on October 18, 2020, 08:05:28 AM
The lore junkie in me is positively losing his mind right now...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on October 18, 2020, 08:35:29 AM
As for the planet size, I think it's unfortunate that your colonies will never be as large as the core world ones. Probably doesn't matter for gameplay, but it feels bad.

That's quite subjective, so: fair enough! I just don't think it makes in-fiction sense.

And for that reason, I, for one, wholeheartedly approve of the switch to smaller player colonies. It never made sense to me that you could reach population sizes within a few cycles that took other factions over 200 cycles to accomplish. If it were me, colonies would also start smaller and slower - not with a spaceport and "population&infrastructure" but with landing pads and homesteads.


Mining stations have a chance to drop a very large quantity of low-value commodities

Speaking of, are there any plans to make mining stations (or other non colony-bound stations) available to the player? There is no real reason I can see why they apparently were a common thing in the Sector before the fall and now fell completely out of use. (Giving some (hint of a ) reason in game would also be fine.)


Some of those doomfleets ought to be sent to pirate bases and their mortal enemies too.

That would do a lot for the believability of the world! And it would be a great opportunity for the player to experience a grand battle early on. Maybe even by joining as a mercenary.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on October 18, 2020, 09:06:39 AM
Patch notes says story points will be required for bribes (that I like to call extortion payments).  Urge to kill all of the core worlds rising!
Eh...hopefully once colonies are set up and matured they'll be able to take care of themselves, but if not that's definitely going to result in me hoarding story points at that point in the game. I can't rely on a steady stream of xp to refresh them if I'm out exploring and happen to hit a dry streak, so I either have them on hand or I risk getting called off to go defend the homestead. And with five factions able to send expeditions, two factions determined to burn every (player owned) Free Port down to the ground and one faction needlessly concerned about AI core use...that's a lot of potential trouble that can crop up when I could be flying around in the other side of the sector.

Not sure why bribing punitive expeditions should cost a storypoint anyway. Hegemony AI inspections, absolutely, the ability to just pay them off really flies in the face of an interstellar corporation being unable to avoid multiple wars over them. Punitive expeditions, to me, always seemed like a bunch of private interests within a faction getting uppity over their bottom line getting cut, so I don't see what would be so hard about paying them off. Especially when the last ten times they tried they just died horribly to my system defence fleets and Alpha Cored star fortress.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Tempest on October 18, 2020, 09:07:06 AM
Number of recoverable ships shown not limited by maximum number of ships in player fleet
Yay!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: pairedeciseaux on October 18, 2020, 10:37:24 AM
(followup on the Mark IX discussion)

Now you listed all of the differences but forgot the most important one, losing efficiency

Thanks for reviewing and sharing your opinion. Below is a longish answer about "efficiency", under spoiler in an attempt to keep things tidy.
Spoiler
Well, you should probably first define "efficiency". Efficiency at damaging target's shield is meaningful, because flux used on the shooting end also builds flux on the receiving end. Efficiency at damaging armor/hull? Meaning comparing flux used to destroy X amount of armor/hull. Now this is getting quite abstract, though sure, you want the highest damage for the lowest flux cost. Right?

How you do achieve the highest damage at the lowest flux cost can not be extracted from a simple ratio built from (theoretical) damage and flux stats. That's why I highlighted some important stuff like turn rate, damage per volley, range, accuracy, volley time frame, and volley refire delay differences.

About (theoretical) damage and flux stats, let me show you, here:
Mark IX Autocannon has much higher per-projectile damage: 200 vs 100, so higher armor stripping power and longer shield overload duration.
Mark IX Autocannon has a 230 per-projectile flux cost, HAC has 100.

We have 200/230 for Mark IX vs 100/100 for HAC. Is it important? Yes. The most important? I don't think so. One should not ignore the other characteristics. Honestly I think this "theoretical weapon efficiency" is often overrated. And overall ship stats and actual battle situations will often (always?) make a bigger difference than single-weapon "theoretical efficiency".

(aren't large weapons supposed to be efficient anyways?).

Uhh. Is this written somewhere? I mean, sure, all 3 large HE guns are "efficient" (to various degrees, and one should be careful which definition of "efficient" he uses there). Should that apply to kinetic gun? I personally do not expect that.  :)

What I would expect: the energy cost of pumping out heavier and faster projectiles is higher than the cost for lighter and slower projectiles. And I would also expect volley / burst of projectiles to affect the energy cost one way or the other depending on design.

Again, it's not a bad weapon, but it shouldn't have 1.15 efficiency for its performance.

1.15? Ok, I see you use flux/damage. Let's use damage/flux,

Gauss has 0.58
HVD has 0.79
( Mjolnir has 0.8 )
Mark IX has 0.87
( Heavy Mauler has 0.89 )
HAC has 1
( Hellbore has 1 )
( Hephaestus has 1 )
( Railgun has 1.11 )
Storm Needler has 1.15
Arbalest has 1.25
( Light Needler has 1.25 )
Heavy Needler has 1.25
( Devastator has 2 )
HMG has 2.67

What does this magic number tells you about gun intended use and actual performance? Not much. In fact, if you are interested in theoretical efficiency at dealing with target's shield, you could use (damage*2)/flux for kinetic guns. But even then, it would be far from telling the whole story.

And putting side by side kinetic / HE /energy guns as I've done above is not a good idea because one can't compare the ratio from, say, a Mark IX and an Hephaestus. Doing so would be meaningless without a narrowed scope. Using a narrowed scope such as theoretical efficiency at dealing with target's shield, you may use (damage*2)/flux for Mark IX and damage/(flux*2) for Hephaestus. But... was the effort really necessary?

(don't get me started about comparing Hephaestus and Hellbore performance through such "efficiency" ratios)
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Which brings me to this humble conclusion: generally speaking, theoretical weapon efficiency is not that interesting.

If there will be a new heavy kinetic, or Storm Needler upgraded to 800+ range (why is Heavy Needler the only needler with 800 range), then Mark IX being mildly inefficient may not be a problem.

I would argue having currently 800 range on Heavy Needler is a problem given the overall package. 700-range for 14 OP would be a better / more natural fit, IMO. Needlers bringing kinetic hell at 700 range is already quite effective, and requires the ship to be committed. It seems to be an adequate risk/reward compromise.

800 range on the medium version just looks like an oversight from the last update (when Light Needlers got down to 700 from 800). Otherwise IMO the per-projectile flux cost should be tweaked to balance the higher range if it stays at 800.
Spoiler
For example using 45 instead of 40, which would bring down "efficiency" to 1.11.
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Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on October 18, 2020, 11:23:49 AM
I find damage/flux to be more natural, but flux/damage is how its listed in game so I've gotten used to it. Mk IX discussion:
Spoiler
For damaging shields, a HN gives 43.75% more damage for the same flux invested, assuming all Mk IX and all HN shots hit*. There is a DPS penalty (250 vs 350), but that can be overcome by using more mounts. In terms of lowering enemy shields while not driving up the firing ship's flux, its shockingly better.

The Mk IX's anti-hull performance once armor is down is pretty good and a real mark in its favor. In the current version unfortunately it does not work against skilled opponents because of the +150 base armor and -damage to armor from kinetics skill combo. If those skills are gone or toned down, the Mk IX gains a lot of utility in its secondary role!

*I want to collect some data on real world accuracy of Mk IX/HN/HAC etc from campaign, because the assumption of "all shots hit" is a really really bad one. I suspect that Mk IX's miss a lot of shots from my experience, but I don't want to include that in a numbers argument without taking data.
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Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on October 18, 2020, 11:33:35 AM
Yea I'm also not a fan of throwing stats like crazy when you calculate on the assumption that every shot hits on an inaccurate weapon. Sure if you're fighting stations 24/7. And I'd also be super interested to see what percentage of shots usually hits.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on October 18, 2020, 11:40:50 AM
Now you listed all of the differences but forgot the most important one, losing efficiency

No I talked about efficiency. The mark IX isn’t an inefficient weapon. It isn’t as efficient as some other weapons. But it’s still efficient.

EG. Mark IX Vs Shield is 1.74 dmg/flux(.575 f/d). HN is 2.5(.4 f/d) Vs 50 armor (minimum armor for 1k armor ship) a mark IX is .58 dmg/flux(1.72 f/d) and a HN is .41 dmg/flux(2.43 f/d). Vs 200 armor it’s .29 dmg/flux (3.44 f/d) for the mark IX Vs .1875(5.4 f/d). Which makes the mark IX much more efficient Vs hull. Almost 60% more efficient Vs skilled hull!

If I have infinite slots and OP then the HN wins out because I don’t care about it’s hull/armor performance.  But if I do not have infinite slots and OP then the mark IX stops doing minimum armor dmg at 566 armor while the HN stops doing minimum armor damage at 141.

And the Mark IX still shoots earlier and still does more DPS/OP. And these things matter just as much, or more, than it’s shield efficiency numbers because the mark IX is still efficient enough where you want to trade all your flux as fast as you can into their shields. And once you do that the dmg/armor and dmg/hull matters a lot more.

 Think of it like a more efficient HVD rather than an HA. The HVD is a great medium kinetic but it only does 1.06 dmg/OP at .78 dmg/flux while the Mark IX is doing 19.3 DPS/OP at .85 dmg/flux.

Re: dominator. I usually leave the smalls for PD because IPDAI Vulcans are sufficient. But if I was making a non-SO dominator and had flack in the mediums I sure as heck would run mark IX in the larges.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 18, 2020, 11:44:20 AM
Wait. Is this the pollution being being made permanent?
I read that as the nanoforge getting 'locked' in place and thus becoming permanent, and was slightly concerned that this might introduce 'gamey' behaviour regarding never using 'inferior' versions of things.

Yeah, it's pollution being permanent! Now this makes sense. And, yeah, totally agree re: incentivizing swapping etc being bad. (In particular, swapping a nanoforge out temporarily won't help avoid pollution, since it's based on the total time spent with one, not consecutive days.)

1)Improved AI behaviour. Having the AI handle itself better and better every patch would provide us with what I think is a much needed difficulty and quality of life bump at the same time. I am looking forward to my aggressive ships to boost into the enemy with even less abandon also  ;)

I'm pretty excited about the AI improvements myself, if we're being honest :) I think it also finally puts a nail into some of the most annoying things it could do (re: having to wait out phase ships, and chasing down the last remnant frigate or two); that always makes me cringe when I see it happen on stream or in a video.


I've only got back to being active on the forum for a month but I could easily spot changes done out of suggestions and discussions we had. The thread about the Gladius resulting in buffing both Gladius and Warthog, the thread about armor resulting in the Heavy Armor modspec being buffed and I could go on! I am so glad you guys value direct feedback from a loving community as much as you do. I am probably buying Starsector to some of my friends this Christmas!

Thank you! I'm grateful for all the feedback and the thought and time that goes into it. (I mean, still gotta make my own judgment calls about what to act on and not, what there's time for, which things fit together well and so on, but the feedback is invaluable nonetheless.)

To name one particularly egregious example, in one save I've got...four or five size 10 colonies (good system Cryosleeper ;D) each with an Alpha Core admin, Alpha Core star fortress, Alpha Core military base (high command in one case), Alpha Core heavy batteries and Alpha Core Red Planet Device. You'd think the factions would learn that sending two fleets is not going to stop me from cutting into their ore export, and yet...

To look at it from another perspective, this is part of the problem with super large colonies etc - really, everything kind of breaks down when you get to that point, both in-fiction logic and mechanics-wise.

And yes, however the situation will end up actually playing out ingame it'll probably need and get tuned afterwards. Given the number of changes and especially completely new/overhauled features I'm fully expecting a few patches to fix the inevitable mistakes. And they'll be great fun to try out.

Indeed, I'd imagine so. And, thank you!


Re: Mark IX - right now, I'm thinking about making it 1.0 flux efficient. I don't think accuracy is a good thing to buff since with its relatively high per-shot damage, it'd be too punishing vs frigates.


Ah yeah makes sense. I think i've only done one playthrough where i played for 15 years or so, and probably colonized pretty late on that one, because there isn't enough "endgame" to keep things interesting/challenging once you start running multiple capitals (plus fully fleshed out support fleet/maxed officers/etc) imo. So might be that i've only dipped my toe in that "stable end state", or never even seen it yet.

Gotcha, yeah. And very much agree on not enough being there at that point; that entire state is a rough edge that will eventually connect to the proper endgame.



The lore junkie in me is positively losing his mind right now...

You've seen David's tweet about having written a novel's worth of text for this update, yeah? And, I have to say - with as much objectivity as I can muster - his writing is *so good*.


If it were me, colonies would also start smaller and slower - not with a spaceport and "population&infrastructure" but with landing pads and homesteads.

Hmm, you know, I rather like that concept. Needs a lot of details etc, bu just starting out as a "size 2" colony or something (maybe even size 1), and then needing to do... something, to make it grow beyond that - and then once at size 3, it takes off on its own. That could be quite cool.


Mining stations have a chance to drop a very large quantity of low-value commodities

Speaking of, are there any plans to make mining stations (or other non colony-bound stations) available to the player? There is no real reason I can see why they apparently were a common thing in the Sector before the fall and now fell completely out of use. (Giving some (hint of a ) reason in game would also be fine.)

Hmm. Well, it seems a bit... I don't know. I guess both a bit redundant (there's plenty of planets!) and complicated (where can you put a good mining station? how does it roll Ore conditions? how do you know ahead of time what the conditions will be? where/how can you build them? Etc). But there's also a "this would be cool" aspect to it which might make it worthwhile regardless, but... there's just a lot that would have to happen to make it work.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on October 18, 2020, 11:44:41 AM
Think of it like a more efficient HVD rather than an HA. The HVD is a great medium kinetic but it only does 1.06 dmg/OP at .78 dmg/flux while the Mark IX is doing 19.3 DPS/OP at .85 dmg/flux.
Right, both weapons are pinpoint accurate, right. Totally same comparison. Both weapons have average range for their size. Both weapons deal bonus EMP damage. I can go forever.

Anyways so far I haven't seen a single argument on why it's actually a good weapon, without the person ignoring one crucial thing about it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on October 18, 2020, 11:53:08 AM
The last time I used an Onslaught it was outfitted with triple devastator cannons and heavy needlers (or Haves, can't remember), plus a reckless officer of course. Point blank firing Devastators in the face of the enemy felt really good and is bound to be even more rewarding in the coming patch. People often misuse that Heavy mount but fail to consider the fact that it has comparable DPS and higher damage per shot than a Hephaestus without even half of the shots nailing the target.

The Mk.9 autocannon is quite good too, I just like having a devastator at the front too really. What I just don't appreciate about the onslaught is how those 4 medium missile slots are rarely fully used given how short on flux the ship is and how much OP it requires to install everything.

Imagine, the Onslaught could even become decent enough to even warrant the XIV variant to cost a bit more FP to deploy. That is something I never understood about XIV variants, why they don't cost something like 10% more the standard variant.

Heavy Armament Integration is going to solve a lot of issues that plagued the Onslaught for my entire, year and a half knowledge about it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on October 18, 2020, 11:57:39 AM
You've seen David's tweet about having written a novel's worth of text for this update, yeah? And, I have to say - with as much objectivity as I can muster - his writing is *so good*.
Just out of curiosity, any chance of getting a(n estimated) word count?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 18, 2020, 12:02:44 PM
Well, "novel length" is indeed an estimated word count, so yes :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on October 18, 2020, 12:06:01 PM
Think of it like a more efficient HVD rather than an HA. The HVD is a great medium kinetic but it only does 1.06 dmg/OP at .78 dmg/flux while the Mark IX is doing 19.3 DPS/OP at .85 dmg/flux.
Right, both weapons are pinpoint accurate, right. Totally same comparison. Both weapons have average range for their size. Both weapons deal bonus EMP damage. I can go forever.

Anyways so far I haven't seen a single argument on why it's actually a good weapon, without the person ignoring one crucial thing about it.

I mean... Vs shields it’s accuracy doesn’t matter all that much. Maybe it could use some recoil reductions. Vs armor it does but eh. It’s so much more efficient Vs armor this isn’t a huge thing.

As an example let’s take two HNs Vs two Mark IX and see who breaks Shield first. The HNs do 1000 dmg to shield and use 400 flux/second. The mark IX do 1396 dmg to shield and use 800 flux/second. This puts the HN at 1796 flux incoming and the mark IX at 1800 flux incoming. We note that this is almost identical(the mark IX does use more OP but also has longer range and so starts shooting earlier). The weapon that is almost 44% “more efficient” vs shields only beats the less efficient weapon by .2% in net flux. 1800/1796 = 1.0022! (This does matter more when shooting at better shields but not ever shield approaches close to .5 flux/dmg.)

“But the HN is super more efficient!” You say. And that only matters if we’re shooting exactly at (or under but close to) our flux dissipation... which we don’t want to be doing, we want to be shooting over our flux dissipation with both of these guns. And we want to be shooting as much over as we can in general with both of those guns

And adding slots here doesn’t change the relationship. They’re both just about as good Vs shields as each other. Despite one being a hell of a lot less efficient, simply because it does more dmg.

Edit: I am not saying that accuracy doesn’t matter. What I am saying is that the mark IX is a lot better than you give it credit for and that it really is a good gun. What it loses in accuracy it makes up for in range and raw dmg slot/OP. It is not dominated by HN.

Edit: and while I tend to fit HNs in “slot unlimited” situations it’s not because I would not prefer mark IX. It’s because I actually am slot limited because I cannot fit mark IX in the medium slots and I am using the large slots for HE.

Edit: alex if you move mark IX to 1.0 efficiency please do so by lowering flux use and not by increasing DPS. If you increase DPS the mark IX will be obscene. If you lower flux it will merely be exceptional
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: zeno on October 18, 2020, 12:21:57 PM
Quote
Onslaught:
  • Reduced arc of side-facing large turrets
  • Added built-in Heavy Ballistics Integration

  • Shield Conversion - Omni: significantly reduced OP cost
  • Added Breach SRM (small) and Breach SRM Pod (medium), a new anti-armor missile
  • Medium version has high ammo, small version is extremely cheap
  • Heavy Armor: reduced maneuver penalty to 10%, moderately increased armor bonus
  • Fixed issue that would cause weapons turning towards a target to fire too early sometimes, missing the first volley

WHY CAN'T I HOLD ALL THESE ONSLAUGHT BUFFS

Quote
  • Emergency Burn no longer makes the fleet ignore terrain penalties
Does this means there's now no way to protect the fleet against CR degradation caused by terrain?  Also how does this affect fleet maneuverability in terrains that pushes/pulls the fleet (namely pulsar and black holes)?  They're extremely difficult to navigate without E-Burn cancelling out the external forces, without that it might be close to impossible to escape an event horizon without losing basically all supplies.  And if that's the case, Research Stations within event horizons will likely never get salvaged.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 18, 2020, 12:28:20 PM
If I want to compare a heavy kinetic with HVD, I would use Gauss Cannon, not Mark IX.  Mark IX is clearly an autocannon relative for the heavy mount.  I do not use HVDs on anything that is not a dedicated sniper because it lacks damage and efficiency, not to mention that HVD fires slowly enough for AI to shield flicker against it.

Nice that Alex is considering better efficiency for Mark IX.  Low accuracy is a bit annoying, but not a deal-breaker, especially if the ship has improved accuracy from Gunnery Implants.  If Heavy Ballistics Integration is on the ship (which Onslaught will get), it is hard to say no to Mark IX (instead of getting Heavy Needlers) because 8 OP is much cheaper than 15.

As for Devastator for Onslaught, I use it mainly for anti-frigate and anti-destroyer.  It also supplements flak cannons at times.  Dual flak in the deep middle mounts (next to missile mounts) seem to take care of most missile threats at the side (even if interception is uncomfortably close), which lets Onslaught have some anti-armor in the side heavy mounts against flankers.

I avoid HAG on Onslaught because it costs too much flux per second, and Onslaught has TPCs.  HAG/Mjolnir gets used on other ships like Conquest or Legion.

Quote
Edit: alex if you move mark IX to 1.0 efficiency please do so by lowering flux use and not by increasing DPS. If you increase DPS the mark IX will be obscene. If you lower flux it will merely be exceptional
I probably would prefer less flux over more damage because low-tech ships need it!  Their dissipation is terrible.  Too many mounts (possibly with less-than-ideal coverage), not enough dissipation.

Also, more damaging mark IX would buff Conquest (which is pretty good already) because it has the flux to support flux hogs.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Xeno056 on October 18, 2020, 12:35:42 PM
Oh heck yes. Pumped for the story missions, new threats and mega-structures. Still share a bit of concern about the colonial size cap, I get the limit but I don't see why 10^7 or even 10^8 is a stretch given appropriate time, nurturing, funds, Domain-Era tech and maybe lots of story points.

I LOVE the fact that we get more output boosting items and story point augmentations for industry, cannot wait to see what we have on that front. Having us require different planets for optimizing different industries is also a great idea, but how is the Diktat going to lead the industry on fuel now? ;) I think the commerce instability penalty is also steep, maybe have the Alpha AI cut it down a notch?

Orbital solar Arrays are great, but one question: Is that a tied to a planet randomly or something we can build? If it is a build able industry does it take up a slot? Is more fleshed out Terraforming coming down the line? I have so many questions. The Cryo-sleeper AoE is a great touch though.

Overall some great additions and changes across the board I feel. Can't wait to dive in to a new sector!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on October 18, 2020, 12:47:55 PM
If I want to compare a heavy kinetic with HVD, I would use Gauss Cannon, not Mark IX.  Mark IX is clearly an autocannon relative for the heavy mount.  I do not use HVDs on anything that is not a dedicated sniper because it lacks damage and efficiency, not to mention that HVD fires slowly enough for AI to shield flicker against it.

The point isn’t that mark IX is an HVD equivalent but that HVD are good and Mark IX is also good and clearly has advantages to one of the premier line weapons in the game. 

Also on like... your line ships that do not line break you should be using HVD. They’re fantastic. Their minimum armor dmg point is 779(and they have EMP!). Which means that they do appreciable dmg to ships of all but the largest sizes while having a 200+ range advantage over HN/HAC. They should be your go-to weapon for ships like eagle and falcon once you advance to battleships and I would bet that they’re pretty dope on Dominators too.

You don’t have to be a dedicated sniper to get a tonne of use out of HVD.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 18, 2020, 01:00:22 PM

Gotcha, yeah. And very much agree on not enough being there at that point; that entire state is a rough edge that will eventually connect to the proper endgame.


Sounds to me like you're already making large strides in that direction with this update. Even though there might not be that much in it that's technically "end game stuff" it seems there are lots of things to diversify both the current "end game" and the journey towards it.
All the contact missions. Items to hunt down for your colonies. Industry upgrades for increasing numbers of story points (which in a way is a more active replacement for colony growth beyond size 6/7, i guess. In that both that growth and upgrading your last industry might be an extravagance, but at least story points are something you actively work towards instead of just waiting for time to pass while periodically filling up the growth incentives bar). Etc.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 18, 2020, 01:01:31 PM
Oh heck yes. Pumped for the story missions, new threats and mega-structures. Still share a bit of concern about the colonial size cap, I get the limit but I don't see why 10^7 or even 10^8 is a stretch given appropriate time, nurturing, funds, Domain-Era tech and maybe lots of story points.
Same here, at least for 10^7.

Idea:  Let player pick one world to be a capital world, or it could be the first one the player owns that grows to 10^7.  That one world is the player's capital world, and no others can exceed 10^6 once that first world reaches 10^7.  Maybe have a special upgrade to Population and Infrastructure that adds a palace and crowns that world as the capital.

On the other hand, having one at 10^7 while the rest stuck at 10^6 are not may not be as good as it sounds because demand for some industries may be too hard to satisfy.

Also on like... your line ships that do not line break you should be using HVD. They’re fantastic. Their minimum armor dmg point is 779(and they have EMP!). Which means that they do appreciable dmg to ships of all but the largest sizes while having a 200+ range advantage over HN/HAC. They should be your go-to weapon for ships like eagle and falcon once you advance to battleships and I would bet that they’re pretty dope on Dominators too.

You don’t have to be a dedicated sniper to get a tonne of use out of HVD.
I tried that.  It used to be great in pre-0.8a releases.  Now, if I use it against a strong enemy like Ordos, they keep advancing then outgun my ships.  After switching from HVD to needlers (and sometimes Mauler to Heavy Mortar), the tables get turned and the enemy gets outgunned more often instead.

Today, I get the most use from HVDs when I mount it on a 4x lance Paragon flagship.  With that, just about anything short of Radiants die from long-range unblockable damage.  (Radiants need a different loadout to deal with.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on October 18, 2020, 01:39:34 PM
I'd forgotten that the addition text is a whole novel's worth! Hype increasing!

Efficiency:
Spoiler
Quote from: Goumindong
“But the HN is super more efficient!” You say. And that only matters if we’re shooting exactly at (or under but close to) our flux dissipation... which we don’t want to be doing, we want to be shooting over our flux dissipation with both of these guns. And we want to be shooting as much over as we can in general with both of those guns

This is false. Efficiency is critical when firing over dissipation because it determines how much damage the ship can output before fluxing itself out. Onslaughts don't have infinite flux and will usually be near max flux by the time they finish off a significant enemy. Not only that, but the AI behavior of switching off weapon groups depending on the ship's flux level means that the AI will turn off weapons sooner with less efficient weapons because they have driven the flux up faster. Less efficient = less damage dealt until the weapons turn off because of the flux load.

If the ship can destroy the enemy completely before that happens, then the net flux advantage of flux dealt to enemy vs flux dealt to self is all that matters. Onslaught vs destroyers can do that, and maybe Onslaught vs poorly shielded cruisers. But that just isn't the case with any of these ships vs big enemies.

The net flux analysis (which is deeply flawed anyways, see below) of HN vs Mk IX is to me not a point in the Mk IX's favor. They have equivalent net flux change between the firing ship and the target... if the target has 1.0 shields, which is only a subset of enemies. And the Mk IX's reduce the firing ship's remaining flux pool 200 flux/s faster per gun(important!!). And the Mk IX's take 3 more OP each. And they take large slots that could be mounting Hellbores or Hephaestus. And this is assuming the Mk IX has equivalent accuracy to a HN (which again I don't have hard numbers for, but I doubt).

For completeness, here's the net flux analysis for good shields:

Examining the Mk IX vs good shields (.6). It does 350 DPS, IE 2*350*.6 = 420 flux/s to the target. It costs 400 flux to the firing ship. If we are talking about firing over dissipation, IE converting flux pools, then the gun barely helps the firing ship, giving a net flux advantage of 20/s, and large well shielded enemies may have deeper flux pools than the Onslaught/Dominator, making firing this gun near worthless (which is not true in practice, see assumptions below).

Under the same conditions, a HN does 250 DPS: 2*250*.6 = 300 flux/sec to the enemy while costing the firing ship 200 flux/second. A 100 flux/second advantage per gun, and a 1.5:1 ratio in terms of flux pool trading (which is not true in practice both because of dissipation and because of other guns firing that compete for the flux pool less efficiently).

I'll make the assumptions of this very clear: firing high over dissipation so that this is comparing the firing ship's flux pool vs the targets (which is always a false assumption, but is at least the limiting case for analysis purposes), against a .6 shielded enemy (not all enemies, but also not uncommon, including the nastiest enemies (Paragons and Radiants)), with all shots hitting (false), and having no incoming fire/armor tanking so that the firing ship does not build up flux from damage (false again).

There's a lot of false assumptions going into the above, which is readily apparent because in actual play because yes its worth it to fire Mk IX's into good shields because dissipation exists, but it both shows how important efficiency is for shield breaking when we talk about firing over max dissipation.... and also shows that this analysis is woefully simplistic to the point of being misleading.

Here is my best attempt at a not misleading piece of analysis:
For a given flux budget, whether that is capacity based OR dissipation based, HN's do 43% more shield damage, given full accuracy. That is not the complete picture because other facts matter, but it is a true statement. Does this statement matter? Not always. Its only an important statement if a ship is constrained by its flux more than it is constrained by other factors. I contend that the Dominator and Onslaught (but not the Conquest!) are constrained by their flux budgets more than any other factor, in both capacity and dissipation. If so, the above statement is important for the Dominator and Onslaught (but not for the Conquest).

The Mk IX's performance against 150 armor for skilled enemies (turns out the skill and base hull don't stack, which I didn't know until the recent testing in a thread) is a point in its favor for doing hull damage. But that makes it a weapon with a decent secondary role (hull damage) that is outcompeted in its primary role (shield damage).

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Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 18, 2020, 01:53:10 PM
Edit: alex if you move mark IX to 1.0 efficiency please do so by lowering flux use and not by increasing DPS.

That's what I'm thinking, yeah. Going to have a closer look, though...


Quote
  • Emergency Burn no longer makes the fleet ignore terrain penalties
Does this means there's now no way to protect the fleet against CR degradation caused by terrain?  Also how does this affect fleet maneuverability in terrains that pushes/pulls the fleet (namely pulsar and black holes)?  They're extremely difficult to navigate without E-Burn cancelling out the external forces, without that it might be close to impossible to escape an event horizon without losing basically all supplies.  And if that's the case, Research Stations within event horizons will likely never get salvaged.

Ah, that was a bit unclear - it no longer makes the fleet ignore burn-level penalties from terrain. Black holes etc don't do that so these interactions aren't affected.

It never protected against CR degradation from terrain, btw. What it does is stop CR from regenerating while the ability is active, so supply use goes down, but the terrain CR damage still applies and has to be repaired after the ability ends.


I think the commerce instability penalty is also steep, maybe have the Alpha AI cut it down a notch?

Ah - it's less steep than you think, because - due to not providing an income bonus - having super-high stability is less important now :)

Orbital solar Arrays are great, but one question: Is that a tied to a planet randomly or something we can build? If it is a build able industry does it take up a slot? Is more fleshed out Terraforming coming down the line? I have so many questions. The Cryo-sleeper AoE is a great touch though.

You can't build them, no. They're basically like a special planetary condition with some extra visuals. Definitely not looking at terraforming; something along those lines may or may not happen, but it's not a "goal".

Overall some great additions and changes across the board I feel. Can't wait to dive in to a new sector!

Thank you!


Sounds to me like you're already making large strides in that direction with this update. Even though there might not be that much in it that's technically "end game stuff" it seems there are lots of things to diversify both the current "end game" and the journey towards it.
All the contact missions. Items to hunt down for your colonies. Industry upgrades for increasing numbers of story points (which in a way is a more active replacement for colony growth beyond size 6/7, i guess. In that both that growth and upgrading your last industry might be an extravagance, but at least story points are something you actively work towards instead of just waiting for time to pass while periodically filling up the growth incentives bar). Etc.

I'd say that's about right, yeah. Colonies are still a "tool without a task", but all the other stuff is more fleshed out.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on October 18, 2020, 02:00:19 PM
For a given flux budget, whether that is capacity based OR dissipation based, HN's do 43% more shield damage, given full accuracy

But flux budgets are not fixed because damage tends to be incoming as well as outgoing. And doing damage faster removes the flux budget of the enemy to do damage to you faster.

It’s true that HN are more efficient and this matters for highly efficient shields. But it’s also true that the extra range matters as well. The idea that HN is just better is false.

Seriously try fitting them. They work surprisingly well.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: pairedeciseaux on October 18, 2020, 02:01:37 PM
For damaging shields, a HN gives 43.75% more damage for the same flux invested, assuming all Mk IX and all HN shots hit*. There is a DPS penalty (250 vs 350), but that can be overcome by using more mounts. In terms of lowering enemy shields while not driving up the firing ship's flux, its shockingly better.

Assuming all Mark IX and all HN shots hit shield.

I'm not sure the comparison between both guns is that relevant, but here we go:
Spoiler
Mark IX shoots one volley every 2.3 seconds, delivering 800 damage for 920 flux cost.

HN shoots one volley every 6 seconds, delivering 1500 damage for 1200 flux cost.

So a single volley from HN does much more damage than one Mark IX volley, almost double. The big burst is the reason why you use LN and HN in the first place. On the other hand it means the minimum flux cost is higher for HN at 1200 vs 920 for Mark IX.

And Mark IX has the time to shoot a second volley if so desired while HN is reloading, giving a total of 1600 damage for 1840 flux cost in a 4.6 seconds cycle.

And you know what? Mark IX has the time to shoot a third volley, giving a total of 2400 damage for 2760 flux cost.

So this is where LN/HN have a risk/reward thing. If the first volley hits shield, you win or are instantly in a good position. If the first volley hits armor or miss, it is a big waste and it might put the host ship in danger.

If firing during 138 seconds ( ;D ), the theoretical results are:

Mark IX: 48000 damage, 55200 flux cost
HN: 34500 damage, 27600 flux cost

Mark IX has exactly double flux cost of HN, but you already knew this reading the flux / seconds stats.

(looking at those figures, one should have in mind the flux available on intended host ship and also others flux-eating things)
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Anyways so far I haven't seen a single argument on why it's actually a good weapon, without the person ignoring one crucial thing about it.

Agree with you, it is a good weapon.  :D  Sorry.

Edit: alex if you move mark IX to 1.0 efficiency please do so by lowering flux use and not by increasing DPS. If you increase DPS the mark IX will be obscene. If you lower flux it will merely be exceptional

Lowering the flux cost to 200 per-projectile would mean 800 per-volley instead of the current 920 per-volley. It is not that significant on large ships. Though admittedly for sustained use of 2 Mark IX on Dominator, sure 348 flux/sec per gun preferable than 400 flux/sec.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 18, 2020, 02:11:41 PM
Ah - it's less steep than you think, because - due to not providing an income bonus - having super-high stability is less important now :)
I don't know for non-income purposes.  Stability is useful for more than that, with colony fleets and ship quality being the big one.  If stability affects fleets much, then high stability may still be (too) useful just so colony patrols can kill invaders while player is away.  Especially now that player colonies are down to 10^6.  (Hmmm, I guess if I want core worlds alive, I better sat bomb some of the bigger ones a little bit so their expeditions are not so big.)

Also, Pathers!  If stability 10 is enough to keep Pathers at bay most of the time, then maybe keeping stability at 10 while Pathers hammer away for a long time may be the way to go if I want to attempt the full sector colonization game with alpha cores.  I certainly do not want to play whack-a-mole Pathers.  Once per year is only good if I can synch all cells to one base.  Otherwise, it is whack-a-mole Pathers time.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on October 18, 2020, 02:45:12 PM
So a single volley from HN does much more damage than one Mark IX volley, almost double. The big burst is the reason why you use LN and HN in the first place. On the other hand it means the minimum flux cost is higher for HN at 1200 vs 920 for Mark IX.

And Mark IX has the time to shoot a second volley if so desired while HN is reloading, giving a total of 1600 damage for 1840 flux cost in a 4.6 seconds cycle.

And you know what? Mark IX has the time to shoot a third volley, giving a total of 2400 damage for 2760 flux cost.

So this is where LN/HN have a risk/reward thing. If the first volley hits shield, you win or are instantly in a good position. If the first volley hits armor or miss, it is a big waste and it might put the host ship in danger.

Do note that the mark IX shoots 160 to 140 / speed differential sooner. Either because they want to back away from you or you want to back away from them. If they have a speed advantage of 20 and want close this is almost 7 seconds.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: pairedeciseaux on October 18, 2020, 03:38:51 PM
Do note that the mark IX shoots 160 to 140 / speed differential sooner.

Do you mean effective Mark IX range advantage compared to 800-range medium kinetic guns, when using ITU on capital and cruiser? If so, that's quite important, I agree. Quoting myself from earlier today:
Mark IX Autocannon has longer range: with ITU on capitals, that’s 1440 vs 1280, 160 more, so Mark IX will always fire at least one volley before HAC fires its first volley.

Either because they want to back away from you or you want to back away from them. If they have a speed advantage of 20 and want close this is almost 7 seconds.

Hmm, in this situation Mark IX has the time to fire 3 volleys while a 800-range gun would still be in standby. In battle you can't ignore that kind of difference.

Let's start a Mark IX fan club after the next release - provided changes don't break the nice package, which is very unlikely. I will celebrate by launching in battle my first three Mark IX Onslaught. ;D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on October 18, 2020, 03:52:55 PM

If it were me, colonies would also start smaller and slower - not with a spaceport and "population&infrastructure" but with landing pads and homesteads.

Hmm, you know, I rather like that concept. Needs a lot of details etc, bu just starting out as a "size 2" colony or something (maybe even size 1), and then needing to do... something, to make it grow beyond that - and then once at size 3, it takes off on its own. That could be quite cool.

Oh, that would be lovely. Think of the vibe that remote frontier planets in shows like Firefly or The Mandalorian have, at the moment no Starsector planet is at that low (and adventurous) level.
Here's some inspiration :

Spoiler
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EKu9_VVXkAM-XzT?format=jpg&name=medium)

(https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/002/496/401/medium/kunal-rao-2.jpg?1462427229)

(https://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/simon-10.jpg)
[close]

Personally I wouldn't  mind my first colony being my main quest provider for some time. You might have to fend of local threads, ship in food, survey nearby systems, set up trade contacts with friendly neighbors... and your fledgling colony would basically pay you in growth percentage points. But maybe once you have established a faction all this would be done by them (i.e. automated) for your next colony.





Hmm. Well, it seems a bit... I don't know. I guess both a bit redundant (there's plenty of planets!) and complicated (where can you put a good mining station? how does it roll Ore conditions? how do you know ahead of time what the conditions will be? where/how can you build them? Etc). But there's also a "this would be cool" aspect to it which might make it worthwhile regardless, but... there's just a lot that would have to happen to make it work.

My, they could be an planetary industry (asteroid mining) that you build on planets which have little ore, but which are in a system with asteroid fields of some kind. And then the industry auto-builds a mining station somewhere in that system. That way no new UI is necessary.
And if you settle a system with an ancient station, repossessing it to give the asteroid mining industry a boost seems like an option.

Also, AI run stations seem like a great target for raids, and disabling them a new way to weaken enemies that you can't attack directly. And on the other hand, the vulnerability of your stations would guarantee that planetside mining would remain the more desirable option.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Xeno056 on October 18, 2020, 04:22:36 PM
I don't know for non-income purposes.  Stability is useful for more than that, with colony fleets and ship quality being the big one.  If stability affects fleets much, then high stability may still be (too) useful just so colony patrols can kill invaders while player is away.  Especially now that player colonies are down to 10^6.  (Hmmm, I guess if I want core worlds alive, I better sat bomb some of the bigger ones a little bit so their expeditions are not so big.)

Also, Pathers!  If stability 10 is enough to keep Pathers at bay most of the time, then maybe keeping stability at 10 while Pathers hammer away for a long time may be the way to go if I want to attempt the full sector colonization game with alpha cores.  I certainly do not want to play whack-a-mole Pathers.  Once per year is only good if I can synch all cells to one base.  Otherwise, it is whack-a-mole Pathers time.

My thoughts precisely. Pathers are the big issue since they tend to show up on planets with Heavy Industry affecting ship quality and the like. Guess you can just, you know, build it elsewhere (like on the garden planet) but the hit is still something. Unless it is, you know, a LOT of credits and the amount is affected by industries on planet. Maybe not so much now that I look at all the sources of stability on the wiki now, but I guess I won't know until I play the update.

Orbital solar Arrays are great, but one question: Is that a tied to a planet randomly or something we can build? If it is a build able industry does it take up a slot? Is more fleshed out Terraforming coming down the line? I have so many questions. The Cryo-sleeper AoE is a great touch though.

You can't build them, no. They're basically like a special planetary condition with some extra visuals. Definitely not looking at terraforming; something along those lines may or may not happen, but it's not a "goal".

Aw. Well, still glad to have it. Hope we get more of the cool planetary anomalies along those lines down the road. Also shout out to boggled for his superb work on the Terraforming and Stations mod.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on October 18, 2020, 04:34:53 PM
If it were me, colonies would also start smaller and slower - not with a spaceport and "population&infrastructure" but with landing pads and homesteads.

Hmm, you know, I rather like that concept. Needs a lot of details etc, bu just starting out as a "size 2" colony or something (maybe even size 1), and then needing to do... something, to make it grow beyond that - and then once at size 3, it takes off on its own. That could be quite cool.

Oh, that would be lovely. Think of the vibe that remote frontier planets in shows like Firefly or The Mandalorian have, at the moment no Starsector planet is at that low (and adventurous) level.
Here's some inspiration :
Spoiler
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EKu9_VVXkAM-XzT?format=jpg&name=medium)

(https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/002/496/401/medium/kunal-rao-2.jpg?1462427229)

(https://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/simon-10.jpg)
[close]
Personally I wouldn't  mind my first colony being my main quest provider for some time. You might have to fend of local threads, ship in food, survey nearby systems, set up trade contacts with friendly neighbors... and your fledgling colony would basically pay you in growth percentage points. But maybe once you have established a faction all this would be done by them (i.e. automated) for your next colony.
Very simple idea: Colonies start at size 2 and automatically start building the Population And Infrastructure "building". Once this is build the colony is sufficiently developed ("tamed", "civilized", whichever word works best) to start taking in the waves of immigrants that make up the bulk of a colony's population growth, and so it'll start growing. Building a Spaceport next is technically optional at this point, but would obviously be very helpful to increase the colony's accessibility (and ability to bring in these immigrants).

I actually do like the idea of colonies not instantly going from a barren rock with 1K people and a dream in orbit around it to building a spaceport. Obviously some concerns that the idea will add to the mandatory babysitting problem, but I'm hoping those could be worked out.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Morrokain on October 18, 2020, 05:29:11 PM
Finally got through all the notes. Wow! I'm super excited for the new story content. Lots of quality of life improvements too.

Do the new enemies represent the intended pinnacle of enemy difficulty or are there more intended tiers coming after? (Being only a *hint* of end game after all)

The new fighter AI tags are interesting! What inspired those for vanilla? Or are they more for modders?

Also, does the CONSERVE_FOR_ANTI_ARMOR hint mean the weapon isn't used on shields?

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 18, 2020, 05:51:54 PM
Oh, that would be lovely. Think of the vibe that remote frontier planets in shows like Firefly or The Mandalorian have, at the moment no Starsector planet is at that low (and adventurous) level.
Here's some inspiration :

Spoiler
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EKu9_VVXkAM-XzT?format=jpg&name=medium)

(https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/002/496/401/medium/kunal-rao-2.jpg?1462427229)

(https://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/simon-10.jpg)
[close]

Personally I wouldn't  mind my first colony being my main quest provider for some time. You might have to fend of local threads, ship in food, survey nearby systems, set up trade contacts with friendly neighbors... and your fledgling colony would basically pay you in growth percentage points. But maybe once you have established a faction all this would be done by them (i.e. automated) for your next colony.

Yeah, I like this in general. Sort of, spread out the "acquire enough stuff to start a colony" phase into "actually just start one, and then do some stuff to build it up".



My, they could be an planetary industry (asteroid mining) that you build on planets which have little ore, but which are in a system with asteroid fields of some kind. And then the industry auto-builds a mining station somewhere in that system. That way no new UI is necessary.
And if you settle a system with an ancient station, repossessing it to give the asteroid mining industry a boost seems like an option.

Also, AI run stations seem like a great target for raids, and disabling them a new way to weaken enemies that you can't attack directly. And on the other hand, the vulnerability of your stations would guarantee that planetside mining would remain the more desirable option.

Ah, hmm, that could be very interesting, yeah. (Though I shudder to think of adjusting the raiding AI to handle this...)


Very simple idea: Colonies start at size 2 and automatically start building the Population And Infrastructure "building". Once this is build the colony is sufficiently developed ("tamed", "civilized", whichever word works best) to start taking in the waves of immigrants that make up the bulk of a colony's population growth, and so it'll start growing. Building a Spaceport next is technically optional at this point, but would obviously be very helpful to increase the colony's accessibility (and ability to bring in these immigrants).

Right, yeah, that seems like a pretty natural way to go about it!

Obviously some concerns that the idea will add to the mandatory babysitting problem, but I'm hoping those could be worked out.

I think "babysitting" only really applies to things that "just happen" at some random time, rather than things you basically explicitly signed up for doing.


Do the new enemies represent the intended pinnacle of enemy difficulty or are there more intended tiers coming after? (Being only a *hint* of end game after all)

Imagine if the endgame enemy was the Hegemony, and you were facing a couple of Lashers. Maybe with a pre-buff Enforcer thrown in there, to make it a challenge.

(It's possible I'm exaggerating a bit for dramatic effect...)

The new fighter AI tags are interesting! What inspired those for vanilla? Or are they more for modders?

:-X

Also, does the CONSERVE_FOR_ANTI_ARMOR hint mean the weapon isn't used on shields?

IIRC not generally, and unless the ship is panic-firing. But e.g. it might fire them at a high-flux enemy to force them into a tough choice, etc, so it's not a cut-and-dry binary thing.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Morrokain on October 18, 2020, 06:03:21 PM
Imagine if the endgame enemy was the Hegemony, and you were facing a couple of Lashers. Maybe with a pre-buff Enforcer thrown in there, to make it a challenge.

Wow that's even better than I hoped. That is... extremely exciting!

Quote
:-X

 ;D

Quote
IIRC not generally, and unless the ship is panic-firing. But e.g. it might fire them at a high-flux enemy to force them into a tough choice, etc, so it's not a cut-and-dry binary thing.

Ah thanks for the info!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 18, 2020, 06:12:27 PM
Babysitting a colony is probably at its worst when it is at size 5, when it is not quite big enough to defend against endgame threats (star fortress has too high demand), yet too big to abandon.  The few times I could not defend my size 4 or less colony, I cut my losses and abandon it, then rebuild it later when I am better prepared.  I cannot do that with a size 5 or bigger colony.

So far, weaker pirates can be held at bay with orbital station and modest ground defenses.  It is when major factions' expeditions get involved (or the -3/-50% pirates) that I want stronger defenses to repel endgame strong invaders.

If size 2 colonies become a thing, I hope there is a way to bypass the proposed introductory quest phase once player can plop them down left-and-right.

Just occurred to me that Pather cells spawn only on worlds that are size 4 or bigger.  If I want to spam alpha-run worlds throughout the whole sector, in a mad full sector colonization game, I need to make sure planets do not grow to size 4.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 18, 2020, 06:43:28 PM
Any plans for kinetic torpedoes?
Cruisers and capitals with salvage gantry? Does the phase troop transport come with Ground Support Package?

What if Size-7/5 industry colonies are made a part of endgame colony management instead of something available from the get go?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: IronBorn on October 18, 2020, 08:10:10 PM
Colony nerfs and fighter rebalances! Nice!

Dover nerf should probably be changed to 14 DP, otherwise it is a light cruiser cost to deploy. And since cryosleepers usually spawn in less than optimal systems, would it be possible to allow the colony with the cryo facility to potentially reach a size of 7?

Look forward to the implementation of story points. Can they be used to stop pirate/ludic path activity in your colonies? And for a higher cost, would you be able to persuade them to target other factions? A little privateering to help you with the competition!

The fleets of 30 capitals sounds kind of bad, especially from a lore perspective. Will such fleets be rare? Would be cool if they are named, persistent fleets that pop up on the intelligence screen when created. Hunting down and destroying such a fleet would weaken a faction and it would take them some time to build such a fleet again. Major hostile actions, like losing a colony, would drastically accelerate the creation of the next fleet. Named fleets officers would also level, to be a consistent threat to the player.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 18, 2020, 08:45:31 PM
Any plans for kinetic torpedoes?
Cruisers and capitals with salvage gantry? Does the phase troop transport come with Ground Support Package?

The phase troop transport does, yeah, "no" on the other stuff.

What if Size-7/5 industry colonies are made a part of endgame colony management instead of something available from the get go?

I feel like there are only so many ways I can say I don't think it's a good fit in-fiction-wise.



And since cryosleepers usually spawn in less than optimal systems

See this part of the patch notes:
Quote
Cryosleeper: now has (gradually reduced) effect at up to 10 light-years; spawns in better star systems

Look forward to the implementation of story points. Can they be used to stop pirate/ludic path activity in your colonies? And for a higher cost, would you be able to persuade them to target other factions? A little privateering to help you with the competition!

They can't, no. I could see potentially doing something like that, though. The thing with story points is there's infinity possible cool uses for them - which is good! but also means that (infinity minus some finite number) of those cool uses won't see the light of day.

The fleets of 30 capitals sounds kind of bad, especially from a lore perspective. Will such fleets be rare? Would be cool if they are named, persistent fleets that pop up on the intelligence screen when created. Hunting down and destroying such a fleet would weaken a faction and it would take them some time to build such a fleet again. Major hostile actions, like losing a colony, would drastically accelerate the creation of the next fleet. Named fleets officers would also level, to be a consistent threat to the player.

Hmm - I'm not sure where you're getting the "fleet of 30 capitals" from; there's nothing that's like that! If you can clarify, I can respond better.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 18, 2020, 09:01:09 PM
The phase troop transport does, yeah, "no" on the other stuff.
Oh nice!


The fleets of 30 capitals sounds kind of bad, especially from a lore perspective. Will such fleets be rare? Would be cool if they are named, persistent fleets that pop up on the intelligence screen when created. Hunting down and destroying such a fleet would weaken a faction and it would take them some time to build such a fleet again. Major hostile actions, like losing a colony, would drastically accelerate the creation of the next fleet. Named fleets officers would also level, to be a consistent threat to the player.

Hmm - I'm not sure where you're getting the "fleet of 30 capitals" from; there's nothing that's like that! If you can clarify, I can respond better.
[/quote]
I think they're talking about Atlas MKII zombie death balls, late-game bounty fleets with 7 Conquests and alike. And expedition fleets in general.
Which did get fixed.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Cosmitz on October 19, 2020, 12:30:52 AM
Well, this is a whollop of changes, and i'd rather not pick on individuals as these seem very much interlinked and should be taken as a whole experience. Howeves:

Are we going to get a hyperstorm map layer on the sector map? I don't remember how it was without Adjusted Sector, but at least with it, there doesn't seem to be any way to figure out where the hyperstorms are without almost flying into them. If I could, I'd try looking at a map and navigating around, but as it is, it's too much bother and I'd rather burn through.

If you press "1" on the map, it turns off the Starscape view and you can roughly see where the deep hyper areas are.

Honestly, by this point, shouldn't the 'real' map be the default? The 'pretty' map, as pretty as it is, is sorely not useful in the least as an actual map for navigation, and without a doubt a lot of players miss that little hotkey, and generally the hotkeys on the map screen, so even the fuel limits would be helpful to come pre-loaded.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: mendonca on October 19, 2020, 01:01:10 AM
Heh, yeah, so much stuff going on I can hardly make sense of it all together.

I'm strangely impressed by the 'Move Slowly' change, which seems like a really elegant way to neaten up the small gameplay things around that.

Thanks for the patchnotes, Alex.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Sarissofoi on October 19, 2020, 02:33:47 AM
I feel that plenty of people complaining about need for colony babysitting and invasions etc didn't play vanilla recently and have their experience coming from Nexerlin overdose.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Kazimierz3000 on October 19, 2020, 02:57:09 AM
Hey Alex, keep up the incredible work.  I'm really excited to see 4k and UI updates are coming, being one of the people that loves playing this game in ultrawide in all its glory.  Thanks for what you do!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Ishman on October 19, 2020, 03:20:47 AM
I'd like to further endorse the idea of being able to just plop down a beacon that says "here be colony" and then your organic mission is to actually transition from that into an actual faction - with a variety of options picked from a list to get to that point (mechanics wise, you could have a table of stuff that mods can add to that it draws from where it provides options for population (do you just give incentives for homesteaders, rescue cryosleepers,), administration, industry/resources, etc - seems like it could be a way to add another questline dynamic (that's still just a variation on go here do thing/pick thing up, return, but for engaging story reasons).

Besides that, I'd also like to not have too create a fully functioning colony to provide resources to the faction. I'd like the whole vast resources available in space aspect to be leaned further into - drop one lonely guy in an inflated balloon in charge of corralling a bevy of automated mining drones and their tenders in a ring system, mined out nickel-iron asteroids spun up for super cheap habitat space (no antimatter powered grav generators for the poor), lean into the whole 'these planets are *** and we have to make do' aspect of the Persean Sector. It's not as though there isn't the technology to do great things, but there's so much squabbling between the factions that no one's using the resources to do anything - until you the PC explodes upon the scene.

Basically Alex, I just want to put a particle collider around a gas giant and start mass-manufacturing supermaterials - these stars won't harvest themselves!

(Also John C. Wright has some fascinating stuff in his two space opera series)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 19, 2020, 04:32:35 AM
I'd like to further endorse the idea of being able to just plop down a beacon that says "here be colony" and then your organic mission is to actually transition from that into an actual faction - with a variety of options picked from a list to get to that point (mechanics wise, you could have a table of stuff that mods can add to that it draws from where it provides options for population (do you just give incentives for homesteaders, rescue cryosleepers,), administration, industry/resources, etc - seems like it could be a way to add another questline dynamic (that's still just a variation on go here do thing/pick thing up, return, but for engaging story reasons).

Besides that, I'd also like to not have too create a fully functioning colony to provide resources to the faction. I'd like the whole vast resources available in space aspect to be leaned further into - drop one lonely guy in an inflated balloon in charge of corralling a bevy of automated mining drones and their tenders in a ring system, mined out nickel-iron asteroids spun up for super cheap habitat space (no antimatter powered grav generators for the poor), lean into the whole 'these planets are *** and we have to make do' aspect of the Persean Sector. It's not as though there isn't the technology to do great things, but there's so much squabbling between the factions that no one's using the resources to do anything - until you the PC explodes upon the scene.

Basically Alex, I just want to put a particle collider around a gas giant and start mass-manufacturing supermaterials - these stars won't harvest themselves!

(Also John C. Wright has some fascinating stuff in his two space opera series)
That sound fun but it seems like a lot of work for Alex.
I do want to have player-built orbitals though.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on October 19, 2020, 05:00:42 AM
I think "babysitting" only really applies to things that "just happen" at some random time, rather than things you basically explicitly signed up for doing.
Definitely. Colonies requiring extra stuff is fine, just so long as it isn't overly random. Or only able to be supplied once the colony actually demands something. Imagine putting down a colony, getting halfway to further exploration and suddenly the colony goes "actually, we need...eh, let me get out a d4 here...5d100 Food to continue working!", whereas the next colony demands 4d100 Domestic Goods, the next some amount of Luxury Goods and the next Lobster (for some inexplicable reason) or what have you. That'd be...less than ideal.

You could probably integrate this into the colonization screen pretty easily, I'd say, the one that says you need 1000 dudes, 100 Heavy Machinery and 200 Supplies to found a colony. Have another box below that lists what specific things that particular planet will need for a colony to reach the point where it'll be self-sufficient depending on the planet's conditions - say that every colony needs some amount of food/goods to tide them over until they can establish their own food sources, but planets with Destabilized Subpopulation specifically requires some amount of Marines to keep the initial colonists safe, tectonically active planets need additional supplies/heavy machinery to reinforce structures and build warning systems, High Gravity planets can require Heavy Armaments ("Humans require powered exoskeletons for regular movement and find even basic actions exhausting", which could be a part of the Heavy Armaments item, like power armor style?), etc.

The only real detail to remember (that I can come up with off the top of my head) is how to make sure that secondary list of required items is accessible remotely, without being at the specific planet. If the amount of items you need per hazard condition is static you could just look it up on a wiki and calculate it, or run around the core looking for planets with the right conditions and calculate what you need from that, but ideally it'd just be available from the Intel screen. That shouldn't be hard to add, though, I don't think.

Imagine if the endgame enemy was the Hegemony, and you were facing a couple of Lashers. Maybe with a pre-buff Enforcer thrown in there, to make it a challenge.

(It's possible I'm exaggerating a bit for dramatic effect...)
I'd just like to note that Frigates and Destroyers individually have killed me more often than Cruisers and Capitals combined. So in terms of fleets that have an actual record of making Swiss cheese of my hull ::)...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: what am i doing on October 19, 2020, 06:45:09 AM
I feel like there are only so many ways I can say I don't think it's a good fit in-fiction-wise.

Not only do I agree wholeheartedly that the whole massive colonies thing never really felt like they fit with the game world, I'd add that I think the player should be limited to only one size 6 colony (ie, a designated capital), perhaps two size 5, and any further settlements can only be outposts (ie, for mining). Otherwise, the player will end up with a bunch of size 6 colonies and it would seem odd that the player faction's colonies are all the same size when all the ingame factions have a variety of worlds ranging from densely populated capitals to sparsely populated settlements.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 19, 2020, 07:18:06 AM
I feel that plenty of people complaining about need for colony babysitting and invasions etc didn't play vanilla recently and have their experience coming from Nexerlin overdose.
In my case, I refer to vanilla, unmodded gameplay when I talk about babysitting.  I have not touched Nexerelin in any of the 0.9a releases.  (Played mostly in pre-0.8a, and only once or twice during 0.8a.)

Not only do I agree wholeheartedly that the whole massive colonies thing never really felt like they fit with the game world, I'd add that I think the player should be limited to only one size 6 colony (ie, a designated capital), perhaps two size 5, and any further settlements can only be outposts (ie, for mining). Otherwise, the player will end up with a bunch of size 6 colonies and it would seem odd that the player faction's colonies are all the same size when all the ingame factions have a variety of worlds ranging from densely populated capitals to sparsely populated settlements.
Size 10^6 is only millions on the whole planet.  If anything, that seems too small on anything bigger than a small moon, especially on a good earthlike world.  That is maybe a big city or three and nothing else.  It is not like post-Collapse is reduced to caveman or medieval tech.  They still have interstellar magitech, just not as much as they had.

Also, it is not hard having 10^4 crew in an endgame fleet if built for it.  If I can plop down multiple 10^3 colonies in quick succession, it would be nice to plop a 10^4 colony instantly if I have the crew on hand.  Also, I tend to have crew and marines in the tens of thousands stockpiled in colony resources or storage.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on October 19, 2020, 07:39:49 AM
Quote
Devastator:

    Slightly increased explosion radius and core explosion radius and slightly reduced fuse range
    More likely to hit ships, and will do more damage with its explosions due to more targets being within core radius

Is the Devastator still going to be using shotRangeVariance for its projectiles?
And if so, is it going to be set the same as it is now?

One of the reasons a lot of people don't seem too keen on this weapon is that many of its shots are effectively 'wasted' starting at ~60% of the weapon's range.
Spoiler
As an exercise for my own curiosity I removed the variance and changed the projectile range from 30 to 52 (30 * 1.75), and it doesn't seem any more powerful. But it does at least feel somewhat more satisfying seeing most of the shots get near the target before bursting.
Recoil seems to be the limiting factor - as in the Devastator has horrible recoil stats, so the shots will form a perpendicular arc at max range instead of a stripe leading away from the ship.
[close]
If you don't feel that removing the variance entirely would be desirable, would you consider adjusting the range of the projectiles up to 40-45-ish and lowering the shotRangeVariance to match?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on October 19, 2020, 07:47:20 AM
I feel that plenty of people complaining about need for colony babysitting and invasions etc didn't play vanilla recently and have their experience coming from Nexerlin overdose.
In my case, I refer to vanilla, unmodded gameplay when I talk about babysitting.  I have not touched Nexerelin in any of the 0.9a releases.  (Played mostly in pre-0.8a, and only once or twice during 0.8a.)

Not only do I agree wholeheartedly that the whole massive colonies thing never really felt like they fit with the game world, I'd add that I think the player should be limited to only one size 6 colony (ie, a designated capital), perhaps two size 5, and any further settlements can only be outposts (ie, for mining). Otherwise, the player will end up with a bunch of size 6 colonies and it would seem odd that the player faction's colonies are all the same size when all the ingame factions have a variety of worlds ranging from densely populated capitals to sparsely populated settlements.
Size 10^6 is only millions on the whole planet.  If anything, that seems too small on anything bigger than a small moon, especially on a good earthlike world.  That is maybe a big city or three and nothing else.  It is not like post-Collapse is reduced to caveman or medieval tech.  They still have interstellar magitech, just not as much as they had.

Also, it is not hard having 10^4 crew in an endgame fleet if built for it.  If I can plop down multiple 10^3 colonies in quick succession, it would be nice to plop a 10^4 colony instantly if I have the crew on hand.  Also, I tend to have crew and marines in the tens of thousands stockpiled in colony resources or storage.

between 1 to 10m. Which may be small on anything larger than a small moon (i mean its small on anything when you're spacefaring)

But its large within the time frame of a game because at that point you're going to be pushing the limits of immigration in creating citizens. Which means you would need to rely on natural doubling processes. Which is to say that 5% growth per year growth(which is quite high for wealthy industrial societies like spacefaring ones) would get you from 1 to 10m in 47 years (1.05^x = 10 -> xln(1.05)=ln(10) -> x= 47.19). Might as well just cut it off at size 6
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on October 19, 2020, 08:34:37 AM
Yeah player colonies reaching 10^10 when the largest sector colonies were 10^8 made no sense to me. Apparently my colony in 10 years magically exceeds the population of the entire sector by two orders of magnitude. 10^6 seems like a reasonable limit on the time scale of the game IMO.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: MakeConquestGreatAgain on October 19, 2020, 08:41:53 AM
>didnt made the conquest great again

today is a sad day for the video game history...

also i agree with the trird guy above me, the devastator is awful to use because most of the shoots explode before they hit the target, i would also add that all the large point defence weapons (devastator, guardian, locust) suck.... it would be better to make them medium sized or give them a strong buff, ebcause as of now, you would be better putting a medium weapon in your large slot than puttting any of them

also also whats the deal with the warthog? just put the 3th mortar back... having 2 of them on a wing is enough of a nerf, they whent from op to COMPLETELY useless now and, form what i read, they gona be even worse, just entirelly useless
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on October 19, 2020, 08:46:45 AM
The Paladin PD (Guardian) is getting a huge buff tho, it's in the notes. And what's the deal with the Conquest pleas for buffs? You're like the third person here saying Conquest needs a buff when it's one of the strongest ships in the game. It got quite a few buffs in previous patches.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on October 19, 2020, 09:13:09 AM
Just want to say: Thank you Alex, for answering all these many questions, I appreciate it as always :)

I think "babysitting" only really applies to things that "just happen" at some random time, rather than things you basically explicitly signed up for doing.
Definitely. Colonies requiring extra stuff is fine, just so long as it isn't overly random. Or only able to be supplied once the colony actually demands something. Imagine putting down a colony, getting halfway to further exploration and suddenly the colony goes "actually, we need...eh, let me get out a d4 here...5d100 Food to continue working!", whereas the next colony demands 4d100 Domestic Goods, the next some amount of Luxury Goods and the next Lobster (for some inexplicable reason) or what have you. That'd be...less than ideal.

You could probably integrate this into the colonization screen pretty easily, I'd say, the one that says you need 1000 dudes, 100 Heavy Machinery and 200 Supplies to found a colony. Have another box below that lists what specific things that particular planet will need for a colony to reach the point where it'll be self-sufficient depending on the planet's conditions - say that every colony needs some amount of food/goods to tide them over until they can establish their own food sources, but planets with Destabilized Subpopulation specifically requires some amount of Marines to keep the initial colonists safe, tectonically active planets need additional supplies/heavy machinery to reinforce structures and build warning systems, High Gravity planets can require Heavy Armaments ("Humans require powered exoskeletons for regular movement and find even basic actions exhausting", which could be a part of the Heavy Armaments item, like power armor style?), etc.

The only real detail to remember (that I can come up with off the top of my head) is how to make sure that secondary list of required items is accessible remotely, without being at the specific planet. If the amount of items you need per hazard condition is static you could just look it up on a wiki and calculate it, or run around the core looking for planets with the right conditions and calculate what you need from that, but ideally it'd just be available from the Intel screen. That shouldn't be hard to add, though, I don't think.

Mh, that way you'd just dump in everything they will need at the beginning and forget about it, I don't really see the difference to the current system. To me the appeal is in actually taking care of your colony for a while. What differentiates that from annoying babysitting is that a) that phase has a foreseeable end and b) you have control over when to take growth-enhancing missions, they shouldn't distract you from what you are otherwise doing, like constant invasion fleets do.
I agree that simple fetch quests are not very interesting (but then again, some people like trade missions). But escorting your colony's very first trade fleet on its maiden voyage would be interesting, for example.

I like the idea that a colony's initial requirements are influences by the planetary conditions.


also i agree with the trird guy above me, the devastator is awful to use because most of the shoots explode before they hit the target, i would also add that all the large point defence weapons (devastator, guardian, locust) suck.... it would be better to make them medium sized or give them a strong buff, ebcause as of now, you would be better putting a medium weapon in your large slot than puttting any of them

also also whats the deal with the warthog? just put the 3th mortar back... having 2 of them on a wing is enough of a nerf, they whent from op to COMPLETELY useless now and, form what i read, they gona be even worse, just entirelly useless

I think the decreased range might be a buff for the Warthog, with it's slow speed it spends too much time running from one target to the next and getting separated from other wings, otherwise. Well, and it gets three fighters, so overall it seems much better now?

Devastator is also buffed with a bigger splash radius.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on October 19, 2020, 09:15:56 AM
Locusts are great? Using them as PD is not the best, but they will definitely help clear out fighters. They're really good at providing finishing damage for zero flux at range, and they have tons of ammo to last into a fight. They also are good at saturating PD to let other missiles and bombers through.

Also, conquest is quite well balanced atm, I'm not sure why people are upset that it hasn't been buffed.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 19, 2020, 09:18:28 AM
Locusts is the best general-purpose large missile.  Enough ammo to last minutes of fighting, and PD generally cannot fully stop it.  A pair from a Conquest is nearly an unavoidable kill against frigates.  Even battleships will take noticeable damage from it if the whole burst hits hull.  The only other missile that might compete with Locusts is a MIRV fully powered up by both skills and ECCM.

Conquest is good enough, and seems on par for its cost.

Warthog's third fighter will be restored.  3x3+bug was too strong, 2x2 is too weak.  Next will be 3x2.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 19, 2020, 09:33:51 AM
Locusts tend to be my default large missile too. Though i too use them more for multi-purpose than strictly anti-fighter.
If anti fighter was the only thing they could be used for i agree they'd look pretty "meh", but when you realize it's not hyper specialized like that but actually useful in a large variety of situations their performance in that role looks a lot more respectable. (jacks of all trades aren't supposed to be the be-all-end-all in each of their trades after all)

As for Conquest, i really don't have enough experience on the capital side of the game to accurately rank and compare them to each other but when properly/decently specced i can at least safely say it's pretty powerful in it's own right, and i'm more than happy to shell out the 40 DP for it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on October 19, 2020, 10:01:06 AM
I was actually playing when this realization came into my head whilst thinking about the patchnotes:

Pirate Base Bounties are getting nerfed
+
Hammerhead is also getting a nerf and can't safely use the front two small mounts for anything but PD
+
Bases will not be damaged unless the body part in question is hit

Methinks someone has been a very naughty boy and has been cheesing pirate bases with an Overridden Hammerhead and its two Assault Chainguns  ::)


Speaking of Bases and Battlestations, I'm under the opinion that the High Tech base needs a shield arc buff as the non-ultimate versions has very big gaps where the future extension would be wich results in it being overly vulnerable mid game when compared to the other base types.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 19, 2020, 10:06:47 AM
Honestly, by this point, shouldn't the 'real' map be the default? The 'pretty' map, as pretty as it is, is sorely not useful in the least as an actual map for navigation, and without a doubt a lot of players miss that little hotkey, and generally the hotkeys on the map screen, so even the fuel limits would be helpful to come pre-loaded.

Those are all fair points. But the stars look pretty, so... look, let me have this one.

(A somewhat more salient point: I do think it's important to have a real-space view of the Sector visible in the game somewhere, just to make it feel like a "real" bunch of stars somewhere.)

I'm strangely impressed by the 'Move Slowly' change, which seems like a really elegant way to neaten up the small gameplay things around that.

Ah, thank you! (I do feel like that reduced things down fairly nicely, as far as all the movement-related *stuff* that was going on. Possibly some room for improvement, still, but at least it's in a place I feel ok with.)

I feel that plenty of people complaining about need for colony babysitting and invasions etc didn't play vanilla recently and have their experience coming from Nexerlin overdose.

Hmm - does Nexerelin adjust punitive expeditions etc? I've been kind of assuming that whenever I hear about that, it's a vanilla thing, but it'd be good to know if it's in fact different in Nex.


Hey Alex, keep up the incredible work.  I'm really excited to see 4k and UI updates are coming, being one of the people that loves playing this game in ultrawide in all its glory.  Thanks for what you do!

Thank you!



Besides that, I'd also like to not have too create a fully functioning colony to provide resources to the faction. I'd like the whole vast resources available in space aspect to be leaned further into - drop one lonely guy in an inflated balloon in charge of corralling a bevy of automated mining drones and their tenders in a ring system, mined out nickel-iron asteroids spun up for super cheap habitat space (no antimatter powered grav generators for the poor), lean into the whole 'these planets are *** and we have to make do' aspect of the Persean Sector. It's not as though there isn't the technology to do great things, but there's so much squabbling between the factions that no one's using the resources to do anything - until you the PC explodes upon the scene.

Hmm. On the one hand, that could work, but on the other hand, it seems tricky to integrate nicely with colonies. So just in general this is a "fairly unlikely maybe", I'd say - if there are *other* reasons that come up that make this desirable (i.e. if this resolves some other design issue), this could well happen, but for its own sake, probably not.

Basically Alex, I just want to put a particle collider around a gas giant and start mass-manufacturing supermaterials - these stars won't harvest themselves!

(Also John C. Wright has some fascinating stuff in his two space opera series)

Yeah, I can get behind that! (And, hey, you'll definitely be able to put something around a gas giant in the next release. A couple of things, actually. And the stars won't harvest themselves, indeed.)

(Thanks for the book rec!)


Definitely. Colonies requiring extra stuff is fine, just so long as it isn't overly random. Or only able to be supplied once the colony actually demands something. Imagine putting down a colony, getting halfway to further exploration and suddenly the colony goes "actually, we need...eh, let me get out a d4 here...5d100 Food to continue working!", whereas the next colony demands 4d100 Domestic Goods, the next some amount of Luxury Goods and the next Lobster (for some inexplicable reason) or what have you. That'd be...less than ideal.

Gotcha, yeah - same page here. But e.g. "you need X amount of <whatever> for the colony to get to the next step towards taking off on its own" but there's no rush/consequences if you don't do it now now now sounds reasonable.

I'd just like to note that Frigates and Destroyers individually have killed me more often than Cruisers and Capitals combined. So in terms of fleets that have an actual record of making Swiss cheese of my hull ::)...

I think "oh it's just a Kite with Reapers" has a winning record against player flagships overall.



Not only do I agree wholeheartedly that the whole massive colonies thing never really felt like they fit with the game world, I'd add that I think the player should be limited to only one size 6 colony (ie, a designated capital), perhaps two size 5, and any further settlements can only be outposts (ie, for mining). Otherwise, the player will end up with a bunch of size 6 colonies and it would seem odd that the player faction's colonies are all the same size when all the ingame factions have a variety of worlds ranging from densely populated capitals to sparsely populated settlements.

Welcome to the forum, btw!

I think the hazard rating mechanics will natrually add some size spread to colonies, basically doing this - a high hazard mining colony would stay small unless you invested a lot into putting more population there. I'm not 100% sure actually how the economics of this work out - whether increasing colony size to 6 in a case like that would be a net profit or not, actually. It depends on what it's exporting etc. Since you'd be getting, likely, some flat bonuses from AI cores/items/improvements/etc, getting a few more points of production out of a higher size - at high expense, to boot - might not be worth it. Will have to see, though.


In my case, I refer to vanilla, unmodded gameplay when I talk about babysitting.  I have not touched Nexerelin in any of the 0.9a releases.  (Played mostly in pre-0.8a, and only once or twice during 0.8a.)

Gotcha.


Is the Devastator still going to be using shotRangeVariance for its projectiles?
And if so, is it going to be set the same as it is now?

One of the reasons a lot of people don't seem too keen on this weapon is that many of its shots are effectively 'wasted' starting at ~60% of the weapon's range.
Spoiler
As an exercise for my own curiosity I removed the variance and changed the projectile range from 30 to 52 (30 * 1.75), and it doesn't seem any more powerful. But it does at least feel somewhat more satisfying seeing most of the shots get near the target before bursting.
Recoil seems to be the limiting factor - as in the Devastator has horrible recoil stats, so the shots will form a perpendicular arc at max range instead of a stripe leading away from the ship.
[close]
If you don't feel that removing the variance entirely would be desirable, would you consider adjusting the range of the projectiles up to 40-45-ish and lowering the shotRangeVariance to match?

Well - the shots blowing up early is the Devastator's thing. The point is that it's a weapon that:
1) Is good vs fighters/missiles, which get close naturally and are just more affected by it covering a wide area, and, importantly,
2) A weapon that becomes potentially highly damaging vs ships when used at close range

(If you increase the "range" from 30 to 52, that's actually a huge nerf - it means that it can never hit for full damage with the core of the explosion, since it'll always explode before it gets close enough. So that might explain which removing shot range variance, in tandem with that change, didn't make it more powerful.)

So, basically, what the current set of changes is doing is going in the opposite direction - making the shots more powerful, but keeping its core nature, where what you've tried makes the shots weaker but removes the dropoff in effectiveness with range. Well, doesn't remove entirely - since the inaccuracy is still there - but goes in that direction.

Keep in mind that it's pretty cheap flux-wise, too!

Just want to say: Thank you Alex, for answering all these many questions, I appreciate it as always :)

:D I appreciate all the interest and the feedback!

Mh, that way you'd just dump in everything they will need at the beginning and forget about it, I don't really see the difference to the current system. To me the appeal is in actually taking care of your colony for a while. What differentiates that from annoying babysitting is that a) that phase has a foreseeable end and b) you have control over when to take growth-enhancing missions, they shouldn't distract you from what you are otherwise doing, like constant invasion fleets do.
I agree that simple fetch quests are not very interesting (but then again, some people like trade missions). But escorting your colony's very first trade fleet on its maiden voyage would be interesting, for example.

I think the key difference is "will something bad happen if I don't address this when I wasn't planning to".

I like the idea that a colony's initial requirements are influences by the planetary conditions.

Yeah, I like that a lot too.


Methinks someone has been a very naughty boy and has been cheesing pirate bases with an Overridden Hammerhead and its two Assault Chainguns  ::)

(Team Shrike all the way here. I love piloting that ship.)


Speaking of Bases and Battlestations, I'm under the opinion that the High Tech base needs a shield arc buff as the non-ultimate versions has very big gaps where the future extension would be wich results in it being overly vulnerable mid game when compared to the other base types.

Hmm - with proper weapons, a high tech station can be hard to get to, really. Pirates don't really have them, though. And having those gaps to exploit is very much the idea, so if it needs a buff, it ought to come from somewhere other than removing its key characteristic!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on October 19, 2020, 10:18:18 AM
Hmm - with proper weapons, a high tech station can be hard to get to, really. Pirates don't really have them, though. And having those gaps to exploit is very much the idea, so if it needs a buff, it ought to come from somewhere other than removing its key characteristic!

Give the combat modules phase cloak when they're out of the shield

I figured that gap would be some sort of weakpoint of the station first time I saw it, but those those thrice-damned shield modules are so bloody hard to kill sometimes, spinning around and hiding behind the other modules and whatnot, trying to snipe them between the gaps in the shield it right up the alley to Star Wars :P

Anyway, I don't really possess many bright ideas as to how high tech bases can be buffed up a bit aside from that very heretical idea that just had to be barred in the hopes you don't read it and make everyone get PTSD from their first high tech battlestation. It's true that the range of the high tech battlestation is quite great but the actual DPS on targets with plenty of flux capacity/dissipation to just absorb the damage could even be called trivial in some cases.



Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: IronBorn on October 19, 2020, 10:38:47 AM
The fleets of 30 capitals sounds kind of bad, especially from a lore perspective. Will such fleets be rare? Would be cool if they are named, persistent fleets that pop up on the intelligence screen when created. Hunting down and destroying such a fleet would weaken a faction and it would take them some time to build such a fleet again. Major hostile actions, like losing a colony, would drastically accelerate the creation of the next fleet. Named fleets officers would also level, to be a consistent threat to the player.

Hmm - I'm not sure where you're getting the "fleet of 30 capitals" from; there's nothing that's like that! If you can clarify, I can respond better.
[/quote]

I think I misread a comment somewhere about concern that the fleet cap would cause capital heavy fleets, but the patch notes say the fleets will be better balanced.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on October 19, 2020, 10:46:45 AM
I think the hazard rating mechanics will natrually add some size spread to colonies, basically doing this - a high hazard mining colony would stay small unless you invested a lot into putting more population there. I'm not 100% sure actually how the economics of this work out - whether increasing colony size to 6 in a case like that would be a net profit or not, actually. It depends on what it's exporting etc. Since you'd be getting, likely, some flat bonuses from AI cores/items/improvements/etc, getting a few more points of production out of a higher size - at high expense, to boot - might not be worth it. Will have to see, though.

My concern with this based on the current version of the game is that high hazard colonies tend to really lag behind other colonies in profits until they get big. So now if they are forced to be small, then it feels like the will never be as good as low hazard colonies. Do you feel like small mining colonies are valuable enough to be worthwhile over other colonies? The player can only manage a finite number so it feels like in the pursuit of making high hazard mining colonies thematically small, you might make them not very good in general. Unless the in-faction supply bonuses have been increased significantly, or the balance of profits for really good ore resources has changed, I can't really see a small mining colony with only one or two industries being useful. I'd rather just have another size 6 titan colony with 3 big production industries.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 19, 2020, 11:10:18 AM
There is one reason for size 3 colonies - no Pather cells!  Load it up all size 3 worlds with all of the cores player may want, including alpha admin, and Pathers will not bother that planet.  Would be nice if there was an immigration lock to prevent colonies from growing at all.  (It gets annoying removing spaceport to tank growth then rebuild it later.)

Gas giants with low enough hazard (about 150%) and high volatiles is a good colony candidate.  That was my first colony in the last game I played.  Being able to jump directly on the planet without T. Jump is also convenient.  For industries, Mining and Military Base/High Command are a given.  Later, Heavy Industry (no forge) to boost production per month, and maybe Light Industry.

Quote
My concern with this based on the current version of the game is that high hazard colonies tend to really lag behind other colonies in profits until they get big.
Another problem is slower growth.  It is a pain to synch grow with other planets, which is important when I want to avoid shortages when one planet grows bigger first and gets shortages while the other planet(s) catch up.  However, that is only a problem when sizes reach 7 and up, which will be moot by size 6 limit.

However, high hazard may be useful if I want stunted size 3 planets that cannot grow to size 4 for the sector wide colonization through alpha cores.  Income from Pop&Inf from hundreds of worlds may be a way for high income.  (That was a plan I would try for income after a total core kill.)

For resources, I look for anything with 150% hazard or less and enough resources for self-sufficiency.  Since my late-game goal is total core kill (which kills all trade income), with ultimate endgame goal being full sector colonization (with alpha cores), all resources mean to me in the long run is self-sufficiency for my colonies.

P.S.  About high-tech stations.
The tier 1 station is not too bad.  Wait until the shield gaps overlap with the generators, blow them up, and the shields fall down.  Too bad the AI is not smart enough to do little more than mindlessly shoot straight ahead at the shields.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on October 19, 2020, 11:23:51 AM
Hmm - does Nexerelin adjust punitive expeditions etc? I've been kind of assuming that whenever I hear about that, it's a vanilla thing, but it'd be good to know if it's in fact different in Nex.
Punitive expeditions, not that I'm aware of. And personally I turn random player diplomacy off in Nex' config, so random faction DoWs and the sudden invasions they would bring isn't something I have to deal with either. Unless I actively pull the trigger first, but than obviously I'm fully aware of what I'm signing up for.

Gotcha, yeah - same page here. But e.g. "you need X amount of <whatever> for the colony to get to the next step towards taking off on its own" but there's no rush/consequences if you don't do it now now now sounds reasonable.
Something that would stall colony growth would probably end up being seen as a priority task regardless, since obviously we want our colonies to grow. But that would only feel like babysitting if I was only informed of what's needed X days after the colony is founded, and couldn't drop stuff off ahead of time (and not have those resources be consumed for other reasons). Or if, say, a trade fleet gets lost and the colony suddenly needs me to personally go acquire and deliver X amount of goods to resume production of the Spaceport or wait out the (month-long?) shortage, that'd easily end up feeling like babysitting.

But if I'm told "this colony will (eventually) need an additional 200 Heavy Machinery to become self-sufficient" right when I try to put down the colony, that's fine. That doesn't require me to stay near my colonies to manage stuff I can't manage remotely, or for me to drop whatever I'm doing and go do something else somewhere else with no warning because something random happened.

I think "oh it's just a Kite with Reapers" has a winning record against player flagships overall.
Hmm...I've actually gotten exploded by my own bombers deploying a field of faster-moving mines right behind me and my unshielded rear more often than I've gotten hit by a Reaper, actually, at least hit on something other than my shield. My main supply of crow comes from (usually Phase) ships sneaking behind me and slowly dismantling my engines. Still haven't found a decent way to deal with phase ships either, other than waiting for them to forget that they're functionally untouchable and get slaughtered.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on October 19, 2020, 12:11:57 PM
Commenting on the babysitting stuff:
I'm pretty sure Nex adds invasions and raids where hostile factions try to capture or harass your colonies, and those can be quite a bit bigger than the expeditions for the current colony level. They're not as common as expeditions though. I'm not sure if nex adjusts expeditions at all.

For me personally, I would want 'defend your colony' type missions to be rare and very difficult rather than common and fairly easy. I think the babysitting feeling comes from the fact that current expeditions happen somewhat frequently so that the player ends up constantly going back to their colony unless they build up some impenetrable defenses. This has led me to delay making a colony until I can afford to immediately build up a level 2 station and ground defenses so that I minimize the amount I need to personally defend.

I would like major defense type stuff (expeditions) to only really happen 3-4 times over a campaign, but I would also want it to be very difficult. Something where you know many months in advance and are trying to prepare by building up your fleet or whatever (maybe add some temporary defense mechanics as well). Maybe there could be some intel missions where you get a tip in a bar, or from a contact, that a faction is upset with your production and you can recon the fleet that is assembling or sabotage it etc.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: shoi on October 19, 2020, 12:44:20 PM

I feel like there are only so many ways I can say I don't think it's a good fit in-fiction-wise.



Kind of unrelated, but is the player the de-facto "leader" of planets they colonized, or more like ....a majority stakeholder?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 19, 2020, 12:57:28 PM
I think I misread a comment somewhere about concern that the fleet cap would cause capital heavy fleets, but the patch notes say the fleets will be better balanced.

(Gotcha!)


My concern with this based on the current version of the game is that high hazard colonies tend to really lag behind other colonies in profits until they get big. So now if they are forced to be small, then it feels like the will never be as good as low hazard colonies. Do you feel like small mining colonies are valuable enough to be worthwhile over other colonies? The player can only manage a finite number so it feels like in the pursuit of making high hazard mining colonies thematically small, you might make them not very good in general. Unless the in-faction supply bonuses have been increased significantly, or the balance of profits for really good ore resources has changed, I can't really see a small mining colony with only one or two industries being useful. I'd rather just have another size 6 titan colony with 3 big production industries.

With the caveat that I'm not 100% sure exactly how it'll shake out - you might have a touch time having 3 big production industries on 3 colonies as I'd imagine the special items to make this happen would be a bit thin on the ground.

I do see what you're saying, though. I guess we'll see? The hope is that item boosts will be enough to overcome hazard in an otherwise-suitable planet. If that doesn't work out, there's things to look at, I suppose - tuning items, maybe planetary conditions (something like ore deposits having production limits based on ore deposit quality, perhaps), etc...


Punitive expeditions, not that I'm aware of. And personally I turn random player diplomacy off in Nex' config, so random faction DoWs and the sudden invasions they would bring isn't something I have to deal with either. Unless I actively pull the trigger first, but than obviously I'm fully aware of what I'm signing up for.
Commenting on the babysitting stuff:
I'm pretty sure Nex adds invasions and raids where hostile factions try to capture or harass your colonies, and those can be quite a bit bigger than the expeditions for the current colony level. They're not as common as expeditions though. I'm not sure if nex adjusts expeditions at all.

Thank you for the added info!

Something that would stall colony growth would probably end up being seen as a priority task regardless, since obviously we want our colonies to grow. But that would only feel like babysitting if I was only informed of what's needed X days after the colony is founded, and couldn't drop stuff off ahead of time (and not have those resources be consumed for other reasons). Or if, say, a trade fleet gets lost and the colony suddenly needs me to personally go acquire and deliver X amount of goods to resume production of the Spaceport or wait out the (month-long?) shortage, that'd easily end up feeling like babysitting.

But if I'm told "this colony will (eventually) need an additional 200 Heavy Machinery to become self-sufficient" right when I try to put down the colony, that's fine. That doesn't require me to stay near my colonies to manage stuff I can't manage remotely, or for me to drop whatever I'm doing and go do something else somewhere else with no warning because something random happened.

Hmm, I don't think I agree here; "priority" is different from "long-term negative consequences if you don't". Having things to prioritize is fine. I mean, establishing a colony could be considered "babysitting" in that light. And if you know all the requirements ahead of time, that just translates into having to get more stuff together to start a colony, and that just seems boring. This'd have to get thought through some; I don't think pure resource requirements would be all that interesting here - rather, "things to do" might work better. For example, "survey the entire system", "establish a comm relay", "clear out a pirate base that's in a system next door", "deal with a Pather expedition (that may be hostile or friendly, with Consequences either way), etc...


For me personally, I would want 'defend your colony' type missions to be rare and very difficult rather than common and fairly easy. I think the babysitting feeling comes from the fact that current expeditions happen somewhat frequently so that the player ends up constantly going back to their colony unless they build up some impenetrable defenses. This has led me to delay making a colony until I can afford to immediately build up a level 2 station and ground defenses so that I minimize the amount I need to personally defend.

I would like major defense type stuff (expeditions) to only really happen 3-4 times over a campaign, but I would also want it to be very difficult. Something where you know many months in advance and are trying to prepare by building up your fleet or whatever (maybe add some temporary defense mechanics as well). Maybe there could be some intel missions where you get a tip in a bar, or from a contact, that a faction is upset with your production and you can recon the fleet that is assembling or sabotage it etc.

*thumbs up* generally speaking.


Kind of unrelated, but is the player the de-facto "leader" of planets they colonized, or more like ....a majority stakeholder?

Yes!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Melanoc3tus II on October 19, 2020, 01:29:19 PM
Totally important question here.

What is your opinion on sub frigate size pilotable or autonomous craft? By this I mean gunships, patrol boats, corvettes, heavy fighters, the like.

The Robberfly Corvette (from Blackrock) in particular seemed to be a very interesting concept, light, manoeuvrable, unshielded, and very small, but with enough weaponry to pose a credible threat to low level freighters. And incredibly synergistic with tactical lasers.

I believe the Mayasuran Navy mod has a ship sized heavy bomber, a novel concept to be sure.

Anyways, it's simply that such things please me for some reason. Aside from that, I feel that shuttles as they are now are just a bit too bulky to be entirely credible, and something smaller would bring much flavour.

This is is so low on your priority list that it's alongside me when I first played Minecraft on creative, accidentally dug through the map into the void, and died. Mods have this kind of thing in spades, and while I feel they have it because it's genuinely cool, and a niche yet to be filled in the base game, they still do have it, so the only thing to contribute would be a canon variant. Not that that's not valuable in and of itself, but it's not on the same level as everything else.

Oh, and don't worry. This is a one time thing, no post pollution. The colony debate requires the majority of discussion, else sifting through all the random sh*t will be a nightmare. Or at least a time/energy sink. Space too, if you think about it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on October 19, 2020, 01:31:01 PM
I can't really speak much about colony development, because the thing I really want with colonies is the orders tab. Colonies by themselves are just puzzles of how to make the most money out of them and custom production is the only unique (for the time being) benefit.
Kind of unrelated, but is the player the de-facto "leader" of planets they colonized, or more like ....a majority stakeholder?

Yes!
Ah, the mathematician's answer.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 19, 2020, 01:39:35 PM
The way i see it you are their leader, or at least something along those lines, but not nearly as strictly as i've often seen people assume.

The way the numbers make the most sense (for me at least) is when you consider building an "industry" as building the government structures needed to deal with that industry (administration, regulation, other overhead etc) and then the migrants that actually build up and work in those industries pay a tax which ends up as your income.

This makes the most sense (again imo) for the relatively small sums needed to start something (and that it then grows along with the population by itself) and that you get *relatively* little return from it. Also makes it more reasonable that costs/benefits increase linearly while pop increases by orders of magnitude, and all kinds of other little things like that.
Often i've had the idea that people complaining about the mechanics "not making sense" expect people to migrate to your colonies to become your personal slaves. xD
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 19, 2020, 02:15:45 PM
I think the babysitting feeling comes from the fact that current expeditions happen somewhat frequently so that the player ends up constantly going back to their colony unless they build up some impenetrable defenses. This has led me to delay making a colony until I can afford to immediately build up a level 2 station and ground defenses so that I minimize the amount I need to personally defend.
The frequency (especially once Free Port is on) is why I want to destroy the core worlds.  No core worlds, no more expeditions (or the need to defend them from zombie pirates).

I delay colony building until I can build up the necessary defenses immediately.  Level 1 battlestation and other modest defenses are enough for -1/-10% pirates.  I do not build any industries aside from Farming and Military Base so that I do not attract expeditions.  Once I think I obtain enough power to defeat endgame threats, I build up and grow population as fast as I can.

However, having impenetrable defenses for my colonies only solves part of the babysitting problem.  The other problem is the neverending zombie pirates that successfully raid (the mostly undefended) core worlds constantly unless I intercept the pirates.  In one game, I ignored the pirates for a few years and Asharu decivilized and (I think) few other worlds had zero stability from constant pirate raids.  If I want to save the core worlds for income purposes, I need to chase pirates constantly to save the core worlds.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on October 19, 2020, 02:45:42 PM
Hmm, I don't think I agree here; "priority" is different from "long-term negative consequences if you don't". Having things to prioritize is fine. I mean, establishing a colony could be considered "babysitting" in that light. And if you know all the requirements ahead of time, that just translates into having to get more stuff together to start a colony, and that just seems boring. This'd have to get thought through some; I don't think pure resource requirements would be all that interesting here - rather, "things to do" might work better. For example, "survey the entire system", "establish a comm relay", "clear out a pirate base that's in a system next door", "deal with a Pather expedition (that may be hostile or friendly, with Consequences either way), etc...
Yeah, point taken. I'd be fine with it so long as it doesn't force me to interrupt what I'm doing and doesn't completely stall out colony stuff to the point where I feel like I'm wasting time if I don't get it done. Not that there's a time limit to the game, but it's best if stuff that takes time grows in the background while I go explore the Sector a bit more. Rather than me finishing all my explorations and only then doing the colony stuff, resulting in me sitting around for years waiting for stuff to grow.

However, having impenetrable defenses for my colonies only solves part of the babysitting problem.  The other problem is the neverending zombie pirates that successfully raid (the mostly undefended) core worlds constantly unless I intercept the pirates.  In one game, I ignored the pirates for a few years and Asharu decivilized and (I think) few other worlds had zero stability from constant pirate raids.  If I want to save the core worlds for income purposes, I need to chase pirates constantly to save the core worlds.
Random suggestion: Would turning off worlds decivilizing in the configs help with that at all? It makes no sense for it to happen to the core worlds like that and if your own colonies are at stability 0 for that long you'll likely have enough problems to deal with anyway. That's what I did in my last vanilla run, right before...some world, I can't remember which, but right before some core world would have decivilized. Only reason that save still has all the core worlds intact.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 19, 2020, 03:41:32 PM
Totally important question here.

What is your opinion on sub frigate size pilotable or autonomous craft? By this I mean gunships, patrol boats, corvettes, heavy fighters, the like.

The Robberfly Corvette (from Blackrock) in particular seemed to be a very interesting concept, light, manoeuvrable, unshielded, and very small, but with enough weaponry to pose a credible threat to low level freighters. And incredibly synergistic with tactical lasers.

Well, I'm not sure how this is different from "specialized frigate"! As far as larger fighters, I think they look kind of awkward when they fly over things or take off/land, so just aesthetically, that's not a direction I want to go.

I can't really speak much about colony development, because the thing I really want with colonies is the orders tab. Colonies by themselves are just puzzles of how to make the most money out of them and custom production is the only unique (for the time being) benefit.

Yeah, exactly.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 19, 2020, 04:44:20 PM
@ AcaMetis:  My worlds were fine.  It was the Indie worlds in Corvus and Arcadia that got wrecked because I ignored pirates (because I did not want to stop exploring in the fringe where my colonies were, and it should be up to the Hegemony and Indies to defend their worlds and clean up their mess.)

After that game, I have basically played Superman or Batman rushing to intercept every last pirate raid so that core worlds' stability does not drop.  (And I do not want their stability to tank so I can raid them for blueprints later and not decivilize those worlds.)  Chasing pirates to protect core worlds takes a big chunk of babysitting time, probably more than defending my worlds.  Then the core worlds thank me by sending expeditions.  It is like a scene right out of the movie High Plains Drifter where player is Clint Eastwood, the cowardly townsfolk whose town is painted red are all of the non-pirate factions, and the outlaws terrorizing the town until they die in the end are the relentless zombie pirates.

Pirates effortlessly decivilizing worlds in five to ten years is sort of lore breaking.  AI wars and other big conflicts among major factions are just not believable when zombie pirate overlords overwhelm everyone with ease.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FabianClasen on October 19, 2020, 05:13:34 PM
Not gonna lie. Absolutely hyped for this one.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on October 19, 2020, 05:17:09 PM
@ AcaMetis:  My worlds were fine.  It was the Indie worlds in Corvus and Arcadia that got wrecked because I ignored pirates (because I did not want to stop exploring in the fringe where my colonies were, and it should be up to the Hegemony and Indies to defend their worlds and clean up their mess.)

After that game, I have basically played Superman or Batman rushing to intercept every last pirate raid so that core worlds' stability does not drop.  (And I do not want their stability to tank so I can raid them for blueprints later and not decivilize those worlds.)  Chasing pirates to protect core worlds takes a big chunk of babysitting time, probably more than defending my worlds.  Then the core worlds thank me by sending expeditions.  It is like a scene right out of the movie High Plains Drifter where player is Clint Eastwood, the cowardly townsfolk whose town is painted red are all of the non-pirate factions, and the outlaws terrorizing the town until they die in the end are the relentless zombie pirates.

Pirates effortlessly decivilizing worlds in five to ten years is sort of lore breaking.  AI wars and other big conflicts among major factions are just not believable when zombie pirate overlords overwhelm everyone with ease.
I just clear whatever bases have bounties put on them most of the time, and I never have issues with decivilization. I never fight individual raids.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 19, 2020, 05:24:24 PM
I just clear whatever bases have bounties put on them most of the time, and I never have issues with decivilization. I never fight individual raids.
I try to clear base bounties too, but sometimes, I do not always catch them all on time, and I need to intercept a raid (unless I need the raid to succeed to proc a system bounty).  Ever since Asharu decivilized after a few years in that one game, I have hunted pirates mostly non-stop to prevent another decivilization (until I decide the core worlds need to die).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 19, 2020, 06:04:28 PM
I'm not too familiar with the lore but isn't the whole idea that after the initial shock of the collapse the situation has only deteriorated further? IIRC the whole syndrian diktat mess and the last AI war just before that are barely more than a decade ago at the start of the game too.
Granted, clearly the pirates don't behave as they realistically should, but from the parts of the lore that i know it shouldn't be too far fetched that the main factions are in a very vulnerable state compared to the power they had over the course of the last 2 centuries.

decivilizing in 5 or 10 years is also a bit of an exaggeration i'd think. I've had at least a few playthroughs where i kept going more than 10 years and don't think i've ever seen a decivilization warning come up for even a backwater planet of the main factions in an unmodded game.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 19, 2020, 06:16:47 PM
decivilizing in 5 or 10 years is also a bit of an exaggeration i'd think. I've had at least a few playthroughs where i kept going more than 10 years and don't think i've ever seen a decivilization warning come up for even a backwater planet of the main factions in an unmodded game.
Maybe it is random and I got unlucky.  I played unmodded game, and Asharu decivilized sometime between five to ten years in one of my games.  It was during the first v0.9a releases.  Also, I had no decivilization warning.  (That might have came in a later release.)  Asharu suddenly decivilized, like sudden death in overtime.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FooF on October 19, 2020, 06:18:28 PM
Regarding the "new, very rare, and powerful enemy:"

Of course, you can't say much but will this enemy type just be roaming about in the wild or will there be specific steps that have to take place to trigger them? On the one hand, I would a "There be dragons" part of the map or some kind of event that keeps the player humble while on the other hand, I would hate for a new player to get stomped prematurely. At least the [REDACTED] have warning beacons.

Also, if current threats are "a couple of Lashers/Enforcers" and what is planned is "the whole Hegemony," (even withe hyperbole)...that sounds both terrifying and exciting. I have my theories but I do hope that the player isn't the only one invested in stopping the existential threat. 
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: shoi on October 19, 2020, 06:22:22 PM


Yes!

as expected
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 19, 2020, 07:56:21 PM
Will planets with disruoted spaceports still generate procurement missions? The "Donn raid-and-trait" strategy makes getting credits too easy.

Any plans for having more than 1 comm-sniffer and not getting removed during maintenance? Intel-gathering from contacts instead of relays?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Cosmitz on October 19, 2020, 11:24:48 PM
Those are all fair points. But the stars look pretty, so... look, let me have this one.

(A somewhat more salient point: I do think it's important to have a real-space view of the Sector visible in the game somewhere, just to make it feel like a "real" bunch of stars somewhere.)

I don't disagree, but i'd say the gameview itself does enough work on its own to look outstanding and spacey. :P Plus, weighted against new player on-boarding it really takes its toll.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Schwartz on October 20, 2020, 12:58:27 AM
Bit late, but Re: Colony Limits... I don't think putting a hard lock on one size 6 and size 5 for the rest would be a good idea. Or even that a hard limit at all is necessary. Colonies should grow organically. And since every step up is a 10x growth, it should be simple to tweak the formula for anything above size 6 to take too long for comfort.

Just as it is with XP currently, which really peters out above level 70 if you have levels unlocked. You don't need a hard limit. The limit is time.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: huhn on October 20, 2020, 01:30:23 AM
so how long does it take to grow from millions to 10 of millions?

the first grow steps can be easily explained by migration but when you reach millions that simply doesn't add up anymore.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 20, 2020, 03:51:10 AM
Bit late, but Re: Colony Limits... I don't think putting a hard lock on one size 6 and size 5 for the rest would be a good idea. Or even that a hard limit at all is necessary. Colonies should grow organically. And since every step up is a 10x growth, it should be simple to tweak the formula for anything above size 6 to take too long for comfort.
I would not want 10^6 for one and 10^5 for the rest.  Makes meeting demand a pain.  Also probably would need to babysit my colonies more (unless I sat bomb the big core worlds to lower their populations and weaken their expeditions permanently).  Even if limits are higher, having one world having a higher limit than another means the smaller worlds need to produce more to satisfy demand for the bigger planet.

Suggestion:  If core worlds get sat bombed but they survive (say, player sat bombs Chicomoztoc from size 8 down to size 5 or less), they should regrow their size up to 10^6 eventually.

P.S.  While having soft cap may seem okay, it could push people into min-maxing population growth, like using Free Port solely for population growth and/or colonizing in systems with the sleeper ship in long haul games that last tens of cycles.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Schwartz on October 20, 2020, 04:10:05 AM
So if a guy wants to play extremely long games where a size 7 colony won't take 30 cycles but thanks to his min-maxing will only take 20 cycles to complete.... shouldn't we let him have it? It's not a massive upgrade and he won't feel like he's arbitrarily locked out of having a "real planet". It's just that like a "real planet", it will happen over a course of decades or centuries and not just years.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Modo44 on October 20, 2020, 04:26:44 AM
It's a single player game. If someone wants to min-max certain aspects of it, they will. Thinking you can win vs nerds armed with spreadsheets and mods is folly. "Hard limits" lol
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on October 20, 2020, 04:53:31 AM
So if a guy wants to play extremely long games where a size 7 colony won't take 30 cycles but thanks to his min-maxing will only take 20 cycles to complete.... shouldn't we let him have it? It's not a massive upgrade and he won't feel like he's arbitrarily locked out of having a "real planet". It's just that like a "real planet", it will happen over a course of decades or centuries and not just years.

The idea is to stop people from forcing themselves into gameplay that is not fun, because they feel they have to play "optimally" or "max out everything". If just some people who really want to hang around in a save for 50 years were to see the colonies grow to size 7, that would not be a problem. But if people hang around in the game, actually bored out of their mind, just to see that number change from 6 to 7, that's bad game design.

Here's a GMTK video about the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L8vAGGitr8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L8vAGGitr8)

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 20, 2020, 04:58:10 AM
Hard limits are useful to curb excessive grinding or min-maxing.

Quote
So if a guy wants to play extremely long games where a size 7 colony won't take 30 cycles but thanks to his min-maxing will only take 20 cycles to complete.... shouldn't we let him have it? It's not a massive upgrade and he won't feel like he's arbitrarily locked out of having a "real planet". It's just that like a "real planet", it will happen over a course of decades or centuries and not just years.
For someone who does not want to wait too long, but wants to get his big planet badly enough for whatever reason, gameplay would be dominated by min-maxing that one stat (population growth).

That is like soft level limits in pre-0.8 Starsector.  Do whatever it takes to maximize xp gain (food runs with big Atlas fleets in 0.65), and grinding levels here is like grinding for rare items in Diablo 2.  Grinding for levels becomes the game.

If someone perceives something to be very good, but its a royal pain to obtain, extraordinary or degenerate methods may be employed to get it (assuming they do not outright cheat).

Quote
But if people hang around in the game, actually bored out of their mind, just to see that number change from 6 to 7, that's bad game design.
That would be me.  I have done this for months, maybe years, with level and item grinding in Diablo 2.  Obsession can trump boredom (because the player really want that goal badly enough), and that is not healthy.

That is why I have not seriously attempted the mad quest of full sector colonization yet, although I did grind Ordos in red systems for about forty-something alpha cores, just to see what kind of grinding I would need to do to get the cores needed to colonize everything, and to find what can kill Radiants the least painfully.  I might actually attempt it after Starsector is officially finished.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Orochi on October 20, 2020, 04:59:32 AM
There was something you said earlier in the ball-park range of it seeming like some of us just want more colony size because its more pluses, and that's not entirely wrong. In fact, it's probably, at least three fourths correct. But you have to understand something Alex. I hate to break it to you, but just about every person that plays Startsector is, to some extent, a munchkin that will number crunch the game until they can glass the entire sector with the exhaust fumes of their fleet full of cheese. I don't know how you've not noticed this in the decade-ish time that you've been working on the game, but it's the truth.

I'm not saying you have to, or even should give in to the munchkin hive-mind, but you should be aware it exists at least.

Now onto my thoughts.

Personally, I feel like capping colony size is just a solution looking for a problem. Essentially, the only problems of large Colony sizes that I can see, are the lore conflict, the lack of "realism", and the thematic issues, all things you've previously said should move out of the way for game mechanics. Those three things could be more easily 'fixed' just by reducing the population number of each colony size, or giving certain core worlds specific conditions that, for lore-reasons just state they have larger populations than what their size would otherwise state.

On the other hand, limiting colony size loses granularity. While there aren't currently any mechanics that take advantage of having specific sizes of worlds other than industry limitations, you lose that potential by getting rid of it. Also having more stages just gives players a better sense of progression and... well people tend to like it because we're munchkins. My point being that it seems like a choice that has nothing but disadvantages while the current system is just kind of... fine.

As far as mining colonies go, you're talking about trying to fundamentally work against concepts that have been implemented in the colony system. There are four reasons to have colonies: ship/weapon production, storage, tech-mining, and money. Two of these are enhanced by having larger colonies, and the rest have nothing to do with colony size. Bigger colonies make more money and more stuff. They get more market share, export more goods, and you can stack more buffs on them.

Plus, production doesn't matter beyond the profits they make. Sure, you have to make sure your colonies have access to all the goods they need for their structures/industries to function, but that's really just an extention of the profit they make. In service to this, mining (ore, organics, and rare ore) isn't even close to the highest income products, Metals Transplutonics, and Volatiles are. The income you make form ore, and rare ore are basically trivial, to the extent that you should only ever need at most one ore and one rare ore mining world to supply the rest of your refinery empire. And even that still mandates that your mining colonies have large populations for the large resource supply.

Basically, you are never going to get 'high-hazard small mining colonies' organically. Unless you hamfist it in some way, it's just not happening. It just doesn't work with the mechanics. The only option I can think of is either a fundamental change to the mining system so that more population doesn't improve goods produced, a massive increase to mining profitability just for having the industry, or effectively some kind of 'mining colony' button that limits the colony growth, but gives massive bonuses to accessibility and production (and either prevents or doesn't benefit volatiles, farming, refineries, etc).

As for requiring items to bring income up to pre-nerf, or rather '0.95' levels, once again, it feels more like a solution looking for a problem. While currently colonies can quickly make money a non-issue, that's not because they're unbalanced but because the game has a fundamental lack of resource sinks in end game. Most money is spent on maintenance through labor costs, replacement ships, supplies, and fuel, or investment through buying more ships/weapons or colony stuff. Getting a stable source of passive income fundamentally changes this, and it will always be either too much or not enough as long as there isn't something else to sink it in. Basically all you're doing is stretching out the mid game and kicking the problem down the line. It's not going to change the fact that, eventually, I'm going to have a bunch of colonies, covered in alpha cores, each planet a fortress unto itself, spitting money at me faster than I can spend it. It's the munchkin way.

I can't tell you what end game should be, as I don't know what your plans are, but I can tell your right now that farming [REDACTED] for AI cores, raiding, and colony shenanigans ain't it. That stuff all feels like gearing up for the final boss, like the Loyalty missions in Mass Effect, or getting the Master Sword. It feels like a rollercoaster about to come to a hilltop and instead of going over and finishing the coaster, you're just trying to make the hill bigger.

I'm not trying to demand 'more content', I'm saying that the current game crescendos in a way that suggests there is something unfinished waiting at the end, and that it seems to me the problem is not that the mechanics haven't been tweaked 'just right', but rather that it either needs to be changed in a fundamental way or an ending given.

Oh, and though I appreciate rolling the story points and streamlining the skill system, I disagree with the design choice to limit the number of skills a player can have (even though that isn't a new addition). Mainly because it doesn't accomplish your goal, i.e. adding a meaningful choice. A fundament problem with the system is that there will always be a 'best' skill out of every choice. You can get those skills infinitely close, but you can never truly make them equal. Because of this, there will always be a 'best' build, and players will always gravitate towards it.

To give an example, let's take that navigation skill example. The one that increases overall speed is better. Why? Because it's an overall speed boost, vs making up for a penalty. I can just limit the times when I need to 'slow-move', which I will be used to anyway beforehand. In contrast, the slow-move buff only helps in situations that are sub-optimal to begin with, and no matter how fast you go when slow-moving, I assume it's never going to overtake someone going normal speed. The choice is between lessening a penalty that happens when you essentially screw up positioning in the map, or buffing everything else. It's especially egregious because neither really defines your gameplay, it's not a meaningful choice, it's a nobrainer.

If you really, absolutely, want to provoke different builds, in my opinion, the only real option is to make it so either each choice has nothing to do with each other, or fundamentally changes the way you play the game. An example (But not a good one) would be something like Transverse Jump or Emergency Escape Jump (that gives you a way to escape battles), or 20% extra OP vs extra administrators. Again those are not suggestions, just examples of choices that I feel would be truly 'meaningful'.

What's more, it's more than likely, that the industry/general/utility skills will be, once again prioritized over the combat skills because as always, generally speaking, it's not the player's combat performance that matters most. That's... one more thing that's sort of fundamental to the game as well.

My logic is that making it either a choice that defines the way you play, or some kind of Apples to Oranges thing obfuscates the 'best option'. Despite that, it still doesn't eliminate the problem of there being a 'best choice'. And quite a few players will feel compelled to take the 'better' choice, even when they would prefer something else. Again, cause we're all kind of munchkins.

As a word of caution, any game like this that constantly drains at your resources tends to provoke min-maxing. I hate to say it, but your idea of balance tends to drag the game out and make things more difficult than they absolutely have to be. It's not a bad thing in of itself, but it does naturally discourage the organic feel you seem to be chasing. The less wiggle room people have, the more they tend to gravitate to things that they 'know' work, and the less they are inclined to actually explore mechanics. This leads into the base-bounty nerf. It's just going to further squeeze margins tighter for people. As a source of stable income decreases, the number of risks you are willing to take decrease. The less you want to buy that ship you haven't used, or try out a new fleet composition, because if you do lose something you can't afford to replace it, or the time spent to do so will set you back too far.

In other words, it means it attracts munchkins and breeds munchkin tendancies into the non-munchkins that stay.

Regardless, I hope my comments don't come off as... pushy or demanding. I believe that I don't necessarily disagree with what you're trying to accomplish. It's just that I think the way you're going about it won't get the results you want. While I certainly have my own desires for what I would 'like' from the game and perhaps I'm projecting my own desires onto you, I'm trying to go on what you've said in the past.

In the end, I'm an opinionated person, and as I write things like this, I tend to get defensive as I pick holes in my own comments. Also its been a few days since I've checked the patch notes or followed the conversation, so maybe some of these have been addressed, or are misunderstandings. I apologize in advance if this is the case.

Have a nice day.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on October 20, 2020, 05:36:45 AM
just about every person that plays Startsector is, to some extent, a munchkin that will number crunch the game until they can glass the entire sector with the exhaust fumes of their fleet full of cheese.

Mh, I think you are confusing "every person that plays Startsector" with "many that play Startsector and are actively discussing it on the internet". The latter is a self selecting group that does not represent the whole playerbase, a vocal minority of of sorts.

I believe most players are simply picking options that seem fun or exciting to them.

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: shoi on October 20, 2020, 05:38:06 AM
just about every person that plays Startsector is, to some extent, a munchkin that will number crunch the game until they can glass the entire sector with the exhaust fumes of their fleet full of cheese.

Mh, I think you are confusing "every person that plays Startsector" with "many that play Startsector and are actively discussing it on the internet". The latter is a self selecting group that does not represent the whole playerbase, a vocal minority of of sorts.

I believe most players are simply picking options that seem fun or exciting to them.

+1
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 20, 2020, 05:49:46 AM

Mh, I think you are confusing "every person that plays Startsector" with "many that play Startsector and are actively discussing it on the internet". The latter is a self selecting group that does not represent the whole playerbase, a vocal minority of of sorts.

I believe most players are simply picking options that seem fun or exciting to them.

Exactly.

As for me, i've read up plenty on most aspects of SS over the 11 months or so since i bought it, and i still don't min/max much of anything even though that gives me the knowledge to do so (or at least try).
It's a single player game, and not that difficult once you get the hang of it (at least once you've built up a nice core of ships), so why would I? I'd rather sacrifice some of the min maxing for doing things that make "role playing" sense.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on October 20, 2020, 05:50:37 AM
The idea is to stop people from forcing themselves into gameplay that is not fun, because they feel they have to play "optimally" or "max out everything".
What would force players to sit around for 20-30 ingame years to watch colonies grow from size 6 to size 7? It's not a requirement to unlock the super secret final boss (I'm assuming), all it does is make a few numbers bigger. And not in a way that's likely to make any sort of difference by that point. I don't recall anyone feeling forced to sit around until their colonies reach size 10 in the current patch, I don't understand why it would become a problem in the upcoming one.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Orochi on October 20, 2020, 06:28:01 AM

Mh, I think you are confusing "every person that plays Startsector" with "many that play Startsector and are actively discussing it on the internet". The latter is a self selecting group that does not represent the whole playerbase, a vocal minority of of sorts.

I believe most players are simply picking options that seem fun or exciting to them.

You're right. I can't speak for people who don't actively discuss their opinions. However, its the same both ways. Calling the 'many people that actively discuss the game online' a vocal minority with no proof the majority is unlike it is probably even less like to be correct than my assumption that they at least speak for a great part of the player base.

Perhaps I should limit it to "Almost everyone that voices their opinion on Starsector shows munchkin tendencies". I suppose I should also specify what I'm talking about.

When people pick options 'for fun' in games like Star Sector, they usually must also pick options that are optimized to counter balance it unless they don't care about making progress or essentially running their saves into the ground. Most of the things that I'm talking about, most people wouldn't event think about as Min-maxing, like picking a Buffalo over a Tarsus... which is totally min-maxing the logistical profile of your fleet. Or settling in a system with lots of moons to stack your defenses.

Lots of the stuff that people consider 'just the thing you do', like take Transverse Jump asap, is Munchkin min-maxing. The fact that not doing those things is considered either new-player behavior or an intentional role-play/difficulty increase is proof enough that most people that play this game are, to an extent min-maxing munchkins, even if they don't take every opportunity to be as optimal as possible.

This is supported by just about any discussion related to ship fitting that isn't a meme, as well as the fact that probably half the time most people play the game is spent there. Even if they aren't breaking out calculators and looking at graphs, they tend to be min-maxing so that they can support some kind of cool option.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 20, 2020, 06:45:41 AM
For one or two games, I did not take Navigation because I wanted three more skill points for combat skills.  Eventually, I got fed up with bringing extra tugs and tankers, not to mention crossing pulsar beams repeatedly because pirate bases kept respawning in neutron star systems, and eventually got Navigation.

In my latest game, I did not want to take Sensors 1 because I wanted the skill point for something else.  Eventually, I had a pirate base bounty in Penelope's Star that I spent thirty minutes trying to find, but could not.  Usual tricks to find the base ended in failure.  I grabbed Neutrino Detector and it revealed the base hidden in the outermost asteroid belt, too far from planets, relays, and other stuff that are usually close by.  I consider Sensors 1 mandatory for the rare times a pirate base spawns in an unusual spot that makes it almost impossible to find without neutrino detector.

Most of all, I like colonies, but not pather cells, so I spent nine skill points in Industry solely for colony skills, and considered Planetary Operations in Leadership for the stability bonus (effectively +1 colony).  After finding out Pathers were bugged, I felt buyer's remorse because those points wasted in colony skills ended up gimping my combat power (because points I wanted in combat went to colonies because I also wanted to be a space lord with a big empire).  Alpha cores are unlimited (provided the Nexus is left alone to spawn unlimited Ordos), but skill points are not.  No respec makes it worse.

At least next release will have respec, although Alex wrote there may be individual exceptions.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: DancingMonkey on October 20, 2020, 07:07:51 AM
Only read the OP so sorry if you already answered;

Is it possible to make the move slowly key a toggle on? Maybe by a setting?

Thanks!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Toxcity on October 20, 2020, 07:14:34 AM
I'm just excited since this patch seems to be giving life to the midgame. Hopefully the fleet composition changes make the bounty progression smoother too.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: ProfessionalHuman on October 20, 2020, 07:51:56 AM
Wow, that's not a patch, that's a whole new game! Really excited about patch notes (especially personal contacts). One of the best games i played. Keep up the great work!

If it isn't too late to add something in the upcoming patch, can we have a toggable ship control mode when camera is fixed to the ship and turns around with it? Right now if i turn my ship 180 degrees (when it's nose is pointing to the bottm side of the screen) controls changes like so:
I understand, that technically controls are correct, but this is very confusing and is the reason why i not pilot frigates/any fast and agile ships. I searched through forum and i am not only one having this problem. But, unfortunatly, i havent found any solution.

P.S.: English is not my native language, so sorry for any mistakes.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 20, 2020, 07:56:32 AM
If that was changed and the keys mean "move north/south/west/east" instead then how do you see that working when your ship is pointed diagonally? Should the ship just half move forward/half strafe? Changing this would mean you can just move into 8 directions too.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on October 20, 2020, 08:26:50 AM
@ ProfessionalHuman: Welcome to the forum! The control scheme you are proposing has actually been tried early on, but was found to be disorienting. You can read more here, if you like: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8643.0 (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8643.0)


When people pick options 'for fun' in games like Star Sector, they usually must also pick options that are optimized to counter balance it unless they don't care about making progress or essentially running their saves into the ground. Most of the things that I'm talking about, most people wouldn't event think about as Min-maxing, like picking a Buffalo over a Tarsus... which is totally min-maxing the logistical profile of your fleet. Or settling in a system with lots of moons to stack your defenses.

Lots of the stuff that people consider 'just the thing you do', like take Transverse Jump asap, is Munchkin min-maxing. The fact that not doing those things is considered either new-player behavior or an intentional role-play/difficulty increase is proof enough that most people that play this game are, to an extent min-maxing munchkins, even if they don't take every opportunity to be as optimal as possible.



Well, if you define "munchkin" broadly enough to include everybody trying to play the game successfully, than most people will fall into the category, yes. Before you talked about everybody number crunching and glassing the entire Sector, though.

To me its important that the game is open enough to define your own success. For some that might be galactic conquest, for others exploring the Sector, building a beautiful colony, being a great smuggler or bounty hunter or making friends with the Pirates. For these different playstyles there are different optimal skills, so in the end they all have a reason to exist.

Only read the OP so sorry if you already answered;

Is it possible to make the move slowly key a toggle on? Maybe by a setting?

Thanks!

Pretty sure its gonna be a toggle?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: ANGRYABOUTELVES on October 20, 2020, 09:24:02 AM
I think making the Light Needler 7 OP is a mistake. It still won't be useful for ships that want more sustained kinetic pressure, and on ships that can fully utilize the burst like the Sunder or Doom it'll be undercosted. The Railgun nerf is appropriate, though.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Shoat on October 20, 2020, 09:24:50 AM
So if a guy wants to play extremely long games where a size 7 colony won't take 30 cycles but thanks to his min-maxing will only take 20 cycles to complete.... shouldn't we let him have it? It's not a massive upgrade and he won't feel like he's arbitrarily locked out of having a "real planet". It's just that like a "real planet", it will happen over a course of decades or centuries and not just years.

The idea is to stop people from forcing themselves into gameplay that is not fun, because they feel they have to play "optimally" or "max out everything". If just some people who really want to hang around in a save for 50 years were to see the colonies grow to size 7, that would not be a problem. But if people hang around in the game, actually bored out of their mind, just to see that number change from 6 to 7, that's bad game design.

"Just forbid it completely" is the nuclear option, though, and should be used as a last resort in the most extreme cases only.
Way too many games do this way too often - completely forbidding players from doing certain things because there *may* be a difficult design decision somewhere down the road there.

In this particular case, I think it's extremely important that we be allowed to potentially grow colonies as large as all the pre-existing factions' colonies (given enough time and economic boom to draw in population), even if it is not required to succeed within the main gameplay loop, or likely to happen in any average campaigns.
A hard-limit that entirely takes this off the table from the very get-go is kind of taking me out of the "your faction is a real faction" vibe that I want. One of the most amazing strengths of this game is that I am using the same ships, the same mechanics to equip those ships, to staff them with officers, etc. as the NPCs. For the most part it feels like I am playing the same game as them, and that is good. Similarly, the core fantasy of being able to start my own faction is that I am playing on an equal playing field with the big guys and can also get to where they are if I surpass enough hardships (which is also what makes starting your own faction in mount&blade so satisfying, RP-wise), but it kinda takes some of the wind out of the sails if I know from the get-go that there is an insurmountable upper barrier that cannot be surpassed no matter what.

I mean yes, sure, there are some extremely obsessive players who inflict harm upon themselves if given freedom, but that is a poor excuse to take things away from ALL players. Because you cannot reasonably sift through every single part of the entire game and cut out or limit stuff that promotes obsessiveness, and do whatever needs to be done to your game to ensure nobody hurts their enjoyment by obsessing over something. If you did, what would even be left of starsector? Every part of this game is obsessiveness-bait.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: duckasick on October 20, 2020, 10:20:51 AM
I really love game devs like you. You give just enough info to make me get really excited about what's next, but you don't give any big spoilers. I really can't wait for the new raiding mechanics and story content!

Also, completly off-topic, but are there any mods that interest you content or gameplay wise?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 20, 2020, 10:26:31 AM
A hard-limit that entirely takes this off the table from the very get-go is kind of taking me out of the "your faction is a real faction" vibe that I want. One of the most amazing strengths of this game is that I am using the same ships, the same mechanics to equip those ships, to staff them with officers, etc. as the NPCs. For the most part it feels like I am playing the same game as them, and that is good. Similarly, the core fantasy of being able to start my own faction is that I am playing on an equal playing field with the big guys and can also get to where they are if I surpass enough hardships (which is also what makes starting your own faction in mount&blade so satisfying, RP-wise), but it kinda takes some of the wind out of the sails if I know from the get-go that there is an insurmountable upper barrier that cannot be surpassed no matter what.
My first or second thought about factions exceeding the limit while I cannot is to sat bomb them down to size (6) if I do not want to destroy them outright (for purposes of income), especially if their expeditions are too big.  If I cannot have big colonies like them, no one can!

I would like to reach size 10^7 on my primary colonies like most major factions.  I guess 10^6 is okay.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Hiruma Kai on October 20, 2020, 10:42:53 AM
In terms of game mechanics, capping out player colony growth at size 6 seems fine to me.  It is arbitrary, but so was size 9 or 10.  If credits earned and monthly ship production is where it needs to be, it doesn't really affect game play in the end.  Soft capped growth is an option but I don't see it as compelling.  The point of the game isn't to make the biggest colonies, it is to fly around and blow spaceships up.  Size 6 colonies can supply sufficient credits and material already to allow you to completely lose your personal fleet and recover quickly.

There are a number of other things in game that the player can't do that NPCs can.  For example, field multiple <Redacted> capitals.  In addition, NPC fleets don't spend credits or supplies, or have other player facing issues.  Similarly, there are things the player can do which NPCs can't.  Like settle new world or even have their worlds grow.   Which already makes the player faction completely unlike a pre-existing faction.

There are a number of factions which don't have size 7 or 8 worlds.  Tri-tachyon maxes at 6, Pirates, Independents and Pathers cap at size 5.  So a newly settled player faction caps out like some of the smaller factions already present.  If the player can grow a size 8 world over the course of decades, why shouldn't Tri-tachyon also be able to do so?  That of course adds more mechanics and late game issues to balance.

Given the easy to modify nature of the game, I think as a core vanilla limit, size 6 is fine, and if someone wants their "Long war" mod that lets you play with interesting game play for decades and eventually become as large as the Hegemony, then the subset of players interested in it will grab that mod.  Presumably Alex can make that number easy to change, and given the fact NPC worlds larger exist, should work naturally.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on October 20, 2020, 11:00:08 AM
With regards to the population cap, I don't think the argument 'the player should be able to do whatever they want' holds water. There's a 10^10 cap in the current game. The idea that you put a cap on growth at some reasonable limit so the player doesn't feel obligated to expand forever is already a part of the game and I've never seen anyone complain about it.

I can understand people who want to be able do whatever the AI does, but that's also not a requirement, it's a preference.

It makes no gameplay difference where the cap is set, since the factions and core are static/scripted so that they can be balanced with whatever the player is allowed to do. Colony size has no significance other than income in the current game, and since income can be independently tuned, it's actually just a matter of 'feeling' which is totally subjective. As long as the rest of the gameplay is balanced, it really doesn't matter to me.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Phrosperatus on October 20, 2020, 11:19:10 AM
Hi!
I'm new here and to the game.
I wish to ask, is there a way to make the "Shift" key sticky or toggleable in combat so I wouldn't have to keep holding it down?
Thank you for the responses in advance.

Very exciting news, and interesting discussions.
Glad to be a part of it.
Thank you for developing StarSector.
It is truly amazing.

English is not my native language. I apologize.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: dacian on October 20, 2020, 11:19:20 AM
That is why I have not seriously attempted the mad quest of full sector colonization yet, although I did grind Ordos in red systems for about forty-something alpha cores, just to see what kind of grinding I would need to do to get the cores needed to colonize everything, and to find what can kill Radiants the least painfully.
Can you please tell us what were your finds for optimally killing Radiants? I've been using Drover-filled with Sparks spam ... Am I far from it?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 20, 2020, 11:51:07 AM

I wish to ask, is there a way to make the "Shift" key sticky or toggleable in combat so I wouldn't have to keep holding it down?
Thank you for the responses in advance.


I suggested this a few weeks ago and in the short discussion that followed we came to the conclusion that it might be better to make an extra keybinding for it (like caps lock).
An option (checkbox in the menu) to choose wether you want to hold or toggle shift is good enough for most use cases though.

Anyway the other suggestion i made in that post is now part of the patch notes so i have good hopes we might get this one as well ;)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 20, 2020, 11:59:16 AM
I want big colonies mostly for military might (to shut down enemy expeditions while I am away) and to rebuild a bigger and better Domain.  I do not care about trade income in the long run because it will be zero after a total core kill (which I need to do if I plan to colonize everything or if I am simply sick of babysitting everyone).

Quote
Can you please tell us what were your finds for optimally killing Radiants?
I did not say I found anything better than what is already known by others.  If anything, I had a sub-optimal character with points sunk into colony skills (that became obsolete after I farmed more than a few alpha cores).  All I wanted is a way to farm cores without losing most of my fleet whenever more than one Radiant attacks - and without Drover and Spark spam since my character was not built for it.

I did not use Drover spam because I did not have Officer Management and carrier skills, and my old computer chugs with massive fighter spam.  At first, I used a mix of capitals, Dooms, and carriers.  Later, I used Paragon spam.

Quote
There are a number of factions which don't have size 7 or 8 worlds.  Tri-tachyon maxes at 6, Pirates, Independents and Pathers cap at size 5.  So a newly settled player faction caps out like some of the smaller factions already present.  If the player can grow a size 8 world over the course of decades, why shouldn't Tri-tachyon also be able to do so?  That of course adds more mechanics and late game issues to balance.
Tri-Tachyon is the only major that stops at 6.

My ambition is to match a major faction, preferably the bigger ones.  Indies and pirates do not count.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Phrosperatus on October 20, 2020, 12:07:33 PM

I wish to ask, is there a way to make the "Shift" key sticky or toggleable in combat so I wouldn't have to keep holding it down?
Thank you for the responses in advance.


I suggested this a few weeks ago and in the short discussion that followed we came to the conclusion that it might be better to make an extra keybinding for it (like caps lock).
An option (checkbox in the menu) to choose wether you want to hold or toggle shift is good enough for most use cases though.

Anyway the other suggestion i made in that post is now part of the patch notes so i have good hopes we might get this one as well ;)

Hi!
Thanks for your response. If i could choose, I would wish to keep the way it is, and have another keybinding for the toggle. So Shift would be the same as it was for shorter combats, etc, and another keybind like what you suggested, CapsLock, for longer combats.

If the developer reads this, thank you for considering our suggestion, and for developing StarSector.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 20, 2020, 12:41:41 PM
Regarding the "new, very rare, and powerful enemy:"

Of course, you can't say much but will this enemy type just be roaming about in the wild or will there be specific steps that have to take place to trigger them? On the one hand, I would a "There be dragons" part of the map or some kind of event that keeps the player humble while on the other hand, I would hate for a new player to get stomped prematurely. At least the [REDACTED] have warning beacons.

Yes.

(... sorry! :))

Also, if current threats are "a couple of Lashers/Enforcers" and what is planned is "the whole Hegemony," (even withe hyperbole)...that sounds both terrifying and exciting. I have my theories but I do hope that the player isn't the only one invested in stopping the existential threat.

Yeah, just... :-X


as expected

Apologies for being so predictable :)



Will planets with disruoted spaceports still generate procurement missions? The "Donn raid-and-trait" strategy makes getting credits too easy.

Keep in mind that disrupting a spaceport causes much less of a penalty to accessibility now.



Just as it is with XP currently, which really peters out above level 70 if you have levels unlocked

(I mean, same exacty deal here, if you super want to, you can change the size limit.)



The idea is to stop people from forcing themselves into gameplay that is not fun, because they feel they have to play "optimally" or "max out everything". If just some people who really want to hang around in a save for 50 years were to see the colonies grow to size 7, that would not be a problem. But if people hang around in the game, actually bored out of their mind, just to see that number change from 6 to 7, that's bad game design.

Exactly this, yes!



Personally, I feel like capping colony size is just a solution looking for a problem. Essentially, the only problems of large Colony sizes that I can see, are the lore conflict, the lack of "realism", and the thematic issues, all things you've previously said should move out of the way for game mechanics. Those three things could be more easily 'fixed' just by reducing the population number of each colony size, or giving certain core worlds specific conditions that, for lore-reasons just state they have larger populations than what their size would otherwise state.

Let's flip that around: most of the concern regarding colony size seems to be motivated by "feel", not mechnical issues. And there are some mechanical concerns, which are fair, but not directly related to the colony size number being smaller, but rather to the current tuning of some values that might be based off that.

And, something I should've mentioned earlier, but frankly it slipped my mind - one of the reasons for smaller colonies is indeed mechanical. You can then have items that have a significant impact, and don't end up with those same items on size-9 colonies that completely overwhelm anything the core has. Basically, "items to specialize + smaller colonies" is more interesting than just "bigger colonies", and "items to specialize + bigger colonies" is not a great mix because it limits what you can do with items, design-wise.



Basically, you are never going to get 'high-hazard small mining colonies' organically. Unless you hamfist it in some way, it's just not happening. It just doesn't work with the mechanics. The only option I can think of is either a fundamental change to the mining system so that more population doesn't improve goods produced, a massive increase to mining profitability just for having the industry, or effectively some kind of 'mining colony' button that limits the colony growth, but gives massive bonuses to accessibility and production (and either prevents or doesn't benefit volatiles, farming, refineries, etc).

I mean, you're pointing out several reasonable ways to do it, right after saying it can't be done :) There are more things that could be done, too.


As for requiring items to bring income up to pre-nerf, or rather '0.95' levels, once again, it feels more like a solution looking for a problem. While currently colonies can quickly make money a non-issue, that's not because they're unbalanced but because the game has a fundamental lack of resource sinks in end game.

Agree about the endgame; as I mentioned, colonies are a tool without a task right now; while I have some fairly specific ideas about their final role, right now there isn't anything. So the focus on optimizing colonies - while understandable right now - is also not something I'm super concerned about, if that makes sense.

Regarding items; see above. Their goal isn't to bring colonies back up to previous production levels (though they do do that), but to introduce more variety to playthroughs and more considerations for where to colonize.


A fundament problem with the system is that there will always be a 'best' skill out of every choice. You can get those skills infinitely close, but you can never truly make them equal. Because of this, there will always be a 'best' build, and players will always gravitate towards it.

To give an example, let's take that navigation skill example. The one that increases overall speed is better. Why? Because it's an overall speed boost, vs making up for a penalty. I can just limit the times when I need to 'slow-move', which I will be used to anyway beforehand. In contrast, the slow-move buff only helps in situations that are sub-optimal to begin with, and no matter how fast you go when slow-moving, I assume it's never going to overtake someone going normal speed. The choice is between lessening a penalty that happens when you essentially screw up positioning in the map, or buffing everything else. It's especially egregious because neither really defines your gameplay, it's not a meaningful choice, it's a nobrainer.

If you really, absolutely, want to provoke different builds, in my opinion, the only real option is to make it so either each choice has nothing to do with each other, or fundamentally changes the way you play the game.

Again, I generally agree! Skills are indeed mostly paired in an apples/oranges way, for the reasons you describe. The exceptions are usually skills that would scale multiplicatively with each other to where you're feel forced to take both of them, and even then it's not a straight number-crunching to see what's better.

Regarding navigation/sensors, it's also an apples/oranges thing; I don't think the way you're looking at it is entirely correct. E.G. being able to go *significantly* faster while going dark isn't making up for a penalty - rather, it's making the "sneaking around" playstyle a lot better. And there are lots of things you can do sneaking around - from salaging in REDACTED systems, to smuggling, to performing stealth raids on core worlds, to doing contact missions. Even just exploring, if you can do an Active Sensor Burst (which makes you "move slowly" now), the Sensors skill may be worth more than navigation in terms of speed if you're exploring a new system, for example. And the Sensors skill also gives a bonus to sensor range/reduction of the sensor profile, making it even better for sneaking around.


What's more, it's more than likely, that the industry/general/utility skills will be, once again prioritized over the combat skills because as always, generally speaking, it's not the player's combat performance that matters most. That's... one more thing that's sort of fundamental to the game as well.

I think that's something that seems like it's numerically correct but actually generally isn't, not if your personal piloting is reasonably good. Even in the currently-out version, combat skills are I think way better than common wisdom gives them credit for. In the next release, with Elite skills, you'll have even more personal impact (compared to an officer which will have very limited access to Elite skills). Plus, every aptitude but leadership has some (thematic to the aptitude) combat skills, so you'd pick some up regardless.


Regardless, I hope my comments don't come off as... pushy or demanding. I believe that I don't necessarily disagree with what you're trying to accomplish. It's just that I think the way you're going about it won't get the results you want. While I certainly have my own desires for what I would 'like' from the game and perhaps I'm projecting my own desires onto you, I'm trying to go on what you've said in the past.

In the end, I'm an opinionated person, and as I write things like this, I tend to get defensive as I pick holes in my own comments. Also its been a few days since I've checked the patch notes or followed the conversation, so maybe some of these have been addressed, or are misunderstandings. I apologize in advance if this is the case.

Have a nice day.

No worries! I feel like you're seeing valid problems, but then maybe assuming that I haven't also seen them but instead did, like, the worst possible thing for no reason :) Which, I mean, it's entirely possible/likely that I did miss some things, so I don't mind you bringing these things up! Fortunately, it does seem like the things here *did* get considered. Whether the solutions are adequate etc, time will tell!

Hope you have a nice day, too!



What would force players to sit around for 20-30 ingame years to watch colonies grow from size 6 to size 7? It's not a requirement to unlock the super secret final boss (I'm assuming), all it does is make a few numbers bigger.

Some kind of internal compulsion? I mean, people do the boringest things for achievements etc. I'm not saying *everyone* would feel compelled to do it, but some people certainly would. And even people that wouldn't, seeing something you *can* do and then going "well, that's too boring, I'm not doing *that*" still feels bad! Like, you feel that you've been cut off from some aspect or some power level in the game because you're not willing to waste your time on something boring.


Is it possible to make the move slowly key a toggle on? Maybe by a setting?

Well, if you want to move slowly for a length of time where a toggle is more convenient then holding the key down, then chances are you actually want "Go Dark" instead. Even moving through hyperstorms slowly, for example, you could do that, since no-one's going to stop you for Transponder Crimes in hyperspace...


I think making the Light Needler 7 OP is a mistake. It still won't be useful for ships that want more sustained kinetic pressure, and on ships that can fully utilize the burst like the Sunder or Doom it'll be undercosted. The Railgun nerf is appropriate, though.

FWIW, I've just about come around to making it cost 8 OP.


I really love game devs like you. You give just enough info to make me get really excited about what's next, but you don't give any big spoilers. I really can't wait for the new raiding mechanics and story content!

Also, completly off-topic, but are there any mods that interest you content or gameplay wise?

Thank you! <3

Re: mods - I don't actually play with mods very much. By the time I'd have time to (and they're updated for the new version), there's usually some minor incompatibilities that make it a pain to use with the in-dev version. Plus I'd feel extra-bad about stealing all the ship names if I knew I was doing it ahead of time :)


Given the easy to modify nature of the game, I think as a core vanilla limit, size 6 is fine, and if someone wants their "Long war" mod that lets you play with interesting game play for decades and eventually become as large as the Hegemony, then the subset of players interested in it will grab that mod.  Presumably Alex can make that number easy to change, and given the fact NPC worlds larger exist, should work naturally.

Indeed, and it's trivially modifiable!

It makes no gameplay difference where the cap is set, since the factions and core are static/scripted so that they can be balanced with whatever the player is allowed to do. Colony size has no significance other than income in the current game, and since income can be independently tuned, it's actually just a matter of 'feeling' which is totally subjective.

(Yep!)


Hi!
I'm new here and to the game.
I wish to ask, is there a way to make the "Shift" key sticky or toggleable in combat so I wouldn't have to keep holding it down?
Thank you for the responses in advance.

Very exciting news, and interesting discussions.
Glad to be a part of it.
Thank you for developing StarSector.
It is truly amazing.

English is not my native language. I apologize.

Hi! Not quite, but if you go to gameplay settings (a tab in the "Settings" menu), there's a setting to invert the behavior, so that ships will face the mouse by default, and holding shift will temporarily stop it. Not sure if that'll be useful to you; depends on exactly what you're looking for. (As far as an extra control, well, running a bit short on buttons! Not a fan of using caps lock for things, since it has side effects...)

Happy you're into the game otherwise :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on October 20, 2020, 01:29:34 PM
What's more, it's more than likely, that the industry/general/utility skills will be, once again prioritized over the combat skills because as always, generally speaking, it's not the player's combat performance that matters most. That's... one more thing that's sort of fundamental to the game as well.
The reason why more people value other skills over combat skills is because there are more people who are bad at combat than who are good. And since combat skills scale with player's skill the most, put two and two together and combat skills are unpopular partially because they really are worth less to some people, and others learned to avoid them, because they used to be worth less to them.
I don't know of any particular point at which it's better to get combat skills than not to, but once you play for some time, it's worth to check and see if you're at that point yet.

I think that's something that seems like it's numerically correct but actually generally isn't, not if your personal piloting is reasonably good. Even in the currently-out version, combat skills are I think way better than common wisdom gives them credit for. In the next release, with Elite skills, you'll have even more personal impact (compared to an officer which will have very limited access to Elite skills). Plus, every aptitude but leadership has some (thematic to the aptitude) combat skills, so you'd pick some up regardless.
Will new combat skills' bonuses be overall greater, than current combat skills? You get more locked in in the next update, so I hope so.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Phrosperatus on October 20, 2020, 01:48:00 PM
Hi!
I'm new here and to the game.
I wish to ask, is there a way to make the "Shift" key sticky or toggleable in combat so I wouldn't have to keep holding it down?
Thank you for the responses in advance.

Very exciting news, and interesting discussions.
Glad to be a part of it.
Thank you for developing StarSector.
It is truly amazing.

English is not my native language. I apologize.

Hi! Not quite, but if you go to gameplay settings (a tab in the "Settings" menu), there's a setting to invert the behavior, so that ships will face the mouse by default, and holding shift will temporarily stop it. Not sure if that'll be useful to you; depends on exactly what you're looking for. (As far as an extra control, well, running a bit short on buttons! Not a fan of using caps lock for things, since it has side effects...)

Happy you're into the game otherwise :)
Hi!
Thank you for your response.
A new button for toggling the function temporarily would be the option i wish to be implemented. Making it an optional toggleable function would be also really helpful.
I'm so glad you already implemented bindable modifier keys (Shift, CTRL, Alt, example Shift+D, etc). Thank you for that.
May you please consider implementing combinations. For example by default C is decelerate.
I wish to use W+S or A+D or E+D or Q+A key combinations which otherwise doesn't really make sense to be used / be pressed / holded down together for that.
I'm sorry if I bothered you with these requests and thank you for considering implementing any of these and again for developing StarSector.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FooF on October 20, 2020, 02:08:00 PM
The reason why more people value other skills over combat skills is because there are more people who are bad at combat than who are good. And since combat skills scale with player's skill the most, put two and two together and combat skills are unpopular partially because they really are worth less to some people, and others learned to avoid them, because they used to be worth less to them. I don't know of any particular point at which it's better to get combat skills than not to, but once you play for some time, it's worth to check and see if you're at that point yet.

Going to second this. I know of numerous players that get into combat and put the flagship on autopilot because they don't feel like they can do better. To the degree that combat skills can become a crutch if your actual skill level isn't great, they can also become "irrelevant" if you can't feel their effects first-hand. Combat skills are very much a "layered" thing: one skill might not ever feel like much but the cumulative effects do really start to add up. Whenever I start a new run, I can immediately tell that my ship is slower, less accurate, does less damage, takes more damage, and has a lot less room for error. I can still leverage opportunities and get good positioning but skills make my piloting drastically more effective.

Early on, I'm almost 100% on combat skills. I fight bounties for the most part so while fleets are small, your flagship has a disproportionate effect on battles and I can go from taking on 2-3x DP worth of enemy ships to 5x pretty quickly (and then beyond). I don't fault anyone for doing things differently but that's where I tend to go get the most bang-for-my-buck.

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 20, 2020, 02:36:08 PM
In the current release, the combat skills I am most interested in are not in the Combat tree, but in Leadership (Fleet Logistics, Coordinated Maneuvers, and maybe Fighter Doctrine... oh, and Officer Management) and Technology (Gunnery Implants, Power Grid Modulation, Electronic Warfare, and especially Loadout Design), and that competes with Navigation.  By the time I get all of that, I am already spent more or less half of all of the skill points I will ever get (thank dead aptitudes).

Later, I get Combat Endurance, Helmsmanship, and whatever boosts shields in Combat.  Afterwards, it is decision paralysis, especially during the games I grabbed Industry for colony skills (because I wanted a big empire like Hegemony too).  I would like the armor skills, but I cannot get everything.  If I played another game before 0.95, I would definitely grab Impact Mitigation 1 (which I did not previously).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Wyvern on October 20, 2020, 02:45:12 PM
  • Flagging intel as "important" will no longer prevent it from being removed when it expires

So this one's a mixed bag. Something like an incoming pirate raid? Yeah, take that off the list when I've killed it, I don't need that sticking around. Something like a 'survey this research station' mission that I tagged as important so I don't have to keep separate outside-the-game notes? No, I actually don't want that to expire when the mission's no longer being offered; I would very much like the information that "There is a research station in this system" to be something that sticks around.

RE: All the Onslaught discussions.
So the interesting thing here that I noticed recently is that the Onslaught's base flux dissipation is the same as the Dominator's base flux dissipation. Which does, looking at it, neatly explain why I'm happy to use Dominators, but find Onslaughts to be under-fluxed and overall just relatively poor ships for their price tag.

And on a completely un-related note, I'd like to bring this suggestion thread (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15118.0) back to Alex' attention; it would be very useful for modders to have some access to how ships get drawn in non-combat / non-refit contexts.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 20, 2020, 03:24:14 PM
The reason why more people value other skills over combat skills is because there are more people who are bad at combat than who are good. And since combat skills scale with player's skill the most, put two and two together and combat skills are unpopular partially because they really are worth less to some people, and others learned to avoid them, because they used to be worth less to them.
I don't know of any particular point at which it's better to get combat skills than not to, but once you play for some time, it's worth to check and see if you're at that point yet.

I think that's a really nice way of putting it.

Will new combat skills' bonuses be overall greater, than current combat skills? You get more locked in in the next update, so I hope so.

Very roughly in the same ballpark, with some outliers, and some greater specialization which would allow for greater power in specific tactical contexts. Not sure what you mean by "more locked in", could you clarify? My initial though is you'd be less locked in due to being able to re-spec, so you must mean something else. Ah - maybe the fact that you have to go up the aptitude to get the higher-tier skills? Those are indeed more powerful; the Combat aptitude included.

A new button for toggling the function temporarily would be the option i wish to be implemented. Making it an optional toggleable function would be also really helpful.

Yeah, I understand what you mean!

May you please consider implementing combinations. For example by default C is decelerate.
I wish to use W+S or A+D or E+D or Q+A key combinations which otherwise doesn't really make sense to be used / be pressed / holded down together for that.
I'm sorry if I bothered you with these requests and thank you for considering implementing any of these and again for developing StarSector.

I don't think that would work very well - it's pretty complicated, but also, most keyboards have a hardware limit on the number of nearby keys that they can registered as "pressed" at the same time. So, for example, if you're holding W+S, presses of Q, A, E, D, and some (but not all!) other nearby keys will not register. Again, this is a hardware thing; those input events just won't get generated. So requiring additional key presses like that is asking for trouble.



So this one's a mixed bag. Something like an incoming pirate raid? Yeah, take that off the list when I've killed it, I don't need that sticking around. Something like a 'survey this research station' mission that I tagged as important so I don't have to keep separate outside-the-game notes? No, I actually don't want that to expire when the mission's no longer being offered; I would very much like the information that "There is a research station in this system" to be something that sticks around.

Ah, that's a fair point. Hopefully when/if I get to adding custom map tokens, that'd be alleviated...

RE: All the Onslaught discussions.
So the interesting thing here that I noticed recently is that the Onslaught's base flux dissipation is the same as the Dominator's base flux dissipation. Which does, looking at it, neatly explain why I'm happy to use Dominators, but find Onslaughts to be under-fluxed and overall just relatively poor ships for their price tag.

Hmm? The Dominator is 450, and the Onslaught is 600. Is that not what you're seeing in 0.9.1a? In other words, did I buff that aspect of it and forget about it?

And on a completely un-related note, I'd like to bring this suggestion thread (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15118.0) back to Alex' attention; it would be very useful for modders to have some access to how ships get drawn in non-combat / non-refit contexts.

I'll have another look when I get a chance! What I said back then still stands, really - it's a tricky thing to expose in a good way.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on October 20, 2020, 03:27:46 PM
Regarding combat skills: the devil is in the details. We honestly won't know how the new skill system matches up until we see it. As with the current system, autopilot players see little benefit to combat skills as an officer in the same ship is a better deal. As player skill grows, so does combat skills' impacts.

In the current version the first skills I take are nearly always combat skills even if I'm not going for a full combat build, because the amplification they give to the early game, where the player's flagship is the (in some cases vast) majority of fleet power, it quite large for a modest investment. I can see myself doing the same thing in a new system.

Details that are about the current system and therefor obsolete:
Spoiler
6 skill points (with 2 in the aptitude, 2 in target analysis, 2 in defensive systems) gives anadvantage in the "flux war" of getting the enemy's shield down before the player's own goes down: against a 'mirror' enemy, they will max their shield out when the player is only at 70%. Not to mention the level 1 requirement skills:-25% shield flux is a nice bonus to offensive flux (25 flux on a Hammerhead, equivalent when shields are up to Power Grid Modulation 3 for a level 1 skill), and +50% damage to enemy weapons/engines is nice. For 2 more points: Impact mitigation 1 doubles or more the effective hull hitpoints of a ship, and advanced countermeasures combined with it reduces almost every kinetic weapon to minimum damage.

There are a few other good level 1/2 skills to pick up later, like evasive action 1 and impact mitigation 2 on cruisers/capitals, perhaps combat endurance 1 if the fleet is slow killing for endgame fights, but many of the other best skills are in tier 3 and "gated" behind less essential (but still useful) tier 1 and 2 skills, so there is a gap above 6-10 invested combat points where the marginal return on investment is low, before it shoots up again for the best skills.

For ballistic ships, Gunnery Implants 1 is a game changer (range is also great at tier 3, but recoil reduction on some weapons is massive). Of all the technology skills, I rank this one only behind Electronic Warfare 1 in terms of value for ships that use weapons with spread, and consider those 2 + 1 in the aptitude the required Tech skill investment in otherwise 'no tech' runs.

[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Wyvern on October 20, 2020, 03:37:42 PM
Hmm? The Dominator is 450, and the Onslaught is 600. Is that not what you're seeing in 0.9.1a? In other words, did I buff that aspect of it and forget about it?
...Huh. Yup, looks like I goofed somehow, those are definitely the correct values. Not sure where I got that notion from, then.

I still find the Dominator to more or less work, and the Onslaught more or less not work. Maybe I'd been looking at dissipation available per weapon slot or something? Though that'd generate less 'equal' results and more 'the Dominator has more flux available per weapon'...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on October 20, 2020, 03:46:12 PM
Do combat skills really make that much of a difference ???? They never seemed worth it to me, at least on paper, over the skill that get me a faster, cheaper, better, more resourceful, etc., etc., fleet and 10 officers to cover all my combat skill needs. One of the things I was actually hoping for in the next patch was logistics officers, people that can get the non-combat skills and leave me free to focus on combat without sacrificing my fleet's abilities, logistics profile and/or - somewhat importantly - combat performance. Fleet Logistics 3, Fighter Doctrine, Loadout Design, all useful skills that no officer in the game can cover for me...

Of course with all the changes coming I've no idea of that idea is still relevant - or whether it was even relevant in the first place, apparently - so we'll just have to see.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 20, 2020, 04:47:41 PM
Hmm? The Dominator is 450, and the Onslaught is 600. Is that not what you're seeing in 0.9.1a? In other words, did I buff that aspect of it and forget about it?
...Huh. Yup, looks like I goofed somehow, those are definitely the correct values. Not sure where I got that notion from, then.

Ah, whew. I wonder if maybe increasing the efficiency of the TPC slightly might not help It's not *bad* at 0.8, but it's still energy damage on an otherwise-ballistic ship, so I wonder if .6 might not be more appropriate. That would bring it almost to the level of kinetc/HE vs their specialized targets, though...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 20, 2020, 05:09:11 PM
Even with 0.8 efficiency, there are times I wish I can rip out TPCs on AI Onslaughts because they love to fire the whole clip and be near max flux after emptying both TPCs.  (It is more tolerable if TPCs are alternating.)  I do not consider Expanded Magazines on Onslaught because AI is too trigger-happy with TPCs.  And they fire them while firing the rest of the guns, and it is hard enough trying to not exceed dissipation too much.

More efficient TPCs would be useful to mitigate trigger-happy AI.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AsterPiano on October 20, 2020, 05:14:46 PM
My initial though is you'd be less locked in due to being able to re-spec

Wait, you're going to be able to re-spec in the next update!? Did I misread? Did I miss/forget some patch note or blog post?
(If you can, that sounds pretty nice even if it takes story points to do it)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: ProfessionalHuman on October 20, 2020, 05:16:08 PM
@ ProfessionalHuman: Welcome to the forum! The control scheme you are proposing has actually been tried early on, but was found to be disorienting. You can read more here, if you like: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8643.0 (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8643.0)
So, after reading http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8643.0 and watching some examples of games that use this approach i came to a conclusion that fixing camera to a ship actually doesn't work as well as i thouth. Thanks for providing a link to that discussion.

But there is one thing that wasn't mentioned in that discussion. As i observed, when game chooses in wich direction to propell the ship it takes into account direction to where its nose pointing. What if there was a button that removes ships nose direction from equation? So then if i press "A" ship will always strafe to the left, if i press "D" ship will always strafe to the right, and so on. That could also make piloting broadside ships easier.

If that was changed and the keys mean "move north/south/west/east" instead then how do you see that working when your ship is pointed diagonally? Should the ship just half move forward/half strafe? Changing this would mean you can just move into 8 directions too.
I assume that technically the ship will "just move" in desired direction. On screen you of course will see that both side and main engines are firing.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 20, 2020, 05:18:39 PM
Re-spec is in the July 2019 blog post.  It costs a story point to re-spec.

Quote
A few skills are permanent and can’t be reassigned; these are ones with effects that would either leave the game in an invalid state if the player had the skill and subsequently didn’t, or just ones that make it optimal to get the skill, use it, and then refund it.
I like to know how many such perma-skills are there.  Would like to know if the skill I want is permanent before I spend a point on it.  No fun stepping on a landmine by trying to re-spec the skill away only to learn "too late, you can't".
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: bowman on October 20, 2020, 05:38:40 PM
It's odd to me that colony max size being changed is such a strong discussion point.

First of all, the patchnotes themselves mentioned it's in the configs. You can literally just change the number back to 10. I can understand the desire for it to be inherently supported (as it has ramifications in other systems) and also simply not wanting to remember to edit the config whenever you install the game or what-have-you, but even then it doesn't seem like this should be that big a deal. I would agree, though, that it would be cooler if there were special missions like linking a cryosleeper to a single planet in order to increase it past size 6, but if it's dev time for that versus the actual story.. I think I'd prefer the story? Particularly given that can come later, or from mods, anyway.

On top of that, while we obviously don't have the exacts, from what Alex has said and the patchnotes it seems to me colonies aren't really expected to be reduced in strength compared to the previous top-tier. In fact, it sounds like they may have gone up if you find the right "nanoforge-esque" item. I know for a fact he mentioned one of them "significantly" increases patrol fleet size. Even in the case that their strength does go down, I imagine all the other system changes have shifted what is necessary for defense- though whether that's up or down I've no idea. Once playtesting comes around I imagine he'll tweak the numbers however necessary- though the comments will make that decision more informed, of course.

The way I see it, this is more like renaming the top tier from 10 to 6, simply because the number better fits the numbers in the rest of the game. It's perhaps like if onslaught had 400 LY of fuel range or something equally ridiculous and he went in and realized "oh, that's not really the same magnitude as anything else let's just fix that- clearly should only be 40, just put an extra zero on accident". Not the best example but hopefully the idea is clear.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SafariJohn on October 20, 2020, 05:52:32 PM
Do combat skills really make that much of a difference ????

As stated, in the beginning your flagship is most of your fleet's firepower. In the late game, a capital flagship can easily be 1/3 of your DP on the field, so Combat skills remain very powerful.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Hiruma Kai on October 20, 2020, 06:02:41 PM
Ah, whew. I wonder if maybe increasing the efficiency of the TPC slightly might not help It's not *bad* at 0.8, but it's still energy damage on an otherwise-ballistic ship, so I wonder if .6 might not be more appropriate. That would bring it almost to the level of kinetc/HE vs their specialized targets, though...

I'll point out, you can't swap out the TPC for their specialized variants (kinetic/HE).  They also can't be acquired in any other way than on an Onslaught.  So the question of TPC efficiency relative to kinetic and high explosive weapons is irrelevant.  There's no substitution or decision to be made.  Its not like you get to pick TPC over a Storm Needler or a Hellbore cannon.  TPC stats have to be considered in combination with the Onslaught itself.  The question is, does their current efficiency make the Onslaught too strong, too weak, or just right? 

Given the Onslaught has 5 large weapon mounts on a base 600 flux budget, it really favors multiple low flux cost, high efficiency, low damage weapons.  TPCs as 20 clip weapons at 200 flux per shot are not low flux cost weapons.  8000 flux in 4 seconds is a little under half base flux pool, and takes ~13 seconds to dissipate at base dissipation.  Its really painful to watch when half the shots miss because the target ship is too small for both to hit.  If you don't think 0.6 efficiency will break the balance of the ship itself, I'd suggest tweaking it to 0.6 and see how it plays out in the 0.95 release.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 20, 2020, 06:12:34 PM
But there is one thing that wasn't mentioned in that discussion. As i observed, when game chooses in wich direction to propell the ship it takes into account direction to where its nose pointing. What if there was a button that removes ships nose direction from equation? So then if i press "A" ship will always strafe to the left, if i press "D" ship will always strafe to the right, and so on. That could also make piloting broadside ships easier.

If that was changed and the keys mean "move north/south/west/east" instead then how do you see that working when your ship is pointed diagonally? Should the ship just half move forward/half strafe? Changing this would mean you can just move into 8 directions too.
I assume that technically the ship will "just move" in desired direction. On screen you of course will see that both side and main engines are firing.

I tried that at one point, actually! The problem is, it's hard to - regardless of the ship's facing - e.g. make it move "up the screen" with some combination of valid ship engine control inputs, especially considering that a ship's acceleration values are different depending on whether it's strafing, backing off, or accelerating forward. Making it work in a pleasing way would require "cheating", basically - having it move in a way that couldn't be achieved with how the ship's engine works in-game. And even then, I don't think it's a great fit for this game, since you'd be limited to 8 directions, which is... I think it's just too arcade-like for how the game plays.


I like to know how many such perma-skills are there.  Would like to know if the skill I want is permanent before I spend a point on it.  No fun stepping on a landmine by trying to re-spec the skill away only to learn "too late, you can't".

Off the top of my head, I think maybe 4? It tells you which skills are permanent, of course!


I'll point out, you can't swap out the TPC for their specialized variants (kinetic/HE).  They also can't be acquired in any other way than on an Onslaught.  So the question of TPC efficiency relative to kinetic and high explosive weapons is irrelevant.  There's no substitution or decision to be made.  Its not like you get to pick TPC over a Storm Needler or a Hellbore cannon.  TPC stats have to be considered in combination with the Onslaught itself.  The question is, does their current efficiency make the Onslaught too strong, too weak, or just right? 

Given the Onslaught has 5 large weapon mounts on a base 600 flux budget, it really favors multiple low flux cost, high efficiency, low damage weapons.  TPCs as 20 clip weapons at 200 flux per shot are not low flux cost weapons.  8000 flux in 4 seconds is a little under half base flux pool, and takes ~13 seconds to dissipate at base dissipation.  Its really painful to watch when half the shots miss because the target ship is too small for both to hit.  If you don't think 0.6 efficiency will break the balance of the ship itself, I'd suggest tweaking it to 0.6 and see how it plays out in the 0.95 release.

Right, yeah - what I meant is that it might feel weird for the Onslaught to have the most efficient energy weapon in the game, so it's not really a mechanical concern - as you say, mechanics-wise, it's a non-issue. And, really, this *is* a point where mechanics beat feel pretty clearly. And the point about it missing a lot is a sound one.

Ah, why not - let's give this a try; set it to 150/shot.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 20, 2020, 06:53:07 PM
Oh, since the Onslaught is being discussed again, and since that's one of the ships for which it would be the most useful, i just remembered.

Will we be able to go beyond 5 weapon groups next patch? I've seen it being suggested and discussed a couple of times but can't remember if you (Alex) weighed in on it or not, and if so what your opinion on it was.
Does seem like something that might easily have slipped the patch notes even you implemented it.

Do combat skills really make that much of a difference ???? They never seemed worth it to me, at least on paper, over the skill that get me a faster, cheaper, better, more resourceful, etc., etc. <snip>

Individually they may not seem that strong (well, some of them are) but if you take a bunch together it really adds up. Or in the case that there's really good synergy multiplies might be the better word.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: bowman on October 20, 2020, 06:57:04 PM
Out of curiosity, are there any new sindrian diktat variants (Or faction-specific variants in general)?

I half expect a simple  :-X tbh but might as well ask  ::)

The anticipation is palpable for .95

Edit: I second the 5+ weapon slots question
It's mainly useful for organization but is also nice for flux management with autofire.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 20, 2020, 07:09:08 PM
Right, yeah - what I meant is that it might feel weird for the Onslaught to have the most efficient energy weapon in the game, so it's not really a mechanical concern - as you say, mechanics-wise, it's a non-issue. And, really, this *is* a point where mechanics beat feel pretty clearly. And the point about it missing a lot is a sound one.

Ah, why not - let's give this a try; set it to 150/shot.
TPCs also have the most range of any hard-flux energy (mount) weapon by far.  1000 beats 700.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Phrosperatus on October 20, 2020, 07:10:26 PM
A new button for toggling the function temporarily would be the option i wish to be implemented. Making it an optional toggleable function would be also really helpful.

Yeah, I understand what you mean!

May you please consider implementing combinations. For example by default C is decelerate.
I wish to use W+S or A+D or E+D or Q+A key combinations which otherwise doesn't really make sense to be used / be pressed / holded down together for that.
I'm sorry if I bothered you with these requests and thank you for considering implementing any of these and again for developing StarSector.

I don't think that would work very well - it's pretty complicated, but also, most keyboards have a hardware limit on the number of nearby keys that they can registered as "pressed" at the same time. So, for example, if you're holding W+S, presses of Q, A, E, D, and some (but not all!) other nearby keys will not register. Again, this is a hardware thing; those input events just won't get generated. So requiring additional key presses like that is asking for trouble.
Thank you for your responses and sharing your thoughts on the matter and sorry again for these requests.
I really like the controls of the ship. Combat is fun.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 20, 2020, 07:22:53 PM
Will we be able to go beyond 5 weapon groups next patch? I've seen it being suggested and discussed a couple of times but can't remember if you (Alex) weighed in on it or not, and if so what your opinion on it was.
Does seem like something that might easily have slipped the patch notes even you implemented it.

Nope! It's just enough of a pain to do that I'm hesitant to "just do it".

Out of curiosity, are there any new sindrian diktat variants (Or faction-specific variants in general)?

I half expect a simple  :-X tbh but might as well ask  ::)

Hmm, definitely not for the Diktat (though that's something we talked about at some point internally, I think), and not that I can recall for other faction-specific variants.

TPCs also have the most range of any hard-flux energy (mount) weapon by far.  1000 beats 700.

Yeah, good point there.


Thank you for your responses and sharing your thoughts on the matter and sorry again for these requests.
I really like the controls of the ship. Combat is fun.

No worries about the requests! Sorry I'm saying "no" all the time :)

Happy you're enjoying the game, though!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on October 20, 2020, 07:49:57 PM
I think you have to be very careful about buffing TPC efficiency. It hits quite hard against armor/hull so you kinda have to block with shields unlike kinetics with similar efficiency. Maybe there's a balance point somewhere in there though. I think a big part of the problem is actually the range. TPC outranges kinetics so the onslaught has often already spent half its flux pool on TPCs before it can even use the kinetics that might compensate for its weaker flux stats.

edit:
Maybe reducing clip size might be a buff. Even like 5 shot burst that recharges every couple seconds rather than a big magazine that refills over time.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 20, 2020, 07:54:58 PM
I think you have to be very careful about buffing TPC efficiency. It hits quite hard against armor/hull so you kinda have to block with shields unlike kinetics with similar efficiency. Maybe there's a balance point somewhere in there though. I think a big part of the problem is actually the range. TPC outranges kinetics so the onslaught has often already spent half its flux pool on TPCs before it can even use the kinetics that might compensate for its weaker flux stats.
Normally true, but not if Onslaught uses Gauss Cannon.  I have used Gauss Cannon a few times on Onslaught (during mid-game) for long-range assault.

That said, AI being too trigger-happy with TPCs is annoying.

I do not mind TPCs being efficient.  Trying to fill mounts with good weapons is hard enough even without TPCs interfering.  I would love to put HAG or better on Onslaught but it costs too much flux for comfort.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Dri on October 20, 2020, 08:40:31 PM
Onslaught needs all the help it can get in light of various other ship buffs that have come with time. If not better TPC or flux tweaks then slap another 250 armor on it to bring her up to 2,000. I was sad to see that only the Enforcer got buffs—I was expecting to see the Dominator and Onslaught on there too, Alex bringing the three low-tech boys up to par...

13 new super weapons though for some end game threat—that has me pretty stoked! To make use of 13 new weapons you'd probably need at least 4 brand new ships! Hoorah!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 20, 2020, 08:58:36 PM
How does the AI act with Breach pods so far?
Alex, please put 1 Locust, 2 medium Breach, 3 small Sabot on a Gryphon and have it fight an Apogee, both on autopilot
What is the order of Gryphon's weapons usage?

Please make Thumper cost 7 OP.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on October 20, 2020, 09:39:39 PM
With regards to the TPCs: my main issue is that the AI will often fire the whole battery when only 1 of the guns is on target. Whenever that happens, the effective flux per shot doubles. IIRC there have been tweaks to firing logic so if thats no longer the case the weapons would be much better.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: ANGRYABOUTELVES on October 20, 2020, 10:22:22 PM
The easy fix for that, for player builds, is to put the TPC firing group on Alternating. That should probably happen to vanilla variants as well.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: TaLaR on October 20, 2020, 10:45:19 PM
The easy fix for that, for player builds, is to put the TPC firing group on Alternating. That should probably happen to vanilla variants as well.

Alternating does nothing. TPCs are too rapid firing to try adjusting aim every single shot.

Putting them into separate groups and toggling autofire to use them works, but also has drawbacks:
- it's awkward compared to manual fire.
- you are left with only 3 remaining weapon groups, which is sub-optimal. Basically PD, Missiles and everything else. No fine flux management or manual control for most weapons possible.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Schwartz on October 20, 2020, 11:00:44 PM
TPCs don't need a buff - just loosen their inner firing angle a bit so we don't have to hit with one TPC and miss with the other. Easy.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on October 20, 2020, 11:14:22 PM
TPCs don't need a buff - just loosen their inner firing angle a bit so we don't have to hit with one TPC and miss with the other. Easy.
Nah I like Alex's approach more. Making them hit closer to each other would be very bad for smaller ships. I think the whole point of those guns is to fire at massive targets and ravage everything without spending too much flux. I don't think they're supposed to be sniper weapons.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: ANGRYABOUTELVES on October 20, 2020, 11:29:37 PM
The easy fix for that, for player builds, is to put the TPC firing group on Alternating. That should probably happen to vanilla variants as well.
Alternating does nothing. TPCs are too rapid firing to try adjusting aim every single shot.
The AI can do it. Maybe I should have been more specific and said "player builds for AI use".
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Sarissofoi on October 21, 2020, 12:57:58 AM
@Alex
Any words about that terrible tariffs?
Maybe make them scale down based on reputation and commission?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 21, 2020, 02:22:59 AM
@Alex
Any words about that terrible tariffs?
Maybe make them scale down based on reputation and commission?
Yes please!

As well as increasing when your rep goes below zero.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 21, 2020, 03:15:56 AM
Will we be able to go beyond 5 weapon groups next patch? I've seen it being suggested and discussed a couple of times but can't remember if you (Alex) weighed in on it or not, and if so what your opinion on it was.
Does seem like something that might easily have slipped the patch notes even you implemented it.

Nope! It's just enough of a pain to do that I'm hesitant to "just do it".

<snip>

Ah too bad. Seemed like something that might be relatively simple from my layman perspective. Then again i guess it would tie into quite a lot of different things including AI logic.

Oh well, i'm a lazy pilot in this game anyway so it won't make too much difference for the ships i personally fly. And i guess the cases where it might really be beneficial for an AI loadout are niche enough that it's not worth a lot of development time and effort either.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on October 21, 2020, 03:29:38 AM
Do combat skills really make that much of a difference ???? They never seemed worth it to me, at least on paper, over the skill that get me a faster, cheaper, better, more resourceful, etc., etc., fleet and 10 officers to cover all my combat skill needs. One of the things I was actually hoping for in the next patch was logistics officers, people that can get the non-combat skills and leave me free to focus on combat without sacrificing my fleet's abilities, logistics profile and/or - somewhat importantly - combat performance. Fleet Logistics 3, Fighter Doctrine, Loadout Design, all useful skills that no officer in the game can cover for me...

Of course with all the changes coming I've no idea of that idea is still relevant - or whether it was even relevant in the first place, apparently - so we'll just have to see.
Your own skill at piloting ships by itself can better than any AI officer. If you augment that, your flagship can match entire fleets or space stations with just token support. Or without any support, if your flagship happens to be a Conquest (https://youtu.be/SecJjpCirtg?t=3866) or a Paragon (https://youtu.be/KKlDcpAcgTU?t=90).
Don't actually watch the Conquest stream, it's terribly boring most of the time.

About TPCs: the only comparison that makes sense is with ballistic weapons, because those are the only weapons you can choose to fire instead of TPCs. Against them, TPC has a bit of range and burst, but lacks efficiency. Since Onslaught has little flux, the best course of action is not to use TPCs at all, unless it's the only weapon in range and you have no flux. Increasing efficiency of TPCs makes firing them less of a mistake, which helps the AI which does this all the time...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Dampfnudel on October 21, 2020, 05:20:45 AM
Can we please get a buff to PD?

Like giving PD a modifier that increases damage to fighters and missiles but reduces damage to everything else.

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 21, 2020, 05:30:34 AM
I would like more efficient TPCs so AI does not kill itself by being trigger-happy with TPCs (by emptying two full clips at the earliest opportunity) then rest of the other weapons firing.

The easy fix for that, for player builds, is to put the TPC firing group on Alternating. That should probably happen to vanilla variants as well.
That is not good enough for AI.

What helps more is putting each TPC in separate groups, but the biggest problem with that is lack of weapon groups.  Five is not enough for comfort.  Two taken by TPCs, three left for everything else, and I would like one empty group for no group selected.  I would want at least seven weapon groups for Onslaught with TPCs in separate groups.  (Two for TPCs, four for the rest of Onslaught's weapons, and one more to de-select all weapons.)

Come to think of it, there should be a key to de-select all groups without reserving an empty group and selecting it.  It would make five groups more tolerable.

Quote
The AI can do it. Maybe I should have been more specific and said "player builds for AI use".
I would like to build for "everybody" use, since I frequently swap ships in mid-battle, and I do not want AI to kill itself if I give my flagship to it.  This is one reason Odyssey is my least favorite capital, thanks in part to plasma burn.

Quote
Added Breach SRM (small) and Breach SRM Pod (medium), a new anti-armor missile
Medium version has high ammo, small version is extremely cheap
I wonder how the pod compares with Annihilators.  It would be nice if the new Breach pod lasts at least as long as Locusts.  Even with Expanded Missile Racks, Annihilators do not last long enough in big battles, and Onslaught that relies on Annihilators feels like a quasi-SO ship.  If Breach pods last long, and are effective enough, they might replace Annihilator pods on my Onslaught loadouts.

Often, I pick Conquest over Onslaught because Locusts last longer than Annihilators.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on October 21, 2020, 06:09:20 AM
Onslaught: I think Alex's approach is fine. Maybe some kind of armor buff would be nice, too.

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 21, 2020, 06:13:28 AM
I would not want an armor buff on Onslaught unless either Conquest (and Odyssey and Legion) gets one too or Onslaught DP cost gets raised (to 45).  If there is one buff I like to see on Onslaught, it is more dissipation so it can use heavy weapons aside from Hellbore or Devastator more comfortably.

Conquest receiving 200 armor and hull, plus Heavy Ballistics Integration, along with de-powered skills across the board at 0.8a, raised Conquest from being a joke to being able to brawl against Onslaught and have roughly even chance of winning or losing.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on October 21, 2020, 06:16:10 AM
Honestly I think Conquest has less staying power compared to Onslaught. But also it's a lot cheaper, so I think it's fine.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 21, 2020, 06:19:44 AM
Can we please get a buff to PD?

Like giving PD a modifier that increases damage to fighters and missiles but reduces damage to everything else.
This is a good, simple alternative to my dodge mechanic proposal.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 21, 2020, 06:24:14 AM
Honestly I think Conquest has less staying power compared to Onslaught. But also it's a lot cheaper, so I think it's fine.
Conquest is not so flimsy if its shield is powered up.  Max capacitors or Hardened Shields will give it sufficient durability in a duel.  Also, Conquest can use high-end heavy weapons more easily than Onslaught.

Currently, HAG, Mjolnir, Gauss Cannon, and Storm Needler are almost Conquest-only weapons because it is the only ship with the flux stats to comfortably support them.  I suppose Dominator and Legion can use them if they are the only weapons are the ship; that is, naked hull similar to two blaster, no-missile Aurora or two plasma cannon Odyssey.

Can we please get a buff to PD?

Like giving PD a modifier that increases damage to fighters and missiles but reduces damage to everything else.
This is a good, simple alternative to my dodge mechanic proposal.
I would not want this as a blanket for all.  Heavy machine gun (and probably dual light MG too) is a PD weapon, but it is better used as an assault weapon to compliment the chaingun.  LR PD laser is a low-powered but efficient general-purpose weapon.  Something like Paladin PD would be useful as an autopulse substitute if it was not so inefficient.  Nevermind weapons that get converted to PD like IPDAI IR Pulse Laser or Railgun.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on October 21, 2020, 06:30:25 AM
I didn't say that Conquest is a paper tiger. I sad it has less staying power.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Modo44 on October 21, 2020, 06:48:53 AM
I didn't say that Conquest is a paper tiger. I sad it has less staying power.
And way more mobility, which makes it it deadlier in a fleet, especially to smaller targets. It should not match low-tech ships for armour. That would make it too easy to use in any situation.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Melanoc3tus II on October 21, 2020, 07:23:00 AM
Some things to consider regarding the Onslaught.

The Onslaught is ancient. From it's description, we can ascertain that it was designed in a time before shields, having received modifications to get to the point it is at in-game. Already, this means that it's shields shouldn't be up to much, as almost all high tech, shield reliant ships seem to have so little space left for other components that they are limited to energy weaponry. Additionally, design is so significantly different that I imagine high tech ships are built around the various projectors and subsystems necessary to support such defences. As such, the Onslaught's shields should be small, slow, and inefficient for a ship of it's class.

"When first launched from orbital dock, they must have surely dwarfed any other ship in existence"

Further evidence. All this puts the Onslaught at roughly the same epoch as the Hound, a design so outdated that it has either been nearly entirely converted to a cargo freighter, or was built for a time in which hyperdrives were so weak that and even small journeys would take months, or even years.

Note that the Cerberus is obviously a modern(ish) improvement on the freighting capabilities, whether or not originally intended, of the Hound.

Exact sizes are difficult to measure in such an abstract phrase, but this would most probably mean that the standard warships of the time were frigates, with perhaps the rare destroyer or two. The scarcity of low tech destroyers would mean something if not for the possibility that the superior midline destroyers (Hammerheads, Hammerheads, and Hammerheads) completely phased them out before the time at which the game takes place.

As such, the thermal pulse cannons built into the Onslaught are even less sensible than their use on a low tech ship would normally be, as they are clearly not intended for use on small craft.

But do not despair, as there is a (potential) answer to this dilemma. The Onslaught was not meant for ship combat. It was meant for sieges. It was the first step in countering large battlestations, by dumping rounds of thermal lasers at appreciable distance, and then retreating to repeat the process. Additionally, this explains the proclivity for side mounted heavy weaponry - The Onslaught is built to survive swarms of combat frigates as it closes with it's target, breaking the line of battle, and allowing the ships sheltered behind it's heavily armoured bulk to wreck havoc on the enemy. This also explains the burn drive.

Thusly, the Onslaught would have had no issues with the inefficiency of it's weaponry. Of course, it is up to Alex to decide whether the modernisation it received removed that weakness (in this next update, that is).

Anyways, the Onslaught is not meant to be as good as other capitals. The description says it all - it's absolutely archaic, kept alive only by it's simple manufacturing process, ruggedness, and the turmoil and disorder being suffered by the Sector.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on October 21, 2020, 07:26:52 AM
Honestly I don't really like endgame combat. Defeating the same kind of fleet for the 31st time is not that funny. Especially in Nexerelin, where the Ai just tend to send fleet after fleet against you...
For these kind of trench warfare battles (where the enemy fleet has mostly Conquests btw), the Onslaught holds the line way better. It doesn't have to break the line, holding the line is fine for me. I did that battle 31 times. I just want to eat/ have a shower/etc while my fleet handles the latest bunch of Conquests. That's why I prefer the Onslaught. After I check the battle, they are still there. All of them.

(Alex, if you see this)
Btw some kind of autoresolve would be nice...
The situation I described is one of my reasons to start to eradicate the core worlds. Because either in nex or in vanilla, it's easier to get rid of the source of the problem than handle it constatly...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 21, 2020, 07:35:08 AM
I didn't say that Conquest is a paper tiger. I sad it has less staying power.

It's also a battle cruiser instead of a battleship, and it actually fares a bit better in that role than they probably would when looking at their IRL analogies. (hard to say since that only really happened once and it's easy to draw exaggeratedly harsh conclusions from Jutland, considering the way the Brits disregarded their safety measures) as long as you don't try to straight up facetank the other capitals. (which is also fair since it's also

As for the Onslaught, i would be very wary of buffing it any further with the direct and indirect buffs it's already going to get. Don't see a problem with it being a platform for the lower end large weapons either. If anything the problem is that there aren't enough ships with large slots in total to give every weapon enough viable choices to use them on, and that will probably get corrected over time as the ship lineups are finalized.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Melanoc3tus II on October 21, 2020, 09:15:58 AM
So, another thing. Wouldn't the new shield for EMP resist trade allow for 100% invulnerability in conjunction with armoured weapon mounts?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on October 21, 2020, 09:18:55 AM
So, another thing. Wouldn't the new shield for EMP resist trade allow for 100% invulnerability in conjunction with armoured weapon mounts?

Usually reductions to stats are applied multiplicatively in this game, so 2 -50% would yield 25% (and increases to stats are applied additive, so 2 +50% would give 200%, not 225%). That would be my guess at least.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Melanoc3tus II on October 21, 2020, 09:32:34 AM
So, another thing. Wouldn't the new shield for EMP resist trade allow for 100% invulnerability in conjunction with armoured weapon mounts?

Usually reductions to stats are applied multiplicatively in this game, so 2 -50% would yield 25% (and increases to stats are applied additive, so 2 +50% would give 200%, not 225%). That would be my guess at least.

Right, thanks!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Wyvern on October 21, 2020, 10:13:50 AM
Will we be able to go beyond 5 weapon groups next patch? I've seen it being suggested and discussed a couple of times but can't remember if you (Alex) weighed in on it or not, and if so what your opinion on it was.
Does seem like something that might easily have slipped the patch notes even you implemented it.

Nope! It's just enough of a pain to do that I'm hesitant to "just do it".
Usually I don't have an issue with the current five weapon groups... but there are some ships where it's a serious limitation, especially with respect to ships that are being set up for AI control. As has been mentioned, the Onslaught is a major contender here - the TPCs being fixed means that you get much better performance from them if you put them in separate weapon groups... and then you need a group for missiles, and a group for PD, and then you're down to one group left for literally everything else. A Dominator with asymmetrical large guns runs into the same problem, and I've had issues with arming Paragons as well.

Honestly, I actually miss the pre-TPC Onslaught, when it just had an extra two large ballistic hardpoints - with actual firing arcs to them. I used Mjolnirs back then, and those worked pretty well - not the most efficient guns, but highly accurate - and I basically only used them when targets were out of range of the rest of the ship's weaponry, in which context they were effectively flux-neutral.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 21, 2020, 10:29:29 AM
@Alex
Any words about that terrible tariffs?
Maybe make them scale down based on reputation and commission?

Well, the word is that they're about as punishing as I'd like them to be :) If they're more than you want to pay, sell that Paragon blueprint on the black market!


Can we please get a buff to PD?

Like giving PD a modifier that increases damage to fighters and missiles but reduces damage to everything else.

Just as a general note - if you don't explain the "why" behind a request of this nature, it's really hard for me to make heads or tails of it.

(That said, there's a point-defense-boosting skill in the next release that's more powerful than what's currently available.)


I wonder how the pod compares with Annihilators.  It would be nice if the new Breach pod lasts at least as long as Locusts.  Even with Expanded Missile Racks, Annihilators do not last long enough in big battles, and Onslaught that relies on Annihilators feels like a quasi-SO ship.  If Breach pods last long, and are effective enough, they might replace Annihilator pods on my Onslaught loadouts.

Often, I pick Conquest over Onslaught because Locusts last longer than Annihilators.

They're fundamentally different roles - the Breach is more anti-armor, while the Annihilators are for sustained pressure. So the answer is "it depends", since Breach use will depend on how often there's an opportunity to fire them off at armor.


Usually reductions to stats are applied multiplicatively in this game, so 2 -50% would yield 25% (and increases to stats are applied additive, so 2 +50% would give 200%, not 225%). That would be my guess at least.

(Yep, correct!)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 21, 2020, 10:50:58 AM
I wonder how the pod compares with Annihilators.  It would be nice if the new Breach pod lasts at least as long as Locusts.  Even with Expanded Missile Racks, Annihilators do not last long enough in big battles, and Onslaught that relies on Annihilators feels like a quasi-SO ship.  If Breach pods last long, and are effective enough, they might replace Annihilator pods on my Onslaught loadouts.

Often, I pick Conquest over Onslaught because Locusts last longer than Annihilators.

They're fundamentally different roles - the Breach is more anti-armor, while the Annihilators are for sustained pressure. So the answer is "it depends", since Breach use will depend on how often there's an opportunity to fire them off at armor.
So far, I use Annihilators on Onslaught because there is nothing better.  I use Annihilators mostly for anti-armor because every last forward-facing gun that are not TPCs is Heavy Needler (even in the center heavy mount, for anti-Radiant and everything else).  After a few minutes of sustained firing, Onslaught is out of missiles, and if the fight is not mostly decided by then, Onslaught is not very useful.  Unlike Conquest where it can launch Locusts non-stop for at least half of an entire fight.

The role I am most interested in is general-purpose assault like Locusts are, and one that does not run out too quickly.  The most reliable missiles for medium mounts seems to be Annihilators for that use, and they run out too quickly even with Expanded Missile Racks.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on October 21, 2020, 11:45:07 AM
Added support for 4k resolutions
Somewhat experimental; please let me know if there are problems



So, I searched the forum but didn't find anything about this: is Starsector compatible with widescreen, or rather will it become with this update?

I'm asking because I just ordered a 34" 3440 x 1440 21:9 monitor.

Relatedly, are framerates >60 supported?  ;D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: dacian on October 21, 2020, 11:49:46 AM
Is the chance to be able to buy a base Atlas (not the bad mk2, which nobody wants, unless you do a Pirate-only run) going to be modified in 0.9.5? In all my runs I hardly get more than 2 from trades and the rest (up to the 5 I usually carry around with me) from having to build them myself on my colonies ...
It's a bit strange since you can find the base Prometheus in almost every big market. I would love that the game would support the "trader" style RP as well, not only the "rush colony" or "rush combat" styles.
If you are able to buy Atlas and Prometheus from major colonies, then a trader style RP run would not even have to build any colonies (in theory)

EDIT: spelling and rephrasing
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: TaLaR on October 21, 2020, 12:02:48 PM
I'm asking because I just ordered a 34" 3440 x 1440 21:9 monitor.
It is, if you can live with very small fonts.
And minor stuff like area you 'hear' in combat being smaller than area you see, making fights on left/right corner of map utterly silent when zoomed out.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 21, 2020, 12:22:31 PM
So, I searched the forum but didn't find anything about this: is Starsector compatible with widescreen, or rather will it become with this update?

I'm asking because I just ordered a 34" 3440 x 1440 21:9 monitor.

Relatedly, are framerates >60 supported?  ;D

Well... a 3340 x 1440 monitor is less than ideal, since you'd only be able to scale to 1440/768 = 180%, roughly. Which'll work! But, yeah, there may be some issues with too much visibility/sound playback (there definitely would if it wasn't scaled; when scaled this might there might not be, actually). But mainly, since it can't quite scale things 2x, it won't be as crisp as it could be. It's not *bad* (e.g. I've played at 130% on my monitor, which is 1680x1050, and it's fine), but it won't be as nice as actual 4x with 200% scaling.

As far as fps, you can edit settings.json and there's an "fps" value there. You'd need a really beefy computer, though, especially if playing at 3340x1400 in fullscreen with UI scaling and antialiasing (which is basically required since, not 200%), which all requires extra performance from the graphics card.


Is the chance to be able to buy a base Atlas (not the bad mk2, which nobody wants, unless you do a Pirate-only run) going to be modified in 0.9.5? In all my runs I hardly get more than 2 from trades and the rest (up to the 5 I usually carry around with me) from having to build them myself on my colonies ...
It's a bit strange since you can find the base Prometheus in almost every big market. I would love that the game would support the "trader" style RP as well, not only the "rush colony" or "rush combat" styles.
If you are able to buy Atlas and Prometheus from major colonies, then a trader style RP run would not even have to build any colonies (in theory)

EDIT: spelling and rephrasing

You'll be able to custom-order production from contacts/in bars, but: let me make a note to take a look at its baseline availability from markets.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: MajorTheRed on October 21, 2020, 12:35:13 PM
Once again, a complete new game with each version! It will also provide new opportunities for modding!

A question nobody has asked from what I read: can you give details about the Escort Package and Assault Package?

From one of your previous blog, I guess it is not related to ECM or navigation/speed boost which are now specific to frigates. So maybe they provide other fleet bonus  (sight range? Manoeuvring boost?), or boost some of the ship capacities (flux for assault package, missile bonus for support package?)?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on October 21, 2020, 01:12:20 PM
So, I searched the forum but didn't find anything about this: is Starsector compatible with widescreen, or rather will it become with this update?

I'm asking because I just ordered a 34" 3440 x 1440 21:9 monitor.

Relatedly, are framerates >60 supported?  ;D

Well... a 3340 x 1440 monitor is less than ideal, since you'd only be able to scale to 1440/768 = 180%, roughly. Which'll work! But, yeah, there may be some issues with too much visibility/sound playback (there definitely would if it wasn't scaled; when scaled this might there might not be, actually). But mainly, since it can't quite scale things 2x, it won't be as crisp as it could be. It's not *bad* (e.g. I've played at 130% on my monitor, which is 1680x1050, and it's fine), but it won't be as nice as actual 4x with 200% scaling.

As far as fps, you can edit settings.json and there's an "fps" value there. You'd need a really beefy computer, though, especially if playing at 3340x1400 in fullscreen with UI scaling and antialiasing (which is basically required since, not 200%), which all requires extra performance from the graphics card.
from markets.

Thanks for the answer:) Great that it works in generaI, guess I will just have to try out the details.
My PC will also be replaced, would you guess a Rizen 5 3600 and a RTX 1660 would suffice?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 21, 2020, 02:18:04 PM
A question nobody has asked from what I read: can you give details about the Escort Package and Assault Package?

From one of your previous blog, I guess it is not related to ECM or navigation/speed boost which are now specific to frigates. So maybe they provide other fleet bonus  (sight range? Manoeuvring boost?), or boost some of the ship capacities (flux for assault package, missile bonus for support package?)?

It's a boost to the individual ships, actually! Escort Package gives a lot of hefty PD bonuses, while Assault Package makes the ship into a brick. The effect of these hullmods is *greatly* increased by a relevant skill.


Thanks for the answer:) Great that it works in generaI, guess I will just have to try out the details.
My PC will also be replaced, would you guess a Rizen 5 3600 and a RTX 1660 would suffice?

I'd guess probably? Since it seem like a nice video card. The combination of more pixels (due to widescreen) but needing to use anti-aliasing (due to not-quite-200% scaling) is probably the most performance-intensive situation there is here.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Kazimierz3000 on October 21, 2020, 02:19:41 PM
Added support for 4k resolutions
Somewhat experimental; please let me know if there are problems



So, I searched the forum but didn't find anything about this: is Starsector compatible with widescreen, or rather will it become with this update?

I'm asking because I just ordered a 34" 3440 x 1440 21:9 monitor.

Relatedly, are framerates >60 supported?  ;D

I posted some pics in another forum section regarding the current ultrawide support, it's beautiful and works well with a decent enough rig (i7 6700k, 1080ti), and 120hz is working without an issue.  I'm curious how the UI adjustments will look in next release.  Here's the post with pics- http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15160.msg245627#msg245627
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on October 21, 2020, 02:34:22 PM
Cool, thanks for the link! The pictures look great, even without scaling!


The combination of more pixels (due to widescreen) but needing to use anti-aliasing (due to not-quite-200% scaling) is probably the most performance-intensive situation there is here.

So it's hard-mode for my hardware, got it. Well, I have to somehow justify planning my new PC around a 2D indie game from 2011^^''
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 21, 2020, 02:43:35 PM
So it's hard-mode for my hardware, got it. Well, I have to somehow justify planning my new PC around a 2D indie game from 2011^^''

Well it's technically not 1.0 yet right so that clock hasn't started ticking? Maybe? :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on October 21, 2020, 02:58:36 PM
Maybe?^^ Nowadays there are so many early access games which have reached their peak player base long before 1.0 (if they ever hit that) and are largely forgotten by the time they are released. Not Starsector of course! But I think the old concepts about alpha, beta, release are long since meaningless.

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 21, 2020, 04:15:43 PM
But I think the old concepts about alpha, beta, release are long since meaningless.

I'm sure you're right, but I'm sticking to them :)

(Re: "release", I remember reading sometime back that the initial EA release on Steam is basically "the release", as far as any potential interest from press etc goes, and the actual 1.0 release doesn't really register... so, yeah, I'm sure you're right.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Melanoc3tus II on October 21, 2020, 04:50:07 PM
Is the chance to be able to buy a base Atlas (not the bad mk2, which nobody wants, unless you do a Pirate-only run) going to be modified in 0.9.5? In all my runs I hardly get more than 2 from trades and the rest (up to the 5 I usually carry around with me) from having to build them myself on my colonies ...
It's a bit strange since you can find the base Prometheus in almost every big market. I would love that the game would support the "trader" style RP as well, not only the "rush colony" or "rush combat" styles.
If you are able to buy Atlas and Prometheus from major colonies, then a trader style RP run would not even have to build any colonies (in theory)

EDIT: spelling and rephrasing

You'll be able to custom-order production from contacts/in bars, but: let me make a note to take a look at its baseline availability from markets.

About that. An idea would be (1) the ability to host a faction without owning a world and (2) the ability to hire captains to (say) trade between various worlds, with the player receiving a cut or something of that sort. Essentially, we can imitate the Hegemony, but we can't imitate the Tri-Tachyon. This would tie into the game's dynamic economy very well too, and provide a very different experience. You could tie this in with colonies, and have the player negotiate trade deals with contacts and in some situations even receive military contracts, and this could further tie into the proposed starting phases of a colony as a mission or two. Also, diplomacy (ie vassalage and allowing players the ability to found colonies in a faction's name) is a must at some point or another, whether in vanilla or in nex.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 21, 2020, 05:31:18 PM
Alex, what post-colony credit sinks will there be? Fleets? Research? Megaprojects?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Deshara on October 21, 2020, 09:23:43 PM
But I think the old concepts about alpha, beta, release are long since meaningless.

I'm sure you're right, but I'm sticking to them :)

(Re: "release", I remember reading sometime back that the initial EA release on Steam is basically "the release", as far as any potential interest from press etc goes, and the actual 1.0 release doesn't really register... so, yeah, I'm sure you're right.)

its funny bc 2.0 releases for games that get re-made into a different game after release seem to make more of a difference than the 1.0 release.

A question nobody has asked from what I read: can you give details about the Escort Package and Assault Package?

From one of your previous blog, I guess it is not related to ECM or navigation/speed boost which are now specific to frigates. So maybe they provide other fleet bonus  (sight range? Manoeuvring boost?), or boost some of the ship capacities (flux for assault package, missile bonus for support package?)?

It's a boost to the individual ships, actually! Escort Package gives a lot of hefty PD bonuses, while Assault Package makes the ship into a brick. The effect of these hullmods is *greatly* increased by a relevant skill.

The combination of more pixels (due to widescreen) but needing to use anti-aliasing (due to not-quite-200% scaling) is probably the most performance-intensive situation there is here.

What do you mean by the 200% thing? Whats the relation between 200% scaling & anti-aliasing?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 21, 2020, 09:29:27 PM
About that. An idea would be (1) the ability to host a faction without owning a world and (2) the ability to hire captains to (say) trade between various worlds, with the player receiving a cut or something of that sort. Essentially, we can imitate the Hegemony, but we can't imitate the Tri-Tachyon. This would tie into the game's dynamic economy very well too, and provide a very different experience. You could tie this in with colonies, and have the player negotiate trade deals with contacts and in some situations even receive military contracts, and this could further tie into the proposed starting phases of a colony as a mission or two.

The question is, how is this interesting mechanically, aside from being a nice roleplaying thing? Colonies have the potential to make some trouble for you (i.e. lead into combat); the specifics of this can certainly be refined, but at least the path is there. If you just hire a fleet to trade for you, is it just a "get more money over time" mechanic? The design work here would be trying to make this interesting.

Also, diplomacy (ie vassalage and allowing players the ability to found colonies in a faction's name) is a must at some point or another, whether in vanilla or in nex.

(Just speaking as far as vanilla, I wouldn't say diplomacy etc is a "goal" - I can see adding something along these lines, but it's more likely if it was needed for something else to work, not for its own sake.)


Alex, what post-colony credit sinks will there be? Fleets? Research? Megaprojects?

:-X


What do you mean by the 200% thing? Whats the relation between 200% scaling & anti-aliasing?

If you scale to 200% (or 300%), there's no need for anti-aliasing - it already looks good, because it's double the amount of pixels, so the scaling algorithm has an easier time. For example, a line that's 1 pixel wide becomes 2 pixels wide, etc. If you scale to, say, 180%, a line 1 pixel wide becomes 1.8 pixels wide - which, of course, isn't a thing - and antialiasing is required to make that look reasonably good.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Melanoc3tus II on October 21, 2020, 11:48:32 PM
About that. An idea would be (1) the ability to host a faction without owning a world and (2) the ability to hire captains to (say) trade between various worlds, with the player receiving a cut or something of that sort. Essentially, we can imitate the Hegemony, but we can't imitate the Tri-Tachyon. This would tie into the game's dynamic economy very well too, and provide a very different experience. You could tie this in with colonies, and have the player negotiate trade deals with contacts and in some situations even receive military contracts, and this could further tie into the proposed starting phases of a colony as a mission or two.

The question is, how is this interesting mechanically, aside from being a nice roleplaying thing? Colonies have the potential to make some trouble for you (i.e. lead into combat); the specifics of this can certainly be refined, but at least the path is there. If you just hire a fleet to trade for you, is it just a "get more money over time" mechanic? The design work here would be trying to make this interesting.

This would mostly just provide more intricacy to colony building, but I could see a company of some sort be interesting. Maybe a combination of warding off pirates (perhaps through mercenaries), having to build trust with contacts, that sort of thing. It wouldn't supplant normal gameplay, just be an option with various difficulties (non-randomised, as discussed before) inherent. Then one can add the black market into the mix too. Now it is rather passive, but a large amount of good could come from a specialised intel tab, allowing the player to view their trade routes, and perhaps even the trade routes of other factions. That brings us to another application for contacts. Spies. I need to go now. Bye!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: pairedeciseaux on October 22, 2020, 12:34:01 AM
Usually I don't have an issue with the current five weapon groups... but there are some ships where it's a serious limitation, especially with respect to ships that are being set up for AI control.

Similar thought here. 5 weapon groups is enough in most situations. But I find it kind of frustrating in a few player-controlled-ship situations. Thinking about Onslaught, Conquest, Legion, Aurora and Gryphon here (maybe others).

The thing is, the 5 groups limit means I'm not as creative as I could when designing a load-out. On Conquest I always leave medium missile mounts empty because I can't find a satisfying way to control them without crippling the whole ship. So I would say the 5 group limit is gameplay-limiting in such cases. I have stopped piloting Onslaught 2 years ago because of this (and because AI is pretty good at it with appropriate load-outs).

On the other hand, finding load-out design solutions within the 5 group constrain means I have to be creative in other ways, so I would say its fair (kind of frustrating) game.  ;D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 22, 2020, 12:36:25 AM
About that. An idea would be (1) the ability to host a faction without owning a world and (2) the ability to hire captains to (say) trade between various worlds, with the player receiving a cut or something of that sort. Essentially, we can imitate the Hegemony, but we can't imitate the Tri-Tachyon. This would tie into the game's dynamic economy very well too, and provide a very different experience. You could tie this in with colonies, and have the player negotiate trade deals with contacts and in some situations even receive military contracts, and this could further tie into the proposed starting phases of a colony as a mission or two.

The question is, how is this interesting mechanically, aside from being a nice roleplaying thing? Colonies have the potential to make some trouble for you (i.e. lead into combat); the specifics of this can certainly be refined, but at least the path is there. If you just hire a fleet to trade for you, is it just a "get more money over time" mechanic? The design work here would be trying to make this interesting.

This would mostly just provide more intricacy to colony building, but I could see a company of some sort be interesting. Maybe a combination of warding off pirates (perhaps through mercenaries), having to build trust with contacts, that sort of thing. It wouldn't supplant normal gameplay, just be an option with various difficulties (non-randomised, as discussed before) inherent. Then one can add the black market into the mix too. Now it is rather passive, but a large amount of good could come from a specialised intel tab, allowing the player to view their trade routes, and perhaps even the trade routes of other factions. That brings us to another application for contacts. Spies. I need to go now. Bye!
Don't forget, there's always room for other factions attacking your companies if they get desperate.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Sarissofoi on October 22, 2020, 12:37:54 AM
@Alex
Any words about that terrible tariffs?
Maybe make them scale down based on reputation and commission?

Well, the word is that they're about as punishing as I'd like them to be :) If they're more than you want to pay, sell that Paragon blueprint on the black market!


That is the problem.
Black market is all profit and almost zero risks.
I do not understand your opposition to allowing players making money from legal trade.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 22, 2020, 01:04:45 AM
That is the problem.
Black market is all profit and almost zero risks.
I do not understand your opposition to allowing players making money from legal trade.
Riskier should be more rewarding, no?

The problems are that the black market isn't risky enough and players aren't rewarded enough for being really friendly with a faction.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on October 22, 2020, 02:00:31 AM
I do not understand your opposition to allowing players making money from legal trade.

Tariffs are meant to discourage players from giving themselves an endless chain of boring fetch quest to make money in a safe way. Btw, you can do legal trade via bar missions.

The problems are that the black market isn't risky enough and players aren't rewarded enough for being really friendly with a faction.

Agreed. Transponder-off smuggling is more exciting, but there's too little reason to do so, because transponder-on black market trade is so safe. Sometimes I wish it wasn't accessible at all with your transponders on.
But there are softer options. If, in case of high suspicion, your ships would get physically searched (causing disruption and lowering CR) instead of just scanned, that would up the stakes. Or if suspicious factions would continuously shadow you with some picket ships while you're in system, that could hinder your operations quite a bit. (Until you lure those watchdogs into a passing pirate fleet, of course.)


If you scale to 200% (or 300%), there's no need for anti-aliasing - it already looks good, because it's double the amount of pixels, so the scaling algorithm has an easier time. For example, a line that's 1 pixel wide becomes 2 pixels wide, etc. If you scale to, say, 180%, a line 1 pixel wide becomes 1.8 pixels wide - which, of course, isn't a thing - and antialiasing is required to make that look reasonably good.

Just to make sure: What keeps me from scaling to 200% (if my screen resolution is smaller than that) is that it would cut off the UI at the top and bottom, because it doesn't move, right?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 22, 2020, 05:37:21 AM
For all of the talk about making Black Markets more risky does nothing to those whose Black Market visits are mostly at the bases of their enemies before destroying them.

Most of my black market visits are at the pop-up zombie pirate bases to sell vendor trash and buy crew and marines before I raid them to steal back some of the items I just sold, then destroy them.  (Omit raid and destroy if friendly with pirates.)

Quote
Transponder-off smuggling is more exciting
While transponder-on trade may be safe, I never use that option because I do not want to deal with patrol scans.  Plus there are enough places where I can safely turn off transponder next to the market before docking.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on October 22, 2020, 06:15:01 AM
@Alex

I would like to weigh in on the colony size discussion.

First of all, I completely understand, that the changes won't really affect the mechanics and the balance of power. So I'm not very interested in changing your mind at all.

However, I think many commentators simply don't understand why some players complain about this change, including maybe you. They don't necessarily complain about the change in the balance of power. Many of them see this limit (^6) doesn't make sense in-fiction-wise. Although for you, it makes the world more believable, for them it makes it less believable.

I think I can see the reason. Because it's on the edge of being possible/impossible.

Let's analyze the situation a bit.

The Sector has a population on the order of 10^8s, because of the Hegemony.

(Totally unrelated, but it's interesting to think about it for a moment. Depending on the exact population of Chicomoztoc and the size 7 planets the Hegemony owns between 30% and 90% of the Sectors population. If we think the size 7 and 8 planets are just barely size 7 or 8, we get that the Hegemony has around 2/3s of the total population.)

So theoretically, not counting external interference, the maximum size of our faction's planets should be 8.
Could it happen?
First let's investigate the possibility of a size 7, in let's say ~25 cycles. Let's assume that it reaches size 6 in 10 cycles. This assumption is based on the fact that you allow size 6 and a playthrough lasts for 10-15 cycles, so at least for me, it indicates, that you think this could happen.

Is size 6 to 7 change is possible in 15 cycles? The supply (Sector population) is there. The demand (our planet) is there, too.

Let's look at some historical examples.

The US had an immigration rate of 10%/decade for two decades. That means +5 and +8 million in the 1860s or 1900s respectively.
So theoretically, IF immigration is independent of the starting population this COULD happen, at least it did happen.
We have to consider many factors here. Is the desperation of the Core big enough? Enough ships to relocate the population? Is it widely accessible? Enough money spent on attracting immigrants?

Is immigration independent of the starting population? Depends. Based on technological sophistication and the initial conditions of the planet it could be, more or less.

So my personal conclusion is that with enough money and a desperate enough pool of immigrants, this is borderline impossible or possible depending on technology. Maybe habitable worlds with farmlands could support this kind of growth. So I can totally understand why many people say it's possible, but I can also understand why don't you like it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 22, 2020, 07:00:29 AM
@ TerranEmpire: I agree with your point.  10^7 looks like something that can be achieved in a game that lasts decades.  (I did have games that lasted a little more than 15 years, and could go on if I wanted, because endgame is my favorite part of the game.)  If a game lasts long enough, it is plausible that the player's faction has been around long enough to grow into major faction status.  Especially, if my faction can defend against zombie pirates and major factions cannot.

10^8 on a player colony, I can see not happening unless Chicomoztoc or other core planet grows into 10^9 during the game.

It would be mildly disappointing if the only way I can match major factions is to permanently knock them down to Indie equivalents through saturation bombings.

However, that all assumes the player has unlimited time, and there is no threat that will kill the sector (like Kohr-Ah in Star Control 2) if more than a few years pass.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Melanoc3tus II on October 22, 2020, 07:57:27 AM
Another thing.

I see you responded to a comment about zombie pirates by saying that the player needs something to fight. This, to be honest, is B.S. of the highest order. Smart pirates would allow for much more interesting possibilities when trading, which would allow for legal trade as a viable activity, not a severely punished series of fetch quests. After all, when you could get accosted by a superior force of pirates at any time, it would be rather thrilling. Just make black market trade much harder to compensate. Exploring the possibilities further, pirates could be more finely grouped by star system, with individual gangs and their leaders,

(who would integrate rather seamlessly into the contact system, perhaps by having each leader hosted in pirate bases. They would be less difficult to reach, too, as the pirates would only attack good targets. That is, trade convoys, weak entrepreneurs, and anyone that wouldn't destroy a large number of their ships. Additionally, the leaders could have flag ships, mimicking the bounties, and you could even allow for hostile takeover of a group via destruction of their vessel. This would not be a easy way of making cash, not only because returns from such a business would be sporadic and entirely dependent on auto resolve encounters in the system, but also because pirate fleets could be severely increased in power level)

even if the overarching faction wasn't modified. As for combat opportunities, there are plenty, from hunting the Luddic path to fighting derelicts to attacking trade convoys yourself. Not to mention that you could just seek out the pirates if you did want to fight them. And they would still come after you if you were obviously transporting something valuable. The Luddic path has an excuse for being suicidal, but the pirates do not.

You might respond that this would inconvenience the player, but I simply see it as more opportunities for unique gameplay events, thus increasing the number of active elements involved in rather passive activities such as trading.

In the words of DF, !!Fun!!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SafariJohn on October 22, 2020, 08:21:31 AM
Domain Derelicts would be much better early game zombie-like enemies than pirates, IMO. Track them back to their spawners (probes), nests (survey ships), and finally to the origins (motherships), eliminating the threat.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on October 22, 2020, 08:30:59 AM
In terms of population, the US in the 1800-1900s was receiving immigration from the rest of the world which had a population of a few billion (10^9), so immigration population was three orders of magnitude lower than the total population (~10^6 per year). In our sector, that would mean we would expect early immigration on the order of 10^5, and it would take 100 year to hit 10^7 from immigration at that rate.

It is strange that the population of the entire sector is less than earth in the 1800s. I've always felt like all of the scripted worlds should have population increased by 1-2 orders of magnitude. In that case, the player could have 10^7 colonies while still being firmly behind the scripted worlds.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on October 22, 2020, 08:50:12 AM
I don't think that the magnitude of the world population is a good indicator here.
Most of that population was not even close to technology levels capable of intercontinental travel or had no hope at all to make the journey (from China or British India for eg).
AFAIK that's not the case in SS.

Even if that is the case, the desperation level is more relevant. And IMO the desperation level in the Sector is very-very high, like Irish immigration levels high.

I don't want to say, it's plausible, but I think it's wrong to say, that it's implausible.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Toxcity on October 22, 2020, 08:54:39 AM
The thing with Pirates as starting enemies is that you have easy access to them, while often having access to a station to repair or refit. Pirate ships are also recoverable letting you build up a small (if faulty) fleet early on.

EDIT: When you hit the level cap, does the experience needed to get Story Points level out? Or does the exp needed still increase?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 22, 2020, 09:01:51 AM
EXP levels out.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 22, 2020, 09:15:48 AM
That is the problem.
Black market is all profit and almost zero risks.
I do not understand your opposition to allowing players making money from legal trade.
The problems are that the black market isn't risky enough and players aren't rewarded enough for being really friendly with a faction.

Agreed. Transponder-off smuggling is more exciting, but there's too little reason to do so, because transponder-on black market trade is so safe. Sometimes I wish it wasn't accessible at all with your transponders on.
But there are softer options. If, in case of high suspicion, your ships would get physically searched (causing disruption and lowering CR) instead of just scanned, that would up the stakes. Or if suspicious factions would continuously shadow you with some picket ships while you're in system, that could hinder your operations quite a bit. (Until you lure those watchdogs into a passing pirate fleet, of course.)

Right, yeah - if that's the issue, I think the better solution would be to make it more dangerous, not to make the other alternative more equivalent to it - that seems less interesting. The "physical search" idea - with the option to refuse, of course - sounds interesting!


If you scale to 200% (or 300%), there's no need for anti-aliasing - it already looks good, because it's double the amount of pixels, so the scaling algorithm has an easier time. For example, a line that's 1 pixel wide becomes 2 pixels wide, etc. If you scale to, say, 180%, a line 1 pixel wide becomes 1.8 pixels wide - which, of course, isn't a thing - and antialiasing is required to make that look reasonably good.

Just to make sure: What keeps me from scaling to 200% (if my screen resolution is smaller than that) is that it would cut off the UI at the top and bottom, because it doesn't move, right?

Yeah. The way scaling works is it well, scales the screen by that amount. So if you were to scale 1440 by 2x, you'd get 720 - which is below the minimal-supported 768p.


@Alex

I would like to weigh in on the colony size discussion.

First of all, I completely understand, that the changes won't really affect the mechanics and the balance of power. So I'm not very interested in changing your mind at all.

However, I think many commentators simply don't understand why some players complain about this change, including maybe you. They don't necessarily complain about the change in the balance of power. Many of them see this limit (^6) doesn't make sense in-fiction-wise. Although for you, it makes the world more believable, for them it makes it less believable.

I think I can see the reason. Because it's on the edge of being possible/impossible.
...

I see what you're saying, yeah. My counter-point is that for me, 10^6 is very much already stretching the bounds of believability, especially in the timeframes involved.

Domain Derelicts would be much better early game zombie-like enemies than pirates, IMO. Track them back to their spawners (probes), nests (survey ships), and finally to the origins (motherships), eliminating the threat.

Mechanically, sure! But that has a very different feel ("fight off a von neumann swarm") from the very start of the game that colors the entire experience and backstory in ways I don't like. And, really, pirates could function much the same way; there's nothing stopping that, I don't think? And they already to do some extent; bases etc.

EDIT: When you hit the level cap, does the experience needed to get Story Points level out? Or does the exp needed still increase?
EXP levels out.

(Yep, correct!)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 22, 2020, 09:20:18 AM
Alex, please add more ballistics with ammo and a kinetic torpedo.
And a midline carrier capital.

What is the new Missile Specialization like?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Melanoc3tus II on October 22, 2020, 09:28:34 AM
I don't think that the magnitude of the world population is a good indicator here.
Most of that population was not even close to technology levels capable of intercontinental travel or had no hope at all to make the journey (from China or British India for eg).
AFAIK that's not the case in SS.

Even if that is the case, the desperation level is more relevant. And IMO the desperation level in the Sector is very-very high, like Irish immigration levels high.

I don't want to say, it's plausible, but I think it's wrong to say, that it's implausible.

Why would they want to be in some backwards colony instead?

And population is low because birth control in advanced societies, and because the population had to grow from a few small colonies in a desolate sector to billions in massive city worlds, in less than a thousand years.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Melanoc3tus II on October 22, 2020, 09:35:02 AM
Domain Derelicts would be much better early game zombie-like enemies than pirates, IMO. Track them back to their spawners (probes), nests (survey ships), and finally to the origins (motherships), eliminating the threat.

Mechanically, sure! But that has a very different feel ("fight off a von neumann swarm") from the very start of the game that colors the entire experience and backstory in ways I don't like. And, really, pirates could function much the same way; there's nothing stopping that, I don't think? And they already to do some extent; bases etc.

A basic sense of realism, perhaps? It's not like you'd be fighting an encroaching swarm, you'd be exploring uncivilised space, strewn with the remains of ancient survey flotillas, fighting rusty defence drones in a search for relics of a lost age. That does fit the Persian sector, imo.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Melanoc3tus II on October 22, 2020, 09:37:33 AM
The thing with Pirates as starting enemies is that you have easy access to them, while often having access to a station to repair or refit. Pirate ships are also recoverable letting you build up a small (if faulty) fleet early on.

EDIT: When you hit the level cap, does the experience needed to get Story Points level out? Or does the exp needed still increase?

I have literally never taken ships from the pirates. Anything with defects is automatic trash, and you get enough money in the first thirty minutes of a game to finance a small carrier fleet.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on October 22, 2020, 09:41:58 AM

Why would they want to be in some backwards colony instead?

And population is low because birth control in advanced societies, and because the population had to grow from a few small colonies in a desolate sector to billions in massive city worlds, in less than a thousand years.

Please consult the settlers of the New World, and I'm pretty sure you'll have your answer :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 22, 2020, 10:06:23 AM

It is strange that the population of the entire sector is less than earth in the 1800s. I've always felt like all of the scripted worlds should have population increased by 1-2 orders of magnitude. In that case, the player could have 10^7 colonies while still being firmly behind the scripted worlds.

They've had one devastating war after the other since the collapse, after already struggling with remaining self sufficient after that event itself. Ruins in the core worlds, some lore about planets that got "planet busted" (sat bombed, nuked, idk), etc.

Who knows how large the population was at the time of the collapse (persean sector was *relatively* new and backwater afaik but that could mean anything), but i don't get the impression that the 200 years since then have seen the same demographic changes we've seen on Earth since the 1800s. (Even all the massacres of Nazism and Communism have only been a blip when you clinically compare it to total population after all)

Having said that, you could indeed easily increase all the populations by 2 orders of magnitudes (so Chico is 10^10) and it would be just as believable, just saying that considering the sector history the way it currently is also seems to make sense.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Melanoc3tus II on October 22, 2020, 10:30:26 AM

Why would they want to be in some backwards colony instead?

And population is low because birth control in advanced societies, and because the population had to grow from a few small colonies in a desolate sector to billions in massive city worlds, in less than a thousand years.

Please consult the settlers of the New World, and I'm pretty sure you'll have your answer :)

Did I stutter?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on October 22, 2020, 11:01:14 AM
Another thing.
This, to be honest, is B.S. of the highest order.

Did I stutter?

This is not appropriate language for the forum. Please choose your words more carefully.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: IronBorn on October 22, 2020, 11:48:07 AM
The thing with Pirates as starting enemies is that you have easy access to them, while often having access to a station to repair or refit. Pirate ships are also recoverable letting you build up a small (if faulty) fleet early on.

EDIT: When you hit the level cap, does the experience needed to get Story Points level out? Or does the exp needed still increase?

I have literally never taken ships from the pirates. Anything with defects is automatic trash, and you get enough money in the first thirty minutes of a game to finance a small carrier fleet.

I love me a good d-Mod fleet! In fact, I would like to see more d-Mod ships! I think pristine ships should be extremely rare. Would be cool if ships degraded over time, gaining d-Mods, and also could get d-Mods from taking hull damage in combat. D-mod everything!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: sqrt(-1) on October 22, 2020, 12:35:50 PM
I see what you're saying, yeah. My counter-point is that for me, 10^6 is very much already stretching the bounds of believability, especially in the timeframes involved.

Real-life migrations, like the one caused by the Syrian civil war, already are on the magnitude of beyond 10^6 today. Tens of millions were displaced within a few years during WW2.
So when assuming future technology for automated construction, 10^7 sounds reasonable to me.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Ascent on October 22, 2020, 12:51:35 PM
If a core world somehow drops to or below 10^6 (I forget if this is possible in vanilla), is it "allowed" to go above it again? If so, is there something that clearly distinguishes planets with and without this permission to exceed the cap?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on October 22, 2020, 12:54:51 PM
The more we talk about, the more believable it becomes, that ^7 is achievable in ~25 cycles, IF you are the island of tranquility in the ocean of madness...
It means nothing more, just that roughly 5-10% of the Sector's total population chooses your New World instead of the declining Core Worlds.

@Alex

What is less believable?
Becoming the safe heaven in 25 cycles, attracting the 1/10th of the Sector's population, or creating a fleet that could wipe out the Core Worlds...?
Because the latter is very much possible in 10-15 cycles...
I would rather have size 7 in 25 cycles, than a fleet (and the necessary supporting economy) that could wipe out everything, without any intervention or effective resistance in 15 cycles.

It's not my intention to attack your work, just I think this is a far greater believability problem compared to the size 7 colonies...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Melanoc3tus II on October 22, 2020, 01:02:14 PM
I see what you're saying, yeah. My counter-point is that for me, 10^6 is very much already stretching the bounds of believability, especially in the timeframes involved.

Real-life migrations, like the one caused by the Syrian civil war, already are on the magnitude of beyond 10^6 today. Tens of millions were displaced within a few years during WW2.
So when assuming future technology for automated construction, 10^7 sounds reasonable to me.

That's for countries in constant war. The majority of the Sector's population resides within the Hegemony, a secure, orderly authoritarian state. Why would they move in the first place?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on October 22, 2020, 01:07:34 PM
By the way, will factions start with some of those nanoforge-but-for-other-industries items used? It would give some incentive to raid factions besides blueprints, nanoforges and synchrotrons.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: sqrt(-1) on October 22, 2020, 01:15:12 PM
I see what you're saying, yeah. My counter-point is that for me, 10^6 is very much already stretching the bounds of believability, especially in the timeframes involved.

Real-life migrations, like the one caused by the Syrian civil war, already are on the magnitude of beyond 10^6 today. Tens of millions were displaced within a few years during WW2.
So when assuming future technology for automated construction, 10^7 sounds reasonable to me.

That's for countries in constant war. The majority of the Sector's population resides within the Hegemony, a secure, orderly authoritarian state. Why would they move in the first place?

What makes the game's story background so great is that large parts of the sector are in chaos after the gates shut down. Hundreds of once heavily populated planets are in ruins.
So I would in fact find it unrealistic that solely 10^6 people would be attracted to a new jewel of prosperity. Again, we are talking about entire planets, not just countries as in the present and historic earth.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: shoi on October 22, 2020, 01:23:33 PM
i dont get why you guys are still debating colonies, just raise it in the setting file if you disagree
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on October 22, 2020, 01:27:48 PM
I mean if your whole idea is that the sector is super chaotic and run down, then you should find it very unrealistic that you can make a colony a 'jewel of prosperity' in only a few years. Why has no one else done that if you can do it so easily? It's much more believable that your colony is just as run down as everywhere else. Also, the sector has less population than current earth. Our earth has 10^9 population and the largest world in the Persian sector has 10^8. Most worlds in the sector have the population of an earth city or less. Most countries on earth would be size 7-8 worlds. China and India would be size 9 worlds.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FooF on October 22, 2020, 01:34:50 PM
I find the colony debate strange. The Sector, as a whole, is on the decline so multiple 10^7 colonies or more popping up randomly makes little sense.

I couldn't care less what the arbitrary cap is to colonies as long as colonies operate, mechanically, the same. I think it odd that there is an expectation for a colony to grow from 1,000 to over 10 million or more in the span of 10-15 years. Soft caps or no, I know I won't be playing 30 in-game years just to see a colony go from 10^7 to 10^8, especially considering there is no in-game benefit for doing so. There's no realism to be achieved here so an arbitrary value doesn't bother me in the least.

I don't understand the fixation, honestly. It's an immersion thing, sure, but there are way bigger fish to fry.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 22, 2020, 01:40:36 PM

That's for countries in constant war. The majority of the Sector's population resides within the Hegemony, a secure, orderly authoritarian state. Why would they move in the first place?

This. The larger worlds (where the mayority by far lives, thanks to the 10^X way of size increases) are pretty stable as far as the game mechanics are concerned in the first place. They can ward off the pirate raids.

Add to that that moving to another planet is something very different than moving to a neighboring region, or the neighboring country, or even to keep going untill you hit the North Sea, especially in a game world that is in enough chaos and decline that getting a ticket on a Nebula transport is probably out of reach of the most desperate of the masses.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 22, 2020, 02:09:10 PM
If a core world somehow drops to or below 10^6 (I forget if this is possible in vanilla), is it "allowed" to go above it again? If so, is there something that clearly distinguishes planets with and without this permission to exceed the cap?

Non-player colonies don't grow, so this doesn't really apply.

By the way, will factions start with some of those nanoforge-but-for-other-industries items used? It would give some incentive to raid factions besides blueprints, nanoforges and synchrotrons.

IIRC there's a few cases where they do - where needed to make the economy "work" as far as the core worlds producing enough stuff for their demand, or at least close to it - but not generally for every type of item.


I find the colony debate strange. The Sector, as a whole, is on the decline so multiple 10^7 colonies or more popping up randomly makes little sense.

I couldn't care less what the arbitrary cap is to colonies as long as colonies operate, mechanically, the same. I think it odd that there is an expectation for a colony to grow from 1,000 to over 10 million or more in the span of 10-15 years. Soft caps or no, I know I won't be playing 30 in-game years just to see a colony go from 10^7 to 10^8, especially considering there is no in-game benefit for doing so. There's no realism to be achieved here so an arbitrary value doesn't bother me in the least.

I don't understand the fixation, honestly. It's an immersion thing, sure, but there are way bigger fish to fry.

On the whole, this sums up how I actually feel about it extremely well. I don't want to dismiss anyone's concerns, but past a certain point, it's a subjective "feel" thing, and trying to argue about it - in either direction! - is not very productive. And mechanically, the limit of 6 works with the new stuff.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 22, 2020, 02:20:09 PM
What is less believable?
Becoming the safe heaven in 25 cycles, attracting the 1/10th of the Sector's population, or creating a fleet that could wipe out the Core Worlds...?
Because the latter is very much possible in 10-15 cycles...
Player can build a core killer fleet in less than five cycles.  It is easier to obtain this fleet and bomb the core worlds to death than a fleet that can kill the strongest endgame enemy fleets.  The fleets that guard even capital core worlds are roughly on par with 200k bounties, while expedition/named bounty fleets are 300+k.  The only fight that is remotely challenging is the TT capital world because the high-tech star fortress can get cheap kills with long-range mine spam.

Core worlds have inadequate defenses.  More so if caught while pirates raid the system.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on October 22, 2020, 02:28:23 PM
IIRC there's a few cases where they do - where needed to make the economy "work" as far as the core worlds producing enough stuff for their demand, or at least close to it - but not generally for every type of item.
If you don't want all of them to be available in every run, you can make them random instead.

What is less believable?
Becoming the safe heaven in 25 cycles, attracting the 1/10th of the Sector's population, or creating a fleet that could wipe out the Core Worlds...?
Because the latter is very much possible in 10-15 cycles...
Player can build a core killer fleet in less than five cycles.  It is easier to obtain this fleet and bomb the core worlds to death than a fleet that can kill the strongest endgame enemy fleets.
The time to obtain a sector-destroying fleet is the time to obtain a Paragon and a Conquest. Paragon can destroy any station and Conquest can destroy any fleet. I wonder how fast could I get those, if I used every trick in the book...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FAX on October 22, 2020, 07:35:09 PM
I'm wondering is there anything related to Doom-class in 0.95? ;) beside Tweaked Mine Strike ship system AI.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on October 23, 2020, 12:55:54 AM
Being able to create a colony, build an industy, and then drop an item on it & instantly outcompete most of the sector for production feels like far more of an issue than a number not changing tbh.

Industry items are a flat bonus, which is disproportionately good early on.
Maybe it might be worth considering scaling the industry items boosts with the output of said industry?


Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on October 23, 2020, 01:59:08 AM
I stated, that the colony thing is strictly a believability issue for those who attack it.
At least that's my take...

And the reason we still debate it is that's it on the edge of believability when you think about a ~25 cycle playthrough.
No one really complains about size 9 or 10. We all get it. But size 7 might seem plausible.

Of course, as I said, the total core elimination in a few cycles is a much greater problem.
@Alex

Btw I could very much imagine 10^7 migration towards your colonies in just a few years if you start to eliminate every world and apparently no one can stop you. If I were a Core World citizen I would definitely pack up and move to the only faction expected to survive...

So if we really want to cap the colonies based on lore-related arguments, we should definitely fix the balance of power issue.
For me, this kind of disparity just breaks the immersion. No one would sit and wait until everything is destroyed. If they can't defend their population, they wouldn't just give up, they would definitely move towards the last faction standing.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on October 23, 2020, 02:49:07 AM
@Alex

Btw I could very much imagine 10^7 migration

The man made pretty clear that it's a matter of opinion and that he wont change his. It's time to let it go, before the line between discussion and campaigning becomes blurry.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on October 23, 2020, 02:53:30 AM
Yea it's weird to me how so many people got annoyed by that change, but hey it's easily moddable.

Anyways I forgot to ask one more thing. Will we get new ships in the simulator to test against? I know this is super minor and not important as the rest but it's nice to have a wider array of opponents you can test your build versus. Also please add the new combat ships to the random mission, thanks.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: TaLaR on October 23, 2020, 02:59:18 AM
Yea it's weird to me how so many people got annoyed by that change, but hey it's easily moddable.

Anyways I forgot to ask one more thing. Will we get new ships in the simulator to test against? I know this is super minor and not important as the rest but it's nice to have a wider array of opponents you can test your build versus. Also please add the new combat ships to the random mission, thanks.

Adding new ships to simulator and some missions is also easy.
Still, not having to do that would be a lot more convenient.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on October 23, 2020, 03:04:47 AM
I know, I actually added pirate and Ludd capitals to the random mission but I'm still not super comfortable messing with the game files. And if it's that easy I guess it won't take much dev time for it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on October 23, 2020, 03:07:43 AM
I don't campaign. I know it's useless.

Pointing out this inconsistency between colony size and core elimination has two solutions...
He hasn't ruled out making the core elimination harder.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 23, 2020, 03:38:15 AM
He hasn't ruled out making the core elimination harder.
Yes please, destroying the core should be far harder.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 23, 2020, 06:09:40 AM
Industry items are a flat bonus, which is disproportionately good early on.
Maybe it might be worth considering scaling the industry items boosts with the output of said industry?
The old items are getting indirectly nerfed.  Synchrotron will require a planet without an atmosphere.  That sounds like 150% hazard minimum.  Nanoforge will put pollution on a habitable planet.  Currently, I put those industries are low hazard (100% or less) planets because of upkeep.  I cannot really do that next release if I want to use those items.

I wonder of a habitable planet will be required to use a forge (for unavoidable pollution), or if forge can be used anywhere and pollute only habitables.

Currently, meeting demand of the most demanding structures is impossible without items (need synchrotron/forge and/or cores), even with Industrial Planning 2.  I like to see if meeting demand will be possible without items next release.

Re: easy core kill
Making core kill harder could make them defend against pirates easier.  Systems need to be able to defend themselves against the zombie pirates reliably.  Currently, pirates roll over core systems and eventually cause decivilization of worlds if player does not intervene.

Major factions look like scrubs when they sends all units (huge expedition fleets) against the player (and none against pirates or mortal enemies), and then the player comes over and rolls over a mostly undefended capital world.  Major factions should reserve their monster-sized expedition fleets as their system defense fleets.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 23, 2020, 07:29:27 AM
When assuming the overall colony balance stays more or less the same those nerfs aren't too substantial.
It's easy to make more than plenty of money (next to production capacity) from planets at least up to 200% hazard, and on top of that there aren't enough money sinks to justify looking for that perfect set of planets where you can make even more money. At least imo.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: RustyCabbage on October 23, 2020, 08:29:52 AM
Quote
Reserve Deployment:
  • Now adds 1/2/3 fighters above max wing size and affects bombers as well
Can you clarify what this means? Is it 1/2/3 for ship sizes (destroyer/cruiser/capital ships), or maybe wing size (1-2/3-4/5-6), or something else entirely?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Anvel on October 23, 2020, 09:41:45 AM
 A lot of complaints about colony sizes and industry changes, but don't you guys agreed that in the carent version colony's way too overpowered and too rewarding, that game aspect had to be changed so...
   
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 23, 2020, 09:43:21 AM
Did it become much easier for players to gain reputation? If so, will we get more options to spend reputation for more goodies?
Since the player can't directly control Automated Ships....... will there be a hullmod to allow it?
Is Personal Contacts the last blogpost before 0.9.5 release?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 23, 2020, 10:27:00 AM
A lot of complaints about colony sizes and industry changes, but don't you guys agreed that in the carent version colony's way too overpowered and too rewarding, that game aspect had to be changed so...
Max colony skills and no cores gives about a million per month.  That is enough to rebuild ships I lose and add another structure.  Thanks to Pather bug (and easy-bribe Hegemony), building nearly unlimited large colonies is profitable and nearly risk-free.

Next release, I may need to use the overpriced Restore to preserve ships lost in battle instead of building new ships (because I need to spend two or three story points adding new permamods to each new ship built by Orbital Works).  Restore costs much more than building a new ship with Orbital Works.

The only problems with the current version is how fast colonies can grow to 10^7 or higher with both Free Port and max Growth Incentives, and the lack of space lord things to do that would cost big bucks or the resources of an army to do.  If I run planets and their resources, I like to do things on a more epic scale than a lone grunt fleet can do.  (Instead of my fleet chasing a buck to make ends meet, I hire fleets that need to chase a buck to make ends meet to do things I cannot be bothered doing, like killing all of the zombie pirate fleets decivilizing the core worlds.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 23, 2020, 10:58:43 AM
I'm wondering is there anything related to Doom-class in 0.95? ;) beside Tweaked Mine Strike ship system AI.

Hmm, nothing else that I can think of.


Being able to create a colony, build an industy, and then drop an item on it & instantly outcompete most of the sector for production feels like far more of an issue than a number not changing tbh.

Industry items are a flat bonus, which is disproportionately good early on.
Maybe it might be worth considering scaling the industry items boosts with the output of said industry?

Ah - I like the idea that you can find a pre-Collapse item of some sort, make a colony, and get a significant return on that right away. So this aspect of it is very much what's intended, though I don't think you'd be universally out-competing the Sector just off that alone. It might be ok with some amount of scaling, too - though that sort of thing would need to be on a per-item basis, probably - but I'm not sure that it's really necessary.


Anyways I forgot to ask one more thing. Will we get new ships in the simulator to test against? I know this is super minor and not important as the rest but it's nice to have a wider array of opponents you can test your build versus. Also please add the new combat ships to the random mission, thanks.

I *think* that's on my list of items to look at. One thing I half want to do is have the sim opponents be unlocked (and have that carry over across playthroughs), but that's more of a thing than just adding some, so... hm. I don't want to just load the sim opponents list with everything, you know? It's already got a ton of stuff in it.

And re: random mission - I'll see if I can have a look as well.


Pointing out this inconsistency between colony size and core elimination has two solutions...

I'm not so sure that "it's way harder to create something than to destroy it" is an actual inconsistency!

That said, just in general, the backstory is non-specific/vague enough that one could come up with plausible reasons for anything to make (or not make) sense. It just depends on the assumptions you make.



I wonder of a habitable planet will be required to use a forge (for unavoidable pollution), or if forge can be used anywhere and pollute only habitables.

At the moment, it's the latter.



Quote
Reserve Deployment:
  • Now adds 1/2/3 fighters above max wing size and affects bombers as well
Can you clarify what this means? Is it 1/2/3 for ship sizes (destroyer/cruiser/capital ships), or maybe wing size (1-2/3-4/5-6), or something else entirely?

Ah - yeah, it's based on wing size. 3 or less: +1, 4 or 5: +2, 6: +3.


Did it become much easier for players to gain reputation? If so, will we get more options to spend reputation for more goodies?

Hmm? I'm a bit confused as to where the question is coming from.

I suppose it's easier to get reputation just due to the contact mechanics and having more missions available. "Spending" reputation generally isn't a thing and the system isn't set up to use this as a currency (though of course it might come into play occasionally).

Since the player can't directly control Automated Ships....... will there be a hullmod to allow it?

I think that's come up earlier in this thread; the short version is "no" :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on October 23, 2020, 11:28:07 AM
I *think* that's on my list of items to look at. One thing I half want to do is have the sim opponents be unlocked (and have that carry over across playthroughs), but that's more of a thing than just adding some, so... hm. I don't want to just load the sim opponents list with everything, you know? It's already got a ton of stuff in it.

And re: random mission - I'll see if I can have a look as well.
Oh yeah I remember that suggestion about unlocking opponents, sounds interesting but obviously far more work. And I didn't think EVERY single ship should be in the simulator, just more types and varied opponents compared to 2 Lashers + 2 Lashers but with d-mods stuff we have now. Although personally it doesn't seem like it's "a ton" currently but I guess some of us got used to the simulator filled with mods where the list increases tenfold, so you hop back into vanilla and think "it's so small now awww".
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 23, 2020, 11:53:21 AM
For more varied ships in the simulator, let player deploy his ships as enemies.  Had one release years ago that had a bug that did just that with some recovered ships.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FooF on October 23, 2020, 02:54:52 PM
If you do get around to the simulator, one request I'd love to see is sim opponents with officers. Unskilled opponents, as you get further and further into a run, become less and less normative for the kind of opponents you'll be facing. The simplest solution (to me), would be to add two checkboxes: "Random officers" (RNG officers/skills on added opponents) and "Max Skill" that does just that (maybe without "Elite" skills coming up). While it would be kind of cool to fine-tune sim opponents, I imagine that would be a UI nightmare.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SarenSoran on October 23, 2020, 03:52:25 PM
so i just skimmed over it, are there no changes worth mentioning to autofit? because as it is right now its all over the place :'(
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 23, 2020, 04:34:22 PM
Re: simulator, various points noted!

so i just skimmed over it, are there no changes worth mentioning to autofit? because as it is right now its all over the place :'(

Hmm, could you be more specific? I recall fixing a few bugs and tweaking faction weapon availability (in particular, iirc, giving pirates more stuff so that their high-tech stations aren't so sad) but I'm not aware of any particular issues with autofit. Perhaps some of this is a difference in expectations? It's not supposed to produce highly optimized best-in-class variants; rather it's "generally a mix of halfway-reasonable stuff, with some variants that are fairly random". It does get more consistent/produce "better" outcome as fleet "quality" goes up, though... anyway, any more feedback here would be very much appreciated!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Half-full on October 23, 2020, 05:44:30 PM
Has there been any thought given to changing behavior for fleets that belong to not necessarily unified categories like pirates and independents? Right now all of their fleets share dispositions, but some fun emergent things can't happen if blowing up some pirates at one end of the core makes every group across the entire sector want you dead.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 23, 2020, 05:53:41 PM
Well - they won't go insta-hostile if your transponder is off, so I'm not sure any doors are actually closed there.

For all that it comes up fairly regularly, I think treating the reputation with pirates (and especially independents) as a block makes pretty good sense, given that 1) there are a lot of fleets, especially belonging to these factions, that won't make you go hostile regardless of transponder status (smugglers, scavengers, etc), and 2) you *can* turn the transponder off. Just in general, it makes sense that if you're known for taking out independent fleets, other independent operators - even if not directly involved with your targets - would be reeeeeal unhappy with you.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 23, 2020, 08:30:49 PM
Any plans to add more industries locked behind blueprints (like Planetary Shield)?
Are factions more or less likely to launch expeditions now?
Do [REDACTED] now attack systems of other factions? Can they be encountered in hyperspace?
Please add more danngers, encounters and TREASURE to hyperspace.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Piemanlives on October 24, 2020, 02:44:17 AM
Hmm, could you be more specific? I recall fixing a few bugs and tweaking faction weapon availability (in particular, iirc, giving pirates more stuff so that their high-tech stations aren't so sad) but I'm not aware of any particular issues with autofit. Perhaps some of this is a difference in expectations? It's not supposed to produce highly optimized best-in-class variants; rather it's "generally a mix of halfway-reasonable stuff, with some variants that are fairly random". It does get more consistent/produce "better" outcome as fleet "quality" goes up, though... anyway, any more feedback here would be very much appreciated!
There is perhaps quite a bit of difference in expectation. Many of us are still living with the memory of DynaSector and the incredibly dangerous and absurd fits it provided.

Now that said the current iteration of autofit does some... very silly and incredibly dumb things quite often. Like giving ships weapons they can't use effectively at all, such as giving slow ships short range weapons or downsizing mounts in ways that don't make sense (such as the larges on a Conquest).

It's basically to the point that often enough AI fleets simply aren't a threat because their loadouts don't work, or are only threatening because they have weight of numbers. I understand that you don't exactly plan to tune autofit to the point that it's always incredibly dangerous and daunting to even consider combat, but it really does need some fine tuning to give the AI more of a fighting chance.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on October 24, 2020, 03:16:40 AM
Downsizing by autofit in any way is almost bound to be a mistake.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: bobucles on October 24, 2020, 09:05:14 AM
The size 6 planet limit seems to be pretty fair all around. It really takes too much game time to hit 8 or try going beyond that in an ordinary game. Still, it might be nice for various planet properties to increase or decrease that limit. Your average crappy post collapse colony might be a 6, but a neutron star might cripple it down to a 5. A super nice highly habitable gaia world can be a 7, and maybe a super rare planet terraforming tool could push it up to an 8? At that point the world would practically be the New Earth of the sector. In any event it would take real extreme circumstances to change a planet's limit, so it'd be the exception rather than the norm.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: THE SHAMBLER on October 24, 2020, 12:17:36 PM
When can we expect a .95a realease? :O
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 24, 2020, 01:10:48 PM
Since the colony changes keep coming up, as well as the core planets being too much of a pushover, i just wondered if you think they become more resilient or less with all the changes? And are you filling up the extra colony slots that open up on various AI planets under the new rules? (and if so did you manually adjust total market values or did they "just" automatically increase a bit?) What about adding or upgrading their defences that aren't linked to colony size (like orbital and ground defences)?

As for planets/markets that really *could* use some buffing in my opinion: New Maxios comes to mind (maybe make it a battlestation?) as well as some of the pirate bases that only consist of a station. Would really help their believability to survive/be more or less permanent if they weren't under repair from facing random patrols half the time.
Luddic path also feels like it could use some help imo, not only to make it more believable that they can semi-permanently stay in control of their planets but also because there's such a big discrepancy between their power in the core and the power of their popup bases.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 24, 2020, 02:39:28 PM
Hmm, could you be more specific? I recall fixing a few bugs and tweaking faction weapon availability (in particular, iirc, giving pirates more stuff so that their high-tech stations aren't so sad) but I'm not aware of any particular issues with autofit. Perhaps some of this is a difference in expectations? It's not supposed to produce highly optimized best-in-class variants; rather it's "generally a mix of halfway-reasonable stuff, with some variants that are fairly random". It does get more consistent/produce "better" outcome as fleet "quality" goes up, though... anyway, any more feedback here would be very much appreciated!
There is perhaps quite a bit of difference in expectation. Many of us are still living with the memory of DynaSector and the incredibly dangerous and absurd fits it provided.

Now that said the current iteration of autofit does some... very silly and incredibly dumb things quite often. Like giving ships weapons they can't use effectively at all, such as giving slow ships short range weapons or downsizing mounts in ways that don't make sense (such as the larges on a Conquest).

It's basically to the point that often enough AI fleets simply aren't a threat because their loadouts don't work, or are only threatening because they have weight of numbers. I understand that you don't exactly plan to tune autofit to the point that it's always incredibly dangerous and daunting to even consider combat, but it really does need some fine tuning to give the AI more of a fighting chance.
Downsizing by autofit in any way is almost bound to be a mistake.

I appreciate the added detail! I guess in my mind, "autofit" and "what the default fleet inflater tells autofit is available to use" are two different things, but it makes sense that it's not... a very player-facing distinction. I'll take another look; pretty much all cases of downsizing for example (or using a short range weapon when the base loadout uses a long-range one) is due to nothing better being flagged as available. I've made some notes and will take a look shortly.


When can we expect a .95a realease? :O

When it's ready, of course :)

The size 6 planet limit seems to be pretty fair all around. It really takes too much game time to hit 8 or try going beyond that in an ordinary game. Still, it might be nice for various planet properties to increase or decrease that limit. Your average crappy post collapse colony might be a 6, but a neutron star might cripple it down to a 5. A super nice highly habitable gaia world can be a 7, and maybe a super rare planet terraforming tool could push it up to an 8? At that point the world would practically be the New Earth of the sector. In any event it would take real extreme circumstances to change a planet's limit, so it'd be the exception rather than the norm.

Hmm. I could see perhaps hazard rating changing the size limit - but then there are some ways to manipulate the hazard rating now, so I think the "soft" natural limit (based on growth penalties from hazard, but over-comeable via hazard pay) might be an easier fit.


Since the colony changes keep coming up, as well as the core planets being too much of a pushover, i just wondered if you think they become more resilient or less with all the changes? ...  What about adding or upgrading their defences that aren't linked to colony size (like orbital and ground defences)?

I think they're in about the same place. Just in general, I'm not particularly concerned about this aspect of things. The core worlds need to be reasonably vulnerable to things like sneaking around, smuggling, raids, and so on; that's more important imo than their overall reslience/power level vs endgame fleets. It's not like taking them down is any sort of goal (other than self-imposed), and they're not the toughest challenge in the game anyway, so it's just... not something that I think will matter very much in the long run, not when there will at some point be a "proper" endgame to focus on. And based on the requirements of that, they may end up getting tuned up or down defense/power-wise! But right now, there's nothing actually meaningful to balance them around, if that makes sense.

And are you filling up the extra colony slots that open up on various AI planets under the new rules? (and if so did you manually adjust total market values or did they "just" automatically increase a bit?)

Definitely not! Just a few items here and there where they were absolutely needed to make the default economy's ends meet. I'd like to keep as many of the items as possible a fun surprise, not, "oh, it's that thing I already saw on some core colony".
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 24, 2020, 03:19:41 PM

Definitely not! Just a few items here and there where they were absolutely needed to make the default economy's ends meet. I'd like to keep as many of the items as possible a fun surprise, not, "oh, it's that thing I already saw on some core colony".

Ah yeah, not filling them with items makes perfect sense, but i was thinking more of industry slots. Since 4 slots will be available at size 6 instead of 7 now for instance, and 2 available from the start. (so if all the core planets stay the same size a lot of them could get an extra industry according to the rules)
It makes sense that you don't want to fool around with that too much either though, with the whole thing being more or less balanced as it is.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 24, 2020, 03:25:21 PM
Ah, I see what you meant not, sorry I misunderstood! Yeah, they're more or less as-is; the stuff found on the core colonies is for 1) making the Sector economy work out and 2) flavor. It doesn't really need to be "optimized according to the rules" because it's not a symmetric 4x type of situation, you know?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Shoat on October 24, 2020, 06:03:26 PM
I have literally never taken ships from the pirates. Anything with defects is automatic trash, and you get enough money in the first thirty minutes of a game to finance a small carrier fleet.

That's quite a self-harming way of playing the game.
There are plenty of D-mods that have not-too bad or even insignificant (or rarely even completely irrelevant) penalties, and all d-mods have the positive effect of making ships cheaper supplies-wise (even more so with the relevant skill), so deciding to automatically decline salvage on anything just because it has a d-mod and then spending your resources on buying ships (which is highly inefficient) is just shooting yourself in the foot for literally no reason. I'd understand playing like that as a pride-themed challenge run, at best.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Optymistyk on October 25, 2020, 05:29:25 AM
Oh yes finally I am more excited for this than for christmass  :D

Can you drop a hint if there's any substantial changes for colony management in the works? It's probably my fav part of the game
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 25, 2020, 05:49:43 AM
Oh yes finally I am more excited for this than for christmass  :D

Can you drop a hint if there's any substantial changes for colony management in the works? It's probably my fav part of the game
There might be some, Alex tends to update patchnotes once or twice.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on October 25, 2020, 08:35:40 AM
I've noticed that enemy fighter LPCs on carriers with the Reserve Deployment ability do not self-destruct as the mothership retreats from the battlefield, leading to some rather annoying time after all enemy ships retreated, like in this case:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/pPELVJP.png)
[close]

You guys might want to look into that as you nerf Reserve Deplyment (unless you've already fixed it and I did not spot it in the patch notes). I've also had it happen with a Drover using Broadswords and a modder (SafariJohn) confirmed it seems to be originating from Vanilla. It should be fairly easy to reproduce in a real battle scenario.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 25, 2020, 08:43:45 AM
Alex, how many colonies do you think a no admin skills player should have (as of 0.9.5a)?

Please clarify for Megas, is Converted Fighter Bays only for ships with built-in wings like Sunder or does it work for every carrier?

It would be nice if Admin skills can be made elite just like combat skills. In addition, players can spend story points on an Admin to make one of their skills elite, cryopod admins might start with one skill already elite, Alpha cores have three elite admin skills.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 25, 2020, 09:22:10 AM
Oh yes finally I am more excited for this than for christmass  :D

:D

Can you drop a hint if there's any substantial changes for colony management in the works? It's probably my fav part of the game

Hmm - you mean beyond what's already in the patch notes (a bunch of new items, "make improvements", size changes, cryosleeper having a range, etc)? I think that about sums it up colony-wise for this release.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 25, 2020, 09:27:24 AM
Ah, I see what you meant not, sorry I misunderstood! Yeah, they're more or less as-is; the stuff found on the core colonies is for 1) making the Sector economy work out and 2) flavor. It doesn't really need to be "optimized according to the rules" because it's not a symmetric 4x type of situation, you know?

Yeah makes perfect sense. The only thing that really changed is that you have the *opportunity* to make changes without them breaking the rules that apply to player colonies if you desire. Nothing saying you have to use that opportunity if you feel they're already in a good spot.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on October 25, 2020, 10:13:12 AM
First of all, thanks for all your hard work, I can't wait to try the game out!
I know the patch is gonna drop when it's ready and I'm not gonna ask that...however if you could respond to these simple questions i bet it would make lots of people happy :p   
-Ignoring that things can be added or changed or take more time than expected, what do you feel right now is your current progress on the patch? (50%, 90% etc)     
-Compared to previous patches, do you feel you released these patch notes as early in development as those? or did you wait until you were closer to release? 
 
One thing about the game, i would LOVE to have a way to disable CR degradation for the flagship, sometimes i enjoy taking my time and fighting unwinnable battles by slowly taking the edge, however CR heavily hinders this kind of gameplay and instead i feel forced to play in a way i don't really like. I'm fine with the fleet having it for balance purposes, but it really bums me out when i'm almost about to win an extremely difficult and long fight, just for my CR to run out :( (yes, even with the cr upgrade). What about an upgrade that progressively decrease CR usage for the flagship? so if you choose to go that route, you'd have to actually waste points on it, making your flagship immune to cr degradation at max level, but overall weaker/with a weaker fleet. Or maybe even adding some flux penalty to that upgrade/making it impossible to reach CR degradation immunity on phase ships.
Thanks again for your amazing work

 

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AsterPiano on October 25, 2020, 10:29:01 AM
I've thought about the gameplay implications of these notes a bit more, focused around this change
Quote
Increased XP gain from fighting more challenging battles; up to 500% more XP gained

Fleet Combat 'Efficiency' will now be significantly more important. Combat XP is now not only based around the strength of the fleets you destroy, but also around how efficiently you have designed your fleet.
XP now also has the added importance of gaining you Story Points, in addition to the already important Skill Points.

These changes add a new meaning to picking player Combat Skills, in the current 0.9.1a patch they can massively increase your fleet's combat efficiency - especially in the early game/for small fleets where you have very few combat ships - but with 0.95a's changes they further give a boost to XP gain and now by extension, Story Point gain.
(assuming Combat Skills are equally as good as they were previously, a well piloted player ship with full combat skills can increase the ship's effectiveness tenfold)
These changes definitely encourage players to try maximising the efficiency of a smaller fleet through carefully designed fleet strategy and loadouts in order to fight bigger fleets (going 'taller' kinda), as opposed to getting more/bigger combat ships and focusing more on numbers (going 'wider'), which I think is especially good since big fleets for new players can be frustrating to manage the logistics of; they often end up being slow and expensive.
Also more than before you're discouraged from going after easy targets, and encouraged to go after larger targets where you can make full use of all of your combat ships.

Quote
Story point uses include (but are not limited to):
  • "Piloted ship" skills can be raised to "elite" level, unlocking an additional effect
  • Building a limited number of permanent hullmods into ships, making the cost 0 ordnance points
  • Officers: Can raise one skill to "elite" level (story point)
Speaking of Story points, these additions give the player more ways to spend resources on their fleet to further tune its effectiveness in combat and affect combat XP. However, depending on how the equation works, using these features could increase the "fleet strength" value of your fleet, which could make them less worthwhile. (Although using story points does grant bonus XP anyway, so it might cancel itself out)

Another implication that I find interesting is, the player already has a choice to forgo logistics in order to increase the fleet's overall combat efficiency, and the change of "more XP from challenging battles" adds to the already existing dynamic of Combat vs Logistics by asking Combat-focused fleets the question "Do you want to focus on Combat XP, or do you want more space for Salvage?", which adds extra playstyle options even among Combat focused fleets.

Quote
Cargo Pods: cheaper to stabilize, stabilization adds 400 days (was: 150)
This also supports the idea of removing cargo ships to increase combat efficiency to some extent, as it makes it easier for the player to pick up all of the cargo they couldn't at a later time. (Also generally.. I'm quite happy about the prospect of stabilising cargo pods being less costly and more effective, big fan of this change!)

However, I have a few worries about this change to combat XP, depending on how the equation works for deciding on the strength of a fleet. For example if the number of officers in your fleet strongly affects the "strength" of your fleet for the purposes of combat XP calculation, then it could discourage hiring low level officers. If it scales with the level of the officer, it could discourage the use of officers overall (however, even if the scaling was punishing it would at least give you a choice of more Combat XP vs more pure fleet strength).
However, if the "fleet strength" value does scale with your fleet officers' levels, that also raises the worrying question of "Does your Player Combat Skills Level affect "fleet strength" ? I personally think this would be a mistake as it further discourages players from trying Combat Skills if they think they're bad at piloting ships.
Some more questions, does having more/more expensive weapons equipped on ships increase the player's "fleet strength" value? Does having less dmods increase the value?

Of course, all of this depends on how exactly the equation will work, and what the purpose of the change is. Since I don't know I'm just making assumptions about what it could be. It could scale with your officer levels but only a little bit, so that it's still better to have officers than not (as long as you use them). I guess there's a lot of unknowns here so I began thinking about the (in my opinion) worst case scenarios.
As far as I can tell, the main purpose of the change is either to reward the player for their skill (in piloting/ordering and planning/loading out their fleet),
or to reward the player for their skill and all the resources they put into making their fleet more combat effective.
I guess my question comes down to: Is that the case? And if so, which is it? (Although I can understand if you don't want to share exactly how it'll work; people are bound to take the equation and minmax their gameplay choices around its quirks)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Mordodrukow on October 25, 2020, 10:53:58 AM
Sorry, did not read all 28 pages of discussion.

I like all changes except for inability to bribe Hegemony's inspectors without spending story points. Its just pointless. Story points will be limited resource (if i get it correctly), so, it will be way easier to eliminate entire Hegemony than going home every time to retrieve cores till inspection is done.

Also, an idea: Hegemony tells you that they will come with inspection... but dont tell which colony they want to check. For example, inspector secretly picks one planet and has a chance to pick second one if player has big number of worlds (more than 4, i guess...).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on October 25, 2020, 10:56:36 AM
Ah yes this reminded me, can we have inspections remember the last choice we picked? For example If I say my colony to retaliate, can it do that next time too, instead of just allowing them to take all cores? Obviously we'd still get the message, I'm just talking about scenarios where you forget about the notification.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 25, 2020, 12:16:53 PM
Sorry, did not read all 28 pages of discussion.

I like all changes except for inability to bribe Hegemony's inspectors without spending story points. Its just pointless. Story points will be limited resource (if i get it correctly), so, it will be way easier to eliminate entire Hegemony than going home every time to retrieve cores till inspection is done.

Also, an idea: Hegemony tells you that they will come with inspection... but dont tell which colony they want to check. For example, inspector secretly picks one planet and has a chance to pick second one if player has big number of worlds (more than 4, i guess...).
Story points are renewable.  Do not know how quickly player can earn enough XP to level up beyond max for more story points.

If I plan to use cores (to build an empire), purging the Hegemony may become a very attractive option.

However, if I am willing to stop what I do and rush home to grab cores, it is better to intercept the inspection fleet and kill it.

Inspection that does not tell which colony Hegemony checks would be evil.  I would sat bomb Hegemony off the map to eliminate that headache.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 25, 2020, 12:50:29 PM
First of all, thanks for all your hard work, I can't wait to try the game out!
I know the patch is gonna drop when it's ready and I'm not gonna ask that...however if you could respond to these simple questions i bet it would make lots of people happy :p   
-Ignoring that things can be added or changed or take more time than expected, what do you feel right now is your current progress on the patch? (50%, 90% etc)     
-Compared to previous patches, do you feel you released these patch notes as early in development as those? or did you wait until you were closer to release? 

Ahh, I'm afraid that would be more or less answering the same question as the one you're not asking :) I'll just say, most of what remains is some reasonable amount of story content, a bunch of random QoL/modding items, a few assorted odds and ends, and a bunch of playtesting.
 
 
One thing about the game, i would LOVE to have a way to disable CR degradation for the flagship, sometimes i enjoy taking my time and fighting unwinnable battles by slowly taking the edge, however CR heavily hinders this kind of gameplay and instead i feel forced to play in a way i don't really like. I'm fine with the fleet having it for balance purposes, but it really bums me out when i'm almost about to win an extremely difficult and long fight, just for my CR to run out :( (yes, even with the cr upgrade). What about an upgrade that progressively decrease CR usage for the flagship? so if you choose to go that route, you'd have to actually waste points on it, making your flagship immune to cr degradation at max level, but overall weaker/with a weaker fleet. Or maybe even adding some flux penalty to that upgrade/making it impossible to reach CR degradation immunity on phase ships.
Thanks again for your amazing work

Hmm - much like you're saying you feel "forced" into not playing this way, the flip side is if what you're asking for *was* an option, other players would feel forced to use it, since "use a single ship to take a long time to win a fight" is more efficient. And having to do this on the regular would not, I think, be good for the game. I'd suggest, personally, just editing the Hardened Subsystems hullmod in your game to adjust it to your preference. That one's actually easy - doesn't require compiling anything etc; you can just edit data/hullmods/HardenedSubsystems and change the peak time modifier to what you want. That's affect AI ships too, but in your particular case that doesn't seem like it'd be a problem.


I've thought about the gameplay implications of these notes a bit more, focused around this change

I think this is a really good, deep analysis; thank you for sharing it!

These changes add a new meaning to picking player Combat Skills, in the current 0.9.1a patch they can massively increase your fleet's combat efficiency - especially in the early game/for small fleets where you have very few combat ships - but with 0.95a's changes they further give a boost to XP gain and now by extension, Story Point gain.

Hadn't considered that! But, this seems good overall.


Quote
Cargo Pods: cheaper to stabilize, stabilization adds 400 days (was: 150)
This also supports the idea of removing cargo ships to increase combat efficiency to some extent, as it makes it easier for the player to pick up all of the cargo they couldn't at a later time. (Also generally.. I'm quite happy about the prospect of stabilising cargo pods being less costly and more effective, big fan of this change!)

*thumbs up*


However, I have a few worries about this change to combat XP, depending on how the equation works for deciding on the strength of a fleet. For example if the number of officers in your fleet strongly affects the "strength" of your fleet for the purposes of combat XP calculation, then it could discourage hiring low level officers. If it scales with the level of the officer, it could discourage the use of officers overall (however, even if the scaling was punishing it would at least give you a choice of more Combat XP vs more pure fleet strength).
However, if the "fleet strength" value does scale with your fleet officers' levels, that also raises the worrying question of "Does your Player Combat Skills Level affect "fleet strength" ? I personally think this would be a mistake as it further discourages players from trying Combat Skills if they think they're bad at piloting ships.
Some more questions, does having more/more expensive weapons equipped on ships increase the player's "fleet strength" value? Does having less dmods increase the value?

Of course, all of this depends on how exactly the equation will work, and what the purpose of the change is. Since I don't know I'm just making assumptions about what it could be. It could scale with your officer levels but only a little bit, so that it's still better to have officers than not (as long as you use them). I guess there's a lot of unknowns here so I began thinking about the (in my opinion) worst case scenarios.
As far as I can tell, the main purpose of the change is either to reward the player for their skill (in piloting/ordering and planning/loading out their fleet),
or to reward the player for their skill and all the resources they put into making their fleet more combat effective.
I guess my question comes down to: Is that the case? And if so, which is it? (Although I can understand if you don't want to share exactly how it'll work; people are bound to take the equation and minmax their gameplay choices around its quirks)

Right, yeah; this is a good thing to think about, vis a vis "does this change encourage weird gameplay patterns". I'd be lying if I said I'd considered every detail (this was, to be honest, kind of an impulsive addition based on a suggestion from, iirc, Gothars), but!

I think overall having more/better officers will always be good - they do reduce the difficulty of the fight, but I think not to the point where it's better not to have them. It'd be pretty much impossible to do anything real meaningful without them. And, while officer level/presence matters here, it matters less than e.g. for deployment points distribution, so it shouldn't discourage putting officers in small ships. Player level - rather than specifically combat skills - factors in here, but, again, it's not an overwhelming factor. Weapons/dmods etc don't factor in; it's based off the base deployment points of a hull and officer levels. Again, though, I don't think it's something where trying to optimize out a dmod or two would make much difference.

(Officers that aren't assigned to a ship still count, since otherwise you'd be encouraged to unassign officers you're not planning to use in the fight... made that change just now, actually, since wasn't thinking about that aspect of it before.)

Overall, the hope is this is something that's worth playing around on the macro level - in terms overall fleet size/composition/engagement choices - but not on a micro level, trying to wring an extra couple of percent out of it.


I like all changes except for inability to bribe Hegemony's inspectors without spending story points. Its just pointless. Story points will be limited resource (if i get it correctly), so, it will be way easier to eliminate entire Hegemony than going home every time to retrieve cores till inspection is done.

Also, an idea: Hegemony tells you that they will come with inspection... but dont tell which colony they want to check. For example, inspector secretly picks one planet and has a chance to pick second one if player has big number of worlds (more than 4, i guess...).

That'd just make it impossible to prep for, no?

What I want to look at is making inspections etc more rare, though...



Ah yes this reminded me, can we have inspections remember the last choice we picked? For example If I say my colony to retaliate, can it do that next time too, instead of just allowing them to take all cores? Obviously we'd still get the message, I'm just talking about scenarios where you forget about the notification.

Tn that theoretical example, it'd do that already, right? Since you'd get auto-hostile for resisting. I don't think that defaulting to the option that makes you auto-hostile (when you're not already hostile) is a good idea.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on October 25, 2020, 01:08:57 PM
Ah yes this reminded me, can we have inspections remember the last choice we picked? For example If I say my colony to retaliate, can it do that next time too, instead of just allowing them to take all cores? Obviously we'd still get the message, I'm just talking about scenarios where you forget about the notification.

Tn that theoretical example, it'd do that already, right? Since you'd get auto-hostile for resisting. I don't think that defaulting to the option that makes you auto-hostile (when you're not already hostile) is a good idea.
Well yeah being the default option would be kinda silly. Didn't know it automatically made you hostile no matter what your relation is, I always thought it was a big flat penalty like -50 or something. But I'm sure this happened to me. Could it be that the first time I resisted them they became hostile but I somehow raised relations through missions and other stuff so the next option defaulted to the peace one? If such a thing can happen then honestly I don't know what makes more sense, seeing how you already made them angry once, then again, a player might try repairing those relations. Ehh you're probably right in the end (even tho the Hegemony deserves no mercy  :)) )
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 25, 2020, 01:11:08 PM
But I'm sure this happened to me. Could it be that the first time I resisted them they became hostile but I somehow raised relations through missions and other stuff so the next option defaulted to the peace one?

Yeah, that sounds plausible, since you'd be in "just barely hostile" territory at that point and even a minor rep gain would get you back out of it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Mordodrukow on October 25, 2020, 02:05:08 PM
Quote
Story points are renewable.  Do not know how quickly player can earn enough XP to level up beyond max for more story points.
If progression is the same as it is now (just scaled a bit to fit 15 max level cap) it will be very hard to get a lot of extra points.
Quote
That'd just make it impossible to prep for, no?
Yes. But you can try to guess, or, maybe, just use AIs on some planets (not all of them). Or visit all planets and remove all cores, lol. It gives some options.

Also, many people dont want to babysit anyway. So, there will be no difference for them.

For me the only reason to keep Heg alive is the fact that they have size 8 colony (which will not be achievable on player's worlds anymore (but i hope there will be possibilities like really low threat level, story points, quests, etc.)). In new rule system it will be a miracle which i just dont want to destroy.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 25, 2020, 02:38:05 PM
Quote
If progression is the same as it is now (just scaled a bit to fit 15 max level cap) it will be very hard to get a lot of extra points.
Maybe, depending how much fighting against endgame fleets player will do.  Leveling a few times past 40 now may not be not too slow, but things slow down quite a bit past 50.

If I want to use cores, it is most likely to expand my empire, that is use them as admins.  I do not want to guess where big H will hit next (at least not without an Intel bug) among dozens of alpha-run worlds.  If I need to guess where big H will hit next (and chances of success are low and result of failure is bad stuff happening), I will stop that nonsense by wiping them off the map.

As for 10^8 miracle, having them as an enemy (because they cannot mind their own business) is more of an incentive to wipe them off the map.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on October 25, 2020, 03:11:28 PM
Any chance that there'll be a way to administrate more colonies without having to resort to AI cores at some relatively quick point? I get that colonizing isn't the intended end goal and all, but it never struck me as sensible that some AI colonies can be administrated by a blank portrait saying "no one of particular note" (or some such) whereas your colonies not only must be administrated by someone, but that (given enough skill points invested) four of them can simultaneously be administrated as well as an Alpha Core - and only an Alpha Core -  can administrate one planet, by someone exploring the galaxy on the other end of the sector.

Not that having to, you know, basically retire and sit at your colonies to administrate them would be a very fun mechanic, but it's still bizarre every time I think about it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Morrokain on October 25, 2020, 03:30:07 PM
Right, yeah; this is a good thing to think about, vis a vis "does this change encourage weird gameplay patterns". I'd be lying if I said I'd considered every detail (this was, to be honest, kind of an impulsive addition based on a suggestion from, iirc, Gothars), but!

I think overall having more/better officers will always be good - they do reduce the difficulty of the fight, but I think not to the point where it's better not to have them. It'd be pretty much impossible to do anything real meaningful without them. And, while officer level/presence matters here, it matters less than e.g. for deployment points distribution, so it shouldn't discourage putting officers in small ships. Player level - rather than specifically combat skills - factors in here, but, again, it's not an overwhelming factor. Weapons/dmods etc don't factor in; it's based off the base deployment points of a hull and officer levels. Again, though, I don't think it's something where trying to optimize out a dmod or two would make much difference.

(Officers that aren't assigned to a ship still count, since otherwise you'd be encouraged to unassign officers you're not planning to use in the fight... made that change just now, actually, since wasn't thinking about that aspect of it before.)

Overall, the hope is this is something that's worth playing around on the macro level - in terms overall fleet size/composition/engagement choices - but not on a micro level, trying to wring an extra couple of percent out of it.

I agree that TheLochNessCheeseBurger has a really good analysis.

To the point on officers, I'd say it won't matter if more officers are technically unattractive to get more XP as long as there are threats that essentially require them to beat. To this end, it will largely depend upon how strong combat skills are. If they make piloting skills impactful enough that the officer bonuses aren't needed for high level challenges, yeah I could see this becoming an issue for design.

Imo, there is always going to be a "most efficient" strategy to things and that is likely unavoidable. As long as there are situations where that doesn't hold true, I think that's fine.

A good thing about avoiding officers early, if this proves to be the case, is that it indirectly encourages players to learn to pilot better without stat boosts right out of the gate. It also means that additional fleet complexity is indirectly discouraged early on - which allows players more time to choose a playstyle.

If you have 3 officers with carrier skills, for instance, you are encouraged to play with carriers more than warships. In that sense, getting specialized officers too early somewhat limits an early player's desire to explore different ships and builds.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: shoi on October 25, 2020, 03:37:04 PM

I like all changes except for inability to bribe Hegemony's inspectors without spending story points.

this change makes a lot more sense from a narrative perspective , imo.

Any chance that there'll be a way to administrate more colonies without having to resort to AI cores at some relatively quick point? I get that colonizing isn't the intended end goal and all, but it never struck me as sensible that some AI colonies can be administrated by a blank portrait saying "no one of particular note" (or some such) whereas your colonies not only must be administrated by someone, but that (given enough skill points invested) four of them can simultaneously be administrated as well as an Alpha Core - and only an Alpha Core -  can administrate one planet, by someone exploring the galaxy on the other end of the sector.

Not that having to, you know, basically retire and sit at your colonies to administrate them would be a very fun mechanic, but it's still bizarre every time I think about it.

it is kind of funny that a artificial super intelligence can be outskilled in governing by a normal human
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SafariJohn on October 25, 2020, 04:06:20 PM
it is kind of funny that a artificial super intelligence can be outskilled in governing by a normal human

Reality is unrealistic.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Mordodrukow on October 25, 2020, 04:07:14 PM
Quote
If I want to use cores, it is most likely to expand my empire, that is use them as admins.  I do not want to guess where big H will hit next (at least not without an Intel bug) among dozens of alpha-run worlds.  If I need to guess where big H will hit next (and chances of success are low and result of failure is bad stuff happening), I will stop that nonsense by wiping them off the map.
For me essential usage of cores is Alpha-boosted spaceports. Other stuff is optional. Also... if max colony size will be 6, maybe i dont need Alphas in spaceports too. I mean: size 6 is pretty achievable without any effort (even if the progression will be scaled so size 6 will demand same time as size 8 demands now... if more - than ok, we still need some growth buffs).

About secret inspections: what if we dont know what colony will be checked, but if we have contacts in Heg we can ask them about that?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: ChardonnayDreams on October 25, 2020, 05:28:29 PM
Any thoughts on maybe toning down pirate raids to coincide with their buff to their minimum base modules and nerf to bounties when it comes to starting a colony in the early game?

I find after a pirate raid, they continously raid even if theyve suceeded several times in a row, it would be nice to either pay them protection or have a longer cooldown between raids. P I struggle to stabilize expending so much resources and time in defending my colony. Especially considering I find I get tied down to it very quickly.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 25, 2020, 05:40:56 PM
If they make piloting skills impactful enough that the officer bonuses aren't needed for high level challenges, yeah I could see this becoming an issue for design.

Officer skills are the same as piloting skills though, at least when not considering elite skills (of which officers can also get one with mentoring), meaning that they're roughly the same force multiplier on your officers as on yourself.

Anyway Alex said he was aiming to make the FP increase small enough to make officers worth it even in smaller ships (from the perspective of min-maxing this XP formula), it almost certainly follow from that that they'll definetly be worth it when you assign them to bigger ships.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: bowman on October 25, 2020, 06:08:51 PM
If they don't already, Hegemony should send AI check expeditions even when the player isn't using AI cores as both a heads-up to new players that "hey if you use these those inspections are going to find them" and also because then they can be rarer per-day but the time over which they'd show up would be doubled or maybe tripled depending on when the player settles. As a result, you'd have to deal with less expeditions that actually affect you but they wouldn't be so rare as to be forgotten.

In fact, I'd say they should function similarly to ejecting illegal goods right before a patrol inspects you:
Removing cores leaves evidence depending on core type for x months (3, or variable 2+2 per core rank?) that Hegemony still picks up on. From my PoV, flying back to remove the cores before an inspection is both unfun and a bit of an exploit (since it seems to me the intent is that you either bribe or fight them if you're going to use cores, and in the next version bribe will function much better since it will be story point cost and thus not just a $ in versus $ out calculation).

Alternatively, in parallel with the evidence changes, expeditions could be a cyclical thing (so it doesn't pop up when you're doing other things and you can thus plan around it long-term) that always go out every, say, 4 years or so and then evidence would last much longer- or maybe be permanent. "While the efficiency gains AI cores are capable of are impossible for a human to do, there are obvious traces left within any system actively or previously imbued with one. A core must reach its tendrils into every nook and cranny of a network to reap their effects and the patterns created in production lines as a result of their influence are widely known, and easily identifiable, but poorly understood.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: ProfessionalHuman on October 25, 2020, 06:25:04 PM
About secret inspections: what if we dont know what colony will be checked, but if we have contacts in Heg we can ask them about that?

Imagine exploring distant part of the sector and getting a message about inspection and needing to travel 40ly+ just to ask your contact about where the inspection is going. That would be super annoying.

Also, it feels kind of strange to me that we can get messages through a comms relay anywhere in the sector, but cant send any message back. It would be great if it was possible to get access to colony/station main menu (menu that opens after you dock to it) and contacts remotely. Some mods even put some vital functions in these menus.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SafariJohn on October 25, 2020, 06:25:39 PM
AI Inspections even if you don't have cores is a great idea IMO

There's already a rep penalty AFAIK if you had cores but yanked them before the Hegs showed up.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: shoi on October 25, 2020, 06:42:05 PM
it is kind of funny that a artificial super intelligence can be outskilled in governing by a normal human

Reality is unrealistic.

what
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Linnis on October 25, 2020, 07:10:42 PM
it is kind of funny that a artificial super intelligence can be outskilled in governing by a normal human

Reality is unrealistic.

what

depends on the AI. They are "smarter" than humans because they can learn in simulations ultra fast. But you tell an combat trained AI that you plucked from a spaceship and tell it to govern millions of people it might not be so smart then.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Silveressa on October 25, 2020, 07:41:35 PM
Is there any place for us to download the 0.95a in progress version to check it out first hand?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: shoi on October 25, 2020, 07:44:53 PM

depends on the AI. They are "smarter" than humans because they can learn in simulations ultra fast. But you tell an combat trained AI that you plucked from a spaceship and tell it to govern millions of people it might not be so smart then.

if that what he meant, it still doesnt make sense

Quote
An alpha-level AI core is capable of excelling at any task. Assigning one to run a colony-wide industry brings benefits well beyond the capacity of human leadership, and there are even rumors of alpha cores surreptitiously assigned to govern entire worlds.

not that I mind or anything on how it actually operates in game
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 25, 2020, 08:19:14 PM
Maybe the Alpha AI refuses to use all it's capabilities for you or it cannot do so because it's not given powerful enough hardware?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 25, 2020, 08:53:40 PM
Any chance that there'll be a way to administrate more colonies without having to resort to AI cores at some relatively quick point? I get that colonizing isn't the intended end goal and all ...

I can't really see doing that, no. As you say, that's not an intended goal, so I don't see a reason to develop in that direction only to need to cut it back down at some point. I mean, had to do that with colony size (pretty much knowing initially that size 10 would never stay as the limit), and look how much discussion that caused. Ha!

... but it never struck me as sensible that some AI colonies can be administrated by a blank portrait saying "no one of particular note" (or some such) whereas your colonies not only must be administrated by someone

The "blank portrait" is more or less equivalent to the "no skills admin" you can hire, so at most that's a UI issue :)

... but that (given enough skill points invested) four of them can simultaneously be administrated as well as an Alpha Core - and only an Alpha Core -  can administrate one planet, by someone exploring the galaxy on the other end of the sector.

Consider that with an Alpha Core, there's a question of trust. There's the core, giving instructions for the optimal and perfect running of a colony, probably. And there's the human overseers, trying to figure out which of the core's instruction *may*, in roundabout and entirely unexpected ways, lead to Bad Things.


A good thing about avoiding officers early, if this proves to be the case ...

Just want to note that I'd be very surprised if this proved to be the case. Combat skills are great and all but you need some numbers on your side, too.


Any thoughts on maybe toning down pirate raids to coincide with their buff to their minimum base modules and nerf to bounties when it comes to starting a colony in the early game?

I find after a pirate raid, they continously raid even if theyve suceeded several times in a row, it would be nice to either pay them protection or have a longer cooldown between raids. P I struggle to stabilize expending so much resources and time in defending my colony. Especially considering I find I get tied down to it very quickly.

The continuous raids are a bug, actually - fixed for the next release! I think it's in the patch notes somewhere.


If they don't already, Hegemony should send AI check expeditions even when the player isn't using AI cores as both a heads-up to new players that "hey if you use these those inspections are going to find them"

What, and ruin the surprise? I get what you're saying, but since bribing is still an option, I don't think the player really needs to be explicitly warned ahead of time.


In fact, I'd say they should function similarly to ejecting illegal goods right before a patrol inspects you:
Removing cores leaves evidence depending on core type for x months (3, or variable 2+2 per core rank?) that Hegemony still picks up on. From my PoV, flying back to remove the cores before an inspection is both unfun and a bit of an exploit (since it seems to me the intent is that you either bribe or fight them if you're going to use cores, and in the next version bribe will function much better since it will be story point cost and thus not just a $ in versus $ out calculation).

Yeah, removing cores prior to the inspection already doesn't work! IIRC you'll still lose them if they're in colony storage, and if not, there are a lot more reputation penalties since they suspect you did this.


Is there any place for us to download the 0.95a in progress version to check it out first hand?

Nope, sorry! It's not in an enjoyably playable state, anyway; you'd be surprised at how late in the dev cycle everything actually comes together to the degree that it makes any sense to have someone outside the dev team play it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Silveressa on October 25, 2020, 08:57:23 PM

Nope, sorry! It's not in an enjoyably playable state, anyway; you'd be surprised at how late in the dev cycle everything actually comes together to the degree that it makes any sense to have someone outside the dev team play it.

That's completely understandable, thanks for the swift reply,  8) Is there a rough release date on the horizon for 9.5? (As in before xmas, sometime 1Q 2021 etc..)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 25, 2020, 09:02:14 PM
Sorry to keep saying no, but - it's strictly on a "when it's ready" basis :) Basically, it's hard to estimate right, and if I don't, then there'll be pressure on me to release earlier than I'm comfortable with (that is, before it's quite there), and that's just not a road I want to go down. I get that some people would understand that it's just an estimate (present company included etc), but if a date got out, it'd spread around and become "the date" without any nuance. (Also, internally, there isn't a date! See: it being hard to accurately estimate.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Silveressa on October 25, 2020, 09:11:25 PM
Sorry to keep saying no, but - it's strictly on a "when it's ready" basis :)

Thanks for the in depth explanation, I see how it turning into a pressure to release could lead to rushed bug hunting and a hot mess of an update, you're right it's a smart move keeping it open ended. The new update looks great, one of the main things I ran into in previous play throughs was a lack of stuff to do once I hit end game, the new storyline additions should certainly help out a lot with that, really looking forward to it!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 25, 2020, 09:25:34 PM
:D Thank you for understanding!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on October 26, 2020, 02:16:15 AM
I've noticed that enemy fighter LPCs on carriers with the Reserve Deployment ability do not self-destruct as the mothership retreats from the battlefield, leading to some rather annoying time after all enemy ships retreated, like in this case:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/pPELVJP.png)
[close]

You guys might want to look into that as you nerf Reserve Deplyment (unless you've already fixed it and I did not spot it in the patch notes). I've also had it happen with a Drover using Broadswords and a modder (SafariJohn) confirmed it seems to be originating from Vanilla. It should be fairly easy to reproduce in a real battle scenario.

I'm sorry if I missed any reply to this Alex, but have you seen this error with reserve Deployment carriers?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Mordodrukow on October 26, 2020, 02:18:59 AM
Quote
Imagine exploring distant part of the sector and getting a message about inspection and needing to travel 40ly+ just to ask your contact about where the inspection is going. That would be super annoying.
What a surprise. You already need to travel 40ly+ to remove cores if you get a message about inspection. And yes, it is super annoying. So, i dont see big difference.

Tbh, i just forgot that contacts need you to visit them.

Also... it will be very cool and funny if everybody here destroy Heg just to get some quality of life increase, and then boom: endgame crysis appears and you cant resist it without Hegemony help. Even more: endgame crysis comes from AI cores, and you made it worse, because you used them. What an irony.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FreonRu on October 26, 2020, 02:25:07 AM
I apologize in advance for using google translate.

Alex, good day. I really like the Starsector and have been playing it regularly since version 0.65. You have already been asked many times in the comments, but let me clarify the question a little. How many chances are there that the patch will be released before the new year? Arranging holidays in an embrace with the Starsector is priceless.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on October 26, 2020, 02:33:43 AM
Arranging holidays in an embrace with the Starsector is priceless.

I am stealing this statement.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on October 26, 2020, 03:37:53 AM
I've thought about the gameplay implications of these notes a bit more, focused around this change
Quote
Increased XP gain from fighting more challenging battles; up to 500% more XP gained


more than before you're discouraged from going after easy targets, and encouraged to go after larger targets where you can make full use of all of your combat ships.

This was the reason I kicked of the discussion that lead to the bonus XP change, but...

These changes definitely encourage players to try maximising the efficiency of a smaller fleet through carefully designed fleet strategy and loadouts in order to fight bigger fleets

Combat vs Logistics by asking Combat-focused fleets the question "Do you want to focus on Combat XP, or do you want more space for Salvage?", which adds extra playstyle options even among Combat focused fleets.

...I hadn't fully thought through these implications, so - thank you! I think these are great dynamics. It also makes the new auxiliary fleet skill ("which lets the player make a limited number of civilian ships very combat-effective") quite an interesting choice!

Quote
Cargo Pods: cheaper to stabilize, stabilization adds 400 days (was: 150)
This also supports the idea of removing cargo ships to increase combat efficiency to some extent

This, however, has me slightly worried. I hope it doesn't encourage a playstile where you go out hunting with a pure combat fleet to get all those sweet XP, stabilize your cargo, and then later have to come back with a cargo fleet to make a tedious pick up cruise. But I guess in the time that would take you could just fight more targets and get overall more XP that way...


Maximum level is 15


You get 4 story points per level. Or maybe 2. Point being, you get more of them than you get skill points, so they keep things flowing between level-ups. You also keep gaining story points after reaching the maximum level, so there’s progression beyond that.


This makes me wonder: If the story points are all given at level up, and you have good reason to either spend them all at once to maximise their efficiency, or to hold on to them until you are in real big trouble - that doesn't really help to "keep things flowing", does it? It still leaves you stranded in the (presumably) long intervals between level ups.

Mh. How about doling out some of the story points at half or quarter level intervals?

(You could get more fancy and link the timing of SP distribution to outstanding player actions. Basically, you earn the right to a story point at level up, but you only get it after fighting that big battle, progressing that storyline,  founding that colony...
I just like the idea of story points not just shaping your story, but also your story influencing your SP.)


Another point - if lvl. ups are now rare and far apart, how about celebrating them a bit more? A fanfare, some fireworks? At the moment I often miss it completely when I just leveled up.



Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SafariJohn on October 26, 2020, 04:41:31 AM

depends on the AI. They are "smarter" than humans because they can learn in simulations ultra fast. But you tell an combat trained AI that you plucked from a spaceship and tell it to govern millions of people it might not be so smart then.

if that what he meant, it still doesnt make sense

The descriptions say the AIs are straight up better than humans. The facts are that humans can outperform the top AIs. Yet you still believe the descriptions.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on October 26, 2020, 05:02:27 AM
Any chance that there'll be a way to administrate more colonies without having to resort to AI cores at some relatively quick point? I get that colonizing isn't the intended end goal and all ...

I can't really see doing that, no. As you say, that's not an intended goal, so I don't see a reason to develop in that direction only to need to cut it back down at some point. I mean, had to do that with colony size (pretty much knowing initially that size 10 would never stay as the limit), and look how much discussion that caused. Ha!

Yeah, point definitely taken on the discussions it'd cause ::). It is unfortunate that playing colony tycoon basically requires resorting to Alpha Cores, though. No way to colonize like crazy while roleplaying as a Luddite or...Hegemon? Eh, whatever the word for a follower of the Hegemony is.

... but it never struck me as sensible that some AI colonies can be administrated by a blank portrait saying "no one of particular note" (or some such) whereas your colonies not only must be administrated by someone

The "blank portrait" is more or less equivalent to the "no skills admin" you can hire, so at most that's a UI issue :)

Ah, got it. Any chance that bug will be fixed in the upcoming patch, than? I mean I get it's not a high priority, but, you know. Attention to the fine details.

... but that (given enough skill points invested) four of them can simultaneously be administrated as well as an Alpha Core - and only an Alpha Core -  can administrate one planet, by someone exploring the galaxy on the other end of the sector.

Consider that with an Alpha Core, there's a question of trust. There's the core, giving instructions for the optimal and perfect running of a colony, probably. And there's the human overseers, trying to figure out which of the core's instruction *may*, in roundabout and entirely unexpected ways, lead to Bad Things.

Here's to hoping that idea gets expanded on at some point. Because while on one side it'd be very obnoxious if using admin Alpha Cores (AI cores in general, for that matter) caused some kind of unavoidable and permanent problems, because you have to use them in order to put down more than one medium-sized system worth of self-sufficient colonies, on the other side I'd very much like to eventually out-Tri-Tachyon the Tri-Tachyon in terms of AI core usage and research. And that'd just make the Hegemony and Luddites both look like cranky old codgers overdue for a transfer to the nearest retirement home if that didn't result in something going spectacularly wrong ;).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on October 26, 2020, 05:30:12 AM
I think your worries about optimising experience bonus from strength difference are unwarranted. Currently, it's cheaper to go full combat and not get any officers, but do people do that very often? In the next patch, it will be more risky to use smaller force, but also more rewarding, but I doubt the bonus to experience is going to be significant enough that people are going to change their playstyle. Not to mention that this basic desire (to get more, using less) is already present, yet it doesn't break the game in any way — not to mention that it's to preserve resources like credits, supplies, ships, that you can gain or lose, unlike XP, which can only be gained. And there's no time limit on the players yet to rush for XP.

This makes me wonder: If the story points are all given at level up, and you have good reason to either spend them all at once to maximise their efficiency, or to hold on to them until you are in real big trouble - that doesn't really help to "keep things flowing", does it? It still leaves you stranded in the (presumably) long intervals between level ups.

Mh. How about doling out some of the story points at half or quarter level intervals?
From Alex's wording I got the impression that story points are awarded as you earn them (at, say, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of progress towards the next level), not all at once when you level up. They wouldn't "keep things flowing between level-ups", if you earned them only at level-ups, no?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on October 26, 2020, 07:12:41 AM
The post about stabilizing cargo and the possibility of people going full combat fleet for the exp bonus, and then going back with the haulers to pick up everything in a huge waste of time... 
Wouldn't it be possible to have a secondary fleet? maybe heavily limit it to only be able to have max 5-6 ships, only haulers or civilian ships etc (so you can't effectively use it to defend your colony effectively). 
This means that you literally make your haulers vulnerable to attacks so they don't hinder your strike fleet, it also means that you actually get to use your haulers to try and escape from fights instead of almost never seeing them, combat haulers would also get taken more into consideration and why not, even strange and fun builds made entirely with combat haulers. 
You could have the second fleet in tow at either the same speed or lagging behind, meaning that escaping from an unfavorable fight, means they would target your haulers instead (if they are closeby). 
Of course a hauler only fleet would be targeted more heavily by NPCs, reducing its overall effectiveness
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 26, 2020, 08:02:11 AM
The post about stabilizing cargo and the possibility of people going full combat fleet for the exp bonus, and then going back with the haulers to pick up everything in a huge waste of time... 
Wouldn't it be possible to have a secondary fleet? maybe heavily limit it to only be able to have max 5-6 ships, only haulers or civilian ships etc (so you can't effectively use it to defend your colony effectively). 
This means that you literally make your haulers vulnerable to attacks so they don't hinder your strike fleet, it also means that you actually get to use your haulers to try and escape from fights instead of almost never seeing them, combat haulers would also get taken more into consideration and why not, even strange and fun builds made entirely with combat haulers. 
You could have the second fleet in tow at either the same speed or lagging behind, meaning that escaping from an unfavorable fight, means they would target your haulers instead (if they are closeby). 
Of course a hauler only fleet would be targeted more heavily by NPCs, reducing its overall effectiveness
An interesting idea, but Alex isn't going to add fleet functionality in this update.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Attroc on October 26, 2020, 08:57:37 AM
(Officers that aren't assigned to a ship still count, since otherwise you'd be encouraged to unassign officers you're not planning to use in the fight... made that change just now, actually, since wasn't thinking about that aspect of it before.)

But that makes no sense. Just because you have them the campaign isn't necessarily easier. They should only factor into a battle if they are deployed to a fight.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on October 26, 2020, 03:11:55 PM
(Officers that aren't assigned to a ship still count, since otherwise you'd be encouraged to unassign officers you're not planning to use in the fight... made that change just now, actually, since wasn't thinking about that aspect of it before.)

But that makes no sense. Just because you have them the campaign isn't necessarily easier. They should only factor into a battle if they are deployed to a fight.

Its not really about 'sense' though: its about removing a tedious thing that a player would "have" to do to play "correctly". Even though the bonus doesn't represent the ease quite as faithfully/accurately, it makes gameplay better.

Here's an example: I come across a pirate fleet that I know I can easily beat without my officers on their ships. If I get more experience from the fight by removing the officers, that means that I can increase the loot I get (xp/story points) from the fight by doing micromangement for a few seconds before and after the fight. Gameplay wise there isn't anything interesting happening: its just some tedious clicking that a player trying to maximize their rewards would be incentivized towards doing before every easy fight.

There's a few other things in the game that share this design philosophy, like the logistics hullmods only being able to be installed in dock. It doesn't make much "sense" when I think about it: I can recover ships that have literally been blown in half, why is it hard to put surveying equipment on a ship while out exploring? But if I COULD do that, I could get the most rewards by installing the efficiency hullmod for travel, then right before every single explore and salvage swap over to the recovery ones. But that doesn't really add any 'fun' to the game, just added clicking before actually doing something interesting.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 26, 2020, 03:36:32 PM
I've noticed that enemy fighter LPCs on carriers with the Reserve Deployment ability do not self-destruct as the mothership retreats from the battlefield, leading to some rather annoying time after all enemy ships retreated, like in this case:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/pPELVJP.png)
[close]

You guys might want to look into that as you nerf Reserve Deplyment (unless you've already fixed it and I did not spot it in the patch notes). I've also had it happen with a Drover using Broadswords and a modder (SafariJohn) confirmed it seems to be originating from Vanilla. It should be fairly easy to reproduce in a real battle scenario.

I'm sorry if I missed any reply to this Alex, but have you seen this error with reserve Deployment carriers?

Thanks for the reminder - somehow, I just didn't notice this at all, my apologies! Made a note to check this out shortly.


Alex, good day. I really like the Starsector and have been playing it regularly since version 0.65. You have already been asked many times in the comments, but let me clarify the question a little. How many chances are there that the patch will be released before the new year? Arranging holidays in an embrace with the Starsector is priceless.

Ahhh! I'll probably regret giving even this much info, but I'll say "unlikely, but perhaps not entirely impossible". It really depends on some decisions about what couple of remaining content pieces to add in (or not), too, it's just... I can't say for sure.


This, however, has me slightly worried. I hope it doesn't encourage a playstile where you go out hunting with a pure combat fleet to get all those sweet XP, stabilize your cargo, and then later have to come back with a cargo fleet to make a tedious pick up cruise. But I guess in the time that would take you could just fight more targets and get overall more XP that way...

Civ ships don't count for much there, so I think it'll be fine!

Mh. How about doling out some of the story points at half or quarter level intervals?
From Alex's wording I got the impression that story points are awarded as you earn them (at, say, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of progress towards the next level), not all at once when you level up. They wouldn't "keep things flowing between level-ups", if you earned them only at level-ups, no?

You get them at quarter-level intervals, yeah.

Another point - if lvl. ups are now rare and far apart, how about celebrating them a bit more? A fanfare, some fireworks? At the moment I often miss it completely when I just leveled up.

There *is* a fanfare!



Yeah, point definitely taken on the discussions it'd cause ::). It is unfortunate that playing colony tycoon basically requires resorting to Alpha Cores, though. No way to colonize like crazy while roleplaying as a Luddite or...Hegemon? Eh, whatever the word for a follower of the Hegemony is.
...
Here's to hoping that idea gets expanded on at some point. Because while on one side it'd be very obnoxious if using admin Alpha Cores (AI cores in general, for that matter) caused some kind of unavoidable and permanent problems, because you have to use them in order to put down more than one medium-sized system worth of self-sufficient colonies, on the other side I'd very much like to eventually out-Tri-Tachyon the Tri-Tachyon in terms of AI core usage and research. And that'd just make the Hegemony and Luddites both look like cranky old codgers overdue for a transfer to the nearest retirement home if that didn't result in something going spectacularly wrong ;).

So, yeah - the thing about using Alpha Cores to fuel endless colonies is that it's also another point that will undoubtedly cause a robust level of discussion when they're finally reined in. The way it is currently is very much a loose end; you're not "supposed" to colonize more than a couple of planets. Alpha Cores already cause a bit of trouble when used, but the amount of trouble is currently - for various reasons - far below the levels it needs to be. Ultimately, I'd expect using more than a couple cores to run additional colonies to be more trouble than it's worth. Well, depending on one's capacity to handle trouble. Lot of details to figure out here, though.


Ah, got it. Any chance that bug will be fixed in the upcoming patch, than? I mean I get it's not a high priority, but, you know. Attention to the fine details.

Probably not, honestly. Not having a portrait there more clearly conveys that there are no skill bonuses, and the tooltip on the "empty" portrait says that it's not anyone of note (rather than just no-one at all). So I think it's generally pretty clear.


I think your worries about optimising experience bonus from strength difference are unwarranted. Currently, it's cheaper to go full combat and not get any officers, but do people do that very often? In the next patch, it will be more risky to use smaller force, but also more rewarding, but I doubt the bonus to experience is going to be significant enough that people are going to change their playstyle. Not to mention that this basic desire (to get more, using less) is already present, yet it doesn't break the game in any way — not to mention that it's to preserve resources like credits, supplies, ships, that you can gain or lose, unlike XP, which can only be gained. And there's no time limit on the players yet to rush for XP.

Hopefully you're right, yeah! I mean, it's not a major concern, but it doesn't hurt to fine tune a few things to make it less appealing anyway.


The post about stabilizing cargo and the possibility of people going full combat fleet for the exp bonus, and then going back with the haulers to pick up everything in a huge waste of time... 
Wouldn't it be possible to have a secondary fleet? maybe heavily limit it to only be able to have max 5-6 ships, only haulers or civilian ships etc (so you can't effectively use it to defend your colony effectively). 
This means that you literally make your haulers vulnerable to attacks so they don't hinder your strike fleet, it also means that you actually get to use your haulers to try and escape from fights instead of almost never seeing them, combat haulers would also get taken more into consideration and why not, even strange and fun builds made entirely with combat haulers. 
You could have the second fleet in tow at either the same speed or lagging behind, meaning that escaping from an unfavorable fight, means they would target your haulers instead (if they are closeby). 
Of course a hauler only fleet would be targeted more heavily by NPCs, reducing its overall effectiveness

Hmm - a secondary fleet adds *a lot* of complications. I have some thoughts about this for further down the line, but I don't want to quite get into it yet :)


(Officers that aren't assigned to a ship still count, since otherwise you'd be encouraged to unassign officers you're not planning to use in the fight... made that change just now, actually, since wasn't thinking about that aspect of it before.)

But that makes no sense. Just because you have them the campaign isn't necessarily easier. They should only factor into a battle if they are deployed to a fight.

One thing is they actually do factor in even if they're not deployed! At least, as far as the distribution of deployment points between sides. The other, bigger point, though, is that if you try to consider the difficulty of the fight based on what was deployed, it's:
1) Encouraging fine-tuning what you deploy in ways that are likely to be exploitative of the mechanic rather than interesting,
2) Complicated to figure out what the bonus should be (and, again, maximizing it will likely include "weird" gameplay patterns)
3) Complicated to display what that bonus is

Finally, this mechanic is meant to give some bonuses to running a leaner/more elite fleet, rather than to fine-tune specific deployments, so just fundamentally it's not meant to be based on that.

This does bring up a good point, though - officers that are not assigned to a ship *and that there's also no ship to assign to* shouldn't count. So e.g. a fight wouldn't be marked "easy" if you have a single frigate in your fleet and 10 officers not assigned to anything. Let me make a note to do that.

Its not really about 'sense' though: its about removing a tedious thing that a player would "have" to do to play "correctly". Even though the bonus doesn't represent the ease quite as faithfully/accurately, it makes gameplay better.

Here's an example: I come across a pirate fleet that I know I can easily beat without my officers on their ships. If I get more experience from the fight by removing the officers, that means that I can increase the loot I get (xp/story points) from the fight by doing micromangement for a few seconds before and after the fight. Gameplay wise there isn't anything interesting happening: its just some tedious clicking that a player trying to maximize their rewards would be incentivized towards doing before every easy fight.

There's a few other things in the game that share this design philosophy, like the logistics hullmods only being able to be installed in dock. It doesn't make much "sense" when I think about it: I can recover ships that have literally been blown in half, why is it hard to put surveying equipment on a ship while out exploring? But if I COULD do that, I could get the most rewards by installing the efficiency hullmod for travel, then right before every single explore and salvage swap over to the recovery ones. But that doesn't really add any 'fun' to the game, just added clicking before actually doing something interesting.

(Yeah, also very much this!)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Wyvern on October 26, 2020, 03:44:32 PM
Honestly, I'd suggest just taking (player-side) officers and player level out of the equation entirely. That way there's just no question about whether or not it's beneficial to have/use high level officers, and a player who invests in, say, colony skills won't find that their fights are being treated as being 'easier'.

If making that change also means you need to re-tune the player XP curves a bit to account for expecting slightly more XP from battles - well, that's not really a problem, is it? Since that's exactly the same testing you'd need to do for how progression feels just from adding the bonus XP for hard battles feature anyway.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 26, 2020, 03:54:11 PM
Thinking about it, this would incentivize you to expand your fleet as soon as possible so that you're fighting larger enemy fleets with more officers (and thus more XP bonus). I'm not sure that dynamic is good - you're kind of... skewing what counts as "challenging" in a direction that punishes using a smaller fleet, since using a large fleet with more officers would make comparatively weaker enemies count as more challenging. That doesn't seem like something adjusting the XP curve could fix.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Wyvern on October 26, 2020, 04:13:35 PM
Thinking about it, this would incentivize you to expand your fleet as soon as possible so that you're fighting larger enemy fleets with more officers (and thus more XP bonus). I'm not sure that dynamic is good - you're kind of... skewing what counts as "challenging" in a direction that punishes using a smaller fleet, since using a large fleet with more officers would make comparatively weaker enemies count as more challenging. That doesn't seem like something adjusting the XP curve could fix.
Er, huh?

If your level & officers don't count in, but your fleet size does, then making your fleet larger makes all enemies count as less challenging, whether they're "comparatively weaker" or not.

I don't understand your logic here.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 26, 2020, 04:54:53 PM
... reading it back, I'm not sure I understand it either.

(My point was that if something makes your fleet stronger but doesn't make the XP bonus smaller, then you'd want to add as much of that as possible to maximize it. But whether that actually holds up depends on whether these increases in strength add up in a non-linear way, how the bonus XP calculation works, etc...)

Still, a fleet with 5 officers facing 10 pirate ships without and being told it's a challenging fight... hm.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Kaelum on October 26, 2020, 05:21:29 PM
Wouldn't multipliers on your overall fleet power or top x combat ships (x being equal to number of officers) work for that? A 10 ship fleet with 10 officers would still be weaker than a 20 ship fleet with 10 officers, but stronger than a 10 ship fleet with no officers.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 26, 2020, 05:39:43 PM
Hmm? I'm not quite clear on what you mean, but I think just counting the officers/levels, and the ship, more or less accomplishes getting a rough estimate in the same vein as what you're suggesting. And it can't be anything better than a rough estimate, anyway!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AsterPiano on October 26, 2020, 05:50:42 PM
Maybe dmods should factor into it after all, since that's the main point that makes Pirate fleets so weak for their size.
However that would mean the player can exploit dmods to make their own fleet's strength value lower, so you could make the equation pretend Player ships are all at a non-dmod level.

I think it's reasonable to do it this way, it assumes a kind of "best case scenario" for the player, which means a player can't trick the game into thinking he has a weak fleet when actually the player's ships might for be dmodded but without any combat dmods, or they are combat impacting dmods but the player chose ships that have the least impact for their role, and assumes the pirate fleet's ships have all combat impacting dmods. (Although actually, doesn't fighting dmod riddled fleets give less XP anyway?)

I'm thinking it might be good to play it safe and add some slight inconsistencies to the equation just to make sure the player can't abuse it. Because the player can choose what their own fleet's strength will be, where it's possible to keep rolling for the "perfect dmods", but they can't choose their enemy with the same precision as for their own fleet.
Just to kind of reword what I'm trying to say, you can generalise for enemy fleets, that more dmods make them weaker, but you can't use that same generalisation for players.

Of course this might be overcomplicating/overdesigning this feature and might actually make it too much trouble for what it's worth.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FooF on October 26, 2020, 05:57:22 PM
Quote from: Alex
So, yeah - the thing about using Alpha Cores to fuel endless colonies is that it's also another point that will undoubtedly cause a robust level of discussion when they're finally reined in. The way it is currently is very much a loose end; you're not "supposed" to colonize more than a couple of planets. Alpha Cores already cause a bit of trouble when used, but the amount of trouble is currently - for various reasons - far below the levels it needs to be. Ultimately, I'd expect using more than a couple cores to run additional colonies to be more trouble than it's worth. Well, depending on one's capacity to handle trouble. Lot of details to figure out here, though.

I always assumed Alpha Cores was basically wishing on the Monkey's Paw. Sure you get what you want, but it will come to bite you eventually. Perhaps I've been tainted by Crusader Kings 3 (which if you go down the Intrigue route, you'd have "wit checks" against other characters) but if a rogue AI kept on making harsher and harsher demands of the player, or else scuttling industries or even the whole colony, their fickle nature would be well-learned. Of course, if some Cores did no such thing, or caused minimal trouble, the player may be willing to roll the dice. In short, it'd be cool if Alpha Cores had personalities like Compliant, Mischievous, and Chaotic.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Morrokain on October 26, 2020, 06:51:00 PM
I always assumed Alpha Cores was basically wishing on the Monkey's Paw. Sure you get what you want, but it will come to bite you eventually. Perhaps I've been tainted by Crusader Kings 3 (which if you go down the Intrigue route, you'd have "wit checks" against other characters) but if a rogue AI kept on making harsher and harsher demands of the player, or else scuttling industries or even the whole colony, their fickle nature would be well-learned. Of course, if some Cores did no such thing, or caused minimal trouble, the player may be willing to roll the dice. In short, it'd be cool if Alpha Cores had personalities like Compliant, Mischievous, and Chaotic.

Neat idea! Though perhaps instead of difficulty variance, the *types* of trouble they cause (i.e. economic vs military vs faction rel) could be a little more predictable - or at least thematic in nature? I say this because having RNG effect the downsides' severity or number like that could mislead new players into thinking they understand cores when they have a good first experience, install a bunch off that first impression, then really regret it afterwards.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 26, 2020, 07:05:08 PM
I would expect cores (as governors) to act as demons that would kill all humans then possess the colonies to build more demon ships.

If core admins are really bad in the long run, it means player should not use them to govern colonies, and just use cores for various industries where they do no harm beyond inspections or Pather cell aggravation.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FooF on October 26, 2020, 07:11:43 PM
Oh, I agree that RNG makes for some weird decision-making but I would imagine that even a new player would understand what was going on and why after a few runs. I guess it depends on the RNG weights. If half were "well-behaved," one-third were "troublesome but could be permanently appeased after awhile" and the remaining 17% were "demons" (per Megas) set out to conquer/destroy humanity (but would string you along indefinitely), would you roll the dice? I might... :)

But, as you say, and as Alex has repeatedly stated, if it becomes a "mini-game" with little other purpose, it's probably not a good fit for Starsector. I just thought it'd be an interesting wrinkle to using the Cores.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 26, 2020, 07:16:01 PM
Maybe dmods should factor into it after all, since that's the main point that makes Pirate fleets so weak for their size.
However that would mean the player can exploit dmods to make their own fleet's strength value lower, so you could make the equation pretend Player ships are all at a non-dmod level.

I think it's reasonable to do it this way, it assumes a kind of "best case scenario" for the player, which means a player can't trick the game into thinking he has a weak fleet when actually the player's ships might for be dmodded but without any combat dmods, or they are combat impacting dmods but the player chose ships that have the least impact for their role, and assumes the pirate fleet's ships have all combat impacting dmods. (Although actually, doesn't fighting dmod riddled fleets give less XP anyway?)

I'm thinking it might be good to play it safe and add some slight inconsistencies to the equation just to make sure the player can't abuse it. Because the player can choose what their own fleet's strength will be, where it's possible to keep rolling for the "perfect dmods", but they can't choose their enemy with the same precision as for their own fleet.
Just to kind of reword what I'm trying to say, you can generalise for enemy fleets, that more dmods make them weaker, but you can't use that same generalisation for players.

Of course this might be overcomplicating/overdesigning this feature and might actually make it too much trouble for what it's worth.

Solid points all around! I think it'll actually work better to count d-mods both for the player and for the enemy, so that it doesn't feel like you're being penalized for using d-modded ships. I think the risk of this being optimized around is very low, since it... basically doesn't matter all that much; XP is not a finite resource and there's always more where that came from. Sort of like not every single credit is being wrung out, at some point, it's "good enough" and there's no reason to bother. So I think it's more a question of how it feels.

I always assumed Alpha Cores was basically wishing on the Monkey's Paw. Sure you get what you want, but it will come to bite you eventually.

Ideally, yeah... but also a question of how to do that without making using them just a flat-out bad idea/trap choice; hence: details!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 26, 2020, 09:43:47 PM
Alex, since you are limiting the number of colonies players can/should have....
Can you make a system which lets players assign their spare ships and officers to a colony as a static(-ish) defense force?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on October 27, 2020, 02:23:44 AM
Assessing each alpha core in a management position could be worth some quest or two, or other interaction. If you were able to identify a malicious alpha core before it escaped you, it could be fun to sell such trojan horses them to other factions to cause a shortage or a stability hit.
Solid points all around! I think it'll actually work better to count d-mods both for the player and for the enemy, so that it doesn't feel like you're being penalized for using d-modded ships. I think the risk of this being optimized around is very low, since it... basically doesn't matter all that much; XP is not a finite resource and there's always more where that came from. Sort of like not every single credit is being wrung out, at some point, it's "good enough" and there's no reason to bother. So I think it's more a question of how it feels.
Most importantly, d-mods are not officers or hullmods that you can just swap at any moment.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 27, 2020, 02:30:47 AM
Assessing each alpha core in a management position could be worth some quest or two, or other interaction. If you were able to identify a malicious alpha core before it escaped you, it could be fun to sell such trojan horses them to other factions to cause a shortage or a stability hit.

That sounds fun, but the code to differentiate one Alpha core from another would be quite a chore.

Edit: Hmm, might be doable. Might be. A separate, persistant list of each Alpha's id, loyalty and location which gets loaded/changed whenever the player acquires/drops/sells/transfers/assigns/loses an Alpha core. Need to rewrite a lot of old methods which involve AI cores to use this "list". Not a mention, creating a new "individual" every time the game creates a new Alpha core during post-battle or salvaging.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on October 27, 2020, 05:44:55 AM
What about having the core progressively go towards more efficiency, for example asking to replace the defensive fleet with something of his own choice...then giving the player various quests, like the retrieval of other cores, or funds or whatever, so it can build some extra infrastructure...then you have the core rolling out redacted ships mixed with regular ones, eventually deciding that for the good of the colony, using only redacted ships is the better choice... 
Basically the core can progressively make more and more demands until the colony becomes so strong that they deem you unnecessary, at that point there could be a huge fight where you defeat the core, and you can either remove it, or keep it as is, because it now understands that staying at peace with you is the more sensible choice. At this point you could get a say in some of the choices like what ships to use, or leave him be, you'll get to keep some of the cool stuff but after the fight the colony will be in a pretty sorry state, possibly permanently in some areas. All in all, you'd have to decide for yourself if it's worth it or not
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 27, 2020, 05:59:12 AM
@Zaizai: I like the way you think :)

Most importantly, d-mods are not officers or hullmods that you can just swap at any moment.

Yep, that makes sense.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on October 27, 2020, 06:03:39 AM
@Zaizai:  That is a demon core.  Starts friendly, then gradually goes kill all humans.  Even if you can bargain with it, it will probably still try to do bad things.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 27, 2020, 06:06:35 AM
Alex, since you are limiting the number of colonies players can/should have....
Can you make a system which lets players assign their spare ships and officers to a colony as a static(-ish) defense force?

AI fighting AI is a grind of spawning and respawning patrols/raids with a probably pretty basic RNG simulation behind it. Any ships you offer would be likely to not make a difference for more than the first one or two fights and the fleets spawn officers along with the ships depending on their doctrine anyhow.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 27, 2020, 06:08:14 AM
@Zaizai: I like the way you think :)
Please say it will be implemented!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Wyvern on October 27, 2020, 11:09:24 AM
(My point was that if something makes your fleet stronger but doesn't make the XP bonus smaller, then you'd want to add as much of that as possible to maximize it. But whether that actually holds up depends on whether these increases in strength add up in a non-linear way, how the bonus XP calculation works, etc...)
Yes, exactly. You want all your (combat) ships to have officers. This is true, and in fact the point of my suggestion: to remove any question about whether or not more officers is a good thing.

Still, a fleet with 5 officers facing 10 pirate ships without and being told it's a challenging fight... hm.
Then don't phrase it that way? Could even just not display the value at all, just keep the same "You gain 3,000XP" message after the battle, and add in a tip saying something like "The smaller your fleet is relative to your opponent, the more XP you'll gain from battles."

As has been said, this isn't something that the player is meant to be trying to fine-tune.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zelnik on October 27, 2020, 11:28:44 AM
So if I remember years ago, this list will grow for another year, and then result in another huge release after we have all forgotten about this.

I am actually kind of annoyed. I get there has been work done, but why release patch notes before a patch is released. A patch that likely won't be released for another eight to twelve months?

I get it, Alex is alone by choice, but this doesn't build hype (at least with me), it builds resentment. I am getting sick of waiting for a game I paid for eight years ago.

Sorry I am a downer but I am seriously tired of this. An incomplete game for this long should be consigned to the vaporware dustbin of history.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 27, 2020, 11:37:44 AM
So if I remember years ago, this list will grow for another year, and then result in another huge release after we have all forgotten about this.

I am actually kind of annoyed. I get there has been work done, but why release patch notes before a patch is released. A patch that likely won't be released for another eight to twelve months?

I get it, Alex is alone by choice, but this doesn't build hype (at least with me), it builds resentment. I am getting sick of waiting for a game I paid for eight years ago.

Sorry I am a downer but I am seriously tired of this. An incomplete game for this long should be consigned to the vaporware dustbin of history.

So consider the current release the full game if you want? It's already got a lot more content and polish than plenty of other games...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on October 27, 2020, 11:44:56 AM
As far as I know, Alex posts patch notes before the release to mark progress and to show to others that progress is being made. We also get to shout at him for every obviously wrong decision he makes.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zelnik on October 27, 2020, 11:46:38 AM
So if I remember years ago, this list will grow for another year, and then result in another huge release after we have all forgotten about this.

I am actually kind of annoyed. I get there has been work done, but why release patch notes before a patch is released. A patch that likely won't be released for another eight to twelve months?

I get it, Alex is alone by choice, but this doesn't build hype (at least with me), it builds resentment. I am getting sick of waiting for a game I paid for eight years ago.

Sorry I am a downer but I am seriously tired of this. An incomplete game for this long should be consigned to the vaporware dustbin of history.

So consider the current release the full game if you want? It's already got a lot more content and polish than plenty of other games...

...but that would not only be a lie, but a direct denial of reality.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zelnik on October 27, 2020, 11:47:51 AM
As far as I know, Alex posts patch notes before the release to mark progress and to show to others that progress is being made. We also get to shout at him for every obviously wrong decision he makes.

I don't want to shout at him. I am just expressing, as a customer, displeasure. Not everything can be cheers and fireworks of joy. It's been eight years.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on October 27, 2020, 11:55:47 AM
I actually meant shouting at him for balance decisions and other stuff that can be changed before the release if people complain enough. I didn't realise I could mean you, sorry.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Wyvern on October 27, 2020, 12:03:04 PM
So consider the current release the full game if you want? It's already got a lot more content and polish than plenty of other games...

...but that would not only be a lie, but a direct denial of reality.
Actually, the purchase page makes it very clear that what you're buying is the current version of the game.
Quote from: Alex
When you preorder, you’re getting Starsector (formerly “Starfarer”) in its current state – that’s why we’re offering it at a discounted price. As an added bonus, preordering entitles you to all future updates, including the final version.
Personally, I've had a lot of fun playing Starsector through the various versions I've been around for, and don't regret the money spent; even in its current release it's already a much better game than some completed games.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 27, 2020, 02:00:34 PM
Still, a fleet with 5 officers facing 10 pirate ships without and being told it's a challenging fight... hm.
Then don't phrase it that way? Could even just not display the value at all, just keep the same "You gain 3,000XP" message after the battle, and add in a tip saying something like "The smaller your fleet is relative to your opponent, the more XP you'll gain from battles."

As has been said, this isn't something that the player is meant to be trying to fine-tune.

Still need to make the player fairly aware of it, though! I'm not really sold on the benefits of not counting officers here; they're so much better than without that I think it's trying to fix something that wouldn't actually be a problem. I mean, what you're saying makes sense, but what's currently in the game I think also works, and I kind of want to just stop messing with it :)

@Zelnik: I'm sorry that the way I'm going about it is causing resentment for you! I don't think I can really do anything differently here, though; it's a pretty sizeable project. All I can do is work on the game in the best way I'm able to, and try to provide (hopefully enjoyable!) versions of the game along the way.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zelnik on October 27, 2020, 02:04:55 PM
Forgive my misunderstanding, It's 'current' but it's not 'complete'

Everyone and anyone can see that. I had fun with the game, absolutely, but I just can't be thrilled or hyped anymore because it just takes too long between releases. To add insult to injury, those releases are further and further between one another to the point of entire game could be developed between those releases.

I am not being disrespectful here. I am just trying to express my displeasure in as respectful a way as I can. For me, it's gotten old. It would have been better if he held off on the patch notes until the patch was ready to release. It could be another year before we see it...and what then? Another two years before the one after that?

I get he is a one man gang, but I am also one person trying to express my feelings based on a product purchased incomplete 8 years ago. At least I am not screeching about his lack of skill or talent (i'm not), but I CAN express that 'eight years and you aren't even in 1.0 is a bit much.'
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zelnik on October 27, 2020, 02:08:12 PM
Still, a fleet with 5 officers facing 10 pirate ships without and being told it's a challenging fight... hm.
Then don't phrase it that way? Could even just not display the value at all, just keep the same "You gain 3,000XP" message after the battle, and add in a tip saying something like "The smaller your fleet is relative to your opponent, the more XP you'll gain from battles."

As has been said, this isn't something that the player is meant to be trying to fine-tune.

Still need to make the player fairly aware of it, though! I'm not really sold on the benefits of not counting officers here; they're so much better than without that I think it's trying to fix something that wouldn't actually be a problem. I mean, what you're saying makes sense, but what's currently in the game I think also works, and I kind of want to just stop messing with it :)

@Zelnik: I'm sorry that the way I'm going about it is causing resentment for you! I don't think I can really do anything differently here, though; it's a pretty sizeable project. All I can do is work on the game in the best way I'm able to, and try to provide (hopefully enjoyable!) versions of the game along the way.

I appreciate the response, I really do.

It's better that you realize both the good and the bad consequences of such a long development time. At some point people will just say "if not now...then when? If not soon, then ever?"

The product is great, the time it is requiring is not. How can I be exited for something that hasn't manifested in eight years? If one person is willing to voice it, more may in the future, so be prepared for it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 27, 2020, 02:20:19 PM
I hear what you're saying! I don't mean to discount it, but it's one of those things where... there's no useful action I can take in response to this information, whether voiced by you or someone else. (Well, no action that wouldn't compromise the final product. I'm assuming you wouldn't I rather tie up a few loose ends real quick and call it 1.0. Besides, I don't want that.)

So! I'll just hope that when the next version is released, you (and others of a similar mind) will find it to your liking :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on October 27, 2020, 02:43:19 PM
I hear what you're saying! I don't mean to discount it, but it's one of those things where... there's no useful action I can take in response to this information, whether voiced by you or someone else. (Well, no action that wouldn't compromise the final product. I'm assuming you wouldn't I rather tie up a few loose ends real quick and call it 1.0. Besides, I don't want that.)

So! I'll just hope that when the next version is released, you (and others of a similar mind) will find it to your liking :)
Quick question: have you considered making smaller updates over the course of the year, while you work on the "big bad update"? I'm talking about relatively small things like those already included in these patch notes, like adding a ship here and there, balancing some weapons, adding small stuff etc. 
While not substantial and hype inducing, they could help keeping the playerbase engaged and speaking about the game to their friends/making youtube videos etc etc (which of course, means more sales for you). 
I personally have no trouble waiting, however i do find myself picking the game for a bit, and then forgetting about it until i randomly remember months later and check about the update progress. If even 20% of the current patch notes were separated into smaller updates every couple months or something, it could make many people happier and keep the community strong imho. 

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Morrokain on October 27, 2020, 02:52:05 PM
Quick question: have you considered making smaller updates over the course of the year, while you work on the "big bad update"? I'm talking about relatively small things like those already included in these patch notes, like adding a ship here and there, balancing some weapons, adding small stuff etc. 
While not substantial and hype inducing, they could help keeping the playerbase engaged and speaking about the game to their friends/making youtube videos etc etc (which of course, means more sales for you). 
I personally have no trouble waiting, however i do find myself picking the game for a bit, and then forgetting about it until i randomly remember months later and check about the update progress. If even 20% of the current patch notes were separated into smaller updates every couple months or something, it could make many people happier and keep the community strong imho.

He could, but I think that would only further slow down the big update. It's not one of those things where you can just throw some extra stuff in there - at least most of the time. He'd probably have to fork the whole project each time, then there is polishing that forked update, making it consistent with the big update when things in the big update change pre-mini-update, etc.

So considering that, I'm not sure it is worth it. Idk, just my opinion though and I'm making assumptions there.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 27, 2020, 02:53:21 PM
Ah - it's actually quite difficult to split things out like that. A lot of things need other things to either work at all or "make sense" mechanically. The things that don't aren't usually all *that* interesting; not enough to warrant an update or to make people happy with one.

Also, keeping separate branches - and making a release - is a lot of work, the latter especially because of testing, playtesting, and follow-on support. Plus some changes could be mod-breaking etc. At a rough guess, even if putting out an update every couple of months was reasonably doable over say the current release cycle, it'd add multiple months worth of work.

(Edit: ninja'ed etc)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AsterPiano on October 27, 2020, 02:55:07 PM
While not substantial and hype inducing, they could help keeping the playerbase engaged and speaking about the game to their friends/making youtube videos etc etc (which of course, means more sales for you).

If even 20% of the current patch notes were separated into smaller updates every couple months or something, it could make many people happier and keep the community strong imho.
Personally, I find the modding and Tournaments already do a good job of adding 'small updates' to my experience of the game and keeping the community strong.
With the actual base game updates, I think of each version as almost a whole new game. The added features are designed with each other in mind and I think that adding them in bit by bit would decrease the overall impact of those changes as they wouldn't quite be able to 'play off each other' and be used to their full potential.
I also think more frequent game updates would make it more difficult for modders to keep everything up to date with the current release.

(Also ninja'ed! But still want to voice my opinion)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FooF on October 27, 2020, 03:15:51 PM
Everyone has a right to their opinion. I've gotten waaaaaay more than the $10 I paid back in...[checks] wow, 2013. I've sunk a thousand-plus hours into the game (I shudder to think what the actual number is, and potentially what I could have done "better" with that time!)

That being said, the game has delivered more than a $10 experience since the beginning. Patches like 0.8 and 0.9 basically re-invented the game with as much content as they brought. I imagine 0.95 will be similar. Yes, the waiting sucks but I currently have 18 runs on 0.9a, each probably 15-20 hours so it's not like I haven't "gotten my money's worth." I don't find the game boring yet, which is a testament to how well-designed it is.

I'm not going to name some other games that have also been in development 8+ years, have hundreds of millions in crowdfunding and still don't even have a true playable product that remotely resembles what was promised 8 years ago. It's little solace, I'm sure, but it could be a lot worse.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Histidine on October 27, 2020, 08:46:01 PM
How can I be exited for something that hasn't manifested in eight years?
Thermonuclear take time:

Getting excited (or worse, "hyped") over the game to come in the distant future (hypothetical complete Starsector) instead of the game we already have (Starsector 0.9.1) or the not-yet-out game with visible progress on it (Starsector 0.95a as indicated by the blog posts and patch notes) contributes to the incentives that get you something like Anthem. Or Star Citizen.

More generally: For the purposes of what's beneficial for the customer, excitement is not in itself good (nor bad) and building it should not be a goal.


For me, there is no eight-year wait and there won't be. It is far more accurate and useful to describe my user-side experience as me getting a slightly fun thing for $10 at first, then a year or two later it becomes somewhat more fun for free; repeat a few times. Each time there's a vague promise of updates still to come that will make it better still, which gets more defined as the blog posts on new features come out, but I have no great requirement for future improvements to enjoy the copy I already have.
(Though I should note that this process being enjoyable relied heavily on the strong Starsector modding community, which isn't something that had any certainty of existing)

More speculative stuff
I see the major relevant risks of the long development cycle as:
- Alex gets tired of the project and drops out
- Community disperses, needs to be rebuilt at 'official' launch

#2 doesn't appear to be a risk currently. #1 doesn't look like it either (sure hope not!), but I can't tell from the outside.
Of course, the most direct way to speed up the dev cycle – crunching – is going to be directly counterproductive for #1. Hiring a new dev with Sseth money imposes significant onboarding costs at this late stage, although this could be mitigated if the person was already familiar with the game's innards.

(Alex: Have you ever contemplated contracting one of the major modders here to help you and/or David with development? I can list a few names (not including me though, I'd turn down any offer that was made) who I think would be available and good at it. There's another notable space indie game out now (AI War II) where circumstances led to the dev relying heavily on two volunteers-turned-contractors to get the current release out, so I was wondering if this model might be worth considering elsewhere.)
[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Silveressa on October 27, 2020, 09:30:20 PM
Plus some changes could be mod-breaking etc.

One thing that would be kind of awesome for these large updates, is if you could somehow get the mod relevant data on the patch change to the modders ahead of time, so they can be working on updating their mods to the new patch when it releases, rather than fans of their mods having to wait for x# of days after the new patch before their mods are updating. (Probably not realistic/feasible I admit, but a gal can dream!  8) )
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 28, 2020, 02:55:29 AM
How well would this work?

Spend story point to do a convoy raid. This is only permitted against fleets which are too large to disengage.

When the battle starts, the entire enemy fleet is deployed at the center of the map in a wide formation (i.e. ship to ship distance isn't too close). All enemy ships suffer a speed penalty while the convoy raid is on going. Player ships deploy from the top. Enemy forces cannot lose CR during the raid.

Player can only spend a limited number of DP, destruction of ships on either side does not give any DP to the player.

Deployment point distribution should be biased in the enemy's favor through every factor possible, so there will no worries about player steamrolling over the near-immobilized fleet with a squadron of multiple Odysseys and Conquests.

The raid ends when no enemy ships remains, whether from passing (same as in retreats) through the top of the map or being destroyed. Then it goes back to the encounter screen.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 28, 2020, 01:34:36 PM
Thermonuclear take time:

Getting excited (or worse, "hyped") over the game to come in the distant future (hypothetical complete Starsector) instead of the game we already have (Starsector 0.9.1) or the not-yet-out game with visible progress on it (Starsector 0.95a as indicated by the blog posts and patch notes) contributes to the incentives that get you something like Anthem. Or Star Citizen.

More generally: For the purposes of what's beneficial for the customer, excitement is not in itself good (nor bad) and building it should not be a goal.

In general agreement, though I don't so much mind excitement for the next release! But yeah, it's so easy to get excited about something that doesn't exist yet, because one can imagine it as exactly the thing they want. And then of course everyone excited is imagining something quite different from each other, and reality is bound to be a disappointment for many people since - no matter how good! - it can never hope match *all* of those expectations. Going back to "next release" stuff, there's some danger of a let-down there too, of course, but there are enough specifics about it (from the blog post and patch notes) that it's at least not as fraught as it would be without that.


I see the major relevant risks of the long development cycle as:
- Alex gets tired of the project and drops out

... #1 doesn't look like it either (sure hope not!), but I can't tell from the outside.

(Yeah, definitely not! I mean, I suppose I'd be expected to say that regardless? But, yeah, I'm excited to be working on Starsector! It's like, the things we're finally doing now is things I've wanted to do for literally 10+ years, and they're finally here, or almost here.)

Of course, the most direct way to speed up the dev cycle – crunching – is going to be directly counterproductive for #1. Hiring a new dev with Sseth money imposes significant onboarding costs at this late stage, although this could be mitigated if the person was already familiar with the game's innards.

(Alex: Have you ever contemplated contracting one of the major modders here to help you and/or David with development? I can list a few names (not including me though, I'd turn down any offer that was made) who I think would be available and good at it. There's another notable space indie game out now (AI War II) where circumstances led to the dev relying heavily on two volunteers-turned-contractors to get the current release out, so I was wondering if this model might be worth considering elsewhere.)

(Yeah, I've considered that! Though without specifics as to who. That would likely be easier than brining in someone new entirely. But, yeah, as you say, at this late stage, I'm not so sure that makes sense anyway. David's been able to do more on Starsector recently, btw, which I'm super excited about! Just a week ago, he wrapped up implementing one of the major story missions. It was very cool to see it in-game and experience it more as a player, since I didn't know all the ins and outs going in...)


One thing that would be kind of awesome for these large updates, is if you could somehow get the mod relevant data on the patch change to the modders ahead of time, so they can be working on updating their mods to the new patch when it releases, rather than fans of their mods having to wait for x# of days after the new patch before their mods are updating. (Probably not realistic/feasible I admit, but a gal can dream!  8) )

That's why the "Modding" section of the patch notes tends to be pretty detailed and more meticulously kept! (Though that's missing some things too, I'm sure, but they ought to be more minor.) And, IIRC, I've been publishing the updated API javadoc some time ahead of the release the last couple of times. Actually getting a build into modder hands early, though, I don't think is practical. And besides, modders operate on their own schedule; it doesn't seem reasonable to expect them to do that work synced up to a release, and, frankly, I'm also glad to get some pure-vanilla feedback for a while after the release, too, so that also works out!


How well would this work?

Spend story point to do a convoy raid. ...

Hmm - details aside, "spend a story point to get to attack and loot some civilian ships in an enemy fleet" sounds like it could be very fun. ... let me note this down; not sure if I'll get to it or not, but just in general, I like the idea itself.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Piemanlives on October 28, 2020, 02:51:53 PM
Alex there is another issue I was wondering you could take care of.

Though more relevant for mods, if there is a ship variant (either player made or not) that requires a weapon that is no longer present it crashes the entire game on startup. It should be possible, from what others have said, to leave the relevant slot for that weapon empty if it finds the weapon it is looking for no longer exists then popup a warning where the player can see it. Perhaps on the main menu once the preload is complete, the mission screen when starting up a scenario that includes the relevant ship (requiring you to acknowledge the warning before starting the mission) and in the campaign refit screen when selecting the relevant variant in the autofitter.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: pairedeciseaux on October 28, 2020, 03:14:42 PM
Ships/systems:
  • Added Fury-class light cruiser, high tech
  • Added Champion-class heavy cruiser, midline

Alex, would you mind sharing screenshots of the in-game spec-sheet for both of these new ships? Or is it still :-X material?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on October 28, 2020, 03:43:47 PM
Alex, would you mind sharing screenshots of the in-game spec-sheet for both of these new ships? Or is it still :-X material?

You can find gifs at Alex' twitter:

https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/1254488553066844162 (https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/1254488553066844162)


https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/1251963943549108225 (https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/1251963943549108225)

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on October 28, 2020, 03:45:14 PM
Alex, another quick question, any chance to expand the current beam weapons? i would kill for a medium/large tactical laser or a large graviton beam. I can see so many fun specialized builds opening up

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 28, 2020, 07:29:04 PM
Alex, any plans for more in-depth colony fleet composition mechanics so it will be more than "get as much FP as possible"?
Any plans for Neutrino Detector changes?

Two ideas for story point spending:
1: Spend at a comm relay to not get purged at the next maintanence, no matter how many sniffers player has.
2. Spend at a planet to destroy pather cell and stop pather plot against that planet. Usable and both NPC and player colonies. Doing so at the first even gets the player some good reputation.

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Haka on October 28, 2020, 11:20:58 PM
How do the updates usually affect faction/ship mods?

I ask because i've been working on my own mod for sometime and while its pretty mechanically simple and i'm curious as to how much i'll have to go back and redo, if any at all, and if so knowing might give me an idea of how to prep.

To clarify its mostly all handmade sprites with only some of the fighters partially kitbashed from the base game, it doesn't use any of the library mods (Magiclib, etc.) and doesn't have any custom hullmods or systems. For now its only custom ships, weapons, and projectiles using mainly recycled code from the base game. The most i've done with the recycled code is change variables, moved some things around and cleaned up after the Ship/Weapon Creator twisting the code into knots.

Thanks for any info!
 
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on October 29, 2020, 08:03:02 AM
I've noticed that enemy fighter LPCs on carriers with the Reserve Deployment ability do not self-destruct as the mothership retreats from the battlefield, leading to some rather annoying time after all enemy ships retreated, like in this case:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/pPELVJP.png)
[close]

You guys might want to look into that as you nerf Reserve Deplyment (unless you've already fixed it and I did not spot it in the patch notes). I've also had it happen with a Drover using Broadswords and a modder (SafariJohn) confirmed it seems to be originating from Vanilla. It should be fairly easy to reproduce in a real battle scenario.

I'm sorry if I missed any reply to this Alex, but have you seen this error with reserve Deployment carriers?

Thanks for the reminder - somehow, I just didn't notice this at all, my apologies! Made a note to check this out shortly.

I've got a tiny little bit of extra insight regarding the Reserve Deployment bug: the fighters will not self-destruct not only if the carrier retreats while they are deployed, but also if it is disabled or destroyed anywhere on the map.

Also, I see Gothars found FreonRu's accurately hilarious statement signature worthy, I just came around doing that myself :P
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on October 29, 2020, 02:35:32 PM
Alex, would you mind sharing screenshots of the in-game spec-sheet for both of these new ships? Or is it still :-X material?
Oh yeah this reminds me, giving full stats right now is probably too much and they could change in the meantime, but I'm reaaaally curious what's the flux dissipation of these ships. If I had to guess I'd estimate Fury has around 550 while the Champion has 600. Warm or cold?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on October 29, 2020, 02:39:17 PM
By the way Alex, have you ever solved the issue with ships randomly stopping when burning in and loosing the boost? I thought it was from asteroids or something and you perhaps solved it already, but someone said he's getting all his ship robbed from burning in boost, which doesn't sound good, so I wanted to check.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: pairedeciseaux on October 29, 2020, 02:59:51 PM
Alex, would you mind sharing screenshots of the in-game spec-sheet for both of these new ships? Or is it still :-X material?
Oh yeah this reminds me, giving full stats right now is probably too much and they could change in the meantime, but I'm reaaaally curious what's the flux dissipation of these ships. If I had to guess I'd estimate Fury has around 550 while the Champion has 600. Warm or cold?

Let's play.  :D

Shrike has 350, Medusa has 400, Aurora has 800. My guess is around 600 for Fury.

Eagle has 525, Dominator has 450. My guess is around 550 for Champion.

(I suspect at this point those both new ships have received extensive playtesting and their stats are ready, hence my question above)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 29, 2020, 04:51:17 PM
By the way Alex, have you ever solved the issue with ships randomly stopping when burning in and loosing the boost? I thought it was from asteroids or something and you perhaps solved it already, but someone said he's getting all his ship robbed from burning in boost, which doesn't sound good, so I wanted to check.

Oh yeah i'd love to see this fixed. I always assumed it was from asteroids too but not entirely sure. It's most annoying when your ship already lost it before you've even entered the visible part of the map, and ofc it usually seems to happen during a pursuit.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: fellabrando on October 29, 2020, 05:39:57 PM
Hey Alex,

Will memory leaks be solved?

I like playing with a lot of mods but my game slows down to a crawl even though I increased the amount of Ram the game could use to maximum. :(
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 29, 2020, 07:34:04 PM
Alex there is another issue I was wondering you could take care of.

Though more relevant for mods, if there is a ship variant (either player made or not) that requires a weapon that is no longer present it crashes the entire game on startup. It should be possible, from what others have said, to leave the relevant slot for that weapon empty if it finds the weapon it is looking for no longer exists then popup a warning where the player can see it. Perhaps on the main menu once the preload is complete, the mission screen when starting up a scenario that includes the relevant ship (requiring you to acknowledge the warning before starting the mission) and in the campaign refit screen when selecting the relevant variant in the autofitter.

IIRC for missions this is fixed - it should no longer crash when there's a saved mission variant with a no-longer-existing weapon.


Alex, would you mind sharing screenshots of the in-game spec-sheet for both of these new ships? Or is it still :-X material?

Ah, I'd prefer not to spill everything on these, apologies!


Alex, another quick question, any chance to expand the current beam weapons? i would kill for a medium/large tactical laser or a large graviton beam. I can see so many fun specialized builds opening up

Hmm - just in general, I'm not very keen on "same thing, but larger/smaller" kinds of weapons. "Combat" beams are particularly subject to this because they tend to have the same range regardless of size, and don't have a lot of other variables to tweak. Where, for example, the Mark IX is in some ways a bigger Heavy AC, but there are enough differences - range, recoil, burst size, etc - that it can more get away with it.


Alex, any plans for more in-depth colony fleet composition mechanics so it will be more than "get as much FP as possible"?

No - it's all auto-resolved behind the scenes anyway, so it feels like adding detail there is a waste.

Any plans for Neutrino Detector changes?

I keep meaning to look at it at some point; we'll see!

Two ideas for story point spending:
1: Spend at a comm relay to not get purged at the next maintanence, no matter how many sniffers player has.
2. Spend at a planet to destroy pather cell and stop pather plot against that planet. Usable and both NPC and player colonies. Doing so at the first even gets the player some good reputation.

Thank you for the suggestions! (Just in general, these are probably starting to get a bit off-topic for this thread.)


How do the updates usually affect faction/ship mods?

I ask because i've been working on my own mod for sometime and while its pretty mechanically simple and i'm curious as to how much i'll have to go back and redo, if any at all, and if so knowing might give me an idea of how to prep.

To clarify its mostly all handmade sprites with only some of the fighters partially kitbashed from the base game, it doesn't use any of the library mods (Magiclib, etc.) and doesn't have any custom hullmods or systems. For now its only custom ships, weapons, and projectiles using mainly recycled code from the base game. The most i've done with the recycled code is change variables, moved some things around and cleaned up after the Ship/Weapon Creator twisting the code into knots.

Thanks for any info!

I think your stuff will more or less just work. If the code happens to be using some parts of the API that changed in a break ways (of which changes there aren't many) then it'd need to be adjusted, but the changes on your end - if even necessary would be pretty minor.


I've got a tiny little bit of extra insight regarding the Reserve Deployment bug: the fighters will not self-destruct not only if the carrier retreats while they are deployed, but also if it is disabled or destroyed anywhere on the map.

Thank you! Noted; still haven't had a chance to look.



Oh yeah this reminds me, giving full stats right now is probably too much and they could change in the meantime, but I'm reaaaally curious what's the flux dissipation of these ships. If I had to guess I'd estimate Fury has around 550 while the Champion has 600. Warm or cold?
Let's play.  :D

Shrike has 350, Medusa has 400, Aurora has 800. My guess is around 600 for Fury.

Eagle has 525, Dominator has 450. My guess is around 550 for Champion.

The latter guesses are spot on, good job :)

(I suspect at this point those both new ships have received extensive playtesting and their stats are ready, hence my question above)

Not really, actually - you'd be surprised!



By the way Alex, have you ever solved the issue with ships randomly stopping when burning in and loosing the boost? I thought it was from asteroids or something and you perhaps solved it already, but someone said he's getting all his ship robbed from burning in boost, which doesn't sound good, so I wanted to check.
Oh yeah i'd love to see this fixed. I always assumed it was from asteroids too but not entirely sure. It's most annoying when your ship already lost it before you've even entered the visible part of the map, and ofc it usually seems to happen during a pursuit.

Whenever it happens it's due to collision danger as far as I know, I'm not aware of any bugs affecting this. I mean, it sucks if your ship stops burning in because there's an asteroid that probably wouldn't have hit it but was enough to set off the emergency braking maneuver, but, well.

If there's an issue where it happens when it shouldn't, I'd love to know more about it!

(Btw, I did just now make it so that the tiny asteroids from rings that do no damage don't factor in here. They shouldn't have much impact regardless, though, but thinking about it, it's actually possible they might cause smaller ships burn to cut short... hmm. Well, regardless, not anymore!)

Hey Alex,

Will memory leaks be solved?

I like playing with a lot of mods but my game slows down to a crawl even though I increased the amount of Ram the game could use to maximum. :(

Hey! Replied to the same question on twitter; let me paste here for completeness' sake:

Quote from: twitter
Well - I've fixed one significant vanilla leak, and added something that makes detecting leaks easier. But ultimately *I* can't fix a leak if it's in a mod, or make it impossible for it to happen, so for whatever leaks there are in mods, that's up to the individual modders.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on October 29, 2020, 08:48:20 PM

Hmm - just in general, I'm not very keen on "same thing, but larger/smaller" kinds of weapons. "Combat" beams are particularly subject to this because they tend to have the same range regardless of size, and don't have a lot of other variables to tweak. Where, for example, the Mark IX is in some ways a bigger Heavy AC, but there are enough differences - range, recoil, burst size, etc - that it can more get away with it.


I don't really get why not as it opens up new possible builds on many ships, but i always felt medium energy slots to always be quite lackluster. I equip a 1000 range large energy weapon, a 1000 range small energy weapon, and then I'm left with support weapons for the middle slots, either the graviton or the ion beam. 
If i want more sustained dps or burst dps, i have to sacrifice  range and get pulse lasers or something, which doesn't make sense. 
Let's take the sunder for example, if I want to build a support anti armor ship that burns the armor when the shields go down, i go HIL and...and what? gravitons are good against shields, ions if i want to disable, but for pure raw damage i'd have to downscale to tactical lasers because there's nothing else at that range in the middle slot. 
Well, what about going full burst damage then with 2 phase lance and a tachyon? again, only 600 range vs 1000 of the tachyon on a very slow ship... 
In the end, there's only a couple viable builds that outshine everything else, while there's so much potential fun to be had. 
I could make a triple graviton support sunder that pressures the enemy shields, if i had a large graviton, or i could make an anti armor support sunder if i had some medium tac lasers. 
I mean, i get that it could be problematic to simply have bigger variants of every weapon (everyone would be running large railguns rofl), but I feel like beam weapons have much to benefit for this and would make a lot of sense to scale them lore wise, i can see some pirates strapping a bunch of tactical lasers together in a bigger mount, like you did with the paladin PD :P

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 29, 2020, 09:48:59 PM
Consider this: if you can put the same thing in every slot, then every slot is functionally the same, just bigger or smaller, there's no qualitative difference between what they let you do, just quantitative. On the other hand, if for example a medium energy slot and a large energy slot have quite different things that go in them, then *ships* become more interesting and varied simply due to the differences in which of these slots they have.

Now, having a few weapons that are just a bigger/smaller version of something else doesn't take things all the way to this extreme. But it does take things some ways towards it, and that's why I'm generally not keen on it.

One way to think of it is this - you have different slot types, right- ballistic, energy, missile. They make ships very different! Slot sizes are a little like this, too, and this is good because it makes ships more different. The more similar-but-a-different-size weapons there are, the less this is the case.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on October 30, 2020, 01:27:27 AM
Consider this: if you can put the same thing in every slot, then every slot is functionally the same, just bigger or smaller, there's no qualitative difference between what they let you do, just quantitative. On the other hand, if for example a medium energy slot and a large energy slot have quite different things that go in them, then *ships* become more interesting and varied simply due to the differences in which of these slots they have.

Now, having a few weapons that are just a bigger/smaller version of something else doesn't take things all the way to this extreme. But it does take things some ways towards it, and that's why I'm generally not keen on it.

One way to think of it is this - you have different slot types, right- ballistic, energy, missile. They make ships very different! Slot sizes are a little like this, too, and this is good because it makes ships more different. The more similar-but-a-different-size weapons there are, the less this is the case.
Thanks for explaining the reasoning, now that i think about it i never had any problem with kinetics, so i guess it just feels like the medium energy slot lacks options in the 1000 range or beam category, and while it could be fixed by slapping a medium tac laser, it could also be fixed by adding something else entirely that follows your philosophy. 
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 30, 2020, 05:37:16 AM
Does the speed penalty for exceeding the ship limit apply to AI fleets too?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on October 30, 2020, 07:30:21 AM

By the way Alex, have you ever solved the issue with ships randomly stopping when burning in and loosing the boost? I thought it was from asteroids or something and you perhaps solved it already, but someone said he's getting all his ship robbed from burning in boost, which doesn't sound good, so I wanted to check.
Oh yeah i'd love to see this fixed. I always assumed it was from asteroids too but not entirely sure. It's most annoying when your ship already lost it before you've even entered the visible part of the map, and ofc it usually seems to happen during a pursuit.

Whenever it happens it's due to collision danger as far as I know, I'm not aware of any bugs affecting this. I mean, it sucks if your ship stops burning in because there's an asteroid that probably wouldn't have hit it but was enough to set off the emergency braking maneuver, but, well.

If there's an issue where it happens when it shouldn't, I'd love to know more about it!

(Btw, I did just now make it so that the tiny asteroids from rings that do no damage don't factor in here. They shouldn't have much impact regardless, though, but thinking about it, it's actually possible they might cause smaller ships burn to cut short... hmm. Well, regardless, not anymore!)


If it's supposed to be caused by asteroids i don't think it's bugged, or at least not that i've ever experienced bugged behavior, (i've never seen it affect every ship like SCC describes) and i think making it ignore those tiny asteroids will go a long way in solving any annoying/unintentioned behavior.

Consider this: if you can put the same thing in every slot, then every slot is functionally the same, just bigger or smaller, there's no qualitative difference between what they let you do, just quantitative. On the other hand, if for example a medium energy slot and a large energy slot have quite different things that go in them, then *ships* become more interesting and varied simply due to the differences in which of these slots they have.

Now, having a few weapons that are just a bigger/smaller version of something else doesn't take things all the way to this extreme. But it does take things some ways towards it, and that's why I'm generally not keen on it.

One way to think of it is this - you have different slot types, right- ballistic, energy, missile. They make ships very different! Slot sizes are a little like this, too, and this is good because it makes ships more different. The more similar-but-a-different-size weapons there are, the less this is the case.

I for one hope you'll never lose sight of this design choice no matter how often it's brought up. The biggest problem i have with all the weapons that most mods add to the game is that they fill every niche which imo really takes away *meaningful* choice by adding too much choice.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Schwartz on October 30, 2020, 07:41:40 AM
Re: Ship burn drive at combat start. It happens quite often to me that the burn fizzes out early with no obstacle there, or that the burn continues and plows through a small asteroid. Out of the two, I definitely prefer the latter and wish the detection system wouldn't exist. Could also just give the ships damage immunity until the initial burn ends, if that's not too game-y.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: DatonKallandor on October 30, 2020, 09:54:42 AM
Consider this: if you can put the same thing in every slot, then every slot is functionally the same, just bigger or smaller, there's no qualitative difference between what they let you do, just quantitative. On the other hand, if for example a medium energy slot and a large energy slot have quite different things that go in them, then *ships* become more interesting and varied simply due to the differences in which of these slots they have.

Now, having a few weapons that are just a bigger/smaller version of something else doesn't take things all the way to this extreme. But it does take things some ways towards it, and that's why I'm generally not keen on it.

One way to think of it is this - you have different slot types, right- ballistic, energy, missile. They make ships very different! Slot sizes are a little like this, too, and this is good because it makes ships more different. The more similar-but-a-different-size weapons there are, the less this is the case.

100% this! Keep the weapon selection mean and lean and force people to make choices. Having 5 different weapons that all do the same thing with a minute 2% difference for every single role is the worst.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Immahnoob on October 30, 2020, 10:35:19 AM
Are wars between factions going to be possible at some point? That's one thing I always wanted to see in Starsector.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 30, 2020, 10:45:52 AM
Thanks for explaining the reasoning, now that i think about it i never had any problem with kinetics, so i guess it just feels like the medium energy slot lacks options in the 1000 range or beam category, and while it could be fixed by slapping a medium tac laser, it could also be fixed by adding something else entirely that follows your philosophy.

Yeah, hmm. Not sure what that option might be, though, without being either "larger tac laser" or "smaller HIL". At 1000 range it's to be a beam, and, per the previous, there are somewhat less easy options for making them distinct. I suppose a fragmentation beam *might* be interesting...


Does the speed penalty for exceeding the ship limit apply to AI fleets too?

The question doesn't come up in vanilla since AI fleets don't exceed the cap. If modded fleets exceed the cap, they will not have the penalty since presumably those fleets have a reason for being so large.

If it's supposed to be caused by asteroids i don't think it's bugged, or at least not that i've ever experienced bugged behavior, (i've never seen it affect every ship like SCC describes) and i think making it ignore those tiny asteroids will go a long way in solving any annoying/unintentioned behavior.
Re: Ship burn drive at combat start. It happens quite often to me that the burn fizzes out early with no obstacle there, or that the burn continues and plows through a small asteroid. Out of the two, I definitely prefer the latter and wish the detection system wouldn't exist. Could also just give the ships damage immunity until the initial burn ends, if that's not too game-y.

Hmm - I'll keep an eye out for it happening unnecessarily; it's possible that it's over-sensitive in some cases. And, you say that - and I'm sure it's true for you! - but just in terms of overall volume of feedback, "ships occasionally dying or taking damage" felt like it generated *a lot* more of it. Damage immunity, hmm - I don't mind the idea on principle, but that could get situationally very weird if say enemy ships near your burn-in area, etc.



I for one hope you'll never lose sight of this design choice no matter how often it's brought up. The biggest problem i have with all the weapons that most mods add to the game is that they fill every niche which imo really takes away *meaningful* choice by adding too much choice.
100% this! Keep the weapon selection mean and lean and force people to make choices. Having 5 different weapons that all do the same thing with a minute 2% difference for every single role is the worst.

*thumbs up*!

Are wars between factions going to be possible at some point? That's one thing I always wanted to see in Starsector.

Honestly, I don't really see doing that - that's veering into straight-up 4x territory, and the game isn't really designed around that / it's not a direction I want to go in. I could see something more event-driven happening along these lines, but not for example a fully dynamic situation where colonies are changing hands left and right and so on.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on October 30, 2020, 10:55:48 AM
Thanks for explaining the reasoning, now that i think about it i never had any problem with kinetics, so i guess it just feels like the medium energy slot lacks options in the 1000 range or beam category, and while it could be fixed by slapping a medium tac laser, it could also be fixed by adding something else entirely that follows your philosophy.

Yeah, hmm. Not sure what that option might be, though, without being either "larger tac laser" or "smaller HIL". At 1000 range it's to be a beam, and, per the previous, there are somewhat less easy options for making them distinct. I suppose a fragmentation beam *might* be interesting...


Well, that sounds amazing to me and would probably fix all my qualms with the medium energy slot :p 
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on October 30, 2020, 11:17:19 AM
Fragmentation beam could give high-tech some other anti-fighter options, without making Falcon or Eagle too strong. Or not.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on October 30, 2020, 11:18:45 AM
Ah, that's a good point re: vs fighters. I wonder if it'd have the effect of making Heavy Burst Laser significantly less useful. (Or, perhaps, it might combine nicely with it - one to melt fighter armor, the other to finish it off.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Embolism on October 30, 2020, 12:11:48 PM
The old phase beam was basically two tac lasers strapped together. Honestly though I think the graviton beam is fine enough as a medium tac laser - yes it performs very poorly against armor but if shields are down that's most of your work done as long-ranged support.

The only weapon I feel is still missing is a HE ballistic weapon that is to the heavy mortar as the heavy autocannon is to the arbalest.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Schwartz on October 30, 2020, 12:48:05 PM
I play vanilla with new versions, but after that usually do modded games. Even with a large variety of energy weapons, they never felt like ballistics. This is largely due to most of them sticking to the energy damage type. Having energy weapons fill all the roles has never been a problem - it only made outfitting ships to suit a role easier. And the real outliers as far as overpowered energy weapons go have almost always been those with non-energy damage types. I would caution against adding more.

Not that a frag damage beam sounds overpowered. It sounds like a weapon in search of a good use. The Burst PD lineup wrecks face quickly; it doesn't synergize much with anything that isn't more Burst PD or works at the same speed.

However, it's true that the energy lineup is thinner than the other two. It could use 1-2 new smalls and mediums for sure.
- Charge weapons are interesting and energy seems to embrace the ammo concept still. Slightly frontloaded damage works very well with the peekaboo mentality of fast high-tech ships, and we just got a new one of those as well.
- Slow-moving AoE projectiles, for example a moving EMP field or a plasma ball with a proximity fuse, would provide more medium distance punch against swarms.

It's really hard to come up with weapons that haven't been covered by mods, by the way. I wouldn't be afraid to look there for inspiration either. Shadowyards' CEPC for example.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FooF on October 30, 2020, 01:31:26 PM
The old phase beam was basically two tac lasers strapped together. Honestly though I think the graviton beam is fine enough as a medium tac laser - yes it performs very poorly against armor but if shields are down that's most of your work done as long-ranged support.

The only weapon I feel is still missing is a HE ballistic weapon that is to the heavy mortar as the heavy autocannon is to the arbalest.

A Medium Frag Beam would be interesting but I think Alex is right in saying it might overlap with the Heavy Burst Laser too much. Whereas the HBL can punch through shields (and ignore flares), this Frag Beam would be near-useless against shielded fighters. I suppose it would be great for missile intercept, though. I don't know if I would use a Medium mount for just missile defense, though. Oddly enough, I wish the Heavy Burst Laser had a long-range frag beam to it for missiles and only used its charges against fighters or close-range threats. Or to put it another way, I'd want to use the Frag Beam and HBL in tandem but I'd never spend two Medium slots for it. I suppose a Small Frag beam would work... :shrugs:

As for the HE version of the Heavy AC, the Heavy Mortar would have to get nerfed to create this weapon. It's already very efficient and moderately powerful. The only thing it lacks is shot speed/accuracy and the extra 100 range. If the Heavy Mortar got nerfed to say 180 DPS (by dropping shots/min) and this new hypothetical gun had 800 range, 150 damage/shot (~220 DPS) and was more accurate, there might be room for such a weapon but as it is, the Heavy Morter is already the "middle-of-the-road" HE Medium. Anything more and you make the Heavy Mauler too lackluster unless you buffed its damage/shot. Basically, you'd have to move all the other weapons around in order to create the new one.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on October 30, 2020, 02:11:28 PM
I don't get why you are assuming the medium frag beam would be a PD, we already have tons of those to choose from, it can just be a powerful hull destroyer when comboed with a HIL, or with other ships dealing anti armor damage etc, kinda like the Thumper but sustained damage instead of burst, and longer range to fit with the other beam weapons
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Schwartz on October 30, 2020, 02:20:28 PM
HIL needs no help dispatching ships in seconds as soon as the shields are down. Frag beam would be a trap choice here. What HIL needs is kinetics.

That's not to say a frag beam couldn't do the thing. It'd just help with making the easy part easier, while not helping at all with the difficult part.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on October 30, 2020, 03:21:52 PM
I mean, it still takes a huge amount of time to kill big tanky ships with the HIL, more than enough time for them to vent and get back into action multiple times. by going HIL+frag beams on a sunder for example, you would be useless against shields as you said, but there's an argument to be made for specializations, you lose some you gain some. I can have my officers take care of the shields for me while i melt them
HIL+graviton is already known to be good against many ships, but having the option to specialize in something different is a good thing imho, doesn't have to be as viable, covering a niche is fine too


Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on October 30, 2020, 04:10:20 PM
I mean, it still takes a huge amount of time to kill big tanky ships with the HIL, more than enough time for them to vent and get back into action multiple times. by going HIL+frag beams on a sunder for example, you would be useless against shields as you said, but there's an argument to be made for specializations, you lose some you gain some. I can have my officers take care of the shields for me while i melt them
HIL+graviton is already known to be good against many ships, but having the option to specialize in something different is a good thing imho, doesn't have to be as viable, covering a niche is fine too

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Also, here's a dumb, self made, aneurism-inducing on-the-spot quote: No ship or weapon is broken in Starsector, it just needs to be more expensive to field.

Do you want a Graviton beam that fits into a large energy slot? Kadur remnant has a weapon called Graviton Sweeper that does increasing amounts of hard flux damage to a shielded ship the more the beam touches the enemy shield, but it's almost useless against small ships or anything far enough to not make enough contact.

Do you want a Gauss Cannon that does kinetic damage but that also deals HE damage on impacting armor? Try a weapon from Tahlan Shipworks (I can't quite remember its name) that does just that but that is worth 26 OP, very bad flux to damage ratio and rather disappointing DPS for a weapon that size

Do you want a 1k range medium energy mount that deals frag damage in short, devastating bursts much like a Tachyon lance? The Desolator Beam will do just that but be ready to cough up 16 Ordinance Points for a weapon that's absolutely useless unless it hits hull.

Providing what arguably is the weakest and least varied type of large weapon mount (energy) with more (albeit costly) options would help ships that aren't a Paragon fill  more roles better and not be relegated to just being a kiting laser vomiter or a balls-to-the-wall overridden mostrosity fielding a Plasma Cannon.

P.S: I know something about the latter. I've gone crazy enough to override an Apogee and give it a Plasma Cannon out of desperation before.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on October 30, 2020, 04:25:50 PM
The only ships with large energy mounts are Paragon, Odyssey, Apogee and Sunder. I think all of those ships can use any of the large energies (ignoring paladin) effectively, except the sunder has to use SO to support PC. Apogee does not need SO to run a plasma cannon. Max dissipation with a single PC and token PD along with all the shield and range hull mods is by far the best apogee loadout IMO.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on October 30, 2020, 04:45:21 PM
The only ships with large energy mounts are Paragon, Odyssey, Apogee and Sunder. I think all of those ships can use any of the large energies (ignoring paladin) effectively, except the sunder has to use SO to support PC. Apogee does not need SO to run a plasma cannon. Max dissipation with a single PC and token PD along with all the shield and range hull mods is by far the best apogee loadout IMO.

The paladin is quite sad indeed, thankfully it's getting some love this patch.

Regarding all large-energy-mount-capable ships, right. They can all sort of work with the current vanilla variety of weapons, I just wish they had more options to be perfectly honest. Assuming all ships have token Point Defence, Ballistic only ships are amazing and missile only ships do disgusting amounts of work as long as they have ammo.

Energy only ships on the other hand only work because
1) the AI just likes taking the shield down when it mistakenly thinks its far enough away
2)The enemy ship can't handle the flux beams generate and probably is worth less FP individually anyway
3)your ship has such an overwhelming flux dissipation/capacity advantage over the enemy (looking at you Paragon) that it can just keep trading with its poor efficiency, high DPS weapons until the enemy is dead.

If none of those situations occur, energy only ships just stop being useful without kinetic damage sources (like sabots) and your once totally viable laser Sunders and Autopulse Odissey get run over by [Redacted] like a monster truck driving thru speedbumps. I'm not saying some energy weapons, namely beams, need a buff (not in this particular post anyway), but the fact that they, unlike the other two weapon types, can't muster up a truly universal (but also flawed) role speaks volumes on their lack of variety.

P.S: Plasma Cannon is probably the best thing you can slap in a large energy slot provided the ship can both sustain its flux and get close fast enough to use it while still in one piece. I simply like safety Overrides on the Apogee for the very biased reason it can keep pressuring ships that would otherwise be harder to keep up with and finish off. Then again the last time I used a Plasma Apogee it was without using Salamanders, it definetly was not a smart choice.

Edit: typos have been purged with a flamer
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: braciszek on October 30, 2020, 06:56:22 PM
If I may ask, in terms of the story, will the faction leaders (that is, Daud, Andrada, Sun, and Kanta) have more of a purpose in the game besides sitting in their faction's capital? Maybe or maybe not they leave and bring a great fleet to do certain actions, but certainly it would be more interesting if the player has a greater interaction with them, as the faction leaders are the only individuals in the sector that compare to the player in terms of tactical prowess and personal skill. PL, LC, and LP are devoid of any named individuals, but maybe it's primarily because they are the more boring of the factions and there's not too much behind their existence. PL isn't centralized at all (though you would think there would still be a dominant figure in the PL federation from Kazeron, bullying the weaker PL members into order). LC is the most bland and boring faction with nothing unique about them whatsoever (they have nothing special to provide to the player and there is absolutely nothing interesting to obtain from commissioning with them), but I hope that eventually gets changed. That leaves LP, which could benefit from an extraordinarily radical, but competent leader to humanize them in some way instead of them just being portrayed as a mindless terrorist cell that various factions fund.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on October 30, 2020, 08:44:50 PM
I believe that current weapon variety is almost good enough, we need more weapon-altering hullmods though.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Luxinus on October 31, 2020, 11:39:28 PM
Hey, long time player, super stoked to see another update forming up

I have what I hope is a tiny request, could you standardize support in whatever form it needs for unicode characters in names?

I ask because in my attempt to name a planet "Earth 2: Electric Boogaloo" to fit the length requirement I ended up with "Earth²:Electric Boogaloo" which seems to render perfectly fine in small white font, but the larger blue font renders the ² as ? instead. I assume it's a font issue but I'm hopeful there's potentially a solution that isn't too taxing on you? Very minor either way.

Thanks and good luck with the well, rest of the game, aha
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Albreo on November 01, 2020, 04:00:47 AM
There's this rare crash that I don't get too often when assisting an orbital station against multiple invasion fleets so large that the battle span on for multiple rounds. For virtualization's sake, the first round is full-blown very long combat, the second round is also full-blown combat with capitals that haven't been deploy yet plus the one that retreats. In the third round, the enemy just throws all of the support ship and cargo at the station until nothing left. But that's not the end, the screen prompts a fourth round that has no enemy ship in it. If I click to join said combat, the game will immediately crash.

This rarely happened (probably 4-5 times) but I still noticed and avoided not joining in the last round. It probably a NEX mod issue but you could maybe put a check code on empty combat.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on November 01, 2020, 08:31:59 AM
Oh just remembered an old suggestion about making Mjolnir projectiles a bit more obvious. I get that visual clutter is a concern but most other deadly weapons are super easily seen. And getting hit by it is very unhealthy for your ship. Honestly, if it weren't for the sound effect, it wouldn't be nearly as scary.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 01, 2020, 09:27:39 AM
Hey, long time player, super stoked to see another update forming up

I have what I hope is a tiny request, could you standardize support in whatever form it needs for unicode characters in names?

I ask because in my attempt to name a planet "Earth 2: Electric Boogaloo" to fit the length requirement I ended up with "Earth²:Electric Boogaloo" which seems to render perfectly fine in small white font, but the larger blue font renders the ² as ? instead. I assume it's a font issue but I'm hopeful there's potentially a solution that isn't too taxing on you? Very minor either way.

Thanks and good luck with the well, rest of the game, aha

Hi, and welcome to the forum :)

Hmm - iirc the font files were generated with the same charset settings, so if a character is missing, it seems likely that that font doesn't have it at all. Even if it did, re-generating the font with added characters would actually be surprisingly tricky. The way it works is the tool (the AngelCode BMFont (https://www.angelcode.com/products/bmfont/) generator, if you're curious) generates an image with the font's glyphs, and a data file. The data file contains the various coordinates, offsets, kerning data, and so on; if you regenerate the font with different characters, a lot of this data would change. Where this gets tricky is the data files have had a bunch of manual edits over the years - adjusting individual character pair kernings, character widths, etc - and replicating that over onto a new font file would be a lengthy, painstakingly careful effort.

There's this rare crash that I don't get too often when assisting an orbital station against multiple invasion fleets so large that the battle span on for multiple rounds. For virtualization's sake, the first round is full-blown very long combat, the second round is also full-blown combat with capitals that haven't been deploy yet plus the one that retreats. In the third round, the enemy just throws all of the support ship and cargo at the station until nothing left. But that's not the end, the screen prompts a fourth round that has no enemy ship in it. If I click to join said combat, the game will immediately crash.

This rarely happened (probably 4-5 times) but I still noticed and avoided not joining in the last round. It probably a NEX mod issue but you could maybe put a check code on empty combat.

Next time that happens, would you mind posting a report and the stack trace from the log file in the modded bug reports forum? Without seeing a stack trace it's hard to tell what might be causing this, let alone fix it, unfortunately. (I do recall fixing some crashes recently that roughly fit this description, though iirc that was related to fighters/ships with converted hangars...


Oh just remembered an old suggestion about making Mjolnir projectiles a bit more obvious. I get that visual clutter is a concern but most other deadly weapons are super easily seen. And getting hit by it is very unhealthy for your ship. Honestly, if it weren't for the sound effect, it wouldn't be nearly as scary.

I think this is one of the changes that didn't make it into the list - having a look just now, they look pretty beefy! Closer to AM Blaster shots.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on November 01, 2020, 09:44:20 AM
Oh just remembered an old suggestion about making Mjolnir projectiles a bit more obvious. I get that visual clutter is a concern but most other deadly weapons are super easily seen. And getting hit by it is very unhealthy for your ship. Honestly, if it weren't for the sound effect, it wouldn't be nearly as scary.

I think this is one of the changes that didn't make it into the list - having a look just now, they look pretty beefy! Closer to AM Blaster shots.

You know this is one of those things that would warrant having a pen and a piece of paper to the side if your keyboard while playing. I've always felt the same way about the Mjolnir but it was always such a fleeting thought that it never made it into an actual discussion. Bravo :)

On a side note, I feel like it's more or less the same situation with the Gauss cannon where you only realize it's shooting at you in a busy battlefield by the sound and/or having your small ship immediately overloaded, altough my opinion could be somewhat biased given I'm playing with low settings.

My idea would be to make the blue glow around the shell a bit bigger and also extend said glow to form a "teardrop" shape by also expending the glow to form a stubby trail directly behind the shell, in addittion to the current long, faint trail we have?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on November 01, 2020, 11:54:15 AM
Re: PC Sunder
Sunder does not need Safety Overrides to use Plasma Cannon, but without it, it probably needs to sacrifice every other mount and focus hard on flux stats (max caps and vents), not unlike no-missile Aurora with two heavy blasters (or two pulse lasers and one heavy blaster).  Non-SO plasma Sunder is another poster-child of naked hull/empty mounts.  In essence, a bigger, energy version of Mudskipper II.

Re: Weapon Variety
Weapon types I wish for...
* Non-kinetic medium beam with 800+ range.  Sometimes, tactical laser gets put in medium mounts because there is nothing better - lame.

* Medium HE beyond low-end with 800+ range (and maybe faster than Mortar).  Heavy Mauler used to be it, but now it is too slow and no good except as a long-range sniper like HVD, and Mortar is low-end like Arbalest.  There is no medium HE that feels more elite than Heavy Mortar.  Complimenting medium 800 range kinetics without heavy HE is a pain.

As for large energy, it is pretty good.  The only one that is bad there is Paladin/Guardian only because of its terrible efficiency (that can overload Paragon).  The rest are a pain; no good medium options without overwhelming flux advantage, and small is mostly PD-only.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Shoat on November 01, 2020, 03:30:22 PM
Are wars between factions going to be possible at some point? That's one thing I always wanted to see in Starsector.

Honestly, I don't really see doing that - that's veering into straight-up 4x territory, and the game isn't really designed around that / it's not a direction I want to go in. I could see something more event-driven happening along these lines, but not for example a fully dynamic situation where colonies are changing hands left and right and so on.

I do agree that this is a good angle to implement wars from.
I could totally see there being small to medium sized conflicts (some really big battles in one system, followed by an attempted siege, followed by a temporary ceasefire treaty as both factions recover), implemented as a dynamically-generated event between factions that are very hostile to each other.
On their own, not a big difference, but maybe someone playing very very long campaigns could see a faction grow much more powerful and another faction wiped out?

This could help give the sector some feeling of there being bigger conflicts, without the issues (difficult-to-implement, hard for performance, chaotic for player to be caught in) of a full-blown war.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FabianClasen on November 01, 2020, 03:44:06 PM
Can someone explain, what "REDACTED" means in this context?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on November 01, 2020, 05:57:18 PM
Can someone explain, what "REDACTED" means in this context?

Ah, of course I can, that term is commonly used to describe [Redacted]!

I'm sorry.

I am not making this up when I tell you that [Redacted] will make sense to you in the endgame of your campaign, you just have to get there first and I'd hate to spoil you anything  :)

Edit: Also, Hey Hey People
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FooF on November 01, 2020, 05:58:17 PM
Can someone explain, what "REDACTED" means in this context?

Its the informal way of talking about the
Spoiler
AI Remnants
[close]
(or any other spoilery stuff) in-game. Since 0.8 has been out for what, 3 years now(?) it's not like it's a secret anymore but it's better to say [REDACTED] than be too on-the-nose. The new REDACTED stuff probably is a secret so it'll be best to use spoiler tags when talking about the new missions or whatnot.

In-game lore usually has the Hegemony purging documents of sensitive information but redacting documents is a time-honored tradition among all clandestine organizations. :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on November 01, 2020, 06:51:50 PM
Please make logistical hullmods built-in using story points not count towards the two logistical hullmod limit.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Psycho Society on November 01, 2020, 08:10:02 PM
cool beans  8)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 01, 2020, 08:44:44 PM
I could totally see there being small to medium sized conflicts (some really big battles in one system, followed by an attempted siege, followed by a temporary ceasefire treaty as both factions recover), implemented as a dynamically-generated event between factions that are very hostile to each other.
On their own, not a big difference, but maybe someone playing very very long campaigns could see a faction grow much more powerful and another faction wiped out?

This could help give the sector some feeling of there being bigger conflicts, without the issues (difficult-to-implement, hard for performance, chaotic for player to be caught in) of a full-blown war.

Yeah, that's very much the sort of thing I mean! Whether it'll happen or not, not sure, but we're on the same page here.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on November 02, 2020, 01:24:36 PM
I just noticed that the forum broke its number of visitors record two days after the patch notes were posted. The next release is gonna make some waves 8)

Yeah, hmm. Not sure what that option might be, though, without being either "larger tac laser" or "smaller HIL". At 1000 range it's to be a beam, and, per the previous, there are somewhat less easy options for making them distinct. I suppose a fragmentation beam *might* be interesting...

A beam that supports other beams would be nice. The biggest disadvantage of beams is their all or nothing nature due to only dealing soft flux - either they overwhelm a targets dissipation and kill it safely, or they can't overwhelm the dissipation and are almost useless.
Hm. How about a medium beam that transforms some soft flux damage a target receives into hard flux damage. To balance this out, it might also produce hard flux on the ship that is firing it, so you cant fire continuously. Such a beam would be useless on its own, a slight disadvantage on a beam heavy ship against targets that ship could overwhelm anyway, and game changing if a beam ship engages a superior enemy.




Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on November 02, 2020, 02:01:09 PM
I just noticed that the forum broke its number of visitors record two days after the patch notes were posted. The next release is gonna make some waves 8)

Yeah, hmm. Not sure what that option might be, though, without being either "larger tac laser" or "smaller HIL". At 1000 range it's to be a beam, and, per the previous, there are somewhat less easy options for making them distinct. I suppose a fragmentation beam *might* be interesting...

A beam that supports other beams would be nice. The biggest disadvantage of beams is their all or nothing nature due to only dealing soft flux - either they overwhelm a targets dissipation and kill it safely, or they can't overwhelm the dissipation and are almost useless.
Hm. How about a medium beam that transforms some soft flux damage a target receives into hard flux damage. To balance this out, it might also produce hard flux on the ship that is firing it, so you cant fire continuously. Such a beam would be useless on its own, a slight disadvantage on a beam heavy ship against targets that ship could overwhelm anyway, and game changing if a beam ship engages a superior enemy.

Oh we got a new visitor record? That's actually amazing!

As for more support/utility beams or energy weapons, there are quite a lot of mods doing just that (kind of a duh point to make honestly) and I am genuinely confused of wich weapon are vanilla and wich aren't sometimes, some of them are just that well balanced as far as my personal opinion is concerned. Here are some examples that just might give people ideas wink wink

I am widely using the Intense Neutrino Beam (From ED shipyard) on anything that can afford mounting it. It's a wierd, wierd mix between an Ion Beam/ a Combat Laser, has 1k range and is actually made for Point Defence but can double as a secondary weapon dealing fragmentation/EMP damage at a very attractive flux/damage ratio. It does require 14 Ordinance Points to install tough.
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/02PZ9do.png)
[close]
Another really interesting mod weapon is the PEPPA gun from..ah...uh..I don't remember actually.
It's basically a low-ish flux large energy weapon with 1k fragmentation DPS spread across a barrage of projectiles that also deal EMP damage with 800u range. Just BRUTAL against small ships/unarmored targets but it barely does any damage to shields or armor.
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/lVRtgbH.png)
[close]
Last one (I swear) is the Double IR Pulse laser from Hazard Mining Incorporated. It's a flux efficient, hard flux dealing medium energy weapon for when you want to get a ship without enough kinetic damage sources to be good at pressuring the enemy. It obviously lacks a lot of the DPS of other laser weapons but it really allows ships to not sacrifice their own crewmembers' families to the AI overlords for as much flux dissipation as possible.
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/JgqTTaS.png)
[close]

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 02, 2020, 05:08:34 PM
Whoa, I missed the visitor record - that's really amazing, 1700+, wow!

(Thank you for the weapon ideas and such! Bit short on time to respond in detail, but, let's just say, duly noted - a bunch of interesting stuff here, all around.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Daynen on November 03, 2020, 07:37:54 AM
It's almost like we're getting a sequel!

MY BODY IS READY.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Deshara on November 03, 2020, 08:16:13 AM
Thanks for explaining the reasoning, now that i think about it i never had any problem with kinetics, so i guess it just feels like the medium energy slot lacks options in the 1000 range or beam category, and while it could be fixed by slapping a medium tac laser, it could also be fixed by adding something else entirely that follows your philosophy.

Yeah, hmm. Not sure what that option might be, though, without being either "larger tac laser" or "smaller HIL". At 1000 range it's to be a beam, and, per the previous, there are somewhat less easy options for making them distinct. I suppose a fragmentation beam *might* be interesting...

you know whats missing from the game? Flux-inefficient beams, frag beams, burst-fire (NON-PD) beams, short ranged (NON-PD) beams. What if there were a medium or large, high-intensity, charge-up & then release like an anti-matter blaster, frag beam that instead of doing damage over time with sustained use that is effectively infinite when shields are down, just dumps life-ending amounts of damage (to a ship with no shields or armor) in a split second? The kind of thing you'd expect to hear a thunderclap if it weren't in a vacuum. A high-tech ship-breaking beam, made with the explicit intent of (time if not flux) efficiently blowing ships with no active forms of defense against in half. The sort of thing a military would use to emergency-decommission a military space station ahead of an overwhelming enemy advance. The kind of blade an alien space-god would use to knife-fight
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on November 03, 2020, 08:19:14 AM
The last thing High tech ships need is yet another armour breaker and hull deleter. Frag constant beam does sound nice but imo the biggest hole is a medium flux efficient projectile weapon.

@Deshara
Did you forget about the Phase lance?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on November 03, 2020, 08:41:59 AM
We need a kinetic torpedo and energy missiles.
As for others in this thread, do you believe that admin skills should have elite levels like piloted ship skills?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Deshara on November 03, 2020, 09:07:02 AM
The last thing High tech ships need is yet another armour breaker and hull deleter. Frag constant beam does sound nice but imo the biggest hole is a medium flux efficient projectile weapon.

@Deshara
Did you forget about the Phase lance?

honestly i thought it was a mod weapon lol there was a small mount phase lance from some mod that was my #1 most used small mount & my brain back-filled
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on November 03, 2020, 09:15:03 AM
The last thing High tech ships need is yet another armour breaker and hull deleter. Frag constant beam does sound nice but imo the biggest hole is a medium flux efficient projectile weapon.

@Deshara
Did you forget about the Phase lance?

honestly i thought it was a mod weapon lol there was a small mount phase lance from some mod that was my #1 most used small mount & my brain back-filled

Is it the Reflector Beam? God I love that little 8 OP monster.

Actually there is a small mod energy weapon called Light Phase lance, so you could be referring to that :P

P.S: If you don't know what the Reflector Beam does, it's basically a 800u range kinetic damage phase lance-type weapon that fits into a small energy mount for 8 OP and consumes something like 200 flux-second. It sounds as brutal as it actually works in game. Not generating hard flux only becomes a problem if you don't have enough of them installed  ::)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on November 03, 2020, 10:11:45 AM
We need a kinetic torpedo and energy missiles.
...

These are really hard to balance. I don't want to say impossible, but close to it. The problem is that any kinetic with very high single shot damage (like a torpedo) is also going to be effective vs armor and hull, leaving no defensive options other than shooting them down. The reason the Sabot splits into multiple projectiles is to avoid it also deleting armor and hull (it used to be that the medium sabot pod launched 4 750 damage missiles... it was rough).

Energy is similarly hard to balance. In theory it does less than half damage to armor (no 2x bonus and half penetration combined), but in practice this matter on only the most heavily armored ships because the armor only lasts for a single hit (Example: an energy hammer (1500) does 900 damage to an Eagle (1000 armor)). Then its doing hull damage the same as an HE torpedo would, only with double the shield damage. In terms of avoiding the damage from a torpedo strike by taking the hits on the shield, its as if an Astral is launching a strike as opposed to a Mora.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on November 03, 2020, 10:33:58 AM
It's also really boring to have every type of damage for every kind of weapon, even if it would all be perfectly balanced including taking into account which ships have which slots.
So plz no to some variation on all these mod weapons finding their way into the vanilla game.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FooF on November 03, 2020, 04:52:59 PM
@Thaago

Right on all accounts but I would imagine an Energy-based missile system would be a volley-type instead of large, single warheads. They might all fire at once (like 4x homing missiles) but only 250 damage each. That's 1000 hard flux to shields but not a significant threat to armor (though it would add up!). Still, it's an interesting decision to make: do I take a modest hit on shields (which has no long-term effects minus overload) or take minor hits to armor (a non-regenerating resource)? But anything more than those kind of numbers make Energy missiles difficult to mitigate: they're too dangerous to both armor and hull and your only recourse is to shoot them down.

That would be an interesting Energy missile gimmick, though: all are volley-type weapons and they all have very low HP missiles that even basic PD can shoot down easily. They're universally good when they hit but they just don't hit often. :shrug:
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on November 03, 2020, 07:07:03 PM
The energy missile weapon should be definitely high flux and either high damage or high ammo.
Edit: Perhaps high flux, high OP, high ammo, medium range and damage with homing.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Toxcity on November 03, 2020, 08:05:26 PM
While I definitely see the appeal of new weapons, but they need a purpose besides checking off boxes.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FreonRu on November 04, 2020, 09:58:52 AM
I apologize in advance for using google translator.

Alex, a few questions / suggestions:

1 Was the possibility of specifying the location of the fleet for deployment considered before the battle? For example, so that battleships appear on the first line, support cruisers and aircraft carriers on the second line? And also so that you can set the behavior for the ships in advance (for example, a certain aircraft carrier must always accompany the cruiser. Now the tracking is configured anew every time, but this routine and it is superfluous).

2 Are there any plans to give the opportunity to change the orbits of the planets? (for example, a super secret technology (REDACTED). As a terraforming tool (for example, dragging a frozen world closer to a star and melting ice on it, turning it into an ocean world.

3 How about putting pins or notes on the card? For example, I constantly keep notes on paper to remember where everything has already been cleaned up (for example, all ruins have been surveyed and all stations (REDACTED) have been cleaned and alpha cores collected).

4 Will it be possible in the future to move the cryostorage from a distant system closer to habitable space? For example, in order to still get out of sleep or for its intended purpose (organ trade). Setting up a colony in remote space is not bad, but sometimes you want to have maximum protection in the system and build several colonies in one system at once, so that the patrol is coordinated and repulsed all the impudent ones.

5 How about two types of ships (or modules for ships) - 1 star refueling (convenient for long expeditions into deep space), 2 special ship to increase the radar (yes there is a module, but it is extremely weak), there are, for example, special ships tankers, civil, etc. As for the ship, the main, and possibly the only function, will be to increase the range of the fleet's radar (literally a ship consisting of several radar installations).

6 How about the "Announce the recruitment of officers" function in one of your colonies?

7 Are there any plans to give the opportunity to send one of their patrol (or punitive) fleets, let's say, to clean up a pirate base? By specifying a specific system and giving a cleaning task.

And the last question ... will it be possible to remove the "flash" of the transition from one game screen to another? Honestly, sometimes my eyes start to hurt.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on November 04, 2020, 03:24:46 PM
There was a mod that introduced energy based missile that were built in on a ship, don't remember the name unfortunately. 
they were homing balls of energy that dealt hard flux energy damage, with a recharging magazine but infinite ammo. I had to say, i had a blast using them and i wished i could mount them on all ships. 
I kinda hate finite resources and i get that missiles are strong and need to be regulated somehow, but there's nothing worse than running out of missiles and realizing that your build doesn't work anymore... 
This is why i use way more piliums and salamanders than i should. Something like that mod, even  way weaker than missiles and with high OP, would be amazing imho.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on November 04, 2020, 04:51:34 PM
There was a mod that introduced energy based missile that were built in on a ship, don't remember the name unfortunately. 
they were homing balls of energy that dealt hard flux energy damage, with a recharging magazine but infinite ammo. I had to say, i had a blast using them and i wished i could mount them on all ships. 
I kinda hate finite resources and i get that missiles are strong and need to be regulated somehow, but there's nothing worse than running out of missiles and realizing that your build doesn't work anymore... 
This is why i use way more piliums and salamanders than i should. Something like that mod, even  way weaker than missiles and with high OP, would be amazing imho.

I'm pretty sure you're talking about the Kitakaze, a mod cruiser with phase skimmer that also gets buffs when being near it's two Korikaze drone frigades. Quite the amazing ship if you can actually find it for sale. It obviously works really well with laser weapons since those homing energy missiles will force the enemy to either vent or lower shields.

Those tracking energy weapons are just deadly and a somewhat similar version of that would be great to have in vanilla, given its balanced.

There is also a 12 OP missile weapon called the Karion Seeker from Tahlan Shipworks that more or less has the same range/tracking capabilities but that deals very little shield/hull damage but does a very respectable amount of EMP damage, very useful against particularly annoying frigades.

P.S: I may have switched the name of the two ships I described.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SafariJohn on November 04, 2020, 05:07:24 PM
ZaiZai is probably thinking of the BRDY super-destroyer, the Morpheus.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on November 04, 2020, 05:52:40 PM
Arcagnello got that right! that's exactly the ship! I wonder if there's any chance for something like this to be added
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on November 05, 2020, 12:49:42 AM
Arcagnello got that right! that's exactly the ship! I wonder if there's any chance for something like this to be added

It's a great concept for a weapon, but one that can easily become overperforming with very little done to it.

Now, I don't have a Kitakaze at hand's reach right now, but I can remember the fact those tracking energy projectiles hurt a lot, small energy weapon blaster kinds of hurt and unlike actual blasters they have very good range, good enough tracking to reliably hit destroyers AND they're also very hard for enemy PD to shoot down, if they even target it (I can't remember that aspect of the weapon).

The easy way you could make it balanced revolves around giving it a bad enough flux to damage ratio to justify its range, hit accuracy, PD resilience and damage but there comes a point where the weapon both costs too much for 90% of ships to use it while, at the same time, is also a bit to strong when installed on any ship capable to handle it, so the balancing process for a weapon like this would take quite a lot of effort if Alex wanted to keep its properties intact.

A vanilla example of a weapon that can soon become overperforming (if you only make it more expensive to balance it) is the Heavy Needler, a no-brainer for ships able to afford it when compared to virtually all other medium ballistic weapons (aside from the Hypervelocity Driver, wich is cheaper, has 200 more range but worse shell velocity, does less damage but also does more damage per shot and carries an EMP warhead dealing EMP damage on hull hits), hell the Heavy Needler is actually even preferrable to some large ballistic weapons on ships with poor flux dissipation like the Onslaught, where its best, vanilla-only setups usually involve two heavy Needlers slapped to the side, into the large ballistic slots.

P.S: The last part about the Onslaught is going to change by the way, since this patch is going to finally give it Heavy Ballistic Integration lowering the OP cost of all Large Ballistic Weapons by 10 (I think). Especially looking forward to Heavy Armor getting better too, considering I'm playing a campaign where most of my main ships have no shield generator to speak of.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Anvel on November 05, 2020, 02:46:04 AM
Why this topic suddenly becomes a suggestion thread? Do not distract the developer with all these suggestions than he almost finished the update, wanna overpowered weapons, and ships go use mods.
ps Alex, do not get distracted, update you made is already huge, leave some space for dlcs.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on November 05, 2020, 04:06:26 AM
Why this topic suddenly becomes a suggestion thread? Do not distract the developer with all these suggestions than he almost finished the update, wanna overpowered weapons, and ships go use mods.
ps Alex, do not get distracted, update you made is already huge, leave some space for dlcs.

Mea Culpa there, got carried away again. I'll be a good boy now  :-X
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on November 05, 2020, 08:33:27 AM
Most importantly.....
Will there be be fleets which are doing the same types of missions that players can take? Like running into independent surveyor/derelict analyser/base destoryer/bounty hunter fleets outside the core region?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 05, 2020, 10:06:47 AM
I apologize in advance for using google translator.

No worries! The translation is actually very good.

1 Was the possibility of specifying the location of the fleet for deployment considered before the battle? For example, so that battleships appear on the first line, support cruisers and aircraft carriers on the second line? And also so that you can set the behavior for the ships in advance (for example, a certain aircraft carrier must always accompany the cruiser. Now the tracking is configured anew every time, but this routine and it is superfluous).

I've thought about this, yeah. I don't think it'd be a great idea - it's a lot of new UI and work (both for me to add, and for the player to set up stuff), and it's not like you're always deploying the same thing. And you have other options! Say, deploying the frontline/slower ships, then re-opening the deployment dialog to deploy a second wave, if that's what you want. Carriers will naturally - and intentionally - fall back, too, and there's generally enough time before fleets close for them to do that. So this just isn't something I want to add - I think it's far too complex for the limited benefit it might bring.

2 Are there any plans to give the opportunity to change the orbits of the planets? (for example, a super secret technology (REDACTED). As a terraforming tool (for example, dragging a frozen world closer to a star and melting ice on it, turning it into an ocean world.

No plans for that, no. But other things have similar effects!

3 How about putting pins or notes on the card? For example, I constantly keep notes on paper to remember where everything has already been cleaned up (for example, all ruins have been surveyed and all stations (REDACTED) have been cleaned and alpha cores collected).

I'd like to look at that at some point, yeah. Not for the next release, though/

4 Will it be possible in the future to move the cryostorage from a distant system closer to habitable space? For example, in order to still get out of sleep or for its intended purpose (organ trade). Setting up a colony in remote space is not bad, but sometimes you want to have maximum protection in the system and build several colonies in one system at once, so that the patrol is coordinated and repulsed all the impudent ones.

Hmm, I don't think so. It's not meant as a "bonus to any planet in the Sector" but rather as a local condition.

5 How about two types of ships (or modules for ships) - 1 star refueling (convenient for long expeditions into deep space), 2 special ship to increase the radar (yes there is a module, but it is extremely weak), there are, for example, special ships tankers, civil, etc. As for the ship, the main, and possibly the only function, will be to increase the range of the fleet's radar (literally a ship consisting of several radar installations).

(Honestly, I'd prefer for suggestions to go into the suggestions forum.)

6 How about the "Announce the recruitment of officers" function in one of your colonies?

Not quite, but having a military base etc makes officers much more likely to show up. In general, I don't think it'd be that useful, anyway. It's easier to find officers already so getting up to max officer count with your preferred types of officers shouldn't be an issue.

7 Are there any plans to give the opportunity to send one of their patrol (or punitive) fleets, let's say, to clean up a pirate base? By specifying a specific system and giving a cleaning task.

No specific plans for that, no.

And the last question ... will it be possible to remove the "flash" of the transition from one game screen to another? Honestly, sometimes my eyes start to hurt.

You can do this right now! Open up data/config/settings.json, and change:
"enableUIStaticNoise":true,

To false.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on November 05, 2020, 10:31:12 AM
1 Was the possibility of specifying the location of the fleet for deployment considered before the battle? For example, so that battleships appear on the first line, support cruisers and aircraft carriers on the second line? And also so that you can set the behavior for the ships in advance (for example, a certain aircraft carrier must always accompany the cruiser. Now the tracking is configured anew every time, but this routine and it is superfluous).

I've thought about this, yeah. I don't think it'd be a great idea - it's a lot of new UI and work (both for me to add, and for the player to set up stuff), and it's not like you're always deploying the same thing. And you have other options! Say, deploying the frontline/slower ships, then re-opening the deployment dialog to deploy a second wave, if that's what you want. Carriers will naturally - and intentionally - fall back, too, and there's generally enough time before fleets close for them to do that. So this just isn't something I want to add - I think it's far too complex for the limited benefit it might bring.
I usually go big ships first, then small ships.  (Deploy battleships, close, open, deploy smaller stuff.)  It gets annoying when my small ships die before my big ships even enter fog-of-war radius of a fight.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Caymon Joestar on November 05, 2020, 03:40:35 PM
Quote
HYBRID, COMPOSITE, SYNERGY, and UNIVERSAL are now supported weapon types
Fit into that type of slot, or into a slot of a matching primary type
E.G a HYBRID weapon fits into a hybrid, ballistic, or energy slot, but not into a synergy slot

So question about this, would it be possible to have like a tag in the weapons’ csv that could prevent weapons like these from being placed in the primary slots? I know there’s some people on discord who would like composite weapons that could only be used in the composite slot.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 05, 2020, 03:58:20 PM
Ah, sorry, that's not really possible... at least, not super easily! The idea here is literally the opposite - to make the weapon type less restrictive, not more.

(I'm also not really sold that having this as a restriction makes a ton of sense, since generally speaking those types of slots are pretty rare, so weapons requiring them severely limits where they can be used.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Avanitia on November 05, 2020, 05:21:44 PM
Quote
Added "auto_fighter" tag; only fighters with it can be installed on player-fleet automated ships
Added "auto_rec" tag; UNBOARDABLE ships with it can be recovered by the player fleet with the proper skill

Do Wasps and Mining Pods have the "auto_fighter" tag?

How do "auto_rec" and "auto_fighter" tags interact - when putting the fighter game checks for presence of "auto_rec" on ship and then check the wing for "auto_fighter"?

Question related to mods:
Can I make a hullmod that will nullifies the "auto_fighter" tag requirement (makes all fighters require 0 crew but gives debuffs to fighters)?
Say I have a ship with 0 crew capacity and want it to accept only drone fighters, I assume I'd have to reference auto_fighter tag in hullmod code to make it accept only drone wings?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Caymon Joestar on November 05, 2020, 05:37:29 PM
Ah, sorry, that's not really possible... at least, not super easily! The idea here is literally the opposite - to make the weapon type less restrictive, not more.

(I'm also not really sold that having this as a restriction makes a ton of sense, since generally speaking those types of slots are pretty rare, so weapons requiring them severely limits where they can be used.)

Ah I see rip. The idea behind it that you could have a weapon that while not able to used by every ship, could be potentially more potent (I.e More powerful) for ships that can take advantage of it. And I figured by using a tag, it would be possible to keep the way you’re doing it while letting those who may not want a say specific hybrid weapon they add to be as accessible to be more restricted. If that makes sense.

Tho personally, letting hybrid and etc into primary slots feels weird since while I’m not really into like the lore or logistics of ships, if I put like say as an example a hybrid light assault gun that instead of physical bullets, it shoots lasers like those from a small pulse turret. Wouldn’t it thematically make sense for it require a hybrid slot as it uses both ballistic and energy “supplies/components” as composed to one or the other?  Might just be me on this one tho.

But if it’s not something you can do super easily, then it’s fine, not gonna force you. Already interested in seeing how the new exotic weapons and ships function in the next update
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 05, 2020, 05:58:49 PM
Do Wasps and Mining Pods have the "auto_fighter" tag?

They do!

How do "auto_rec" and "auto_fighter" tags interact - when putting the fighter game checks for presence of "auto_rec" on ship and then check the wing for "auto_fighter"?

They don't interact at all, actually. auto_fighter is based on he presence of the "automated" hullmod on the ship, not the auto_rec tag. The auto_rec tag is purely for whether it's recoverable.

Question related to mods:
Can I make a hullmod that will nullifies the "auto_fighter" tag requirement (makes all fighters require 0 crew but gives debuffs to fighters)?
Say I have a ship with 0 crew capacity and want it to accept only drone fighters, I assume I'd have to reference auto_fighter tag in hullmod code to make it accept only drone wings?

The answer is no, I think. Firstly because I don't think there is a way for hullmods to make the ship's fighters require no crew (?), but also because this is handled via tags on the fighter wing/whether the "automated" hullmod is there. I suppose if you worked out a way to add the "automated" hullmod to the ship, perhaps?

For the second part, the thing to do would be make sure the ship has the "automated" hullmod. But iirc that'd also make it not-transfer-command-to-able...

Ah I see rip. The idea behind it that you could have a weapon that while not able to used by every ship, could be potentially more potent (I.e More powerful) for ships that can take advantage of it. And I figured by using a tag, it would be possible to keep the way you’re doing it while letting those who may not want a say specific hybrid weapon they add to be as accessible to be more restricted. If that makes sense.

Hmm, yeah. I'm not sure that's actually a great way to balance it, though, since ships with composite etc slots are not designed with that in mind, you know? The existence of weapons like that is basically a buff to composite (or whatever) slot ships, in terms of balance, then.

Tho personally, letting hybrid and etc into primary slots feels weird since while I’m not really into like the lore or logistics of ships, if I put like say as an example a hybrid light assault gun that instead of physical bullets, it shoots lasers like those from a small pulse turret. Wouldn’t it thematically make sense for it require a hybrid slot as it uses both ballistic and energy “supplies/components” as composed to one or the other?  Might just be me on this one tho.

Well... for the vanilla weapons that use this, the reasoning is rather that they can be adapted into either of the slot types! Though I see what you're saying, for sure. But also, something like the Mjolnir - ballistic type, but firing energy bolts. Basically, it's as flexible as it needs to be, lore-wise :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Caymon Joestar on November 05, 2020, 07:14:27 PM

Ah I see rip. The idea behind it that you could have a weapon that while not able to used by every ship, could be potentially more potent (I.e More powerful) for ships that can take advantage of it. And I figured by using a tag, it would be possible to keep the way you’re doing it while letting those who may not want a say specific hybrid weapon they add to be as accessible to be more restricted. If that makes sense.

Hmm, yeah. I'm not sure that's actually a great way to balance it, though, since ships with composite etc slots are not designed with that in mind, you know? The existence of weapons like that is basically a buff to composite (or whatever) slot ships, in terms of balance, then.

Tho personally, letting hybrid and etc into primary slots feels weird since while I’m not really into like the lore or logistics of ships, if I put like say as an example a hybrid light assault gun that instead of physical bullets, it shoots lasers like those from a small pulse turret. Wouldn’t it thematically make sense for it require a hybrid slot as it uses both ballistic and energy “supplies/components” as composed to one or the other?  Might just be me on this one tho.

Well... for the vanilla weapons that use this, the reasoning is rather that they can be adapted into either of the slot types! Though I see what you're saying, for sure. But also, something like the Mjolnir - ballistic type, but firing energy bolts. Basically, it's as flexible as it needs to be, lore-wise :)

1. Well obviously the slot type shouldn’t be the only factor in balancing of secondary weapon types (Prob easier to call them this than composite and etc) but it wouldn’t (and shouldn’t ) be like 100% better than an a primary type weapon either. If say you or a modder wanted to add an dual light machine gun that in addition to say dealing slightly more dmg (like 5% more) it could periodically release swarmer srms (Like the fighter’s not the normal one) in exchange for costing 10% more flux and a OP increase of 1, it could make for an potential side grade option to a normal dual light machine gun for a ship that can use it. Prob not the best example on my part to prove my point.!

Tho you are right in that any current ships with the secondary weapons slots would be getting a indirect buff but in vanilla case, I don’t think it would have too much of an impact on the balance unless the weapon itself is broken as hell.

2. Makes sense.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 05, 2020, 07:21:50 PM
Yeah - I guess the way I'm seeing it, it feels like adding cool new weapons! But then they're really restricted so you can't use them except on a very few specific ships. It's just, composite (etc) slots are not common enough, I don't think, to successfully use as a restriction like this. I could see this working better as part of a faction whose ships were focused on composite (etc) slots, though, hmm.

(But, yeah, these are kind of idle thoughts anyway; can't really too easily pull this off. Plus it'd be confusing for the player if the behavior between different "composite" weapons differed so drastically, so there'd be presentation issues to resolve as well.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Retry on November 05, 2020, 07:32:15 PM
Quote
The answer is no, I think. Firstly because I don't think there is a way for hullmods to make the ship's fighters require no crew (?), but also because this is handled via tags on the fighter wing/whether the "automated" hullmod is there. I suppose if you worked out a way to add the "automated" hullmod to the ship, perhaps?

For the second part, the thing to do would be make sure the ship has the "automated" hullmod. But iirc that'd also make it not-transfer-command-to-able...
Tangentially related follow-up, mostly for modding

For the auto_fighter tag and automated hullmod, is it the "Automated" hullmod specifically that has the code or whatever that's handling the "Uses Drones Only" part?  If so, would it be possible to, say, copy part of that "Automated" hullmod that does the "Uses Drones Only" part (but not the other stuff associated the "Automated" hullmod), and have that as its own separate hullmod?

The use-case would be as a built-in for making modular non-Remnant "Drone Carriers," with some flexibility in terms of wing loadout over built-in wings (Shepherd's Borers, Tempest's Terminators), but not as much flexibility as a "full" carrier (which can have manned fighters like Broadswords).  For example, a "Drone Battlecarrier" frigate around 9-6 DP, with fairly solid capabilities with its main gun in addition to having a modular built-in drone bay.  Kinda like a beefed-up mid-tech or high-tech Shepherd?

EDIT: Actually, that Drone Battlecarrier concept could be pretty interesting in Vanilla Starsector.  Think I'll open a new topic in Suggestions too.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 05, 2020, 08:10:38 PM
Ah - it's currently just checking for the presence of the "automated" hullmod, so, pretty much hardcoded.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Avanitia on November 05, 2020, 08:45:00 PM
They don't interact at all, actually. auto_fighter is based on the presence of the "automated" hullmod on the ship, not the auto_rec tag. The auto_rec tag is purely for whether it's recoverable.

Got it, makes sense.

The answer is no, I think. Firstly because I don't think there is a way for hullmods to make the ship's fighters require no crew (?), but also because this is handled via tags on the fighter wing/whether the "automated" hullmod is there. I suppose if you worked out a way to add the "automated" hullmod to the ship, perhaps?

For the second part, the thing to do would be make sure the ship has the "automated" hullmod. But iirc that'd also make it not-transfer-command-to-able...

First thing was more of "is this even doable", just an idle thought really.
As for second part, that's unfortunate - I guess only way to make it controllable by player and reject crewed wings would be a hacky hullmod that checks required crew per fighter.
Oh well. Thanks for answering my questions.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 05, 2020, 09:03:16 PM
Ah, you know what, with the new stuff, it could actually be not-hacky! You could have a hullmod add a FighterOPCostModifier (new thing) to the ship's MutableShipStatsAPI and have it up the OP cost of crewed fighters to something very high. But then the high-OP fighters would be listed first, so that's kind of bad.

... but that's an easy fix! Just made it so that fighters costing 1000 OP or more show up last in the list, have no text for the OP cost, and instead of the gray "ordnance points" label, show a red "not installable" label. I think this really covers it pretty well, along with any other what-kind-of-fighter-can-be-installed-on-what cases.

(Edit: let me make it 10000, just to be on the safe side. I don't *think* there'd be any fighters costing that much, or ships that could afford it, but juuuust in case.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on November 05, 2020, 09:24:40 PM
I don't see an issue with automated carriers launching manned fighters.
Hi - this actually isn't a bug and can happen in a few cases. What it means is a militarized Prometheus Mk.II requires some auxiliary support (for additional crew capacity) to function. In terms of an in-fiction explanation, crews have to rotate off the ship during off-duty hours, life support systems are strained, etc - it's a bit of a mess in there :)

Question: can some type of sufficiently important factional contacts broker ceasefires between players and factions? After said factions are exhausted enough, that is  :P
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on November 06, 2020, 12:34:01 AM
Alex, can you make that non-installable thing work for weapons, too? I also find it amusing that you think there might be 1000+ OP fighters in the modiverse.

Super flexible weapons, I think, aren't going to be much fun, since weapons are defined by contrasting qualities. Both synergy and composite weapons would have to have qualities that aren't desirable to low tech or high tech ships. Hybrid weapons would probably be useful for low tech ships only as SO guns. The idea in general sounds like a pain in the neck to keep both interesting and balanced.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on November 06, 2020, 04:12:15 AM
I don't see an issue with automated carriers launching manned fighters.
Hi - this actually isn't a bug and can happen in a few cases. What it means is a militarized Prometheus Mk.II requires some auxiliary support (for additional crew capacity) to function. In terms of an in-fiction explanation, crews have to rotate off the ship during off-duty hours, life support systems are strained, etc - it's a bit of a mess in there :)


Some ships + hullmods getting strained beyond sustainably supporting their crew without support doesn't seem like a good reason to handwave away restrictions for ships that aren't supposed to have any provisions for crew at all.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Dri on November 06, 2020, 10:14:11 AM
What video card do you have now Alex?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 06, 2020, 12:34:04 PM
Question: can some type of sufficiently important factional contacts broker ceasefires between players and factions? After said factions are exhausted enough, that is  :P

Not at the moment, no.

Alex, can you make that non-installable thing work for weapons, too? I also find it amusing that you think there might be 1000+ OP fighters in the modiverse.

Ah, good call - did that!

(You mean there aren't? I'm disappointed.)

Super flexible weapons, I think, aren't going to be much fun, since weapons are defined by contrasting qualities. Both synergy and composite weapons would have to have qualities that aren't desirable to low tech or high tech ships. Hybrid weapons would probably be useful for low tech ships only as SO guns. The idea in general sounds like a pain in the neck to keep both interesting and balanced.

It's trickier, for sure, but I don't think the specifics are quite as you say. E.G. a hypothetical "hybrid" type weapon might be very useful in an energy slot if it did kinetic damage, or useful in a ballistic slot if it did EMP damage, and so on. It just depends on which way they lean compared to what's usually available for those slots. They'll probably lean one way or another in terms of net usefulness, though, but if they offer some degree of flexibility or utility they could be worthwhile on different types of ships.

What video card do you have now Alex?

GeForce RTX 2080 (as of a couple of years ago, I forget what I had before that point, but also NVIDIA); why do you ask?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Wyvern on November 06, 2020, 01:12:03 PM
Super flexible weapons, I think, aren't going to be much fun, since weapons are defined by contrasting qualities. Both synergy and composite weapons would have to have qualities that aren't desirable to low tech or high tech ships. Hybrid weapons would probably be useful for low tech ships only as SO guns. The idea in general sounds like a pain in the neck to keep both interesting and balanced.

It's trickier, for sure, but I don't think the specifics are quite as you say. E.G. a hypothetical "hybrid" type weapon might be very useful in an energy slot if it did kinetic damage, or useful in a ballistic slot if it did EMP damage, and so on. It just depends on which way they lean compared to what's usually available for those slots. They'll probably lean one way or another in terms of net usefulness, though, but if they offer some degree of flexibility or utility they could be worthwhile on different types of ships.
Yup! Can verify - while I don't think I'd ever use a (vanilla) medium energy weapon in a hybrid or universal slot, the antimatter blaster, ion cannon, and tachyon lance are all weapons that I have used in such slots; ballistic weaponry simply doesn't have anything that fits the same niches.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AsterPiano on November 06, 2020, 03:59:15 PM
Alex, can you make that non-installable thing work for weapons, too? I also find it amusing that you think there might be 1000+ OP fighters in the modiverse.

Ah, good call - did that!

(You mean there aren't? I'm disappointed.)
There are at least mod ships (though only cheat level ships afaik) with 1000+ OP in the modiverse
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SafariJohn on November 06, 2020, 06:00:34 PM
Alex, can you make that non-installable thing work for weapons, too? I also find it amusing that you think there might be 1000+ OP fighters in the modiverse.

Ah, good call - did that!

(You mean there aren't? I'm disappointed.)

We need a Joke-class carrier and Lethal-class super fighter, stat!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on November 06, 2020, 09:41:00 PM
... can we have a Mudskipper Mk III that has a built in Onslaught wing (of 4)? That should be worth 1000 OP...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on November 07, 2020, 12:29:55 AM
 :D

..mhh..

Joking aside, it would be pretty cool to fight such a constellation. Some big baddy you have little chance to kill but you can oumaneuver, and it's little squishy companion you have to get at to end the fight. It could be the control unit or energy source or dimensional anchor or whatever.
Would really give you a reason to pilot an elite frigate instead of a battleship.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CrashToDesktop on November 07, 2020, 12:46:31 AM
:D

..mhh..

Joking aside, it would be pretty cool to fight such a constellation. Some big baddy you have little chance to kill but you can oumaneuver, and it's little squishy companion you have to get at to end the fight. It could be the control unit or energy source or dimensional anchor or whatever.
Would really give you a reason to pilot an elite frigate instead of a battleship.
Ah, reminds me of Wilbur from Darkest Dungeon.  That diminutive swine directing the mountainous mass of flesh that is the Swing King has caused untimely end of more adventurers than any other boss in the game, I wager.

I wouldn't say no to more interesting and engaging mechanics like that.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on November 07, 2020, 01:59:59 AM
:D

..mhh..

Joking aside, it would be pretty cool to fight such a constellation. Some big baddy you have little chance to kill but you can oumaneuver, and it's little squishy companion you have to get at to end the fight. It could be the control unit or energy source or dimensional anchor or whatever.
Would really give you a reason to pilot an elite frigate instead of a battleship.
Ah, reminds me of Wilbur from Darkest Dungeon.  That diminutive swine directing the mountainous mass of flesh that is the Swing King has caused untimely end of more adventurers than any other boss in the game, I wager.

I wouldn't say no to more interesting and engaging mechanics like that.

ENRAGED DESTRUCTION INTENSIFIES
Spoiler
https://youtu.be/AOEbfbehh9E (https://youtu.be/AOEbfbehh9E)
[close]

Edit: let me expand on this reply before it gets nuked for the spam it is.

:D

..mhh..

Joking aside, it would be pretty cool to fight such a constellation. Some big baddy you have little chance to kill but you can oumaneuver, and it's little squishy companion you have to get at to end the fight. It could be the control unit or energy source or dimensional anchor or whatever.
Would really give you a reason to pilot an elite frigate instead of a battleship.

I'd rather have vanilla starsector come around and start introducing ships providing buffs to nearby allied units/debuffs to nearby enemies instead. There are many, many examples but the most straightforward one coming to ming right now is a ship pairing from Tahlan shipworks (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=14935.0) resulting in one of the strongest capital ship alternatives in the modiverse (I took a screenshot of the forum before you ask, I'm that lazy):
(https://i.imgur.com/Y5ppS5Q.png)
Both Yukikaze and Korikaze have blink as a special skill, nearby Korikaze Drones (up to two) buff the Yukikaze's mobility and weapon range by a very significant amount while the mothership buffs the smaller drones in return aswell. The whole formation is worth 48 Fleet Points (Cruiser is 32, escort drones are 8 each) and they are so mobile they can actually roflstomp X number of Onslaughts by themselves provided they're given long range weapons, since the latter battleships aren't nearly mobile enough to keep up with it and get in weapon range, even with burn drive.

It would not have to be something nearly as combat related as that really. I would raid Jangala thrice over if there was even a slightest chance of getting a capital that boosts allied frigade/destroyer Peak Performance Time.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on November 07, 2020, 09:06:03 PM
For Frigate PPT Extender, why create separate ships instead of hullmod for carriers which does that?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on November 08, 2020, 12:31:01 AM
... can we have a Mudskipper Mk III that has a built in Onslaught wing (of 4)? That should be worth 1000 OP...

You joke but this would be an effective way to make stations dangerous without being really annoying to fight.

That is, you give them enough DP cost so that they have to deploy by themselves or only with a very small retinue. But they also have “fighters” that are just like... destroyers or cruisers or frigates. Such that they “always” have a core of a defensive fleet you have to work around.

Hardest part would be getting the AI right on the “fighters” and dealing with the overlapping issues.

 
the Heavy Needler is actually even preferrable to some large ballistic weapons on ships with poor flux dissipation like the Onslaught, where its best, vanilla-only setups usually involve two heavy Needlers slapped to the side, into the large ballistic slots
Your onslaughts should absolutely never put heavy needlers in the large ballistic slots. It’s a very bad idea. You have medium slots to put them in
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on November 08, 2020, 05:18:40 AM
Your onslaughts should absolutely never put heavy needlers in the large ballistic slots. It’s a very bad idea. You have medium slots to put them in

How so? The ship still does not have heavy ballistic integration and while it possesses plenty of OP for almost everything you want to give it the mediocre flux dissipation hardcaps it's sustained offensive capability. Choosing the most expensive, most flux efficient kinetic weapon with just 100 less range than the Heavy autocannon will both give you more OP for other stuff and render the ship a lot more capable of using the entirety of it's weaponry when in the hands of the AI, especially against things like Tri-Tachyon and [Redacted] with incredibly hard shields and vast flux capacity to punch through.

I personally prefer the triple Devastator Cannon+HVDs+Pilums Onslaught to both be a Point Defence beast of a ship and still put firepower down range, but an Onslaught with a single gauss cannon at the front, all ballistic medium slots pointing forward with a heavy Needler in and quad harpoon MRMs just eats thru high tech opponents like a lawnmower thru grass, especially if your fleet has overwhelming ECM rating forcing the enemy in range.

Edit: will heavy Needler spam still be viable in 0.95a? Probably not, but I still find it much more preferable to installing any large kinetic weapon on the side mounts. The only two large weapons you should every consider installing on the side large mounts of an Onslaught are either Hellbore or Devastator, anything more expensive will either not fire 50% of the time or eat so many ordinance points you'll be forced to make significant cuts anywhere else, like not installing anything in the 4 medium missile slots because even sacrificing a goat to Ludd before every battle still does not improve the ship's flux dissipation forcing a Flux Distributor, the poor handling making auxiliary thursters the only thing between the Onslaught and a non-consentual colonoscopy or the mediocre shield making 5 Tach Lance Radiants giggle uncontrollably if you don't have enough OP left for Hardened shields.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on November 08, 2020, 05:51:06 AM
Onslaught is flux starved.  Heavy Needler in the center heavy mount is not a bad idea if going for a dedicated anti-shield loadout (against something like Radiant).  Three heavy needlers in the mediums is not quite enough anti-shield against a Radiant.  Four is better.

Mark IX is not efficient enough (and inaccurate without Gunnery Implants), and Storm Needler does not have enough range.  Sometimes, Heavy Needler is the best kinetic in a heavy ballistics mount.

If Conquest did not have Heavy Ballistics Integration, I would use Heavy Needler instead of Mark IX on Conquest.

Sometimes, on Dominator or Legion, I use Mjolnir and Heavy Needler (in the heavy mount) instead of HAG and Mark IX.

Quote
Edit: will heavy Needler spam still be viable in 0.95a? Probably not, but I still find it much more preferable to installing any large kinetic weapon on the side mounts.
Remember that Alex may make Mark IX more efficient, and Onslaught will get Heavy Ballistics Integration.  Also, the side mounts will have their arcs changed (shortened if I remember).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on November 08, 2020, 06:01:57 AM
Remember that Alex may make Mark IX more efficient, and Onslaught will get Heavy Ballistics Integration.  Also, the side mounts will have their arcs changed (shortened if I remember)
Aye, I wrote that phrase precisely because Onslaught is getting those changes. Heavy autocannon also needs the love Alex is likely going to give it. That flux to damage ratio for a supposedly rugged weapon on the low tech side more or less butchers its widespread use.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on November 08, 2020, 06:28:09 AM
Remember that Alex may make Mark IX more efficient, and Onslaught will get Heavy Ballistics Integration.  Also, the side mounts will have their arcs changed (shortened if I remember)
Aye, I wrote that phrase precisely because Onslaught is getting those changes. Heavy autocannon also needs the love Alex is likely going to give it. That flux to damage ratio for a supposedly rugged weapon on the low tech side more or less butchers its widespread use.
Heavy Autocannon's efficiency may not be the best (at 1.0), but it is not terrible.  The worst part of Heavy Autocannon is the accuracy (and it turns a bit slow).  We already have a better Heavy Autocannon - the Heavy Needler.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on November 08, 2020, 06:43:43 AM
Heavy Autocannon's efficiency may not be the best (at 1.0), but it is not terrible.  The worst part of Heavy Autocannon is the accuracy (and it turns a bit slow).  We already have a better Heavy Autocannon - the Heavy Needler.
The poor accuracy is a passable trait given the fact it's meant for shields AND that it does very, very good damage per shot, allowing it to be an OK option to also strip armor on destroyers and below.
Residual hull armor will also barely do anything to the Heavy Autocannon's damage on hull as opposed to weapons like Heavy/Storm Needler wich really start to struggle against capital grade hulls.

Improving the HA's flux to damage ratio from the current 1.13 (or was it 1.15) to something like 0.9, therefore turning into a somewhat implied evolution of the Arbalest Autocannon (that grew into a large slot) would see it being employed much more effectively in the sector, namely Luddic Church, Hegemony and of course, Pirates. Improving the accuracy instead would only make it a tad more viable on ships with a lot of excess flux like the Conquest and very little anywhere else.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on November 08, 2020, 09:20:36 AM
Will there be story point based toolbar abilities, like Go Dark but even stealthier or Emergency Burn but even faster?

What are the most interesting new skills?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Ryan390 on November 08, 2020, 11:01:48 AM
Are we expecting an update this month or next month potentially? (rough ideas)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Toxcity on November 08, 2020, 11:12:03 AM
The current estimate is February next year.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on November 08, 2020, 11:20:54 AM
How so? The ship still does not have heavy ballistic integration and while it possesses plenty of OP for almost everything you want to give it the mediocre flux dissipation hardcaps it's sustained offensive capability.

Because ships still need a reason to keep their shields up and heavy needlers do not do that. 

As a result you need some explosive or energy damage and as it happens there two efficient and effective HE weapons you can fit, either the HAG or the Hellbore. Because they are, by far, the most OP and Flux efficient HE damage in the game.

Now, you could also fit a mark IX, which, as has been discussed, is far better than its stats suggest.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on November 08, 2020, 01:09:27 PM
The current estimate is February next year.


To clarify: That is community guesswork, nothing official.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Dri on November 08, 2020, 04:05:15 PM
Wasn't Megas keeping track of the the longest gap in time between patch notes release and then actual patch release? What is the average time between Alex posting notes and then release?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on November 08, 2020, 04:15:33 PM
Wasn't Megas keeping track of the the longest gap in time between patch notes release and then actual patch release? What is the average time between Alex posting notes and then release?
Not really.  I might have brought it up before, but others have posted charts and the like for greater precision.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zelnik on November 08, 2020, 05:39:31 PM
People having to resort to astrology to anticipate releases is not a good sign.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 08, 2020, 05:44:48 PM
... can we have a Mudskipper Mk III that has a built in Onslaught wing (of 4)? That should be worth 1000 OP...

(... ha!)

Joking aside, it would be pretty cool to fight such a constellation. Some big baddy you have little chance to kill but you can oumaneuver, and it's little squishy companion you have to get at to end the fight. It could be the control unit or energy source or dimensional anchor or whatever.
Would really give you a reason to pilot an elite frigate instead of a battleship.

Yeah, that sort of thing could be very neat! Have to be careful not to have it be tuned to the point where fighting the "dangerous" ships is entirely pointless, though; otherwise it steers into territory where it'd be really hard for the AI to handle.

Will there be story point based toolbar abilities, like Go Dark but even stealthier or Emergency Burn but even faster?

No - I think that'd just clutter things up as far as abilities are concerned. Something more momentous *could* make sense if it worked like that, but I'm not specifically planning on anything like that.

What are the most interesting new skills?

Hmm - there's a couple! Probably the one that lets you use REDACTED ships is high on that list.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Sabaton on November 08, 2020, 10:22:47 PM
Seems like everyone is talking about combat skills, but what about the others? Will those have elite levels too?
What could we expect from elite industry or logistics skills? Can we mentor admins too? How will admin cores function?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on November 08, 2020, 11:22:25 PM
Seems like everyone is talking about combat skills, but what about the others? Will those have elite levels too?
What could we expect from elite industry or logistics skills? Can we mentor admins too? How will admin cores function?
No, so far.

I've been asking Alex to add elite effects to Admins skills, don't know if he'll do.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: WooksterRu on November 09, 2020, 02:25:02 AM
I absolutely love reading the upcoming changes and updates to the game, starsector is proof that you don't need fancy 3D graphics to make a amazing game. I just hope I don't die of old age before the games full release haha. I'm sure the quality and possibilities will be endless :D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on November 09, 2020, 07:02:17 AM
Considering that combat skills can be elited because they disproportionately depend on player skill, I doubt other skills will be. Might as well remove eliting entirely and just make it so that all skills cost a skill point and a story point.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on November 09, 2020, 08:17:58 AM
Considering that combat skills can be elited because they disproportionately depend on player skill, I doubt other skills will be. Might as well remove eliting entirely and just make it so that all skills cost a skill point and a story point.
Most recent answer from Alex is this.

Hi - welcome to the forum, and glad you've been enjoying the game!

It's close what what SCC said, yeah - the "elite" skill levels are mainly there to give the player a "special" bonus for picking something that only affects their piloted ship, so that you can feel like you're getting something you wouldn't get just from a high-level officer, and so that you can feel that - even with relatively few combat points spent - that your character is a capable pilot; in some ways more capable than the officers under your command. And by requiring story points to unlock these - instead of making them just player-only portions of skill effects - it makes this feel more earned.

This really applies even if you're using autopilot, though you'd naturally get more value out of it depending on how much personal piloting you do and how well you do it.

Non-combat skills don't face the same situation where lots of NPCs visibly have them, and you're comparing your character against them - I mean, admins have some of them, and fleet commanders have some some of the fleetwide skills, but it's much more minor - so there's not much point to locking some of the effects behind a story point. Basically, it's less a progression system for skills and more a way of gating access to some of the effects, and this, imo, only really makes sense for combat skills.

Plus, for combat skills, the "elite" effects are usually something cool and particularly powerful, which is easier to get away with because it's still just one ship. For fleetwide/colony skills, the effects would have to be much more restrained, so it wouldn't be as exciting and would probably just feel like a story point "tax" to unlock the full value of the skills.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: IonDragonX on November 09, 2020, 08:30:04 AM
Considering that combat skills can be elited because they disproportionately depend on player skill, I doubt other skills will be. Might as well remove eliting entirely and just make it so that all skills cost a skill point and a story point.
I predict that a mod will be made for that!
I absolutely love reading the upcoming changes and updates to the game, starsector is proof that you don't need fancy 3D graphics to make a amazing game. I just hope I don't die of old age before the games full release haha. I'm sure the quality and possibilities will be endless :D
I agree that gameplay makes good games, not graphics. You shouldn't worry about your demise, tho. You need to be praying that Alex doesn't pull a "Robert Jordan" on us...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 09, 2020, 10:02:27 AM
Seems like everyone is talking about combat skills, but what about the others? Will those have elite levels too?
What could we expect from elite industry or logistics skills? Can we mentor admins too? How will admin cores function?
Considering that combat skills can be elited because they disproportionately depend on player skill, I doubt other skills will be. Might as well remove eliting entirely and just make it so that all skills cost a skill point and a story point.
Most recent answer from Alex is this.
...

In addition to that - which is a very big part of it, for sure - the way things are set up is investing in each aptitude gives you more ways to spend story points. For Leadership it's on officers, for Technology it's on ships/AI core captains, for Industry it's (potentially) on more colonies. It's not exactly split 100% equally, but that's the general idea. And, of course, for Combat the extra points are spent on the elite levels of the skills.

More specifically as far as admins/AI core admins, there's no way to spent story points on buffing them up. You can however spend story points on directly improving colonies. To me it feels like getting too detailed with admins etc is not super interesting - it's just so removed from actual gameplay - and a more direct way of just buffing colonies feels better. On the other hand, the AI cores that pilot REDACTED ships in your fleet *can* be improved via a story point in their own unique way!

I absolutely love reading the upcoming changes and updates to the game, starsector is proof that you don't need fancy 3D graphics to make a amazing game. I just hope I don't die of old age before the games full release haha. I'm sure the quality and possibilities will be endless :D

Thank you! And, haha, I'll do my best to ensure that doesn't happen :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on November 09, 2020, 05:51:47 PM
Any plans for new Derelict and [REDACTED] ships?
Has the time needed for Pathers to launch an attack increased?

Please make logistical hullmods built in with story points not count towards the two hullmod limit.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: RustyCabbage on November 09, 2020, 11:43:08 PM
Quote
13 new special weapons specific to this enemy
Random thought - are these weapons going to be hidden from the out-of-campaign missions (unlike say, Sparks and other [REDACTED] fighters)? I'd hate to accidentally spoil myself if I decided to jump in there for whatever reason.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Omega_Pi_X on November 10, 2020, 12:13:49 AM
(quote)
Random thought - are these weapons going to be hidden from the out-of-campaign missions (unlike say, Sparks and other [REDACTED] fighters)? I'd hate to accidentally spoil myself if I decided to jump in there for whatever reason.

Perhaps there could be a variable check based on whether or not the player has a save file where they have encountered anything [REDACTED] in the campaign, and only what they have seen of the [REDACTED] in the campaign appears in not just the missions, but also the codex.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on November 10, 2020, 02:21:25 AM
Quote
13 new special weapons specific to this enemy
Random thought - are these weapons going to be hidden from the out-of-campaign missions (unlike say, Sparks and other [REDACTED] fighters)? I'd hate to accidentally spoil myself if I decided to jump in there for whatever reason.

My guess is that this new enemy is absolutely ginormous and actually has all those 13 new weapons on it. If it's [Redacted] then it's probably going to be a tad bigger than the brilliant and probably also sport some hangar bays to launch fighters unique to the ship.

That said, I would love something completely new, like a melee-focused bioship? I wonder if Alex ever played Battlefleet Gothic Armada II...
Spoiler
Skip to 1:115 for the Nom Nom ship, altough the trailer is so damn good I'd watch it all if I were you!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVghX8opHJU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVghX8opHJU)
[close]

P.S: Almost forgot about the fact it could be Dominion. That'd be amazing!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 10, 2020, 09:13:16 AM
Quote
13 new special weapons specific to this enemy
Random thought - are these weapons going to be hidden from the out-of-campaign missions (unlike say, Sparks and other [REDACTED] fighters)? I'd hate to accidentally spoil myself if I decided to jump in there for whatever reason.

Oh, hey, that's a great point! They definitely shouldn't show up there (and already don't show in the codex), but I forgot about the missions aspect of it. Done.

Perhaps there could be a variable check based on whether or not the player has a save file where they have encountered anything [REDACTED] in the campaign, and only what they have seen of the [REDACTED] in the campaign appears in not just the missions, but also the codex.

That might make sense, yeah - I'll have to take another look at this when I finally get around to updating the Codex! I wouldn't want to do anything halfbaked about it now since it'd likely be wasted effort in the long term.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: eltharion on November 11, 2020, 01:41:46 AM
I am eager to try the new version, I have read that there are many new features, great.
Thank you for the work you and your two collaborators are investing in this Pearl.

I won't ask when the new version will be released, because I guess it will only be when it's ready.

Thank you.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zelnik on November 11, 2020, 08:32:51 AM
So are the changes listed on the changelog things that HAVE BEEN or WILL BE changed?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on November 11, 2020, 08:40:49 AM
So are the changes listed on the changelog things that HAVE BEEN or WILL BE changed?
Have been.
And the changelog gets updated at least twice.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 11, 2020, 09:09:46 AM
I am eager to try the new version, I have read that there are many new features, great.
Thank you for the work you and your two collaborators are investing in this Pearl.

Thank you!

I won't ask when the new version will be released, because I guess it will only be when it's ready.

... and thank you :)


So are the changes listed on the changelog things that HAVE BEEN or WILL BE changed?
Have been.

(Yep, correct!)

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Ryan390 on November 11, 2020, 09:30:56 AM
Hey Alex honest question.. do you foresee the release of Cyberpunk in December having any impact on the cycle time of updates / future releases?
I remember reading in an interview you had that you play a lot of video games.. will Cyberpunk be one of them?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 11, 2020, 10:42:58 AM
Hey Alex honest question.. do you foresee the release of Cyberpunk in December having any impact on the cycle time of updates / future releases?
I remember reading in an interview you had that you play a lot of video games.. will Cyberpunk be one of them?

Honest answer! I don't play "a lot of video games", rather, I occasionally play a specific video game *a lot*. Cyberpunk isn't one I'm at all interested in, so it won't have any impact. Generally it's not AAA stuff I gravitate to, anyway; I think the main AAA I've played in recent memory is SC2. Nothing against AAA in general, btw, t's just usually not my cup of tea.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on November 11, 2020, 10:54:33 AM
Hey Alex honest question.. do you foresee the release of Cyberpunk in December having any impact on the cycle time of updates / future releases?
I remember reading in an interview you had that you play a lot of video games.. will Cyberpunk be one of them?

Honest answer! I don't play "a lot of video games", rather, I occasionally play a specific video game *a lot*. Cyberpunk isn't one I'm at all interested in, so it won't have any impact. Generally it's not AAA stuff I gravitate to, anyway; I think the main AAA I've played in recent memory is SC2. Nothing against AAA in general, btw, t's just usually not my cup of tea.

I can sense a fellow Noita addict.

Just one more run, maybe I won't blow myself up with my own wand this time

Seriously speaking tough, I see just how much you're involved here in this forum and I'd assume you spend double that time doing dev stuff. The only worry I have (considering I've got some dev friends) is overworking and not going outside to catch some of that vitamin D, assuming you can do that whenever you live :)

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on November 11, 2020, 06:46:24 PM
Alex, for 1.0.0, how many in-game years do you want an average game  from beginning to endgame to last?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Albreo on November 12, 2020, 12:37:33 AM
Honest answer! I don't play "a lot of video games", rather, I occasionally play a specific video game *a lot*. Cyberpunk isn't one I'm at all interested in, so it won't have any impact. Generally it's not AAA stuff I gravitate to, anyway; I think the main AAA I've played in recent memory is SC2. Nothing against AAA in general, btw, t's just usually not my cup of tea.

That's probably why everybody is here, in this forum... majority lol. Indie games usually are more complex and unique due to the absurd amount of years spent in developing it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Sabaton on November 12, 2020, 11:18:01 AM
Lmao at all the new players getting impatient........at least you have a mostly completed game with lots of stuff to do.
Back in the day the game had just one system and nothing but combat.
Mark my words: 1.0 in 2022.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Retry on November 12, 2020, 12:17:45 PM
Oh, thought of a potentially interesting question.  How are the theoretical composite/hybrid/synergy weapons going to interact with existing weapon-specific ship systems, hullmods, and other stuff?  Ex: Will a "Hybrid" weapon count as a Ballistic for the purpose of the Hammerhead's Accelerated Ammunition Feed, as an Energy for the purpose of the Sunder's High Energy Focus, or neither?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 12, 2020, 12:31:24 PM
Alex, for 1.0.0, how many in-game years do you want an average game  from beginning to endgame to last?

Hmm, it really depends on the player - people have different preferences, and even the same person is likely to have different preferences in different playthroughs. I don't think this is a case where the average means a whole lot.

Oh, thought of a potentially interesting question.  How are the theoretical composite/hybrid/synergy weapons going to interact with existing weapon-specific ship systems, hullmods, and other stuff?  Ex: Will a "Hybrid" weapon count as a Ballistic for the purpose of the Hammerhead's Accelerated Ammunition Feed, as an Energy for the purpose of the Sunder's High Energy Focus, or neither?

It depends on the weapon! A "primary" type is specified in the .wpn file (and shown in the tooltip), and that's used for modifiers like that.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SafariJohn on November 12, 2020, 03:23:34 PM
So we'll be seeing a 1 OP Universal weapon in vanilla, right? Right? ;D

EDIT: Is it required to set the primary type for HYBRID/SYNERGY/COMPOSITE/UNIVERSAL weapons?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 12, 2020, 04:54:03 PM
IIRC it's not required.

So we'll be seeing a 1 OP Universal weapon in vanilla, right? Right? ;D

Doubtful :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Sabaton on November 13, 2020, 04:07:47 AM
Alex, I know you're tight lipped on spoilers, but can you describe at least one of the new colony boosting items?

Will they be distributed among core colonies?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on November 13, 2020, 06:01:08 AM
Alex, I know you're tight lipped on spoilers, but can you describe at least one of the new colony boosting items?

Will they be distributed among core colonies?
https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/1210301167709937668
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Sabaton on November 13, 2020, 06:31:44 AM
Alex, I know you're tight lipped on spoilers, but can you describe at least one of the new colony boosting items?

Will they be distributed among core colonies?
https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/1210301167709937668

I know about that, but I'm asking about a description so we get more info than a gif.

And since the gif is about a portable star.... how about making starless systems a bit dim/dark? Maybe with [REDACTED] creeping around?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Harmful Mechanic on November 13, 2020, 07:48:09 AM
The weapon type stuff sounds like fun. I have a hard time thinking up weapons I'd actually want to straddle slot types (the closest I can think of is some kind of energy-missile or rocket-gun weapon), but knowing it's something I can do now fills me with glee.

I assume this is a decision that's linked to all the REDACTED special weapons you've been showing off?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Okawal on November 13, 2020, 09:24:20 AM
So after seeing the IR Pulse Laser flux cost reduction (and the general buff to energy weapons) i was thinking that maybe we hit the point were we can actually make Pulse Laser (Medium Size) a 1.0 flux/damage weapon.
As long Kinetic Damage is as good as it is right now it shouldn't affect the balance as much. Maybe you would switch out a HE Weapon for Pulse Laser(if you only face low armor targes).
Or does this cause energy weapons to become too efficient as a general purpose weapon? (as they get a -10% flux cost reduction [elite] AND a damage buff for short ranges / high flux levels skill)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on November 13, 2020, 09:29:11 AM
So after seeing the IR Pulse Laser flux cost reduction (and the general buff to energy weapons) i was thinking that maybe we hit the point were we can actually make Pulse Laser (Medium Size) a 1.0 flux/damage weapon.
As long Kinetic Damage is as good as it is right now it shouldn't affect the balance as much. Maybe you would switch out a HE Weapon for Pulse Laser(if you only face low armor targes).
Or does this cause energy weapons to become too efficient as a general purpose weapon? (as they get a -10% flux cost reduction [elite] AND a damage buff for short ranges / high flux levels skill)
Oh god yes please, let Wolf actually be capable of firing something and not overfluxing in 2 seconds.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on November 13, 2020, 09:51:31 AM
So after seeing the IR Pulse Laser flux cost reduction (and the general buff to energy weapons) i was thinking that maybe we hit the point were we can actually make Pulse Laser (Medium Size) a 1.0 flux/damage weapon.
As long Kinetic Damage is as good as it is right now it shouldn't affect the balance as much. Maybe you would switch out a HE Weapon for Pulse Laser(if you only face low armor targes).
Or does this cause energy weapons to become too efficient as a general purpose weapon? (as they get a -10% flux cost reduction [elite] AND a damage buff for short ranges / high flux levels skill)
Oh god yes please, let Wolf actually be capable of firing something and not overfluxing in 2 seconds.
Yes.  Pulse Laser is too inefficient, even if it is more efficient than Heavy Blaster.

I suppose there is Graviton Beam plus Advanced Optics and that new hard flux beam hullmods, which seems like too many hoops to jump through (plus something new characters will not have).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on November 13, 2020, 11:55:33 AM
IIRC it's not required.

So we'll be seeing a 1 OP Universal weapon in vanilla, right? Right? ;D

Doubtful :)

Ah, bugger. I guess my first 0.95a campaign whill have me feel extra painful for all those empty small mounts where a nice 1OP PD weapon could fit :P
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 13, 2020, 11:57:46 AM
Alex, I know you're tight lipped on spoilers, but can you describe at least one of the new colony boosting items?

Hmm. Well, one of them has "cryoarithmetic" in the name :)


.... how about making starless systems a bit dim/dark? Maybe with [REDACTED] creeping around?

They are darker already! Just not to the point where stuff would be super hard to see.


The weapon type stuff sounds like fun. I have a hard time thinking up weapons I'd actually want to straddle slot types (the closest I can think of is some kind of energy-missile or rocket-gun weapon), but knowing it's something I can do now fills me with glee.

I assume this is a decision that's linked to all the REDACTED special weapons you've been showing off?

... maybe.


So after seeing the IR Pulse Laser flux cost reduction (and the general buff to energy weapons) i was thinking that maybe we hit the point were we can actually make Pulse Laser (Medium Size) a 1.0 flux/damage weapon.
As long Kinetic Damage is as good as it is right now it shouldn't affect the balance as much. Maybe you would switch out a HE Weapon for Pulse Laser(if you only face low armor targes).
Or does this cause energy weapons to become too efficient as a general purpose weapon? (as they get a -10% flux cost reduction [elite] AND a damage buff for short ranges / high flux levels skill)

It might, but also I think the Pulse Laser is pretty good as-is - it's solid DPS and loadouts using it have a much easier time being flux-neutral on high-tech ships, which have generally better flux stats than ships using ballistics. Some of the help it's getting, actually, is from the new Breach missile existing.

The energy weapons skill might turn out to be too good overall, but we'll see :)


Oh god yes please, let Wolf actually be capable of firing something and not overfluxing in 2 seconds.

This is more of a Wolf thing - it has pretty poor dissipation, and trying to balance a medium energy weapon around this would be a mistake. That said, with the new autofire management AI changes, it can easily handle a Pulse Laser without running into any flux problems due to using it.

Ah, bugger. I guess my first 0.95a campaign whill have me feel extra painful for all those empty small mounts where a nice 1OP PD weapon could fit :P

Fair enough - but I'll just say that I don't see "having a 1 OP weapon that defaults into every empty small slot" as a good thing design-wise.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on November 13, 2020, 12:15:17 PM
Hmm. Well, one of them has "cryoarithmetic" in the name :)
Did you google what Landauer limit is or something?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Deshara on November 13, 2020, 05:29:25 PM
So we'll be seeing a 1 OP Universal weapon in vanilla, right? Right? ;D

EDIT: Is it required to set the primary type for HYBRID/SYNERGY/COMPOSITE/UNIVERSAL weapons?

idk why but something in my brain would be deeply pleased if the player has an infinite amount of 0 OP mining lasers or something & a "fill empty slots with mining lasers" button
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FooF on November 13, 2020, 05:35:41 PM
idk why but something in my brain would be deeply pleased if the player has an infinite amount of 0 OP mining lasers or something & a "fill empty slots with mining lasers" button

My brain would not. I think it would look patently absurd for a Dominator or Onslaught to be spewing lasers all over the place. I think a 0-OP "default" weapon creates more problems than it solves for both gameplay and aesthetics. I guess I don't have a need to fill every weapons slot, or to put it another way, there are justifiable reasons to leave slots empty.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Linnis on November 13, 2020, 10:54:57 PM

idk why but something in my brain would be deeply pleased if the player has an infinite amount of 0 OP mining lasers or something & a "fill empty slots with mining lasers" button

How about we have different weapon covers at 0 OP.

Jokes aside.

The only possibility I see that has some sense is to have multiple use functions for 0OP weapons. So players will have multiple options like flares, vents, armor, drones... etc like hull mods. But that already overlap. So maybe it could be a cool idea for mods.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Ishman on November 14, 2020, 01:02:06 PM
Hmm. Well, one of them has "cryoarithmetic" in the name :)
Did you google what Landauer limit is or something?

This is a Revelation Space reference. https://revelationspace.fandom.com/wiki/Cryo-arithmetic_engine (https://revelationspace.fandom.com/wiki/Cryo-arithmetic_engine)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on November 15, 2020, 04:36:51 AM
Ah, bugger. I guess my first 0.95a campaign whill have me feel extra painful for all those empty small mounts where a nice 1OP PD weapon could fit :P

Fair enough - but I'll just say that I don't see "having a 1 OP weapon that defaults into every empty small slot" as a good thing design-wise.

I'll agree to that statement wholeheartedly. Making a 1 OP PD weapon effective and self sufficient would not be the way to introduce anything.

The 3 different 1OP point defence weapons coming from different mods I have in my current campaign are more or less useless without being combined with any other more expensive (and substantial) PD weapons.
They also all more or less all require PDAI installed to even have a good enough tracking to use their pathetic DPS to shoot missiles down, making them a nice add-on to ships primarily dealing damage with their larger mounts and already using some medium mounts for PD.
Introducing something like that in Vanilla would work really well and not become the go-to option you reasonably argue they could become.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Locklave on November 15, 2020, 09:50:27 AM
"Nanoforges: add Pollution when installed; becomes permanent after three months"

Should be Heavy industry, not Nanoforges. If we are insisting on adding pollution. This is assuming Nanoforges are infact using Nanolithing, which one would think would be clean instead of the un-upgraded lower tech version of it that is Heavy industry.

Why is rare super tech producing pollution when low tech is clean? I don't agree with everything changed but this one thing feels counter intuitive to me.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on November 15, 2020, 11:11:55 AM
Quote
Why is rare super tech producing pollution when low tech is clean? I don't agree with everything changed but this one thing feels counter intuitive to me.
Low-tech appears to be eco-friendly clean, if both Ludd factions are any indication.

I have no problem with industries requiring nanoforge to wreck a habitable planet.  Pristine nanoforge cranks up production by a thousand-fold.  Plus, nanoforge of any kind raises Pather interest a lot, by +4 (in addition to +2 from the industry itself).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zelnik on November 15, 2020, 12:24:18 PM
"Nanoforges: add Pollution when installed; becomes permanent after three months"

Should be Heavy industry, not Nanoforges. If we are insisting on adding pollution. This is assuming Nanoforges are infact using Nanolithing, which one would think would be clean instead of the un-upgraded lower tech version of it that is Heavy industry.

Why is rare super tech producing pollution when low tech is clean? I don't agree with everything changed but this one thing feels counter intuitive to me.


This.

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Locklave on November 15, 2020, 01:09:45 PM
Quote
Why is rare super tech producing pollution when low tech is clean? I don't agree with everything changed but this one thing feels counter intuitive to me.
Low-tech appears to be eco-friendly clean, if both Ludd factions are any indication.

I have no problem with industries requiring nanoforge to wreck a habitable planet.  Pristine nanoforge cranks up production by a thousand-fold.  Plus, nanoforge of any kind raises Pather interest a lot, by +4 (in addition to +2 from the industry itself).

When your argument for something begins with "if both Ludd factions are any indication" the only logical direction should be the opposite of there indication must be correct. They are anti tech, they think wood burning is better then gas or electric, they are not green.

They are based off of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite loosely. They are religious, not environmentalists and I doubt very much that they'd care about destroying nature in the least if it suited their ideological extremes at a given moment.

A real world example now.

Newer power plants produce more energy with less pollution byproduct.
Higher tech = more efficient = more productive = less pollution

Pollution is waste/inefficiency. So super rare tech which is ultra efficient would naturally produce more without the pollution byproduct which is waste.

edit:
The Pathers are mad about production increases only.

edit 2:
The current game supports this tech efficiency concept.
The fuel burn relative speed/distance that can be travelled with equal fuel in High Tech ships vs Low Tech ships. High tech ships use less fuel and are faster, at the same time.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 15, 2020, 01:22:23 PM
"Nanoforges: add Pollution when installed; becomes permanent after three months"

Should be Heavy industry, not Nanoforges. If we are insisting on adding pollution. This is assuming Nanoforges are infact using Nanolithing, which one would think would be clean instead of the un-upgraded lower tech version of it that is Heavy industry.

Why is rare super tech producing pollution when low tech is clean? I don't agree with everything changed but this one thing feels counter intuitive to me.

Functionally/mechanics wise, I think penalizing baseline Heavy Industry would be a bit harsh. Though really you'd most often be using both at the same time so...

In-fiction wise, I think this is another case of "you can have a reasonable explanation for whichever way the mechanics shake out". So, for example here - and IIRC this is referenced in the item descriptions? not 100% sure offhand - what a Nanoforge does is let the industry be built out at scale. It's not that all of the production is performed using nanites, but rather the incredible scaling up of the production capacity, as well as replacing key parts that wear out, and so on. That scaled-up production - as evidenced by the Pollution condition popping up - is not clean.

(Also, the argument that nanite-based production would be clean... it could easily go either way, depending on which direction one waves their hands in.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: CoverdInBees on November 15, 2020, 01:28:55 PM
<snip>

You're absolutely right, but after decades of, let's be lenient and say "selective use of facts" it's no suprise that "common knowledge" dictates otherwise.
IDK if a game like StarSector is the place to reeducate people on this by subverting their expectations. Technology equalling pollution and other bad things is basically a trope in settings like this, after all.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on November 15, 2020, 02:58:55 PM
@ Locklave: Pathers in the game feel either like eco-terrorists or generic evil cultists.  (Cells disappear when enough bad evil tech is removed.)  Starsector may not align with reality, where in the game lower tech is cleaner tech if the game mechanics effectively say so.

Quote
The Pathers are mad about production increases only.
They also get mad for adding enough aggravating industries on a world.  Trying to build a set of self-sufficient colonies without any Pather cells can be quite the puzzle.

Quote
The fuel burn relative speed/distance that can be travelled with equal fuel in High Tech ships vs Low Tech ships. High tech ships use less fuel and are faster, at the same time.
More like low-tech (combat ships) are fuel hogs, while many high-tech are CR (and maybe supply) hogs.  The faster ships apply to those that are on the light end of their class, which is shared by both midline (Falcon and Conquest) and high-tech (Shrike and Odyssey).

Functionally/mechanics wise, I think penalizing baseline Heavy Industry would be a bit harsh. Though really you'd most often be using both at the same time so...
I built extra Heavy Industries on additional planets, sometimes without nanoforges, just for increased production limit.  Nanoforges help on those but are not as necessary since I do not rely on them to meet demand.  Nanoforge would be wanted for the primary just for bonus to ship quality.  Got to have my pristine ships.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on November 15, 2020, 03:08:51 PM
I don't think technological development is correlated with efficiency or pollution at all. Efficiency and pollution reduction are goals that technology can be developed for (or not). In recent history, we have developed a lot of technology with the goal of reducing pollution so it might seem like technological development leads to a reduction in pollution, but if you looked the industrial revolution, there was a lot of technological development that lead to increased pollution because our goals were different. In a lot of cases, we actually lose efficiency by implementing technology to reduce pollution (clean coal) because we are wasting some energy to deal with the byproducts of the energy generation process. Nuclear power is the same way, there is actually some really nasty waste generated, but we implement technology to eliminate or contain it that reduces the overall efficiency of the energy generation process.

As a side note, pollution is not necessarily inefficiency, it's just the byproduct of reactions being released into the environment. It can be reduced by improving the chemical process to generate less byproducts or by containing/dealing with the byproducts. Perfectly efficient combustion still generates byproducts. Very few reactions actually have zero negative byproducts, even at perfect efficiency (maybe nuclear fusion or hydrogen + oxygen combustion).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Squigzilla on November 15, 2020, 05:04:07 PM
I'm super excited for new missions and sorry content, as that's where I feel the game was most calling out for an expansion. New ships are always a treat as well, I'm curious how they will feel collated to the existing stable of warships.

I've been playing Starsector since before there was a campaign, and it keeps getting better with each release. I'll be eagerly awaiting the next update!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zelnik on November 15, 2020, 07:38:08 PM
I don't think technological development is correlated with efficiency or pollution at all. Efficiency and pollution reduction are goals that technology can be developed for (or not). In recent history, we have developed a lot of technology with the goal of reducing pollution so it might seem like technological development leads to a reduction in pollution, but if you looked the industrial revolution, there was a lot of technological development that lead to increased pollution because our goals were different. In a lot of cases, we actually lose efficiency by implementing technology to reduce pollution (clean coal) because we are wasting some energy to deal with the byproducts of the energy generation process. Nuclear power is the same way, there is actually some really nasty waste generated, but we implement technology to eliminate or contain it that reduces the overall efficiency of the energy generation process.




There is a flaw to this. If these are nanotechnology with the proper tiny machines building things at the molecular level, it means that any and all byproducts can and would be created in a manner that would make them non-waste. A good example is, say, cyanide.


Nanomachines could turn the harmful chemical into something useful before it became an environmental hazard. Carbon dioxide could be turned into O2 and pure diamonds, methane could be converted into plastics. With real nanomachines there is no such thing as waste.

As a side note, pollution is not necessarily inefficiency, it's just the byproduct of reactions being released into the environment. It can be reduced by improving the chemical process to generate less byproducts or by containing/dealing with the byproducts. Perfectly efficient combustion still generates byproducts. Very few reactions actually have zero negative byproducts, even at perfect efficiency (maybe nuclear fusion or hydrogen + oxygen combustion).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Retry on November 15, 2020, 08:24:49 PM
I think the intent of the nanoforges causing pollution is one for gameplay considerations, rather than realism.  Though, it does sound like it's putting the Corrupted Nanoforge in a rather rough spot.

+1 to Heavy Industry production is a nice small bonus when taken by itself.  But that +25% hazard rating hits the upkeep cost of every structure you have, not to mention the ones you build afterwards, and upkeep scales linearly with colony size.  In terms of economic profit, that could make installing Corrupted Nanoforges neutralize their own productivity, if not make them outright counterproductive.  So then you're basically only using them if you really want to expand production cap or reduce production D-Mods, but in the latter case there's no benefit once you have a Pristine variant, in which case the only effective benefit of having duplicate Heavy Machineries w/ spare Corrupted Nanoforges is a slightly improved production cap, which seems rather niche.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on November 15, 2020, 09:48:55 PM
Maybe just debuff Pollution in general?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Sabaton on November 15, 2020, 10:28:46 PM
Cryoarithmetic? So colonizing a frozen hell will be more interesting...I assume we will see some polar opposite as well.

On the topic of high tech=lower pollution, think about it like Henry Fords assembly line: it made manufacturing cars easier, thus increasing their availability and carbon pollution. The assembly line wasn't the cause for pollution spikes, its manufactured goods were.

Same for nanoforges, they might be efficient but the produced goods (all manner of heavy machinery and consumer goods) will still generate waste. It sounds plausible.

Also, good cache about corrupted forges Retry, that might turn them into something you only install on a smaller secondary colony, given that the future update will make it easier to control/fix colony grouth.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: shoi on November 15, 2020, 10:55:12 PM
Is +25% hazard rating really that gamebreaking? As a player who doesn't cherry pick worlds to settle when I did bother touching colonization, I can't really tell if is or not. I want to say its really not that big of a problem, especially when there will be content to improve planet conditions anyway in this update
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Deshara on November 15, 2020, 11:02:03 PM
"Nanoforges: add Pollution when installed; becomes permanent after three months"

Should be Heavy industry, not Nanoforges. If we are insisting on adding pollution. This is assuming Nanoforges are infact using Nanolithing, which one would think would be clean instead of the un-upgraded lower tech version of it that is Heavy industry.

Why is rare super tech producing pollution when low tech is clean? I don't agree with everything changed but this one thing feels counter intuitive to me.

Functionally/mechanics wise, I think penalizing baseline Heavy Industry would be a bit harsh. Though really you'd most often be using both at the same time so...

In-fiction wise, I think this is another case of "you can have a reasonable explanation for whichever way the mechanics shake out". So, for example here - and IIRC this is referenced in the item descriptions? not 100% sure offhand - what a Nanoforge does is let the industry be built out at scale. It's not that all of the production is performed using nanites, but rather the incredible scaling up of the production capacity, as well as replacing key parts that wear out, and so on. That scaled-up production - as evidenced by the Pollution condition popping up - is not clean.

(Also, the argument that nanite-based production would be clean... it could easily go either way, depending on which direction one waves their hands in.)

one of the defining features of heavy industry is that it has dedicated infrastructure built for it, meaning that if the infrastructure being built for heavy industry (electric freight rails running off wind/solar power connecting the factories, for example) is cleaner than whatever is being used to replace that lack of infrastructure in light industry (fossil fuel trucking & rocket fuel powered shuttles between factories), meaning that on a 1:1 scale heavy industry is more eco friendly. The reason that heavy industry IRL produces more pollution is just because, as Alex points out, if you do substantially more of it it'll produce more pollution, not because it produces more pollution but because of how much of it you're doing.
Personally I love Alex's handwave for nanoforges inflicting planet-changing pollution. IMO it isn't that you have a nanoforge creating products instead of factories, its that you have a nanoforge building factories, which allows you to blanket a planet with autonomous factories to a degree that isnt possible otherwise
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on November 15, 2020, 11:15:00 PM
In that case, shouldn't Heavy Industry without nanoforges cause pollution if it exceeds a certain planet size?

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Albreo on November 16, 2020, 12:43:27 AM
Is +25% hazard rating really that gamebreaking? As a player who doesn't cherry pick worlds to settle when I did bother touching colonization, I can't really tell if is or not. I want to say its really not that big of a problem, especially when there will be content to improve planet conditions anyway in this update

25% more hazard really hit pop growth hard in the long run. Hazard rating is one of the decisive factors whether you can have a planet that can churn out 200k+ per month or not by the end game. But to consider if it's game breaking or not, I don't think it is. Just a little less money from 500k - 1m average monthly income.

As for the corrupted nano forge, it is so useless even without pollution. I kept 20 of it as a paperweight every gameplay.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Golde on November 16, 2020, 01:26:52 AM
I do not like this change either. Corrupt nanoforges are already useless as they are, this just makes them 10 folds worse.

It would be a lot more interesting if we were to bring the production bonus of the corrupted nanoforge in line, if not almost in line with the pristine nanoforge, at the expense of causing pollution; whereas the pristine, does not.

HOWEVER, none of us has yet to consider the possibility that Alex already has something in the unspecified list of applicable domain appliances to negate the pollution caused by nanoforges if found and installed.

Phone keyboard is ***
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Omega_Pi_X on November 16, 2020, 01:49:33 AM
Personally, I feel like the proposed Industry/Nanoforge changes are exactly what the doctor ordered, especially with how there are going to be new, per-industry specialised items that boost their respective outputs. Thanks to the +pollution upon running a Nanoforge, there's now a slight push towards having either a planet with the basic Heavy Industry with other industries along it, or a planet with only Heavy Industry with a 'Forge. There's still some leeway based on your needs, plus the reworked Growth Incentive/Hazard Pay mechanic, which all leads into a sense of choosing a 'style' for your colonies - or, in other words, a specialisation.

Hey, wait a second, aren't specialisations (alongside the additional content, of course) the point of this update? The contacts mechanic will allow players to influence the number and type of contracts they're offered, the new phase freighter/tanker will allow for more use of the phase-focused skill over the shield-focus one, the new hullmods for civilian ships will encourage more use of those, alongside the changes to carrier and frigate skills. This Pollution mechanic is, in my mind at least, the logical step for colonies to meet the theme of this update, and honestly, I want all of the new Industry Boosters to bring their own long-term hazards to further encourage colony specialisation.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Locklave on November 16, 2020, 03:33:24 AM
Functionally/mechanics wise, I think penalizing baseline Heavy Industry would be a bit harsh. Though really you'd most often be using both at the same time so...

In-fiction wise, I think this is another case of "you can have a reasonable explanation for whichever way the mechanics shake out". So, for example here - and IIRC this is referenced in the item descriptions? not 100% sure offhand - what a Nanoforge does is let the industry be built out at scale. It's not that all of the production is performed using nanites, but rather the incredible scaling up of the production capacity, as well as replacing key parts that wear out, and so on. That scaled-up production - as evidenced by the Pollution condition popping up - is not clean.

(Also, the argument that nanite-based production would be clean... it could easily go either way, depending on which direction one waves their hands in.)

If it's for a balance reason I get it. But this feels really wrong to me.

Dominion tech is the best tech, literally everything in the game supports that. Now Dominion built tech destroys the environment on a valuable planet. More productive using the same raw materials. Zero increase to materials used, but more output. I can't understand that to mean anything but less waste which is pollution.

Nanoforge could prevent the pollution debuff and that's more in line with what I'd personally expect from Domain era super tech. Again baring balance, which needs to come before immersion.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on November 16, 2020, 03:57:35 AM
Do Nanoforges cause pollution on every planet they're installed on, or only ones that have the Habitable condition? Or at least some combination of conditions where adding pollution condition makes sense. For example I don't think a Toxic planet with an Inimical Biosphere would really notice the difference.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on November 16, 2020, 06:03:40 AM
All tech is dominion tech, besides Scarab and probably Harbinger.
Nanoforge causing pollution change means mostly that heavy industry should go to the lowest hazard uninhabitable planet in the system, not the lowest hazard planet. Considering I don't colonise just a single planet in any system, this might affect me less than the change suggests.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: IonDragonX on November 16, 2020, 12:01:20 PM
Nanoforge causing pollution change means mostly that heavy industry should go to the lowest hazard uninhabitable planet in the system, not the lowest hazard planet.
Logically, a barren, no atmosphere world could not gain pollution as a negative modifier... and probably could never gain decivilized either.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 16, 2020, 12:16:33 PM
Hey, wait a second, aren't specialisations (alongside the additional content, of course) the point of this update? The contacts mechanic will allow players to influence the number and type of contracts they're offered, the new phase freighter/tanker will allow for more use of the phase-focused skill over the shield-focus one, the new hullmods for civilian ships will encourage more use of those, alongside the changes to carrier and frigate skills. This Pollution mechanic is, in my mind at least, the logical step for colonies to meet the theme of this update, and honestly, I want all of the new Industry Boosters to bring their own long-term hazards to further encourage colony specialisation.

Maybe not the "point", but it's definitely a strong theme! And, yeah, Pollution is definitely there in alignment with said theme.

Do Nanoforges cause pollution on every planet they're installed on, or only ones that have the Habitable condition? Or at least some combination of conditions where adding pollution condition makes sense. For example I don't think a Toxic planet with an Inimical Biosphere would really notice the difference.

Just habitable - this came up earlier in the thread and it made sense to make it so (number one).


If it's for a balance reason I get it. But this feels really wrong to me.

Dominion tech is the best tech, literally everything in the game supports that. Now Dominion built tech destroys the environment on a valuable planet. More productive using the same raw materials. Zero increase to materials used, but more output. I can't understand that to mean anything but less waste which is pollution.

Nanoforge could prevent the pollution debuff and that's more in line with what I'd personally expect from Domain era super tech. Again baring balance, which needs to come before immersion.

You mean "Domain", yeah?

"More productive using the same raw materials" is also a gameplay thing! And, besides, since materials used is on a logarithmic scale, the raw materials used could in fact go up several times over and still be represented by the same number. Part of the system being so abstracted is that it's a lot more flexible as far as things "making sense"; nothing there is too exact.

Logically, a barren, no atmosphere world could not gain pollution as a negative modifier... and probably could never gain decivilized either.

1) Radiation, toxic micro-dust getting *inside* habitats, etc
2) A few survivors keeping ancient life-support systems going by cannibalizing all the other systems (though, in-game, deciv on a non-habitable world IS more rare - but not impossible, precisely because I want to allow for this possibility)

Your imagination is the limit :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on November 16, 2020, 12:34:28 PM
Every planet receives deadly amount of radiation from space, Earth atmosphere just so happens to reflect most of that. Toxic micro dust is probably what any given planet's entire surface is. Living on a non-habitable planet isn't much different from living in space, you just get some annoying gravity.
Anyway, I already assumed (and have forgotten to mention it in the previous post) that only habitable planets can get "polluted" condition, since there's not much difference whether outside is deadly or super deadly today on other planets.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: IonDragonX on November 16, 2020, 01:01:23 PM
Logically, a barren, no atmosphere world could not gain pollution as a negative modifier... and probably could never gain decivilized either.
1) Radiation, toxic micro-dust getting *inside* habitats, etc
2) A few survivors keeping ancient life-support systems going by cannibalizing all the other systems (though, in-game, deciv on a non-habitable world IS more rare - but not impossible, precisely because I want to allow for this possibility)

Your imagination is the limit :)
"IonDragonX was the Imposter" and no because my imagination already has his playable copy of v0.95
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Locklave on November 16, 2020, 01:42:12 PM
So Nanoforges will be basically restricted from being on a habitable world realistically since the penalty only exists on them.

Okay.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zelnik on November 16, 2020, 03:29:12 PM
So Nanoforges will be basically restricted from being on a habitable world realistically since the penalty only exists on them.

Okay.

I mean... That does make sense. You wouldn't want your main refinery, factory and assembly line to be on a world that has more value for population habitation. No one complains about smog if the normal atmosphere is sulfur dioxide with regular sulfuric acid rain storms.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Locklave on November 16, 2020, 04:52:49 PM
So Nanoforges will be basically restricted from being on a habitable world realistically since the penalty only exists on them.

Okay.

I mean... That does make sense. You wouldn't want your main refinery, factory and assembly line to be on a world that has more value for population habitation. No one complains about smog if the normal atmosphere is sulfur dioxide with regular sulfuric acid rain storms.

I guess it just makes the change seem pointless. It's an arbitrary restriction presented as a choice when the only choice it clear.

a) Shoot self in foot, put it on a habitable planet and ruin it for giggles
b) Don't be dumb

A non option option.

I honestly feel like it's a tangent at this point. I'll just go with option b) like everyone else will. There is no advantage to option a) and only downside.

Take from this what you will.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 16, 2020, 05:50:00 PM
I'm not sure that looking at this specific thing as a "choice", in isolation, makes sense. Rather, it's one of *many* similar pieces that when combined will hopefully produce more interesting colonization decisions.

(Also: not that you're doing this, but just a thing that I think is worth mentioning - it makes sense to look at this assuming the player is not using alpha cores for admins; right now that's of course possible/good/etc but it's not a fleshed out mechanic and I'd expect it to get some real major downsides/limitations before all is said and done. So design-wise, the assumption is a player colony count of something like 3-4 tops. I mean, if you can colonize 20+ worlds, then none of the decisions around colonization matter very much in the end, so it's not a useful assumption for looking at balance/choices etc. But if one assumes a lower limit, than some otherwise sub-optimal choices may need to be made since they'll still sometimes be better than "not having X at all".)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on November 16, 2020, 06:01:19 PM
Isn't pollution just 25% hazard? It seems plausible that could be a better option than making an entire new colony on a bad world, especially if that bad world is preventing you from making another good colony.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 16, 2020, 06:36:41 PM
Indeed!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on November 16, 2020, 09:40:53 PM
What levels do player's ship assigned Gamma, Beta and Alpha core have, for calculating DP advantage from Officer contribution?
How many skills do Gamma and Beta cores have as officers? Do player's AI cores and [REDACTED] "officers" have the same amount of skills?
Also for calculating DP, is a level 15 player only considered a level 5 officer for Officer contribution)? Or do admirals, whether player fleet or AI fleet, do not matter for calculating Officer contribution?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on November 16, 2020, 10:38:28 PM
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ENAH4W8WkAE46yz?format=png&name=small
This is your colony on cryoarithmetics
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Retry on November 17, 2020, 07:47:06 AM
While we're looking at upcoming energy buffs next patch, would it be possible to test a few more slight tweaks to burst lasers before the patch is released?

1.Adjusting damage of the Heavy Burst Laser to be just slightly above 150
Reasoning: It's currently at 147 burst damage right now, while the small-size Burst Laser is at 128.  Quite a few missiles have ~150 or ~300 health, so in practice, even though the Heavy Burst deals more damage, it still takes the same amount of shots to kill most missiles.  A tiny bit "beefier" burst could help it kill some more-common missiles in less shots.

2.Adjusting ammo for both the Burst Laser and Heavy Burst Laser to even numbers
Reasoning: Expanded Magazines rounds decimal values down, so the small Burst laser goes from 3->4, and Heavy Burst goes from 5->7.  As a result it doesn't "feel" like such a good upgrade as it could for the OP investment for those specific weapons, if that makes sense?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on November 17, 2020, 09:44:01 AM
If cores are not an option, then I put priority on self-sufficiency and Pather cell avoidance.  On my four worlds in my last game, I had...
* Gas Giant with Mining (for volatiles), Light Industry, and Heavy Industry (no forge due to pather cells)
* Tundra world with Farming, Fuel Production, and Mining.
* Random habitable with Farming, Heavy Industry (with forge), and some other no interest industry.
* High-gravity habitable with Farming, Mining, and Refinery.

All four had the obligatory High Command for colony defense.

When avoiding Pather cells, items in various industries put interest at the safe max, which really limits industries that can be placed without attracting the zombie Pathers.

I had extra colony slots for pop-up colonies here and there for temporary base of operations, then eventually built a fifth colony near a red system for Ordos farming.

I got max colony skills in that game because wanted an empire, and I did not know about the Pather bug until much later, and by then, I did not feel like restarting.  I missed combat skills due to sunk points in colonies, but I wanted my empire!  With alpha cores as they are, I would totally dump Industry for more combat skills.  (I gave up officer management and armor skills for colony skills.)

As for pollution, a low hazard world with pollution probably has less hazard than a non-habitable world (which probably has 125% or 150% hazard minimum).  Pollution is less severe than Decivilized, which puts a big stability penalty on top of +25% hazard both give.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Schwartz on November 17, 2020, 12:00:31 PM
You don't usually take Extended Magazines because of a couple of energy PD you use but because you synergize it with Autopulses or ABs.

But I agree that having 4 or 6 charges would feel better. Does Burst PD need it in conjunction with the flux buffs it already got and the damage buff you're proposing? I dunno.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Locklave on November 17, 2020, 02:32:39 PM
Speaking of Pathers what kind of actual threat will they pose in .95a? Will we see their big ships attacking colonies like pirates do in current? Will bombings actually happen?

This may have been covered already in the 45 earlier pages lol.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on November 17, 2020, 03:15:31 PM
Speaking of Pathers what kind of actual threat will they pose in .95a? Will we see their big ships attacking colonies like pirates do in current? Will bombings actually happen?
Bombings may happen.  Cells ignore all planetary defenses.  If you cannot dissolve cells, you play whack-a-mole zombie Pathers (to disrupt cells for a year) or your colonies suffer disruptions and stability drops.  They do not need to invade your colonies when their cells break things automatically.

Unlike pirates who give base location for free in the bar, you need to pay credits to Pather defectors in the bar to reveal Pather bases on the map.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 17, 2020, 06:11:33 PM
What levels do player's ship assigned Gamma, Beta and Alpha core have, for calculating DP advantage from Officer contribution?
How many skills do Gamma and Beta cores have as officers? Do player's AI cores and [REDACTED] "officers" have the same amount of skills?

3/5/7 or thereabouts. It's the same for player/AI.

Also for calculating DP, is a level 15 player only considered a level 5 officer for Officer contribution)? Or do admirals, whether player fleet or AI fleet, do not matter for calculating Officer contribution?

I don't remember offhand - I think the player counts for their full level, but not 100% sure.


While we're looking at upcoming energy buffs next patch, would it be possible to test a few more slight tweaks to burst lasers before the patch is released?

1.Adjusting damage of the Heavy Burst Laser to be just slightly above 150
Reasoning: It's currently at 147 burst damage right now, while the small-size Burst Laser is at 128.  Quite a few missiles have ~150 or ~300 health, so in practice, even though the Heavy Burst deals more damage, it still takes the same amount of shots to kill most missiles.  A tiny bit "beefier" burst could help it kill some more-common missiles in less shots.

2.Adjusting ammo for both the Burst Laser and Heavy Burst Laser to even numbers
Reasoning: Expanded Magazines rounds decimal values down, so the small Burst laser goes from 3->4, and Heavy Burst goes from 5->7.  As a result it doesn't "feel" like such a good upgrade as it could for the OP investment for those specific weapons, if that makes sense?

Hmm. I'll keep this in mind and mull it over a bit, but, a couple of things:

Burst beam damage is not exact; beams deal damage approximately 10 times per second, while the burst damage value reflects what the result would be if it was just equal to the integral of a continuous function. Also, some damage may be lost due to beam travel time (which, admittedly is very short for burst PD), but, still, point being it's inexact.  There's also a solid chance the beam won't stay on target for the entire duration; this is especially common/easy to see vs Salamanders. So I don't think a slight increase would make it quite as reliable as it seems it should, it'd probably need to be a bit more hefty.

There are also several ways to bump up damage that can take it over the threshold. And, finally, there are often multiple PD weapons firing, so e.g. a Heavy Burst laser would in theory synergize nicely with a PD or LR PD laser covering the same arc - or any other PD, really. Point being that just looking at it in isolation isn't the whole picture - and it's a premium enough OP cost that I'm not sure a ship would often use *just* burst lasers for PD. (And, again, if that's desired, there are ways to boost the damage...)


You don't usually take Extended Magazines because of a couple of energy PD you use but because you synergize it with Autopulses or ABs.

But I agree that having 4 or 6 charges would feel better. Does Burst PD need it in conjunction with the flux buffs it already got and the damage buff you're proposing? I dunno.

Right, yeah. So then the bonus to the PD weapons would be, well, an added bonus, not the prime factor. I could see increasing the HBL damage and reducing its charges by 1, maybe, though, hmm.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: XCTrailBlazer on November 17, 2020, 06:12:04 PM
I have read all the changes, and with the exception of the change to the colonies, I like them.

PS: Glad you can adjust the size to the growth of the colonies manually if you want the current system.

Okay, now my question for you, Alex.

Since each time version 1.0 is approaching in time and with it the official launch.

Can we expect content patches after the 1.0 release or will only bugs be fixed?

It's a question you probably can't answer for me in a concrete way, but I'm a little nervous that it's the end of these patches / blog content that keep me excited about Starsector.

I'm sure the 1.0 release will be a success.

Thanks for doing such a great job and such a fun game for so many people.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on November 17, 2020, 06:35:50 PM
Okay, now my question for you, Alex.

Since each time version 1.0 is approaching in time and with it the official launch.

Can we expect content patches after the 1.0 release or will only bugs be fixed?

It's a question you probably can't answer for me in a concrete way, but I'm a little nervous that it's the end of these patches / blog content that keep me excited about Starsector.

I'm sure the 1.0 release will be a success.

Yeah, I can't say with 100% certainty, so please understand if this changes to, I don't know, the exact opposite of what I'm about to say here.

Currently, the way I'm thinking about it, I'd want to put together an expansion or two after the 1.0 release, and see how that does, and just in general see how 1.0 does. Basically, the way I feel right now, I'd love to keep working on the game past 1.0; whether that'll be viable or whether how I'm seeing it might change, I can't say. Whether some amount of content/mechanics/etc would make its way over into the bugfixing patches for the base game, that's also hard to say - it really depends on the specifics of the situation, and also I just haven't thought it through to that degree yet. There'd have to be some kind of balance there. So, again, this answer is very much a "here's my very rough, not-given-it-too-much-thought current idea of what things might go like", and not anything more definitive than that.

Thanks for doing such a great job and such a fun game for so many people.

Thank you! Happy you're enjoying it :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on November 17, 2020, 06:39:22 PM
While we're looking at upcoming energy buffs next patch, would it be possible to test a few more slight tweaks to burst lasers before the patch is released?

1.Adjusting damage of the Heavy Burst Laser to be just slightly above 150
Reasoning: It's currently at 147 burst damage right now, while the small-size Burst Laser is at 128.  Quite a few missiles have ~150 or ~300 health, so in practice, even though the Heavy Burst deals more damage, it still takes the same amount of shots to kill most missiles.  A tiny bit "beefier" burst could help it kill some more-common missiles in less shots.

This may be intentional so that skilled burst lasers cut through missiles much faster
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on November 18, 2020, 05:57:00 AM
I generally do not use Expanded Magazines with burst lasers unless the ship also uses other charge weapons like autopulse.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on November 18, 2020, 09:24:54 AM
Has the combat AI gotten better at engaging stations?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on November 18, 2020, 10:54:29 AM
Allright people, this has become a very long thread indeed, and we have gone quite offtopic from discussing the actual patch notes. I'll lock this thread for now.

Good thing is - when it reopens, you can be pretty sure that new patch notes have arrived!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 08, 2021, 10:43:19 AM
Unlocked and OP updated with another batch of notes!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Timid on March 08, 2021, 10:58:50 AM
Very cool! I expect there will be modder's changelog so we know what new toys to immediately use?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zelnik on March 08, 2021, 11:03:13 AM
...Yes but -when-
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: pairedeciseaux on March 08, 2021, 11:06:04 AM
Nice set of refinements.

...Yes but -when-

I guess it should be pretty close.  ;D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 08, 2021, 11:07:04 AM
Quote
Cargo scans by patrols:

    Will more often result in the "suspicious" outcome when smuggling suspicion is high
    Will demand you allow a boarding party to examine your ships
        This will cause some disruption to several of your ships' combat readiness
    More likely to find contraband
How much CR loss are we talking here? I assume less than if you get harried, but I'd still like to know if beyond a certain point I'm going to have to do all of my shopping somewhere where I can run dark.

Quote
Delivery missions: offers will now occasionally exceed player's cargo capacity
Meaning the player fleet's maximum cargo capacity? If so I'm not sure what the idea behind this change is. Exceeding cargo limits is not viable in any circumstances (unless the hideous supplies/day penalty got changed I suppose) and periodically/occasionally swapping out hullmods to make more room to take delivery missions sounds like busywork.

Quote
Increased time until first pirate raid on player colony
Is that the scripted pirate raid, or does that also include an existing pirate base randomly changing targets to the player's colonies before even the scripted one has shown up?

Quote
Reduced frequency of pirate raids targeting the core worlds by roughly a factor of 3
Wait, does that mean pirates raids are 3 times more likely to target the player's colonies, if there are any? Obviously would be a problem combined with the above detail, but I'm not sure if I'm reading that correctly.

Quote
Increased minimum interval between punitive expeditions to 1-3 cycles
Just checking, but AI inspections are separate from punitive expedition at least for this minimal interval, correct?

Quote
Maximum number of weapon groups increased to 7 (was: 5)
;D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Cyan Leader on March 08, 2021, 11:10:21 AM
- Music will no longer stop playing when interacting with a jump-point
- Added music for scavenge/salvage/survey screens

Literally music to my ears, thank you so much for this. Especially when running the game with custom campaign music, the constant stop and play when interacting with salvages and other things was really jarring. I guess it will still happen if salvage/etc has their own songs but it's a much welcome change.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 08, 2021, 11:38:46 AM
Very cool! I expect there will be modder's changelog so we know what new toys to immediately use?

Hmm - the notes have a "Modding" section, so I'm not sure what you mean.

How much CR loss are we talking here? I assume less than if you get harried, but I'd still like to know if beyond a certain point I'm going to have to do all of my shopping somewhere where I can run dark.

It'd usually be less than getting harried, and doesn't affect *all* the ships. Also, not an 100% chance of it happening.

Meaning the player fleet's maximum cargo capacity? If so I'm not sure what the idea behind this change is. Exceeding cargo limits is not viable in any circumstances (unless the hideous supplies/day penalty got changed I suppose) and periodically/occasionally swapping out hullmods to make more room to take delivery missions sounds like busywork.

Right. The player might pick up another freighter, or as you said add some hullmods, etc. Just in general I think that happening a bit will make it both feel like a bigger opportunity and less like it's all tailored to the player.

Is that the scripted pirate raid, or does that also include an existing pirate base randomly changing targets to the player's colonies before even the scripted one has shown up?

The first scripted raid.


Wait, does that mean pirates raids are 3 times more likely to target the player's colonies, if there are any? Obviously would be a problem combined with the above detail, but I'm not sure if I'm reading that correctly.

Just roughly 3x less raids overall.

Just checking, but AI inspections are separate from punitive expedition at least for this minimal interval, correct?

They're separate, yeah.


I guess it will still happen if salvage/etc has their own songs but it's a much welcome change.

To clarify: right, yeah, those have new music.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zelnik on March 08, 2021, 11:48:09 AM
@Alex

I -really- appreciate the list addition! Next version looks great....


but why not release it now? Tons of these fixes are -really- needed.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on March 08, 2021, 11:54:45 AM
>Black markets no longer sell combat capital ships (can still be acquired from arms dealer contact)
On one hand, it will make getting capitals harder, but on the other, it makes gaining independent rep even better, which unfortunately leaves you with only Conquests.

>Tri-Tachyon: adjusted fleet composition to be more evenly split between warships/carriers/phase ships
Yes, yeees! I want more Medusas and Auroras! Though, myself, I'd probably make it so that it's biased towards phase ships still (to differentiate it to Persean League).

>Tarsus: increased cargo capacity to 350
I consider Tarsus to be the better dedicated destroyer freighter of the two, though Buffalo's variants are better still (and that's probably why it won't be buffed).

>Maximum number of weapon groups increased to 7 (was: 5)
I don't know if I expressed my approval the first time you showed that, so I do so now. Nice!

>Heavy Needler: reduced range to 750 (was: 800)
Why though? It's already the most expensive medium ballistic. While it's good, I don't think it's overly good, even with its burst. Its main competitor is Heavy Autocannon, and they both were range tied.

>Degraded Drive Field:
>Can only be generated for non-combat ships
This is an incredible buff. Bad engines in certain circumstances auto-disqualified ships for me not because of decreased mobility (which I mostly forgot was even there), but because those ships would slow me down. At least all freighters and tankers do the same thing, so instead of missing out on filling some role in my fleet, it will just grow slower instead.

>Added "ship_unique_signature" ship *variant* tag
>If any ship with this tag is present in player's fleet, opposing fleets always know who they're facing regardless of transponder status
This one sounds good. I wonder what plans do you have for this.

Changed Hyperion I might possibly use. It certainly looks more appealing to me, though whether I'll use it will still depend on the combination of power, PPT and maintenance.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Wyvern on March 08, 2021, 11:57:51 AM
  • Intel screen will remember "show fuel" toggle state when re-opened
  • Surveying Equipment: now shows fleetwide totals in tooltip
  • Planet tooltip - both in campaign and on the map - will show when the planet has unexplored ruins
  • Added indication when post-battle ship recovery includes disabled ships from your fleet
  • Maximum number of weapon groups increased to 7 (was: 5)
  • Ships will no longer keep targeting a recently-destroyed ship for a second or two before switching targets
These are all greatly appreciated; that last one in particular - it's always been a bit of an immersion-breaking thing for me to see when the AI does that.

Hullmods:
  • Degraded Engines: effect separated into two hullmods, "Degraded Engines" and "Degraded Drive Field"
    • Degraded Engines:
      • Has combat portion of the effect (lower speed/maneuverability)
      • Can only be generated for combat ships
    • Degraded Drive Field:
      • Has non-combat portion of the effect (reduced burn level, increased sensor profile)
      • Can only be generated for non-combat ships
  • Added new D-mods:
    • Degraded Life Support - reduces max crew (but not min)
    • Damaged Weapon Mounts - slower weapon turn speed, increased recoil
    • Faulty Automated Systems - larger min crew required
    • Degraded Shields - increases shield damage taken
Huh, interesting. Isn't Faulty Automated Systems just a sub-set of Increased Maintenance, though?
I'm curious about the reasoning behind the Degraded Engines vs Degraded Drive Field split; I can see some situations where it helps the player (Dominator with Degraded Engines being able to keep up with the fleet)... But with the way cargo ship scaling works (i.e. you generally want the largest cargo vessels that fit your fleet's burn level) I suspect that Degraded Drive Field is going to just become another 'nope not worth using' flag...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 08, 2021, 12:01:13 PM
Quote
It'd usually be less than getting harried, and doesn't affect *all* the ships. Also, not an 100% chance of it happening.
Hmm...we'll have to see how it plays out. I can see this being more annoyance than anything else, but it might also lead to clever solutions being discovered as well. Worst case IIRC ixnaying a patrol check is something one can spend a Story Point on, too.

Quote
Right. The player might pick up another freighter, or as you said add some hullmods, etc. Just in general I think that happening a bit will make it both feel like a bigger opportunity and less like it's all tailored to the player.
Changing hullmods and back just for a single delivery would be tedious though, and I'm not sure how picking up temporary ships would really work out in practice. If the delivery is for just a little bit more it's not really worth putting down four or five digits for a temporary ship (which will also cost supplies/fuel and potentially crew), and if the delivery is for a ton more you'd have to luck out with being there being a decent freighter available for purchase. Which you'd have to either sell at a massive loss or dump in a storage somewhere afterwards.

Quote
The first scripted raid.
Can existing pirate bases still randomly change targets to your colonies less than a week after putting them down, incidentally? IIRC the first scripted base will be changed to a T2 base (or at least what would be considered a T2 base in the current patch), but even so that would still make early colonies more viable (consistent?) for me.

Quote
Just roughly 3x less raids overall.
Ah, okay, gotcha. Going to miss the steady stream of system bounties, though ;).

Quote
They're separate, yeah.
:)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Golde on March 08, 2021, 12:13:16 PM
>Light Needler: now costs 8 OP

 :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(

>Heavy Needler: reduced range to 750 (was: 800)

 :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(

>Mark IX: reduced flux/shot to 200 (was: 230)

Now the mark 9 is the official default assault rifle of large ballistics.

>Thumper: reduced OP cost to 6 (was: 9)

The thumper should get a statistical buff rather than an OP decrease. It was underused because it's a fairly *** weapon; now it's *** and cheap. It will continue to be underused regardless of OP cost because it has no specialty or niche. The OP decrease will only serve as an indirect buff to the one or two Cerberui in some arbitrary pirate fleet now that they have 3 whole OPs to spend elsewhere.

For a one of a kind archetype with a unique firing mechanic it deserves a bit more love, and the concept of a ghettoblaster popping cheap caps should be reimagined elsewhere.


That being said, the storm needler could definitely use 800 range, to even things out a bit.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 08, 2021, 12:48:39 PM
Thumper at 6 OP seems okay.  At least now, the player gets what he pays for instead of overpaying for something that is usually worse than Heavy Mortar.

Heavy Needler at 750 range?  Now I might use Heavy Autocannon more just for maximum range (on loadouts where 800 and 900 range mix well, but not 900 and 700).  Would be nice if all needlers had the same range, or bigger is better.  It is weird that heavy needler is the only needler with greater than 700, better than light and storm needlers.

Quote
>Mark IX: reduced flux/shot to 200 (was: 230)

Now the mark 9 is the official default assault rifle of large ballistics.
Yes, as it should.  Currently, default large kinetic was Heavy Needler (medium-sized weapon) unless ship had Heavy Ballistics Integration or really, really needed 900 range.  Too bad Storm Needler has 700 range; I would use it more if its range was better.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on March 08, 2021, 01:08:00 PM
I think the idea behind the cargo mission change is that you would keep any new ships you bought to be able to handle larger contracts in the future. You don't consider buying warships to fight bigger bounties as a problem because you understand you are expanding your capability to fight larger bounties in the future as well as letting you complete the immediate mission, and similarly, it's not considered strange that the player is offered bounties that are too difficult for their current fleet. It seems like a reasonable change to me just for feel/fluff reasons. Cargo missions are too profitable anyway, so getting offered a few infeasible ones seems fine to me.

Quote
Freshly spawned patrols will wait a few seconds before engaging/intercepting the player
Does this mean that the player can dock and trade with transponder off for a moment after the patrol spawns? or just that the fleet will wait a moment before it chases the player (but docking will still give the 'you are being tracked by a patrol' message).

Also, I agree that the storm needler could really use 800 range, especially with this Mark IX buff. Its niche is getting really small.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 08, 2021, 01:31:39 PM
>Tri-Tachyon: adjusted fleet composition to be more evenly split between warships/carriers/phase ships
Yes, yeees! I want more Medusas and Auroras! Though, myself, I'd probably make it so that it's biased towards phase ships still (to differentiate it to Persean League).

Honestly, you're probably more likely to get them from contacts/arms dealers, but it'll be more possible, at least.

>Maximum number of weapon groups increased to 7 (was: 5)
I don't know if I expressed my approval the first time you showed that, so I do so now. Nice!

*thumbs up*

>Heavy Needler: reduced range to 750 (was: 800)
Why though? It's already the most expensive medium ballistic. While it's good, I don't think it's overly good, even with its burst. Its main competitor is Heavy Autocannon, and they both were range tied.

Felt like it was a bit too good. Not a huge change either way, though; just want to give the Heavy AC a bit more room.


Changed Hyperion I might possibly use. It certainly looks more appealing to me, though whether I'll use it will still depend on the combination of power, PPT and maintenance.

I'm curious to see how it'll play out. I'm *hoping* that the combination of those things - plus its weaknesses - is such that it'll be a good flagship at times, but not something you want to have a bunch of.


Huh, interesting. Isn't Faulty Automated Systems just a sub-set of Increased Maintenance, though?

Sort of, yeah. It's more of a crew increase, though (+100%), so it's... probably still ok? But I get what you're saying, I honestly wasn't thinking about this.


>Degraded Drive Field:
>Can only be generated for non-combat ships
This is an incredible buff. Bad engines in certain circumstances auto-disqualified ships for me not because of decreased mobility (which I mostly forgot was even there), but because those ships would slow me down. At least all freighters and tankers do the same thing, so instead of missing out on filling some role in my fleet, it will just grow slower instead.
I'm curious about the reasoning behind the Degraded Engines vs Degraded Drive Field split; I can see some situations where it helps the player (Dominator with Degraded Engines being able to keep up with the fleet)... But with the way cargo ship scaling works (i.e. you generally want the largest cargo vessels that fit your fleet's burn level) I suspect that Degraded Drive Field is going to just become another 'nope not worth using' flag...

The original d-mod really was feeling like an outlier in terms of having so much combined negative impact. For civ ships, you could put on Augmented Drive Field / Militarized Subsystems to counter much of this. Also, if your burn speed is say limited by combat cruisers, you could absorb this d-mod on frigate-sized civ ships. Basically it feels like there's enough play het that it won't always be a "nope", not the way the combined effects of it currently are.



Can existing pirate bases still randomly change targets to your colonies less than a week after putting them down, incidentally? IIRC the first scripted base will be changed to a T2 base (or at least what would be considered a T2 base in the current patch), but even so that would still make early colonies more viable (consistent?) for me.

IIRC yes, though you'd have to be near a pirate base and there was a bug where that wasn't working right in the current release.


Ah, okay, gotcha. Going to miss the steady stream of system bounties, though ;).

Ah, well! Can't have everything :)




Does this mean that the player can dock and trade with transponder off for a moment after the patrol spawns? or just that the fleet will wait a moment before it chases the player (but docking will still give the 'you are being tracked by a patrol' message).

The latter, so yeah it can still block you from trading, but at least you'll be able to get away easily.

Also, I agree that the storm needler could really use 800 range, especially with this Mark IX buff. Its niche is getting really small.

It's in a tricky spot; more range for such a consistently overwhelming amount of kinetic damage makes it incredibly powerful. "Storm Needler goes BRRRRRRRR" and solves all your problems. I do agree with what you're saying about its niche being small, btw. Just - that seems preferable to expanding the niche and, oops, that niche is now "it's the optimal choice on anything that can mount it".
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: RustyCabbage on March 08, 2021, 01:46:58 PM
Really liking all of these changes! The Heavy Needler nerf seems very reasonable, and I'll be much more careful in the future when deciding between it and the Heavy Autocannon. Though, it does sorta irk me that between the small/medium/large needler versions we go from 700 -> 750 -> 700 range, heh.

Quote
Targeting Feed system will be used by carriers that only have support fighters installed
To be clear, does this affect interceptors like Wasps and Talons as well as support fighters like Xyphos? I noticed that Targeting Feed wasn't used for pure interceptor lineups either.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 08, 2021, 01:48:51 PM
Legion XIV derelicts will no longer be restricted to a single constellation

I really liked this touch since it fit with the lore of the XIV coming from a single direction. Having all the derelicts in a single constellation meant that you could "follow the path" as it were.

Do they still have a "path" as it were or are they entirely random now?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 08, 2021, 01:54:30 PM
Quote
I think the idea behind the cargo mission change is that you would keep any new ships you bought to be able to handle larger contracts in the future. You don't consider buying warships to fight bigger bounties as a problem because you understand you are expanding your capability to fight larger bounties in the future as well as letting you complete the immediate mission, and similarly, it's not considered strange that the player is offered bounties that are too difficult for their current fleet. It seems like a reasonable change to me just for feel/fluff reasons. Cargo missions are too profitable anyway, so getting offered a few infeasible ones seems fine to me.
The issue is that once you have your new ship you'll eventually run into missions that require even more cargo space, leading to either tedious refitting or buying yet another ship, after which you run into even bigger contracts requiring even more/re-refitted ships, and so on until you run into a contract you either just cannot do or cannot justify doing, in which case why have the contract be offered at all? I can understand it being there for fluff reasons, but it just seems like a waste of time.

With bounties it's not an issue because past a certain point bounties are just not worth doing no matter what the state of my fleet is, and "impossible" bounties do have a very functional gameplay role in that it makes exploring dangerous, gives me a reason to build/activate the hyperspace communication relays so that I can get updates on where surprise deathfleets are hiding, and so on.

I think the simplest solution would be to have a cap on how far the game is willing to go before it stops offering bigger delivery contracts than the player can handle, which frankly sounds like it'd be necessary for lore reasons anyway because otherwise I'm not sure how I'd be able to still find such oversized contracts even after getting a fleet of 30 expanded cargo space Atluses (Atlusses? Atlusse?). That'd be...78.000 cargo spare for the record :o.

It's not a bad mechanic in general I don't think, it just needs some lines to be drawn or I fear it might overstay it's welcome.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 08, 2021, 02:11:40 PM
Though, it does sorta irk me that between the small/medium/large needler versions we go from 700 -> 750 -> 700 range, heh.

Honestly, same a little bit.

Quote
Targeting Feed system will be used by carriers that only have support fighters installed
To be clear, does this affect interceptors like Wasps and Talons as well as support fighters like Xyphos? I noticed that Targeting Feed wasn't used for pure interceptor lineups either.

Ah, I wasn't aware of that one - thank you for mentioning it. It was not fixed; just fixed this up as well.


I really liked this touch since it fit with the lore of the XIV coming from a single direction. Having all the derelicts in a single constellation meant that you could "follow the path" as it were.

Do they still have a "path" as it were or are they entirely random now?

Backstory-wise, the XIV ships you find aren't from their arrival in the Sector, but rather left after one of the AI Wars. So they still aim for systems where their "theme" makes sense (i.e. REDACTED), but there's no "path" since that doesn't apply here.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 08, 2021, 03:11:04 PM
No expeditions at size 3 seems nice.  Now player can build Heavy Industry (or other non-Farming industry) without the core worlds trying to burn it to the ground.  Currently, I delay Heavy Industry until my colonies can repel max-strength expeditions near or at the end of the game.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Morrokain on March 08, 2021, 03:19:33 PM
Looking good!

Very excited to see how this update is going to change things.

Quote
Added AmmoTrackerAPI, retrieved via WeaponAPI.getAmmoTracker()
void setAmmoPerSecond(float ammoPerSecond);
float getReloadProgress();
void setAmmo(int ammo);
boolean usesAmmo();
void addOneAmmo();
boolean deductOneAmmo();
int getAmmo();
float getAmmoPerSecond();
int getMaxAmmo();
void resetAmmo();
void setMaxAmmo(int maxAmmo);

Nice!

Quote
Added "ship_unique_signature" ship *variant* tag
If any ship with this tag is present in player's fleet, opposing fleets always know who they're facing regardless of transponder status

I'm reeally curious as to what the use case for this was.  ;D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 08, 2021, 03:33:26 PM
Quote
Punitive expeditions and Hegemony inspections will instantly fail if the target colony changes ownership
Well thats an interesting little tidbit too...

This looks exciting!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: tomatopaste on March 08, 2021, 05:01:12 PM
All changes look great, I'm especially excited about some of the new combat api features.

I made a bug report that didn't sneak into these patch notes about converted hangar (and other fighter slot adding hullmods) not using launch bay weapon slots when provided at this thread (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19817.0), maybe worth taking a look at? It would be appreciated by a few people. Thanks :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FooF on March 08, 2021, 05:23:06 PM
The D-mod changes are very welcome. Degraded Engines vs. Degraded Drive Field is a huge change and I like how you didn't cripple combat ships by slowing their burn down.

A lot of the other things are nice QoL changes and I like the Pirate/Expedition changes.

The Needler changes are so-so: I've always felt the Heavy Needler was a little too good but the fact that it was 15 OP was kind of the balancing factor. But 50 range isn't a huge deal.

Re: The Storm Needler, no offense, but maybe it just needs to be-worked. With its current range, I never use it but as was mentioned, if its range was buffed, it'd be universally useful. There's probably a via media in there somewhere. Dare I say give it ammunition? Buff the range to "Large Ballistic" ranges but limit its raw damage output via clips or regenerating ammo? Or, give it bursts like the other Needlers (perhaps a large 3-second-long burst that tends to overkill with an equally long cooldown). Storm Needler goes "BRR" is fine but only in bursts and it would be all over the place at extreme range.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on March 08, 2021, 05:57:33 PM
Anything about grace periods for newly spawned patrol fleets?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 08, 2021, 06:09:00 PM
Re: The Storm Needler, no offense, but maybe it just needs to be-worked. With its current range, I never use it but as was mentioned, if its range was buffed, it'd be universally useful.
Same here.  It is enough of a flux hog that I use other weapons instead because low-tech ships have trouble sustaining it (plus other weapons).  Conquest can sustain Storm Needler without much difficulty, but Conquest has enough extra mounts that I can mount a different combination of weapons (instead of Storm Needlers and Heavy Mortars) and have roughly equal sustained time-to-kill at 800-900 range (instead of 700).  The only reason to use Storm Needler is if I find one but have not yet found other heavy weapons.

Most heavy ballistics have 900 range.  I get those weapons mainly for that 900 range!  It is easy to pair complimentary 900 range heavy weapons (Hellbore, Mark IX, HAG, Mjolnir).  With Storm Needlers, I probably need to pair them with Heavy Mortars, which is a bit weak.

Maybe Storm Needler could cost a bit less OP, or maybe have less DPS and flux cost.  The cheaper heavy weapons tend to be more useful when the ships with heavy mounts have plenty to spare... and not enough dissipation to support anything bigger than a Mark IX.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 08, 2021, 07:08:42 PM
Re: Storm Needler, I find the AI has a bit of trouble with its windup combined with the high flux cost. In stressful situations it sometimes tries to flicker the weapon group, which doesn't really go that well.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 08, 2021, 07:17:26 PM
I made a bug report that didn't sneak into these patch notes about converted hangar (and other fighter slot adding hullmods) not using launch bay weapon slots when provided at this thread (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19817.0), maybe worth taking a look at? It would be appreciated by a few people. Thanks :)

I did see it! Ah, apologies, it's not something I really want to mess with, especially right now. It's got potential to add bugs and the use case is pretty limited - and as you note, not present in vanilla, which makes testing more of a pain, too.

Re: Storm Needler, yeah, no argument from me. It's not a weapon I'm happy with - it's just borderline "ok" - and I remember struggling with it when putting it together.

Maybe something precise and flux efficient, with a decent range (800ish?) that has pretty good burst and efficiency, but underwhelming sustained DPS. So kind of like the other needlers, but also accurate. Hmm...

Anything about grace periods for newly spawned patrol fleets?

Not sure what you mean.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on March 08, 2021, 07:20:07 PM
Hello Alex, any plans for Atropos changes?
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19903.0


Anything about grace periods for newly spawned patrol fleets?

Not sure what you mean.
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19634.msg304978#msg304978
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Harmful Mechanic on March 08, 2021, 07:50:53 PM
Re: Storm Needler, yeah, no argument from me. It's not a weapon I'm happy with - it's just borderline "ok" - and I remember struggling with it when putting it together.

Maybe something precise and flux efficient, with a decent range (800ish?) that has pretty good burst and efficiency, but underwhelming sustained DPS. So kind of like the other needlers, but also accurate. Hmm...

I would go the opposite direction and just make it a buckshot/scatter type weapon using a script; then it could fire bursts of scattering flechette clouds relatively rapidly, making it absolutely devastating to shields and a little better at sandblasting bare hull or weak armor, but useless for overloading or damaging armor.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: shoi on March 08, 2021, 09:20:02 PM
Now the vayra d-mods are in vanilla. there's no escaping them  :'(
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Originem on March 08, 2021, 10:03:51 PM
"onExplosionEffect":"com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.combat.RiftLanceMineExplosion"
Added "onFireEffect" to projectile and missile specs; see OnFireEffectPlugin

So I could make a class implement both onFireEffect and onHitEffect right?
And in the project spec, I could just duplicate the class path like
Code
"onHitEffect":"data.scripts.xxxxWeaponPlugin",
"onFireEffect":"data.scripts.xxxxWeaponPlugin"
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Golde on March 08, 2021, 10:11:14 PM
Re: Storm noodlers

Its dps would be overpowered with incredible range, but have you tried NOT giving it dps so high that is borderlining unsustainable even on capital ships?

You should consider normalising its performance and take a bottom-up balancing approach rather than the top to bottom approach. Something along the lines of increasing the range to 800 or even 825 I dare say, but also lower its dps to 500 while keeping its high flux efficiency.

Not only for balance, but this would also solves a couple of other underlying problems this weapon has.

As currently ships with large ballistics usually have both incredibly bad flux dissipation AND mobility excluding the conquest. And those traits are both archille's left and right heel respectively when considering mounting the storm noodler. The fluxdraw and range simply limits its viability to basically the conquest alone. And to add insult to injury in this exact situation, the OP premium of the SN could have otherwise gotten yourself a much needed flux distributor should you choose the Mk9 or some other substitute.

And the times when you DO have a conquest, it is ALSO almost the least suitable thing to put on a ship with *** shields and thin armor.

So as a result you end up with these unpleasant cookie cutter builds that occasionally shine a few dim sparks of coolness.

The storm noodler is an OP item with basically 0 usability. It's torn between two roles and ended up being *** at both. It sticks out like a sore thumb in a game that has done a suspiciously good job giving each and every weapon their respective role up to this point.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Sarissofoi on March 08, 2021, 10:54:45 PM
Quote
Assault Chaingun: reduced damage/shot to 75 (was: 90)
Why?
Its short ranged and high flux demanded weapon with not that good flux exchange ratio?
Why its nerfed and why so much?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Amoebka on March 09, 2021, 01:15:23 AM
Was Onslaught really underperforming that much? The amount of buffs it receives seems a bit absurd.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on March 09, 2021, 01:29:18 AM
Was Onslaught really underperforming that much? The amount of buffs it receives seems a bit absurd.
Yes, TPC are OP.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Schwartz on March 09, 2021, 01:34:07 AM
Interesting round of changes overall. Mostly reads like a polish pass with not a lot of drastic changes. So we can wait for release with baited breath.

I think the Mark IX didn't need that buff, it was already the popular choice for cheap-flux kinetics.

That's about it. ;)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on March 09, 2021, 01:42:09 AM
I think the Mark IX didn't need that buff, it was already the popular choice for cheap-flux kinetics.
That's because other kinetics are very niche, and both Gauss Cannon and Storm Needler fit more easily on Conquest than low tech capitals.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Schwartz on March 09, 2021, 01:44:06 AM
Yep, I think an effort to make other kinetics less niche would be good. I have never used Gauss Cannon because it's so flux inefficient and I don't see the benefit for a snipe weapon on large ships when you can fit several IXes and close the distance some.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Kelenius on March 09, 2021, 01:47:07 AM
Campaign:
  • "Moving slowly":
    • Now at half the burn level of the slowest ship rather than being fixed at burn level 2
    • "Sensors" skill gives bonus to this burn level
    • Go Dark: forces "moving slowly" instead of having a separate movement penalty
    • Active Sensor Burst: can move slowly while charging it up
    • Still reduces sensor profile while in applicable terrain (rings, asteroid fields, debris fields)
    • Asteroid fields: chance for moderately damaging asteroid impacts on ships when not moving slowly
      • AI will move slowly through asteroid fields
    • Hyperspace storms: slow-moving fleets do not attract storm strikes
      • AI will move slowly through storms instead of trying to avoid them
  • Added campaign tutorial section explaining the "move slowly" key

I'm curious about this, will there be a setting to move slowly automatically when entering a dangerous area? Autopilot will happily fly you right down the asteroid field if that's the shortest path...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on March 09, 2021, 03:24:06 AM
About the storm needler: how about making it deal frag damage instead, and extending the range & reducing the flux?  it's niche could be a flux efficient way for capitals to shred hulls of ships with their armor already stripped down, or even as support role for smaller ships.  Kinda like a heavier thumper that's actually good and doesn't need to reload and can put some pressure on the enemies. 

About the Hyperion: 
I really want to like this ship, and I'm fine with a capital size supply cost, however unless the peak active performance timer gets on the same level as bigger ships, I don't see myself using it as a flagship, even though I really want to...and since it's pretty rare or with limited ship numbers, having a spare one is unreasonable. 
flagships should only get some minor debuff to speed or something else when out of time imho, having a cool little ship that you like and knowing that you can only use it for a very limited time is not fun imho 
Heck maybe even an ability that doubles or triples the minimum crew but makes it so you could keep using the ship past the peak performance timer would be good, just make it so it increases the cooldown on phase and teleporting ships, lowers the speed etc, so you could keep using the same flagship, but at a lower performance...feels kinda weird for a commander to abandon its flagship mid fight and go pilot another ship lol, the flagship should be something that's always there as a morale booster for the army imho, something that costs more in supply, but has to keep on fighting, not the first one to retreat.

On a second note, does this update mean the release is imminent? or do you expect to make more patch notes updates before that? either way good job man, I can't wait to get my hands on the steamy new version :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on March 09, 2021, 03:40:46 AM
About the storm needler, how about making it deal frag damage instead, and extending the range & reducing the flux?  it's niche could be a flux efficient way for capitals to shred hulls of ships with their armor already stripped down, or even as support role for smaller ships.  Kinda like a heavier thumper that's actually good and doesn't need to reload and can put some pressure on the enemies.
Complete trash, a 28 OP frag is.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on March 09, 2021, 04:54:48 AM
About the storm needler, how about making it deal frag damage instead, and extending the range & reducing the flux?  it's niche could be a flux efficient way for capitals to shred hulls of ships with their armor already stripped down, or even as support role for smaller ships.  Kinda like a heavier thumper that's actually good and doesn't need to reload and can put some pressure on the enemies.
Complete trash, a 28 OP frag is.
 
Then reduce the OP as well :p, I feel like there are enough anti shield weapons, and a low flux cost frag weapon there to use on exposed hull or frigates, or to put pressure, is something that we kinda need. 
Also just because it's frag, doesn't mean it has to be ***, higher caliber and with the fast firing speed, means that it could shred smaller targets and seriously pressure the shields of bigger ships, while still having other anti shield weapons being better in pure anti shield situations
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Cyan Leader on March 09, 2021, 06:11:54 AM
I think there are ways to make the Storm Needler more appealing without completely changing the weapon.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on March 09, 2021, 06:14:10 AM
There's a dedicated thread for Storm Needler so we don't suffocate this thread with all the ideas and thoughts: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19904.0
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Retry on March 09, 2021, 06:20:49 AM
If you removed the anti-shield role from the Storm Needler, we'd have exactly one large ballistic anti-shield weapon (Mk.IX).  It'd also bug me to no end if one of the Needler variants was a frag weapon while the rest were kinetics, so if it's absolutely necessary to have a large frag gun in the roster I'd rather it be something entirely new.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 09, 2021, 06:33:17 AM
If you removed the anti-shield role from the Storm Needler, we'd have exactly one large ballistic anti-shield weapon (Mk.IX).  It'd also bug me to no end if one of the Needler variants was a frag weapon while the rest were kinetics, so if it's absolutely necessary to have a large frag gun in the roster I'd rather it be something entirely new.
Also Mjolnir.  Maybe not as dedicated, but it can work as anti-...everything if paired with more anti-shield weapons like Mark IX and/or Heavy AC/Needler.

Frag weapon can work if the damage is overwhelming like Locusts are.  I agree that the idea is better on a new large weapon.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 09, 2021, 09:12:43 AM
Not sure what you mean.
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19634.msg304978#msg304978
[/quote]

It's in the notes!

I would go the opposite direction and just make it a buckshot/scatter type weapon using a script; then it could fire bursts of scattering flechette clouds relatively rapidly, making it absolutely devastating to shields and a little better at sandblasting bare hull or weak armor, but useless for overloading or damaging armor.

That could work, yeah. It also sounds like a bigger version of the other two needlers. And, I mean, some weapon lines are like that! But if possible I prefer to mix it up so that there aren't too many things that are just "X but bigger". Also: for a re-work at this point to be viable, the current sprite and sfx would need to "work" with it, too; imo the current sprite in particular feels like a fairly accurate weapon...


"onExplosionEffect":"com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.combat.RiftLanceMineExplosion"
Added "onFireEffect" to projectile and missile specs; see OnFireEffectPlugin

So I could make a class implement both onFireEffect and onHitEffect right?
And in the project spec, I could just duplicate the class path like
Code
"onHitEffect":"data.scripts.xxxxWeaponPlugin",
"onFireEffect":"data.scripts.xxxxWeaponPlugin"

Yes, that's exactly right. In fact some of the new vanilla weapons use this approach, too.


Quote
Assault Chaingun: reduced damage/shot to 75 (was: 90)
Why?
Its short ranged and high flux demanded weapon with not that good flux exchange ratio?
Why its nerfed and why so much?

Because it was really, really, really OP :) It's still pretty great where it's at now.


Was Onslaught really underperforming that much? The amount of buffs it receives seems a bit absurd.

I feel like the buffs it got are fairly modest. Basically boils down to a bit more OP and a more usable built-in weapon. (Along with an arc reduction, which is neither nerf nor buff, really.)


I'm curious about this, will there be a setting to move slowly automatically when entering a dangerous area? Autopilot will happily fly you right down the asteroid field if that's the shortest path...

No, but you can hold S without cancelling a laid-in course. I don't like calling that feature "autopilot" (lost cause, probably) because that implies a level of intelligence beyond "go in a straight line towards destination", which is all it's intended to be.



About the Hyperion: 
I really want to like this ship, and I'm fine with a capital size supply cost, however unless the peak active performance timer gets on the same level as bigger ships, I don't see myself using it as a flagship, even though I really want to...and since it's pretty rare or with limited ship numbers, having a spare one is unreasonable. 
flagships should only get some minor debuff to speed or something else when out of time imho, having a cool little ship that you like and knowing that you can only use it for a very limited time is not fun imho 
Heck maybe even an ability that doubles or triples the minimum crew but makes it so you could keep using the ship past the peak performance timer would be good, just make it so it increases the cooldown on phase and teleporting ships, lowers the speed etc, so you could keep using the same flagship, but at a lower performance...feels kinda weird for a commander to abandon its flagship mid fight and go pilot another ship lol, the flagship should be something that's always there as a morale booster for the army imho, something that costs more in supply, but has to keep on fighting, not the first one to retreat.

I get where you're coming from - it can feel more... comfortable, maybe is the word? to know that your flagship will never "go bad". But that's just fundamentally not how the game works. That said, you can increase frigate PPT by 4+ minutes if you stack everything, so it you'll have considerably more options there than in the current release.

On a second note, does this update mean the release is imminent? or do you expect to make more patch notes updates before that? either way good job man, I can't wait to get my hands on the steamy new version :)

I wouldn't expect any substantial patch notes prior to the release :) A few items, sure, but nothing major.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Amoebka on March 09, 2021, 09:16:48 AM
When talking about Onslaught I meant indirect buffs as well. Devastator and Mark 9 are both buffed, heavy armor hullmod is buffed, shield removal hullmod is added, that kind of stuff.

Then again, looking at those new phase AI gifs, I don't want to even try anything without 360 shields.  :D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 09, 2021, 09:19:51 AM
Ah, gotcha. I think both of those needed the buffs, but that's a fair point; we'll see how it all combines with the Onslaught.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: huhn on March 09, 2021, 10:06:13 AM
just to be sure i'm pretty alone with that the SN it is just fine as it is.

very high DPS highest tied with plasma cannon.
comparable short range.
good flux efficiency better than Mjolnir pretty much free compared to the PC.
comparable low range.

the kinetic part is a bonus for it thanks to the high fire rate armour is not that big of a deal.
high flux cost sorry i don't see it the stats say something different.
just to be absolutely clear here this thing does more dmg than two mark IX(i'm taking live numbers here) for less flux.
that leaves the totally justified OP cost combined with the lowest range of large kinetics.
the SN is also relative useful as a PD.
i really like that it is so unique.

if you can get in range this is all you need to kill the target.
i would argue that it is way to strong against stations too.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Concrete on March 09, 2021, 10:51:55 AM
I guess it remains to be seen what is on offer with the new skills but I felt that player Onslaught only reached critical mass of absurdity with the Impact Mitigation skills. So maybe if whatever armor specific bonuses aren't as good then Onslaught/Heavy Armor isn't either? Although I guess it could be better. Should be fun either way. I also generally like lowering the flux cost on TPCs though for AI pilots. Like all low-tech boys it does feel like it isn't too hard to flux bully them. Onslaught is a treat in player hands but it would be nice to be a little bit more scared of facing them.

On the topic of the Storm Needler it always stood out to me that it has a different individual shot value than the other two needlers despite the projectile looking about the same and sitting in around the same range category. Maybe dropping that back in line for consistency, giving it a limited burst as with its smaller cousins but then just making it the mother of all bursts might work out. Celebrate the excesses of high rate of fire above all else.
I empathize with the desire to not just make every weapon size step bigger and adding in no additional nuance, but it is a fairly fun platform to just make exponentially bigger. And at the moment it sorta just feels like it's a longer range kinetic version of the Assault Chaingun, so I feel its individuality isn't being achieved right now either. I do like the thing a lot though and hope it ends up in a nice place.

Thanks for the extra weapon groups by the way! Was rubbing up against 5 a bit too uncomfortably in some mod ship setups.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 09, 2021, 11:32:25 AM
Thanks for the extra weapon groups by the way! Was rubbing up against 5 a bit too uncomfortably in some mod ship setups.
Even five was too few for some standard ships, namely Onslaught and Apogee.

In case of Onslaught, I need one group per TPC, to prevent AI from killing itself by wasting TPC shots.  Then I have assault weapons, missiles, and PD.  Three groups remaining after TPCs is not really enough for Onslaught.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 09, 2021, 05:24:22 PM
Ah, gotcha. I think both of those needed the buffs, but that's a fair point; we'll see how it all combines with the Onslaught.

I wouldn't worry about those too much. Neither the devastator or Mark IX are that good on an onslaught. It has too many medium slots for it to need KN in its large and too many small to need PD in its large either. The extra armor could be an issue but a full armor'd up Onslaught isn't going to have much of an effect on heavy armor anyway since the thing that matters for it is mainly whether or not you get hit with a reaper than whether or not you get chipped to death. And no amount of HA buff is going to make your armor survive a reaper.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Histidine on March 09, 2021, 06:11:16 PM
Moddable CreateFleetPlugin? That's something I have a few ideas for messing with.
Does it use a PluginPick, or does only one mod get to modify it at a time?

Quote
Improved variety of weapons available for AI faction fleets

    Not changing the blueprints a faction has, rather individual ships have better access to all that the faction theoretically has available
Great! Hopefully no more NPC ships with... we'll call it badly misconfigured armament.

Quote
VisualPanelAPI.showCustomPanel() now returns a CustomPanelAPI
Didn't say it at the time, but thanks for this!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on March 09, 2021, 07:11:33 PM
How well does AI perform on a ship with shield shunt?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Warnoise on March 09, 2021, 09:48:31 PM
When talking about Onslaught I meant indirect buffs as well. Devastator and Mark 9 are both buffed, heavy armor hullmod is buffed, shield removal hullmod is added, that kind of stuff.

Then again, looking at those new phase AI gifs, I don't want to even try anything without 360 shields.  :D

Shield removal hullmods in general should not cost op. Removing shield is a huge debuff already that forces the player to use tons of expensive hullmods.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 10, 2021, 12:20:04 AM
I made a bug report that didn't sneak into these patch notes about converted hangar (and other fighter slot adding hullmods) not using launch bay weapon slots when provided at this thread (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19817.0), maybe worth taking a look at? It would be appreciated by a few people. Thanks :)

I did see it! Ah, apologies, it's not something I really want to mess with, especially right now. It's got potential to add bugs and the use case is pretty limited - and as you note, not present in vanilla, which makes testing more of a pain, too.

Re: Storm Needler, yeah, no argument from me. It's not a weapon I'm happy with - it's just borderline "ok" - and I remember struggling with it when putting it together.

Maybe something precise and flux efficient, with a decent range (800ish?) that has pretty good burst and efficiency, but underwhelming sustained DPS. So kind of like the other needlers, but also accurate. Hmm...


Putting this here (in addition to the other thread) because it’s a pretty relevant thing.

The problem with the Storm Needler is not in the weapon itself. In order to be “good” on the current set of ships it would have to be overpowered. At 800 range and good burst and efficiency with underwhelming DPS it will be just as unused as it is today.

The problem with the storm Needler is the same problem as a Mark IX has. It’s that it’s a kinetic large ballistic.

Imagine for a second a mark X could be fit in a medium slot, would you fit them in medium slots? Probably, yes, if you had large ballistic to work with for HE. The current Mark X is a better gun than an HN almost solely due to its higher dps/op (and range).

So why don’t Mark IX get a lot of fitting in large ballistic slots? Well because a medium ballistic for kinetic and a large ballistic for HE is just generally better than a large ballistic for Kin and a medium ballistic for HE. The HE grants additional returns at the large slot due to the generally higher individual projectile dmg.

This kind of thing happens all throughout the ballistic lineup. Are LAG and Mortars bad? Not in the slightest but you stop fitting them as soon as you have medium ballistic slots because a railgun plus a heavy mortar is better than a HAC plus a LAG. You cannot make the LAG good on cruisers and destroyers with medium ballistic slots without making it OP. You could maybe make it work with non ballistic slots if non ballistic medium slots had really good ways to punch through shields (which they dont aside from sabots, which may be a bit limited for some people’s tastes)

So the storm Needler needs to be paired with slots that are not ballistic in nature. Would you use a storm Needler on a ship that had a large ballistic and a bunch of missile slots? Definitely. Would you use a storm Needler on a ship that had a large ballistic and medium or large or small energy? Absolutely. A storm Needler plus a plasma cannon is better than a HAG plus as plasma cannon. And a storm Needler plus a Heavy Blaster is better than a HAG plus a Heavy Blaster.(or graviton beam) And a storm Needler plus antimatter blasters is better than IRPulse (or antimatter blaster) and a HAG.

The fact that I can easily find configurations that make the storm Needler work indicates to me that it’s not a poor weapon in and of itself. It indicates that ships don’t exist to take advantage of it.

If you could, you would absolutely fit 4 LN on the front of an Aurora for 600 kin DPS out of 32 OP. So if you could you would absolutely fit a storm Needler for 750 min DPS out of 28 OP even more.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on March 10, 2021, 12:28:28 AM
The fact that I can easily find configurations that make the storm Needler work indicates to me that it’s not a poor weapon in and of itself.
I agree with everything above this, it proves a very good point. But what configurations exactly? You just listed imaginary ships and said "see Storm Needler would be good here". Does that mean we need an entirely new set of ships just so one weapon can work? I find that a bit backwards and would rather have the problematic weapon be a bit less problematic on the current roster.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: braciszek on March 10, 2021, 12:42:00 AM
Interesting round of changes overall. Mostly reads like a polish pass with not a lot of drastic changes. So we can wait for release with baited breath.

I think the Mark IX didn't need that buff, it was already the popular choice for cheap-flux kinetics.

That's about it. ;)

The Mark IX buff is nice, primarily because of its spray without GI and also because large kinetics are worse than medium kinetics. Also, all medium kinetics are less flux intensive than a mark ix and often it's better to get two medium kinetics over a mark ix. Or any large kinetic for that matter.

Primarily because with kinetic weapons all that matters in terms of damage is dps. Range and efficiency is nice (and nicer in the case of the mark ix which can miss some of its spray if the target is smaller than you built a ship to fight), but large kinetics compete with large HE for that slot.

Due to how armor works, there is a lot of priority on using weapons with high damage per shot, to weaken armor further. When armor is gone, most weapons are viable against hull. For a ship designed to fight other heavy ships, which something like a dominator and a onslaught tend to do, it's very appealing to use large HE combined with medium kinetics (interesting how the HN was touched but not the HVD, as good as it is at scaring and bullying AI) supported by sabots Because you can never go wrong with sabots.
(although with something like a dominator you can have a mark ix in one mount and a hellbore in another and do work).
And you get the anti-armor punch that medium HE always feels inadequate for when fighting big boys while having enough kinetic to deal with most shields.

The Gauss is also a weird weapon but its high damage per shot does give it some use on conquests to slowly strip armor besides pressure shields despite the fact it is kinetic.

And the storm needler is hard to fit anywhere... you really don't need that much kinetic and it's not something you can tell the AI to use effectively. A lot of fitting does revolve around "can the AI even use this how i want it to".
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: THEASD on March 10, 2021, 03:18:24 AM
Is there any plan about adding some interface like "void tryToFire()" functions like "force clicking LMB on a single weapon" to WeaponAPI?
It's really annoying get stuck when trying to find a way to force-fire a single weapon.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Phyroks on March 10, 2021, 07:08:58 AM
Seems nice, perhaps we get to play it before summer! Been long time waiting  :'(

Cheers!  ;D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 10, 2021, 08:26:40 AM
The fact that I can easily find configurations that make the storm Needler work indicates to me that it’s not a poor weapon in and of itself.
I agree with everything above this, it proves a very good point. But what configurations exactly? You just listed imaginary ships and said "see Storm Needler would be good here". Does that mean we need an entirely new set of ships just so one weapon can work? I find that a bit backwards and would rather have the problematic weapon be a bit less problematic on the current roster.

The point is that, on the current roster, in order for the Storm Needler to be utilized it would have to be problematic. It is not a problem at the moment. There is theoretically a point at which its 50/50 for fitting it or other weapons but the range around that point for which it would be hard to say it wasn’t balanced is going to be really thin.

Does this mean it needs an entirely new range of ships to be utilized? Well, kinda yes, though the Prometheus MK2 could maybe put one to good use it still has forward facing medium ballistic and that makes it a bit harder. But it’s limited OP means that a high DPS/OP weapon is efficient no matter where you fit it so if you’re faced with the choice of 2 med ballistic Kinetic or one large ballistic kinetic the large one will do better due to higher DPS/OP. And it’s large missile (and/or second large ballistic) give you sufficient HE for a cheap ship. (Even if this means a lot of empty slots)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 10, 2021, 10:06:01 AM
Is there any plan about adding some interface like "void tryToFire()" functions like "force clicking LMB on a single weapon" to WeaponAPI?
It's really annoying get stuck when trying to find a way to force-fire a single weapon.

Ah, apologies - that's not very straightforward at the moment. Could be done, but not at this stage in the release cycle, the chance of creating bugs is too high. I'll keep it in mind, though.


Re: Storm Needler and HE vs kinetc, etc - some good thoughts here! Is it fair to compare Railgun + Heavy Mortar vs HAC + LAG, though? A more fair comparison would be Dual LAC + Heavy Mortar, I think, and that becomes much less clear-cut. I don't think it's so much about per-shot damage - maybe it's more about the extra range on the higher-quality small kinetics.

But then HE in general doesn't have many "premium" options like the Railgun/Needler. The old Heavy Mauler for example could combine nicely with large kinetics, and iirc it was often the go-to for many loadouts. But HE that's "too good" is more problematic than kinetics that are too good... so in that sense comparing the best-available options for each type does make sense, even if it's not an apples-to-apples comparison.

Regarding ships that *could* make good use of large kinetics, per the idea of combining them with missiles - the Legion seems like a solid candidate, because it both has a bunch of missile slots, *and* fighters which can also benefit from kinetic support. And burn drive, which can potentially let it make use of shorter-ranged weapons...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Retry on March 10, 2021, 10:26:02 AM
Why is DLAC+HM more fair for the HAC+LAG comparison than Railgun+HM?  A HAC+LAG combination is 15 OP.  DLAC+HM is only 12 OP, quite a bit lighter on the budget.  Railgun+HM is 14 OP, so it's much closer to the HAC+LAG combo (actually a bit cheaper, but close enough).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 10, 2021, 10:36:46 AM
Hmm, just tried Storm Needler + Hellbore + 5 Harpoons, a few vulcans, 4 khopesh, ITU + expanded missile racks, 47 vents no caps, on a Legion. Trying in the mission sim with no skills: its a pretty fantastic loadout actually. More for hunting smaller ships than large because of the range, but it is very good at bursting things down.

[Edit] Giving it Thunders instead and an automated repair unit helped a lot: its a bit of a glass cannon, so some lockdown and getting the needler back online makes a big difference.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 10, 2021, 10:44:58 AM
Why is DLAC+HM more fair for the HAC+LAG comparison than Railgun+HM?  A HAC+LAG combination is 15 OP.  DLAC+HM is only 12 OP, quite a bit lighter on the budget.  Railgun+HM is 14 OP, so it's much closer to the HAC+LAG combo (actually a bit cheaper, but close enough).

The argument being made here is that "small kinetic + medium HE is better than small HE + medium kinetic" and using a much better - and more OP-costly - kinetic in the small slot, compared to the average-quality small HE weapon, undermines that argument. You could use DLAC + Heavy Mauler instead of Heavy Mortar, or whatever; I don't think that aspect of it matters too much. Or you can assume the rest of the OP go into vents or other good stuff to improve the ship.

Thinking a bit more, this is also possibly an argument that the Heavy Mortar is too cheap OP-wise, out-competing the LAG by so much that it's basically out of the running. Or that the LAG is too expensive.

Hmm, just tried Storm Needler + Hellbore + 5 Harpoons, a few vulcans, 4 khopesh, ITU + expanded missile racks, 47 vents no caps, on a Legion. Trying in the mission sim with no skills: its a pretty fantastic loadout actually. More for hunting smaller ships than large because of the range, but it is very good at bursting things down.

!!!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zelnik on March 10, 2021, 10:47:12 AM
Alex...


Why not release this now and fix all these terrible problems that plague the game?


Small patches are just as good as big ones.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on March 10, 2021, 10:58:23 AM
I've put storm needler on a non-SO dominator before, but only when I have an aggressive officer with flux skills. It's fine but mark IX does just as well IMO, and that's why I was concerned about the storm needler. I've found that in its current state, it's a reasonable comparison between the two weapons for officers with flux skills (although mark IX is much safer for flux reasons) but now mark IX is getting buffed which is why I was concerned about the storm needler on the next patch. Honestly, even just reducing damage/flux and increasing range would be good IMO, and much less complicated than reworking the whole weapon.

Also, I think heavy mortar could be 1-2 OP more and lag could be 1-2 OP less pretty easily.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 10, 2021, 11:03:40 AM
I could see a 1 point adjustment on the lag and h mortar, but I think they are in the right ballpark.

Lags fail against heavily armored targets, but they do well against destroyers and below... if I were going to do any tweak to them it would be an accuracy upgrade. That would turn them from "ok" anti-fighter options to "really good", and decent candidates for IPDAI smalls as well.

Heavy Mortars have fantastic DPS/OP and efficiency, but they are really hardpoint only weapons given the recoil. When turret mounted they will miss a capital with sustained fire!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: KopiG on March 10, 2021, 11:23:56 AM
Any guess when the patch might be coming?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 10, 2021, 11:36:31 AM
Heavy Mortar may be fine at 8 OP.  It has good DPS and efficiency, but it is slow and inaccurate.

I usually avoid LAG because two Light Mortars are more OP and flux efficient than a single LAG, and most ships have more mounts than their dissipation can support.  The only time I can see using LAG is when I do not have enough mounts to stack lots of Light Mortars.  (I am struggling to think of such a case off the top of my head.)  Now if LAGs had better accuracy, I can see using them over Light Mortars when I need precision.

Quote
I've found that in its current state, it's a reasonable comparison between the two weapons for officers with flux skills (although mark IX is much safer for flux reasons) but now mark IX is getting buffed which is why I was concerned about the storm needler on the next patch. Honestly, even just reducing damage/flux and increasing range would be good IMO, and much less complicated than reworking the whole weapon.
I agree.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 10, 2021, 11:46:55 AM
Re: Storm Needler and HE vs kinetc, etc - some good thoughts here! Is it fair to compare Railgun + Heavy Mortar vs HAC + LAG, though? A more fair comparison would be Dual LAC + Heavy Mortar, I think, and that becomes much less clear-cut. I don't think it's so much about per-shot damage - maybe it's more about the extra range on the higher-quality small kinetics.

But then HE in general doesn't have many "premium" options like the Railgun/Needler. The old Heavy Mauler for example could combine nicely with large kinetics, and iirc it was often the go-to for many loadouts. But HE that's "too good" is more problematic than kinetics that are too good... so in that sense comparing the best-available options for each type does make sense, even if it's not an apples-to-apples comparison.

Regarding ships that *could* make good use of large kinetics, per the idea of combining them with missiles - the Legion seems like a solid candidate, because it both has a bunch of missile slots, *and* fighters which can also benefit from kinetic support. And burn drive, which can potentially let it make use of shorter-ranged weapons...

Railgun + HM costs 14 OP. HAC+LAG  costs 15 OP. So i think that the comparison is pretty fair. Its cheaper to run RG+HM than it is to run HAC+LAG. That it also tends to be better because of the superior armor penetrating power of the HM compared to the LAG is just extra butter. You could compare the DLAC+HM(12 OP) to the Arbalest + LAG (13 OP) and while the Arb/LAG does a bit better relatively here... i think the DLAC/HM comes out on top still.

Its far easier to "downsize" the larger HE and still be efficient and then "upsize" the smaller kinetic than it is the reverse. Even if you made the HM have the same  DPS/flux profile as the LAG but made its projectiles do 50% more dmg/hit it would be far better to use the mortar and a small kinetic. Even if you made it 8 OP and made it 160 DPS/160 flux the DLAC+HM at 13 OP would be better than the Arbalest + LAG at 13 OP. And the RG+HM would be better than the HAC+LAG at 15 OP each(well that one is a lot closer actually).

Re: Storm Needler Legion

The Legion is a good option for Storm Needlers(Two even!). I guess i just didn't really consider it because i don't use the Legion a lot. But it does have the weapons profile for it. Large Ballistic plus medium missile (well composite but if you're running Storm you've not got the flux to run Medium Ballistic here) and the option to get HE missiles from bombers and just have the bombers sit next to it and fire.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Dri on March 10, 2021, 11:47:28 AM
Biggest reason Alex doesn't just toss the patch out there is bandwidth $$$. Everyone redownloading new versions gets pricey.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 10, 2021, 12:00:39 PM
Railgun + HM costs 14 OP. HAC+LAG  costs 15 OP. So i think that the comparison is pretty fair.

I think this is more about the relative power of the weapons. Railgun + HM is "balanced" - both weapons have roughly the same power level, as reflected by their OP costs. HAC + LAG, one of the weapons is 2x more expensive; it's a lopsided combination and that contributes to it being worse. It's not the *only* factor, certainly - per-shot damage for HE etc factors in. But using non-premium kinetics for the comparison I think gives a clearer picture of the impact of those other factors.

Biggest reason Alex doesn't just toss the patch out there is bandwidth $$$. Everyone redownloading new versions gets pricey.

It's a reason, but it's not the main reason! Getting *any* version ready for release is a ton of work. Things need to come together well in so many different ways - gameplay balance, testing, new features interacting with each other well, and so on. The amount of extra work to get an "intermediate" version ready would be absurd to the point where it's not even remotely practical; more than just getting the actual intended version out, probably, since I'd have to make a ton of decisions about what to include and what not to include, etc. And it'd be a worse version since, generally speaking, releases include a set of things that work together well and mostly need each other to do so. Cutting some of those things out impacts what remains.

A month or two out from a release, the actual dev build has most of the things in it, but I think most players would be shocked at how not-actually-fun-to-play it is. Most of that - things clicking together into a cohesive, playable whole - happens very close to the end of the cycle.

Any guess when the patch might be coming?

Pretty soon(tm). No, seriously - the playtesting is pretty far along, and going well at this point!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 10, 2021, 12:01:28 PM
Re: Storm Needler and HE vs kinetc, etc - some good thoughts here! Is it fair to compare Railgun + Heavy Mortar vs HAC + LAG, though? A more fair comparison would be Dual LAC + Heavy Mortar, I think, and that becomes much less clear-cut. I don't think it's so much about per-shot damage - maybe it's more about the extra range on the higher-quality small kinetics.

But then HE in general doesn't have many "premium" options like the Railgun/Needler. The old Heavy Mauler for example could combine nicely with large kinetics, and iirc it was often the go-to for many loadouts. But HE that's "too good" is more problematic than kinetics that are too good... so in that sense comparing the best-available options for each type does make sense, even if it's not an apples-to-apples comparison.

Regarding ships that *could* make good use of large kinetics, per the idea of combining them with missiles - the Legion seems like a solid candidate, because it both has a bunch of missile slots, *and* fighters which can also benefit from kinetic support. And burn drive, which can potentially let it make use of shorter-ranged weapons...
I would use medium HE to combo with Railgun because 700 range is better than LAG's 600.  Also, HAC has 800 range while LAG is 600 (but there is nothing better than Heavy Mortar, so 700 range is all we have for basic HE).  That effectively reduces attack range to 600.  (AI may try to armor tank kinetics is they are the only thing threatening it.)  I rather take 700 range (from Railgun and Mortar combo) for general-purpose attacking.  As for light autocannon plus HE, I do not know.

Heavy Mauler used to combine well with medium kinetics, but the slow firing rate and low DPS is such that I rather not use it unless it is the only option.  Also, it is better if max range is kinetics instead of HE, if they cannot be equal, for AI's sake.

As for Legion, if I want it to be a good carrier, then I take Deck Crew and fighters, then I outfit it like a gunship.  Legion had bad flux stats.  I put two guns in the heavy mount and two dual flak on two of the composites.  If the heavies were filled with two Hellbore, then one or two heavy needlers in more composites.  If I use Mark Ix+HAG or Mjolnir+Heavy Needler in the heavies, then no more weapons.  (All smalls are empty.)  Rest goes into flux and hullmods.  Legion is a carrier (and a gunship), it does not need missiles because fighters are better missiles than missiles (at least medium-sized missiles).  If I want to play with medium missiles, better to use Onslaught instead of Legion.  Legion is one of those ships where I leave most mounts empty to focus on fighters, but two heavy weapons with ITU plus fighters is enough to do serious damage to many things, which makes it a viable gunship, unlike other dedicated carriers.

As for Legion14, until we get the Champion, the point of using it is it is the only good platform for Hammer Barrage.  If I want a ship to play silly and go nuts with dumb-fire large missiles, Legion14 is the only good choice.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 10, 2021, 12:04:28 PM
I would use medium HE to combo with Railgun because 700 range is better than LAG's 600.  Also, HAC has 800 range while LAG is 600 (but there is nothing better than Heavy Mortar, so 700 range is all we have for basic HE).  That effectively reduces attack range to 600.  (AI may try to armor tank kinetics is they are the only thing threatening it.)  I rather take 700 range (from Railgun and Mortar combo) for general-purpose attacking.  As for light autocannon plus HE, I do not know.

Yeah, the ranges also make sense! It's just a more balanced combination in different ways.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zelnik on March 10, 2021, 12:09:03 PM
Quote



A month or two out from a release, the actual dev build has most of the things in it, but I think most players would be shocked at how not-actually-fun-to-play it is. Most of that - things clicking together into a cohesive, playable whole - happens very close to the end of the cycle.




Pretty soon(tm). No, seriously - the playtesting is pretty far along, and going well at this point!


This is really all I wanted to hear, thanks!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 10, 2021, 12:18:57 PM
Railgun + HM costs 14 OP. HAC+LAG  costs 15 OP. So i think that the comparison is pretty fair.

I think this is more about the relative power of the weapons. Railgun + HM is "balanced" - both weapons have roughly the same power level, as reflected by their OP costs. HAC + LAG, one of the weapons is 2x more expensive; it's a lopsided combination and that contributes to it being worse. It's not the *only* factor, certainly - per-shot damage for HE etc factors in. But using non-premium kinetics for the comparison I think gives a clearer picture of the impact of those other factors.

HAC has the highest DPS/OP of the kinetic mediums. It is a premium kinetic. It may be lopsided in that its worth far more than the LAG but if we drop down to the "non premium kinetic" Arbalest then arbalest + LAG is 13 OP(8+5) and DLight Autocannon + Mortar is 12 OP.(5+7) and i know which combination i would rather have. And this extends regardless of small changes to OP cost here. I think would rather have the DLAC+Mortar at 13 OP than the Arbalest + LAG at 12. It takes a lot to overcome the additional hit strength on armor that a larger HE naturally produces.

But if we had a storm needler backed up by medium energy... Well then that changes things, i cannot get even close .43 flux/dmg (vs shields) on any energy mount. But i can get 2.88 flux/damage against 1000 armor which is really close to the HM's 2.26 out of a medium energy slot.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Retry on March 10, 2021, 12:40:38 PM
Why is DLAC+HM more fair for the HAC+LAG comparison than Railgun+HM?  A HAC+LAG combination is 15 OP.  DLAC+HM is only 12 OP, quite a bit lighter on the budget.  Railgun+HM is 14 OP, so it's much closer to the HAC+LAG combo (actually a bit cheaper, but close enough).

The argument being made here is that "small kinetic + medium HE is better than small HE + medium kinetic" and using a much better - and more OP-costly - kinetic in the small slot, compared to the average-quality small HE weapon, undermines that argument. You could use DLAC + Heavy Mauler instead of Heavy Mortar, or whatever; I don't think that aspect of it matters too much. Or you can assume the rest of the OP go into vents or other good stuff to improve the ship.
Well, it's not a direct comparison of individual weapons, but a comparison of how a combination of weapons work as a system.  Yes, a Railgun is more premium than a LAG.  However, a Heavy Autocannon is more premium than a Heavy Mortar.  Those two functionally cancel each other out, at least in terms of OP costs.  When I do builds I'm most concerned with how my "system" of weapon arrays performs with each other for a given OP cost, so comparing 2 systems with similar OP costs (Railgun+HM vs HAC+LAG) is more fair and intuitive IMO.

Re: LAGs in general
My main critique of it is its hefty flux cost.  160 dps is pretty great on paper, but it's small 40 damage shots, and even though they're HE hits it still takes little more than 450 armor (slightly more than light destroyer grade) to reduce it to the minimum 15% damage per hit.  That isn't inherently bad by itself, but LAGs are also the most flux-intensive small ballistics to run, as well as one of the most flux-intensive small weapons in the game.

1:1 flux:damage feels a lot less efficient than it actually is in this case since the gun can't rely on its armor penetration and often has to use sheer volume of fire to power through.  The weapon itself feels okay outside of its flux cost, which I don't feel is representative of the LAG's actual worth.  So if I were to tweak one thing off the LAG, I'd start by looking at its flux efficiency.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on March 10, 2021, 12:43:49 PM
But then HE in general doesn't have many "premium" options like the Railgun/Needler. The old Heavy Mauler for example could combine nicely with large kinetics, and iirc it was often the go-to for many loadouts. But HE that's "too good" is more problematic than kinetics that are too good... so in that sense comparing the best-available options for each type does make sense, even if it's not an apples-to-apples comparison.weapons...
A part of the reason why HE weapons are preferred for bigger mounts is because kinetics have premium options for smaller mounts and HE guns don't, in addition to bigger mount size giving high explosives better hit strength (and so performance) by default, whereas bigger kinetics mostly get some more range and some more DPS.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 10, 2021, 12:47:36 PM
I think you may be missing my point, which is that picking a premium kinetic in the smaller slot makes the combination more balanced. The HAC being a premium kinetic... I mean, first of all it's not! It's 10 OP, the baseline value for medium weapons. But even if it were, it doesn't matter, since it being premium would only make the combination more lopsided, since it's the larger slot.

I think would rather have the DLAC+Mortar at 13 OP than the Arbalest + LAG at 12. It takes a lot to overcome the additional hit strength on armor that a larger HE naturally produces.

That's a more fair and interesting comparison, yeah. I'm just saying, Railgun + Heavy Mortar is extremely good for additional, major reasons aside from hit strength.


Yes, a Railgun is more premium than a LAG.  However, a Heavy Autocannon is more premium than a Heavy Mortar.  Those two functionally cancel each other out, at least in terms of OP costs.

In terms of OP costs, yes. In terms of how they combine with the other, the Railgun being more premium makes the combination more balanced, while the HAC being relatively more premium makes the combination more lopsided. Which is my point, how balanced the combination is what really matters here, and the effect of these choices on *that* is the opposite of canceling out.

A part of the reason why HE weapons are preferred for bigger mounts is because kinetics have premium options for smaller mounts and HE guns don't, in addition to bigger mount size giving high explosives better hit strength (and so performance) by default, whereas bigger kinetics mostly get some more range and some more DPS.

Yeah, no argument there.

Edit: am I being unclear about the "balanced" thing here? I feel like this isn't complicated or controversial or even in opposition to the other points being raised, but it doesn't seem to be clicking, so I wonder if I'm just explaining it very poorly.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 10, 2021, 12:53:44 PM
Why is DLAC+HM more fair for the HAC+LAG comparison than Railgun+HM?  A HAC+LAG combination is 15 OP.  DLAC+HM is only 12 OP, quite a bit lighter on the budget.  Railgun+HM is 14 OP, so it's much closer to the HAC+LAG combo (actually a bit cheaper, but close enough).

The argument being made here is that "small kinetic + medium HE is better than small HE + medium kinetic" and using a much better - and more OP-costly - kinetic in the small slot, compared to the average-quality small HE weapon, undermines that argument. You could use DLAC + Heavy Mauler instead of Heavy Mortar, or whatever; I don't think that aspect of it matters too much. Or you can assume the rest of the OP go into vents or other good stuff to improve the ship.
Well, it's not a direct comparison of individual weapons, but a comparison of how a combination of weapons work as a system.  Yes, a Railgun is more premium than a LAG.  However, a Heavy Autocannon is more premium than a Heavy Mortar.  Those two functionally cancel each other out, at least in terms of OP costs.  When I do builds I'm most concerned with how my "system" of weapon arrays performs with each other for a given OP cost, so comparing 2 systems with similar OP costs (Railgun+HM vs HAC+LAG) is more fair and intuitive IMO.

Re: LAGs in general
My main critique of it is its hefty flux cost.  160 dps is pretty great on paper, but it's small 40 damage shots, and even though they're HE hits it still takes little more than 450 armor (slightly more than light destroyer grade) to reduce it to the minimum 15% damage per hit.  That isn't inherently bad by itself, but LAGs are also the most flux-intensive small ballistics to run, as well as one of the most flux-intensive small weapons in the game.

1:1 flux:damage feels a lot less efficient than it actually is in this case since the gun can't rely on its armor penetration and often has to use sheer volume of fire to power through.  The weapon itself feels okay outside of its flux cost, which I don't feel is representative of the LAG's actual worth.  So if I were to tweak one thing off the LAG, I'd start by looking at its flux efficiency.

In general making a weapon use less flux and do less damage at the same time makes the weapon worse. You can always not fire a weapon and so reduce its dps and flux use. You cannot "superfire" a weapon and so increase its DPS and flux usage. LAG are really good(especially for ships like the Lasher), you just don't need a lot of them.

\


In terms of OP costs, yes. In terms of how they combine with the other, the Railgun being more premium makes the combination more balanced, while the HAC being relatively more premium makes the combination more lopsided. Which is my point, how balanced the combination is what really matters here, and the effect of these choices on *that* is the opposite of canceling out.


I am not sure why its more or less lopsided. Why is the kinetic medium being relatively more premium vs the light being relatively more premium make it more lopsided? In both instances its the kin weapon that is relatively more premium. In both instances there is a weapon that is relatively more premium... I could use a "premium" HE medium like the Assault Chaingun or the Mauler instead and pretty sure i will come to the same conclusion.

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Retry on March 10, 2021, 01:08:59 PM
Why is DLAC+HM more fair for the HAC+LAG comparison than Railgun+HM?  A HAC+LAG combination is 15 OP.  DLAC+HM is only 12 OP, quite a bit lighter on the budget.  Railgun+HM is 14 OP, so it's much closer to the HAC+LAG combo (actually a bit cheaper, but close enough).

The argument being made here is that "small kinetic + medium HE is better than small HE + medium kinetic" and using a much better - and more OP-costly - kinetic in the small slot, compared to the average-quality small HE weapon, undermines that argument. You could use DLAC + Heavy Mauler instead of Heavy Mortar, or whatever; I don't think that aspect of it matters too much. Or you can assume the rest of the OP go into vents or other good stuff to improve the ship.
Well, it's not a direct comparison of individual weapons, but a comparison of how a combination of weapons work as a system.  Yes, a Railgun is more premium than a LAG.  However, a Heavy Autocannon is more premium than a Heavy Mortar.  Those two functionally cancel each other out, at least in terms of OP costs.  When I do builds I'm most concerned with how my "system" of weapon arrays performs with each other for a given OP cost, so comparing 2 systems with similar OP costs (Railgun+HM vs HAC+LAG) is more fair and intuitive IMO.

Re: LAGs in general
My main critique of it is its hefty flux cost.  160 dps is pretty great on paper, but it's small 40 damage shots, and even though they're HE hits it still takes little more than 450 armor (slightly more than light destroyer grade) to reduce it to the minimum 15% damage per hit.  That isn't inherently bad by itself, but LAGs are also the most flux-intensive small ballistics to run, as well as one of the most flux-intensive small weapons in the game.

1:1 flux:damage feels a lot less efficient than it actually is in this case since the gun can't rely on its armor penetration and often has to use sheer volume of fire to power through.  The weapon itself feels okay outside of its flux cost, which I don't feel is representative of the LAG's actual worth.  So if I were to tweak one thing off the LAG, I'd start by looking at its flux efficiency.

In general making a weapon use less flux and do less damage at the same time makes the weapon worse. You can always not fire a weapon and so reduce its dps and flux use. You cannot "superfire" a weapon and so increase its DPS and flux usage. LAG are really good(especially for ships like the Lasher), you just don't need a lot of them.
I didn't say make it do less damage, just more flux efficient (less flux cost).  SO Lasher works well with LAGs, which is less due to the LAG being good and more due to there simply being no other way for the Lasher to translate a lot of excess flux dissipation into HE damage.  Non-SO Lasher w/ LAG is workable but hampered by the flux overhead (as mentioned before), and because of that I've found some Light Mortars and a high-end kinetic simply compliments the Lasher better.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 10, 2021, 01:22:13 PM
I am not sure why its more or less lopsided. Why is the kinetic medium being relatively more premium vs the light being relatively more premium make it more lopsided? In both instances its the kin weapon that is relatively more premium. In both instances there is a weapon that is relatively more premium... I could use a "premium" HE medium like the Assault Chaingun or the Mauler instead and pretty sure i will come to the same conclusion.

Ahh, I think maybe I see what you mean. What I'm saying, in the simplest terms, is:
One weapon costs 7 OP, the other costs 7 OP = "balanced"
One weapon costs 5 OP, the other costs 10 OP = "lopsided".

So if the 10 OP weapon was more premium and cost 12 OP, then 5-to-12 would be even more lopsided, etc. Obviously the other stats of the weapon (range etc) matter, too, but just in general terms...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Half-full on March 10, 2021, 02:06:45 PM
I checked the list of changes and I didn't see anything about this. Maybe include some contingency for AI fleets to path to a planet that is close enough to its star that it's in the corona a lot of the time. I don't think this is an issue most of the time, but I sat around and started to get a traffic jam of fleets flowing to this planet in the spoiler.
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/Iik5j24.png)
[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 10, 2021, 02:29:28 PM
I am not sure why its more or less lopsided. Why is the kinetic medium being relatively more premium vs the light being relatively more premium make it more lopsided? In both instances its the kin weapon that is relatively more premium. In both instances there is a weapon that is relatively more premium... I could use a "premium" HE medium like the Assault Chaingun or the Mauler instead and pretty sure i will come to the same conclusion.

Ahh, I think maybe I see what you mean. What I'm saying, in the simplest terms, is:
One weapon costs 7 OP, the other costs 7 OP = "balanced"
One weapon costs 5 OP, the other costs 10 OP = "lopsided".

So if the 10 OP weapon was more premium and cost 12 OP, then 5-to-12 would be even more lopsided, etc. Obviously the other stats of the weapon (range etc) matter, too, but just in general terms...

Maaaaybe. But ships that have split slots like this tend to have more of the smaller slots than the larger. So really i get to choose two small ballistic and one medium. So i can still have "10 OP" in each section by having two LAG and a HAC or 2 DLAC and an Assault Chaingun
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 10, 2021, 02:35:53 PM
Yeah, fair! But if the LAG had +100 range, like the Railgun/LN have extra range... I think it'd be *way* more competitive as far as the "2 LAG + 1 HAC" combo goes.

(FWIW, I've halved the recoil stats of the LAG, btw. Not going to factor in too much here but will hopefully give it more of a niche.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 10, 2021, 02:50:43 PM
I think halved recoil will significantly improve its anti-fighter and IPDAI performance, which I welcome.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 10, 2021, 04:01:29 PM
Yeah, fair! But if the LAG had +100 range, like the Railgun/LN have extra range... I think it'd be *way* more competitive as far as the "2 LAG + 1 HAC" combo goes.

(FWIW, I've halved the recoil stats of the LAG, btw. Not going to factor in too much here but will hopefully give it more of a niche.)

Sure, but probably not enough. Saying that there is a theoretical point we can buff LAG to such that it makes sense to do that doesn't mean that the area around that point that we might be satisfied with the balance is particularly large. Can you make the LAG strong enough that it makes sense to fit it over the HM while not making the LAG obviously the best weapon in the class? Can you do it such that it doesn't start to significantly effect the balance of ships that have small ballistic relative to small energy? That is not so easy.

To get back to the original point. The issue isn't that this is a problem in the game that needs to be fixed. Its that the storm needler exists on the other side of this conundrum. Trying to make it good enough to fit on the current roster of ships is a mistake because the current roster of ships isn't a

LAG is fine not because its good to fit on ships that have medium and small ballistic but because there exist ships with only small ballistic and its good to fit on ships that only have small ballistic. The Storm Needler doesn't get fit often not because its not good to fit on ships that have large ballistic and no medium ballistic but because there do not exist ships that have only large ballistic and no medium ballistic.

Rather than trying to make it good enough to fit on ships that probably aren't going to be fitting them regardless ships must exist for them to be fit on (if the weapon is really to be kept in the game). The Mark IX has similar issues. But when compared in real fits against a HN (a weapon almost universally described as "good") the Mark IX outperforms it. Yet HN are everywhere and Mark IX are not

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 10, 2021, 04:26:34 PM
The new Mk IX probably outperforms a heavy needler, but the current one does not. Poor accuracy and poor efficiency (which is made worse by the accuracy because many rounds will not hit) makes it waste far too much flux. I suspect that even with the buffs the HN will be a better anti-shield weapon, but the Mk IX a better overall weapon because of its longer range and value against bare hull.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Histidine on March 10, 2021, 06:29:05 PM
I checked the list of changes and I didn't see anything about this. Maybe include some contingency for AI fleets to path to a planet that is close enough to its star that it's in the corona a lot of the time. I don't think this is an issue most of the time, but I sat around and started to get a traffic jam of fleets flowing to this planet in the spoiler.
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/Iik5j24.png)
[close]
Fleets being too afraid of coronas has been fixed, according to this bug report thread (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17442.msg274820#msg274820).
(edit: link to a more directly relevant report)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 10, 2021, 06:37:24 PM
The new Mk IX probably outperforms a heavy needler, but the current one does not. Poor accuracy and poor efficiency (which is made worse by the accuracy because many rounds will not hit) makes it waste far too much flux. I suspect that even with the buffs the HN will be a better anti-shield weapon, but the Mk IX a better overall weapon because of its longer range and value against bare hull.

I think you're overestimating the effect of flux efficiency on value. What matters more is that the Mark IX has 19.3 DPS/OP and the HN has 16.6 in the same number of slots. Though if you were slot unlimited(and didn't need the range) you would probably choose the HAC at 21.4 over either.

If you could fit the mark IX in a medium slot you would fit it in a LOT of medium slots. If you had to fit the HN in a large you wouldn't fit it in any.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 10, 2021, 07:00:00 PM
I would consider efficiency a far more meaningful statistic than damage/OP because nearly every ship is flux limited rather than slot or OP limited when it comes to damage output. Accuracy also plays a large role: its difficult to make real predictions without data, but in my experience a HN is a fairly accurate weapon with most of a burst hitting, while a Mk IX is an innacurate weapon that will miss many shots even against cruisers, so I do not think your quotes DPS/OP values are accurate. I would even expect a HN to be doing more damage/OP with accuracy factored in, but I have no hard data to support that.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Retry on March 10, 2021, 09:12:24 PM
I second Thaago's claim.  Few of my weapon choices are directly affected by their damage/OP ratio.  Many of my weapon choices are influenced by the opportunity cost of mounting it instead of another weapon. (while OP does matter here, slot size, type and quality are even more important.)  Nearly every weapon choice I make involves flux efficiency comparisons in some way.  Even when not the biggest factor of a particular build, flux management is just too important to not be a big parameter in weapon placement.  The primary limiting factor impacting the performance of my combat ships is almost always flux dissipation, not ordnance point costs, and I build accordingly.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 10, 2021, 09:55:30 PM
I would consider efficiency a far more meaningful statistic than damage/OP because nearly every ship is flux limited rather than slot or OP limited when it comes to damage output. Accuracy also plays a large role: its difficult to make real predictions without data, but in my experience a HN is a fairly accurate weapon with most of a burst hitting, while a Mk IX is an innacurate weapon that will miss many shots even against cruisers, so I do not think your quotes DPS/OP values are accurate. I would even expect a HN to be doing more damage/OP with accuracy factored in, but I have no hard data to support that.

I thought the same as you once. But then I fit Mark IX’s** and found them very effective. Especially because they hit hard enough (200 per shot! 100 hit strength Vs armor! That is better hit strength than a LAG*) that they often force shields up in and of themselves.

And the theory of optimal capacitor fit bears this out. Overfluxing to dump more damage out faster (if that damage is kinetic into shields) is efficient it must also be the case that accepting more kinetic dps for less efficiency also has a breakpoint for which the less efficiency is better.

*this is something very few other kinetic weapons can do surprisingly. Only the Mark IX, HVD, and Gauss get that much kinetic hit strength. And they have significant efficiency disadvantages compared to the Mark IX.

**well when I had ships that a HAG wasn’t better suited on. But ye old Mark IX/HAG combo or even double Mark IX isn’t bad on the conquest.

Quote
Few of my weapon choices are directly affected by their damage/OP ratio.  Many of my weapon choices are influenced by the opportunity cost of mounting it instead of another weapon. (while OP does matter here, slot size, type and quality are even more important.)

I would guess that since slot size and type are pretty fixed that “quality” encompasses dps/OP and DPS/slot almost exclusively and you don’t realize it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: sector_terror on March 11, 2021, 09:05:20 AM
There si a breaking point for flux ratio, and that's on ships with either high speed or knife edge killing power. If your not set to retreat at all, but to plow THROUGH the enemy(or kill them before flux becomes an issue) then effeciency is less important alpha Strike power. The way I built my Aurora was routinely killing even [Redacted] class capitals and paragons. Against just about anyone else I could rush in, cut their hull by a third, and get out without any threat of a chase of any kind. My latest onslaught design didnt care much about flux either since, once I was in, I either died or killed the enemy before burn driving behind the enemy to pincer them.

But in normal combat where my ship isn't playing that kind of game, I do choose flux efficiency. I'm saying there is a limit in which other features like alpha damage and range best strong efficiency.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Hiruma Kai on March 11, 2021, 09:23:43 AM
I tend to think closer to Thaago and Retry.  If your total flux usage exceeds your flux dissipation significantly, you don't get the full DPS since the weapon has to not fire for long periods of time, despite being in arc and range.  A heavy blaster has 500 DPS for 12 OP (41.6 DPS/OP).  However, slap that on a Wolf with only 250 flux dissipation, and ignoring everything else, the heavy blaster at best can only fire 34% of the time the ship is deployed.  Dropping that 41.6 DPS/OP down to 14.1 DPS/OP for sustained engagements, or less depending on other flux usage constraints. 

Which isn't to say it hit-and-fade tactics can't be effective, but in fleet fights, there are often situations where you don't need to fade, since another ship is the focus or you're using EMP effects to limit return fire.  I sometimes think of the total flux available to a ship in an end game fleet fight (i.e. capital grind) equal to its vent rate times it operational time (plus a factor for how often I manually vent).  Since it is very easy to simply be continuously engaged in such fights.  So at what point in the game, or what your expected opposition is, can influence this evaluation.

For weapon comparisons, I generally think in terms of an equivalent OP cost.  Namely the weapon's OP cost plus flux vents to make the weapon flux neutral.  Plus any hull mods that need to be added split between all weapons on the ship to make said weapon effective (applies more to missiles, but some game mods change this). So in that view, a Heavy Blaster effectively has an OP cost of 12 + 72 = 84, for about 6 DPS/OP.

This view does has the limitation that as you eventually hit the point when the ship's vents are maxed out and you can't really get any more flux for OP, but I think it gives a better feel for the tradeoffs.  Both OP cost and flux efficiency matter.   We're also completely ignoring effectiveness against armor in these numbers.  Against ships with cruiser tier armor (1000 armor), a heavy needler is going to be doing 33% of its listed DPS to hull after the armor is gone (because of the minimum 5% armor reduction).  Mark IX Autocannon is going to be doing 66% of its listed damage.  Heavy autocannon will be doing 50%.

So for this particular comparison, I'd rate the Mark IX Autocannon as 348/(18+40)=6 DPS/OP, while the Heavy Needler is 250/(15+20) =7.14 DPS/OP, and the Heavy Autocannon is 214/(10+21.4) = 6.8 DPS/OP.  Again ignoring things like range, accuracy, and armor penetration.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: RustyCabbage on March 11, 2021, 10:01:05 AM
While on the whole, I lean towards Heavy Needler > Mk.IX, I believe when deciding which one to fit it's much more due to the aforementioned Large HE >> Medium HE while Large Kinetic ~= Medium Kinetic effect.

So for this particular comparison, I'd rate the Mark IX Autocannon as 348/(18+40)=6 DPS/OP, while the Heavy Needler is 250/(15+20) =7.14 DPS/OP, and the Heavy Autocannon is 214/(10+21.4) = 6.8 DPS/OP.  Again ignoring things like range, accuracy, and armor penetration.
However, consider that the Railgun is 167/(7+15) = 7.59 DPS/OP yet people don't downsize their HACs for Railguns (personally, the one time I tested it, it performed poorly).

Efficiency is indeed still the most important stat, imo. But it's not an open shut case if it also has to trade-off against raw DPS and (probably more importantly) range.

(edit: wording)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Hiruma Kai on March 11, 2021, 10:19:39 AM
While on the whole, I lean towards Heavy Needler > Mk.IX, I believe when deciding which one to fit where it's much more due to the aforementioned Large HE >> Medium HE while Large Kinetic ~= Medium Kinetic effect.

So for this particular comparison, I'd rate the Mark IX Autocannon as 348/(18+40)=6 DPS/OP, while the Heavy Needler is 250/(15+20) =7.14 DPS/OP, and the Heavy Autocannon is 214/(10+21.4) = 6.8 DPS/OP.  Again ignoring things like range, accuracy, and armor penetration.
However, consider that the Railgun is 167/(7+15) = 7.59 DPS/OP yet people don't downsize their HACs for Railguns (personally, the one time I tested it, it performed poorly).

Efficiency is indeed still the most important stat, imo. But it's not an open shut case if it also has to trade-off against raw DPS and (probably more importantly) range.

We're in furious agreement I believe.  I did note I was ignoring range, accuracy and armor penetration.  The problem with reducing weapons to a single number is, well, they're not defined by a single number.  :)

They're fine for a first pass gross categorization, but there are subtleties that need to be teased out with testing.  In multiple types of situations and builds.

I will note, if Railguns had the same range as HACs (they already have identical penetration and superior accuracy), and a given ship buld I was considering had more flux generation than dissipation and had the option to add more flux dissipation via OP, then yeah, I'd likely downgrade the mount.  However, HAC's do have 14% more range than a Railgun.  Even in the most naive assumption that 14% more range is 14% better, 6.8*1.14 = 7.75 > 7.59.  However, for many fast and maneuverable ships, 14% range is worth significantly more than 14% more DPS in terms of trading damage with another ship (given it potentially reduces incoming hard flux/hull damage).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 11, 2021, 10:59:19 AM
I'll also argue a bit against myself here and second what Hiruma Kai was saying about the relative damage to hull of the HN  and Mk IX, because it presents an enemy ship with stripped armor no good options in dealing with the damage. Either it takes the Mk IX on the shield and loses the flux war (though heavy shield tank ships with skills/hardened still take less flux than the cost to fire, but its hard instead of soft), or they take significant hull damage thanks to that 100 penetration. HN's low penetration gives the AI in the same situation a better way to mitigate the incoming DPS.

(We'll have to see what the various defensive skills are in the next version, as with defensive skills both guns get their DPS vs hull stripped down to near the minimum and kinetic is just a bad choice vs hull.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on March 11, 2021, 11:15:33 AM
(We'll have to see what the various defensive skills are in the next version, as with defensive skills both guns get their DPS vs hull stripped down to near the minimum and kinetic is just a bad choice vs hull.)
I didn't really think about this before, but this adds additional weight to my suggestion to make AI more aware of damage types in weapon groups (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19912.msg308384#msg308384) and more careful with their use. Thanks!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 11, 2021, 12:06:05 PM
Been experimenting wit this set of changes for the Storm Needler:
Storm Needler:
      Damage reduced to 50/shot (was: 75)
      Flux/shot reduced to 35 (was: 65)
      Reduced accuracy
      Shot visuals changed to match Heavy Needler

So far it feels pretty good - it's a really high-efficiency way to trade flux, but it's also near-useless vs armor/hull, not great vs smaller targets (especially at range), and still has only 700 range. I *think* that might give it more of a niche without making it clear-best in too many cases. And it plays nicely with the general low-tech theme of many ships having burn drive to close the gap.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on March 11, 2021, 12:17:57 PM
Is there something you didn't include in the post? There are changes, but it's as if there were no changes, at least to me. People who didn't use it still won't use it, since that's only a slight efficiency buff (so long it doesn't miss, which it might do more now), while people who use it only get a slight efficiency buff, it doesn't change how they use it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 11, 2021, 12:38:32 PM
Thinking about it, I don't think it needs too much of a buff. It's borderline usable as-is, and increasing efficiency while also reducing the overall flux/second (making it easier to keep firing) are both solid improvements. I also wouldn't call the efficiency buff "slight", it's pretty hefty. It's more efficient than the other needlers now! Especially vs large targets.

I thought about increasing the range on it, but that I think is the way into trouble - it makes it less differentiated from other large kinetics, and also gets it closer to the possible line of "better than any other choice". So I think a lighter touch is more appropriate here.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on March 11, 2021, 01:04:51 PM
I don't think the problem has ever been that it's bad in a vacuum, it's just really hard to fit on the ships that exist because of the huge flux costs. The changes Alex posted look like the would make it a lot more usable to me, but I would have to experiment to see how it performs.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Hiruma Kai on March 11, 2021, 01:12:23 PM
That flux drop might actually make Storm Needlers Onslaught viable.  Well, enough to at least fit one.

750/650 =1.15 damage per flux
500/350 = 1.42 damage per flux
A 23% improvement in flux efficiency while still dealing out large mount damage, since 500 kinetic DPS is still more kinetic DPS than any other single weapon.

Interestingly, from my damage per OP plus vents method, the efficiency drops very slightly.  750/(28+65)= 8.06 versus 500/(28+35) = 7.93.   Keeping the OP at 28 while cutting the damage by 1/3 hurts efficiency from that point of view, although not by enough for anyone to really notice.

Basically, what I'm saying is 2 old style storm needlers + 28 vents (84 OP)  is slightly better than 3 new style storm needlers (84 OP).
1500 kinetic DPS at 650+650-280=1020 flux/second versus 1500 kinetic DPS at 1050 flux/second.  Need 1 less mount, and have 30 better flux dissipation for the same OP cost.  On the other hand, I don't think there's a capital ship with sufficient spare vent capacity and sufficient large mounts to actually prefer the old style, except maybe the Conquest.

Interestingly, this is a lot like the plasma cannon buff.  More efficiency but weaker per mount, along with less penetration.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 11, 2021, 01:16:13 PM
I don't think the problem has ever been that it's bad in a vacuum, it's just really hard to fit on the ships that exist because of the huge flux costs. The changes Alex posted look like the would make it a lot more usable to me, but I would have to experiment to see how it performs.
Currently, if I put it on Onslaught, it is probably the only weapon mounted because that plus TPCs and PD weapon eat up all of the dissipation, and AI is notoriously trigger-happy.  The only advantage Storm Needler had was it was much cheaper than multiple Heavy Needlers, but the 700 range was a big drawback, when Heavy Needlers have 800.  Now that Heavy Needlers have less range, and Heavy AC seems to have remained the same...

However, I will need to try it out on Conquest.  It could use current two Storm Needlers just fine, but (with Heavy Mortar) did not noticeably outperform other weapon combinations.

I kind of wish Storm Needler had the same range as Heavy Needler (750 Storm or 700 HN, whatever).  As long as its range is less than 900, I doubt it would displace other heavy weapons.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on March 11, 2021, 01:36:41 PM
I believe those changes should result in 350 flux/sec and 500 damage/sec. That feels like it should fit into an onslaught loadout without too much trouble, it's easier to fit in than current Mark IX. It will probably be pretty good on aggressive officered dominators as well.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: pairedeciseaux on March 11, 2021, 01:48:53 PM
Been experimenting wit this set of changes for the Storm Needler:
Storm Needler:
      Damage reduced to 50/shot (was: 75)
      Flux/shot reduced to 35 (was: 65)
      Reduced accuracy
      Shot visuals changed to match Heavy Needler


I don't think the problem has ever been that it's bad in a vacuum, it's just really hard to fit on the ships that exist because of the huge flux costs. The changes Alex posted look like the would make it a lot more usable to me, but I would have to experiment to see how it performs.

That flux drop might actually make Storm Needlers Onslaught viable.  Well, enough to at least fit one.

Agreed, going from 650 to 350 changes at lot of things.

IMO, 350 feels too low, and the "efficiency" seems too high. But it sure does open new uses. :)

Storm Needler becomes closer to a HMG, which is not a bad thing.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 11, 2021, 02:12:06 PM
Interesting! 350 flux per second is indeed a reasonable gun for an Onslaught or Dominator flux budget, as current Mk IX is 400 and Heph is 480.

Comparing the new Mk IX and new Storm needler:
Both have 350 flux/second.
Mk IX is 350 DPS, Storm needler is 600 DPS. Accuracy comparison may effect this, but with Storm Needler losing accuracy it may have a similar hit rate to Mk IX
Mk IX has 200 shot size vs 50: significantly better hull damage per shot. Vs a hypothetical 1000 armor reduced to 50 from minimum, Mk IX is doing 66%, or 233. Storm needler is doing 33%, or 200.
Mk IX has 900 range, Storm 700
Mk IX is 18 OP, Storm 28.

So, to sum up: Storm has a massive advantage in close range anti-shield combat but is slightly worse against hull. Mk IX has a large range advantage, and is 10 OP cheaper. I can see using both these guns depending on the situation: the Storm Needler is an excellent anti-high tech weapon, because high tech (other than paragon) needs to get close to engage and relies on their shields. The Mk IX is a more general weapon.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 11, 2021, 02:20:26 PM
More efficiency should not be a problem if it still costs 28 DP to mount, given the large damage cut.  I wonder if 28 OP might cost too much for Storm Needler, given its other stats.  (Maybe it is fine for low-tech, but I doubt it for Conquest.)

With low tech, there comes a point when they cannot crank dissipation any higher, and need all of the efficiency they can get to support more than a few guns.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on March 11, 2021, 03:14:11 PM
I think conquest still might want it, since it has lots of other ways to dump dissipation into damage. You could try storm needler and heavy blaster combos or stuff like that. I was thinking SN + Mjolnir could be a solid combo as well on conquest.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 11, 2021, 04:01:43 PM
I think conquest still might want it, since it has lots of other ways to dump dissipation into damage. You could try storm needler and heavy blaster combos or stuff like that. I was thinking SN + Mjolnir could be a solid combo as well on conquest.
Maybe, if Conquest has OP left.  Conquest does not have very much OP, just enough for spartan but effective loadouts.  Now instead of 28 OP only for a mega weapon, we will pay more than that for a weaker Storm Needler plus another weapon to make up for damage.  Yes, Conquest probably can fill more mounts to make up for damage, but only if it has OP left.

My favorite Mjolnir+HN+Mk9 might not work anymore with HN losing range (needs testing), but HAG+Mk9+2xHAC appears to be no worse than it is now since HAC still has 800 range.

The new Storm Needler could help low-tech ships since they lack dissipation to support much more than a single old Storm Needler.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 11, 2021, 04:34:20 PM
I think conquest still might want it, since it has lots of other ways to dump dissipation into damage. You could try storm needler and heavy blaster combos or stuff like that. I was thinking SN + Mjolnir could be a solid combo as well on conquest.

Probably not. It was always been hard to fit an SN on the conquest because the conquests heavy ballistic integration significantly increases the value of the lower OP weapons and because the conquest is relatively fragile and doesn't want to get in close. The Conquest was one of the few places i really really liked the Mark IX on the current lineup because its so efficient there.

And the new numbers on the storm needler actually make it worse for the Conquest. The Conquest was never short for dissipation. Its always been short for OP, so making it less DPS/OP efficient but more flux/dmg efficient takes it in the wrong direction for it to be fit on a Conquest.

To put numbers on it: A Storm Needler would do 500 DPS for 18 OP(27.7 DPS/OP) but a Mark IX would do 348 DPS for 8 OP. (43.5 DPS/OP). The Mark IX is doing better DPS/OP than the SN even before this change(750/18=41.6 DPS/OP). You can add an entire extra medium gun or missile onto the ship for the difference in OP and because the ship doesn't have space for Vulcans you will often be short on medium ballistic in order to do the normal HE/Kin swap. And once you add onto the range and the fact that the conquest doesn't even really need to use that efficient weapons due to its huge 1200 base dissipation... But does have issues getting right next to enemies due to its relatively weaker armor (Heavy Armor change may help here) bad shields, and lack of small ballistic slots for PD... there is very little change that the new storm needler would go on a conquest over a Mark IX.





I believe those changes should result in 350 flux/sec and 500 damage/sec. That feels like it should fit into an onslaught loadout without too much trouble, it's easier to fit in than current Mark IX. It will probably be pretty good on aggressive officered dominators as well.

But 28 vs 18 OP is a pretty big disadvantage. The storm needler would not have less DPS/OP than a Mark IX. Which is... Maybe not the direction you would want to go on a dominator or onslaught. 10 OP is pretty huge there since you could instead fit more caps for more peak DPS firing time. I actually think that the changes make the weapon worse and less likely to be fit. Unless it comes with a significant decrease in OP: down to maybe the 18-22 range.

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on March 11, 2021, 04:56:37 PM
Probably not. It was always been hard to fit an SN on the conquest because the conquests heavy ballistic integration significantly increases the value of the lower OP weapons and because the conquest is relatively fragile and doesn't want to get in close.
That's a fair point, I didn't consider how heavy ballistic integration factored in. I still think it might be interesting to see how a high efficiency source of kinetic damage could enable some low efficiency high DPS weapons that are difficult to support otherwise (heavy blaster Mjolnir etc.) It will be fun to experiment when the new patch comes out.

I believe those changes should result in 350 flux/sec and 500 damage/sec. That feels like it should fit into an onslaught loadout without too much trouble, it's easier to fit in than current Mark IX. It will probably be pretty good on aggressive officered dominators as well.

But 28 vs 18 OP is a pretty big disadvantage. The storm needler would not have less DPS/OP than a Mark IX. Which is... Maybe not the direction you would want to go on a dominator or onslaught. 10 OP is pretty huge there since you could instead fit more caps for more peak DPS firing time. I actually think that the changes make the weapon worse and less likely to be fit. Unless it comes with a significant decrease in OP: down to maybe the 18-22 range.
Eh, low tech ships are more dissipation limited than OP limited. Efficiency is just a measure of how effectively a weapon turns dissipation/flux into damage, so it's more important to be flux efficient than OP efficient on low tech ships that are flux limited IMO.

Heavy needler is already a good example of how efficiency can be more important than damage/OP.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: LookItsRain on March 11, 2021, 05:14:44 PM
Personally, i think the storm needler is too expensive OP cost wise to be picked over the MK IX in a majority of circumstances even with these buffs. 10 OP is a gigantic cost difference vs a MK IX and  imo the storm needler does not offer enough advantages to make up for that 10 OP difference.

In response to LAG's, LAG's are too flux inefficient to ever really be a general good choice for a small ballistic slot, and the damage per shot makes them fairly ineffective vs any decent armor value. Its also partially the fact because imo, railguns are simply too good for the slot and range match with alot of other weapons in larger slots that provide really good flux efficiency and OP cost. Also the general fact that up-sizing your HE damage guns generally nets better overall combat performance because of the armor mechanics.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SafariJohn on March 11, 2021, 06:01:57 PM
My hot take on the Storm Needler changes: I still don't see myself ever using them.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Mach56 on March 11, 2021, 06:09:28 PM
The Onslaught is getting HBI as well next update, keep that in mind.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 11, 2021, 06:14:03 PM
@ Goumindong:  I agree about Mark IX on Conquest, and prefer it over Storm Needler (and Gauss), mainly because Storm Needler requires Aggressive AI to work, and if I want the AI to close into the proper range for Storm Needlers, I need Heavy Mortars to pair with them.  I even prefer Mjolnir over Storm Needler on Conquest.

Conquest with Storm Needler, if I want AI to use them, they need 700 range HE (or sacrifice one of the heavies for HAG or Mjolnir).  If I use Mauler or possibly even 900 range HE, the Conquest will hang back and plink away with longer range weapons and not get close enough to effectively use Storm Needlers.

With Mark IX, I can pair with 800 or 900 range ballistics and Steady or angrier AI will get close enough and blast the enemy with all guns blazing (except maybe the rearmost ballistics, which is why I may leave them empty at times.)

Also, two old Storm Needlers and Mortars is not significantly stronger (if they are) than other double-sided weapon configurations I tried.  If I want to use one-side only loadouts for maximum firepower, two Mjolnirs and two Heavy AC/Needlers is very brutal and makes things dead very fast at medium range, faster than balanced double-sided loadouts.  (One of the older variants used dual Mjolnir and dual Heavy ACs, among other stuff.)

The Onslaught is getting HBI as well next update, keep that in mind.
Onslaught needs it because the firing arcs of the side heavy mounts are getting smaller for no more near overlap with the center heavy mount.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Hiruma Kai on March 11, 2021, 07:12:25 PM
Heavy Ballistics Integration generally shouldn't make a difference between selecting various large ballistic mount weapons (unless the large weapon costs less than 10 OP, which no vanilla ballistic does).  It does makes a difference when comparing between large and medium weapons (or empty) however.  The reason being the opportunity cost between the large weapons ends up being the same. 

While saying a Mark IX Autocanon does 19.3 DPS/OP on a Legion and 43.5 DPS/OP on a Conquest is literally true, I don't feel it gives an accurate impression of how the weapon performs between builds with and without it on those two ships.   They are not 225% better on a Conquest then on a Legion.  The weapon itself is the same.  And if you swap it for a Storm Needler, you give up 10 OP of something else on the Conquest as well as on the Legion.  I feel comparing complete builds in that case is probably a better way to go.

I still think you're shifting the high cost from raw maximum damage (highest shield DPS in the game by a long shot) to strong efficiency.  Which makes it easier to fit, but overall strength of the weapon remains the same (i.e. the 8.06 vs 7.93 I mentioned earlier).  I also think if you are aiming to buff the Storm Needler to help compensate against the new Mark IX, I'd probably drop the OP cost to somewhere between 22 and 25 OP in addition to the mentioned changes.  That's just eyeballing the 33% cut in overall damage output (which would tend to make me think the fitting cost would drop to 66% of its original value - say 18), but then buffing the efficiency by 23% or so, bumps it 22 or 23 OP.

Given there's no change to the range, it still means Cruisers with ITU and a Mark IX out range Capitals with Storm Needlers and ITU (1260 versus 1120).  Since there's no longer an overwhelming difference in raw damage (750 vs 348), that 900 versus 700 range matters even more - it takes longer to overcome the hard flux deficit gained while closing. 

Alternately, if you want to keep the 28 OP cost, I'd advocate for the 800 range.  At which point Capital + ITU + Storm Needler at least matches range with Cruisers with Mark IX autocannons (1280 versus 1260).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 11, 2021, 07:41:26 PM

Eh, low tech ships are more dissipation limited than OP limited. Efficiency is just a measure of how effectively a weapon turns dissipation/flux into damage, so it's more important to be flux efficient than OP efficient on low tech ships that are flux limited IMO.

Heavy needler is already a good example of how efficiency can be more important than damage/OP.

This is... sometimes true. But often not. It’s very true on high tech ships shooting energy damage and tanking with shields. But things break down once youre shooting efficiently enough that it makes sense to trade your own soft flux into their hard flux.

Are you better off shooting 400 flux to to do 690 kinetic damage or not? Yes, almost always, so long as theyre shooting back at 1 to 1 you gain 190 net flux in the flux war. If they’re shooting at 2 to 1 you are ahead by 980 flux. Overfluxing with more efficiency is better, obviously. But the net damage matters more than the flux cost because the damage coming in is in net.

Let’s imagine 28 OP worth of old Mark IX Vs a new SN. The Mark IX does 541 dmg for 622 flux. The SN does 500 DPS for 350. So net firing at each other is 1622 for the Mark IX and 1432 for the SN. Better for the SN... but not all that much. And the Mark IX has other advantages. The old SN slaughters the Mark IX though 2122 to 1732. This is better as a percentage and better in net. At the end of this fight the old SN has 200 more flux per second (it took to overflux the target) to utilize to fire HE into the targets hull than the new SN does.

This doesn’t mean that each ship makes this comparison favorably for the Mark IX. But low tech ships tend to have loads of slots and not as much OP to fill all of them with the biggest weapons they can and the SN wasn’t beating Mark IX before the changes...

@hiruma it doesn’t make the weapon better on the conquest as compared to the legion but it does make the weapon better in comparison to another weapon on the conquest.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 11, 2021, 07:57:22 PM
That's just eyeballing the 33% cut in overall damage output (which would tend to make me think the fitting cost would drop to 66% of its original value - say 18), but then buffing the efficiency by 23% or so, bumps it 22 or 23 OP.

Just a thought about this - I'm not sure that a DPS drop for a weapon that's going to be flux-limited regardless is actually that much of a difference. Arguably, the DPS reduction is almost a buff because it makes the weapon easier to use while largely retaining its damage potential. If it takes an extra few seconds of fire to get the same damage out... heck, that might even be better since it's harder to armor-tank against. There will be some situations where it's worse, too, but I don't think it's as clear cut as just "33% weaker".
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on March 11, 2021, 08:08:42 PM
Make the burst longer?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 11, 2021, 08:14:37 PM
Consider the following:

Case 1) a ship can mount gun A for 15 OP, or gun B for 25 OP.

Case 2) a ship can mount gun A for 5 OP, or gun B for 15 OP. The ship has 10 less OP in its budget.

What is the difference between these cases? Nothing, assuming the mount is going to be filled. The remaining OP after selecting gun A is always going to be 10 higher than selecting gun B. The number of vents/caps the ship can equip are the same. The number of hullmods taken is the same. Every statistic of the two cases are identical.

It follows that Heavy Ballistics Integration has no impact on the relative value of two guns: it simply increases the OP available to the ship assuming that the ship uses a gun of that size (or, put another way, it decreases the OP available to the ship if it uses a medium gun instead). So, what does this mean for measures of statistics in the form of X per OP? They are meaningless. Instead, compare the stat difference vs the difference in OP, and consider what those OP can get a ship.

Using this metric, lets compare the stats of the new Mk IX and new Storm Needler:
Interesting! 350 flux per second is indeed a reasonable gun for an Onslaught or Dominator flux budget, as current Mk IX is 400 and Heph is 480.

Comparing the new Mk IX and new Storm needler:
Both have 350 flux/second.
Mk IX is 350 DPS, Storm needler is 600 DPS. Accuracy comparison may effect this, but with Storm Needler losing accuracy it may have a similar hit rate to Mk IX
Mk IX has 200 shot size vs 50: significantly better hull damage per shot. Vs a hypothetical 1000 armor reduced to 50 from minimum, Mk IX is doing 66%, or 233. Storm needler is doing 33%, or 200.
Mk IX has 900 range, Storm 700
Mk IX is 18 OP, Storm 28.

So, to sum up: Storm has a massive advantage in close range anti-shield combat but is slightly worse against hull. Mk IX has a large range advantage, and is 10 OP cheaper. I can see using both these guns depending on the situation: the Storm Needler is an excellent anti-high tech weapon, because high tech (other than paragon) needs to get close to engage and relies on their shields. The Mk IX is a more general weapon.

The two guns have a 10 OP difference, so lets think about what those 10 OP can do for a ship. In the case where the ship is not vent maxed already (rare, but could happen), that lowers the Mk IX's flux cost to 250. In that case its efficiency rises to .714 f/d, compared to the SN's .583. Anti hull (same circumstance, no shield) goes to 1.07 compared to 1.75. DPS value remain unchanged. In the non-vent locked case, the Mk IX is still a less efficient, much lower DPS anti-shield weapon, but a MUCH more efficient anti-hull weapon.

Vent-locked cases are rare though. Excess capacitors is much more common, but harder to analyze. The Mk IX gives the ship 2000 more flux capacity. This could support its own firing for 5.7 seconds longer than the Storm Needlers, if firing over the dissipation limit (usual case), up to some remaining flux safety margin. For damage against shield, we can solve for the amount of time the ship needs to fire for break even damage: 7.98 seconds. So if the ship can fire for more than 8 seconds before fluxing out, the storm needler is better by comparison. If it can fire less than 8 seconds, then the Mk IX + additional capacity wins.

Other measure are harder to directly compare, but the real question to answer for these guns is: what can you do with 10 OP, and is that worth the difference between a storm and a MK IX? The answer depends on everything else on the ship.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 11, 2021, 09:01:01 PM
That's just eyeballing the 33% cut in overall damage output (which would tend to make me think the fitting cost would drop to 66% of its original value - say 18), but then buffing the efficiency by 23% or so, bumps it 22 or 23 OP.

Just a thought about this - I'm not sure that a DPS drop for a weapon that's going to be flux-limited regardless is actually that much of a difference. Arguably, the DPS reduction is almost a buff because it makes the weapon easier to use while largely retaining its damage potential. If it takes an extra few seconds of fire to get the same damage out... heck, that might even be better since it's harder to armor-tank against. There will be some situations where it's worse, too, but I don't think it's as clear cut as just "33% weaker".

The thing is though, kinetic weapons, especially kinetic weapons where you’re in knife fighting range aren’t ever really dissipation limited. You almost always want to shoot over your dissipation until the enemy puts their shields down. Doing this will mean you have more flux at the end of the fight when they do.

A DPS reduction on a weapon is never a buff all things equal. It’s always better to have more available DPS. It’s not always better to shoot that DPS but it’s always better to have it.

Quote
Instead, compare the stat difference vs the difference in OP, and consider what those OP can get a ship.

But what that can get your ship is often measured in guns, where the measure is in DPS/OP :p granted, not always in DPS/op of the weapon in question but still DPS/OP. 10 OP is a HAC and if I am not fitting a HAC there then by definition I find the thing that is more valuable than 214 dps at 1.0 flux efficiency to 800 range.

Or you could just put the old and new head to head and see what is better.

E.G. what wins in net flux the new storm Needler or the old?

Old does 750 dmg for 650 flux. New is 500 dmg for 350 flux. If you fire the new one into the old one over dissipation at 1.0 shields then the old one has a net influx rate of 1650 while the new one has a net influx rate of 1850. Shields have to be .6 for this to equalize. 600+650 = 1250 and 900+350 = 1250.

.6 is a good shield. Better than any ship currently fitting a storm Needler can achieve. Which means the proposed storm Needler is a nerf in the majority of situations.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on March 11, 2021, 09:36:50 PM
Quote
A DPS reduction on a weapon is never a buff all things equal. It’s always better to have more available DPS. It’s not always better to shoot that DPS but it’s always better to have it.
I think this would be true if the AI fired weapons at partial ROF, but in the actual game, the vast majority of guns are on autofire 95% of the time, meaning you really need to judge a gun as if it is always firing. The only case I agree with this is if the weapon is on the player ship and manually fired.

Also, firing over dissipation in a 1v1 is significantly different from firing over dissipation in a fleet context. You are essentially converting your shield HP into damage. In a 1v1, this is always fine because that damage goes towards reducing your opponents ability to deal damage, but in a fleet, you have to consider it as making yourself more vulnerable to other ships that you haven't been fighting. Especially for slow ships that cannot dictate engagements, this is very risky, and that needs to be weighed into analysis of weapons. High flux cost weapons are basically dealing a bunch of self damage to shields when firing, and reducing that can make the ship a lot more survivable.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 11, 2021, 09:59:00 PM
Quote
A DPS reduction on a weapon is never a buff all things equal. It’s always better to have more available DPS. It’s not always better to shoot that DPS but it’s always better to have it.
I think this would be true if the AI fired weapons at partial ROF, but in the actual game, the vast majority of guns are on autofire 95% of the time, meaning you really need to judge a gun as if it is always firing. The only case I agree with this is if the weapon is on the player ship and manually fired.

Also, firing over dissipation in a 1v1 is significantly different from firing over dissipation in a fleet context. You are essentially converting your shield HP into damage. In a 1v1, this is always fine because that damage goes towards reducing your opponents ability to deal damage, but in a fleet, you have to consider it as making yourself more vulnerable to other ships that you haven't been fighting. Especially for slow ships that cannot dictate engagements, this is very risky, and that needs to be weighed into analysis of weapons. High flux cost weapons are basically dealing a bunch of self damage to shields when firing, and reducing that can make the ship a lot more survivable.

Sure. The optimal fleet behavior is to make the thing being targeted as tanky as possible... but only if you’re making the things not being targeted as damaging as possible. For a set behavior and fixed fitting across the fleet the optimal one on one fitting is also the optimal in a fleet*. If it’s better to have two guns and one cap vs one gun and two caps in a one on one it also is in a fleet. Your allies will make the things shooting at you stop faster by firing more.

But we can have an obvious example. Suppose we have a New Vs Old. One fits a new SN and a HAC for 714 DPS and 564 flux. The other fits the old SN and 10 vents for 750 dps and 550 flux. (Or 10 caps for extra tank/firing time... or anything). Are you leaving weapon slots empty on your ships that have options for more kinetic dmg? You could be with the storm Needler and using those OP for other things. If not vents then capacitor. 1000 more capacitor with only 86 more flux/second is better so long as you’re capping flux firing under 11 seconds ignoring the fact that you got to get one of the best medium kinetics in the game at 21.4 dps/OP and we’re still doing less dps

*ignoring range here. Obviously it’s OK to trade damage for range as you add more ships. Especially because you should be thinking as if range is damage. But when discussing reducing the dmg of a weapon and not changing its range range uhh doesn’t change.

Edit: like... if HVD doubled its DPS and flux cost you wouldn’t rush out to take all the HVD off your ship. And if you did take HVD off your ships it would be because you suddenly had twice what you needed and could spend the OP on other things. (Like HE dmg or flux stats)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 11, 2021, 10:15:02 PM
We now interrupt this arcane discussion on weapon balance that barely even matters in the grand scheme of the game to ask:

So back to the original patch notes I love the “moving slow” implementation. I notice that you mentioned that there will be potential impacts from not moving slow in a field.

Is there any possibility that these could additionally spike your drive signature (and have the drive signature reduction apply universally so long as your transponder was off) so that we could take extra risks (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15356.msg248149#msg248149) when smuggling cargo into places?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on March 11, 2021, 10:47:53 PM
Sure. The optimal fleet behavior is to make the thing being targeted as tanky as possible... but only if you’re making the things not being targeted as damaging as possible. For a set behavior and fixed fitting across the fleet the optimal one on one fitting is also the optimal in a fleet*. If it’s better to have two guns and one cap vs one gun and two caps in a one on one it also is in a fleet. Your allies will make the things shooting at you stop faster by firing more.
this is... not really the point. You don't control what the enemy attacks and you can't really predict what will be under fire at any given time, so you have to design your loadouts to be successful if any given ship comes under fire from multiple enemy ships. Thats more the point: you want your ship to be resilient to being under heavy fire, i.e. you want to have a significant amount of capacity to spend on defense in order to survive a disadvantageous situation long enough to escape/get backup. If you build ships that are overfluxed so that they spend a lot of their capacity on dealing damage, those ships will be less resilient to suddenly coming under heavy fire and thus more likely to die and cost you money. I personally prefer 'safer' ships that deal less damage, because ultimately, the goal is to maximize the rewards of a fight, not win it as fast as possible. Losing ships is the most significant negative outcomes of any fight and thus my highest priority is avoiding it.

Basically, my optimization problem is:
Minimize losses and minimize deployment cost while winning before PPT runs out. The specifics of dealing damage are secondary.

And if you did take HVD off your ships it would be because you suddenly had twice what you needed and could spend the OP on other things. (Like HE dmg or flux stats)
This is exactly the point. Current storm needler is more than what you need on most of the ships in the game. They want to spend some of that 650 flux/sec on other weapons that might deal hull/armor damage, or cover a different angle, or simply save some flux for defense. The new storm needler (hopefully) more neatly fits into what is needed on ships that exist in the game, even if in a vacuum, it is less powerful.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Cyan Leader on March 11, 2021, 11:04:45 PM
Honestly my take is that this level of brainstorming won't take us much far when there are so many other unknowns such as the ships we'll have available, what ships we'll be facing against, the weapon selection, the hullmods we'll have (plus the impact of permanent hullmods), what skills we'll have and so on. At the end of the day this will be better suited for the post-patch patch that is aimed at refining the experience.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 11, 2021, 11:18:17 PM
You don't control what the enemy attacks and you can't really predict what will be under fire at any given time, so you have to design your loadouts to be successful if any given ship comes under fire from multiple enemy ships

Yes, precisely. And the one that does that is the one that can shoot all its flux.

If you cannot choose which ship will be shot but can assume the enemy will focus a weak one then the optimal one on one fit is also the optimal fleet fit. *

You want your ship to be tanky so it survives being shot by a bunch of other ships but do not realize that this means you will get shot by multiple ships more, as compared to dumping your flux, because your allies cannot kill a ship they’re ganging up on as fast if they do not dump their flux. Your allies cannot force ships to backup if they do not dump their flux. Your ship cannot force an enemy to back up if it does not win the flux war and dumping flux wins the flux war.

For intuition imagine if you’re in a smaller ship fighting a bigger ship. The intuition from earlier didn’t change; we still “win best” by dumping our flux or rather “lose least bad” because it’s better to spend 100 flux to to make the enemies shield go up 200 than it is to let the enemy shoot 200 flux to make our shield go up 400. But this is just what happens when you’re in a fleet and locally outnumbered. You still lose less bad by spending 100 flux to prevent 400 incoming flux. Your flux is 300 lower and it’s flux you can vent. If you can pop in and out of range being able to dump let’s you shift your available dissipation so that you’re using it more of the time. It’s good.


*again, not true in range trade offs because extra range means you get to shoot earlier (and with more ships) but it is true in terms of tank/dps trade offs.

Quote
This is exactly the point. Current storm needler is more than what you need on most of the ships in the game. They want to spend some of that 650 flux/sec on other weapons that might deal hull/armor damage, or cover a different angle, or simply save some flux for defense. The new storm needler (hopefully) more neatly fits into what is needed on ships that exist in the game, even if in a vacuum, it is less powerful.

I don’t see how making me fit more of them in order to be good is going to want to make me fit more of them. Is there a sweet spot here that I am not seeing. Take this to its logical conclusion. if it did 100 DPS for 0 flux it would be the best 28 OP weapon in the game!?!?! Or not, no it would be useless.

Similarly a weapon that did 7500 kin dps and used 6500 flux a second for 28 OP would be amazing. You could fit only it and utilize all the rest of your OP for other good things!  You could overload enemies instantly and then back out so that you utilized the entirety of your flux dissipation. More damage is better. Weapons that do more damage are better. Reducing the damage and flux usage may end up being better on the whole but is, all things equal, always a nerf. Increasing the damage and flux usage of a weapon and maintaining the efficiency is always a buff.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Silveressa on March 11, 2021, 11:41:11 PM
Honestly my take is that this level of brainstorming won't take us much far when there are so many other unknowns. At the end of the day this will be better suited for the post-patch patch that is aimed at refining the experience.

I've been following along with the discussion thus far, (not having anything worthwhile to add so far) and that's kind of what I've been thinking for most of it?

Crunching numbers and theorizing is nice, but until we see how the next update plays and how the weapons all balance out in actual game it's kind of a moot point given that experience will, (perhaps dramatically) alter everyone's insight and give new ideas on how to tweak things. (If indeed, changes are actually necessary after we see how they do work in play.)

All that aside, the new patch is looking super promising and I'm eager for a chance to enjoy it when it's ready.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Embolism on March 11, 2021, 11:57:32 PM
While we're talking about changes to existing stuff, I got a few minor things to suggest...








Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 12, 2021, 12:07:20 AM
The trident has been advantages to the dagger and its speed is one of them. The slower speed means that it’s more likely to cycle properly with longbows or other priority kinetic dmg. Daggers, especially Vs targets a long ways away. Are likely to shoot their atropos into shield before the longbows get there to sabot.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 12, 2021, 12:15:16 AM
Huh, shouldn't the fighter wing offset positions deal with that? On astrals the daggers and longbows seem ok... but if not, then the offset on daggers should be upped a bit to make them go behind the longbows.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on March 12, 2021, 12:28:07 AM


  • The Venture should get two Mining Pod Wings instead of just one. It doesn't feel right that its drone complement is weaker than the frigate-sized Shepherd. Could also give it the Salvage Gantry built-in hullmod to make it even more like a big Shepherd, maybe nerf Salvage Gantry's cruiser bonus (30) to be the same as the destroyer-sized Salvage Rig (25).
{/quote]
Agreed, Venture need logistical buffs so much.
  • The Gryphon's Missile Autoforge should be converted into a built-in hullmod that provides 4x missile ammo and is mutually exclusive with Expanded Missile Racks. As it is it's basically just 2x ammo on top of built-in Expanded Missile Racks that requires you to back off once a fight to vent flux, hardly the most riveting of combat decisions. Its ship system can be changed to Fast Missile Racks instead, always seemed a bit weird that the sole missile-focused ship doesn't have an offensive missile system that other, much less dedicated ships have access to.
Disagree, FMR should be given to a new midline destroyer armed with missiles and only missiles.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Embolism on March 12, 2021, 01:01:02 AM
Disagree, FMR should be given to a new midline destroyer armed with missiles and only missiles.

Do you think giving Gryphon Fast Missile Racks would make it too powerful? My suggestion is purely a buff to the Gryphon.

The trident has been advantages to the dagger and its speed is one of them. The slower speed means that it’s more likely to cycle properly with longbows or other priority kinetic dmg. Daggers, especially Vs targets a long ways away. Are likely to shoot their atropos into shield before the longbows get there to sabot.

Huh, shouldn't the fighter wing offset positions deal with that? On astrals the daggers and longbows seem ok... but if not, then the offset on daggers should be upped a bit to make them go behind the longbows.

I think if this is happening it's more a failure of the offset position system than any genuine advantage for the Trident.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on March 12, 2021, 01:25:40 AM
Man all these cool weapon buffs and reworks yet the Pulse laser is crying in the corner with 1.1 efficiency. Ion pulser will straight out be a better choice for most ships, frigates will still have issue mounting any assault medium weapon. Sorry if this was mentioned already but I didn't have time to read everything since my last response here.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Sabaton on March 12, 2021, 01:55:01 AM
While we're talking about changes to existing stuff, I got a few minor things to suggest...


  • The Prometheus Mk.II and the Colossus Mk.II should have built-in Expanded Missile Racks. They're both converted haulers of considerable size, surely there's lots of room for more ordnance in those cargo holds slash giant fuel tank. Hammer Barrage runs out of ammo far too quickly as it is.

  • The Venture should get two Mining Pod Wings instead of just one. It doesn't feel right that its drone complement is weaker than the frigate-sized Shepherd. Could also give it the Salvage Gantry built-in hullmod to make it even more like a big Shepherd, maybe nerf Salvage Gantry's cruiser bonus (30) to be the same as the destroyer-sized Salvage Rig (25).

  • The Hound (LP) should have Accelerated Ammo Feeder instead of Flare Launcher. This would be in line with the LP Cerberus and Brawler having their ship systems changed to AAF.

  • The Hermes should have 75 cargo space instead of 50. It's described as a hauler and is about the same size as the Hound, yet the Hound has 75 cargo space. 50 is the same as the Wolf.

  • The Brawler (TT) should have built-in Flux Coil Adjunct and Flux Distributor. Skins can't seem to modify flux stats, so making these built-in would be a way to give the TT Brawler more flux to support less efficient energy weapons.

  • The Gryphon's Missile Autoforge should be converted into a built-in hullmod that provides 4x missile ammo and is mutually exclusive with Expanded Missile Racks. As it is it's basically just 2x ammo on top of built-in Expanded Missile Racks that requires you to back off once a fight to vent flux, hardly the most riveting of combat decisions. Its ship system can be changed to Fast Missile Racks instead, always seemed a bit weird that the sole missile-focused ship doesn't have an offensive missile system that other, much less dedicated ships have access to.

  • The Trident needs something to make it competitive against the Dagger. It's less OP-efficient per Atropos compared to the Dagger, is much slower than the Dagger, and losing one cuts wing firepower by half instead of one-third. Its better shields is almost completely negated by its slow speed, and better armor means nothing when losing shields disables the bomber completely anyway. I'd suggest giving the Trident some form of PD laser, like it used to have.

I wouldn't hold my breath for ship variants as they have been an afterthought for a while, like the prometheus and colossus exist just so pirate fleets don't get stupidly big end game.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Rishel on March 12, 2021, 02:13:38 AM
Patch 0.95a is very promising, I really like the fact the game is going to be a bit less capital oriented.
From my experience with the game, the early/mid game is for me the most interesting part in the game (combined with the exploration part which kept a major part of discovery).
At this stage, my fleet is well balanced in terms of size and engagement size (As for the AI factions).
The battles are not a mess at this stage of the playthough because fleet composition matters.
Then I tend to lose interest once I reached the endgame with 2/3 well run colonies supported by my 4/5+ capitals fleet.
Where fights are bland and lose the tactical aspect I enjoyed in the early/mid game.

IMO, Alex is on the good way to bring us the same amount of enjoyment from the early to the end game.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on March 12, 2021, 02:32:13 AM
My long winded justification for my last sentence:
Spoiler
If you cannot choose which ship will be shot but can assume the enemy will focus a weak one then the optimal one on one fit is also the optimal fleet fit. *
You want your ship to be tanky so it survives being shot by a bunch of other ships but do not realize that this means you will get shot by multiple ships more, as compared to dumping your flux, because your allies cannot kill a ship they’re ganging up on as fast if they do not dump their flux. Your allies cannot force ships to backup if they do not dump their flux. Your ship cannot force an enemy to back up if it does not win the flux war and dumping flux wins the flux war.
This is not how the AI behaves. It doesn't try to find your weakest ship, it just engages the nearest enemy and does some basic pivoting around allies and enemies to try and flank or retreat based on relative flux levels (as far as I know). I think this is really the main issue here: nothing behaves optimally, and you have to design your strategy around how things actually work (particularly the ship AI, and weapon targeting AI). You cannot make any assumptions about what ships will focus on or fire at, you have to essentially plan for engagements of random subsets of ships from each fleet (although you do have some control with escorts that you can work around). Any ship from your fleet could randomly end up fighting any ship from the enemy fleet, and you want to maximizer the chance of survival in those random engagements.

If my wolf randomly engages a capital ship alone, I want it spend exactly 0 of it's capacity on dealing damage and spend it all on blocking damage while it runs away, because it has no ability to deal meaningful damage in this engagement, but if it survives, it could deal meaningful damage in a different engagement. Think about it this way: if I am currently losing the flux war (meaning that even if I dump all my flux into damage I still overload first), then firing my weapons over dissipation is just increasing the rate my flux is increasing without any benefit. Simply spending capacity on tanking damage with shields cause my ship to survive longer, even if it is 'falling behind' in the flux war, and that extra time is what will allow ships to reposition to change the terms of the engagement favorably.

A simple example:
My ship is locally outmatched in a 1v1 and has no chance of wining the flux war, but it has allies nearby that together would win or at least stalemate an engagement. If my ship dumps all its flux and loses the flux war faster (but by a closer margin), that's much worse than if it just shield tanked and ran to its allies who could cover it while it vented.

Obviously this is a simple example and there are certainly cases where dumping flux would be the right play, but the point is that doing as well as you can in the flux war will not always result in the best outcome, so you can't just say 'this weapon makes me better at winning the flux war so it's better'. If that weapons also leaves you on high flux more often, then you're more likely to end up in random unfavorable engagements where you take damage (or die).

My goal is to minimize how often ships die while still winning the fight. I choose to design ships that are objectively somewhat worse at winning the flux war in a theoretically optimal scenario because they are less likely to die/take damage due to the random interactions of combat. I might then need to deploy more of these ships to win the same engagement compared to the theoretical best performance of some optimized ships, but in my experience, the expected value of spending some additional supplies to deploy additional 'safe' ships is much higher than the expected value of deploying fewer 'optimized' ships because the cost of losing ships is much much higher than the cost of deploying more. Basically my ships are optimized more for survivability than damage output, which isn't to say I don't try to improve flux war performance, it's just not my highest objective. In my experience, ships designed safely tend to 'stalemate' a lot of situations where they are objectively at a disadvantage anyway because of the AI, so the strategy often outperforms in terms of required deployment cost because my flagship can be damage oriented to win local engagements while my fleet is survivability oriented to avoid losses elsewhere.


Similarly a weapon that did 7500 kin dps and used 6500 flux a second for 28 OP would be amazing.
This is a perfect example. While this weapon in a vacuum with perfectly optimal play would be incredible, it would be extremely volatile and the AI would almost certainly miss while firing it at a fighter or frigate and overload itself for virtually no gain. The AI can target the wrong target or miss entirely, which it does frequently due to weapon inaccuracy, target leading, ship rotation, or range issues. Planning for randomness in weapon usage is also an important part of ship design. IMO, that weapon would be borderline unusable in practice, because while it would sometimes result in instantly overloading an enemy, it would also sometimes result in instantly overloading yourself for no benefit and dying, which is much worse than any positive outcome of overloading the enemy. Using other weapons would reliably result in winning without that chance of dying.

[close]

After all that, my point is just that I found that using the current storm needler resulted in ships getting into unfavorable engagements too often because the AI is bad with overfluxed ships, so the penalty to survivability was worse than the benefit to winning the flux war.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Amoebka on March 12, 2021, 04:18:50 AM
Man all these cool weapon buffs and reworks yet the Pulse laser is crying in the corner with 1.1 efficiency. Ion pulser will straight out be a better choice for most ships, frigates will still have issue mounting any assault medium weapon. Sorry if this was mentioned already but I didn't have time to read everything since my last response here.

Every time medium energy weapons get discussed, the conclusion is "they are supposed to be garbage because high-tech has better mobility to compensate". Even though AI is completely incapable of utilizing said mobility.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 12, 2021, 04:28:34 AM
That's just eyeballing the 33% cut in overall damage output (which would tend to make me think the fitting cost would drop to 66% of its original value - say 18), but then buffing the efficiency by 23% or so, bumps it 22 or 23 OP.

Just a thought about this - I'm not sure that a DPS drop for a weapon that's going to be flux-limited regardless is actually that much of a difference. Arguably, the DPS reduction is almost a buff because it makes the weapon easier to use while largely retaining its damage potential. If it takes an extra few seconds of fire to get the same damage out... heck, that might even be better since it's harder to armor-tank against. There will be some situations where it's worse, too, but I don't think it's as clear cut as just "33% weaker".
This is only true for low-tech ships.  For Conquest, it is a nerf because it has no problem sustaining the old Storm Needlers long enough.  If I need to pair them with Heavy Mortars for HE just so AI-piloted Conquest will engage at the proper ranges, then it needs the DPS to compete somewhat with other weapon combinations with superior range.

The old Storm Needler is effectively a Conquest-only weapon.  The new one will probably require Conquest to stick something in the medium energy mount to make for lost damage, if it even has OP left to afford another weapon or two.

Old Storm Needler is comparable to Mjolnir in flux use, and Conquest can make good use of Mjolnir too.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Drayg on March 12, 2021, 05:04:36 AM
  • The Prometheus Mk.II and the Colossus Mk.II should have built-in Expanded Missile Racks. They're both converted haulers of considerable size, surely there's lots of room for more ordnance in those cargo holds slash giant fuel tank. Hammer Barrage runs out of ammo far too quickly as it is.
IMO Hammer barrages could use some help overall, a slight base ammo increase would make it a lot less crap compared to the Cyclone. As is its only real selling point is that its cheaper and has a higher rate of fire. Currently its just too of an unattractive weapon compared to the reaper launcher, the only reason any player ever uses it is because it comes as a fixed mount on some vanilla and modded ships.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 12, 2021, 05:14:07 AM
IMO Hammer barrages could use some help overall, a slight base ammo increase would make it a lot less crap compared to the Cyclone. As is its only real selling point is that its cheaper and has a higher rate of fire. Currently its just too of an unattractive weapon compared to the reaper launcher, the only reason any player ever uses it is because it comes as a fixed mount on some vanilla and modded ships.
Either that or an OP cut (to 16).  For me, the main draw of Hammer Barrage is it is sold on Open Market.  It is clearly a low-tier basic weapon, but it costs 20 OP.  It runs out of ammo way too quickly even with Expanded Missile Racks.

Locusts are cheap at 18 (but not so much with Missile Racks).  They are effective against everything and (with racks) lasts a long time even in an endgame fight.  Hammer Barrage is more expensive and are spent very quickly.

Hammers and Cyclone are unattractive because the only good ship that can use them effectively is the Legion XIV, which cannot be mass-produced.  Gryphon is too fragile to slug it out on the frontline with Hammers, and the other ships have conflicting design issues.  Hopefully, Champion will fix that soon.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on March 12, 2021, 05:56:44 AM
All those balancing and QoL patchnotes read like the playtesting is in full swing! Looking forward to the changed game dynamic.

Size 3 colonies will no longer be targeted by punitive expeditions

Ahh, does that imply size 1 or 2 frontier-town style colonies (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19253.msg300373#msg300373) didn't make it into the game?

Faulty Automated Systems - larger min crew required
Degraded Life Support - reduces max crew (but not min)

If combined, this might lead to some ships needing more crew than they can support, right? Cool, role play wise. Might also make passenger ships worthwhile if you're running a junker fleet.

Increased minimum interval between punitive expeditions to 1-3 cycles

That got me thinking, maybe it would be nice if you could trigger a punitive expedition early (for reputation), so you have a chance to deal with it right away and then explore safely?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 12, 2021, 08:30:17 AM
After all that, my point is just that I found that using the current storm needler resulted in ships getting into unfavorable engagements too often because the AI is bad with overfluxed ships, so the penalty to survivability was worse than the benefit to winning the flux war.

Are you sure that wasn’t the 320 range disadvantage the weapon has over other large kinetic (up to 480 for some medium?)

Because I doubt the new storm Needler is going to wow you in a fleet. I think you’re going to get even more overwhelmed

Quote
This is not how the AI behaves. It doesn't try to find your weakest ship, it just engages the nearest enemy and does some basic pivoting around allies and enemies to try and flank or retreat based on relative flux levels (as far as I know).

This doesn’t matter either given the available parameters. Unless you can enforce that the enemy shoots tanky ships earlier and you can enforce that more dps ships don’t get shot the then optimal allocation (well assuming they’re all the same ship type) is the fit that has the best combination for dps and tank for a one on one situation. (Unless repairing can happen but this is irrelevant in our context since it cannot)

If the enemy is targeting optimally or randomly* and your fleet is all fit the same then you do not gain by making your ships off of the optimal tank/DPS line.

Your bias to survival means that your ships survive worse.

*technically if the enemy is targeting randomly you will do better sometimes by having a split fleet than others but the same on average.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 12, 2021, 09:11:43 AM
  • Cargo scans by patrols:
    • Will more often result in the "suspicious" outcome when smuggling suspicion is high
    • Will demand you allow a boarding party to examine your ships
      • This will cause some disruption to several of your ships' combat readiness
    • More likely to find contraband
Do boarding parties recognize (illegal) automated ships, like Remnants or anything with an AI core shoved in them?  If so, do they demand surrender of such ships or simply cut the link and open fire?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Hiruma Kai on March 12, 2021, 09:21:20 AM
That's just eyeballing the 33% cut in overall damage output (which would tend to make me think the fitting cost would drop to 66% of its original value - say 18), but then buffing the efficiency by 23% or so, bumps it 22 or 23 OP.

Just a thought about this - I'm not sure that a DPS drop for a weapon that's going to be flux-limited regardless is actually that much of a difference. Arguably, the DPS reduction is almost a buff because it makes the weapon easier to use while largely retaining its damage potential. If it takes an extra few seconds of fire to get the same damage out... heck, that might even be better since it's harder to armor-tank against. There will be some situations where it's worse, too, but I don't think it's as clear cut as just "33% weaker".

In a flux limited context that sounds right.  I was considering the weapon by itself, without context, which is probably not the way to go.  Flux limited context (or flux sufficient context) depends on the rest of the build and which ship we're talking about, which means I should do actual testing with real ships and builds before proposing numbers rather than eyeballing it.  I also admit I'm not used to thinking the graph of OP costs of hypothetical weapons versus DPS, going from 0 DP to 750 DPS, as not a line but some sort of curve, but I can see that being true when limited to a some collection of actually existing ships.

Or in other words, real game testing is needed, which is what I'm guessing you're working on when not being distracted by forum posts. :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on March 12, 2021, 10:14:18 AM
@Goumindong
I just made a new thread where I did some analysis to back my claims. I think it would be better to take this discussion there.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 12, 2021, 11:43:12 AM
Just a thought about this - I'm not sure that a DPS drop for a weapon that's going to be flux-limited regardless is actually that much of a difference. Arguably, the DPS reduction is almost a buff because it makes the weapon easier to use while largely retaining its damage potential. If it takes an extra few seconds of fire to get the same damage out... heck, that might even be better since it's harder to armor-tank against. There will be some situations where it's worse, too, but I don't think it's as clear cut as just "33% weaker".

The thing is though, kinetic weapons, especially kinetic weapons where you’re in knife fighting range aren’t ever really dissipation limited. You almost always want to shoot over your dissipation until the enemy puts their shields down.

... which is why I said "flux limited" not just dissipation :) Even if you don't hit flux capacity, it's still flux-limited (maybe flux-based is a better term? regardless) in the sense that you're converted a desired amount of flux into hard flux on enemy shields. Taking a few extra seconds to do it matters, but it doesn't matter as much as raw dps numbers would suggest.

Quote
A DPS reduction on a weapon is never a buff all things equal. It’s always better to have more available DPS. It’s not always better to shoot that DPS but it’s always better to have it.
I think this would be true if the AI fired weapons at partial ROF, but in the actual game, the vast majority of guns are on autofire 95% of the time, meaning you really need to judge a gun as if it is always firing. The only case I agree with this is if the weapon is on the player ship and manually fired.

(Yep. And even then it's both a pain and likely comes at a cost of doing something else more useful.)

All that aside, the new patch is looking super promising and I'm eager for a chance to enjoy it when it's ready.

Thank you! Looking forward to getting it out there :)


Huh, shouldn't the fighter wing offset positions deal with that? On astrals the daggers and longbows seem ok... but if not, then the offset on daggers should be upped a bit to make them go behind the longbows.

Yes they do, and the distance from the target doesn't matter for how they line up. In fact a slightly longer distance is better since it gives them a chance to line up exactly as desired. Both the Trident and the Dagger have the same offset.

https://imgur.com/a/GGTGogq

The Daggers do hit a touch earlier because when they get close enough, they accelerate to max speed. But both generally hit before the Longbow and this difference is not affected by the length of the attack run.

Man all these cool weapon buffs and reworks yet the Pulse laser is crying in the corner with 1.1 efficiency. Ion pulser will straight out be a better choice for most ships, frigates will still have issue mounting any assault medium weapon. Sorry if this was mentioned already but I didn't have time to read everything since my last response here.

Yeah... honestly, from testing, the Ion Pulser feels a bit too strong right now. I might dial it back, and maybe up the efficiency of the Pulse Laser a bit.


This is only true for low-tech ships.  For Conquest, it is a nerf because it has no problem sustaining the old Storm Needlers long enough.  If I need to pair them with Heavy Mortars for HE just so AI-piloted Conquest will engage at the proper ranges, then it needs the DPS to compete somewhat with other weapon combinations with superior range.

The old Storm Needler is effectively a Conquest-only weapon.  The new one will probably require Conquest to stick something in the medium energy mount to make for lost damage, if it even has OP left to afford another weapon or two.

Old Storm Needler is comparable to Mjolnir in flux use, and Conquest can make good use of Mjolnir too.

Fair points.


IMO Hammer barrages could use some help overall, a slight base ammo increase would make it a lot less crap compared to the Cyclone. As is its only real selling point is that its cheaper and has a higher rate of fire. Currently its just too of an unattractive weapon compared to the reaper launcher, the only reason any player ever uses it is because it comes as a fixed mount on some vanilla and modded ships.

Hmm, let me have a look.


All those balancing and QoL patchnotes read like the playtesting is in full swing! Looking forward to the changed game dynamic.

:D

Ahh, does that imply size 1 or 2 frontier-town style colonies (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19253.msg300373#msg300373) didn't make it into the game?

Ah, they didn't! I still like the idea, just... too much of a re-work. Still something that's in the "potential" pile, though.

If combined, this might lead to some ships needing more crew than they can support, right? Cool, role play wise. Might also make passenger ships worthwhile if you're running a junker fleet.

Yep!

That got me thinking, maybe it would be nice if you could trigger a punitive expedition early (for reputation), so you have a chance to deal with it right away and then explore safely?

Well - you could use a story point to avert it, so that's... kind of the same thing just in a different way.


Do boarding parties recognize (illegal) automated ships, like Remnants or anything with an AI core shoved in them?  If so, do they demand surrender of such ships or simply cut the link and open fire?

They don't.

I also admit I'm not used to thinking the graph of OP costs of hypothetical weapons versus DPS, going from 0 DP to 750 DPS, as not a line but some sort of curve, but I can see that being true when limited to a some collection of actually existing ships.

FWIW, neither am I :) That's not a balancing measure I'm using; if things do end up on some sort of reasonable-looking curve based on that, that's a side effect/outcome of the other balance metrics (which, maybe too strong a word), not a primary goal. As you say, there's just a ton of factors, and any approach that crunches the numbers down to simplify also unavoidably loses context.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on March 12, 2021, 12:24:35 PM
Yeah... honestly, from testing, the Ion Pulser feels a bit too strong right now. I might dial it back, and maybe up the efficiency of the Pulse Laser a bit.
I think just increasing the efficiency to 1.0 would have been sufficient for Ion Pulser buff. For Pulse Laser, I'd probably try 0.9 efficiency. Either way, if you propose some changes fast, we might get to test them out in a few show battles.

The old Storm Needler is effectively a Conquest-only weapon.  The new one will probably require Conquest to stick something in the medium energy mount to make for lost damage, if it even has OP left to afford another weapon or two.

Old Storm Needler is comparable to Mjolnir in flux use, and Conquest can make good use of Mjolnir too.
Midline thrives on elite ballistic weapons, some of which are getting nerfed now. At least they aren't big, since Storm Needler was just an option for Conquest, and Heavy Needler's nerf isn't big, either.

They don't.
Ha! I wouldn't be surprised if the player character could make the water run uphill, too.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 12, 2021, 02:11:53 PM
Yeah... honestly, from testing, the Ion Pulser feels a bit too strong right now. I might dial it back, and maybe up the efficiency of the Pulse Laser a bit.
I think just increasing the efficiency to 1.0 would have been sufficient for Ion Pulser buff. For Pulse Laser, I'd probably try 0.9 efficiency. Either way, if you propose some changes fast, we might get to test them out in a few show battles.

I was thinking of reducing the Ion Pulser damage to 90, and reducing the Pulse Laser flux cost to either 100 or 90.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 12, 2021, 02:37:23 PM
The Ion pulser is a little too strong now... I was playing with it quite a bunch during the last tournament and it is just plain nasty.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 12, 2021, 02:38:25 PM
Do you think lowering the damage to 90 is sufficient or does it need more?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 12, 2021, 04:14:15 PM
Mostly guessing, but I think 90 sounds about right? 90 ties it with current pulse laser for efficiency, and I think the 100 damage version is closer to right than 75. Anyone else who played with the 100 version have thoughts?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on March 12, 2021, 04:43:46 PM
It makes sense to me that the new ion pulser at 100 dmg/shot with the same armor pen as a pulse laser, better efficiency, and a bunch of ion damage would be too good. I definitely feel like the pulse laser should be more efficient than the ion pulser, but I also really like the idea of the ion pulser as premium medium assault weapon. I guess I would vote for it to be strong (90 seems reasonable), and maybe increase OP cost if it needed to be tuned a bit more than that rather than reduce damage more.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Radicaljack on March 12, 2021, 05:04:48 PM
Just played with it at 90, obviously it won't be operating in the same realm as the new patch, but it did seem a bit more balanced. I always love ion pulsers, but they could use a slight nerf.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Half-full on March 12, 2021, 05:19:44 PM
Is it possible that we can use the doctrine page in the next patch to dictate what freighters our faction uses? Currently I don't think that is what happens when selecting certain freighters from the doctrine page.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SafariJohn on March 12, 2021, 05:37:07 PM
Huh, shouldn't the fighter wing offset positions deal with that? On astrals the daggers and longbows seem ok... but if not, then the offset on daggers should be upped a bit to make them go behind the longbows.

Yes they do, and the distance from the target doesn't matter for how they line up. In fact a slightly longer distance is better since it gives them a chance to line up exactly as desired. Both the Trident and the Dagger have the same offset.

https://imgur.com/a/GGTGogq

The Daggers do hit a touch earlier because when they get close enough, they accelerate to max speed. But both generally hit before the Longbow and this difference is not affected by the length of the attack run.

This is that mod-bug with hyper-speed Sabots showing its head. Super-speed Sabots were hitting before Atropos; sometimes Longbows would even get 2 volleys before Daggers or Tridents fired.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Embolism on March 12, 2021, 05:55:04 PM
Yes they do, and the distance from the target doesn't matter for how they line up. In fact a slightly longer distance is better since it gives them a chance to line up exactly as desired. Both the Trident and the Dagger have the same offset.

https://imgur.com/a/GGTGogq

The Daggers do hit a touch earlier because when they get close enough, they accelerate to max speed. But both generally hit before the Longbow and this difference is not affected by the length of the attack run.

So will Tridents get a buff then?  ;D


IMO Hammer barrages could use some help overall, a slight base ammo increase would make it a lot less crap compared to the Cyclone. As is its only real selling point is that its cheaper and has a higher rate of fire. Currently its just too of an unattractive weapon compared to the reaper launcher, the only reason any player ever uses it is because it comes as a fixed mount on some vanilla and modded ships.

Hmm, let me have a look.

Even with more ammo for the Hammer Barrage, I still think Colossus Mk.II and Prometheus Mk.II should have Expanded Missile Racks. Just feels thematic that a cargo hauler converted into a torpedo-spewing platform would use some of its ample cargo holds for holding extra ordnance.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 12, 2021, 06:00:22 PM
Everything that relies on damaging missiles needs Expanded Missile Racks.  There is never enough missiles in an endgame fight, except maybe Locusts.  Those that cannot use Locusts but use missiles anyway are quasi-SO ships.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Embolism on March 12, 2021, 06:13:06 PM
I meant having them built-in for those ships. Not because they need the buff (though they probably do), but because it feels right.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 12, 2021, 10:03:21 PM
Maybe I am remembering from an earlier patch. But I have been very happy with tridents in general. Both due to higher power density* and due to better likelihood of landing a hit.

*that is, I only have so many slots so a trident at less DMG/OP but better Dmg/slot is an easy trade off
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Nerdskarlate on March 13, 2021, 09:42:50 AM
I made an account just to say this!!!

PLEASE ALLOW US TO GIVE ORDERS TO OUR DETACHMENTS.

I think would be cool if the high command uses be expanded, like allow us to give orders to detachments to attack pirate bases or enemy systems.

Would be cool too if the high command become's stronger as you build more patrol hqs in other planets in the same system. If this can't be implemented at least give us the tools to mod this because i know starsector it's not a x4 game but would be cool if nex or another mod could give us this options.

Amazing game and good job :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Retry on March 13, 2021, 12:13:10 PM
Quote
Few of my weapon choices are directly affected by their damage/OP ratio.  Many of my weapon choices are influenced by the opportunity cost of mounting it instead of another weapon. (while OP does matter here, slot size, type and quality are even more important.)

I would guess that since slot size and type are pretty fixed that “quality” encompasses dps/OP and DPS/slot almost exclusively and you don’t realize it.
No, "quality" here is in reference to the quality of the weapon slots themselves.  It's not really a variable that can be summed up in a single quantitative number, the quality of the mount is based on where on the ship it's located, the coverage it supplies, and whether the slot is a hardpoint or a turret.

The left-most Mora small ballistic hardpoint has very little gun coverage compared to the turrets on a low-mobility platform with heavy OP restrictions.  That mount is a low-quality mount and is likely to be the first mount to be "scavenged" in order to make a Mora build work.

Same with the broadside turrets of the Scarab, very poor weapon coverage for turret weapons, even in the PD role.  Scarab builds often use cheap throw-away guns on those or leave them out entirely, which is why those slots are being removed in 0.95.

Turreted large missiles, such as those found on the Legion XIV, are high quality as they have an ability to independently track targets with even unguided torpedos.  Front-facing hardpointed large missiles like on the upcoming Champion are not quite as high quality (you have to turn the entire ship to track things with torpedos), but they're still fairly good in that respect.  Off-side missile hardpoints like on the Apogee are not as high quality as torpedos are entirely impractical on these types of slots, which limits its usage to missiles with good guidance.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Cane on March 14, 2021, 01:19:38 AM
Changed how maximum number of ships in player fleet works:
  • Limit is 30, as before
  • Is now a soft limit and can be exceeded - can recover ships, buy them, etc
  • Penalties for exceeding it are harsh (more supplies used, lower speed) so it's not viable to exceed it for long
  • Once the player has 25 or more ships in their fleet, an indicator is shown in the fleet screen

I don't know if this has been discussed in the previous 57 pages, but didn't someone field the idea of making the fleet ship cap OP-based instead? That way you could field a larger fleet of frigates and destroyers if you wanted to, and only bring a few cruisers and capital ships. If you try to do that now you'll reach the 30-ship limit pretty quickly, whereas if you stick with the usual cap ship + cruiser exclusive lineup you always have a lot more room in your fleet for salvaged ships.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Locklave on March 14, 2021, 05:34:45 AM
Changed how maximum number of ships in player fleet works:
  • Limit is 30, as before
  • Is now a soft limit and can be exceeded - can recover ships, buy them, etc
  • Penalties for exceeding it are harsh (more supplies used, lower speed) so it's not viable to exceed it for long
  • Once the player has 25 or more ships in their fleet, an indicator is shown in the fleet screen

I don't know if this has been discussed in the previous 57 pages, but didn't someone field the idea of making the fleet ship cap OP-based instead? That way you could field a larger fleet of frigates and destroyers if you wanted to, and only bring a few cruisers and capital ships. If you try to do that now you'll reach the 30-ship limit pretty quickly, whereas if you stick with the usual cap ship + cruiser exclusive lineup you always have a lot more room in your fleet for salvaged ships.

I would also like to see that. Allowing us to exceed the cap is a nice QoL improvement generally but doesn't solve the core problem with being forced to use big ships because of the 30 fleet size limits or in this case "Penalties for exceeding it are harsh".

Too many slots feel like support ships we are forced to take because of the game mechanics. Then it's are you willing to trade a Capital/Cruiser remaining slots for a destroyer?

I find it unlikely that the improvements to small ships or the increased captain limit will fix this. Those captains could just be assigned to Capital/Cruisers afterall...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Darenkel on March 14, 2021, 05:55:17 AM
--snip--
[/list]

Better yet, base it on deployment costs. A utility ship won't cost nearly as much to deploy as a hi-tech combat ship, so you'd be able to fit more utility ships in a fleet with less impact. This would also have an interesting interaction with ships that have a lot of d-mods.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Cyan Leader on March 14, 2021, 10:42:14 AM
These ideas can go wrong fast and really change how the game can be played and the fleet composition that we're able to have. For example I don't think we should take away the ability for players to field a bunch of capitals, in previous versions there was a system like that and it felt really restrictive. Extra fleet slots for civilian ships sounds like a better idea.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 14, 2021, 10:52:20 AM
If this can't be implemented at least give us the tools to mod this because i know starsector it's not a x4 game but would be cool if nex or another mod could give us this options.

(Mods could already do this, and, right, I think some already do.)

Amazing game and good job :)

Thank you :) Also, hi!


I don't know if this has been discussed in the previous 57 pages, but didn't someone field the idea of making the fleet ship cap OP-based instead? That way you could field a larger fleet of frigates and destroyers if you wanted to, and only bring a few cruisers and capital ships. If you try to do that now you'll reach the 30-ship limit pretty quickly, whereas if you stick with the usual cap ship + cruiser exclusive lineup you always have a lot more room in your fleet for salvaged ships.

I find it unlikely that the improvements to small ships or the increased captain limit will fix this. Those captains could just be assigned to Capital/Cruisers afterall...

Nonetheless! That is in fact the idea, that those changes - along with some other ones to skills - will largely address this. While the "you can temporarily exceed 30" change is mainly there just for smoother salvaging.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 14, 2021, 10:55:48 AM
For example I don't think we should take away the ability for players to field a bunch of capitals, in previous versions there was a system like that and it felt really restrictive. Extra fleet slots for civilian ships sounds like a better idea.
In those previous releases, player could max at about 100+ FP/DP equivalent, if player had max Leadership and Fleet Logistics.  Personnel also counted for Logistics.  Unskilled, player only had about 25 points.  Overpowered combat skills (for those who did not choose Leadership) were a must to let a few frigates or a lone battlecruiser to solo fleets because it was impossible to deploy that many ships.  Even with max skills, player could manage about thirty frigates or three to four capitals (or somewhere in between for destroyers and cruisers).

If we return to old Logistics system of previous releases, we would likely deploy LESS ships unless it is a frigate monofleet.  Four or five capitals only could easily be the entire fleet.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 14, 2021, 11:31:39 AM
For me at least, having too many ships on the field makes the quality of combat take a real dive. Its fun in a meme-y way for the battlespace to be absolutely filled with frigates, but it really screws up the AI and makes maneuvering silly. Things turn into bumper cars and ships take significant damage from friendly collisions. Even 30 frigates is not very good gameplay IMO.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 14, 2021, 11:46:02 AM
For me at least, having too many ships on the field makes the quality of combat take a real dive. Its fun in a meme-y way for the battlespace to be absolutely filled with frigates, but it really screws up the AI and makes maneuvering silly. Things turn into bumper cars and ships take significant damage from friendly collisions. Even 30 frigates is not very good gameplay IMO.

(Very much agreed on all points, yeah.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: chaincat on March 14, 2021, 12:39:57 PM
Not to pressure or rush the update, but do we have a rough eta when the next patch will roll out? I was thinking of starting up a new save over spring break, but it'd be a bit of a downer to start a save and have to trash it if the next version rolls out in like a few days
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SafariJohn on March 14, 2021, 01:35:30 PM
Not to pressure or rush the update, but do we have a rough eta when the next patch will roll out?

Nope. I would guess April or early May based on past experience, but it could be delayed further if something turns up in final testing, as has happened.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: RustyCabbage on March 14, 2021, 03:36:48 PM
Yeah... honestly, from testing, the Ion Pulser feels a bit too strong right now. I might dial it back, and maybe up the efficiency of the Pulse Laser a bit.
I think just increasing the efficiency to 1.0 would have been sufficient for Ion Pulser buff. For Pulse Laser, I'd probably try 0.9 efficiency. Either way, if you propose some changes fast, we might get to test them out in a few show battles.

I was thinking of reducing the Ion Pulser damage to 90, and reducing the Pulse Laser flux cost to either 100 or 90.
I like both of these changes!  :)

Also: the Gemini is getting Civilian-based Hull, so is its base burn being reduced to 8 as well?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: ZeCaptain on March 14, 2021, 05:11:14 PM
Can a boarding investigation accidentally blow up a ship that is already extremely low hull and CR? And what if the player only has a ship or ships that are basically kite sized or smaller and/or don't have any room for crew? Can't board if there's no room for people to board.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: shoi on March 14, 2021, 06:11:11 PM
that's actually a good question. I don't think there are any ships in vanilla with no extra crew capacity/skeleton crew > than max, but what happens for things like remnant ships or ships that have a higher skeleton crew? Actually, wonder if different factions react differently to having droneships in your fleet or not
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Mach56 on March 14, 2021, 06:18:25 PM
that's actually a good question. I don't think there are any ships in vanilla with no extra crew capacity/skeleton crew > than max, but what happens for things like remnant ships or ships that have a higher skeleton crew? Actually, wonder if different factions react differently to having droneships in your fleet or not
Salvage Rig.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 14, 2021, 06:18:52 PM
There area  few - Buffalo Mk II with converted hangar costs more crew than its capacity. Presumably they are in spacesuits on the outside of the hull pushing Talons off by hand.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Eji1700 on March 14, 2021, 10:50:40 PM
There area  few - Buffalo Mk II with converted hangar costs more crew than its capacity. Presumably they are in spacesuits on the outside of the hull pushing Talons off by hand.
At that point i just mentally assume the whole ship has 0 life support.  Just some O2 tanks and tubes you hook up to so you don't run out.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: sector_terror on March 14, 2021, 11:36:20 PM
Not to pressure or rush the update, but do we have a rough eta when the next patch will roll out?

Nope. I would guess April or early May based on past experience, but it could be delayed further if something turns up in final testing, as has happened.

hey hey. I'm not alone.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on March 15, 2021, 04:57:16 AM
Alex, any plans for limited AI logistics even if not in the same way as the player?

What are some favours players could ask from contacts?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: EclipseRanger on March 15, 2021, 07:22:37 PM
Ty Alex.As a relative newcomer to this game,I was blown away by the quality and the content and these patch notes seem to be increasing that quality even more.Great job!

One question:Are there any plans for out-of-combat game mechanics(like sensor strength/profile) or burn speed to matter at all in combat???
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on March 17, 2021, 10:41:23 PM
First of all, I'm very glad that Starsector is going on, no matter what. Truly wonderful thing.

Secondly, The Thumper Rework. I mean after all this years it got its well deserved attention.

Although reduced OP cost is obviously the step in the right direction. There are other problem with it. Thumper is a burst based weapon and as such has very high "per click" flux cost - 600. What is quite noticeable for a "medium slot filler" tier weapon. Changing it type to simple sustained auto with the same dps will make it much more suitable for its role. If, for some reason, another simple auto weapon is considered as too boring, ammo variant can be implemented (like in Autopulse Laser). Both methods will provide much better flux control without too much work to implement them.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FreonRu on March 18, 2021, 02:17:17 AM
I apologize in advance for using google translate.

Alex, is there an opportunity to show the community some new screenshots? This will brighten up the days of waiting before the patch is released.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 18, 2021, 04:12:00 AM
Secondly, The Thumper Rework. I mean after all this years it got its well deserved attention.

Although reduced OP cost is obviously the step in the right direction. There are other problem with it. Thumper is a burst based weapon and as such has very high "per click" flux cost - 600. What is quite noticeable for a "medium slot filler" tier weapon. Changing it type to simple sustained auto with the same dps will make it much more suitable for its role. If, for some reason, another simple auto weapon is considered as too boring, ammo variant can be implemented (like in Autopulse Laser). Both methods will provide much better flux control without too much work to implement them.
Pre-0.8a was sustained instead of burst, and (with windup delay and 600 range or less) it was so bad that it was worse than Vulcan or even no weapon.  Ships could easily tank Thumper.  Today, if not for minimum armor, Thumper would shred weakened targets.  But thanks to minimum armor, Thumper is just weak except against armor-stripped frigates.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on March 18, 2021, 05:44:10 AM
Secondly, The Thumper Rework. I mean after all this years it got its well deserved attention.

Although reduced OP cost is obviously the step in the right direction. There are other problem with it. Thumper is a burst based weapon and as such has very high "per click" flux cost - 600. What is quite noticeable for a "medium slot filler" tier weapon. Changing it type to simple sustained auto with the same dps will make it much more suitable for its role. If, for some reason, another simple auto weapon is considered as too boring, ammo variant can be implemented (like in Autopulse Laser). Both methods will provide much better flux control without too much work to implement them.
Pre-0.8a was sustained instead of burst, and (with windup delay and 600 range or less) it was so bad that it was worse than Vulcan or even no weapon.  Ships could easily tank Thumper.  Today, if not for minimum armor, Thumper would shred weakened targets.  But thanks to minimum armor, Thumper is just weak except against armor-stripped frigates.

You are talking about anti-ship capabilities. Thumpers suck at this by design and I'm completely OK with that. That I'm talking about is: "shreds enemy missiles and fighters with an overwhelming hail of small payload". It can be actually effective as a manual controlled barrage weapon if not for the lack of the adequate manual control of the fire rate what leads to oversaturation and cooldowns when it is unnecessary to say the least.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 18, 2021, 06:36:09 AM
You ask for Thumper to be a PD weapon.  It has stiff competition with HMG and two flak weapons.  I guess with 700 range, it could be an LR PD gun.

Thumper seems to be like a pirate weapon that is intentionally bad to mount on clunkers (or pristine low-tech before D-mods were introduced).  At least Thumper will cost the OP to play the part, not be more expensive than better weapons.

I like Thumper's old role as hull crusher, but minimum armor interferes with that.

P.S.  Old Thumper did not have a fast rate of fire.  It felt sort of like a ballistic pulse laser.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on March 18, 2021, 07:07:47 AM
Marking it as a PD is always welcome too.

There is no competition since Thumper's niche is "the gun for a situation when you have no other gun". If you do have HMGs and Flaks you gonna use them. However if you check weapons stats you will find that Vulcan and Flak have tier 1 of rarity while Thumper is at zero (HMG is 2).

Yes, pirate clunkers is the perfect example of the platform for this weapon.

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 18, 2021, 09:17:36 AM
Not to pressure or rush the update, but do we have a rough eta when the next patch will roll out? I was thinking of starting up a new save over spring break, but it'd be a bit of a downer to start a save and have to trash it if the next version rolls out in like a few days

Very soon(tm) :)

that's actually a good question. I don't think there are any ships in vanilla with no extra crew capacity/skeleton crew > than max, but what happens for things like remnant ships or ships that have a higher skeleton crew?

Specifically regarding those d-mods, they don't get them. Well, they can get the Increased Maintenance d-mod, but the max crew capacity aspect of it wouldn't matter since it's zero.

There area  few - Buffalo Mk II with converted hangar costs more crew than its capacity. Presumably they are in spacesuits on the outside of the hull pushing Talons off by hand.

... yes.

(A more in the spirit of things explanation is that the crew rotate off the ship after their duty shifts end, that sort of thing.)


Ty Alex.As a relative newcomer to this game,I was blown away by the quality and the content and these patch notes seem to be increasing that quality even more.Great job!

Thank you! Also - hi, and welcome to the forum :)

One question:Are there any plans for out-of-combat game mechanics(like sensor strength/profile) or burn speed to matter at all in combat???

There aren't, no - those stats are entirely separate for a reason. Trying to balance those kinds of values with two entirely different sets of demands on them would be a nightmare.


Although reduced OP cost is obviously the step in the right direction. There are other problem with it. Thumper is a burst based weapon and as such has very high "per click" flux cost - 600. What is quite noticeable for a "medium slot filler" tier weapon. Changing it type to simple sustained auto with the same dps will make it much more suitable for its role. If, for some reason, another simple auto weapon is considered as too boring, ammo variant can be implemented (like in Autopulse Laser). Both methods will provide much better flux control without too much work to implement them.

Hmm - "Big burst" is kind of its nature, though - what makes it tactically interesting to go up against in its own way. I don't particularly want to re-work how it *works* as I'm happy with that aspect of it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Cyan Leader on March 18, 2021, 11:11:16 AM
Has the Persean League changed in any way to make them more distinct from Independents?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: kempenzonen on March 18, 2021, 01:59:20 PM
Pirate raids, punitive expeditions, etc:
  • Increased time until first pirate raid on player colony
  • Increased time it takes pirate bases to upgrade to a higher tier (minimum changed from 6 to 12 months)
  • Increased interval between new pirate bases being established (1-2 cycles)
  • Destroying a pirate base increases this interval by another 1-2 cycles
  • Reduced frequency of pirate raids targeting the core worlds by roughly a factor of 3

Do these changes also affect Luddic Path cells/bases?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 18, 2021, 02:58:09 PM
Has the Persean League changed in any way to make them more distinct from Independents?

To some degree - i.e. they have access to the new midline cruiser, while the independents don't. But, thematically, they're basically an alliance of what would otherwise be a bunch of independent worlds, so a degree of similarity is to be expected.

Pirate raids, punitive expeditions, etc:
  • Increased time until first pirate raid on player colony
  • Increased time it takes pirate bases to upgrade to a higher tier (minimum changed from 6 to 12 months)
  • Increased interval between new pirate bases being established (1-2 cycles)
  • Destroying a pirate base increases this interval by another 1-2 cycles
  • Reduced frequency of pirate raids targeting the core worlds by roughly a factor of 3

Do these changes also affect Luddic Path cells/bases?

Well - the Luddic Path bases don't do most these things, so... :)

(The changes listed that might conceptually apply also don't. I mean, they're just different things with different goals and different mechanics. Changes to each would be listed separately!)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Locklave on March 18, 2021, 04:15:27 PM
For me at least, having too many ships on the field makes the quality of combat take a real dive. Its fun in a meme-y way for the battlespace to be absolutely filled with frigates, but it really screws up the AI and makes maneuvering silly. Things turn into bumper cars and ships take significant damage from friendly collisions. Even 30 frigates is not very good gameplay IMO.

^^ Hates fun!

Jokes aside I feel generally the issue isn't people wanting 30 frigates, basically that'd be dumb, but rather would like a nice mix of not all cruisers/capitals without feeling like they are crippling their fleet strength. Because right now that's a cargo/fuel/salvage/ox being thrown away if not a cruiser/capital.

Maybe I'm underestimating how much effect the small ship skills effect gameplay? Alex and his secrets...

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Retry on March 18, 2021, 04:28:22 PM
You ask for Thumper to be a PD weapon.  It has stiff competition with HMG and two flak weapons.  I guess with 700 range, it could be an LR PD gun.
700 range would be the primary reason to take a theoretical PD thumper, yeah.  I'd also argue that the HMG is less a "real" PD weapon and more thinly disguised SO-bait.

Hmm... PD Thumper...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: TaLaR on March 18, 2021, 10:35:58 PM
Jokes aside I feel generally the issue isn't people wanting 30 frigates, basically that'd be dumb, but rather would like a nice mix of not all cruisers/capitals without feeling like they are crippling their fleet strength.

Imo, to be really useful an AI officer-ed frigate would have to some degree imitate how player frigate plays in larger fights - enter battle, rush some vulnerable opponents, run out of PPT, swap to next frigate from reserve, repeat.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on March 19, 2021, 02:16:41 AM
Is Alex going to release 0.95 on April 1?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: tim110011 on March 19, 2021, 03:05:04 AM
Suggestion:
      Please stop AI colonizing gas giants or ice giants.
      Do not generate gas giants, ice giants, cryovolcanic planet near star.
      Do not generate jump-poin, stations, ships, resources too near star.
      Do not generate habitable planetss too near or too far from star.
      Generate more cryosleeper, place them near habitable planet.
Bug:
   Generate habitable planets in a binary star system consisting of a neutron star and a (yellow) dwarf star.
   Tri-star large system: generate stable location or jump-point out of map.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on March 19, 2021, 03:17:26 AM
Suggestion:
      Please stop AI colonizing gas giants or ice giants.
This has nothing to do with the vanilla game as that's a Nexerelin mod feature. AI doesn't colonize anything without mods.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 19, 2021, 09:03:40 AM
Maybe I'm underestimating how much effect the small ship skills effect gameplay? Alex and his secrets...

I hope so! Also, :-X

Edit: aside from skills, the other big factor here is capturing objectives, since those now give you bonus deployment points, up to 60% of the base point total. That is, the side that's down in deployment points can tie things up by capturing objectives. So, frigates are really key to doing that quickly, and it's particularly important in difficult fights.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FooF on March 19, 2021, 09:33:36 AM
I totally forgot about that change to capturing objectives. Whew, that's a seemingly small (but actually huge) change in gameplay.

This may have been brought up back when this mechanic was first announced but I've forgotten. Let's say I capture an objective and immediately deploy enough ships to go up to the new cap. Then, the objective gets re-captured by the enemy. Is there a malus for being (temporarily) over your total deployment points?

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 19, 2021, 10:06:16 AM
There's no malus, no.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: David on March 19, 2021, 10:51:02 AM
Has the Persean League changed in any way to make them more distinct from Independents?

To some degree - i.e. they have access to the new midline cruiser, while the independents don't. But, thematically, they're basically an alliance of what would otherwise be a bunch of independent worlds, so a degree of similarity is to be expected.

I will add: the story missions involve some interactions that let you find out a bit about what's going on in the Persean League.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Cyan Leader on March 19, 2021, 11:22:09 AM
Might be asking too much here but is that something I can expect for every faction?

Also, are any new songs being added?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on March 19, 2021, 11:46:12 AM
I hope this PL content involves colonies that aren't Kazeron or Mayasura, as those have a pretty strong identity already. Also, hey, have pop types went somewhere? They were neat, if a useless devmode-only feature.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: David on March 19, 2021, 11:47:05 AM
Might be asking too much here but is that something I can expect for every faction?

Not really. For 1.0 I'd like there to be ways to get some insight into each faction and associated characters via narrative missions, but for this update we went more depth than breadth, I feel, so we could tell a story that gets to a place that feels it's at a natural stopping-off point.

There are a bunch of in-world quotes added to things like skills that add some flavour and backstory. To make those, I'd go back through the history post and the one-off missions to see if there were any interesting worldbuilding hooks, then build on those if there was a compelling connection. Others are just made up out of whole-cloth.

Anyhoo, excited to start writing the next bit once this update comes out! :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 19, 2021, 12:12:35 PM
Not really. For 1.0 I'd like there to be ways to get some real insight into each faction and associated characters via narrative missions, but for this update we went more depth than breadth, I feel, so we could tell a story that gets to a place that feels it's at a natural stopping-off point.

To clarify, that's very much a "maybe"; I would absolutely *not* expect 1.0 to have the degree of story-density for all factions that the main story line has. Whatever narrative missions touch on will be more driven by the narrative, I'd imagine, than by wanting to check the "need some more <insert faction name here> story" box. I could see doing more here, but I could also see, well, not. And I wouldn't expect, ah, universal coverage vis a vis the factions; the amount of work involved here is... significant.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 19, 2021, 12:58:54 PM
When it comes to objectives, it seems like whenever frigates get there, they get chased away by bigger ships (because if they do not run, they die).

If I want to capture objectives, I probably want a fast big ship, like Falcon.  Currently, I use Falcons or (sometimes) Doom for the frigate role in endgame fights.

Unless capturing objectives gives a permanent bonus, making them a one-and-done deal, it seems like a better idea to send ships that can hold the points after they get there, not little ships that get there first but cannot hold the point after bigger enemies arrive shortly after, sometimes before the point is captured.

Quote
Jokes aside I feel generally the issue isn't people wanting 30 frigates, basically that'd be dumb, but rather would like a nice mix of not all cruisers/capitals without feeling like they are crippling their fleet strength. Because right now that's a cargo/fuel/salvage/ox being thrown away if not a cruiser/capital.
It was not dumb in releases before 0.7a, when fights were shorter and AI was less cowardly.  Player needed some longer-range weapons and possibly homing missiles (because they passthrough friendly ships) to let as many ships as possible to focus-fire on a single enemy ship.  0.65a was really the golden age for frigates, because they could do everything except haul food (when food runs gave about four times more xp than combat).  During that release, thirty-something frigates (led by Hyperion flagship) could wrap up an endgame fight in about three to five minutes, just enough time to win without too much CR decay if they had Hardened Subsystems.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Jonlissla on March 19, 2021, 01:07:07 PM
Looking forward to the update. Each one always manages to revive the game and I end up spending a hundred hours or more on it. It's a insanely good title and judging from the blog posts I'd say you're going in the right direction.

That said, I still want a easter egg where the systems gets invaded by fleets of Buffalos.

Is Alex going to release 0.95 on April 1?

Toady did this for Dorf Fortress with a long awaited update and proceeded to crash the entire website, and people didn't believe the news thinking it was a joke. Would be fun to see if Alex does the same.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: TypeyMcTypeFace on March 20, 2021, 05:39:17 AM
Looking forward to the new patch really hoping it fixes my saved game that isn't loading anymore because of something called java.lang.NullPointerException whatever that is. I've been playing that particular save file for about 600 hours or more  :'(  :o  ;D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Silveressa on March 20, 2021, 06:02:13 AM
Looking forward to the new patch really hoping it fixes my saved game that isn't loading anymore because of something called java.lang.NullPointerException whatever that is. I've been playing that particular save file for about 600 hours or more  :'(  :o  ;D

Which mods are you using? Usually that error (in my experience) is caused by having an invalid weapon on a ship or as I read a while back in the forums, a modded ship sharing the same name as a vanilla ship.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Cyan Leader on March 20, 2021, 06:46:28 AM
Looking forward to the new patch really hoping it fixes my saved game that isn't loading anymore because of something called java.lang.NullPointerException whatever that is. I've been playing that particular save file for about 600 hours or more  :'(  :o  ;D

As far as I know saves are not compatible between major versions.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: sector_terror on March 20, 2021, 07:15:02 AM
Looking forward to the update. Each one always manages to revive the game and I end up spending a hundred hours or more on it. It's a insanely good title and judging from the blog posts I'd say you're going in the right direction.

That said, I still want a easter egg where the systems gets invaded by fleets of Buffalos.

Is Alex going to release 0.95 on April 1?

Toady did this for Dorf Fortress with a long awaited update and proceeded to crash the entire website, and people didn't believe the news thinking it was a joke. Would be fun to see if Alex does the same.

that is hilarious and in the spirit of Dwarf fortress. Dwarf Fortress, where even the IRL updates are as reliable as the dwarves
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Sarissofoi on March 20, 2021, 12:19:23 PM
Release when?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: MesoTroniK on March 20, 2021, 06:16:51 PM
Release when?
When it is done.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Sarissofoi on March 20, 2021, 10:50:59 PM
Release when?
When it is done.
So when it is done?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: TheLaughingDead on March 20, 2021, 11:30:54 PM
Release when?
When it is done.
So when it is done?
Right, when it is done.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on March 21, 2021, 01:05:08 AM
Alex, please make logistical hullmods built-in with story points not count towards the nominal two logistical hullmods limit.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on March 21, 2021, 06:41:13 AM
Release when?
Next Friday  ;)

But seriously why do people still ask for a specific date when Alex never ever even gave a vague estimate other than various forms of soon, like very soon and soon-ish...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FooF on March 21, 2021, 06:56:34 AM
It really would be kind of hilarious to announce release on April 1 and drop the live file on April 2.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: FreonRu on March 21, 2021, 08:55:33 AM
Is it worth starting a new game now, or is it better to keep the urge to play until the patch is released?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 21, 2021, 10:32:16 AM
Play when you want to play, and start a new one to play again when the patch releases! Since early game is so good in SS, there's really no reason not to play at any time.

I might be a bit biased though.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Cyan Leader on March 21, 2021, 12:14:50 PM
Agreed, I just started an Ironman the other day even though I don't really play that mode too much just to get a better feel for it. I feel like it's pretty much impossible to get burnt out of Starsector. That said this month has been quite busy with releases for me, Cross Code DLC, Doom Eternal DLC and Isaac Repentance coming in a week or so. When I'm done with all of those I feel like the next version will already be out.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on March 22, 2021, 01:34:24 AM
Play when you want to play, and start a new one to play again when the patch releases! Since early game is so good in SS, there's really no reason not to play at any time.

I might be a bit biased though.

Don't tempt me. I'm saving myself for marriage with my true love, 0.95a.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Modo44 on March 22, 2021, 03:06:59 AM
But seriously why do people still ask for a specific date
Because waiting indefinitely gets old, and feature creep can kill a project.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on March 22, 2021, 03:22:00 AM
But seriously why do people still ask for a specific date
Because waiting indefinitely gets old, and feature creep can kill a project.
Bruh even if we knew the exact date, it wouldn't change the fact that we still have to wait...

Also feature creep? The game will finally get some story elements and stronger endgame enemies while improving old systems like the skill tree, raids and contacts. In no way does any of these things fall under the "adding stuff for the sake of it" category.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Drayg on March 22, 2021, 05:27:29 AM
Also feature creep? The game will finally get some story elements and stronger endgame enemies while improving old systems like the skill tree, raids and contacts. In no way does any of these things fall under the "adding stuff for the sake of it" category.
Nobody said that the next update is "feature creep" in particular, read his post again.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: The2nd on March 22, 2021, 06:26:39 AM
But seriously why do people still ask for a specific date when Alex never ever even gave a vague estimate other than various forms of soon, like very soon and soon-ish...

It has been said that every time some one asks for the release date Alex delays it for a bit.

In that spirit: release when?

I have a crucial deadline at the end of April and a new Starsector release would seriously impact my productivity. So I am grateful for everyone asking for a date. Collectively we might manage to delay it post April!

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Rain on March 22, 2021, 06:35:02 AM
For some specific things, I rather like the new boarding thing as well as black markets no longer having combat capitals as a sort of "this makes sense to me". One of the little things that have been grating on the verisimilitude for me has been how easy black market trade, particularly in huge ships, is in general. Having patrols being far less tolerant of all the crap we can do now along with not being able to somehow 'sneakily' sell and fly away with gigantic, potentially thousands-crewed warships feels much more believable to me. Also helps explain why the LP and pirates actually have to resort to their re-fitted garbage and don't trade covertly for real (if perhaps (D)ented) ship we can do. :)

Also, with respect to "move slowly", I remember seeing the discussion about a more lore-ish name for that far earlier. Some potential things that popped to mind, something to contrast with the "full burn" name of max speed: Low burn, minimal burn, slow burn, cloaked burn, covert burn... Depending on how much you feel like emphasizing the sneaky aspect vs. the slow speed aspect.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Jonlissla on March 22, 2021, 06:37:55 AM
It has been said that every time some one asks for the release date Alex delays it for a bit.

It's like Gabe Newell and Half Life 3; each time he reads a fat joke about him he delays it by a day.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: sector_terror on March 22, 2021, 07:57:38 AM
But seriously why do people still ask for a specific date when Alex never ever even gave a vague estimate other than various forms of soon, like very soon and soon-ish...

It has been said that every time some one asks for the release date Alex delays it for a bit.

In that spirit: release when?

I have a crucial deadline at the end of April and a new Starsector release would seriously impact my productivity. So I am grateful for everyone asking for a date. Collectively we might manage to delay it post April!

You dare interrupt my bet? I'm afraid sir, that we must go to war. My drug of Starsector must receive this injection, nothing will us stop us! I do wanna cut in on the feature creepy thing before I write my inevitable wall of text I keep telling myself im gonna make. The important part is to see progress moving forward at a steady pace without interruption. Alex has updated this and shown no hint of anything new, just some bugfixes and minor patches that he'd likely come across while playtesting and programing. Everything seems to working within the development line as well, with not drastic drawback. the only one who needs to set and hold a goal to Alexs's through, ix Alex. But he's had how many updates now go exactly like this? He's demonstrated he has good goal settings and managment. We're fine if it comes in June.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: jlrperkins on March 22, 2021, 08:06:24 AM
Alex, please make logistical hullmods built-in with story points not count towards the nominal two logistical hullmods limit.

I get what you mean, but at least this is super easy to change with a minimal edit to a config file.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on March 22, 2021, 04:29:38 PM
With everyone asking for a release date, Alex, I think that even if you said something vague like: "At least a couple of weeks, could be a month but probably more if something goes wrong" we would be satisfied, the problem is that we don't even know if it's a matter of days, of weeks or months. I get that giving a rough release date just for it to be postponed can me disheartening, same with having a fixed release date to stress about, this is why by giving an open ended ballpark with the minimum being wishful thinking, and the maximum being infinity, everybody will be satisfied and you won't have to stress about the release date since the upper limit is infinity :p
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 22, 2021, 04:43:53 PM
There's been a consistent policy of 'its ready when its ready' and I don't think thats going to change. While we would all love to have a release, I don't think its productive to ask when it will be or try to pressure Alex into making a statement. So:

 In the spirit of keeping the thread open for discussion of patch content, please post release date questions in the General Discussion forum to avoid clutter here.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Helldiver on March 22, 2021, 06:56:24 PM
Meaning the player fleet's maximum cargo capacity? If so I'm not sure what the idea behind this change is. Exceeding cargo limits is not viable in any circumstances (unless the hideous supplies/day penalty got changed I suppose) and periodically/occasionally swapping out hullmods to make more room to take delivery missions sounds like busywork.

Right. The player might pick up another freighter, or as you said add some hullmods, etc. Just in general I think that happening a bit will make it both feel like a bigger opportunity and less like it's all tailored to the player.

I think having missions less "tailored" to the player is very good. It makes the game's world feel less artificial and less like a tutorial that holds your hand with scaling difficulty. And it can push the player to grab what they can and attempt the mission for a big early payout.
Playing with mods, I commonly swap logistics mods and/or grab an extra freighter on the cheap if I see a juicy trade mission pop, I don't have the cargo cap for it (either because it's early game, I wasn't expecting a big trade deal or I've lost ships recently) and I don't want to risk missing it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Retry on March 22, 2021, 08:56:13 PM
Err... doesn't that already happen?  Currently, quite a few (if not most) transport contracts end up requesting more materials than I can feasibly carry, since I need to keep a healthy helping of supplies and heavy machinery at bare minimum.  Even if I've just finished offloading surplus materials and salvage at that particular colony, it's still little more than a die roll if I actually have the spare cargo space to run a contract.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Rain on March 22, 2021, 11:58:23 PM
I guess it might mean in absolute terms? As in, if your max capacity is X, it currently won't generate missions asking you to ship more than X (but may result in supplies + machinery + cargo > X) while after the update it can now occasionally ask you to move more than X?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: EclipseRanger on March 23, 2021, 01:27:55 AM
Meaning the player fleet's maximum cargo capacity? If so I'm not sure what the idea behind this change is. Exceeding cargo limits is not viable in any circumstances (unless the hideous supplies/day penalty got changed I suppose) and periodically/occasionally swapping out hullmods to make more room to take delivery missions sounds like busywork.

Right. The player might pick up another freighter, or as you said add some hullmods, etc. Just in general I think that happening a bit will make it both feel like a bigger opportunity and less like it's all tailored to the player.

I think having missions less "tailored" to the player is very good. It makes the game's world feel less artificial and less like a tutorial that holds your hand with scaling difficulty. And it can push the player to grab what they can and attempt the mission for a big early payout.
Playing with mods, I commonly swap logistics mods and/or grab an extra freighter on the cheap if I see a juicy trade mission pop, I don't have the cargo cap for it (either because it's early game, I wasn't expecting a big trade deal or I've lost ships recently) and I don't want to risk missing it.

Agreed.As Alex has mentioned before,game mechanics are identical between the player and the AI wherever possible.IMO,that's an excellent approach; we should be part of the world,not its god.Not to mention,making trade missions demand more capacity of the player will probably encourage using the new Converted Fighter Bays mod and/or combat freighters(Drover,Condor,Gemini),so your fleet still has bite in case something goes wrong in the trip.Like an actual merchant captain in a Sector in war.

On the same general subject,I wonder if there are plans to add more reactive elements in the game.Like the major factions banding together or forming a bigger defense fleet if you start genociding half the Sector.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 23, 2021, 04:30:58 AM
I guess it might mean in absolute terms? As in, if your max capacity is X, it currently won't generate missions asking you to ship more than X (but may result in supplies + machinery + cargo > X) while after the update it can now occasionally ask you to move more than X?
That was my interpretation, and past a certain point I can't see myself picking up more ships just to take a big shipping contract, and constantly moving hullmods around just sounds like a hassle, in which case why offer the contract at all? It doesn't add anything to the gameplay like a murderously powerful bounty I couldn't dream of doing does. If I can pick up an extra Shepard or Wayfarer early game to do a big shipping job, or upgrade a frigate freighter to a destroyer-sized one, sure, that's progress (assuming suitable ships are actually available for purchase). But if I'm flying around with as many ships as I'm ever going to want and/or fit in my (soft capped at 30) fleet than what's the point of offering bigger contracts than my fleet can carry? Gameplay wise it's just a waste of time, and I can't see it making sense in universe either if I can get asked to, say, deliver over 80K food to any place once I'm flying around 30 Expanded Cargo Hold Atlases. Even Chico I've never seen ask for more than 30K food at once, so I'd be very curious to know what a size 4 or even size 3 colony would need with over double that amount of food.

Quote
Agreed.As Alex has mentioned before,game mechanics are identical between the player and the AI wherever possible.IMO,that's an excellent approach; we should be part of the world,not its god.Not to mention,making trade missions demand more capacity of the player will probably encourage using the new Converted Fighter Bays mod and/or combat freighters(Drover,Condor,Gemini),so your fleet still has bite in case something goes wrong in the trip.Like an actual merchant captain in a Sector in war.
My concern is that the game will consistently generate delivery contracts which exceed your capacity even after defanging your fleet and/or putting a greater focus on (combat) freighters, or even reaching your final 30 endgame ships. Leaving you with tedious hullmod micromanagement to trick the game into generating contracts you can actually handle (and more tedious hullmod micromanagement to expand your holds again afterwards). I can't imagine that being fun, not when the game could just limit itself to contracts you can actually handle. Which I personally wouldn't see as the game treating you as a god, I'd see it as the game glossing over details which the player doesn't need to know. I can imagine those people in bars stuck in a bind being in charge of more than one shipping deal, only offering work which I can actually do and which they think I would see as worth my time. I don't need to be offered a delivery contract which takes five more Atlas ships than my fleet can support to know such contracts exist, the AI merchant fleet leaving the planet and flying off to wherever with lots of goodies (and escorts...) does that already.

My current exploration fleet involves Expanded Cargo Hold/Efficiency Overhaul pirate Mules being used as "combat" ships anyway, I don't know how much more budget I can cut short of going into battle with actual Buffaloes(?)...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Helldiver on March 23, 2021, 07:52:12 AM
That was my interpretation, and past a certain point I can't see myself picking up more ships just to take a big shipping contract, and constantly moving hullmods around just sounds like a hassle, in which case why offer the contract at all? It doesn't add anything to the gameplay like a murderously powerful bounty I couldn't dream of doing does. If I can pick up an extra Shepard or Wayfarer early game to do a big shipping job, or upgrade a frigate freighter to a destroyer-sized one, sure, that's progress (assuming suitable ships are actually available for purchase). But if I'm flying around with as many ships as I'm ever going to want and/or fit in my (soft capped at 30) fleet than what's the point of offering bigger contracts than my fleet can carry? Gameplay wise it's just a waste of time, and I can't see it making sense in universe either if I can get asked to, say, deliver over 80K food to any place once I'm flying around 30 Expanded Cargo Hold Atlases. Even Chico I've never seen ask for more than 30K food at once, so I'd be very curious to know what a size 4 or even size 3 colony would need with over double that amount of food.

My concern is that the game will consistently generate delivery contracts which exceed your capacity even after defanging your fleet and/or putting a greater focus on (combat) freighters, or even reaching your final 30 endgame ships. Leaving you with tedious hullmod micromanagement to trick the game into generating contracts you can actually handle (and more tedious hullmod micromanagement to expand your holds again afterwards). I can't imagine that being fun, not when the game could just limit itself to contracts you can actually handle. Which I personally wouldn't see as the game treating you as a god, I'd see it as the game glossing over details which the player doesn't need to know. I can imagine those people in bars stuck in a bind being in charge of more than one shipping deal, only offering work which I can actually do and which they think I would see as worth my time. I don't need to be offered a delivery contract which takes five more Atlas ships than my fleet can support to know such contracts exist, the AI merchant fleet leaving the planet and flying off to wherever with lots of goodies (and escorts...) does that already.

My current exploration fleet involves Expanded Cargo Hold/Efficiency Overhaul pirate Mules being used as "combat" ships anyway, I don't know how much more budget I can cut short of going into battle with actual Buffaloes(?)...

I think that you're going to the other extreme as if the game would only give you contracts you "can't do". The game can have a variety of contracts and you grab the ones you want based on what you plan on doing. Small trade contract and you have small capacity? Grab it if you want that money and it lines up with what you wanna do. Big contract and you have the capacity? Same thing. Big contract and you don't have the capacity? Up to you to take it based on what you can do to fulfill the requirement and other factors. Heck why am I writing this out?

The game doesn't have to tailor and scale everything to the player and limit player choice as if the player were an idiot unable to make their own decisions. That's what Bethesda did when they added enemy scaling to The Elder Scrolls games ("what if the player faces something they can't do right this instant, oh not that's bad!" mentality) and part of why that series turned into a joke along with dumbing down anything that required the player to think. Such mechanics contribute to making every part of a game feel artificial and stale and also cut opportunities from enterprising players.
I don't need the game to decide in the background whether I can take or want to take on this trade contract or not. Show me the damn contract and I'll decide myself.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: EclipseRanger on March 23, 2021, 08:17:33 AM
That was my interpretation, and past a certain point I can't see myself picking up more ships just to take a big shipping contract, and constantly moving hullmods around just sounds like a hassle, in which case why offer the contract at all? It doesn't add anything to the gameplay like a murderously powerful bounty I couldn't dream of doing does. If I can pick up an extra Shepard or Wayfarer early game to do a big shipping job, or upgrade a frigate freighter to a destroyer-sized one, sure, that's progress (assuming suitable ships are actually available for purchase). But if I'm flying around with as many ships as I'm ever going to want and/or fit in my (soft capped at 30) fleet than what's the point of offering bigger contracts than my fleet can carry? Gameplay wise it's just a waste of time, and I can't see it making sense in universe either if I can get asked to, say, deliver over 80K food to any place once I'm flying around 30 Expanded Cargo Hold Atlases. Even Chico I've never seen ask for more than 30K food at once, so I'd be very curious to know what a size 4 or even size 3 colony would need with over double that amount of food.

My concern is that the game will consistently generate delivery contracts which exceed your capacity even after defanging your fleet and/or putting a greater focus on (combat) freighters, or even reaching your final 30 endgame ships. Leaving you with tedious hullmod micromanagement to trick the game into generating contracts you can actually handle (and more tedious hullmod micromanagement to expand your holds again afterwards). I can't imagine that being fun, not when the game could just limit itself to contracts you can actually handle. Which I personally wouldn't see as the game treating you as a god, I'd see it as the game glossing over details which the player doesn't need to know. I can imagine those people in bars stuck in a bind being in charge of more than one shipping deal, only offering work which I can actually do and which they think I would see as worth my time. I don't need to be offered a delivery contract which takes five more Atlas ships than my fleet can support to know such contracts exist, the AI merchant fleet leaving the planet and flying off to wherever with lots of goodies (and escorts...) does that already.

My current exploration fleet involves Expanded Cargo Hold/Efficiency Overhaul pirate Mules being used as "combat" ships anyway, I don't know how much more budget I can cut short of going into battle with actual Buffaloes(?)...

I think that you're going to the other extreme as if the game would only give you contracts you "can't do". The game can have a variety of contracts and you grab the ones you want based on what you plan on doing. Small trade contract and you have small capacity? Grab it if you want that money and it lines up with what you wanna do. Big contract and you have the capacity? Same thing. Big contract and you don't have the capacity? Up to you to take it based on what you can do to fulfill the requirement and other factors. Heck why am I writing this out?

The game doesn't have to tailor and scale everything to the player and limit player choice as if the player were an idiot unable to make their own decisions. That's what Bethesda did when they added enemy scaling to The Elder Scrolls games ("what if the player faces something they can't do right this instant, oh not that's bad!" mentality) and part of why that series turned into a joke along with dumbing down anything that required the player to think. Such mechanics contribute to making every part of a game feel artificial and stale and also cut opportunities from enterprising players.
I don't need the game to decide in the background whether I can take or want to take on this trade contract or not. Show me the damn contract and I'll decide myself.

 Exactly this.The player can make their own choices no problem.We could go even further and be able to "rent" extra ship capacity to fulfill a contract too big for our current fleet.It's always nice to have the choice presented.You want to trade some of your combat ships for added Atlases to serve a contract???Sure,that's a casculated risk/reward choice.Not to mention,the lore and the game mechanics strongly suggest that these contracts aren't offered to us,they 're broadcast in the vicinity up for grabs.it's not thematically and shouldn't be tailored to us in any way.
 Now,the new contacts SHOULD offer more tailored jobs,since they know who they 're talking to and what the player can do.The new patch notes show that we can dictate to some degree what jobs they 'll provide,so that's covered.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 23, 2021, 08:55:00 AM
You're going to the other extreme as if the game would only give you contracts you "can't do". The game can have a variety of contracts and you grab the ones you want based on what you plan on doing. Small trade contract and you have small capacity? Grab it if you want that money and it lines up with what you wanna do. Big contract and you have the capacity? Same thing. Big contract and you don't have the capacity? Up to you to take it based on what you can do to fulfill the requirement and other factors. Heck why am I writing this out?

The game doesn't have to tailor and scale everything to the player and limit player choice as if the player were an idiot unable to make their own decisions. That's what Bethesda did when they added enemy scaling to The Elder Scrolls games ("what if the player faces something they can't do right this instant, oh not that's bad!" mentality) and part of why that series turned into a joke along with dumbing down anything that required the player to think. Such mechanics contribute to making every part of a game feel artificial and stale and also cut opportunities from enterprising players.
I don't need the game to decide in the background whether I can take or want to take on this trade contract or not. Show me the damn contract and I'll decide myself.
Depending on how things get implemented it very well might end up going in that extreme direction. I don't expect it to, but it's not impossible, and what little I'm reading isn't giving me the impression that it's not at least going in that direction. It'd be nice if the game were to offer multiple options in terms of contracts, basically the "I can imagine those people in bars stuck in a bind being in charge of more than one shipping deal" idea I mentioned earlier, but as of right now that's not how the game works, and I haven't heard about any changes along those lines (though in hindsight it would be nice). Right now any given planet might or might not offer the option of one singular contract, which I can do unless I'm already hauling a ton of cargo around. If those contracts end up becoming a chore and/or impossible to take because they exceed my fleet's cargo capacity regardless of what I'm carrying, well, isn't that a step backwards?

There is something to be said about taking away player choice by tailoring offers and opportunities to scale with the player's capabilities, but there's also something to be said about having choices which are not meaningful and/or good. In Daggerfall I can work the character creation process such that I can create a character which can kill Vampire Ancients, one of the most powerful enemies the game can generate, five minutes after leaving the tutorial dungeon. Alternatively, if I choose to use a normal character I'm at risk of unavoidable death and/or quest failure every time I rest, because the game might generate a Fire Daedra to ambush me long before I have any means to do anything but run away in abject terror or die trying. Is that a good choice to give the player? Learn to exploit the daylights out of character creation to create absurdly overpowered characters, or accept that RNG might randomly kill you dead with no possible recourse?

Quote
Exactly this.The player can make their own choices no problem.We could go even further and be able to "rent" extra ship capacity to fulfill a contract too big for our current fleet.It's always nice to have the choice presented.You want to trade some of your combat ships for added Atlases to serve a contract???Sure,that's a casculated risk/reward choice.Not to mention,the lore and the game mechanics strongly suggest that these contracts aren't offered to us,they 're broadcast in the vicinity up for grabs.it's not thematically and shouldn't be tailored to us in any way.
 Now,the new contacts SHOULD offer more tailored jobs,since they know who they 're talking to and what the player can do.The new patch notes show that we can dictate to some degree what jobs they 'll provide,so that's covered.
I'd be fine with being rented ships or having the option to rent ships like that, and with contacts knowing your fleet's capabilities and offering contracts to match, or with bar offers being more flexible and everything. But the patch notes doesn't say anything about any of that. The patch notes says "Delivery missions: offers will now occasionally exceed player's cargo capacity". That, to me, sounds like some amount of the delivery contracts I'll be offered will be for more than my fleet can carry, which means either not taking the contract because I can't do it (in which case why offer it at all?), refitting my ships to focus on cargo space (tedious to do constantly, and if contracts end up exceeding that refitted fleet's limits I'm right back to square one), adding more ships to my fleet (not always available or possible once I reach the 30 ships soft cap) or switching out ships (what's fun about flying to a place to dump a Paragon, pick up an Atlas from somewhere, do a delivery contract which hopefully is still there and afterwards come back to pick the Paragon back up?). I just don't see how this is a change for the better, how cargo contracts that exceed a player's cargo capacity add anything to the game but missed opportunities or tedium (lategame moreso than early game).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: ApolloStarsector on March 23, 2021, 02:28:50 PM
Changes as of March 08, 2021

Brilliant. This patch is shaping up to be exactly what the game needs. Well done.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Inventor Raccoon on March 23, 2021, 02:43:11 PM
Re: delivery missions generating with quantities above your cargo capacity, might be worth keeping in mind that you'll be able to use the new personal contacts feature to reliably receive trade-related missions of a roughly desired quantity.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Locklave on March 24, 2021, 01:49:57 AM
My concern is that the game will consistently generate delivery contracts which exceed your capacity even after defanging your fleet and/or putting a greater focus on (combat) freighters

I've never mentioned this before but now that you say it this always happens late game. The cargo mission requiring WAY more cargo space then any normal fleet would have or requests for cargo exceeding the totals of 10 planets worth of material.

9-16k fuel request? 10-12k supplies? How many planets am I expected to visit in the tiny timeframe they give for delivery? The planets commodity limits aren't scaling like this. But have fun trying to get 9k fuel in 10 days or w/e.

Mid to late game it gets to the point where you would need a specialized merchant fleet to complete those contracts, a playstyle this game doesn't support and sends players into a rage when you suggest that the game should support it in a thread.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Cyan Leader on March 24, 2021, 07:51:00 AM
So did the Ion Pulser end up getting nerfed? I was looking forward to using the one from the changelog.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Haalon on March 24, 2021, 09:00:31 AM
I think I saw on twitter, that we will be able to check stats of the fighter weapons with some new UI
Is this still the case?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on March 24, 2021, 09:03:22 AM
Alex, any plans to make Combat Freighters still useful in lategame or is that a non-concern?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: elebrity on March 25, 2021, 08:51:23 AM
I purchased after .91a became available and really enjoyed my first playthrough. It was a fantastic experience and scratched an itch I've always had that didn't require the latest and greatest technology to do. Reading through the patch notes, I am excited to play through a 2nd time with all of these changes (and with no tutorial pension this time). There are so many changes to look forward to and I'm very interested in how the story point system will change things in terms of character progression. My only real regret in playthrough 1 was not being able to experiment with more skills - so I'm kinda hoping that you could use story points to reset some of your choices if they're no longer working out for the phase of the game you're in. If not, no big deal... I'll just have to play more. From one engineer to another, thanks for everything.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 25, 2021, 10:44:30 AM
Brilliant. This patch is shaping up to be exactly what the game needs. Well done.

Thank you! <3

I've never mentioned this before but now that you say it this always happens late game. The cargo mission requiring WAY more cargo space then any normal fleet would have or requests for cargo exceeding the totals of 10 planets worth of material.

9-16k fuel request? 10-12k supplies? How many planets am I expected to visit in the tiny timeframe they give for delivery? The planets commodity limits aren't scaling like this. But have fun trying to get 9k fuel in 10 days or w/e.

Mid to late game it gets to the point where you would need a specialized merchant fleet to complete those contracts, a playstyle this game doesn't support and sends players into a rage when you suggest that the game should support it in a thread.

Yeah, the publicly-posted procurement missions were always kind of odd gameplay-wise; for the next release they're just replaced entirely by the various bar missions.

I think I saw on twitter, that we will be able to check stats of the fighter weapons with some new UI
Is this still the case?

Yeah - you can press F1 on the fighter tooltip to cycle through the fighter's weapons.

Alex, any plans to make Combat Freighters still useful in lategame or is that a non-concern?

There is a new skill that may make this reasonable-ish; I'm curious to see how it plays out.


I purchased after .91a became available and really enjoyed my first playthrough. It was a fantastic experience and scratched an itch I've always had that didn't require the latest and greatest technology to do. Reading through the patch notes, I am excited to play through a 2nd time with all of these changes (and with no tutorial pension this time). There are so many changes to look forward to and I'm very interested in how the story point system will change things in terms of character progression. My only real regret in playthrough 1 was not being able to experiment with more skills - so I'm kinda hoping that you could use story points to reset some of your choices if they're no longer working out for the phase of the game you're in. If not, no big deal... I'll just have to play more. From one engineer to another, thanks for everything.

Thank you, I appreciate your kind words!

And, yeah - in the upcoming release, one of the things you can do with story points is refund your skill points. Well, a couple of the skills are "permanent" due to their effects making it awkward to handle a "player had the skill but doesn't anymore" case - but by far most of them are not.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on March 25, 2021, 11:26:00 AM
And, yeah - in the upcoming release, one of the things you can do with story points is refund your skill points. Well, a couple of the skills are "permanent" due to their effects making it awkward to handle a "player had the skill but doesn't anymore" case - but by far most of them are not.
Isn't that going to be a little awkward (and exploitable) if respecing will leave valuable, high level skills in paths you don't invest anymore? Or perhaps you have to spend enough skill points to fill the gap when you respec?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 25, 2021, 11:47:32 AM
Yeah, if you respec, the requirements for any permanent (or just not-respecced) skills have to be met before you can confirm the respec.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Dri on March 25, 2021, 04:43:31 PM
I'm pretty ignorant about it all but what causes a release candidate to fail? Why do so many have to be built?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 25, 2021, 04:59:29 PM
So did the Ion Pulser end up getting nerfed? I was looking forward to using the one from the changelog.

Realized I forgot to answer: it's down to 90 damage (well, rather, it's only up by 15 rather than by 25) and it's still very good.


I'm pretty ignorant about it all but what causes a release candidate to fail? Why do so many have to be built?

Basically, the process is - past a certain point - to make and then test a "real" build, that is, with a proper installer/packaging, etc, rather than just testing by running the game out of the dev environment. Running from the dev environment is a lot easier as far as fixing bugs and iterating quickly goes. But, you really need to test the *actual thing that the players will use* because sometimes there are issues that don't show up in the dev environment.

So, once the game is in good enough shape that I feel like there's a small chance it's good to go, that's when release candidates start being tested. And then bugs are found, fixed, and new RCs get built.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: NoMercyForLudds_ on March 25, 2021, 06:44:58 PM
@Alex, btw, any change to min system requirements?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 25, 2021, 06:48:09 PM
Not particularly - there are some performance improvements and few fixes for a few memory leaks, though.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: sector_terror on March 25, 2021, 09:39:22 PM
A kind of hilarious basis. I'm really not sure how it slipped my mind the importance of an independent build rather than just the game. I'm really not sure why, but I got it in my head for some bizarre reason that every test play is done on some independent fresh install .exe. No, I have idea why it never occured to me the way the developer runs the software and the install and independent client software might different.

I am honestly excited for the new update. The contact system is a desperate breath of fresh air I have been waiting for for so long. A -lot- of late game quests ended up basically making me constantly either reset my game, or out and out cheat and save-scum to not let my fleet die. Once bounties got high enough, they never went back down, and trade contracts got so out of hand that even with setup they really stopped working properly. With more designed missions they can be made fair, and even I can do some basic modding if absolutely necessary to make the jobs more viable if it gets -really- out of hand, which I doubt since even the worst trade contracts were only truly impossible at the tail end of the game. The officer system and new skill system is just icing on the cake really. Well,t hat and being able to custom order more rare ships.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Chairman Suryasari on March 26, 2021, 01:00:04 AM
campaignSpeedupMult is a big game changer for me, especially for afk, on Windows I can use Cheat Engine to speed it up, but on Linux, it's hard to do it at all.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: DecoyGrenadeOut on March 26, 2021, 08:13:00 AM
So with the new patch coming will there be any better way to manage player-faction fleets, loadouts and blueprints?
I have a number of ships I want my fleet to use and set to prioritize, however there always seem to be a fleet here and there running with ship that I don't want in like LC, LP or pirate ship.
So unless I just flat out don't learn the BP ever or set up the faction doctrine in a way that excludes the usage of the ships I don't want to see I always get a few straggler fleets here and there with gremlins or something in them.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Tartiflette on March 26, 2021, 10:08:32 AM
Can I use a story point to persuade Alex to reveal if the update is for today?

[EDIT] nevermind
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Plasmodium on March 26, 2021, 10:18:09 AM
Can I use a story point to persuade Alex to reveal if the update is for today?


Well, I just logged in and saw 'Released' in the thread title, think that answered your question :D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 26, 2021, 10:19:08 AM
... and, it's out!

Blog post/download links here (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2021/03/26/starsector-0-95a-release/).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Tartiflette on March 26, 2021, 10:19:38 AM
[Nod of approval]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on March 26, 2021, 10:20:17 AM
... and, it's out!

Blog post/download links here (https://fractalsoftworks.com/2021/03/26/starsector-0-95a-release/).

*rubbing hands*
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Ishman on March 26, 2021, 10:21:11 AM
Oh, what a joyous day!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 26, 2021, 10:21:39 AM
(Oops, the link was busted! Just fixed it.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Dex on March 26, 2021, 10:22:33 AM
YAAAAAAAAAY
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: mav on March 26, 2021, 10:23:42 AM
Oh no... there goes the weekend....
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: pairedeciseaux on March 26, 2021, 10:25:31 AM
Let's go!  ;D

Congratulations on the new release.

Currently downloading.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Cyan Leader on March 26, 2021, 10:25:51 AM
Thank you for your hard work! See you guys in a few days!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on March 26, 2021, 10:26:40 AM
Release when?
Next Friday  ;)
Yeah it's big brain time
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: BarnOwlBlue on March 26, 2021, 10:27:05 AM
Omg, the hype! Thank you Alex and the entire Starsector team!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: furl on March 26, 2021, 10:31:32 AM
Congratulations! And a huge thank you
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Draba on March 26, 2021, 10:32:22 AM
Looking great, trying in a few hours  :D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 26, 2021, 10:32:43 AM
Thank you everyone!

(Modding note regarding the javadoc: about to delete the old one and upload the new one. Edit: new one uploaded.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Cycerin on March 26, 2021, 10:36:37 AM
Hell yea, can't wait to check it out!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Jonlissla on March 26, 2021, 10:37:11 AM
You know it's fresh off the presses when Windows Defender gives a warning for the installer.

Thanks Alex, looking forward to playing!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Hussar on March 26, 2021, 10:37:38 AM
AAaaaaaaaaaaaaand there goes all my premium time in some online games. :P

Time to loose myself again and find out what's still broken Alex. ;D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 26, 2021, 10:46:01 AM
You know it's fresh off the presses when Windows Defender gives a warning for the installer.

Thanks Alex, looking forward to playing!

Always seems to happen with one av or another! And, thank you!

Time to loose myself again and find out what's still broken Alex. ;D

<fingers crossed>
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: kirpi17 on March 26, 2021, 10:48:03 AM
Best day of my life! Legit.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Ryan390 on March 26, 2021, 10:48:42 AM
Alex you beast!!! Thankyou so much!

I was wondering when the next update was.. Seems like you've done more of the story and included LOADS of cool stuff too!

Well done!!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: flanker37t on March 26, 2021, 10:53:08 AM
Oh my god, Alex, you wonderful beast, you!

Today is the day my wife finally went to a bar in, like, a year, and you release this exact day?!!

AWESOME!!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Tertius on March 26, 2021, 10:54:21 AM
Oh man, it is out. Yes.  ;D
Thanks Alex and all of you who contribute for this amazing game.

I'm hyped lol.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 26, 2021, 10:56:58 AM
Woooooo!!!!

:Random noise of celebration, followed by silence, then the occasional frantic tapping of keys as I blow up:
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on March 26, 2021, 10:59:20 AM
    Made some improvements to view panning
    • Should no longer hitch after it's stopped moving
    • Fixed issue that was causing it to finish out its movement along a single axis
This... This! It's important enough that I'm making a post about this alone.[/list]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Wyvern on March 26, 2021, 11:03:30 AM
  • Selecting an empty group will now properly hide the weapons from the previously selected group
This... is not a positive change! I used the previous behavior a lot, allowing a group to operate on auto-fire while I was still able to see its firing arcs and range - important information when, for example, piloting anything maneuverable that uses turrets as its main guns. Please revert this.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Hussar on March 26, 2021, 11:07:57 AM
Time to loose myself again and find out what's still broken Alex. ;D

<fingers crossed>

Quote
Randomly generated planets in the core (including Duzahk and Penelope's Star) should no longer be habitable
You know I'll test this to the extreme. I hope you pulled it off since any form of habitables in core worlds was bad. I hope it includes Hegemony space too (in fact they had the most habitable spawns in all core worlds from my memory).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on March 26, 2021, 11:21:16 AM
  • Selecting an empty group will now properly hide the weapons from the previously selected group
This... is not a positive change! I used the previous behavior a lot, allowing a group to operate on auto-fire while I was still able to see its firing arcs and range - important information when, for example, piloting anything maneuverable that uses turrets as its main guns. Please revert this.
I agree as well.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 26, 2021, 11:44:05 AM
  • Selecting an empty group will now properly hide the weapons from the previously selected group
This... is not a positive change! I used the previous behavior a lot, allowing a group to operate on auto-fire while I was still able to see its firing arcs and range - important information when, for example, piloting anything maneuverable that uses turrets as its main guns. Please revert this.
I agree as well.

Now that I think of it I used this constantly also.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 26, 2021, 11:45:14 AM
Hmm - I'll have a look. It was a bug and it was thus pretty bugged, for example weapon status wouldn't update.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: HELMUT on March 26, 2021, 11:51:06 AM
  • Selecting an empty group will now properly hide the weapons from the previously selected group
This... is not a positive change! I used the previous behavior a lot, allowing a group to operate on auto-fire while I was still able to see its firing arcs and range - important information when, for example, piloting anything maneuverable that uses turrets as its main guns. Please revert this.
I agree as well.

Now that I think of it I used this constantly also.

Adding my contribution to the cause, i do occasional use this feature.

Also, thank you Alex for the update !
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SteelSoldier on March 26, 2021, 11:59:08 AM
HYPE, TIME TO DOWNLOAD THE GAME AGAIN!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: sector_terror on March 26, 2021, 12:00:07 PM
Just lookign through the skills on an initial runthrough. Wow, these are fantastically well balanced, with most of these being tough choices. Some are a bit on the nose but others are really hurting. Particular note to navigation V Sensors, and gunnery Implants V Energy Weapon Mastery. And some of those specialist rewards are incredible to boot. Well done
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 26, 2021, 12:06:14 PM
  • Selecting an empty group will now properly hide the weapons from the previously selected group
This... is not a positive change! I used the previous behavior a lot, allowing a group to operate on auto-fire while I was still able to see its firing arcs and range - important information when, for example, piloting anything maneuverable that uses turrets as its main guns. Please revert this.
I agree as well.

Now that I think of it I used this constantly also.

Ah - it looks like the arcs and range are still there, actually. Just the weapon list is gone.


Just lookign through the skills on an initial runthrough. Wow, these are fantastically well balanced, with most of these being tough choices. Some are a bit on the nose but others are really hurting. Particular note to navigation V Sensors, and gunnery Implants V Energy Weapon Mastery. And some of those specialist rewards are incredible to boot. Well done

:D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Satirical on March 26, 2021, 12:20:42 PM
WTF i love this!!!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on March 26, 2021, 12:28:22 PM
The skills, I Imagine will have varying degrees of difficulty in thier choice, and it will be different for every player.
It actually looks quite intersting how everything has been split up.

*Industry skills are all mutually exclusive*
How dare you.
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/6LAqJB3.jpg)
[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 26, 2021, 12:33:09 PM
*Industry skills are all mutually exclusive*

You *could* just go up the industry tree twice! Sacrifices made elsewhere etc etc.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 26, 2021, 12:56:40 PM
Is it intended that the helmsmanship elite skill does not work with shields up as this is considered "generating flux" even if flux levels are decreasing?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Carabus on March 26, 2021, 01:03:33 PM
Is it intended that the helmsmanship elite skill does not work with shields up as this is considered "generating flux" even if flux levels are decreasing?

Having shields up never allowed you to use zero-flux boost, even though technically you could stay at zero flux. My guess it stayed the same.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 26, 2021, 01:11:26 PM
Is it intended that the helmsmanship elite skill does not work with shields up as this is considered "generating flux" even if flux levels are decreasing?

Having shields up never allowed you to use zero-flux boost, even though technically you could stay at zero flux. My guess it stayed the same.


It did when you had the skill that increased the cap to 1%. Though i suppose that answers my question as the reason that you did not get the bonus at 0% was that you were "generating flux over 0%"
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 26, 2021, 01:14:07 PM
Finally getting to play! First impression in the tutorial... new the flux venting graphics are very nice!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: haloguy1 on March 26, 2021, 01:16:43 PM
Finally!!! Hype is real! I'm looking forward to this one. Alex well done on another great update!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sarissofoi on March 26, 2021, 01:22:36 PM
Blinding and eye gouging explosions still in base game.
Same for hidden starts and stipend from Galatia academy.
Also got first crash in battle.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 26, 2021, 01:39:28 PM
Ah, this came while my Starsector computer is non-operational.  It will be a while before I can play the new release.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 26, 2021, 01:39:48 PM
Is it intended that the helmsmanship elite skill does not work with shields up as this is considered "generating flux" even if flux levels are decreasing?

Right, yeah. Anything that's adding flux, even if the net flux change per frame is negative, will cancel it out.

Finally getting to play! First impression in the tutorial... new the flux venting graphics are very nice!

Glad you like them!

Also got first crash in battle.

Would you mind posting the stack trace from the log?

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Satirical on March 26, 2021, 01:43:12 PM
got a wierd bug that was fixed wierdly

(https://i.imgur.com/hyLby0h.png)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 26, 2021, 01:45:34 PM
Yeah, looks like using the memory management options causes problems on some/fair number of PCs (but, annoyingly, not on my dev box). In the hotfix (i.e. next few days) it'll be disabled by default and you'll be able to turn it back on in settings. Trying to investigate why it's happening and how to avoid it on a wide range of hardware/OS + driver versions/etc is... not hotfix material.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sarissofoi on March 26, 2021, 02:00:29 PM
Would you mind posting the stack trace from the log?
I don't mind. Can you tell me where to find it? I knew but forget.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on March 26, 2021, 02:01:12 PM
I just want to say that I love the quality of the writing. I'm making really slow progress because I'm reading everthing, often multiple times, and let the words unfold their images in my mind.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Harmful Mechanic on March 26, 2021, 02:03:09 PM
It's good stuff.

My weekend is freed up and I'm ready to start making my update to-do list - after I get a chance to fly around and indulge myself a bit.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 26, 2021, 02:07:03 PM
Would you mind posting the stack trace from the log?
I don't mind. Can you tell me where to find it? I knew but forget.

Thank you! It'd be in starsector.log, which I believe is under starsector-core/. It'd be the last thing at the time of the crash. Stack traces look...  something like this:
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19997.0
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 26, 2021, 02:07:52 PM
I just want to say that I love the quality of the writing. I'm making really slow progress because I'm reading everthing, often multiple times, and let the words unfold their images in my mind.

(I hope I'm allowed to say it, but - I absolutely *love* David's writing!)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 26, 2021, 02:08:45 PM
Holy wow, CR loss from being under crew is permanent now and needs to be paid for with supplies! Well, it takes a few days, but still, thats a huge change!

Seconded on the writing! It took me about 4x longer to go over the new skills than it would have if I hadn't been reading all of them and chuckling.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sarissofoi on March 26, 2021, 02:11:06 PM
Quote
10601848 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NullPointerException
java.lang.NullPointerException
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.tasks.CombatTaskManager.giveDirectOrder(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.tasks.CombatTaskManager.giveDirectOrder(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.tasks.CombatTaskManager.giveDirectOrder(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.OoOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO._.actionTaken(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.OoOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO._.actionPerformed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.OoO0.buttonPressed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.oooO.?00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.oooO.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.OoO0.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.donew.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.donew.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.donew.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.donew.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.OoOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO._.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.donew.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.donew.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.OoOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.oOOO.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.donew.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.donew.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
I think it is this.
Happen n combat with pirates. Was winning easily.
Can upload whole log and drop save if needed.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 26, 2021, 02:16:36 PM
Holy wow, CR loss from being under crew is permanent now and needs to be paid for with supplies! Well, it takes a few days, but still, thats a huge change!

Huh, interesting. That was not exactly intentional; made a note to take a look. Not a "bug" per se, and not something I'd want to touch for any sort of hotfix, but, right, noted for the future.

@Sarissofoi: Thank you! Do you happen to remember what orders you gave? It looks like it crashed as a result of some order being given. I *think* I have this fixed up, but it's a little hard to verify. If you can email me your save (to fractalsoftworks [at] gmail [dot] com)  - if you still have it handy before the fight - that might help, too.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sarissofoi on March 26, 2021, 02:19:29 PM
Quote
219375 [Thread-3] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NullPointerException
java.lang.NullPointerException
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.tasks.CombatTaskManager.giveDirectOrder(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.tasks.CombatTaskManager.giveDirectOrder(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.tasks.CombatTaskManager.giveDirectOrder(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.OoOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO._.actionTaken(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.OoOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO._.actionPerformed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.OoO0.buttonPressed(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.oooO.?00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.oooO.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.OoO0.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.donew.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.donew.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.donew.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.donew.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.OoOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO._.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.donew.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.donew.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.OoOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.oOOO.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.donew.dispatchEventsToChildren(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.donew.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher.o00000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
It happen again in the same combat.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 26, 2021, 02:21:33 PM
Ok, that's good, actually! If you can send me the save then there's a good chance I can confirm the fix. And if you tell me what order you gave that triggered the crash, that'd help even more.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Ryan390 on March 26, 2021, 02:25:13 PM
Just did a smuggling mission and when I got to the planet the contact wasn't in any of the coms lists (so I couldn't complete the mission)

Not had that issue before. Assuming that's a bug?

(Had to just sell the harvested organs on the black market for small profit)

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sarissofoi on March 26, 2021, 02:29:20 PM
Honestly.
No idea.
I am not best pilot and may push the wrong button at the wrong time.
I win it 3rd time and it didn't crash during it.
I will send the current log and save.
Its the pirate fleet close to sun going on intercept course.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: David on March 26, 2021, 02:32:27 PM
I just want to say that I love the quality of the writing. I'm making really slow progress because I'm reading everthing, often multiple times, and let the words unfold their images in my mind.

(Thank you! It's slightly terrifying to put this much into writing that'll be read by ... a lot of people. Glad you like it :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Dex on March 26, 2021, 02:48:56 PM
David, a little TINY thing, but i appreciate the use of the word 'discrete' when first talking to the Provost. Its homonym would be equally valid in the sentence, and as far as im aware, far more common.

Academician, not seen that word for a couple decades.

'Let the Ludds preach their silly religion, but one way or the other I shall see this compound burned, seared, and sterilized until every hiding place is found and until every last Volturan Lobster egg, every last slimy one, has been cooked to a smoking husk. That species shall be exterminated, I tell you! Exterminated!'
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 26, 2021, 03:02:40 PM
Just did a smuggling mission and when I got to the planet the contact wasn't in any of the coms lists (so I couldn't complete the mission)

Not had that issue before. Assuming that's a bug?

(Had to just sell the harvested organs on the black market for small profit)

Ah, hmm - there's no contact for that mission. You just need to come into market without patrols being aware, and it should auto-complete. There's a text telling you you're not able to complete it if you dock but patrols are aware.

Honestly.
No idea.
I am not best pilot and may push the wrong button at the wrong time.
I win it 3rd time and it didn't crash during it.
I will send the current log and save.
Its the pirate fleet close to sun going on intercept course.

Thank you! Wasn't able to get it to crash on my end to be 100% sure, but still, hopefully the fix I put in will cover it. I really appreciate you taking the time to help with this.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Eji1700 on March 26, 2021, 03:05:15 PM
Only just started (and died a few times, it's been awhile since i've done a "fair" start), but holy hell is the speed increase a beautiful QOL change.

Love the new skills/descriptions as well.  Stumbled into "a plot?" by just accidentally winding up at the station that starts it, so that's nice (helps that they have a system bounty as well).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: EclipseRanger on March 26, 2021, 03:50:18 PM
Absolutely fantastic!The more new things I see in the update,the more excited I get!Major kudos to the entire team.
This might not be the best place to post it(please let me know if there is a better one) but I encountered something I believe to be a bug.It's extremely easy to reproduce.
Basically,whenever I press F5 to quicksave,while the save bar is progressing,the game wobbles a bit(as in,the planets wobble,my fleet wobbles,nearby fleets wobble) as if my camera is wobbling.The game process itself is fine,it's just that everything wobbles when I quicksave.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 26, 2021, 03:59:35 PM
Just got my first cargo delivery mission requiring more cargo space than my fleet has. 1800 units of cargo when my already logistics-focussed fleet can hold a max of 1270. If I buy the available Colossus I still will not have enough space left over for the Supplies I'm carrying, and the open market cost of the ship...is actually only ~65K, and I can Story Point the payout of the mission up to 168K (from 112K, for the record). Yes, that's something you can do with story points, at 100% bonus xp: Increase the payout of delivery missions.

...I don't have Augmented Drive Field yet, so that's a definite nope, but aside I'm hopeful. I'll have to play with it more, see the mechanic in action in more situations, but either way I am loving that story point option. And story points in general, really

What impresses me less so far is skills, since to me some definitely seem more...not "mandatory", but utterly outclassing their counterpart to the point where it's not a contest. Navigation vs. Sensors is not even close, for starters. Bulk Transport vs. Salvaging seems to be the same, though I might be misreading what the former actually does? I can understand the different playstyles options, like Flux Regulation is a no-brainer if you're not using phase ships and less so if you do, but I can't imagine a scenario where Sensors would be a sensible first pick.

Incidentally, I've found a habitable planet (moon?) in the core, Livueta in Kumari Kandam, map seed MN-6593263186804071588. Not sure if that's intended? It seems to be the only one, so not sure if it's story-related or something.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: BobV2 on March 26, 2021, 04:24:53 PM
I don't know if it's been mentioned, but I'm a bit disappointed in the loss of the old flavor texts for skills. I think they're far superior in terms of both quality and world-building. Most of the text in general is a just plain joy to read, but I feel like these new ones are a step down from the previous quality.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sarissofoi on March 26, 2021, 04:40:47 PM
Thank you! Wasn't able to get it to crash on my end to be 100% sure, but still, hopefully the fix I put in will cover it. I really appreciate you taking the time to help with this.
You are welcome.
Any chance for option to turn that eye burning explosion off?
I know that some libs turn it off  but they are not working yet.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 26, 2021, 04:43:07 PM
You can turn it off in your settings file.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on March 26, 2021, 05:08:15 PM
Does the navigation skill add +1 to the burn speed in ship tooltips now?
I've been trying to figure out why my ships are showing an increase in thier stats despite not having any mods fitted that would do that, and this is the only thing I can come up with.

Sad that all the intrinsic maintenance savings and mitigation for trashfleets has been removed.
There is a skill that looks interesting. Randomly reducing incoming damage seems good. Only applying the effects on ships with officers, less so. (I've not even seen an officer yet in this run lol.)
The free repairs skill opposite seems like a much better deal as it applies to the whole fleet without any restriction.

Also a bit unsure about all the skills that 'degrade' as your fleet gets bigger. It doesn't feel all that great spending a limited resource to get an ability, and then having that ability slowly taken away from you.

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: shoi on March 26, 2021, 05:17:13 PM
Loving the update, but built-in hullmods feel absurdly powerful right now. Maybe they should require a scaling number of story points based on OP cost or something..? I dunno
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sarissofoi on March 26, 2021, 05:24:15 PM
You can turn it off in your settings file.
HOW?
Share your wisdom.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Eji1700 on March 26, 2021, 05:26:45 PM
Loving the update, but built-in hullmods feel absurdly powerful right now. Maybe they should require a scaling number of story points based on OP cost or something..? I dunno
A hard cap might be less weird.  I think ideally you categorize them and give different ships different slots for it, but that's pretty out of scope right now.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: pedro1_1 on March 26, 2021, 05:30:14 PM
So, I was messing aroung in the settings.json file to and this happened
(https://i.imgur.com/yUUsxJ1.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/4wqufYF.png)
from what I noticed in level 1 you only get 1 skill point and it does not matter how many skil points per level you earn in settings.json
you get the two points but it does not display it properly on level 1
[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 26, 2021, 05:42:13 PM
You can turn it off in your settings file.
HOW?
Share your wisdom.

(Change "enableShipExplosionWhiteout" to false in settings.json!)
Basically,whenever I press F5 to quicksave,while the save bar is progressing,the game wobbles a bit(as in,the planets wobble,my fleet wobbles,nearby fleets wobble) as if my camera is wobbling.The game process itself is fine,it's just that everything wobbles when I quicksave.

Thank you! Yep, known issue - slight bit of a pain to fix, so I've never to around to it since it's pretty benign.

...I don't have Augmented Drive Field yet, so that's a definite nope, but aside I'm hopeful. I'll have to play with it more, see the mechanic in action in more situations, but either way I am loving that story point option. And story points in general, really

So happy to hear that!

What impresses me less so far is skills, since to me some definitely seem more...not "mandatory", but utterly outclassing their counterpart to the point where it's not a contest. Navigation vs. Sensors is not even close, for starters. Bulk Transport vs. Salvaging seems to be the same, though I might be misreading what the former actually does? I can understand the different playstyles options, like Flux Regulation is a no-brainer if you're not using phase ships and less so if you do, but I can't imagine a scenario where Sensors would be a sensible first pick.

Hmm. I'll keep an eye on these! I'll say that to my mind right now, Nav vs Sensors isn't that obvious; the latter boosts stealth *a lot* and I think is more of a playstyle choice.

Incidentally, I've found a habitable planet (moon?) in the core, Livueta in Kumari Kandam, map seed MN-6593263186804071588. Not sure if that's intended? It seems to be the only one, so not sure if it's story-related or something.

Made a note to check this out, thank you.


Does the navigation skill add +1 to the burn speed in ship tooltips now?
I've been trying to figure out why my ships are showing an increase in thier stats despite not having any mods fitted that would do that, and this is the only thing I can come up with.

Navigation adds it fleet-wide, not to the individual ships. Maybe you have the Bulk Transport skill?

There is a skill that looks interesting. Randomly reducing incoming damage seems good. Only applying the effects on ships with officers, less so. (I've not even seen an officer yet in this run lol.)
The free repairs skill opposite seems like a much better deal as it applies to the whole fleet without any restriction.

One is more a new playstyle-enabler, one is generally useful. Many skills are paired like that. It's possible Derelict Contingent needs a buff (or a nerf, even); I'm not sure exactly where it's at right now, actually. But, right, that Field Repairs has no restriction while DC does is very much intentional here.

Kind of strange re: officers; they're supposed to be much more reliably found at colonies.

Also a bit unsure about all the skills that 'degrade' as your fleet gets bigger. It doesn't feel all that great spending a limited resource to get an ability, and then having that ability slowly taken away from you.

The theory is that it'll encourage you to run a leaner fleet to get the most out of those kinds of skills.

Loving the update, but built-in hullmods feel absurdly powerful right now. Maybe they should require a scaling number of story points based on OP cost or something..? I dunno

Thank you!

They do scale based on OP cost, actually - it's 1 story point regardless, but you get less bonus XP for more expensive mods.  I feel like that matters more than it probably feels like it matters right now.

(And, the top end challenges are pretty tough, so I suspect you'll need that power...)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: lechibang on March 26, 2021, 06:06:16 PM
Great, now my entire mod list is unusable.
Thanks a lot, Alex.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Dri on March 26, 2021, 06:20:16 PM
Great, now my entire mod list is unusable.
Thanks a lot, Alex.

I hope that is a joke or sarcasm. You know sarcasm doesn't translate well to text, yea?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 26, 2021, 06:27:28 PM
Hotfix is up! Re-download here (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2021/03/26/starsector-0-95a-release/).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Eji1700 on March 26, 2021, 06:38:57 PM
Loving the update, but built-in hullmods feel absurdly powerful right now. Maybe they should require a scaling number of story points based on OP cost or something..? I dunno
A hard cap might be less weird.  I think ideally you categorize them and give different ships different slots for it, but that's pretty out of scope right now.
I am a moron, they are hard capped.  I forgot i lost the ship and got a new one.  Still, suuuper good with some mods. Fun though.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Originem on March 26, 2021, 07:03:36 PM
Congratulations!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 26, 2021, 07:05:39 PM
Congratulations!

Thank you!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: NoMercyForLudds_ on March 26, 2021, 07:15:09 PM
Hotfix is up! Re-download here (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2021/03/26/starsector-0-95a-release/).

Lol 3am here in Europe - I guess it's good I'm still in the office (home Internet would take ages to re-download the installer).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Originem on March 26, 2021, 07:23:09 PM
Oh well still cannot get the Weapon's base range directly...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: xenoargh on March 26, 2021, 07:30:51 PM
Woot! 

...now to see just how much got broken in Rebal, lol.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Zym on March 26, 2021, 07:32:01 PM
Congrats on the finished update!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Originem on March 26, 2021, 07:40:17 PM
Code
	public void reportPlayerNonMarketTransaction(PlayerMarketTransaction transaction, InteractionDialogAPI dialog) {
if (pods == null && dialog != null) {
SectorEntityToken target = dialog.getInteractionTarget();
if (target.getCustomPlugin() instanceof CargoPodsEntityPlugin) {
pods = target;
}
}
processTransaction(transaction, pods);
}
This will throw NPE if the interaction target == null when I use custom dialog and a cargo picker.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sts678 on March 26, 2021, 07:53:53 PM
Hello, Alex.
I found a bug that d-mod can be freely removed after closing the Build-in hullmod menu.
Even though I did nothing in that menu.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: pairedeciseaux on March 26, 2021, 08:00:38 PM
Have put a few hours into it. So far, no major issue, it is a solid release.  8)

I've noticed a non-blocking rendering glitch right from the campaign tutorial. The circle displayed around fleets is not properly rendered when antialiasing is ON, by the look of it. I've posted a message about it in the bug section: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=20015.0
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: lechibang on March 26, 2021, 08:11:50 PM
Great, now my entire mod list is unusable.
Thanks a lot, Alex.

I hope that is a joke or sarcasm. You know sarcasm doesn't translate well to text, yea?

That was a joke lol. Anyways, congrats on the release. I'll make sure to play the hell out of the new content in the upcoming week.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Hiruma Kai on March 26, 2021, 08:18:44 PM
Thanks very much for the release.  Overall it is looking very good.

Although I have found a counter example to one of your update notes:  Randomly generated planets in the core (including Duzahk and Penelope's Star) should no longer be habitable

For example, seed:  MN-6515539495321392923 placed a 125% hazard habitable Jungle world in orbit of a new random Gas Giant in the Duzahk system.  I'm wondering if somehow the recursive generation of planets around new gas giants may provide a path to still provide habitable worlds there.  Or is this intended but just rare?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sarissofoi on March 26, 2021, 08:19:56 PM
There is plenty of great things in this update.
But...
I really dislike the new skill system. Its feel extremely limiting and artificial. I feel like there is practically no satisfying choice, not for min/maxing but for RP.
Its simply not fun.
The old system have its problems(mostly the empty usage of skill points to unlock skill tiers) but the new one feel worse in this category forcing me to take skills I don't want to be able pick skills I want.
No fun. Simply not fun.

The other(minor but annoying) issue is that unshielded ships still getting close to exploding enemy ships to get blasted. Its much lesser issue than in 0.9.1 but its still problem especially with bigger enemy ships. Although I am not sure how much it affect that my ships run with SO(so they have rather short range). Still they keep some distance and don't hug enemy ships more. When they face enemy frigates and destroyers its moslty fine - problem arise when they face enemy cruisers and up - the enemy explosion radius still can catch them in.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: EclipseRanger on March 26, 2021, 09:11:02 PM
Another potential bug.I have a Log mentioning a Heavily Shielded Cargo crate which is out in Hyperspace.The Log writes normally until "..a shielded cache is located in the Unkown Location",which directs me to a place in Hyperspace that has nothing.No interactable Cache,nothing.Is it intended to spawn caches outside of systems??Am I missing some equipment/new mechanic??

Otherwise,amazing release.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Luckspeare on March 26, 2021, 09:18:00 PM
General feedback on new release:

omg omg omg!!!

That is all.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Mach56 on March 26, 2021, 09:19:30 PM
The first link in the updated blogpost links to the 0.9.1a changelog, not the 0.95 one.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Timid on March 26, 2021, 09:35:34 PM
Is it possible, Alex to ask for Mission Listeners and Bar Event Listener to see if they've been started/accepted and then completed/failed?

I would like to do a mod that records the events of the player's actions, but I'm having a hard time looking for any sort of these listeners.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: FooF on March 26, 2021, 09:48:43 PM
Well, I'm about 3 hours into the first run and I have to say that there's a lot going on that I know I haven't found yet. I've stumbled across a few new colony items but nothing too "out there."

The bar missions are a welcome addition. Not only does it feel like there's 1-3 at just about every colony, I can tell there's very obvious consequences to many of them. Kill a Tri-Tach patrol? Hostile with Tri-Tach. Put a spybot next to Sindria (yeah right!), you'll need stealth. Then there's these weird missions about dropping bio-specimens in the middle of nowhere for decent coin. Surely that's not going to do something sinister, right...? The ones that have bit me so far are the "supply 3 Domestic Goods and I'll pay you monthly." I didn't realize I needed a colony first so those were instant fails. I really don't think those should even be offered until your first colony is up.

Story Points are very interesting. I don't mean to horde them but I had like 16 just floating around because I was accumulating them faster than I felt I had reason to spend them. Recently, I've been adding hullmods to ships and I've used them a time or too to get out of a bad fight but I haven't really leaned into them very hard yet. They still feel precious, despite knowing I'll never "run out."

The skill revamp is quite good, so far. Truly meaningful choices though the Elite Skills aren't quite as punchy as I originally thought. The one at the end of combat (which improves ship systems) has "+30 seconds deployment time." Great for a Frigate, I suppose but I'm already piloting a Fury and I'm still in the early game. I just don't think that "Elite" skill is all that Elite. Also, going back through the whole Combat Tree and grabbing Fighter bonuses (when I will likely never pilot a carrier) feels a little hard to swallow. I'm not sure if should be possible to "skip" skills in a tree using Story Points but I think I'd prefer that over getting skills I know I'll never see much benefit from. I think I understand the rationale but like "empty" Aptitude points in the last patch, it kind of feels empty (even though it isn't).

Btw, the Fury is a nice starter ship. I purchased one from the black market probably 40 minutes into the run and it's been fun. However, I'm discovering its limitations in raw damage output. I have a Ion Pulser and Phase Lance along with a Reaper in the missile and 2 IR Pulse. Maybe if I could find some Heavy Blasters it would open up for me but the damage is very anemic against Ventures and Enforcers. (Enforcers are true bricks now and I love it). I say this because I think the Fury would be a really good "high-tech Fast Start" kind of option with an introductory malus (kind of like when the Scarab was an option and you were hostile with Tri-Tach to start). An undergunned Fury (maybe 1 D-mod), a TT Brawler, a TT Buffalo and a Dram.

Gah, a lot to be proud of here and I've only scratched the surface. The dialogue is great, too. Oh, and the Gates tab...oh my. :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Daynen on March 26, 2021, 10:02:26 PM
IT HAS BEGUN.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Grifta on March 26, 2021, 10:21:59 PM
YAS! Just started replaying this on 0.9.1a yesterday!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: nilloc93 on March 26, 2021, 11:09:05 PM
oh boy I hadn't started a new game in a while and I totally forgot what the non nexerlillian start is lol
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: mendonca on March 26, 2021, 11:51:39 PM
Nice work, congrats!

Can't wait to get stuck into this one!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 26, 2021, 11:54:28 PM
The .95a hotfix patch note link goes here :http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15027.0

Instead of well... the thread were in. And if you then click through those links you will get the .91a release and not the .95 hotfix release
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on March 27, 2021, 02:15:51 AM
Cosmetic issue:
Orbital stations are only displaying thier base on the campaign layer. Modules aren't showing at all.
You can still see the modules on the tooltip though.

Doesn't affect gameplay at all, but it looks odd seeing bare stations.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on March 27, 2021, 02:29:00 AM
Hello, Alex.
I found a bug that d-mod can be freely removed after closing the Build-in hullmod menu.
Even though I did nothing in that menu.
Encountered this, albeit you have to do built-in a hullmod for this to happen.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: The_Sarge on March 27, 2021, 02:56:44 AM
This update is seriously amazing. It made me hyped to start the game again in a way that no recent "big" game release has. :)


Two possibly stupid questions, though:

1) Weren't we supposed to get a slightly more extensive "Settings" menu, with some toggable graphics settings to tweak in there, or am I mixing this up with some other game? Because I still can only adjust volume levels and about five toggles.

2) Pressing ALT and hovering over items does not sell/buy them any more. Losing this is a shame. :( (And if that was a mod, just ignore this whining!)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Mach56 on March 27, 2021, 03:01:17 AM
2) Pressing ALT and hovering over items does not sell/buy them any more. Losing this is a shame. :( (And if that was a mod, just ignore this whining!)
You have to reenable that feature in settings.json.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: The_Sarge on March 27, 2021, 03:06:58 AM
2) Pressing ALT and hovering over items does not sell/buy them any more. Losing this is a shame. :( (And if that was a mod, just ignore this whining!)
You have to reenable that feature in settings.json.


Aaaah, thank you! :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Ryan390 on March 27, 2021, 03:42:25 AM
where's the hotfix link and what does it fix?

Alex has posted a broken link but not replied back with the correct one? Am I imagining that?

It's turning into Cd Projekt red!  :'(
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: The_Sarge on March 27, 2021, 03:56:26 AM
where's the hotfix link and what does it fix?

Alex has posted a broken link but not replied back with the correct one? Am I imagining that?

It's turning into Cd Projekt red!  :'(


...What?
Alex IMMEDIATELY corrected the link and then said so in this very thread.

As to what's in the hotfix? Look at the very first post. Again, in this very thread.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Farlarzia on March 27, 2021, 05:38:52 AM
Congrats on the release  ;D

One minor discrepency I noticed on the new launcher, is that the antialiasing warning message that pops up states at the end

"Otherwise, use 12 samples or higher".

I believe this should read 2, as I can only see antialiasing options going up to x8.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Shoot powerfull laser on March 27, 2021, 06:24:59 AM
I like the release a lot. Very nice skill system with meaningful choices. Contracts also very fun with a lot of stealth and raiding. But I have a question for Alex and the rest of this thread:

- The bounty contracts: I have taken 3 bounty contracts until now to kill a patrol in a star system. I have been hanging around the star system and all meaningful points (the base planet/station, jump points, nav/comm relay/etc...) for ~100 days but could not find the patrols for all 3 contracts. Am I just unlucky or anyone else experiencing this problem?

Thank you
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Hiruma Kai on March 27, 2021, 08:34:37 AM
I already dislike the new leveling system, hopefully mods will stay on 0.9.1a indefinitely.

Is it possible to alter the leveling system or is it internal to the program?

Leveling and individual skills are modable.  Not sure how changable the tiered nature of it is.

For example, one of the easier changes one can make is the skill points per level and max level, as they are just a few entries in a config file:
Starsector/starsector-core/data/config/settings.json

   "playerMaxLevel":15,
   "skillPointsPerLevel":1,
   "storyPointsPerLevel":4,

Skill definitions and tree data live in:
Starsector/starsector-core/data/characters/skills/

What specifically do you want to change about the skills system?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Cy420 on March 27, 2021, 08:41:10 AM
it feels like it's for a roguelike playthrough not for a sandbox campaign.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: HannibalMannibal on March 27, 2021, 08:55:16 AM
oh man theres a new update

rip my weekend

im quitting my job

*** sorry government i aint payin no more bills, theres a new starsector update
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 27, 2021, 10:21:30 AM
Oh well still cannot get the Weapon's base range directly...

I thought there were methods for that in WeaponSpecAPI? Ah, apparently not. Let me add them:
float getMaxRange();
void setMaxRange(float maxRange);


Congrats on the finished update!

Thank you!

This will throw NPE if the interaction target == null when I use custom dialog and a cargo picker.

Thank you, fixed.


Hello, Alex.
I found a bug that d-mod can be freely removed after closing the Build-in hullmod menu.
Even though I did nothing in that menu.

Thank you; made a note. Will fix this up in a bit.


Have put a few hours into it. So far, no major issue, it is a solid release.  8)

I've noticed a non-blocking rendering glitch right from the campaign tutorial. The circle displayed around fleets is not properly rendered when antialiasing is ON, by the look of it. I've posted a message about it in the bug section: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=20015.0

Thank you! And, responded in that thread.

That was a joke lol. Anyways, congrats on the release. I'll make sure to play the hell out of the new content in the upcoming week.

Thank you, hope you enjoy :)


Although I have found a counter example to one of your update notes:  Randomly generated planets in the core (including Duzahk and Penelope's Star) should no longer be habitable

For example, seed:  MN-6515539495321392923 placed a 125% hazard habitable Jungle world in orbit of a new random Gas Giant in the Duzahk system.  I'm wondering if somehow the recursive generation of planets around new gas giants may provide a path to still provide habitable worlds there.  Or is this intended but just rare?

Hmm yeah, it looks like a moons issue. Made a note.

There is plenty of great things in this update.
But...
I really dislike the new skill system. Its feel extremely limiting and artificial. I feel like there is practically no satisfying choice, not for min/maxing but for RP.
Its simply not fun.
The old system have its problems(mostly the empty usage of skill points to unlock skill tiers) but the new one feel worse in this category forcing me to take skills I don't want to be able pick skills I want.
No fun. Simply not fun.

Ah, sorry to hear that! More detailed feedback about specifics would be handy, but this thread probably isn't the place for it.

The other(minor but annoying) issue is that unshielded ships still getting close to exploding enemy ships to get blasted. Its much lesser issue than in 0.9.1 but its still problem especially with bigger enemy ships. Although I am not sure how much it affect that my ships run with SO(so they have rather short range). Still they keep some distance and don't hug enemy ships more. When they face enemy frigates and destroyers its moslty fine - problem arise when they face enemy cruisers and up - the enemy explosion radius still can catch them in.

Right - it'll always be a bit tricky to ensure the AI doesn't back off so much as to avoid making the kill. "Much better but still present" is about where I'd expect it to be with the AI changes that were made.


Another potential bug.I have a Log mentioning a Heavily Shielded Cargo crate which is out in Hyperspace.The Log writes normally until "..a shielded cache is located in the Unkown Location",which directs me to a place in Hyperspace that has nothing.No interactable Cache,nothing.Is it intended to spawn caches outside of systems??Am I missing some equipment/new mechanic??

Otherwise,amazing release.

Hmm... is this vanilla? Offhand I'm not sure what this would be. If it's vanilla, could you send me your save? fractalsoftworks [at] gmail [dot] com

General feedback on new release:

omg omg omg!!!

That is all.

:D :D :D


The first link in the updated blogpost links to the 0.9.1a changelog, not the 0.95 one.

Argh - thank you, fixed!


Is it possible, Alex to ask for Mission Listeners and Bar Event Listener to see if they've been started/accepted and then completed/failed?

I would like to do a mod that records the events of the player's actions, but I'm having a hard time looking for any sort of these listeners.

I'll make a note!

Btw, the game already does something similar (but without the missions element); see the PlaythroughLog class.


The skill revamp is quite good, so far. Truly meaningful choices though the Elite Skills aren't quite as punchy as I originally thought. The one at the end of combat (which improves ship systems) has "+30 seconds deployment time." Great for a Frigate, I suppose but I'm already piloting a Fury and I'm still in the early game. I just don't think that "Elite" skill is all that Elite. Also, going back through the whole Combat Tree and grabbing Fighter bonuses (when I will likely never pilot a carrier) feels a little hard to swallow. I'm not sure if should be possible to "skip" skills in a tree using Story Points but I think I'd prefer that over getting skills I know I'll never see much benefit from. I think I understand the rationale but like "empty" Aptitude points in the last patch, it kind of feels empty (even though it isn't).

I know what you mean here, yeah. I'd actually like to make the Elite bonuses a bit punchier - they're great for some skills, and not nearly as great for some other ones.

Btw, the Fury is a nice starter ship. I purchased one from the black market probably 40 minutes into the run and it's been fun. However, I'm discovering its limitations in raw damage output. I have a Ion Pulser and Phase Lance along with a Reaper in the missile and 2 IR Pulse. Maybe if I could find some Heavy Blasters it would open up for me but the damage is very anemic against Ventures and Enforcers. (Enforcers are true bricks now and I love it). I say this because I think the Fury would be a really good "high-tech Fast Start" kind of option with an introductory malus (kind of like when the Scarab was an option and you were hostile with Tri-Tach to start). An undergunned Fury (maybe 1 D-mod), a TT Brawler, a TT Buffalo and a Dram.

(It sounds like this loadout doesn't have much sustained DPS, no? Both the phase lance and the Ion Pulser are bursty, and so is the Reaper. I think there's probably a way to kit it for a better TTK vs those kinds of opponents.)

Oh, and the Gates tab...oh my. :)

Hmmm!


Nice work, congrats!

Can't wait to get stuck into this one!

Thank you :)


Cosmetic issue:
Orbital stations are only displaying thier base on the campaign layer. Modules aren't showing at all.
You can still see the modules on the tooltip though.

Doesn't affect gameplay at all, but it looks odd seeing bare stations.

Thank you, will take a look.


1) Weren't we supposed to get a slightly more extensive "Settings" menu, with some toggable graphics settings to tweak in there, or am I mixing this up with some other game? Because I still can only adjust volume levels and about five toggles.

There's UI scaling options under "Options" in the launcher; I suspect this is what you mean.

2) Pressing ALT and hovering over items does not sell/buy them any more. Losing this is a shame. :( (And if that was a mod, just ignore this whining!)

You can enable this by setting altMouseMoveToMassTransfer to true in settings.json. (Ah, ninja'ed...)



Congrats on the release  ;D

One minor discrepency I noticed on the new launcher, is that the antialiasing warning message that pops up states at the end

"Otherwise, use 12 samples or higher".

I believe this should read 2, as I can only see antialiasing options going up to x8.

Thank you!

Ah, it's indeed 12. x8 is not really enough for it to look reasonable, imo; if it's only going up to 8 then that's all your card/driver supports, unfortunately.


I like the release a lot. Very nice skill system with meaningful choices. Contracts also very fun with a lot of stealth and raiding.

Thank you, glad you like these!


- The bounty contracts: I have taken 3 bounty contracts until now to kill a patrol in a star system. I have been hanging around the star system and all meaningful points (the base planet/station, jump points, nav/comm relay/etc...) for ~100 days but could not find the patrols for all 3 contracts. Am I just unlucky or anyone else experiencing this problem?

Hmm. I'll keep an eye on this; would also like to know if anyone else had this experience or has managed to find the patrols ok.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Hiruma Kai on March 27, 2021, 11:05:52 AM
- The bounty contracts: I have taken 3 bounty contracts until now to kill a patrol in a star system. I have been hanging around the star system and all meaningful points (the base planet/station, jump points, nav/comm relay/etc...) for ~100 days but could not find the patrols for all 3 contracts. Am I just unlucky or anyone else experiencing this problem?

Hmm. I'll keep an eye on this; would also like to know if anyone else had this experience or has managed to find the patrols ok.

Bounty fleets from bar missions, at least with kill the pirate ones I have been taking, doesn't look like the fleet necessarily spawns near a major celestial objects?  Or perhaps move around randomly?  I've encountered one coming in from the deep black, with nothing in that direction - at least nothing on the map, I suppose there might have been a derelict or domain probe out that direction.  I have been typically turning my transponder on and sensor pinging to attract their attention.  However, I've been able to find them in each case though.

Also, is there an expected number of contracts before you get a real contact as opposed to just bar missions?  Curious when I might find my first contact - admittedly my intel explore missions to bar mission ratio is probably something like 5:1 though.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 27, 2021, 11:10:44 AM
Yeah, those patrols are generally on patrol in the system - moving between jump points and objectives. Perhaps there was a fringe jump point for the one you saw coming in?

Also, is there an expected number of contracts before you get a real contact as opposed to just bar missions?  Curious when I might find my first contact - admittedly my intel explore missions to bar mission ratio is probably something like 5:1 though.

It's just a probability roll, I think something like 25%. Also some guaranteed contacts from the story missions.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 27, 2021, 12:00:47 PM
About this change:
Quote
Black markets no longer sell combat capital ships (can still be acquired from arms dealer contact)
It appears that combat capital ships still spawn on the non-military open markets (albeit rarely), which works as intended, but it seems a bit odd? That it's impossible to find one on any black market, but a public open market might have one? Incidentally, the XIV Onslaught I just found on Chico's open market was listed as Onslaught XIV (D) (BB) for some unknown reason. I don't know what the (BB) stands for. I also noticed that the TPC's Primary Role is apparently "No description... yet". Very tactical ;).

Also, about the surplus ships that are sometimes offered through bar events, I find it strange that you can find something like a pristine Aurora being sold on the cheap because apparently it's scheduled to be scrapped. Maybe I missed something reading the bar event, but...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Farlarzia on March 27, 2021, 12:03:38 PM

Ah, it's indeed 12. x8 is not really enough for it to look reasonable, imo; if it's only going up to 8 then that's all your card/driver supports, unfortunately.


Hm, I see. This comes at a bit of a suprise, as my graphics card, while not cutting edge, is still fairly modern (RX 580).


Something that hopefully isn't another problem with my poorly aging graphics card, is that some of the dialogs are misgendering people - I had a dialog recognise someone (who was ostensibly by appearance and name, a male) as a she in one sentence, for the next sentence to properly identify them as a male again.

Along with a grammatical error when developing contacts, wherein it only states "Develop a relationship this contact", and is missing the 'with'.

Another issue is that some of the bar missions have a price tag associated with them - for example, blueprint locations. However, even if you have less money than that requested price, it still lets you accept the offer, and the transaction proceeds as usual. Doing this I was able to do a $62,000 credit monitor blueprint location, for only $200 credits.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 27, 2021, 12:20:54 PM
I don't know what the (BB) stands for. I also noticed that the TPC's Primary Role is apparently "No description... yet". Very tactical ;).

BB is a standard designation for "battleship"; the game will abbreviate ship designations if they don't fit. Fixed up the TPC role, thank you!

Something that hopefully isn't another problem with my poorly aging graphics card, is that some of the dialogs are misgendering people - I had a dialog recognise someone (who was ostensibly by appearance and name, a male) as a she in one sentence, for the next sentence to properly identify them as a male again.

Hmm - this is likely due to using the wrong person for one of these. Do you remember which dialog specifically it was? It wouldn't be a universal error but more likely a problem specific to that particular interaction.

Along with a grammatical error when developing contacts, wherein it only states "Develop a relationship this contact", and is missing the 'with'.

Thank you, fixed!

Another issue is that some of the bar missions have a price tag associated with them - for example, blueprint locations. However, even if you have less money than that requested price, it still lets you accept the offer, and the transaction proceeds as usual. Doing this I was able to do a $62,000 credit monitor blueprint location, for only $200 credits.

Yep, was reported a little while ago - on my list!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: ThatBigBirb on March 27, 2021, 01:43:06 PM
I'm noticing that when trying to slap Augmented Drive, Militarized Subsystems, and Expanded Cargo Holds onto my Atlas despite having integrated militarized subs and expanded holds into the ship, Augmented Drives still tosses up the "no more than 2 non-built-in" limit error.

I don't currently have any ship where I've been able to successfully test this, by all intents, edge case.

Just updated to RC9 just in case and the same issue is there too.

I didn't just sign up to bug report (I mean, I did but shush) Been loving this.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 27, 2021, 01:49:04 PM
Hi! Welcome to the forum :)

Yeah, I have a note about this one. The wording is very confusing and the mechanics should probably just follow what the wording currently indicates the expected behavior would be.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Flet on March 27, 2021, 02:17:14 PM
so it seems you can remove dmods for free by canceling build in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vSQjceQs0Q
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 27, 2021, 02:18:55 PM
Thanks! Fixed for the next hotfix (and was, unfortunately, introduced by the current hotfix.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 27, 2021, 03:15:52 PM
Just got a Champion through a bar event doing a heist with marines! Impressions:

Quite happy with it as the sole tough cruiser in my fleet so far (Falcon, HH, Sunder (me), Wolf, Lasher, shepherd as other combat capable ships).

I outfitted it with scraps (had just reduced my credits to 0 through another bar event to test whether it would go through, sold off some goods to get up to like 8k operating funds, no money for more weapons): 1 autopulse, 1 breach pod (no large missiles!), 2 gravitons, tac lasers on the 4 side/back mounts (no pd), a singel ir pulse and single ion cannon on front smalls, hardened shields, dedicated targetting core, vents and caps, level 1 officer with gunnery implants. While not the best with such a weird loadout, it was able to 1v1 officered brilliants and survive/stall with minimal damage 2v1 against 2 brilliant while me and the more mobile ships mopped up the rest of the ordos and flanked to kill the brilliants.

So: its tough, it is somewhat mobile, it has good firepower. I like it!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: CoreWolff on March 27, 2021, 03:25:07 PM
Thank you very much for the update! Was not expecting that this weekend. Will take a while to play and check everything out properly :)

One quick question - I started a game up quickly and glanced over the skill tree - is Loadout Design gone now? I've seen the new "permanent hullmod" feature with Story Points but still feel like the extra ordnance points will be missed. That was a must have in any run for me.

If it's gone I might just edit ship_data and increase them all by 10% for me, at least it's easy to mod this game! (Which, again, thank you :) )
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 27, 2021, 03:36:03 PM
It's gone, yeah. But building in hullmods nets you considerably more points.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: CoreWolff on March 27, 2021, 04:10:19 PM
That is true. And thank you for the reply! Will need to play a while and figure out how all the changes fit together  :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 27, 2021, 04:31:38 PM
Another hotfix is up! Check top of OP for details.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: xenoargh on March 27, 2021, 05:33:03 PM
Dude, you're a machine!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 27, 2021, 05:35:07 PM
Dude, you're a machine!

:D

(A very tired machine that's totally taking the rest of the day night off, but: thank you!)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on March 27, 2021, 05:54:21 PM
Dude, you're a machine!

:D

(A very tired machine that's totally taking the rest of the day night off, but: thank you!)
Time to speed up my bugtests then and try and break even more! /s
Edit: Is the Abandoned Terraforming Platform in Corvus not supposed to have the "dockyard" flag that allows the install of "Dock" mods?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 27, 2021, 06:02:55 PM
I finally have the chance to install and play this rc10 bad boy for the moment.  It will probably take me longer to play enough and write a feedback post.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 27, 2021, 06:05:12 PM
Time to speed up my bugtests then and try and break even more! /s

Oh no

Edit: Is the Abandoned Terraforming Platform in Corvus not supposed to have the "dockyard" flag that allows the install of "Dock" mods?

This is one of those "how it works is probably how it's supposed to be", I don't have a strong opinion here.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: EclipseRanger on March 27, 2021, 06:17:43 PM
If we reinstall the game for the hotfix,will it take effect on existing saves?Or is it necessary to start a new character?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 27, 2021, 06:20:14 PM
It's save-compatible, so a reinstall should be good.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on March 27, 2021, 06:43:14 PM
I was able to pay 200k for a ship blueprint location when I had way less then that, my money just went to 0
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Voyager I on March 27, 2021, 06:45:47 PM
I've only been able to dip my toes in the patch so far, but there's a ton of foreshadowing implied in the fiction and Alex has been very consistent about balancing risk vs reward and making the easy way come at a price, so I'm just delighted to see that we are mechanically incentivized to put AI cores in command of recovered REDACTED hulls.  What we've been shown so far suggests that opting for this sort of expediency is a reliable way to get results, and I'm optimistic that this feature will be further developed in later updates to be an even better idea.

Maybe some day we'll even have the ability to find REDACTED blueprints and produce them domestically, perhaps in conjunction with some rare pre-collapse machinery and the expert guidance of the unimpeachable colony administrator Alphonso Corleone.  Just imagine the possibilities that kind of industry could unlock!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 27, 2021, 07:33:22 PM
Aaaaahhhh officers your get through special events can be level 6!!!!

Sorry, just freaked out about that a bit! :D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on March 27, 2021, 07:42:34 PM
Time to speed up my bugtests then and try and break even more! /s

Oh no

Edit: Is the Abandoned Terraforming Platform in Corvus not supposed to have the "dockyard" flag that allows the install of "Dock" mods?

This is one of those "how it works is probably how it's supposed to be", I don't have a strong opinion here.
What would it take to allow the ATP to install Dock mods?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Wyvern on March 27, 2021, 07:50:01 PM
Aaaaahhhh officers your get through special events can be level 6!!!!

Sorry, just freaked out about that a bit! :D
Officers you get through special events can be level seven. (I found one on the floating hulk of a derelict Atlas, just drifting along somewhere in hyperspace.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 27, 2021, 07:53:01 PM
: Panic in the streets! Dogs and cats living together! :
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: shoi on March 27, 2021, 07:53:38 PM
Thank you!

They do scale based on OP cost, actually - it's 1 story point regardless, but you get less bonus XP for more expensive mods.  I feel like that matters more than it probably feels like it matters right now.

(And, the top end challenges are pretty tough, so I suspect you'll need that power...)

Having gotten to this point...wow, you weren't kidding   ;D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: THEASD on March 27, 2021, 08:34:18 PM
Maybe issue: shield shunt doesn't have a unique icon and uses heavy armor's icon.

I'm very happy to see the new heavy cruiser "Champion-Class" at first, it can provides extreme firepower(using heavy needle, tac lance and locust missile), protects itself with efficient shield, and engages in high speed. It can perform well in almost all fleet roles, defend/suppport/assault, seems nothings can't be held?
But... the combat soon turned out to be boring, since nothing can stop 2 Champion's co-work assault: fighters got scattered by anti-CV missiles, frigate can seldom escape after entering lance's range, destroyers just appeared and then disappeard, even battleship like Onslaught-Class can not endure their supportive firepower.
And, what's more:I can deploy more Champion-Class there.
Maybe it is too "universal" for such a 25DP ship, it has no significant drawback and just stand there beating almost everything out.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Goumindong on March 27, 2021, 08:35:44 PM
Alex are you sure you fixed capital spam? Every top end bounty has 7 capitals and like 10 cruisers in it
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 27, 2021, 08:48:25 PM
Maybe it is too "universal" for such a 25DP ship, it has no significant drawback and just stand there beating almost everything out.
This sounds promising.  At least we have a decent ship that can lob Hammer Barrage and is not limited like Legion14 last release.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Retry on March 27, 2021, 09:12:14 PM
But... the combat soon turned out to be boring, since nothing can stop 2 Champion's co-work assault
Oh, I can think of one thing... 
Spoiler
Well, two to be precise...
[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TaLaR on March 28, 2021, 12:02:21 AM
Maybe it is too "universal" for such a 25DP ship, it has no significant drawback and just stand there beating almost everything out.

Drawback is obvious - it's slow, which makes it easy victim for fast capitals (Odyssey and Conquest, or even just a charging Onslaught). Champion is 60 speed cruiser without mobility system, Odyssey is 70 speed capital with one.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Originem on March 28, 2021, 12:07:12 AM
how to apply damagedealtlistener if not use afterShipCreation?
I mean, while I was developping UNGP, I use BuffManager, and member.getStats().addListener(), but it seems that it doesn't know apply it correctly
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Blake81 on March 28, 2021, 12:27:57 AM
Ho boy! At last! Here I go again, starting from zero until I can build my colony in Duz and Pe-

Quote
Randomly generated planets in the core (including Duzahk and Penelope's Star) should no longer be habitable

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

My close-to-core habitable planets :'(

Oh well, I'll prolly still colonize them anyway, but man, I'll miss that habitability....
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Bishi on March 28, 2021, 01:05:11 AM
I can't believe how excited i am for an update to a game i bought in January 2013.
It's not like i play Bioshock Infinite or GTA V any more.

Keep up the good work sir.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sts678 on March 28, 2021, 01:58:41 AM
Find a bug.
When a ship's d-mod is repaired automatically, the ship's class keeps unchanged (like Enforcer(d)) though there is not any d-mod.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 28, 2021, 03:24:45 AM
The new raiding mechanic has a weird interaction where, after assigning 3/6 marines to a medium danger objective, assigning the remaining 3 marines to a minimal danger objective actually does more to reduce expected casualties than holding them back. The issue(?) is that assigning the remaining three to the minimal danger objective reduces the danger level of objectives from ×0.1 to ×0.06, whereas holding them back only adds another ×0.85 multiplier.

I'm not entirely sure if this is unintended behaviour, I could totally see this working as intended in a "send guys to cause a distraction elsewhere, then hit the priority target" kinda way, but if so the game should probably mention this interaction in the same place where it says holding marines back will reduce expected casualties.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on March 28, 2021, 03:26:06 AM
Can you capture every single unmanned ship? for example can i capture the one defending the cryosleepers? or there's a limit on what i can capture?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sarissofoi on March 28, 2021, 03:41:25 AM
portrait_mercenary08
is not used anywhere
which is shame because its pretty cool
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: ProfessionalHuman on March 28, 2021, 05:42:00 AM
OMG, it's finally there! i'm so happy! Thank you Alex! I hope mods will update soon. But i'm so excited that will play unmodded version anyway.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: MrFluffster on March 28, 2021, 06:09:45 AM
Just wanted to say I'm really loving the update. Most skill choices are now giving me choice anxiety so a good sign that it's definitely an interesting decision to make now!
And story points are quite plentiful which is very nice, but stuff like eliting a skill feel like a no brainer every time. Very excited for what direction this is gonna go in.
Time to go back to working on my mod update...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 28, 2021, 06:30:23 AM
Quote
Black markets no longer sell combat capital ships (can still be acquired from arms dealer contact)
I just found a Conquest on Sindria's black market, so this change doesn't seem to fully work.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on March 28, 2021, 07:05:27 AM
It would be fantastic to have access to the intel tab (or any map) during conversations. Case in point, I just printed the sector map (on actual paper, made from real wood!) so I have at least an idea if a job offer lays on my current route or in the opposite direction.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: shoi on March 28, 2021, 07:23:06 AM
I think the wolfpack tactics skill is great since it gives you a reason to put officers in frigates, but it seems to stack really well with for high tech ships especially with energy mastery
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on March 28, 2021, 07:26:46 AM
It would be fantastic to have access to the intel tab (or any map) during conversations. Case in point, I just printed the sector map (on actual paper, made from real wood!) so I have at least an idea if a job offer lays on my current route or in the opposite direction.


By the way, has anyone else trouble with the shift key in menus? It doesn't work for me all the time, not sure if it's my keyboard or if something in the game changed.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on March 28, 2021, 07:38:57 AM
Contact reputation decay is too fast, and the contact bounty rep/credits rewards don't scale with distance
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on March 28, 2021, 08:19:11 AM
Field Repairs has been quietly increasing my recovery costs.
And since combat seems significantly more difficult now for reasons I can't adequately pin down, I've been needing to regularly deploy my entire fleet to even have a chance of winning.

I'm beginning to think taking FR was a huge mistake since the only way I can hope to complete some of these bounties is with numbers. Which I can no longer afford.

I managed to get a contact a while ago by returning something I found.
The intel thing said it was "developing" which says to me "leave this alone for now". So I went and did other things and promptly forgot about it.
Now I'm looking for it again it seems to have vanished (unless I'm just not seeing it).

[e]
lol, bounty scaling is way faster than progression now.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SafariJohn on March 28, 2021, 08:39:39 AM
You have to click the "Develop Contact" button to keep a contact.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TaLaR on March 28, 2021, 08:44:11 AM
Field Repairs has been quietly increasing my recovery costs.

Faster repair does not increase total amount of supplies to finish repairs/CR restoration, it only affects rate at which repairs happen. If anything, since you get some free repairs after combat, overall supply consumption should be lowered.

And since combat seems significantly more difficult now for reasons I can't adequately pin down, I've been needing to regularly deploy my entire fleet to even have a chance of winning.

Enemies have really a lot of high quality officers. Something like 14 level 6 officers is normal for higher end bounties. I've even seen a level 7 officer once (how?...).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on March 28, 2021, 09:07:43 AM
Faster repair does not increase total amount of supplies to finish repairs/CR restoration, it only affects rate at which repairs happen. If anything, since you get some free repairs after combat, overall supply consumption should be lowered.
I thought he was referring to bimonthly d-mod removal chance.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Dal on March 28, 2021, 10:05:26 AM
What's the intended form of the new 0-Flux speed boost? Should it be active when flux is decreasing or only when a ship is completely disengaged? E.g., do I need to toggle off my PD whenever I see pilums? Should shields be inoperable while in use?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 28, 2021, 10:36:53 AM
A number of people have mentioned that the "planned obsolescence" skills lose their luster too quickly because of low values, maybe a way to combat that without just outright buffing them would be to give those skills the option to be made elite through a story point, increasing the limits? One thing that's kinda disappointing is that only combat related skills can be made elite, except the Leadership one, and the rest of the skills just...are. Might be a terrible idea if it ends up being another "mandatory" story point sink, but maybe it could work?

EDIT: One annoying mechanic is that Militarized Subsystems ships all count as combat ships, even when they're absolutely not intended for any sort of combat. I'm losing +1% max combat readiness on all ships because I've got two Salvaging Rigs with MS, pushing me four points over the 180 limit. What are salvaging rigs supposed to do in a fight, swipe space cranes at pirates?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on March 28, 2021, 10:47:12 AM
Faster repair does not increase total amount of supplies to finish repairs/CR restoration, it only affects rate at which repairs happen. If anything, since you get some free repairs after combat, overall supply consumption should be lowered.
D-mods are being removed, and with them the recovery cost reduction.
My fleet is now too expensive to use, but not strong enough face off against even modest bounties unless I deploy everything.

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Farlarzia on March 28, 2021, 10:55:12 AM

EDIT: One annoying mechanic is that Militarized Subsystems ships all count as combat ships, even when they're absolutely not intended for any sort of combat. I'm losing +1% max combat readiness on all ships because I've got two Salvaging Rigs with MS, pushing me four points over the 180 limit. What are salvaging rigs supposed to do in a fight, swipe space cranes at pirates?

I believe thats intended behavior - it is called Militarized Subsystems afterall, transforming it into a ship designed for battle. Combined with Auxiliary Support, its designed to let ordinally civilian ships be combat worthy.
It makes sense that is has this downside as well - 1 burnspeed, and doubled sensor output, and halved sensor profile is an absolute steal for the OP cost.

To put it in perspective, on a destroyer, you'd be getting half of Augmented Engines, which is worth 8 OP, and then insulated engines, worth 6 OP, and almost half of High Resolution Sensors, which I'll round down to being worth 4 OP. Thats effectively 18 OP worth of upside, for only 10 OP, with the negligable downside of doubled crew requirements, and if you're building it in, taking only one build in slot instead of 3.

Unrelated Addendum - Just encountered a bug with Disruption missions.
"The Task is done to $dsp_personName's specifications".
This happened when disrupting Thulian Raider Bases Spaceport, on behalf of another pirates wishes (This seemed odd to start with). I believe I recieved the mission from Derinkuyu Mining Station.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Flet on March 28, 2021, 11:05:06 AM
can officers you find have more than one elited skill as well? If so this would make officer management a clearly superior choice to officer training.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 28, 2021, 11:10:13 AM
What would it take to allow the ATP to install Dock mods?

Hmm - it wouldn't be that complicated, probably. Just... not something I want to touch for a hotfix. And since Asharu is *right there*, it doesn't seem like a very pressing issue.

Having gotten to this point...wow, you weren't kidding   ;D

:D

Maybe issue: shield shunt doesn't have a unique icon and uses heavy armor's icon.

Thank you, noted!

I'm very happy to see the new heavy cruiser "Champion-Class" at first, it can provides extreme firepower(using heavy needle, tac lance and locust missile), protects itself with efficient shield, and engages in high speed. It can perform well in almost all fleet roles, defend/suppport/assault, seems nothings can't be held?
But... the combat soon turned out to be boring, since nothing can stop 2 Champion's co-work assault: fighters got scattered by anti-CV missiles, frigate can seldom escape after entering lance's range, destroyers just appeared and then disappeard, even battleship like Onslaught-Class can not endure their supportive firepower.
And, what's more:I can deploy more Champion-Class there.
Maybe it is too "universal" for such a 25DP ship, it has no significant drawback and just stand there beating almost everything out.

Hmm - will keep an eye on how this develops.


Alex are you sure you fixed capital spam? Every top end bounty has 7 capitals and like 10 cruisers in it

Fairly:
https://imgur.com/a/nR3Kun7


Spoiler
Well, two to be precise...
[close]

Spoiler
Ah, I see you haven't gotten *too* far along there... :)
[close]



how to apply damagedealtlistener if not use afterShipCreation?
I mean, while I was developping UNGP, I use BuffManager, and member.getStats().addListener(), but it seems that it doesn't know apply it correctly

Ah - I'm pretty sure that the listeners in ship stats are only for OP cost modifiers.

I can't believe how excited i am for an update to a game i bought in January 2013.
It's not like i play Bioshock Infinite or GTA V any more.

Keep up the good work sir.

Thank you! :D

Find a bug.
When a ship's d-mod is repaired automatically, the ship's class keeps unchanged (like Enforcer(d)) though there is not any d-mod.

Thank you, noted!


The new raiding mechanic has a weird interaction where, after assigning 3/6 marines to a medium danger objective, assigning the remaining 3 marines to a minimal danger objective actually does more to reduce expected casualties than holding them back. The issue(?) is that assigning the remaining three to the minimal danger objective reduces the danger level of objectives from ×0.1 to ×0.06, whereas holding them back only adds another ×0.85 multiplier.

I'm not entirely sure if this is unintended behaviour, I could totally see this working as intended in a "send guys to cause a distraction elsewhere, then hit the priority target" kinda way, but if so the game should probably mention this interaction in the same place where it says holding marines back will reduce expected casualties.

Hmm, yeah, it should probably mention that.


Can you capture every single unmanned ship? for example can i capture the one defending the cryosleepers? or there's a limit on what i can capture?

Not those, no.

portrait_mercenary08
is not used anywhere
which is shame because its pretty cool

Thank you, made a note.

Quote
Black markets no longer sell combat capital ships (can still be acquired from arms dealer contact)
I just found a Conquest on Sindria's black market, so this change doesn't seem to fully work.

Thank you - made a note to investigate.



OMG, it's finally there! i'm so happy! Thank you Alex! I hope mods will update soon. But i'm so excited that will play unmodded version anyway.
Just wanted to say I'm really loving the update. Most skill choices are now giving me choice anxiety so a good sign that it's definitely an interesting decision to make now!
And story points are quite plentiful which is very nice, but stuff like eliting a skill feel like a no brainer every time. Very excited for what direction this is gonna go in.
Time to go back to working on my mod update...

Thank you!!

It would be fantastic to have access to the intel tab (or any map) during conversations. Case in point, I just printed the sector map (on actual paper, made from real wood!) so I have at least an idea if a job offer lays on my current route or in the opposite direction.

Hmm, yeah. That could be tricky on the backend of things. Another option would be to throw in a general purpose "this is where the thing is" widget into the conversation. Sort of like the location indicator in the colony list. Will keep this general idea in mind!

By the way, has anyone else trouble with the shift key in menus? It doesn't work for me all the time, not sure if it's my keyboard or if something in the game changed.


Nothing *should* have changed, so I'd be curious to know.

Contact reputation decay is too fast

Huh? AFAIK there's no rep decay.


What's the intended form of the new 0-Flux speed boost? Should it be active when flux is decreasing or only when a ship is completely disengaged? E.g., do I need to toggle off my PD whenever I see pilums? Should shields be inoperable while in use?

If you don't have the elite helmsmanship perk, it should be the same as before. If you do, then the boost is also active as long as nothing (such as, say, raised shields) is adding flux to the ship.

One thing that's kinda disappointing is that only combat related skills can be made elite

Ah - for Combat, that's the story point sink. For other kinds of skills, that aptitude generally unlocks more story point uses. E.G. more elite skills on officers, more s-mods to build in, etc. Also: the point of elite perks in personal combat skills is to make them feel better to take, like you're getting something that you wouldn't get just from sticking an officer into the ship. Given that rationale, there's really no *point* to having elite levels to other types of skills - it's just more story points to spend there.

Unrelated Addendum - Just encountered a bug with Disruption missions.
"The Task is done to $dsp_personName's specifications".
This happened when disrupting Thulian Raider Bases Spaceport, on behalf of another pirates wishes (This seemed odd to start with). I believe I recieved the mission from Derinkuyu Mining Station.

Thank you, noted!


can officers you find have more than one elited skill as well? If so this would make officer management a clearly superior choice to officer training.

IIRC they can. Not sure you're going to find 10 of 'em, though.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 28, 2021, 11:27:45 AM

EDIT: One annoying mechanic is that Militarized Subsystems ships all count as combat ships, even when they're absolutely not intended for any sort of combat. I'm losing +1% max combat readiness on all ships because I've got two Salvaging Rigs with MS, pushing me four points over the 180 limit. What are salvaging rigs supposed to do in a fight, swipe space cranes at pirates?

I believe thats intended behavior - it is called Militarized Subsystems afterall, transforming it into a ship designed for battle. Combined with Auxiliary Support, its designed to let ordinally civilian ships be combat worthy.
It makes sense that is has this downside as well - 1 burnspeed, and doubled sensor output, and halved sensor profile is an absolute steal for the OP cost.

To put it in prospective, on a destroyer, you'd be getting half of Augmented Engines, which is worth 8 OP, and then insulated engines, worth 6 OP, and almost half of High Resolution Sensors, which I'll round down to being worth 4 OP. Thats effectively 18 OP worth of upside, for only 10 OP, with the negligable downside of doubled crew requirements, and if you're building it in, taking only one build in slot instead of 3.
On ships like a Kite, Gemini or Venture, sure, but I'm getting docked max CR because I've got (completely unarmed) Atlas, Prometheus and - one especially egregious example - salvaging rig ships with MS. What am I supposed to do in a fight with a 16 OP ship with zero weapon mounts, zero build-in fighter slots, no shield and Frigate-tier defensive stats? Confuse my enemies to death?

Atlas and Prometheus are basically in the same boat, really. I'd never use an Atlas as a makeshift carrier when a Condor is a superior carrier in every possible way, and it doesn't have the slots to be a PD platform (not to mention Atlases are so rare I'm literally turning to piracy for the civilian freighter ships, the loot therein is just bonus). Prometheus I could almost see being used as a makeshift PD platform, but that thing would be ungodly ungainly compared to, what, two Omens?

Put simply: Something has gone wrong when a Militarized Subsystems Salvaging Rig counts as a combat ship, but a civilian grade Venture does not.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Farlarzia on March 28, 2021, 11:30:41 AM
Is it intended for you to have to pay a story point (With 0% XP bonus to boot), every time you want to rescue a prisoner for a mission?
It seems odd, as the dialog indicates that you just have to pay their monetary offer to complete it, but the story point option is the only option available that actually progesses it, and using the story point also ends with you paying the full fee anyway.

Unless I'm missing something, this seems like a rather steep price to completing a mission, that as far I can tell doesn't have any special payout.


On ships like a Kite, Gemini or Venture, sure, but I'm getting docked max CR because I've got (completely unarmed) Atlas, Prometheus and - one especially egregious example - salvaging rig ships with MS. What am I supposed to do in a fight with a 16 OP ship with zero weapon mounts, zero build-in fighter slots, no shield and Frigate-tier defensive stats? Confuse my enemies to death?

Atlas and Prometheus are basically in the same boat, really. I'd never use an Atlas as a makeshift carrier when a Condor is a superior carrier in every possible way, and it doesn't have the slots to be a PD platform (not to mention Atlases are so rare I'm literally turning to piracy for the civilian freighter ships, the loot therein is just bonus). Prometheus I could almost see being used as a makeshift PD platform, but that thing would be ungodly ungainly compared to, what, two Omens?

Put simply: Something has gone wrong when a Militarized Subsystems Salvaging Rig counts as a combat ship, but a civilian grade Venture does not.

Think of it this way: The venture is a ship designed to be robust, thus making it combat worthy to an extent, but using civilian parts and components.

But you're trying to make a ship that wasn't designed to be robust, and forcing it into into that role. Upgrading all the components inside its hull to match combat specifications as best as possible. The ship wasn't designed for this, so its going to require specialised care and maintenance.

The only reason you'd therefor be making a ships internal components combat grade, and incurring that cost, is if the captain is preparing to use that ship for combat.

If the captain decides to make this renovation, and incurr the extra effort on a ship that could never be combat worthy, or he doesn't intend to bring into a combat scenario, then thats on the captain, no?

Just like you would question putting ITU on a Salvage Rig, you should now question putting Militarized Subsystems on it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: IonDragonX on March 28, 2021, 11:41:29 AM
Alex are you sure you fixed capital spam? Every top end bounty has 7 capitals and like 10 cruisers in it
Fairly:
https://imgur.com/a/nR3Kun7
The first image is of an armada with 27 combat ships and they all have Officers. The second image is a fleet with 21 Officers. Isn't that unbalanced when the player can't even come close to half of that?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 28, 2021, 11:42:16 AM
Quote
Ah - for Combat, that's the story point sink. For other kinds of skills, that aptitude generally unlocks more story point uses. E.G. more elite skills on officers, more s-mods to build in, etc. Also: the point of elite perks in personal combat skills is to make them feel better to take, like you're getting something that you wouldn't get just from sticking an officer into the ship. Given that rationale, there's really no *point* to having elite levels to other types of skills - it's just more story points to spend there.
Point taken on the story point stink. Still would like logistics officers, though, since I still don't see much point in speccing into combat when I've got 8 officers to do combat and zero anyone to cover all the other skills my fleet wants/needs.

Is it intended for you to have to pay a story point (With 0% XP bonus to boot), every time you want to rescue a prisoner for a mission?
It seems odd, as the dialog indicates that you just have to pay their monetary offer to complete it, but the story point option is the only option available that actually progesses it, and using the story point also ends with you paying the full fee anyway.

Unless I'm missing something, this seems like a rather steep price to completing a mission, that as far I can tell doesn't have any special payout.
Raiding a planet allows you to "achieve other objectives", including breaking out prisoners, assuming you've got enough forces to commit to the objective. I think the quest tells you roughly how many marines you'll need?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Farlarzia on March 28, 2021, 11:50:29 AM
Is it intended for you to have to pay a story point (With 0% XP bonus to boot), every time you want to rescue a prisoner for a mission?
It seems odd, as the dialog indicates that you just have to pay their monetary offer to complete it, but the story point option is the only option available that actually progesses it, and using the story point also ends with you paying the full fee anyway.

Unless I'm missing something, this seems like a rather steep price to completing a mission, that as far I can tell doesn't have any special payout.
Raiding a planet allows you to "achieve other objectives", including breaking out prisoners, assuming you've got enough forces to commit to the objective. I think the quest tells you roughly how many marines you'll need?
[/quote]
I guess I missed this, mainly to it not being made very clear in the UI beside the mission screen itself - for other mission types, its either instantly completed upon reaching the planet with conditions met, or people in the comms directory marked with a quest symbol. I'd looked into the Raid screen, but since nothing was marked as being quest related, it was unclear if the mission was actually possible through raiding, and if so, which raid target I should choose.
Upon looking further, its under the first option of Aquiring Valuables and such.
Perhaps marking this option with a quest symbol would be useful for future idiots such as myself.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 28, 2021, 12:02:39 PM
[Looks at images Alex posted of enemy fleets]

Waaaait a minute, those enemy fleets have like 30 officers. Doesn't that really wreck the ECM and NAV skills? I haven't reached that stage yet, but won't the player always be at -20% range?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 28, 2021, 12:10:21 PM
Is it intended for you to have to pay a story point (With 0% XP bonus to boot), every time you want to rescue a prisoner for a mission?
It seems odd, as the dialog indicates that you just have to pay their monetary offer to complete it, but the story point option is the only option available that actually progesses it, and using the story point also ends with you paying the full fee anyway.

Ah - that option should give you 100% bonus XP; made a note.

[Looks at images Alex posted of enemy fleets]

Waaaait a minute, those enemy fleets have like 30 officers. Doesn't that really wreck the ECM and NAV skills? I haven't reached that stage yet, but won't the player always be at -20% range?

You can get quite a hefty ECM rating; I think it works out. Will keep an eye on the feedback, though!


The first image is of an armada with 27 combat ships and they all have Officers. The second image is a fleet with 21 Officers. Isn't that unbalanced when the player can't even come close to half of that?

The player has many options at their disposal. The fleets posted aren't even particularly close to being the most difficult challenge in this release...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 28, 2021, 12:23:51 PM
I just got into position to raid a planet, and a Hegemony patrol showed up to try and stop me. No problem, just engage them and take them out, I can defeat them. So I bring down the fleet until all that remains is a Dram which wasn't fielded in battle before. Because it's a Dram with a swarmer SRM and two vulcans, no hullmods.

"Defending ships are present in sufficient strength to prevent any hostile action until they are dealt with"

Le :o? The whole "nearby hostile fleet (which you could just casually step on in any other circumstance) prevents you from doing something" thing was obnoxious enough before, but this is just a little bit ridiculous. Please adjust this, or explain to me how a single dram can prevent my fleet from raiding a planet single-handedly.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 28, 2021, 12:31:19 PM
... let me make a note about this. I mean, I *could* probably explain it! But it's a fair point. Likewise for preventing salvaging/scavenging/etc.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 28, 2021, 12:56:21 PM
A problem I've just noticed with the max CR skill is that it causes your fleet's max CR to oscillate depending on your fleet composition, and repairing up to that increased CR max drains supplies. For example I'm depositing my Valkyries because I'm done with them for now, and that brings me below the DP threshold worth of "combat" ships where I'm another getting +1% CR max from the skill. The resulting +1% CR max on my entire fleet costs me ~80 supplies if I only deposit one Valkyrie, ~70 supplies if I deposit all of them since there's fewer ships that need CR repair.

I have no idea how this could be fixed off-hand short of removing the DP limit from the skill, unfortunately.

EDIT: Quick correction because I was looking at the wrong field: It's only 14-13 supplies to repair, the ~80-70 supplies is the supply cost per day when repairs actually only take a matter of hours. So not as severe a problem, but still a problem.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Awe on March 28, 2021, 01:26:52 PM
High resolution sensors on civilian grade+militarised systems don't increase sensor strenght anymore?

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on March 28, 2021, 02:13:03 PM
Heh. You can get deserter bounties (and other missions) from your own faction now. And they'll use custom portraits/name lists if you have any defined.

Shame I couldn't find the target for the bounty tho.
It pointed to a system without specifying any further, but the fleet wasn't near any of the planets or any other obvious places (like asteroid fields etc).
Do they move around, or was it likely distracted with other fleets wandering about?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on March 28, 2021, 02:21:16 PM
What would it take to allow the ATP to install Dock mods?
Hmm - it wouldn't be that complicated, probably. Just... not something I want to touch for a hotfix. And since Asharu is *right there*, it doesn't seem like a very pressing issue.
Oh oops, my bad.
I was talking about what it would take for ME to do it in a mod. Sorry about that!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Hiruma Kai on March 28, 2021, 02:39:29 PM
Alex are you sure you fixed capital spam? Every top end bounty has 7 capitals and like 10 cruisers in it

Fairly:
https://imgur.com/a/nR3Kun7

Hmm. I'm seeing 388k bounties with 12 capitals.  See attached png for 12 Conquests (Plus 2 Dooms and 7 other cruisers).  Then again, I suppose that is not 30 capitals.  At some point there really isn't much option but bigger ships if you're limited to 30 in a fleet and your fleet point budget keeps going up.

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: ANGRYABOUTELVES on March 28, 2021, 03:29:55 PM
All the elite skills seem great and very influential except for Systems Expertise. +30 seconds of PPT is very underwhelming compared to all the other elite effects, but the base skill is so good it might need to be that way.

I like the new wormhole entrance sound.

The skills that boost ships with specific foo with a limitation on the amount of foo are interesting, but the limits seem quite restrictive. If you're building a fleet that's going heavily foo, a lot of the time it seems like you'd be better off taking the general skill instead. This is especially noticable with the phase ship skill; trying it out, I find I could decrease the hard flux generated by phase cloaking by 18% at 51 deployment points worth of phase ships (a doom and 2 afflictors) as well as 106 seconds of PPT and a slight bonus to the sensor profile reduction from phase fields, or just have 18% higher capacity and dissipation for all of my ships at 205 deployment points. This seems like a much harder choice than it should be. If I was only using a couple of phase ships or not using phase ships at all, taking the generalist skill would be a no brainer. I've got a significant amount of DP in phase ships, but nowhere near what it could be; if I wanted to deploy 2 Dooms, I'd 100% be better off taking the generalist skill, even though I wouldn't consider that an excessive amount of phase ships. If I was running a fully phase fleet, which is now possible, I'd definetly take the generalist skill over the skill specifically buffing phase ships. These skills seem undertuned in general.

The first two Leadership skills have some issues. Weapon drills is insignificant past earlygame and Auxilary Support would be okay I guess if I ever wanted to use militarized civvy ships in combat; this feels mostly like a wasted skill point. The choice between Wolfpack Tactics and Coordinated Maneuvers is extremely hard if you want to use officered frigates, and extremely pointless if you don't. I want both of these skills, but someone else might want neither. I'd reccomend swapping Crew Training with Coordinated Maneuvers.

The AI handles phase frigates quite acceptably now. I've seen them do things that resemble my own piloting, which is always impressive. However, I've had Afflictors unphase and move too close to friendly Doom mines and instantly die, so there might be something going wrong there. I think they're moving in to finish off a ship at the same time as I'm placing mines to finish off a ship, and ignoring the mines.

Hostile fleets hanging around preventing you from doing things is very annoying. It's especially annoying when you have a mission to rescue someone from a procgen pirate base, and you have to try to engage the fleet outside of the range of the station so you don't blow up the station and the prisoner along with it. Insigificant fleets shouldn't prevent you from doing things like salvaging and raiding, and lone Drams shouldn't be willing to initiate combat just because they've got a station behind them (something that has happened to me).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 28, 2021, 03:42:34 PM
Something weird just happened in a fight against a Hegemony merchant fleet where, after defeating their final combat ship, every civilian ship they had immediately retreated from battle. I'm not sure why they were deployed in the first place? It was a battle with strategic points and the enemy captured several of them, so they could have been deployed as reinforcements, but still...why? I didn't see them try to engage, for what it's worth.

Also minor point: That fight would have gained me Atlas #4, but I was out of story points to do a difficult recovery :'(. And immediately afterwards I get another story point from the fight's exp gain. Not sure if calculating player exp and possible story point gains before ship recovery dialogue would be worth the effort, but...::)

Quote
and lone Drams shouldn't be willing to initiate combat just because they've got a station behind them (something that has happened to me)
Mine didn't even have a station to hide behind. Just one Dram, one mission, and one extremely impossible dream vaporized by a single Tacyon Lance. Don't know who piloted it, but whoever did is the bravest person the Sector has ever seen.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: 2_Wycked on March 28, 2021, 04:28:54 PM
Thanks so much for the update! I noticed something with the tutorial that may be a bug, figured I'd mention it just in case. After you recover the derelicts from Tetra and return to the Ancyra station, there's a blurb about some weapons and supplies being moved into storage for you to use to refit the ships, but I'm not seeing them.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 28, 2021, 04:29:56 PM
I will say that as I get farther into the game and up against more powerful enemies: its starting to bug me a little bit how "invisible" the strengths of enemy ships is, because we cannot see their officer skills. Their skills are more important than their weapons or hullmods (as long as the loadout is reasonably sensible). Basic questions like "can my frigate take that one if I give it an eliminate order" or "how much damage does that ship do to my flank" or "do missiles work against that ship" have no answer other than to try and find out. This is especially true for energy frigates/SO ships because of energy weapon mastery: that one skill transforms such ships entirely. The actual weapons such a ship is using are inconsequential compared to whether or not they have the skill, which feels wrong. Maybe I'm just too used to being able to look at a ship/check its loadout and see what it can do.

Thanks so much for the update! I noticed something with the tutorial that may be a bug, figured I'd mention it just in case. After you recover the derelicts from Tetra and return to the Ancyra station, there's a blurb about some weapons and supplies being moved into storage for you to use to refit the ships, but I'm not seeing them.

Hmmm, this worked for me. Are you clicking on the storage button to get to that tab? They are at the station, not transferred directly to the cargo bays.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on March 28, 2021, 05:32:39 PM
https://i.imgur.com/lDUFNlp.png (https://i.imgur.com/lDUFNlp.png) 
This Egemony mercantile convoy has been trying to get inside the jump point for a long time, it just can't thanks to the star's corona, probably not intended
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 28, 2021, 06:09:22 PM
Had some time to play with this and I am still in the early game.  Just acquired a Falcon (from ambushing a trade fleet).  Few highlights in my current game.

Two section pirate bases with 50k bounty is much stronger than equivalent named bounty fleet.  Maybe the stations can be nuked by Afflictor, but a modest fleet of conventional ships that can handle 50k named bounties get wiped out by 50k station bounty.

Raiding pirates bases for supplies then selling them elsewhere that has a shortage is profitable.

Tibicena has stability of 2, thanks to -6 from its Free Port and Commerce.  It seems like it would only take one raid to send it to zero stability and threaten it with decivilization.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on March 28, 2021, 06:26:40 PM
Aaaaahhhh officers your get through special events can be level 6!!!!

Sorry, just freaked out about that a bit! :D
I just got my first level 7 officer :D
A bit sad because they are cautious though, but they have the ranged specialization + gunnery implants combo, so it's actually not bad

edit:
litterally immediately after, I got offered a second level 7 officer (same fleet of destroyed ships lmao), but the second one is timid, not sure if I should keep it with the increased salary and all... I'm kinda sad
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Voyager I on March 28, 2021, 07:41:53 PM
Having Saftey Overrides go from costing like 1/3 of a ship's entire payload to 1 Story Point has sure done some interesting things to loadout design.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on March 28, 2021, 08:13:08 PM
https://i.imgur.com/RMoWQAF.png 
Gamebreaking bug, pressing continue prints "Continue" on the screen, without allowing me to continue (lol). Problem is that I saved right before this encounter rotfl
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: sector_terror on March 28, 2021, 08:55:34 PM
Thank you for improving the rewards for contract missions. I was -just- starting to run through the math of them and realizing almost every bounty I was getting cost 2/3rds of the payout just to get to the bounty, and procurement was only so much better. That isn't even getting into the inevitable losses or the price of buying new ships. thank you for that. Also the not softlocking with the jailbreak missions when given from non-outlaws.

Numbers aside, I am adoring the new update. The contact system is amazing and skills are well balanced and reward specializing to a style of ship, made easier with better way to get these ships then just "hope the market has X." I'm looking forward to try again with better contact rewards
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: frozentoes on March 28, 2021, 09:00:31 PM
Bug report: Infinite skills
Version: 0.95a-RC10

Requirement: Have one full skill aptitude (5 skills) and a story point for respec.

Reproduction: Initiate respec, then start filling alternative skills for your maxed-out tree. Notice how you don't need skill points to buy them?

Now, remove them. You've just been given a refund for those skill points you did NOT spend. If you repeat cleverly, you can get these ghost refunds infinitely until you fill all skill slots.

I -am- running some mods, but it's happening to other people (thank you xTrainx on the unofficial Discord) without my mod package as well.

Imgur album shows various steps in reproduction.

https://imgur.com/a/PbbTWDE (https://imgur.com/a/PbbTWDE)

It seems to not be checking for skill points on skill add of 'second pass' through an aptitude during respec, but then refunds them as normal. The special requirements for learning the second layer skills may need a look?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: ANGRYABOUTELVES on March 28, 2021, 11:36:03 PM
If you get Transverse Jump from the story mission while you already know Transverse Jump from the Navigation skill, then respec to Sensors instead, you lose Transverse Jump even though you should keep it for story reasons.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Dal on March 29, 2021, 12:29:35 AM
Re:Helmsmanship
Quote from: Alex
If you don't have the elite helmsmanship perk, it should be the same as before. If you do, then the boost is also active as long as nothing (such as, say, raised shields) is adding flux to the ship.
Since the behavior of flux at high values is to float in the 1-9 range even when your dissipation is greater than your generation*, the 0 bonus doesn't kick in under those circumstances now (a PD weapon firing, shields toggled up but undamaged). This means a pretty substantial mechanical change for larger ships from 0.91. It's not necessarily a bad thing, capitals feel properly slow, but it's incongruous because 1, having to toggle off PD is tedious and 2, because the capital I pilot goes twice as fast as any other in the battle. It'd be nice to have the <0.25% margin from before. That seemed pretty successful at tagging ships in combat from those just traveling.

*Even while paused, I've noticed

In any case, the update is great and I'm having a lot of fun. :D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Dal on March 29, 2021, 12:37:46 AM
Unrelated to the above, I changed my monitor since I last played and the flashing effects entering and exiting menus or using a jump point are surprisingly strong, to the point where I've started turning away from my screen regularly. I'm not sure the best method, but it'd be really appreciated if there was a way to tone those down. Still worth it, though. ^^
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on March 29, 2021, 12:45:26 AM
I will say that as I get farther into the game and up against more powerful enemies: its starting to bug me a little bit how "invisible" the strengths of enemy ships is
I bumped into this a lot earlier than you it seems.
I'm still stuck trying to do mid-tier bounties and constantly bouncing off them because I just can't seem to get enough damage onto a target before it just nopes off into the distance to reset its flux, even despite deploying my entire fleet. Which is absolutely killing my supplies.
(Caveat: I'm not great at combat, and I am fully aware of this.)

Doesn't help I've been apparently quite unlucky by only finding a single officer so far.
Honestly, it really doesn't feel good that officers have been changed from "nice to have" to "you will fail if you don't have". Especially at such an early stage of the game.
This (imo) feels like it would be a far better fit for late game stuff rather than a global mechanic.

I've also noticed that the bounties that are being posted seem to have vastly outpaced my fleet's capabilities fairly quickly.
I'm seeing bounties with multiple capitals regularly despite still being effectively in the "can barely manage cruisers" stage, because of all these invisible boosts.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TaLaR on March 29, 2021, 01:13:32 AM
Yeah, top end bounty fleets haven't gotten that much smaller (for example: 12 Conquests instead of 20 + assorted smaller ships), but now they have 15+ top tier officers to boot (instead of being constrained to same max as player as in 0.91).

Chain-deployed player-piloted Afflictors can chew even through that, but I'm not sure how an average player is supposed to win (with no-to-minimal losses, since otherwise it's not a victory at all).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: sector_terror on March 29, 2021, 01:17:12 AM
I will say that as I get farther into the game and up against more powerful enemies: its starting to bug me a little bit how "invisible" the strengths of enemy ships is
I bumped into this a lot earlier than you it seems.
I'm still stuck trying to do mid-tier bounties and constantly bouncing off them because I just can't seem to get enough damage onto a target before it just nopes off into the distance to reset its flux, even despite deploying my entire fleet. Which is absolutely killing my supplies.
(Caveat: I'm not great at combat, and I am fully aware of this.)

Doesn't help I've been apparently quite unlucky by only finding a single officer so far.
Honestly, it really doesn't feel good that officers have been changed from "nice to have" to "you will fail if you don't have". Especially at such an early stage of the game.
This (imo) feels like it would be a far better fit for late game stuff rather than a global mechanic.

I've also noticed that the bounties that are being posted seem to have vastly outpaced my fleet's capabilities fairly quickly.
I'm seeing bounties with multiple capitals regularly despite still being effectively in the "can barely manage cruisers" stage, because of all these invisible boosts.

     That's always been a problem. There's no good scaling for the mid-game. Your early game crows very quickly since frigates and destroyers are cheat and dont have a lot of cost to maintain. But once you hit cruisers the games development hard stales to the point growing to meet the same growth rate become impossible with the cascading management costs. I've considered modding the game myself recently to heavily cut the cost of buying new ships to compensate, since finding the proper weapons for your builds is a money sink given how long some ships have to sit in your docket waiting for weapons that actually synergize well. It would mean your fleet can continue a linear growth pattern rather than an exponentially declining one.

The skills that boost ships with specific foo with a limitation on the amount of foo are interesting, but the limits seem quite restrictive. If you're building a fleet that's going heavily foo, a lot of the time it seems like you'd be better off taking the general skill instead....These skills seem undertuned in general.

     I'm also adding in on this. I originally loved the skills but I think that's because my first new character doesnt use leadership skills at all. As they stand, this is the big reason why.(On top of the first set being terrible.) These skills are unnecessarily weak to the point of undermining using them in the first place. Like Angry said, why bother getting the phase ship skill with a fleet of phase ships when the penalty for it is so severe? It would only help a small section of your fleet if you tried to use it to actual effect and it ends up lost for it. Hell, the carrier one is the worst since it caps at a mere 6 bays, not even ships.
     It seems to me like Alex tried to tone them down to drop incentives for mono-fleets. I understand the principle, but the current skill system does that already. -50% phrase cooldown and double speed borders into out and out broken, as does double missile capacity. That might as well be the griffon's MO in skill form. Hell look at stage 2 technology. Do you pick 15% more range? for fifty percent more damage? The blog post talked about combining general and specialist skills to create a raw level of power greater than the previous skills could be at max, with the price tag of losing adaptability if you lose that key ship. So why am I suddenly not given the same style of option for fleet based skills? It's spits the whole idea of having specialist VS general skills in the face.

Yeah, top end bounty fleets haven't gotten that much smaller (for example: 12 Conquests instead of 20 + assorted smaller ships), but now they have 15+ top tier officers to boot (instead of being constrained to same max as player as in 0.91).

     To be fair, 8 capital ships less is not a small thing. It actually be interesting to find out if the enemy "leader" can also have leadership skills and bonuses across the whole fleet like the player. If so it might give those fleet limits a lot more sense(at least in terms of sheer number counting, not the 'max fighter bay' limits since AI dont really take advantage of that). Can we get any confirmation if the AI use those skills at all? Or is that a player only thing. It doesn't change my statement but...still.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 29, 2021, 04:13:15 AM
Re: invisible boosts
Some of the early game fleets I fought were insanely durable.  Combined with the cowardly AI, fights are slow, and PPT is a real problem.

I guess I should use Wolfpack Tactics and buy a bunch of small ships, but it is getting almost late for that for me, as I am starting to get big ships.  Currently, my fleet is unskilled, but most of the skills I see are underwhelming, or useful only early when my fleet is small, but I do not want to waste Skill or Story Points for an early-game advantage that will disappear (like getting colony skills instead of waiting for alpha core farming in last release.)  Even the new Loadout Design (which appears to be one of the best skills) needs Story Points, and I do not have enough of them now.

Speaking of colony skills, those are the skills that interest me most (because I want my empire!)  I am disappointed that Leadership's colony skills are after the permanent officer skills.  Thus, I wrote them off because I do not want to lock my skills into officers.  (I might need them eventually, but I do not want to lock my points in case I want Technology and Combat/Industry instead.)  Then again, with that infinite skill bug posted a page or so back, I might exploit that!

P.S.  I wish Story Points were called Action Points because I cannot write SP abbreviation when we have both Skill Points and Story Points, but SP for Skill Points and AP for Action Points would work.  Guess I could use SkP or KP for skills and StP or TP for stories.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Originem on March 29, 2021, 04:25:56 AM
how to apply damagedealtlistener if not use afterShipCreation?
I mean, while I was developping UNGP, I use BuffManager, and member.getStats().addListener(), but it seems that it doesn't know apply it correctly

Ah - I'm pretty sure that the listeners in ship stats are only for OP cost modifiers.
Hmmm, so if I want to add damagedealtmodifier, I have to add it to the ShipAPI?
If I want to add it while in combat, would "ship.hasListenerOfClass" cost a lot of performance?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 29, 2021, 04:33:16 AM
One amusing thing that stood out, the shoplifter bar encounters.  After I had acquired some marines (to raid for stuff), I ran into shoplifters in the bar twice, and "bought" two pristine ships (Drover and Shrike) at a discount.  One of the shoplifters offered to be a contact.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: EclipseRanger on March 29, 2021, 04:36:28 AM
Another potential bug.One of the Scan Derelicts missions asks me to scan a ship that is "orbiting a red dwarf" in the Ideimeron system(a system whose star is NOT a red dwarf).Plus,I ve never seen a Derelict mission refering to stars in any way other than "the heart of x system".Perhaps that thing that Alex mentioned,that stars are also considered planets,is interfering when the game is selecting an orbiting planet for the derelict?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TaLaR on March 29, 2021, 04:39:43 AM
     To be fair, 8 capital ships less is not a small thing. It actually be interesting to find out if the enemy "leader" can also have leadership skills and bonuses across the whole fleet like the player. If so it might give those fleet limits a lot more sense(at least in terms of sheer number counting, not the 'max fighter bay' limits since AI dont really take advantage of that). Can we get any confirmation if the AI use those skills at all? Or is that a player only thing. It doesn't change my statement but...still.

Is it though? By the time extra capitals get to deploy your fleet should already have herded remainder of enemy ships into small surrounded pocket near their spawn point. In any other scenario you aren't likely to be able to get a clear victory against this kind of fleets.

It's hard to judge enemy fleet skills. The only obvious one is EM warfare, which seems rare and not sufficient to out-EM my fleet even when present (it doesn't scale with ship size or officers, flat 2% per ship).

DP-capped skills should be very weak for them even if available - 12 Conquests is already 480 DP, without considering smaller ships in fleet.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on March 29, 2021, 05:33:20 AM
Sometimes i'm getting good missions that pay 100-150k, even 300k, however I'm also getting impossible missions that require 17k storage, and most of the times pitiful missions that pay just 3-5k, max 30k, and feel totally not worth my time
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on March 29, 2021, 06:36:44 AM
Re: invisible boosts
Some of the early game fleets I fought were insanely durable.  Combined with the cowardly AI, fights are slow, and PPT is a real problem.
For example:
I have an Apogee (starting ship) with a plasma cannon on it, and I have the energy mastery skill.
In one battle I was faced off with a Shrike, and this ship which I expected to fold after a few volleys basically shield tanked an entire flux bar's worth of extra damage plasma cannon shots, while also firing it's own weapons, before just sliding off into the distance presumably madly tooting a horn like a happy clown. It's flux never went above ~60% during the encounter. And this happened multiple times before I managed to corall it sufficiently.

My first game of 095 has been full of stuff like this, and it's just been a non-stop parade of WHAT.
It's p. funny really.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on March 29, 2021, 06:44:33 AM
Just recently I fought against the toughest Venture I've ever seen. Know I now they're supposed to be tough but that thing was eating Heavy Blaster shots like it's nothing, anything apart from a Reaper basically does nothing to the hull bar. The combination of some skills truly makes for bonkers interactions.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Awe on March 29, 2021, 08:22:27 AM
Slow speed calculate incorrectly. All my fleet can do 8+ burn(some civilian ships has 7 burn initially, but all with militarized subsystems, so 8 is minimal), so slow mode should be 8/2+3(skill)=7, but game limit it to 6.

PS Also, high resolution sensors broken - doesn't work even on apogees. -_-
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on March 29, 2021, 08:30:43 AM
Bar bounties.
I've taken 4 of these so far (2 from my own colonies + 2 from the core), and failed to find the target every time. It's like they're just not there.

[e]
Also very much like the mod tables when choosing saves to load - much clearer.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Baqar79 on March 29, 2021, 08:36:17 AM
I'm not sure if this is intended behaviour, but it seems that slow mode/going dark does not take burn speed modifications into account (eg Augmented drives), so the unmodified ships burn speed determines the actual speed regardless of your actual burn speed.

Some examples (I have the Sensors perk picked which should give a +3 to burn speed while going slow):

Tempest (11 burn):
9 burn speed for slow mode/going dark (11/2+3 = 5.5+3 = 8.5 which I guess is rounded to 9).

Falcon(P) (11 burn - Augmented drives):
8 burn speed for slow mode/going dark (Even though augmented drives is built in, it still uses the base value of 9 burn divides that by 2, adds 3 and then rounds up).

Apogee (10 burn - Augmented drives):
7 burn speed for slow mode/going dark (8/2+3 = 4+3 = 7, so the Augmented drives is once again ignored here).

Oh Awe just posted the same issue as I was typing this :D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Farlarzia on March 29, 2021, 08:48:28 AM
High Resolution Sensors has had an overhaul - its not broken, but it doesn't directly influence a ships sensor rating by a fixed rating anymore. This is reflected in the hullmods "increases the fleets sensor range", rather than the individual ship.
Instead it applies a passive buff to the fleet. If you mouse over the Sensor Profile in the UI, you'll see its still contributing.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 29, 2021, 08:58:23 AM
Strange issue: When I attempt to dock with a planet I'm not welcome at due to recent hostile actions, with my transponder on, the game will highlight how long I have to wait in red. If I attempt to dock with my transponder off the same text is not highlighted.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Wyvern on March 29, 2021, 08:59:09 AM
Unrelated to the above, I changed my monitor since I last played and the flashing effects entering and exiting menus or using a jump point are surprisingly strong, to the point where I've started turning away from my screen regularly. I'm not sure the best method, but it'd be really appreciated if there was a way to tone those down. Still worth it, though. ^^
Now that you mention this... yeah, those are surprisingly painful.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 29, 2021, 09:08:40 AM
Haha if we are highlighting killer enemy ships: a pirate sunder with a level 6 officer. With 3 mining blasters and SO. Sounds like it should be easy right? Dangerous in bursts, but we've all popped dozens of similar ships.

Thing killed one of my destroyers in dramatic fashion, so I tasked 2 more Destroyers and a Falcon to deal with it. It then killed all of them too at the same time (all had offficers, though not maxed). I have no idea what exact combination of skills this thing had, but the only reason I killed it was because I snuck up on its rear with a HIL sunder.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Originem on March 29, 2021, 09:13:36 AM
The cargo picker still not have a scroll bar...
Could that area not only be text panel but CustomPanelAPI?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 29, 2021, 09:16:43 AM
Thank you everyone for your feedback and bug reports! Went through everything and took some notes; my apologies for not replying in detail - really want to focus on knocking out some bugs today.

Unrelated to the above, I changed my monitor since I last played and the flashing effects entering and exiting menus or using a jump point are surprisingly strong, to the point where I've started turning away from my screen regularly. I'm not sure the best method, but it'd be really appreciated if there was a way to tone those down. Still worth it, though. ^^
Now that you mention this... yeah, those are surprisingly painful.

You can change:
"enableUIStaticNoise":true,
to false in data/config/settings.json
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: HiddenPorpoise on March 29, 2021, 09:51:25 AM
I really like the update. The writing shines and it does a better job of showing why the Sector is still in shambles after 200 years.

A shrike will not start a burn if escorting a fury no matter how badly it needs to. I suspect that the same is true for other plasma ships but I've only tested those two together.

The way auxiliary support scales currently I feel like I'm better off with a single extremely frightening militarized gemini or venture than sticking to the spirit of the skill. It also puts non weaponizeable civ hulls in an awkward position of weakening combat ships to get speed and sensor advantage which some transports don't have to deal with at all.

My assault hammerheads keep making odd decisions that are costing them easy kills or getting them dead. They will fire in short bursts instead of laying in while at point blank, at low flux, and with ammo feeders running or they will swing around to shoot with their side pd turrets instead, firing their main guns wildly. I can't tell if they are trying to pick new targets while in the middle of a duel or if they think that one more lmg is worth giving up the chainguns for while shooting shields.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Originem on March 29, 2021, 10:10:49 AM
BTW, I mentioned that the nebula particles(or others?) seems use something like Tex/4 to locate the Sprite texture(I think that's something like Atlas sheet)
So, If I use sprites like that, combine several images into one image, will there be appearent performance improvement?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Awe on March 29, 2021, 10:45:35 AM
High Resolution Sensors has had an overhaul - its not broken,

Oh, I see now. Thanks.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on March 29, 2021, 01:55:46 PM
You can do pretty much anything with story points...except one thing, get more skills. 
I would love for a system like the colonies, the more skillpoints you get the harder it is to get the next one, but at least even if it requires 20 or 40 story points, the player would have an objective, a story points sink,  if he doesn't care as much about colonies. 
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 29, 2021, 03:02:33 PM
Another hotfix is up! List of changes in the OP.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Okawal on March 29, 2021, 03:18:07 PM
small Typo in the Title (should be RC11) :D

And thank you, it fixed my save-game bug. Keep up the good work!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Knight Chase on March 29, 2021, 03:24:00 PM
Does the Tachyon Lance sound not work for anyone else with this new patch?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: pairedeciseaux on March 29, 2021, 03:27:40 PM
Does the Tachyon Lance sound not work for anyone else with this new patch?

Works fine one my computer with RC8 and RC10.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 29, 2021, 03:29:40 PM
I'm having a blast discovering all the new things in the update! One thing I'm noticing so far as I advance into the midgame: enemy officer count and level is becoming a greater and greater problem.

My own main combat ships can keep up because of the 2 free hullmods. Thats enough to close the gap between their level 6/7 officers and my level 5's, but it costs me 2 story points per ship and makes losing those ships suddenly really bad. I've always liked to keep frigates around as distraction/support/torpedo boats even in larger fleets, but now they are up against enemy frigates with officer and they just cannot engage on equal terms. Against enemy admirals with the proper skills, even 2v1 my frigates are losing against what should be inferior enemies, as those enemies also have a 20% speed bonus that I've lost and a 20% range penalty in their favor.

Still early days in terms of playing, so this is very off the top of the head impressions!

[Edit] Oh snap hotfix!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: sector_terror on March 29, 2021, 03:38:20 PM
I'm having a blast discovering all the new things in the update! One thing I'm noticing so far as I advance into the midgame: enemy officer count and level is becoming a greater and greater problem.

My own main combat ships can keep up because of the 2 free hullmods. Thats enough to close the gap between their level 6/7 officers and my level 5's, but it costs me 2 story points per ship and makes losing those ships suddenly really bad. I've always liked to keep frigates around as distraction/support/torpedo boats even in larger fleets, but now they are up against enemy frigates with officer and they just cannot engage on equal terms. Against enemy admirals with the proper skills, even 2v1 my frigates are losing against what should be inferior enemies, as those enemies also have a 20% speed bonus that I've lost and a 20% range penalty in their favor.

Still early days in terms of playing, so this is very off the top of the head impressions!

[Edit] Oh snap hotfix!

As a note: This can be fixed right now since settings.jsom has an option to cut the number of enemy officers, including the special "exctra" story-point cost oneS(they get I believe 2? per level of 'officer quality')
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Gothars on March 29, 2021, 03:42:13 PM
I just want to say that I'm once again having a grand time with this game. I don't have that many opportunities to play atm, and when I find one I play pretty slowly and inefficiently. But between the intriguing story pieces, exciting exploration and rejuvenated combat, I'm really losing myself in the game when I play. That's rare nowadays. I know this is not my usual differentiated feedback, which might come later, I just wanted to say: Thank you, Alex.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 29, 2021, 03:43:25 PM
small Typo in the Title (should be RC11) :D

And thank you, it fixed my save-game bug. Keep up the good work!

Thank you, fixed that up :) And thank you!


Does the Tachyon Lance sound not work for anyone else with this new patch?

Hmm, works for me.

I'm having a blast discovering all the new things in the update! One thing I'm noticing so far as I advance into the midgame: enemy officer count and level is becoming a greater and greater problem.

My own main combat ships can keep up because of the 2 free hullmods. Thats enough to close the gap between their level 6/7 officers and my level 5's, but it costs me 2 story points per ship and makes losing those ships suddenly really bad. I've always liked to keep frigates around as distraction/support/torpedo boats even in larger fleets, but now they are up against enemy frigates with officer and they just cannot engage on equal terms. Against enemy admirals with the proper skills, even 2v1 my frigates are losing against what should be inferior enemies, as those enemies also have a 20% speed bonus that I've lost and a 20% range penalty in their favor.

Still early days in terms of playing, so this is very off the top of the head impressions!

Appreciate the feedback, definitely keeping an eye on it!


I just want to say that I'm once again having a grand time with this game. I don't have that many opportunities to play atm, and when I find one I play pretty slowly and inefficiently. But between the intriguing story pieces, exciting exploration and rejuvenated combat, I'm really losing myself in the game when I play. That's rare nowadays. I know this is not my usual differentiated feedback, which might come later, I just wanted to say: Thank you, Alex.

Thank you! :D :D :D That really makes me happy.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on March 29, 2021, 04:09:19 PM
The update has been a blast so far, been playing no-stop for hours without even sleeping! 
But there's something that bugs me to no end: 
Whenever a planet is about to decivilize, i get a tooltip: "if nothing is done, x is going to decivilize!", so I'm like, oh no! I better go help! i wouldn't want that place to decivilize forever for whatever reason! 
So I go there but before reaching my destination, after just a few days, It's already too late. 
Why even tell me "if nothing is done"? it's like teasing me this amazing planet saving gameplay where i get to sell overpriced goods or something, but it doesn't let me play. 
Wouldn't it be better if there was at least a countdown? "Umbria will decivilize in 100 days if nothing is done", then something does get done and it's like "Umbria will decivilize in 200 days", until it doesn't decivilize anymore. 
It's a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but it would add some meaningful gameplay with consequences (not helping means the place is going to decivilize). 
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 29, 2021, 04:58:07 PM
It's a fair point. That's definitely something that *could* be a fun/interesting thing but currently there isn't very much there at all.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: DonationBox on March 29, 2021, 05:18:56 PM
Hi Alex, I have a question regarding how deployment points are distributed at the beginning of a battle. It seems that I am always "greatly outnumbered" with 160/400 deployment points even with a max-size fleet with 2 capitals, 5 cruisers, 6 destroyers and 6 frigates, plus eight officers. This occurs against fleets of the same size or even slightly smaller.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on March 29, 2021, 05:20:06 PM
Little bug: The colony supply quest (every month produce at least x resource) 
Every month i get the notification that i successfully completed the assignment and that my relations increased by 5. 
Problem is that it's been a few months and while i get this message, the relations with that person are still at 5/100. Not sure about the money, I'm swimming in cash so I didn't check
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: frozentoes on March 29, 2021, 05:55:45 PM
Little bug: The colony supply quest (every month produce at least x resource) 
Every month i get the notification that i successfully completed the assignment and that my relations increased by 5. 
Problem is that it's been a few months and while i get this message, the relations with that person are still at 5/100. Not sure about the money, I'm swimming in cash so I didn't check

I got a completion notification for this at one point, but now I can't seem to track down whether I'm actually getting paid. Should it show up in budget? The quest said something like 'Congratulations! You've completed it! You will get paid for 0 remaining months' but I had just freshly completed it... very confused what happened.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: HiddenPorpoise on March 29, 2021, 06:00:35 PM
A reliable crash snuck through the hotfixes. Clicking on "Sinking the Bismar" will crash the game and throw a fatal error when it tries to load the Hyperion.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 29, 2021, 06:06:29 PM
Little bug: The colony supply quest (every month produce at least x resource) 
Every month i get the notification that i successfully completed the assignment and that my relations increased by 5. 
Problem is that it's been a few months and while i get this message, the relations with that person are still at 5/100. Not sure about the money, I'm swimming in cash so I didn't check

I got a completion notification for this at one point, but now I can't seem to track down whether I'm actually getting paid. Should it show up in budget? The quest said something like 'Congratulations! You've completed it! You will get paid for 0 remaining months' but I had just freshly completed it... very confused what happened.

Thanks for the report(s)! Made a note to check this all out.

A reliable crash snuck through the hotfixes. Clicking on "Sinking the Bismar" will crash the game and throw a fatal error when it tries to load the Hyperion.

Ah - please see this thread:
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=20104.0


Hi Alex, I have a question regarding how deployment points are distributed at the beginning of a battle. It seems that I am always "greatly outnumbered" with 160/400 deployment points even with a max-size fleet with 2 capitals, 5 cruisers, 6 destroyers and 6 frigates, plus eight officers. This occurs against fleets of the same size or even slightly smaller.

The tootlip over the deployment points bar describes how it works in detail. Briefly, it's mostly based on officers and officer quality; ships factor in only a little bit. But capturing objectives will let you make up the difference.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 29, 2021, 06:17:16 PM
I just built my first colony, and I am examining the menu of structures and industries to see what improvements will do (since I may not have Industrial Planning to bump production to self-sufficiency levels), and they look like a massive story point sink.

Just two story points for the first improvement, and no bonus story xp.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: BGrey on March 29, 2021, 09:41:54 PM
I got a jungle world in Duzakh, not that I'm complaining...

Also could not find the enemy for a bounty mission from a bar against a pirate, it was a small system as well so I'm not sure I could have missed it.

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 30, 2021, 01:17:46 AM
...

Hi Alex, I have a question regarding how deployment points are distributed at the beginning of a battle. It seems that I am always "greatly outnumbered" with 160/400 deployment points even with a max-size fleet with 2 capitals, 5 cruisers, 6 destroyers and 6 frigates, plus eight officers. This occurs against fleets of the same size or even slightly smaller.

The tootlip over the deployment points bar describes how it works in detail. Briefly, it's mostly based on officers and officer quality; ships factor in only a little bit. But capturing objectives will let you make up the difference.

There's always lots of questions about deployment points, a simple rule might be good for new player understanding. Maybe this could be simplified if the player just got 40% and then used objectives to boost it? "Tactical maneuvers required?" I haven't reached spoilers yet so maybe it doesn't apply there, but otherwise I'm capped at 40% all the time.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Awe on March 30, 2021, 01:22:00 AM
Wow. Just found Coronal Hypershunt and its guardians.  :'( New end-game threat, yay.  ;D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 30, 2021, 01:29:39 AM
Contact reputation decay is too fast

Huh? AFAIK there's no rep decay.
Haven't had a chance to test this in RC11 yet, but I noticed that the story-offered Hegemony contact on Caotl(?) does seem to have an issue where his relationship decays for unknown reasons. I've done at least one bounty mission and bought a surplus Hammerhead from him, but his relationship is currently at 0.

For the record this doesn't seem to be an issue related to losing standing with the contact's faction, as I initially thought - neither my independent or pirates contacts cared about me getting dinged points for getting caught selling to the black market wholesale and doing everything in my power to squeeze every last possible credit out of them no matter how much death and mayhem I caused, respectively.

Yeah, colonies has been nerfed a bit too much, I think, at least the early stages. Unless a planet has 125% or less hazard rating it's pretty much not going to grow without hazard pay, and unless a planet is godlike in terms of it's profitability it's going to be bleeding tens of thousands of credits if it offers hazard pay, to say nothing of the cost of hiring an administrator. It's interesting, and kind of annoying, that it's not the threat of pirates that's keeping me from exploring right now, but the fact that if I don't stick around the core and hunt down every last credit I'm going to go bankrupt.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 30, 2021, 01:31:30 AM
Oh I noticed that the story contact on Coatl doesn't get rep gains either, but wasn't sure if it was decay or some other mechanism. My galatia academy "contact" is getting rep gains as normal, though they are not an official contact in the tab.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on March 30, 2021, 02:22:04 AM
Stations seem to be somewhat more capable now.
Two examples:
Spoiler
I tried to take a pirate base bounty (for 40k lol) with a pair of cruisers, 4 destroyers and 4 carriers (only 1 of which was a 'proper' carrier). I was expecting it to be fairly straightforward as I've done this plenty before.
I did manage to win, but the only things left on the field were 3 of my 4 carriers. Everything else got crumpled up like used tinfoil. Which was somewhat suprising.
I didn't have any officers at this stage though (that really shouldn't be making this much of a difference).
Definitely 1000% not worth the time or effort now.
I used to use pirate base bounties as springboards to explore the local area which also just happened to pay me, but I don't think I'll bother any more.
[close]
Spoiler
My colony managed to get a bit of attention. The League and Sindria decided to double-team me for daring to export organics (lol), with thier respective visits being only 20 days apart.
Thier fleets were decribed as 'fairly capable' and 'outmatching' my current defences, which were a patrol HQ and a level 1 station.
I was expecting to lose both times.

The League arrived first and thier fleet was 2 champions, 2 falcons plus an assortment of hammerheads and other additonal chaff. Versus the fleet from the pirate 'adventure'.
I won. And far easier than expected given the intel provided.

When the Sindrians arrived they had several falcons and eagles backed by a conquest. I wasn't at all confident, but also was second guessing things quite a bit given the 1st battle.
But the only difficult thing was that damn conquest. Not only was it fitted out 'properly' with an assymetric range-boosted mjolnir loadout so it was quite painful to approach. But it had some crazy speed boost going on so it could flip around almost instantly to face in any direction, and took forever to pin it in the corner of the map so it couldn't scoot about.
One of the most tedious fights I've ever had.

In conclusion: Stations are a land of contrasts.
[close]

E-Burn
Spoiler
Emergency Burn losing it's 'ignore terrain effects' feature has made it significantly less useful.
Storm surfing now always results in supply loss. Annoying but not the end of things, they can be avoided (somewhat).

Getting neutron beamed upon entering a system and instantly losing 100+ supplies is now an instant re-load event.
Eating the fuel cost plus whatever supply damage was done before activating E-Burn was an acceptable loss. Having a non-trivial player activity severely curtailed or even aborted because of rng is not good design.

As it stands, E-Burn is only really useful for avoiding enemies now, so it doesn't see regular use.
Which in turn makes the Containment Procedures skill much less valuable.
[close]

New Items
Spoiler
A very welcome addition!
Not only has the expansion of the item pool reduced the occurance of stacks of more (incredibly "rare") items than you could possibly use.
But some of the abilities they provide are interesting, particularly in how they interact with various other things.
That's not all though...
Having access to these items effectively removes some of the constraints when evaluating colony sites, greatly increasing the potential choices available.

Also, I have a patrol HQ that's spitting out fleets as if it were a military base. This is hillarious/amazing and would have been nice to have for my tagteam event.
[close]

Colonies
Spoiler
The painfully slow growth is actually not that big of a problem.
It's more like insurance as size 3s are totally ignored. So you can, if not outright control when you start facing 'attention' at least have quite a while to prepare for it.
The lower size cap also means the lower growth matters less.
If you want to grow faster there are options, but they will cost you one way or another. This seems fairly well balanced, although there is a strong incentive to run a deficit if you have any growth progress at all so you don't go negative and lose what you've already paid for before you hit the next size.
(Frantically searching for missions to pay for the hazard tax was fairly 'stimulating' lol.)

Being able to spend green points on buildings is p. huge.
This is another avenue that opens up more places as potential colony sites, as you can now arbitarily add +1 to any resources you already have.
[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on March 30, 2021, 02:53:14 AM
"You have 30 days to develop the contact" or something like that, I thought I had a month to do some quests for them, but they always had nothing to say...I realized i just had to press "develop" in the intel tab when I already lost all the story contacts. It's a bit unforgiving, is there really no way to have those contacts back?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Mortrag on March 30, 2021, 03:08:35 AM
"You have 30 days to develop the contact" or something like that, I thought I had a month to do some quests for them, but they always had nothing to say...I realized i just had to press "develop" in the intel tab when I already lost all the story contacts. It's a bit unforgiving, is there really no way to have those contacts back?

I think that one is fixed in the latest hotfix:

Changes as of Hotfix #3 (-RC11), March 28, 2021, 6:00pm EST
  • ...
  • Potential contact intel no longer expires and is flagged as important
  • ...

Have you already re-downloaded and re-installed in the last 12 hours?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 30, 2021, 03:40:42 AM
Not sure if it's an interface spoiler or a bug, but I'll note it anyway: Culann has Pather cells because it allegedly has an AI Core Admin, but the portrait shows a regular portrait13. Also all three colony skills, but I'm pretty sure that NPC admins can just have all three, it's only freelance admins that are limited to a max of two.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 30, 2021, 04:21:26 AM
I found the high-tech pack, and it still has Apogee in it.  No Fury though.  Would be nice if both were on the pack.  High-tech pack does not have enough nice things compared to the other two tech packs (unless they were stripped down since 0.9.1a; have not found those yet).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Spareribs on March 30, 2021, 06:13:11 AM
Can i update the game to get the hotfixes without having to make a new save?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: ANGRYABOUTELVES on March 30, 2021, 06:25:24 AM
Little bug: The colony supply quest (every month produce at least x resource) 
Every month i get the notification that i successfully completed the assignment and that my relations increased by 5. 
Problem is that it's been a few months and while i get this message, the relations with that person are still at 5/100. Not sure about the money, I'm swimming in cash so I didn't check

I got a completion notification for this at one point, but now I can't seem to track down whether I'm actually getting paid. Should it show up in budget? The quest said something like 'Congratulations! You've completed it! You will get paid for 0 remaining months' but I had just freshly completed it... very confused what happened.

Thanks for the report(s)! Made a note to check this all out.
I can confirm that you get no monthly money or rep for completing colony supply quests.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on March 30, 2021, 07:48:27 AM
i kind of dont like how the colony "enhancers" like the synochroton core and such have requirements like "no atmosphere"

its hard enough to actually FIND those things... why are they limited to planetary features?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 30, 2021, 08:19:28 AM
Question:  With Automated Ships skill, can cores be installed into any ship, or only those so-called REDACTED ones?  If so, how does one do it?  I just tried to install a core into a Falcon but could not figure out how to do it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Gosts on March 30, 2021, 09:00:44 AM

E-Burn
Spoiler
Emergency Burn losing it's 'ignore terrain effects' feature has made it significantly less useful.
Storm surfing now always results in supply loss. Annoying but not the end of things, they can be avoided (somewhat).

Getting neutron beamed upon entering a system and instantly losing 100+ supplies is now an instant re-load event.
Eating the fuel cost plus whatever supply damage was done before activating E-Burn was an acceptable loss. Having a non-trivial player activity severely curtailed or even aborted because of rng is not good design.

As it stands, E-Burn is only really useful for avoiding enemies now, so it doesn't see regular use.
Which in turn makes the Containment Procedures skill much less valuable.
[close]

Made an account after years specifically just to say:

Couldn't we just get a warning when warping into a system that the warp point is getting blasted by neutron at the moment? The same way you get a warning when there's a massive fleet on the other side? Doesn't fix all your complaints with E-Burn but this one little feature would make neutron systems actually explorable instead of no-go zones, at least for me.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 30, 2021, 09:04:54 AM
A tip for neutron star systems: if they happen to have a planet, you can transverse jump on top of it and be very close to a safe zone. Its not foolproof,  but its better than the jump points.

Play experience on the new Storm Needler: its fantastic at taking down shields and even a Dominator can mount it without flux troubles! In its own weapon group the AI is also using is fairly intelligently and not wasting it against hull. It feels like an elite weapon.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on March 30, 2021, 09:23:09 AM
If you don't have transverse jump, another safe-ish spot is jumping to the star gravity well itself. This is where the beam moves the slowest and a neutron star's corona is nearly nothing.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Hussar on March 30, 2021, 09:34:06 AM
So, I come to use FIELD REPAIRS perk that gives your ships a chance for removing D-mods over a lengthy period of time. Quite a neat skill however I've noticed that ships that had successfully managed to remove all of their D-mods stay with the (D) suffix to their name. Is that intentional Alex?

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/pjhg4su.png)
[close]

Edit: Also I've noticed that music cuts off often when dealing with the Galatian Academy (most noticeable but it was happening elsewhere as well). Which permanently bugs out music and forces a game restart to restore it... I'm still trying  to nail the exact source of the issue tho.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Golde on March 30, 2021, 10:10:37 AM
Spoiler
I couldn't figure out how to install a hypershunt tap on my colonies that are within 10ly even after repairing the structure.

I ended up redoing the fight to see if I missed a critical dialogue, it turns out the available taps that were stored at the structure have been pilfered (and I'm supposed to go find them).

Afterwards in the same system, I kept on getting intercepted by these prospectors operating in the grey who kept on stammering about their "big find" (is this is a hint I should kill them because they have it?).

I was attacked after the two dialogue options but they're not dropping anything.

Am I missing anything?
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Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Dal on March 30, 2021, 10:21:24 AM
You can change:
"enableUIStaticNoise":true,
to false in data/config/settings.json

This worked perfectly - thank you!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: boredom974 on March 30, 2021, 10:46:20 AM
Settings.json has a value for the maximum number of officers in enemy fleets. The default value is 10, but I keep seeing enemy fleets that ignore this limit and have many more. I have seen fleets with as many as 19 officers and fighting these fleets is a real pain. Is this intentional or is the AI ignoring the limit in some unexpected way?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 30, 2021, 11:07:16 AM
Maybe its mercenaries? I've seen fleets with 25+ officers, most level 6+ (no idea on how many elite skills they have, if any).

Hmmm, what if we just removed the player limit on officers entirely if thats what the AI is doing? Things like deployment, nav bonuses, ecm bonuses, and skills like coordinated maneuvers/wolf pack, and using a fleet with more than 10 ships start working mid/late game that way. Officers are also a pretty large money sink at ~2.5k/month each: late game balance expecting 50k+ in officer maintenance per month would help offset colony income.

Reducing built in hullmods to base 1 to lower player power to compensate also makes ships less 'story point' valuable, so losing them wouldn't be as bad as it currently feels.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on March 30, 2021, 11:21:55 AM
Got strange event in a bar. Was told about possible Perdition blueprint location for 10K. After paying it I got rep boost. However when I traveled to the system there were no blueprints or quest marking of any kind (checked with the unlimited scan range). I'm OK with being lied by the AI but the problem is that quest will stuck in the Accepted unless I abandon it. No negative effects whatsoever but I really don't like that kind of litter in the logs.

1. Is it just a bugged quest or genuine con-action?
2. In any case, is it possible to auto-remove it from the list just as all other completed quests without manual abandon option?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on March 30, 2021, 11:48:52 AM
Got strange event in a bar. Was told about possible Perdition blueprint location for 10K. After paying it I got rep boost. However when I traveled to the system there were no blueprints or quest marking of any kind (checked with the unlimited scan range). I'm OK with being lied by the AI but the problem is that quest will stuck in the Accepted unless I abandon it. No negative effects whatsoever but I really don't like that kind of litter in the logs.

1. Is it just a bugged quest or genuine con-action?
2. In any case, is it possible to auto-remove it from the list just as all other completed quests without manual abandon option?
Blueprints can also be in ruins of a planet. Did you survey everything and explore the potential ruins?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 30, 2021, 11:57:10 AM
Reducing built in hullmods to base 1 to lower player power to compensate also makes ships less 'story point' valuable, so losing them wouldn't be as bad as it currently feels.
With the loss of Loadout Design 3, I want those built-in mods.  Without built-in mods, ships feel OP starved.  I had to give up Reinforced Bulkheads and/or campaign mods to have ships fight well enough.  I really miss the extra OP from Loadout Design 3.  Sure, perma-mods will mean more OP than before, but it also means the ship cannot be replaced just by building a new one without spending more story points.

Ships with ANY built-in green mods will be story-point valuable, and effectively a keeper or "forever" ship.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on March 30, 2021, 12:02:13 PM
Got strange event in a bar. Was told about possible Perdition blueprint location for 10K. After paying it I got rep boost. However when I traveled to the system there were no blueprints or quest marking of any kind (checked with the unlimited scan range). I'm OK with being lied by the AI but the problem is that quest will stuck in the Accepted unless I abandon it. No negative effects whatsoever but I really don't like that kind of litter in the logs.

1. Is it just a bugged quest or genuine con-action?
2. In any case, is it possible to auto-remove it from the list just as all other completed quests without manual abandon option?
Blueprints can also be in ruins of a planet. Did you survey everything and explore the potential ruins?

Nope.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 30, 2021, 12:05:25 PM
Maybe its mercenaries? I've seen fleets with 25+ officers, most level 6+ (no idea on how many elite skills they have, if any).

It's mercenaries, yes. Though they're currently apparently bugged for the player in that you can't go over the limit with them; about to go fix that one now.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TaLaR on March 30, 2021, 12:15:10 PM
It's mercenaries, yes. Though they're currently apparently bugged for the player in that you can't go over the limit with them; about to go fix that one now.

You can keep hiring mercenaries above limit, but can't hire extra normal officers if you take Officer Management skill while count of normal officers + mercs >= 10.

Also, having played this version more - is Officer Management even a good skill, long-term (given it's permanent)? The only drawbacks mercs seem to have is doubled salary (and difficulty of finding ones with good personality + skills). So, Officer Management just reduces my upkeep by 5k, compared to having 2 extra mercs instead of normal officers.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 30, 2021, 12:30:57 PM
Thank you for clarifying - fixed that up, regardless.

Also, having played this version more - is Officer Management even a good skill, long-term (given it's permanent)? The only drawbacks mercs seem to have is doubled salary (and difficulty of finding ones with good personality + skills). So, Officer Management just reduces my upkeep by 5k, compared to having 2 extra mercs instead of normal officers.

Ah - if you hang on to mercs until their contract expires, you'll have some additional data to factor in here.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: sector_terror on March 30, 2021, 12:42:10 PM
Maybe its mercenaries? I've seen fleets with 25+ officers, most level 6+ (no idea on how many elite skills they have, if any).

Hmmm, what if we just removed the player limit on officers entirely if thats what the AI is doing? Things like deployment, nav bonuses, ecm bonuses, and skills like coordinated maneuvers/wolf pack, and using a fleet with more than 10 ships start working mid/late game that way. Officers are also a pretty large money sink at ~2.5k/month each: late game balance expecting 50k+ in officer maintenance per month would help offset colony income.

Reducing built in hullmods to base 1 to lower player power to compensate also makes ships less 'story point' valuable, so losing them wouldn't be as bad as it currently feels.

look in the java files, the bounty fleets at certain levels go above default levels. From difficult levels 8 and above the officer numbers are set above "default" and 9 and 10 are set to "all." It's entirely ignoring that value and would require a full overriding mod to undo.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Rain on March 30, 2021, 12:43:38 PM
Just had a bounty contract from a personal contact generate a bounty in a black hole system (no planets or anything in it, if that might have had something to do with this)... Which turned out to be quite literally stuck inside the black hole when I arrived. As thematic as it might be for miscreants to hide in such places, this seems like it might be worth failsafing somehow. :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on March 30, 2021, 01:06:52 PM
When you go into the comm directory of one of your colonies and speak to an offier or admin for hire and don't hire them, if you leave the colony and return (even instantly) that character is no longer there.

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on March 30, 2021, 01:23:21 PM
i found the new skill system, while pretty interessting and exciting at first glance, VERY restricting...

especially the part that forces you to take skills you dont care about (and skills that you have to take, but ... dont "stack" with other skills earlier in the tree basically making them dead weights (im looking at you salvage skills))... all the while only having
15 skill points for what... 40 available skill options? seems VERY unfun to play into.

talking about salvage... salvage has become really... "frustrating" ever since the diminishing return changes... youd think reserving multiple slots for salvage ships would make more of an impact than basically 50 to around 60 % salvage effectiveness (and on that note, salvage seems to give alot less supplies as a result of that)

considering how exceptionally important some skills are compared to the rest (double ammo for all missiles? another build in slot for all ships? transverse jump/ ecm for all ships? +1 burn level, etc), skills you cant just slot and choose because of how the skill"tree" forces you to progress linear, it ACTUALLY WASTES POINTS YOU WOULDNT NEED, an issue when skillpoints have become so limited

this becomes a real problem when you consider officer skills (and how limited those have become), compared to ai officers, that somehow arent limited? Because some of those skills ARE really strong and increase the combat effectiveness of a ship drastically, and despite their hard limit of levels, you still cannot pick and choose the skills you need, they are still random

and again, i think one of the biggest problem with the current skill system is that it is way too limiting, to the point of you having to min max efficiently, instead of choosing skills to tailor your playstile, which i bet isnt the intended design.

it also makes some ships really bad to fly (case and point paragon), i dont know what it is but the paragon has become exceptionally sluggish to fly, manouver, and its flux management has become atrocious, even without quad lances or plasmas
(the lack of the old "bonus % of op" skill means, despite inbuild systems, bigger ships have WAY LESS op than before (with all the problems included in the "build in systems" feature already mentioned)

the skillsystem (in my opinion) should have another lookover with those problems in mind, (and it could use more of those elite skills if im honest, and make said elite skills more impactful, you know, with them being elite and all)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 30, 2021, 01:50:36 PM
When you defeat a fleet of automated ships defending a Domain Era Probe, and then loot the probe, you end up with two different debris fields - one from the battle, and one from the probe. It's really not obvious and annoying to harvest them separately (if still majorly less annoying than it was to harvest them six times in 0.9.1, mind), so would it be possible to combine the two debris fields into one?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on March 30, 2021, 02:04:08 PM
Suggestion: after unlocking the 5 skill levels instead of starting over you should be able to unlock any remaining skill. I think otherwise 15 skill points is not enough and feels very restricting. Choosing skills should be about choosing playstyles but right now you can't even unlock all the colony management skills. So basically the game denies me this kind of playstyle.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: boredom974 on March 30, 2021, 02:20:26 PM
The limit on officers is misleading. I thought I would be fine with the max number of officers and that the AI would play by the same rules, but now I'm stuck fighting every major battle outnumbered by 50% and with a 20% range debuff. While the effect of more officers on navigation and ECM makes sense, I feel that the officer effect on deployment points is counterintuitive. Just because I don't have as many officers my larger fleet is suddenly outnumbered on the field?

And if the AI can just double or triple its officer numbers beyond the default limit through mercenaries, what's the point of a limit at all? It's not even a soft limit for the AI, they just blow past the limit by a mile. Wouldn't it be more reasonable for really tough AI fleets to have 8-12 officers, only occasionally surpassing the limit with a couple mercenaries? Or am I expected to have a dozen merc officers myself to compete with this in the endgame, ignoring the limit myself? Is this even possible? What happens when a merc's contract runs out, can you renew the contract for free or do you need another story point?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 30, 2021, 02:21:16 PM
Oh, I don't think I've mentioned this yet: The new escort order is fantastic! I feel like my escorts are almost always doing the exact right thing. They don't get in my way, they cover my flanks, and they wrap around to attack targets in my frontal/side region.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Drazhya on March 30, 2021, 02:33:20 PM
Finally managed to punch above my weight (DP) against Remnant in the latest version, and with a Legion of all things. 1 Legion(XIV) backed by 1 Champion, both AI-controlled (with decent officers), won handily against 2 Brilliants, 2 Scintillas and 4 or so frigates.
The Champion has a lot of weapon slots, but not nearly enough flux to use them - a single Plasma Cannon uses almost all of it's max dissipation. It's basically a fat, tanky Sunder with a large missile. And, I guess, that's all it needs to be.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 30, 2021, 02:45:28 PM
Congrats! I'm happy with the Champion - to me it seems like you have to build it for a purpose, but its flexible what that purpose is. Mine is 'anti small ship' at the moment, with a locust, heavy autocannons, and a tach lance. High energy focus lance with a range specialist officer and gunnery implants really overwhelms frigate/destroyer shields while also being potent fire support against cruiser and capitals. I want another one so I can play around with an (built in) SO Champion!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: pairedeciseaux on March 30, 2021, 02:51:36 PM
Got strange event in a bar. Was told about possible Perdition blueprint location for 10K. After paying it I got rep boost. However when I traveled to the system there were no blueprints or quest marking of any kind (checked with the unlimited scan range). I'm OK with being lied by the AI but the problem is that quest will stuck in the Accepted unless I abandon it. No negative effects whatsoever but I really don't like that kind of litter in the logs.

1. Is it just a bugged quest or genuine con-action?
2. In any case, is it possible to auto-remove it from the list just as all other completed quests without manual abandon option?

Blueprints can also be in ruins of a planet. Did you survey everything and explore the potential ruins?

I have the same issue with a Phantom Blueprint mission.

Now that I have Neutrino Detector, I need to go back there and check if I missed something. Fortunately it is not far from core worlds.

I have to admit I suspect(ed) a scam.  ;D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 30, 2021, 02:55:15 PM
Haha my Phantom mission is in a triple ping red system... lets just say the fleet I originally took looking for it has a few more holes than is healthy and I didn't spend long looking!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Pokpaul on March 30, 2021, 02:57:17 PM
Loving all the new quests and things to do.

I quite appreciate it that in many cases it tell you how far a quest location is from you. Except for that could be in any direction.

Would it be somehow possible for the intel map to pop up during the mission dialogue, so that you could see exactly where you're going and where your other mission targets are and if it makes sense?

It would be especially nice when you want to clump missions together. Right now that can be a big pain.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Wyvern on March 30, 2021, 03:07:08 PM
Would it be somehow possible for the intel map to pop up during the mission dialogue, so that you could see exactly where you're going and where your other mission targets are and if it makes sense?

It would be especially nice when you want to clump missions together. Right now that can be a big pain.
As a note, this is much more of an issue for regular contacts than it is for, say, the Galatea Academy missions - and the key difference there is that the GA missions generally don't have timeouts, so if something comes up that's the wrong way you just... don't do it right then, and can go back later.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 30, 2021, 03:42:37 PM
Another hotfix up! Fixes one more save-loading crash, and a couple more misc issues. Also reduces XP required to get from level 10 to 15 substantially, and what's required to gain story points after. In particular, this means 2.5x faster story point gain past max level.

Full details on changes in OP.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Farlarzia on March 30, 2021, 04:05:35 PM
After some more playtesting, a few more oddities I noticed, this time pertaining to ship AI

Fighters: I've only seen this once, but I've had fighters (3 bomber wings from the same carrier) inexplictly stop functioning properly, and instead all tighly circling the exact same spot on the battlefield, right in the midst of enemy ships. Sadly I can't tell you much more than this.

Medusa Destroyer: Consistently refuses to aim, and thus fire its 2 frontal hardpoints, which really hampers its combat potential (Example image in spoiler). My best guess is that it is caused by prioritising getting 3 of the small energies on target, over the frontal hardpoints.
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/HqRetAU.png)
[close]

Edit: The new XP threshold changes caused me to jump from level 12 to 15. However, despite gaining 2 skillpoints from this, I only gained 1 story point.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on March 30, 2021, 04:22:19 PM
So, I just finished off a 'couple' of very tough enemies (game spoiler, don't read if you didn't understand what I meant)
Spoiler
Had a blast. First time I tried without the ziggurat and I thought I could kill them, went behind with the hyperion and disabled it while the other one murdered half my fleet. didn't expect it to spawn more stuff so i couldn't do it. Second time i got the big guns and lost miserably, third time i used a monitor to peel one of them away while my paragon and ziggurat killed the other. I love stuff like this, trying out new loadouts to defeat a certain type of enemies etc. 
[close]
About the new thing
Spoiler
weapons
[close]

I really hate missiles because while powerful and you most likely won't use them all in a fight, I can't help but hate the fact that they are a finite resource, which makes me use them way too sparingly (I don't REALLY need to use them now, i can do fine without, i might need it later...). I realize that i just performed better if i put something else like more flux instead of the missiles...or just went piliums and salamanders.. 
Spoiler
And you added not one but two missiles that don't make use of limited ammo!? yes please! my only problem with that is the fact that they are too limited and you have to defeat the bosses to get it, wish i could get them earlier and in bigger numbers :p
[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Organs on March 30, 2021, 04:22:38 PM
So far I have encountered a couple problems others have mentioned in here, though I also noticed that after successfully bombarding Kapteyn Starworks the after-action message mentioned it as $entity.name
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Jarvis on March 30, 2021, 04:24:59 PM

Would it be somehow possible for the intel map to pop up during the mission dialogue, so that you could see exactly where you're going and where your other mission targets are and if it makes sense?

It would be especially nice when you want to clump missions together. Right now that can be a big pain.

What I usually do is decline the quest, go to the intel screen go to the second tab "planets", and filter to only stars and sort by name. It should be relatively easy to find the location mentioned in the quest, decide if it is worth taking, and if it is then go back to the bar or wherever you go the quest and accept it.

Though I do agree showing this information while getting the mission would be much more useful.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 30, 2021, 04:35:42 PM
Fighters: I've only seen this once, but I've had fighters (3 bomber wings from the same carrier) inexplictly stop functioning properly, and instead all tighly circling the exact same spot on the battlefield, right in the midst of enemy ships. Sadly I can't tell you much more than this.

Thank you, I'll keep an eye out!

Medusa Destroyer: Consistently refuses to aim, and thus fire its 2 frontal hardpoints, which really hampers its combat potential (Example image in spoiler). My best guess is that it is caused by prioritising getting 3 of the small energies on target, over the frontal hardpoints.
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/HqRetAU.png)
[close]

Hmm - can't reproduce this at all over here, with a loadout that looks the same. Maybe the weapon groups you have on it are borked?

Edit: The new XP threshold changes caused me to jump from level 12 to 15. However, despite gaining 2 skillpoints from this, I only gained 1 story point.

Ah - on the bright side, you'll get more SP in the long run. Still, sorry :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Farlarzia on March 30, 2021, 05:13:39 PM


Hmm - can't reproduce this at all over here, with a loadout that looks the same. Maybe the weapon groups you have on it are borked?


The weapon groups are visible in the bottom of that screenshot - fairly normal.
I forgot to mention, it was also piloted by an aggressive officer, maybe thats why?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 30, 2021, 05:30:46 PM
The weapon groups are visible in the bottom of that screenshot - fairly normal.
I forgot to mention, it was also piloted by an aggressive officer, maybe thats why?

Re: groups, ah, duh!

Still - tried same groups, aggressive officer, not seeing even a *hint* of the problem; it's always facing the Aurora head on. Strange.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on March 30, 2021, 05:35:20 PM
Just docked with a randomly generated derelict in hyperspace, and looted a level 7 officer from the ship (with Steady and skills I want).  Basically a randomly generated god-unit handed to me on a silver platter.  I guess I better check randomly-spawned wrecks for more free high-powered officers.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: RustyCabbage on March 30, 2021, 06:12:38 PM
I've also had the issue with the turning Medusa before in 0.9.1a, but I was never able to recreate the issue consistently.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Pokpaul on March 30, 2021, 06:31:53 PM

What I usually do is decline the quest, go to the intel screen go to the second tab "planets", and filter to only stars and sort by name. It should be relatively easy to find the location mentioned in the quest, decide if it is worth taking, and if it is then go back to the bar or wherever you go the quest and accept it.

Though I do agree showing this information while getting the mission would be much more useful.

When we're talking about quests to systems you haven't explored, finding locations via intel planet list doesn't help so much.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 30, 2021, 06:39:09 PM
Would it be somehow possible for the intel map to pop up during the mission dialogue, so that you could see exactly where you're going and where your other mission targets are and if it makes sense?

It would be especially nice when you want to clump missions together. Right now that can be a big pain.

(Just wanted to say, it's something I've thought about and would like to look at - well, not exactly, but similar-ish. Just... time and priorities, if you know what I mean.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Cyan Leader on March 30, 2021, 06:53:43 PM
If I change the max level, say to 20, will that affect the rate in which I get story points? As in, if a player that stays at level 15 gains X XP and gets 10 story points, would another player that is also at 15 but has a higher level limit get the same number of story points?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 30, 2021, 07:04:34 PM
Hmm - I think a straight up change in max level in settings would, yes, you'd gain story points... 1.1^5 ~= 1.61 times slower.

It's possible to mod LevelUpPluginImpl - or just adjust these two values in it via a simple ModPlugin:

public static float EXPONENT_BEYOND_MAX_SPECIFIED_LEVEL = 1.1f;
public static float XP_REQUIRED_FOR_STORY_POINT_GAIN_AT_MAX_LEVEL_MULT = 2f;

To adjust the behavior to your liking.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Helldiver on March 30, 2021, 07:13:15 PM
Some feedback after testing 0.95a and the hotfixes for a while.

It is very easy, even without specifically seeking to (no abusing oversights), to become immensily rich within hours of starting a playthrough. As a result, buying capital ships or founding new colonies quickly becomes something that you do with as much gravitas as ordering pizza, which feels bad and doesn't create a feeling of achieving or working towards something.

The Auxiliary Support skill is awesome in concept (weaponizing civ ships) but in practice there are very few civ-hull ships worth using as combat ships (in part because there are few civvie hulls overall), and the skill mechanics push you into supercharging one or two big ships rather than filling up holes in a fleet with auxiliaries.
I tried using the Escort Package in various ways and was unsuccesful. For example, I tried to make a Tarsus (a sturdy transport that lore indicates as sometimes being used for combat) into a cheap freighter that can escort a bigger ship with its four hardpoints. However, even with the boost to PD range, when ordered to escort a cruiser the Tarsus never had enough range to hit any fighters or missiles flying at the cruiser even when sitting at its side (when it doesn't sit far behind).
Final point regarding the skill, the player is so rich early-on that there isn't much point in using weaponized civvie ships in place of combat ships, outside of those that were already effectively combat ships before (i.e Venture). The player is never desperate for combat power because combat ships are always readily available and easily purchased.

Some of the new missions can require you to change your methods which is nice. For example, in the spy sat missions I had one to place one in orbit of Sindria, which I achieved by buying a Gremlin, putting the rest of my fleet in storage, and approaching with the single Gremlin in Go Dark. More like that!

The new
Spoiler
domain-era industry boosting items
[close]
seem to drop too easily. You quickly have so many of them you start selling them off when it feels like such tech would be very precious.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: sector_terror on March 30, 2021, 08:36:55 PM
I didn't expect alex to drop the EXP requirement for levels 10-15. Good to see, the exponential curve was a bit much. I just didn't see it as breaking. Now if only the fleet limits on those skills that have them were removed or raised drastically...I'd be quite the happy man.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 30, 2021, 09:21:23 PM
I'm really on the fence about the fleet numbers in leadership and I think I just need more playtime to wrap my head around the skills. I keep waffling between extreme opinions (so both are probably wrong).

A few numbers for the carrier replacement time skill: carriers last version had very high replacement rates because of the fleetwide skill and expanded deck crew. To get the same bonus as the skill from last version, the player can still have 20 decks, or 10 drovers. So that fleet limited skill is more like... if you have just a few carriers they get a massive boost, if you have a full large carrier wing its the same as last version (well the skill is: other changes have tweaked things I'm sure).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Soban on March 30, 2021, 10:18:37 PM
The drop in XP requirements is a welcome one. Been stuck at level 12 for a long time!

Microsoft seems to not like the RC12 installer for some reason. Think I saw the same thing with RC9 for 0.95 as it flagged both as suspect when trying to start them.

Bit curious about the need for heavy armaments for defensive works, yet they don't seem to give any benefits to the attacker in turn which does not seem to really go with the revamped raiding. Really loving it thus far though!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: DancingMonkey on March 30, 2021, 10:28:46 PM
Carriers with Pilums seem to want to stay at pilum range instead of getting into fighter range even when manually clicking on them then right clicking on an enemy ship in the command view.

Having this issue with condor class carriers.

This seems like wrong behavior. They don't have an officer on them.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Rain on March 30, 2021, 11:03:45 PM
Some feedback so far (unmodded save for eye candy and portraits):

I'll say I didn't necessarily mind the slower levelling to cap, though the SP acquisition thereafter sure became very slow for my tastes. Will be interesting to see how quick they come in now post-patch.

So far level cap feels a *little* stingy at 15; next game I'll try with some awkward middle number (17, 18 or 19); I do understand a reluctance to let the player pick up a lot of the level 5 skills, but at the same time, a little more ability to branch out juuuust a little more might feel better (even if that could make players want more and more and more and I guess this is fairly easily tweaked by individual players regardless).

Pairing skills where you can only actually feasibly use one feels pretty bad for the wraparound, perhaps most notably the shields/phase ships pairing in Combat. If it was consistently a pairing of things where you could adjust to and change your fleet or flagship to make use of what might've been 'dead' skills, I think this grating point could be smoothed out a little.

I haven't ran into the aggressively officer-spamming types of enemies quite yet (though I'm getting to the point where I'm starting to sit at -20% range at all times...) but I can see a concern there, particularly with the deployment limits.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: sector_terror on March 30, 2021, 11:42:27 PM
I'm really on the fence about the fleet numbers in leadership and I think I just need more playtime to wrap my head around the skills. I keep waffling between extreme opinions (so both are probably wrong).

A few numbers for the carrier replacement time skill: carriers last version had very high replacement rates because of the fleetwide skill and expanded deck crew. To get the same bonus as the skill from last version, the player can still have 20 decks, or 10 drovers. So that fleet limited skill is more like... if you have just a few carriers they get a massive boost, if you have a full large carrier wing its the same as last version (well the skill is: other changes have tweaked things I'm sure).

....curse you Thaago for making realize that. you are adding to my further doubt about the removal of fleet limits! Stop that! But you are right, 50% replacement time across the whole is better than cap 35% from the original, and it's gained in -one- skill rather than 3 skills at level 3. If teit 1 and 2 in leadership weren't such trash, it be more viable. I still think 6 is too limited though, make it 30(5 astral) or at least 20(5 legions) before we see a dip. Still looking into how the cap numbers work. That way late game fleets can still be built around carriers.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Reavenant on March 31, 2021, 01:38:37 AM
Hello!
I'm having problems loading my saves after updating from RC10 to RC12. Could anyone please share with me the RC11 installer for troubleshooting?

Regards
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Baqar79 on March 31, 2021, 01:55:18 AM
After maximizing my level, I wouldn't mind seeing the cap raised another 5 levels or so.

Regarding "Phase Corps"; the Revenant and Phantom class phase ships seem to count towards the combat limit which means my 2 Revenant's in my fleet are right at the cap before I start losing my phase flux and peak operating time bonus.  I do like the fleet bonus part of this skill however, as my two Revenant cargo/fuel haulers in my exploration fleet give a decent reduction in my overall sensor profile.

Is the "Sensors" half burn speed working as intended? It seems to be half the unmodified speed of your slowest ship, which also applies to the Falcon(P)'s built-in Augmented drives hullmod.  It's still a great skill for sneaking around in regardless, though it would be neat if I was able to increase the 'Go Dark' burn level with hullmods like Augmented Drives or even by wrapping around the Technology tree to pick "Navigation".

"Field Repairs" seem to have a relatively low limit of 60 deployment recovery points.  For example with the exploration start, you are sitting at about 38 deployment points, so it is fairly easy to hit the cap.  Any chance of bringing that up to somewhere around "Crew Training" and "Makeshift Equipment" levels (eg ~180 to 200 deployment supplies)?

I'm also missing the skill that gives a 50% reduction of d-mod penalties from the previous version of the game.  I use a lot of Converted Hangar's on my ships so that was something I always picked.  "Derelict Contingent" seems to focus on damage reduction and doesn't really have a neat equivalent to "Field Repairs" bi-monthly d-mod removal, so what about adding that 50% penalty reduction back here?

Very much enjoying the release...though a bit too much at the moment.  Once I can get past the addiction stage of a new release, hopefully I can digest the content in detail and at a much more comfortable and thorough rate :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Summerstorm on March 31, 2021, 05:05:39 AM
Non-critical Bug: Marines don't leave due to debt.

Unsure if already fixed (Had it in RC9) - but didn't see anything about it in Patch-Notes:
If one is in Debt, and docks, a message points out the number of leaving Crew and Marines. Crew gets substracted, Marines stay untouched. Maybe a wrong variable or something?

Also: Man i missed the new Version by a day last week. Yay... also: Don't like the new Skillsystem, hehe (Still dumping freaking hours back into the game... so good)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Farlarzia on March 31, 2021, 06:08:26 AM
Delved a little more into the problem with the Medusa AI, and found a couple of interesting things.

1: This AI problem only occurs with an officer with the Gunnery Implants skill

2: The small weapon slots didn't even matter! Even with just the Heavy Blasters and Light Needlers, it still constantly tilts to the side

3: Officer Aggressiveness wasn't a factor - this behavior occurs on Timid, Reckless, and everything inbetween.

Following these criteria, I am able to consistently replicate this issue.

I can also provide a copy of my save if that would help - I have no mods installed that would be affecting AI (Only Console Commands and Lazy lib - I wanted to refund myself a few story points after I wasted a fair few coming to grips with the new skill and officer system).

Edit: Heres a screenshot of the Ship loadout as well, just in case.
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/u46pObC.png?1)
[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 31, 2021, 07:35:15 AM
Two things I've noticed about colony-related stuff. First, punitive expeditions seem more common now than they were in 0.9.1. I think I've yet to not have at least one expedition be planning or underway at any point I checked in with my colonies since the first one was launched. Second, possibly related to the first point, trade fleets are getting lost with alarming frequency. Again, every time I check my colony stuff it seems at least one planet is suffering from a lost trade fleet.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Soban on March 31, 2021, 07:43:53 AM
Noticed a potential issue with raids.

Currently with marines gaining XP you are unable to separate them from the green rookies to the hardcore marines that could pinpoint a coin 3 miles way with a sniper rifle during crosswind while half drunk on vodka.

When you try to split the amount of troops the amount left shows the insignia of a higher rank, with the more you split the higher the rank goes, leading me to think that its how the system is supposed to work. Unfortunately even if I merge a stack of veterans and rookies, the split function does not seem to work. Each stack is left with the same bonuses. So can't get a hardcore veteran unit even if I want to.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Awe on March 31, 2021, 08:41:16 AM
Oh, I don't think I've mentioned this yet: The new escort order is fantastic! I feel like my escorts are almost always doing the exact right thing. They don't get in my way, they cover my flanks, and they wrap around to attack targets in my frontal/side region.

I have exactly opposite feelings. My escort omens still continue to fly in front of my paragon, and also old suicidal behavior not fixed - from time to time they are just bump itself do death even on straight flights without enemy nearby.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 31, 2021, 10:06:02 AM
Thank you for all the bug reports and feedback! Read through everything and made some notes; some assorted responses below.


One thing I'm curious about: whether hotfix -RC12 has made a difference as far as the danger level of enemy ships feeling unpredictable. The weapon-damage-modifiers-sticking-around issue could have had some major impact there, so I'd like to get some fresh feedback on this!


"Field Repairs" seem to have a relatively low limit of 60 deployment recovery points.  For example with the exploration start, you are sitting at about 38 deployment points, so it is fairly easy to hit the cap.  Any chance of bringing that up to somewhere around "Crew Training" and "Makeshift Equipment" levels (eg ~180 to 200 deployment supplies)?

Ah - the bonus there is also *really high*. Its also the sort of bonus where it's ok for it to be high sometimes - unlike some other kinds of stat boosts that are more directly combat-involved. So I think it's more interesting to have a really high bonus for a small fleet - since that opens up a few more potential options, instead of going for, say, 4x the point limit and 1/4th of the bonus.

Microsoft seems to not like the RC12 installer for some reason. Think I saw the same thing with RC9 for 0.95 as it flagged both as suspect when trying to start them.

Yeah, not much I can feasibly do there. Always false positives somewhere...

Bit curious about the need for heavy armaments for defensive works, yet they don't seem to give any benefits to the attacker in turn which does not seem to really go with the revamped raiding. Really loving it thus far though!

I've thought about factoring them in somehow, but from what I remember nothing really satisfying and mechanically interesting really came to mind. So, uh: they require too much assembly and deployment effort to utilize for quick raids.


Carriers with Pilums seem to want to stay at pilum range instead of getting into fighter range even when manually clicking on them then right clicking on an enemy ship in the command view.

Having this issue with condor class carriers.

This seems like wrong behavior. They don't have an officer on them.

Made a note, thank you!


So far level cap feels a *little* stingy at 15; next game I'll try with some awkward middle number (17, 18 or 19); I do understand a reluctance to let the player pick up a lot of the level 5 skills, but at the same time, a little more ability to branch out juuuust a little more might feel better (even if that could make players want more and more and more and I guess this is fairly easily tweaked by individual players regardless).

(I'm actually thinking about letting the player have access to 1-2 more skill points through non-level-based means at some point, so, we're probably on the same page here.)


Hello!
I'm having problems loading my saves after updating from RC10 to RC12. Could anyone please share with me the RC11 installer for troubleshooting?

Regards

Hi - do you have mods? I've heard about mod-related issues with this, due to mods putting things they shouldn't into the save file.


I'm really on the fence about the fleet numbers in leadership and I think I just need more playtime to wrap my head around the skills. I keep waffling between extreme opinions (so both are probably wrong).

A few numbers for the carrier replacement time skill: carriers last version had very high replacement rates because of the fleetwide skill and expanded deck crew. To get the same bonus as the skill from last version, the player can still have 20 decks, or 10 drovers. So that fleet limited skill is more like... if you have just a few carriers they get a massive boost, if you have a full large carrier wing its the same as last version (well the skill is: other changes have tweaked things I'm sure).

FWIW, I'm thinking of increasing some of the point limits a bit, at least for the skills that are intended to apply to the whole fleet and not to a small subgroup within a fleet. So e.g. I could see raising it from 180 to 240 for Crew Training (240 being 60% of max battlesize), but not for Carrier Group or Phase Corps, necessarily - since those skills are about boosting a small contingent within the fleet without encouraging mono-fleets.


Delved a little more into the problem with the Medusa AI, and found a couple of interesting things.

1: This AI problem only occurs with an officer with the Gunnery Implants skill

2: The small weapon slots didn't even matter! Even with just the Heavy Blasters and Light Needlers, it still constantly tilts to the side

3: Officer Aggressiveness wasn't a factor - this behavior occurs on Timid, Reckless, and everything inbetween.

Following these criteria, I am able to consistently replicate this issue.

I can also provide a copy of my save if that would help - I have no mods installed that would be affecting AI (Only Console Commands and Lazy lib - I wanted to refund myself a few story points after I wasted a fair few coming to grips with the new skill and officer system).

Edit: Heres a screenshot of the Ship loadout as well, just in case.
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/u46pObC.png?1)
[close]

Thank you! If you can send me the save, that would be *great*. I did try it with Gunnery Implants yesterday and it wasn't happening, so the save would be really handy.

fractalsoftworks [at] gmail [dot] com


Two things I've noticed about colony-related stuff. First, punitive expeditions seem more common now than they were in 0.9.1. I think I've yet to not have at least one expedition be planning or underway at any point I checked in with my colonies since the first one was launched.

Hmm - is this vanilla? Looking at the code, this seems very unlikely, so if it's happening it's a bug, but I'm not seeing how it could happen. With vanilla settings (which can be changed with settings.json tweaks) there's a 95% chance after 1 expedition to have a 1-3 cycle timeout on all expeditions. This chance goes to 100% after two expeditions are sent. If you've got a vanilla save where this is happening, I'd love to take a look!


Noticed a potential issue with raids.

Currently with marines gaining XP you are unable to separate them from the green rookies to the hardcore marines that could pinpoint a coin 3 miles way with a sniper rifle during crosswind while half drunk on vodka.

When you try to split the amount of troops the amount left shows the insignia of a higher rank, with the more you split the higher the rank goes, leading me to think that its how the system is supposed to work. Unfortunately even if I merge a stack of veterans and rookies, the split function does not seem to work. Each stack is left with the same bonuses. So can't get a hardcore veteran unit even if I want to.

The way this works is if you split the stack and move the picked-up marines out of your fleet, as much experience as possible will be retained by the marines in your fleet. But if you put the stack back down in your cargo, the XP will be divided between all the marines in your fleet. There's no concept of "unit"; all the marines in your fleet share the same XP level.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Anvel on March 31, 2021, 10:50:19 AM
A little behavior bug, Radiant beta-ai, uses his sabot missiles(all 4 launchers) on every enemy ship especially fighters but at the same time almost don't use it on enemy capitals (mostly fighting redacted fleets now, he almost doesn't use sabots against big ships), similar with his 2xHammer barrage launchers but not in such scale.
Composition
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/VkV2g7F.png)
[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 31, 2021, 11:16:28 AM
Quote
Hmm - is this vanilla? Looking at the code, this seems very unlikely, so if it's happening it's a bug, but I'm not seeing how it could happen. With vanilla settings (which can be changed with settings.json tweaks) there's a 95% chance after 1 expedition to have a 1-3 cycle timeout on all expeditions. This chance goes to 100% after two expeditions are sent. If you've got a vanilla save where this is happening, I'd love to take a look!
Save should be 100% vanilla minus one change in settings.josn ("decivProbPerMonthOverStreak":0, vanilla value is 0.1). As for the numbers, I'm not sure. I'll admit I could have failed to notice time passing while I'm off exploring, but those numbers sound a lot more restrictive than I recall seeing. I know I've seen at least several double expeditions so far, so a 95% chance of them not happening is curious. For the record I've got all my four colonies set to freeport, but none have any AI cores installed...yet ;).

I've got a save, though it's too large to attach, so where should I send it?

EDIT: Derp.
Quote
Thank you! If you can send me the save, that would be *great*. I did try it with Gunnery Implants yesterday and it wasn't happening, so the save would be really handy.

fractalsoftworks [at] gmail [dot] com
That'll teach me to respond before reading.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 31, 2021, 11:27:26 AM
A little behavior bug, Radiant beta-ai, uses his sabot missiles(all 4 launchers) on every enemy ship especially fighters but at the same time almost don't use it on enemy capitals (mostly fighting redacted fleets now, he almost doesn't use sabots against big ships), similar with his 2xHammer barrage launchers but not in such scale.
Composition
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/VkV2g7F.png)
[close]

Does this happen vs a "run simulation" opponent? If so: would you mind emailing me your save? fractalsoftworks [at] gmail [dot]com

Thank you!

Save should be 100% vanilla minus one change in settings.josn ("decivProbPerMonthOverStreak":0, vanilla value is 0.1). As for the numbers, I'm not sure. I'll admit I could have failed to notice time passing while I'm off exploring, but those numbers sound a lot more restrictive than I recall seeing. I know I've seen at least several double expeditions so far, so a 95% chance of them not happening is curious. For the record I've got all my four colonies set to freeport, but none have any AI cores installed...yet ;).

I've got a save, though it's too large to attach, so where should I send it?

EDIT: Derp.
Quote
Thank you! If you can send me the save, that would be *great*. I did try it with Gunnery Implants yesterday and it wasn't happening, so the save would be really handy.

fractalsoftworks [at] gmail [dot] com
That'll teach me to respond before reading.

Thank you!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on March 31, 2021, 11:51:37 AM
Omg. I've not managed to do any of the plot until now, and Sebestyen is such a wonderful puppydog.
He's just so excited about science! And it's possibly one of the most (https://i.imgur.com/vEQpb0n.gif) things I have ever seen in a game.

David doing Ludd's work.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on March 31, 2021, 11:54:08 AM
Send it in, and I'll keep the save around in case there's anything missing (I know I attached the save, but now I'm not seeing it anymore...).

For the record: According to the historian's history overview my colonies reached size 4 midway through cycle 211, and the save is shortly before the start of cycle 215 - 3½ cycles for my colonies to attract expeditions, since IIRC size 3 colonies don't (mine certainly didn't). I think, if I understand the numbers correctly, I should have gotten no more than six expeditions during that time even at the worst possible odds. But I'm sure I've seen more than six.

My guess would be that freeport-related stuff doesn't count as a punitive expedition, since IIRC I've gotten most of my grief from the Hegemony and Luddic Church, whereas Tri-Tachyon especially has been very slow to get the expedition train rolling. And, well, if they don't that's on me for not knowing game mechanics I guess, but playing the game it really doesn't seem that different to have the Hegemony come burn down your megaport because it's a hive of scum and villainy over them burning down your orbital works because Chico can't handle the competition.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Ishman on March 31, 2021, 11:57:17 AM
Spoiler
A little behavior bug, Radiant beta-ai, uses his sabot missiles(all 4 launchers) on every enemy ship especially fighters but at the same time almost don't use it on enemy capitals (mostly fighting redacted fleets now, he almost doesn't use sabots against big ships), similar with his 2xHammer barrage launchers but not in such scale.
Composition
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/VkV2g7F.png)
[close]
[close]
Does this happen vs a "run simulation" opponent? If so: would you mind emailing me your save? fractalsoftworks [at] gmail [dot]com

Thank you!


I've noticed this behavior with a gryphon in my fleet - I stopped deploying it outside of piloting it myself for this reason. It almost completely refuses to use sabots against cruisers and capitols, but would dump them on the first fighters to come into range of it. Didn't have enough hangar bays in my fleet to get complete fighter coverage and sweep the skies, so I couldn't even use the linked missiles with pd weapon trick to force it to fire them. It also incidentally almost never fires a hammer barrage I have equipped on it (for personally piloting), only hurricane mirvs are fired about as you'd expect. A legion XIV I have performs quite admirably with locusts/hurricanes, but almost never used hammers. Default fit conquest never once fired the cyclones as far as I could tell, it was always at 20/20 whenever I swapped control to it.

I appreciate the burn AI being changed to be more cautious, but as far as I can tell, my legion doesn't actually use it at all outside of full assault. Not even as mobility to hurry through the battlespace.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 31, 2021, 12:10:21 PM
Omg. I've not managed to do any of the plot until now, and Sebestyen is such a wonderful puppydog.
He's just so excited about science! And it's possibly one of the most (https://i.imgur.com/vEQpb0n.gif) things I have ever seen in a game.

David doing Ludd's work.

:D :D :D

(There are two kinds of people in this world: the kind that wave back, and the kind I'd feel fine assigning to Talon duty.)

I've noticed this behavior with a gryphon in my fleet - I stopped deploying it outside of piloting it myself for this reason. It almost completely refuses to use sabots against cruisers and capitols, but would dump them on the first fighters to come into range of it. Didn't have enough hangar bays in my fleet to get complete fighter coverage and sweep the skies, so I couldn't even use the linked missiles with pd weapon trick to force it to fire them. It also incidentally almost never fires a hammer barrage I have equipped on it (for personally piloting), only hurricane mirvs are fired about as you'd expect. A legion XIV I have performs quite admirably with locusts/hurricanes, but almost never used hammers. Default fit conquest never once fired the cyclones as far as I could tell, it was always at 20/20 whenever I swapped control to it.

Odd! I'm seeing reliable Hammer use in general, and so far (from the save Anvel sent in) not seeing the use of Sabots vs fighters. Wonder what's different.

I appreciate the burn AI being changed to be more cautious, but as far as I can tell, my legion doesn't actually use it at all outside of full assault. Not even as mobility to hurry through the battlespace.

Hmm, just at a quick glance, it seems to be using it for mobility just fine over here, so that's strange.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Anvel on March 31, 2021, 12:13:57 PM
Does this happen vs a "run simulation" opponent? If so: would you mind emailing me your save? fractalsoftworks [at] gmail [dot]com

Thank you!

Sent my save.
This mostly happens in big fights, sometimes he uses all sabot missiles on fighters even before he gets to capital ships, even if he started to fight one sometimes he just fire his missiles at the nearest enemy, not at the biggest threat or enemy he appointed at. Even in simulation vs 3 condors + astral, it seems he can't decide what to do, ending up shooting at fighters with his tahion lance and sabot missiles. Simulation vs 2 onslaughts, shoots his lance and hammers, not plasma or sabot.
I think ai behavior is just not aggressive enough, ship is so strong and durable it must jump on people trying to use all its weapons, and forbid sabot missile usage vs fighters.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on March 31, 2021, 12:17:27 PM
I noticed one strange issue in the sim where a conquest with a cautious officer, with gunnery implants and gauss was using maneuvering jets to drift in and out of range for no reason against an onslaught (slow and completely outranged).

I've also felt like aggressive officers are less aggressive. I've seen an aurora with an aggressive officer use plasma jets to back off on 0 flux in real combat, although I've been having trouble reproducing that, there might have been some fighters around or something.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 31, 2021, 12:26:45 PM
I have had a few problems with aggression, though it was more with steady officers. In that case it was dominators staying completely out of range of a Radiant battleship. Normally not a bad idea, but when I have full assault, specific eliminate orders, multiple cruisers all pointed at the ship, and the ships are at 0 flux and not being fired on, I really want them to move into gun range.

In that one instance I swapped command of my ship, pressed F to burn drive in, and quickly swapped command to another ship and pressed F again, before going back to my flagship. Funny, but not ideal. :D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 31, 2021, 12:38:02 PM
Hmm. So I just fixed an aggression-related issue - even reckless/eliminate-ordered ships were considering optimal rather than minimal weapon range under certain circumstances.

But regarding Sabot use, no luck so far. E.G. that Radiant from Anvel's save vs an Atlas and 3x Condor in the simulation, I haven't seen it fire Sabots at the fighters even once. If anything, it looks to be doing a competent job of dispatching everything on the field quickly while largely ignoring the fighters buzzing around it. Wonder what the key is here...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Radicaljack on March 31, 2021, 12:45:34 PM
So far every RC build has fixed issues I've had, other than that it's like learning a whole new game in regard to new ships and the skills are really important now. I'm still getting a handle on skills,  started a new game so I wasn't sitting on permanent ones that I couldn't see the other side of but I am very happy so far with this patch. The AI seems a little over eager to use ship capablities just to stay in formations, plasma jetting with no visible enemies just to move back into place after burning, but it does seem much smarter now. Perhaps the cautious and aggressive modes need a little more of a line between them, and I'm unsure why my cautious Medusa tactical build is the most insane dude I've ever seen, he charged into a remnant station but then somehow survived it with 150 hp hull left for 7 minutes more.....

Loved the game since I've first fell into it, but this was truly a second life that I can't imagine modders won't be able to do a lot with.

Also the writing is just fantastic, love the Galatia Academy characters and even though it is something you can skip, reading the writing is always entertaining and makes the world feel a little more alive, even in this massive sandbox.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on March 31, 2021, 12:56:03 PM
Hmm. So I just fixed an aggression-related issue - even reckless/eliminate-ordered ships were considering optimal rather than minimal weapon range under certain circumstances.

...

That could be it! I recalled when reading this that Dominators are slower than Brilliants, so they couldn't catch it without burn driving which brings them much closer than optimal. They probably were trying to close in and didn't have any options to get to optimal.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Anvel on March 31, 2021, 01:01:46 PM
Hmm. So I just fixed an aggression-related issue - even reckless/eliminate-ordered ships were considering optimal rather than minimal weapon range under certain circumstances.

But regarding Sabot use, no luck so far. E.G. that Radiant from Anvel's save vs an Atlas and 3x Condor in the simulation, I haven't seen it fire Sabots at the fighters even once. If anything, it looks to be doing a competent job of dispatching everything on the field quickly while largely ignoring the fighters buzzing around it. Wonder what the key is here...

I'm sorry, Astral not Atlas ;D, not much of a carrier user here.
Way to recreate it - start Radiant test, spawn 3 Condors and Astral, manually raise shield and let fighters start to attack you, and then give the ship search and destroy command, at some point fighters will hit his armor/hull or maybe that's emp damage issue, but after his hp gets hit he starts to shoot sabots at them.

Seem like it mostly happens then his flux level is close to max.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: pairedeciseaux on March 31, 2021, 01:07:31 PM
Finally completed the Phantom blueprint mission.

Spoiler
Ahem, it was indeed in a ruin ... in a gas giant. I don't know, I used to avoid surveying gas giant because of the high surveying cost. Looks like it cost less AND sometimes there is interesting loot.
[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sutopia on March 31, 2021, 02:19:01 PM
I think combat aptitude doesn’t need a tier tree.
Officers don’t respect it anyways so why does player have to?
I only need the shield skill while all prerequisites are useless to me, don’t feel like sinking three points just to get there.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Voyager I on March 31, 2021, 02:52:41 PM
My AI Greeble so far was a Gryphon loaded entirely with missiles and point defenses that was consistently pushing to the front of the engagement to unleash the power of its Flak Cannon in direct combat.  I attempted to discourage the behavior by removing the Flak for more Vulcans, which had the opposite of the desired effect.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 31, 2021, 02:55:18 PM
So far every RC build has fixed issues I've had, other than that it's like learning a whole new game in regard to new ships and the skills are really important now. I'm still getting a handle on skills,  started a new game so I wasn't sitting on permanent ones that I couldn't see the other side of but I am very happy so far with this patch. The AI seems a little over eager to use ship capablities just to stay in formations, plasma jetting with no visible enemies just to move back into place after burning, but it does seem much smarter now. Perhaps the cautious and aggressive modes need a little more of a line between them, and I'm unsure why my cautious Medusa tactical build is the most insane dude I've ever seen, he charged into a remnant station but then somehow survived it with 150 hp hull left for 7 minutes more.....

Loved the game since I've first fell into it, but this was truly a second life that I can't imagine modders won't be able to do a lot with.

Also the writing is just fantastic, love the Galatia Academy characters and even though it is something you can skip, reading the writing is always entertaining and makes the world feel a little more alive, even in this massive sandbox.

*thumbs up*


That could be it! I recalled when reading this that Dominators are slower than Brilliants, so they couldn't catch it without burn driving which brings them much closer than optimal. They probably were trying to close in and didn't have any options to get to optimal.

Ah, hmm - that wouldn't affect burn drive use, but might still help. Honestly, not sure; just impossible to say without seeing the exact situation. Heck, it might help from the other end - by making the Radiant more aggressive!

I'm sorry, Astral not Atlas ;D, not much of a carrier user here.
Way to recreate it - start Radiant test, spawn 3 Condors and Astral, manually raise shield and let fighters start to attack you, and then give the ship search and destroy command, at some point fighters will hit his armor/hull or maybe that's emp damage issue, but after his hp gets hit he starts to shoot sabots at them.

Seem like it mostly happens then his flux level is close to max.

Ahh, I see. It does use Sabots when it's swarmed by fighters, flux is near maxed, etc. But this isn't actually a problem - it's firing out of desperation, basically, and even by the time it's taken down it still has most of its Sabots left. It *would* be a problem if, say, it wasted Sabots on fighters and none were left for better targets. But this isn't like that - it's just shooting more stuff in a situation where it's likely to be destroyed anyway, and not dumping out the entire magazine, either.


Officers don’t respect it anyways so why does player have to?

They do respect it up to and including tier 3, btw. After that they get access to everything.

My AI Greeble so far was a Gryphon loaded entirely with missiles and point defenses that was consistently pushing to the front of the engagement to unleash the power of its Flak Cannon in direct combat.  I attempted to discourage the behavior by removing the Flak for more Vulcans, which had the opposite of the desired effect.

Hmm, yeah... probably better off putting an HVD on that. The AI doesn't really have a concept of "this is primarily a missile ship" and uses non-missile weapons for range-finding - well, and stuff like Annihilators, which it considers kind of non-missile weapons until their ammo gets low. A cautious officer might work, too; not 100% sure offhand.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Pokpaul on March 31, 2021, 03:15:55 PM
Rather minor, but when ships get all their d-mods repaired by skills, it still says 'this ship has suffered lotsa damage....' in the ship description.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sutopia on March 31, 2021, 03:45:56 PM
My point is, not all aptitudes need to be created equal.
I remember back in older versions the skill trees don’t even have the same lengths.

As of current skill system, I really don’t know what to think.
Combat tree is too restrictive by having the tree to climb.
If a skill isn’t “piloted” only, it can’t become elite.
This makes the entire system very hard to understand or working with.
More often than not I’m trying to find a skill that is “less bad” in the tree for the higher tier ones, which is not a pleasant decision making process.

My thought would be re-organize aptitude categorization and apply different rules to different aptitude.

Combat aptitude: piloted ship only, can elite
Unlock: None. Grab whatever you want

Fleet command: fleet combat performance, separated into three tiers: basic, advanced, superior
Unlock: Starting from basics. Investing 2 points in a tier unlocks the next. You can grab whatever you want in tiers unlocked.

Mastermind: logistic/administrative
Unlock: Current tree system can fit in fine
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Gosts on March 31, 2021, 04:07:03 PM
I love skills, and I love trees. The previous skill system wasn't perfect, but I don't know if this is a step up. It's a bit too restrictive and hard to make a build i'm happy with.

This is a totally out-there example suggestion, don't take is seriously: What if you could move vertically on the skill tree as well as horizontally? If you go to T2 in combat, you could move straight down to T2 leadership, or move up and loop around to T2 industry?

That idea is silly but like, I think this could work if there was just some kind of additional way to *get around* in the skill tree, ya dig? Some kinda looping, switching, or branching that lets you get more options to skip skills you don't like.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Flet on March 31, 2021, 04:08:03 PM
From a general game design theory standpoint i think its good to have a skill system where you need to take some skills you might not really want in order to progress down the tree. The reason is this gets around the problem that occurs with min/maxing of removing more specialist or secondary abilities.

I always like to compare skill systems in games to hard class systems. Hard class systems, where you simply have a set of pre-defined abilities which unlock as you progress through the game, have some advantages. Namely they can contain thematic class skills or abilities that no player trying to build an optimized character would ever take. This allows situational abilities or fluff skills to be included which unlock certain interactions and situations in games that nobody would ever encounter otherwise. In a class based system people do not complain about these abilities, because they are just class characteristics. In skill based systems where a good skill is separated from you by first having to select a lesser skill, it feels like a 'skill tax' simply because the player is now made to actively select and confirm a skill they dont want.

This is a psychological problem and could have a simple psychological solution. Find and designate the skills which are more of a gateway, something you must pass through which are more of a bonus perk for the two skill point costing skill following it, and make their icon smaller on the skill tree. The game acknowledging the skills as being less useful may be all that is required to alleviate the sense of wrongness a player might feel.

Of course acknowledging some skill pairings are less useful does indicate a balance pass to ensure the following skills are worth the extra point investment.

Further, the frustration may simply stem from people not feeling their builds are completed. This might be a thing that would go on forever untill you have as many skill points available as skills, or it might result from actual deficiencies in skill tree layout. Certain skills fit certain thematic builds better than others, running into situations where you are always a few skill points short could well be an objective and real consequence of synergistic skills which the player wants to connect up simply feeling like a punishment requiring the loss of other synergies. Ideally in a skill building system its most satisfying for a player, after planning out their build, to definitely be able to conclude "yes, i could not improve this, these are the optimal skills for what i envision the character to be".

I also think the skills with fleet size conditions should maybe have secondary effects that do not get diminished as well, simply to avoid the feeling that a skill becomes worthless. While in practice these skills always have some effect, they dont feel like it when you are sitting there trying to make a build, humans are simply not so good at assessing variables like this. Giving the skills something solid for the mind to latch on to could also alleviate the discomfort involved in taking them.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on March 31, 2021, 04:11:28 PM
Minor nitpick: I got a bounty given to me by one of my contacts and their Atlas and Prometheus ships showed up in the intel assessment. I feel like this is a bug since I don't remember ever seeing this anywhere else
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/AeAaTtW.png)
[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: ANGRYABOUTELVES on March 31, 2021, 04:19:10 PM
Raiding proc-gen pirate stations for supplies seems really strong, especially with Ground Operations. It's just money, but I haven't paid for supplies in like 10 in-game years.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on March 31, 2021, 04:34:35 PM
From a general game design theory standpoint i think its good to have a skill system where you need to take some skills you might not really want in order to progress down the tree. The reason is this gets around the problem that occurs with min/maxing of removing more specialist or secondary abilities.

in praxis, it does exactly the opposite of what you are describing

people ARE min maxing to take the skill that is the least useless to them, instead of a skill which they would WANT to take

which is exactly that, min maxing, but instead of optimizing the fun out of the game,

the game forces you to optimize the fun out of the game because otherwise you wont HAVE fun (instead of optimizing "positive growth", you are optimizing a net negative)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: ANGRYABOUTELVES on March 31, 2021, 05:06:32 PM
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/lJ3iacT.png)
[close]
This is long after the related quest is over. As you can see, there is no hegemony fleet, but I still cannot do the thing.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Flet on March 31, 2021, 05:09:36 PM
people ARE min maxing to take the skill that is the least useless to them, instead of a skill which they would WANT to take

What you are describing - the optimization of these least useful options - is more a consequence of the way the game has you pick between two skills at each step, and not anything to do with the general principal of having 'gateway skills' of less usefulness.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on March 31, 2021, 05:38:52 PM
Any skill system that doesn't give you every single skill will force you to give up certain things for other things, there's no getting around that. I think this system is a cool concept for trying to make the choices more tailored/specific/interesting rather than just 'pick between 40 skills' where you are almost always going to ignore certain skills and always take other skills. I do think there are some flaws in the specific tree that could be improved, but in concept, I like it a lot. Also I think a slightly higher level cap would go a long way towards smoothing over the rough edges on the system.

I've really been enjoying figuring out the new system and what works best in it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on March 31, 2021, 05:54:26 PM
... I do think there are some flaws in the specific tree that could be improved ...

(I just want to say, I absolutely agree here, and appreciate all the feedback!)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: ANGRYABOUTELVES on March 31, 2021, 06:03:37 PM
Raiding proc-gen pirate stations for supplies seems really strong, especially with Ground Operations. It's just money, but I haven't paid for supplies in like 10 in-game years.
On further consideration, I'm paying 10,000 credits per month for these 500 marines, and my fleet needs about 250 supplies per month. So if I'm not using them for anything but raiding for supplies, and that's how I'm getting all my supplies, I'm only saving 15k credits per month plus however many supplies I use on combat; call that another 15k. That's good, but not overpowered IMO.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: ANGRYABOUTELVES on March 31, 2021, 09:16:16 PM
My phase frigates with officers that have elite Phase Mastery don't give themselves enough time/space to slow down when coming out of phase and keep ramming stations and exploding themselves.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TaLaR on March 31, 2021, 10:10:54 PM
My phase frigates with officers that have elite Phase Mastery don't give themselves enough time/space to slow down when coming out of phase and keep ramming stations and exploding themselves.

While in part this is AI problem, it is kinda problem for player too. Elite Phase Mastery improves max speed, but not acceleration/deceleration (or at least not to same degree), so dealing with inertia becomes that much harder (at least without Helmsmanship + Auxiliary Thrusters)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 01, 2021, 01:23:10 AM
Any skill system that doesn't give you every single skill will force you to give up certain things for other things, there's no getting around that.

 the problem is that its not only a "limited" skill system (very limited btw, 15 skillpoints for 40 skills), its a skill tree progression system, AND a pick and choose system all at once
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Anvel on April 01, 2021, 01:52:21 AM
About the skills system, the best solution would be separating each skill tree exp gain from one another, let combat give exp to personal skills, colony building and management give exp to industrial, etc. And skill three is a good idea, to get to better, top skills you have to learn something simpler.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: THEASD on April 01, 2021, 01:59:35 AM
maybe issue, crashed when finishing a CustomProductionContract, infering that the person is not in the market from the trace stack
(https://ftp.bmp.ovh/imgs/2021/04/9db8706223de8669.png)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 01, 2021, 02:42:58 AM
I've noticed that a lot more trade fleets seem to get lost than in 0.9.1, and while that doesn't matter much for the core sectors it can really deflate (already nerfed) player colonies. My colonies seem to have at least one trade fleet lost at any one point in time, sometimes as much as three at once, and depending on what is lost that can costs me multiple tens of thousands in profit. And colonies have serious problems generating that much anywhere but late in their development cycle, so it really doesn't need another strike against it.

... I do think there are some flaws in the specific tree that could be improved ...

(I just want to say, I absolutely agree here, and appreciate all the feedback!)
For what it's worth I guess here's mine:

One, there's just not enough skill points, 15 points to choose from 40 skills is just not enough, especially when some of them very much feel like "mandatory" skills - Special Modifications is basically the new Loadout Design, in that respect, so that's five of your very limited point pool spend already if you don't want a fleet that's losing out on a fair chunk of power. Which, based on what I've heard about bounty fleets containing a half dozen capitals and three player fleets worth of officers, well, good luck surviving that with a few (CR crippled) [REDACTED] ships instead of better, beefier regular ships.

Second, the whole "reach the end of the tree, then you can go back and fill in the rest of the tree" is a nice idea, but in practice it often leads to you needing to pick skills which don't work together in order to pick a skill that does. For instance if I wanted to max out the industry tree because I want many profitable colonies I'd need to pick both Field Repairs (passively removes d-mods) and Derelict Contingent (gives officered ships bonuses for having d-mods). The skill tree is trying to do two things at once, offering different playstyle choices and allowing you to get everything if you're willing to invest that much (too much, honestly) into it, which doesn't work.

Third, although I'm sure it's more a "me" problem than a "game" problem, same as in 0.9.1, there's no way to get fleet-specific skills any way other than to get them yourself. Combat skills? Hire officers. Colony skills? Hire administrators. Of the 40 skills ingame 22 of them are player exclusive or at least have some kind of player-exclusive effect (Ground Operations' raiding bonus), so it seems like a no-brainer choice for the player to grab them. Especially since many of them have pretty powerful effects in their own right.

Fourth, the option to raise maximum player level in the settings is basically a trap option at the moment because it'll increase the experience required regain story points in the end. Apparently that can be modded easily, but, eh...stuff is little more than voodoo magic to me, and I don't feel like "it can be modded" is really a solution either.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on April 01, 2021, 05:24:58 AM
Well, that was my suggestion, too. Instead of picking every skill, we should be able to pick from the remaining skills after wrapping around. And maybe a max level of 18-20. With the current skill system, I can't even max out the colony management skills.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Trylobot on April 01, 2021, 08:01:03 AM
oh shitttttttt
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on April 01, 2021, 08:43:02 AM
I feel like the automated ships skill is extremely cool in practice, but has way too little of an impact compared to the alternative. Just 30 points means that with just 3 [REDACTED] version of the kite with 3 gamma cores, i'm already at full capacity... sure i could take a bigger ship with reduced CR, but as much strong a single redacted ship can be, other than the novelty, giving 10 to flux capacitors and vents, and an extra hullmod to every single ship is just too good to pass out.  My suggestion would be to raise the maximum points, even doubling it,  reducing the points cost of the gamma core while increasing beta and alpha cores cost. 
I think it would be balanced if you could have a single good ship with a good commander and enough leftover points for a couple of smaller ships with trash commanders, or a lot of smaller ships with trash commanders , or some medium sized ship with good commanders etc, opening up to various combinations that are impossible right now
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 01, 2021, 08:44:53 AM
I've just noticed a strange issue where assigning a Gamma Core to either Population and Infrastructure or Light Industry decreases my colony's profits, because it increases the market upkeep multiplier when the demand for Organics goes down by one. For reference I've got another colony exporting more Organics than either needs without the core, so it's all in-faction one way or another.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 01, 2021, 08:48:25 AM
I feel like the automated ships skill is extremely cool in practice, but has way too little of an impact compared to the alternative. Just 30 points means that with just 3 [REDACTED] version of the kite with 3 gamma cores, i'm already at full capacity... sure i could take a bigger ship with reduced CR, but as much strong a single redacted ship can be, other than the novelty, giving 10 to flux capacitors and vents, and an extra hullmod to every single ship is just too good to pass out.  My suggestion would be to raise the maximum points, even doubling it,  reducing the points cost of the gamma core while increasing beta and alpha cores cost. 
I think it would be balanced if you could have a single good ship with a good commander and enough leftover points for a couple of smaller ships with trash commanders, or a lot of smaller ships with trash commanders , or some medium sized ship with good commanders etc, opening up to various combinations that are impossible right now
Agreed.  There should be enough to pilot an alpha Radiant at full CR.  Maybe have cores not eat into the pool too.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on April 01, 2021, 08:50:21 AM
I've just noticed a strange issue where assigning a Gamma Core to either Population and Infrastructure or Light Industry decreases my colony's profits, because it increases the market upkeep multiplier when the demand for Organics goes down by one. For reference I've got another colony exporting more Organics than either needs without the core, so it's all in-faction one way or another.
Imagine your colony demands 1 unit of food and 1 unit of organics, that's all. You supply food yourself, so you supply 1/2 of the colony's demand, so you get half the upkeep reduction.
Now, you put a gamma core on the building that demands food. Colony demand is now 0 food and 1 organics. Since food is not demanded anymore, you don't get any upkeep reduction from satisfying that demand. The only remaining demand is 1 organics, and you don't supply it, so since you satisfy 0/1 of the colony's demand yourself, you lose upkeep reduction.
Something similar happened here. If you needed and supplies 5 organics and had 15 units worth of other demands, you would get 5/20 (25%) of the upkeep reduction. If you reduce organic demand, it means you now supply 4/19 (21%) of the colony's demand, so your upkeep reduction gets lower. There isn't much of a point to gamma cores, really. (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=20120.0)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 01, 2021, 09:12:02 AM
I've just noticed a strange issue where assigning a Gamma Core to either Population and Infrastructure or Light Industry decreases my colony's profits, because it increases the market upkeep multiplier when the demand for Organics goes down by one. For reference I've got another colony exporting more Organics than either needs without the core, so it's all in-faction one way or another.
Imagine your colony demands 1 unit of food and 1 unit of organics, that's all. You supply food yourself, so you supply 1/2 of the colony's demand, so you get half the upkeep reduction.
Now, you put a gamma core on the building that demands food. Colony demand is now 0 food and 1 organics. Since food is not demanded anymore, you don't get any upkeep reduction from satisfying that demand. The only remaining demand is 1 organics, and you don't supply it, so since you satisfy 0/1 of the colony's demand yourself, you lose upkeep reduction.
Something similar happened here. If you needed and supplies 5 organics and had 15 units worth of other demands, you would get 5/20 (25%) of the upkeep reduction. If you reduce organic demand, it means you now supply 4/19 (21%) of the colony's demand, so your upkeep reduction gets lower. There isn't much of a point to gamma cores, really. (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=20120.0)
That is...really less than ideal. Especially because you end up with dozens upon dozens of gamma cores after exploring through a few systems which have Domain Era derelicts, and numerous industries which can use gamma cores (or better ones, but those tend to be a lot more rare). Maybe Gamma Cores can be made to reduce the impact of losing a trade fleet, losing only 1 of a supply instead of 2? Not sure if it'd make much (if any) difference, but even "no difference whatsoever" would be better than "actively detrimental".
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: jwarper on April 01, 2021, 09:34:10 AM
Really loving the update so far!   I think the new approach to skill trees is different and interesting!  It allows for flexibility in playstyle and no one branch seems overpowered.  I do have a couple of items I wanted to call out to see if Alex had any feedback, apologies if these were covered earlier in this long thread :

1. Previously, alternate versions of base ships had different stats based on the faction: Example being pirate variant ships had unique hullmods but worse stats in hull/armor/flux/shields etc.  In 0.95a, Pirate variants have the same stats as base and keep unique hullmods, making them the superior choice over standard variants. 

2. Trade missions seem to pay much better than raid or covert missions that are much higher risk.  Raid missions needing marines and require you to disrupt a target for 60+ days is high risk and a considerable time/resource sink compared to a "take these goods to location X", yet the pay for the Raid mission is not any higher than the trade one.  Same goes for "drop this spysat off at HEGEMONY HOMEWORLD DEFENDED BY 4 ARMADAS AND DONT BE SEEN!  Pay is 35k"    Ummm, I think Ill go move these goods instead!   

3. Trader or smuggler professions are tough to maintain due to availability of missions/goods.  Trade or smuggle missions are slightly on the rare side and inconsistently found, requiring you to hop around quite a lot to find them.  To do freelance trading, puts you at the mercy of goods availability and finding a profitable route.  This is fine and all as it requires skill, but then you are punished by double taxation (30% at buy, 30% at sell).  This really grinds the "legal" trader into the ground.  Freelance smuggling is much more attractive in that the taxation part is wiped out, and given #1 above, you now have much less risk of getting caught because your pirate trading fleet is the creme de la creme :D

All in all, great update and I am loving it!  Just curious on some of the risk/reward evaluations and if they are intended or are open for rebalance.  Great job Fractal team!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 01, 2021, 09:40:03 AM
Raiding proc-gen pirate stations for supplies seems really strong, especially with Ground Operations. It's just money, but I haven't paid for supplies in like 10 in-game years.
On further consideration, I'm paying 10,000 credits per month for these 500 marines, and my fleet needs about 250 supplies per month. So if I'm not using them for anything but raiding for supplies, and that's how I'm getting all my supplies, I'm only saving 15k credits per month plus however many supplies I use on combat; call that another 15k. That's good, but not overpowered IMO.

Thank you for the added thoughts here!

My phase frigates with officers that have elite Phase Mastery don't give themselves enough time/space to slow down when coming out of phase and keep ramming stations and exploding themselves.

Made a note!


About the skills system, the best solution would be separating each skill tree exp gain from one another, let combat give exp to personal skills, colony building and management give exp to industrial, etc. And skill three is a good idea, to get to better, top skills you have to learn something simpler.

I've seen this idea come up before, yeah. That's just not a direction I want to go in. I think utlimately there's more potential for interesting combinations if the skills are all using the same points. Otherwise... well, you'd probably have to end up with massively nerfed personal combat skills, for one, since everyone would have them and they're not competing with anything else.

maybe issue, crashed when finishing a CustomProductionContract, infering that the person is not in the market from the trace stack
(https://ftp.bmp.ovh/imgs/2021/04/9db8706223de8669.png)

Thank you! Hmm. What game version are you on? Some stuff that could factor in here could've been resolved by one of the hotfixes, so I want to make sure.

Third, although I'm sure it's more a "me" problem than a "game" problem, same as in 0.9.1, there's no way to get fleet-specific skills any way other than to get them yourself. Combat skills? Hire officers. Colony skills? Hire administrators. Of the 40 skills ingame 22 of them are player exclusive or at least have some kind of player-exclusive effect (Ground Operations' raiding bonus), so it seems like a no-brainer choice for the player to grab them. Especially since many of them have pretty powerful effects in their own right.

Two thoughts here! If you could get non-combat skills in ways other than character skills, you'd never get them via character skills. And, two - while I understand the "combat skills? hire officers" sentiment, I think it's one of those things that sounds right but is actually a very false equivalence. "Combat skills on the ship you're piloting" is not the same as "combat skills on another ship", not by a long shot. The latter can still mean a lot, of course, but... just not the same thing.


Well, that was my suggestion, too. Instead of picking every skill, we should be able to pick from the remaining skills after wrapping around.

Ah - I think that leads to some "obvious best" choices simply due to how skills synergize. Would you ever pick officer training and not pick officer management? Or, in the cases where the tier 5 skills are really powerful, would you ever really not pick both? I mean, that could possibly work, but at the price of nerfing some of the more fun skills.

With the current skill system, I can't even max out the colony management skills.

I've seen this sentiment before, and... I mean, I *kind of* get it. But at the same time, you can't get all of the combat skills, either.

I feel like the automated ships skill is extremely cool in practice, but has way too little of an impact compared to the alternative. Just 30 points means that with just 3 [REDACTED] version of the kite with 3 gamma cores, i'm already at full capacity... sure i could take a bigger ship with reduced CR, but as much strong a single redacted ship can be, other than the novelty, giving 10 to flux capacitors and vents, and an extra hullmod to every single ship is just too good to pass out.  My suggestion would be to raise the maximum points, even doubling it,  reducing the points cost of the gamma core while increasing beta and alpha cores cost. 
I think it would be balanced if you could have a single good ship with a good commander and enough leftover points for a couple of smaller ships with trash commanders, or a lot of smaller ships with trash commanders , or some medium sized ship with good commanders etc, opening up to various combinations that are impossible right now

Thank you for the feedback, I'm keeping an eye on this. Have you spent much time running with a Radiant with an integrated Alpha Core?


There isn't much of a point to gamma cores, really. (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=20120.0)

(Yeah, this is something that could probably use another look at some point. Really, though - unless the cores just provide meaningfully *different* bonuses that don't just amount to "pick whichever one gives more income right now" - what gamma cores do doesn't matter terribly much since chances are you'd get beta or alpha cores fairly soon anyway. Unless, say, gamma cores just did not attract Pather cells or inspections? Some qualitative differences, again.)

oh shitttttttt

:D



Really loving the update so far!   I think the new approach to skill trees is different and interesting!  It allows for flexibility in playstyle and no one branch seems overpowered.  I do have a couple of items I wanted to call out to see if Alex had any feedback, apologies if these were covered earlier in this long thread :

Thank you!

1. Previously, alternate versions of base ships had different stats based on the faction: Example being pirate variant ships had unique hullmods but worse stats in hull/armor/flux/shields etc.  In 0.95a, Pirate variants have the same stats as base and keep unique hullmods, making them the superior choice over standard variants. 

Hmm - that must be going back to when the pirate ships always had built-in d-mods? This... isn't actually a question, though. So: yes! Pirate ships, especially some of them, are cooler.

2. Trade missions seem to pay much better than raid or covert missions that are much higher risk.  Raid missions needing marines and require you to disrupt a target for 60+ days is high risk and a considerable time/resource sink compared to a "take these goods to location X", yet the pay for the Raid mission is not any higher than the trade one.  Same goes for "drop this spysat off at HEGEMONY HOMEWORLD DEFENDED BY 4 ARMADAS AND DONT BE SEEN!  Pay is 35k"    Ummm, I think Ill go move these goods instead!   

Yeah, mission reward balance is something that will need some tweaking, for sure.

3. Trader or smuggler professions are tough to maintain due to availability of missions/goods.  Trade or smuggle missions are slightly on the rare side and inconsistently found, requiring you to hop around quite a lot to find them.  To do freelance trading, puts you at the mercy of goods availability and finding a profitable route.  This is fine and all as it requires skill, but then you are punished by double taxation (30% at buy, 30% at sell).  This really grinds the "legal" trader into the ground.  Freelance smuggling is much more attractive in that the taxation part is wiped out, and given #1 above, you now have much less risk of getting caught because your pirate trading fleet is the creme de la creme :D

Yeah, legal trade - aside from fulfilling delivery missions - is just not very profitable.

All in all, great update and I am loving it!  Just curious on some of the risk/reward evaluations and if they are intended or are open for rebalance.  Great job Fractal team!

Thank you again! And, yeah, fair points re: rewards. Some of the patrol-related changes (demanding inspections, CR loss from them) are intended to increase the risk of smuggling but perhaps they don't go far enough.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Farlarzia on April 01, 2021, 10:01:23 AM
Really loving the update so far!   I think the new approach to skill trees is different and interesting!  It allows for flexibility in playstyle and no one branch seems overpowered.  I do have a couple of items I wanted to call out to see if Alex had any feedback, apologies if these were covered earlier in this long thread :

1. Previously, alternate versions of base ships had different stats based on the faction: Example being pirate variant ships had unique hullmods but worse stats in hull/armor/flux/shields etc.  In 0.95a, Pirate variants have the same stats as base and keep unique hullmods, making them the superior choice over standard variants. 

2. Trade missions seem to pay much better than raid or covert missions that are much higher risk.  Raid missions needing marines and require you to disrupt a target for 60+ days is high risk and a considerable time/resource sink compared to a "take these goods to location X", yet the pay for the Raid mission is not any higher than the trade one.  Same goes for "drop this spysat off at HEGEMONY HOMEWORLD DEFENDED BY 4 ARMADAS AND DONT BE SEEN!  Pay is 35k"    Ummm, I think Ill go move these goods instead!   

3. Trader or smuggler professions are tough to maintain due to availability of missions/goods.  Trade or smuggle missions are slightly on the rare side and inconsistently found, requiring you to hop around quite a lot to find them.  To do freelance trading, puts you at the mercy of goods availability and finding a profitable route.  This is fine and all as it requires skill, but then you are punished by double taxation (30% at buy, 30% at sell).  This really grinds the "legal" trader into the ground.  Freelance smuggling is much more attractive in that the taxation part is wiped out, and given #1 above, you now have much less risk of getting caught because your pirate trading fleet is the creme de la creme :D

All in all, great update and I am loving it!  Just curious on some of the risk/reward evaluations and if they are intended or are open for rebalance.  Great job Fractal team!

Regarding legal trading - Its been stated before (and Alex just ninja'd me right now saying this  ::)), but it being unprofitable is intended (outside of supply shortages). This makes sense as well. The majority of a planets needs are going to be filled by  corperations with already established trade routes, made economical by economy of scale. Trading freely outside of this, is going to end up being uneconomical.
This also makes sense for gameplay as well - simply ferrying back and forth to the same locations isn't particually fun or interesting. So to counteract that, and make trading profitable, you have to be creative about it.

i.e: Disrupting this planet, or taking out this trade fleet will cause a supply shortage. I can take advantage of this supply shortage to sell them goods at an increased price, making this profitable.

The random bar events are also setup to make trading more dynamic. Get offered 300 heavy machinery for dirt cheap? Lets have at look at where I can sell this for big profits, perhaps its on the way to somewhere I already want to go, or maybe its somewhere that also has supplies and fuel for dirt cheap that I can stock up on.

Selling on the blackmarket is also intended as a part of trading, and you should pretty much always be selling some of your stuff on the black market, or more depending on how risky you want to be.
I can sell a portion of my goods at this station at the blackmarket, and they'll be none the wiser, and it'll pad my profit line.
Or I could sell it all the black market, but its risky - do I have the speed to escape any partols that might investigate me? Or is this station next to a asteroid belt that I could hide from the patrols in if they do?

The only economicall legal trading a player can do consistently, is setting up a colony - which makes sense, as you've just turned yourself into a corporation, who can set up those trade contracts, and produces enough materials to have an economy of scale.

Overall I think the current market and trading system especially shines in this update, it gives the player a lot of options and things to think about.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 01, 2021, 10:55:47 AM
Quote
(Yeah, this is something that could probably use another look at some point. Really, though - unless the cores just provide meaningfully *different* bonuses that don't just amount to "pick whichever one gives more income right now" - what gamma cores do doesn't matter terribly much since chances are you'd get beta or alpha cores fairly soon anyway. Unless, say, gamma cores just did not attract Pather cells or inspections? Some qualitative differences, again.)
I'll have 39 structures/industries to put cores into as soon as my final colonies hit size 6, before using Alphas as extra admins to expand my empire. So far I've collected 6 Alphas, 8 Betas and 67 Gammas (obviously not counting the one I turned in as part of the tutorial).

Gamma cores don't need to be different in order for them to be used, they just have to be useful. Unless someone knows the secret to defeating [REDACTED] fleets the same way I auto-combat weak pirate fleets once I've got Paragons I'm not quintupling my supply of higher quality cores any time soon, considering that I'd use some alphas as admins as well as industry boosters.

Quote
Thank you again! And, yeah, fair points re: rewards. Some of the patrol-related changes (demanding inspections, CR loss from them) are intended to increase the risk of smuggling but perhaps they don't go far enough.
I'd be worried about them going too far, though. Smuggling is already highly encouraged if not outright required, to the point where I think open markets could be removed from the game without making any real difference. Well, minus the fact that come midgame you'll be visiting every port and black marketing their entire fuel supplies as a matter of course just to keep a fleet going, unless you want to eat 30% tariffs. If smuggling becomes too much of a hassle I'm not sure where you're supposed to get supplies and fuel from, especially because smuggling is already not enough in terms of fuel.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Gosts on April 01, 2021, 11:19:25 AM
I think the problem with not being able to get all the colony skills, as opposed to combat skills, is that to do certain things, you NEED the colony skills.

-If you make too many colonies, eventually, they WILL kill themselves due to stability penalties. You can do a lot of things to increase stability, but eventually you'll hit a point where you MUST have the T5 skill to get more colonies and admins.
-Even more of a big deal: If you want to use
Spoiler
some of the crazy colony stuff that requires 10 of a specific resource, then i'm pretty sure you NEED to have the skill to give you more out of each industry. Unless i've missed something in my calculations, I don't think there's any other way to get to 10 of most/all resources except to use EVERY method available.
[close]

On the other hand
-Unless you're doing a Starsector Tool Assisted Speedrun, you CAN always do better in combat. You can always aim a little better, dodge a little better, have a slightly better formation or strategy for your fleet, that would allow you to beat a slightly tougher opponent.
-It is, of course, possible to say that 'without combat skills there are things you cannot do'. No matter how good you are, you can't use your skills to magically increase the speed you turn... But there are so many more details in those mechanics that it really doesn't matter. If you can't turn quite fast enough to survive, you could just find a way to stall until you can turn. Maybe rotating your shield, or turning it off, or using your ship special, or maybe turning off your weapons to save flux, or maybe throwing it in reverse while you turn in order to avoid getting hit by just a couple of shots and give you enough hull left over to finish your maneuver. With colonies, though, you can't really do things like that. You can build comm relays, you can keep your system safe... But you WILL run out of stability eventually. There's no way around it.

That is why I think the complaints about 'Needing' both the top skills in the industry tree are valid.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 01, 2021, 11:29:24 AM
Minor oddity I just noticed: My map has three Pather bases on it, but only two core world planets attract Pather interest (Agreus and Culann, and I'm not sure if the latter should even have Pather interest (or at least have it be plainly visible)). I'm not sure why Pathers start out with more bases than planets they want to hit, especially because one base will happily support multiple planets at once?

Related to that, I've not run afoul of Pather cell activity yet, but either way it'd be nice if there was a permanent way to deal with it. I don't really see the need to have to repeatedly blow up their bases, if I can blow up one I can blow up more so that just seems like busywork. Maybe change the
Spoiler
Planetary Shield's (is that even still a spoiler, actually?)
[close]
Story Point improvement to permanently prevent Pather Cell interest? It'd be a more unique and interesting option than just "even more ground defences", and give a very strong incentive to do that bit of exploration/combat.

EDIT: Also another suggestion: Maybe make it so that disrupting a Pather base's spaceport temporarily stops Pather cell activity, as if you'd destroyed the base? It'd be a way to buy time before you're able to destroy a Pather battlestation, like if you want to excavate a planet with Vast Ruins (Tech Mining generates 8 interest, instant Pather interest) early. Pather bases are quite vulnerable to raiding, from what I'm seeing, so sneaking in with a small task force seems like a fun option.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: DancingMonkey on April 01, 2021, 11:37:21 AM
I think the problem with not being able to get all the colony skills, as opposed to combat skills, is that to do certain things, you NEED the colony skills.

-If you make too many colonies, eventually, they WILL kill themselves due to stability penalties. You can do a lot of things to increase stability, but eventually you'll hit a point where you MUST have the T5 skill to get more colonies and admins.
-Even more of a big deal: If you want to use
Spoiler
some of the crazy colony stuff that requires 10 of a specific resource, then i'm pretty sure you NEED to have the skill to give you more out of each industry. Unless i've missed something in my calculations, I don't think there's any other way to get to 10 of most/all resources except to use EVERY method available.
[close]

On the other hand
-Unless you're doing a Starsector Tool Assisted Speedrun, you CAN always do better in combat. You can always aim a little better, dodge a little better, have a slightly better formation or strategy for your fleet, that would allow you to beat a slightly tougher opponent.
-It is, of course, possible to say that 'without combat skills there are things you cannot do'. No matter how good you are, you can't use your skills to magically increase the speed you turn... But there are so many more details in those mechanics that it really doesn't matter. If you can't turn quite fast enough to survive, you could just find a way to stall until you can turn. Maybe rotating your shield, or turning it off, or using your ship special, or maybe turning off your weapons to save flux, or maybe throwing it in reverse while you turn in order to avoid getting hit by just a couple of shots and give you enough hull left over to finish your maneuver. With colonies, though, you can't really do things like that. You can build comm relays, you can keep your system safe... But you WILL run out of stability eventually. There's no way around it.

That is why I think the complaints about 'Needing' both the top skills in the industry tree are valid.


Or you can be like me and just use Alpha cores as admins for every colony.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on April 01, 2021, 12:03:15 PM
Also, I don't think that having "best choices" after sinking 5 skill points in a tree is a big problem. You only have 15 skill points, so you either max out three aptitudes once or one twice and one once. I don't say that abolishing the wrap-around requirement is the only solution, maybe with 5 more skill points, this wouldn't be that big of a problem. But right now the choices are not really choices, but sacrifices. I'm not choosing a playstyle with my skill points, because I don't have enough for even one playstyle.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sutopia on April 01, 2021, 12:09:54 PM
I think the problem with not being able to get all the colony skills, as opposed to combat skills, is that to do certain things, you NEED the colony skills.

-If you make too many colonies, eventually, they WILL kill themselves due to stability penalties. You can do a lot of things to increase stability, but eventually you'll hit a point where you MUST have the T5 skill to get more colonies and admins.
-Even more of a big deal: If you want to use
Spoiler
some of the crazy colony stuff that requires 10 of a specific resource, then i'm pretty sure you NEED to have the skill to give you more out of each industry. Unless i've missed something in my calculations, I don't think there's any other way to get to 10 of most/all resources except to use EVERY method available.
[close]

On the other hand
-Unless you're doing a Starsector Tool Assisted Speedrun, you CAN always do better in combat. You can always aim a little better, dodge a little better, have a slightly better formation or strategy for your fleet, that would allow you to beat a slightly tougher opponent.
-It is, of course, possible to say that 'without combat skills there are things you cannot do'. No matter how good you are, you can't use your skills to magically increase the speed you turn... But there are so many more details in those mechanics that it really doesn't matter. If you can't turn quite fast enough to survive, you could just find a way to stall until you can turn. Maybe rotating your shield, or turning it off, or using your ship special, or maybe turning off your weapons to save flux, or maybe throwing it in reverse while you turn in order to avoid getting hit by just a couple of shots and give you enough hull left over to finish your maneuver. With colonies, though, you can't really do things like that. You can build comm relays, you can keep your system safe... But you WILL run out of stability eventually. There's no way around it.

That is why I think the complaints about 'Needing' both the top skills in the industry tree are valid.

Spoiler
10 production is pretty baby numbers.
For current version you get those powerful boosting items that outright +2 or +3 output.
With a hired admin with correct skill, you can get 10 volatile at colony size 6 without using AI or spending any story point.
Hire a good admin to get another +1, for the rare metal or whatever trans blah blah blah, an additional alpha AI on refinery will make it 10 production on size 8. On top of that, refinery+alpha AI is 6 points of luddic path interest, which means it doesn’t get a pather cell to randomly f you for a month or two.
[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: pairedeciseaux on April 01, 2021, 12:22:18 PM
That is why I think the complaints about 'Needing' both the top skills in the industry tree are valid.

I have not dived in the various new-skill-system debates, but I want to share a humble thought: Starsector 0.95, more than previous versions, is all about player choices, in activities, in stories, in player progression, in fleet composition, in load-out design.

And you surely did notice, often there is a choice between quality and quantity.

No you cannot have both without a strong commitment.

So, what is your choice?

Now you know which T5 Industry skill(s) to pick. And next run you may choose the same, or choose something else. Easy. :P

Wait what?! What do you mean you also want both T5 Leadership?!

I'm still playing my first 0.95 campaign and I chose the improved colony production skill (T5 Industry), as my last skill point upon reaching level 15. And before that I chose to improved colony stability skill (T5 Leadership). Next run, I'm not sure, I may try to build colony early and see if I can skip T5 Industry and T5 Leadership entirely, or I may go all in Leadership, or...

Or you can be like me and just use Alpha cores as admins for every colony.

Right, there are other tools and compromises to improve/manage colonies. Among other stuff, there are quite a few special items, including several new in version 0.95. Speaking of which, if you don't mind, I have to go install 2 rare non-AI-core equipments obtained during the last exploration session. Hopefully that will help boost production and thus cure my economy deficit.

But right now the choices are not really choices, but sacrifices. I'm not choosing a playstyle with my skill points, because I don't have enough for even one playstyle.

One may choose a playstyle irrespective of any available skill, so based on role-play and/or gameplay preference, then choose skills to support that playstyle. The real sacrifice would be to not spend any skill points, or even worse (Ludd forbid!), not playing Starsector out of frustration about the skill system.  ;D 

Choose a skill and be at peace, brothers and sisters!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: hijoton on April 01, 2021, 12:28:21 PM
Hi!

Remarkable work and it has been a learning experience to read all the nitty-gritty details about some Mark9 advocates.

So far I have only made my way through page 29 of this thread, so I apologize if this was already mentioned.
I created a colony with the latest release to date, R 12, and a fleet of pirates spawned. They intend to attack the Size 3 colony. It was my understanding that the safety threshold was Size 3.

Does that mean that the "safe" sizes are 1 and 2?

Again, I am very pleased with the community and wanted to add my grain of sand  ;D
PS: got a couple of friends a hit of this and they got addicted. I should feel bad xD
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 01, 2021, 12:31:21 PM
Hi!

Remarkable work and it has been a learning experience to read all the nitty-gritty details about some Mark9 advocates.

So far I have only made my way through page 29 of this thread, so I apologize if this was already mentioned.
I created a colony with the latest release to date, R 12, and a fleet of pirates spawned. They intend to attack the Size 3 colony. It was my understanding that the safety threshold was Size 3.

Does that mean that the "safe" sizes are 1 and 2?

Again, I am very pleased with the community and wanted to add my grain of sand  ;D
PS: got a couple of friends a hit of this and they got addicted. I should feel bad xD
Colonies are safe from punitive expeditions at size 3 (or lower, I guess, if colonies can get lower than that). Pirates can still randomly choose to attack whenever, either from an existing base or by spawning a player colony-specific base.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: boredom974 on April 01, 2021, 12:33:24 PM
Is it just me, or are AI controlled ships a lot less opportunistic than they once were? Often when I see almost overloaded ships, mine or enemy, no nearby ships try to rush them down to kill them and I recall ships being much better about this in past updates, really pressing home attacks when they had the advantage. Do ships pressing advantages have the same behavior as with reckless/eliminate? Is this just the result of reckless/eliminate ordered ships mistakenly using optimal ranges rather than closing to minimal ranges as Alex mentioned? Or am I completely nuts and altogether misremembering that AI ships were opportunistic that effectively?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: hijoton on April 01, 2021, 12:35:29 PM
Hi!

Remarkable work and it has been a learning experience to read all the nitty-gritty details about some Mark9 advocates.

So far I have only made my way through page 29 of this thread, so I apologize if this was already mentioned.
I created a colony with the latest release to date, R 12, and a fleet of pirates spawned. They intend to attack the Size 3 colony. It was my understanding that the safety threshold was Size 3.

Does that mean that the "safe" sizes are 1 and 2?

Again, I am very pleased with the community and wanted to add my grain of sand  ;D
PS: got a couple of friends a hit of this and they got addicted. I should feel bad xD
Colonies are safe from punitive expeditions at size 3 (or lower, I guess, if colonies can get lower than that). Pirates can still randomly choose to attack whenever, either from an existing base or by spawning a player colony-specific base.


Ohhh! Thank you!
Now that means that the colony, as long as it stays at size 3....could use an Alpha Core and avoid Hegemony thugs dropping by?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 01, 2021, 12:38:40 PM
Quote
Ohhh! Thank you!
Now that means that the colony, as long as it stays at size 3....could use an Alpha Core and avoid Hegemony thugs dropping by?
Punitive expeditions, not AI core inspections ;). I'm not sure if freeport-related expeditions count as punitive expeditions or not in this context, though.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: hijoton on April 01, 2021, 01:47:27 PM
Quote
Ohhh! Thank you!
Now that means that the colony, as long as it stays at size 3....could use an Alpha Core and avoid Hegemony thugs dropping by?
Punitive expeditions, not AI core inspections ;). I'm not sure if freeport-related expeditions count as punitive expeditions or not in this context, though.

I shall endeavour to record the behaviour so others may know if there are sharks in the pool before diving in blind  :P
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Zaizai on April 01, 2021, 02:04:05 PM

I feel like the automated ships skill is extremely cool in practice, but has way too little of an impact compared to the alternative. Just 30 points means that with just 3 [REDACTED] version of the kite with 3 gamma cores, i'm already at full capacity... sure i could take a bigger ship with reduced CR, but as much strong a single redacted ship can be, other than the novelty, giving 10 to flux capacitors and vents, and an extra hullmod to every single ship is just too good to pass out.  My suggestion would be to raise the maximum points, even doubling it,  reducing the points cost of the gamma core while increasing beta and alpha cores cost. 
I think it would be balanced if you could have a single good ship with a good commander and enough leftover points for a couple of smaller ships with trash commanders, or a lot of smaller ships with trash commanders , or some medium sized ship with good commanders etc, opening up to various combinations that are impossible right now

Thank you for the feedback, I'm keeping an eye on this. Have you spent much time running with a Radiant with an integrated Alpha Core?

I did, It was the obvious thing to do with that skill, as that feels like the best use case of this skill, and the radiant is quite powerful, but it just starts to feel like a cheaper and stronger paragon that i can't pilot myself once the novelty dies out. 
One choice is to make my whole fleet stronger, doubling the vents on frigates, adding otherwise extremely costly hullmod to capital ships etc, the other is to get a single strong ship that i can't even use as flagship and has lower cr than the rest of the fleet. 
Even if it was a comparable decision to make power wise, which i think it isn't, as i said before it's just not fun as there's a lot of potential fun things that COULD be done but they just don't work. 
One rampart with a gamma core puts me over the limit, i could use an alpha core and lower the cr, but is a shieldless rampart really comparable to a radiant? why would i ever pick a rampart over a radiant?  or why would i pick any derelict ship over remnant ships? 
There is a LOT of potential that is shut down by being almost forced to just pick the radiant with an alpha core or some slight variations, to make the most out of the skill. 
Maybe derelicts should count as half points, maybe by making remnants ships only be usable with beta/alpha cores and raising the impact of the cores on the points, i can see a few ways that would give the player a lot more freedom as to what to do with this skill other than going for a buffed paragon. 
If it were me, i would give 75 points and make the alpha core count as 20 points, the beta 10 and the gamma 0 and i would restrict the use of gamma core to only work of derelicts, not remnants (which makes sense as remnants are more complex ships), to give a use case to derelicts. With this you could have a full cr radiant with the alpha core with enough leftover points to get a smaller ship, or some other combination if you factor in having less cr. OR, you could build a small derelict fleet with gamma cores, as with the gamma cores now costing 0, it would mean having the ability to field 3 ramparts with gammas with the same point cost as 1 radiant with the alpha core, which feels more of a fair trade. Having this much breathing room and use case for the derelicts, means that the player can have fun putting together various combinations of ships and cores, both derelict and remnants, which would change the playstyle enough to warrant the use over the other choice
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on April 01, 2021, 02:22:28 PM
(https://i.imgur.com/rvFRHcu.png)
Best boy saga continues.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Kh0rnet on April 01, 2021, 03:16:35 PM
Hmm... is this vanilla? Offhand I'm not sure what this would be. If it's vanilla, could you send me your save? fractalsoftworks [at] gmail [dot] com

I would also like to report the Heavily Shielded Cache thing, I am on pure vanilla - massive spoilers below to anyone reading this post:
Spoiler
The Intel log seems to point to the exact same hidden area where Alpha Site and Ziggurat are located - however, there is no actual cache to be found in it. Is there supposed to be one?
[close]

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Voyager I on April 01, 2021, 03:18:51 PM
Some other misc feedback:

Story Point pacing is inverse to their demand.

They come pouring in early game when you don't really have anything that feels good to spend them on.  At the start of the game it feels like you'll get one every time you win a fight, but you don't have any of the lategame point sinks like colonies, your starter ships aren't especially worth putting S-Mods on (and even if you wanted to, you don't know any of the S-tier hullmods), and the other uses you have for them are generally incidental bonuses that you can't plan your progression around.  You end up with a pile of story points and nothing much to spend them on.  Then, later in the game, when you're starting to get established - juicing up industries, creating your ace fleet, making yourself and your officers elite, etc, the well dries up.  I'm not even suggesting that the rate of gain is too slow lategame, just that it's strange to have them raining on you well before you can use them effectively and it might push players towards spending them inefficiently.  Having a stack of story points burning a hole in your pocket at level 6 feels like you're wasting an opportunity, but the reality is you are going to want them later and they will be much slower to come by.

The Bonus XP mechanic is also somewhat deceptive.  In my playthrough, I believed the hype that 100% bonus XP story points were effectively free real estate and would spend them on whatever, with the end result being that I have a farcically large pile of bonus XP that I will never see the end of and those SP are functionally just gone.  Bonus XP also creates some weird incentives early game since it accelerates the advancement of your regular level.  I spent a period in the early game desperately looking for another officer to mentor just so I could get my leveling back on track.  I think it would be better to decouple the regular XP track and the Story Point track suck that you don't feel pressured to spend story points merely as an XP doubling mechanic and so that you could revise the Story Point track such that you don't end up with a bunch of Story Points buried behind an insurmountably large Bonus XP backlog.


You can't playtest S-Mods

The loadout designer doesn't let ships go above their OP limit, which creates a bunch of fiddly battles with the UI when you're adding S-Mods (gotta strip off enough equipment to put the mod on, then build it in, then put everything back).  Combine that with the fact that S-Mods are permanent the moment you click the button and not from when you officially approve the loadout, it's impossible to test an S-Mod loadout without resorting to quicksave.  This is an especially big deal for some of the likely S-Mod candidates like Safety Overrides, which ordinarily takes up like a third of a hull's loadout and completely changes how it functions.  The difference in effectiveness between an SO you have to pay for and one you don't is incomparable.

Suggestion:  either let ships temporarily exceed their OP limits in the designer for testing purposes, or hold back on making S-Mods permanent until the loadout is saved, rather than the moment we try it out.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Drazhya on April 01, 2021, 03:47:49 PM
I would also like to report the Heavily Shielded Cache thing, I am on pure vanilla - massive spoilers below to anyone reading this post:
Spoiler
The Intel log seems to point to the exact same hidden area where Alpha Site and Ziggurat are located - however, there is no actual cache to be found in it. Is there supposed to be one?
[close]

I got that. The heavily shielded cache was way out northeast of the planet, about halfway to the edge of the map. Had... I think 5 of the new special weapons.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 01, 2021, 04:07:24 PM
Just a few quick responses!

I'm not choosing a playstyle with my skill points, because I don't have enough for even one playstyle.

Hmm - I'm not sure that "being able to pick absolutely every single thing that improves X" is a super reasonable definition of "having enough for a playstyle".

(https://i.imgur.com/rvFRHcu.png)
Best boy saga continues.

You're a good person.

The Bonus XP mechanic is also somewhat deceptive.  In my playthrough, I believed the hype that 100% bonus XP story points were effectively free real estate and would spend them on whatever, with the end result being that I have a farcically large pile of bonus XP that I will never see the end of and those SP are functionally just gone.  Bonus XP also creates some weird incentives early game since it accelerates the advancement of your regular level.  I spent a period in the early game desperately looking for another officer to mentor just so I could get my leveling back on track.  I think it would be better to decouple the regular XP track and the Story Point track suck that you don't feel pressured to spend story points merely as an XP doubling mechanic and so that you could revise the Story Point track such that you don't end up with a bunch of Story Points buried behind an insurmountably large Bonus XP backlog.

Question: you've got -RC12 that seriously speeds up XP gain past max level, right? And from 10-15, as well.

There's a bit of an issue with that build, if your character started on an earlier one - you get to keep the original bonus XP amount. So by the time you chew through all of it, you'd get about 2.5x as many story points as you actually spent to get that bonus XP - since you got bonus XP a the original exchange rate, as it were, but are cashing it in at 2.5x the rate.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Voyager I on April 01, 2021, 05:05:34 PM
I did indeed do that, so I guess that means my XP rate is gonna be messed up, though I should mention that it was still like, hundreds of millions of bonus XP - more than I could ever hope to accumulate in a reasonable game, and that's without ever getting more.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: CrashToDesktop on April 01, 2021, 05:08:29 PM
When our character hears music under certain circumstances, especially the first time, I can't help but think (spoiler!) this was the reason (https://i.imgur.com/ePynMOX.mp4).  Some funky space dubstep going on here!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 01, 2021, 05:41:33 PM
is it just me, or do certain planets not decivilize anymore?
i have been trying to raid these pirates out of the system for 15 years now and they are still just rolling around
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 01, 2021, 05:48:54 PM
I did indeed do that, so I guess that means my XP rate is gonna be messed up, though I should mention that it was still like, hundreds of millions of bonus XP - more than I could ever hope to accumulate in a reasonable game, and that's without ever getting more.

I wonder - it might be worthwhile to just convert ALL of the deferred bonus XP to story points when the player maxes out their level. Since they're not gaining levels at that point, parceling out the XP piecemeal doesn't seem super necessary. That might create a weird incentive to spend the points right before reaching max level, though... maybe the "deferred" bonus XP can just spend 10x more quickly, or something. I'm definitely on board with the idea of somehow giving the player those spent SP back more quickly, though - having a huge backlog to eat through for forever isn't great.

Edit: I'd also appreciate more feedback on how the new/reduced XP requirements for SP past max level feel! Though, yeah, given a pre-RC12 save does make that kind of impossible.

When our character hears music under certain circumstances, especially the first time, I can't help but think (spoiler!) this was the reason (https://i.imgur.com/ePynMOX.mp4).  Some funky space dubstep going on here!

Whoa, very cool!

is it just me, or do certain planets not decivilize anymore?
i have been trying to raid these pirates out of the system for 15 years now and they are still just rolling around

A few colonies are story-critical and can't decivilize until you've done the relevant story missions.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Voyager I on April 01, 2021, 06:17:46 PM
I did indeed do that, so I guess that means my XP rate is gonna be messed up, though I should mention that it was still like, hundreds of millions of bonus XP - more than I could ever hope to accumulate in a reasonable game, and that's without ever getting more.

I wonder - it might be worthwhile to just convert ALL of the deferred bonus XP to story points when the player maxes out their level. Since they're not gaining levels at that point, parceling out the XP piecemeal doesn't seem super necessary. That might create a weird incentive to spend the points right before reaching max level, though... maybe the "deferred" bonus XP can just spend 10x more quickly, or something. I'm definitely on board with the idea of somehow giving the player those spent SP back more quickly, though - having a huge backlog to eat through for forever isn't great.

Edit: I'd also appreciate more feedback on how the new/reduced XP requirements for SP past max level feel! Though, yeah, given a pre-RC12 save does make that kind of impossible.

I don't have a concrete solution right now other than the vague idea that working through the backlog should be faster, though I think this is putting us into another snag created by having Story Points and Player Level progress along the same XP bar.  Even if you drastically increase the rate at which players gain their Story Points after the level cap, that still means a player that frequently spends rebated Story Points is liable to have those rebates locked up until rather late in the game.  It feels like it would be better for those to come back to you sooner, maybe within a level or two (or, in more practical terms after maybe a couple hours of playing).  Right now you can't do that because there's no way to give back the SP faster without also giving the player the next level along with them, but to me this just looks like another symptom of Player Level and Story Points causing conflicts when they're tied to the same number.

If Story Points had their own, separate bar, you could set them up for a smoother curve over the course of the game.  Like I said previously, it didn't feel intuitive to me to have them pouring in at a time when I had relatively little to spend them on and then slow down dramatically when I was ready to put them to work.  The early glut and the feeling that I was wasting equity by having them sit in my pocket was part of what contributed to me stacking up a massive backlog of Bonus XP - I was just throwing them at any green text with a 100% bonus so I felt like I was at least getting something out of them.

Putting them on their own bar also let you rebate them more aggressively without worrying about turbocharging the player's overall progression.  Off the top of my head, you could solve the backlog problem in this case by letting rebates overlap, at least to an extent.  Get Tech 5 and go refit your fleet with their third S-Mods?  Whatever, stack it up to 700% instead of tacking another two levels worth of Bonus XP to the end of the line - not like it's breaking anything in this case, and the idea of rebate is to give the player back their points.  Realistically you'd probably want to do something a little more elegant with the numbers than that, but I think that makes a case for the basic idea.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: HiddenPorpoise on April 01, 2021, 06:20:57 PM
I wonder - it might be worthwhile to just convert ALL of the deferred bonus XP to story points when the player maxes out their level. Since they're not gaining levels at that point, parceling out the XP piecemeal doesn't seem super necessary. That might create a weird incentive to spend the points right before reaching max level, though... maybe the "deferred" bonus XP can just spend 10x more quickly, or something. I'm definitely on board with the idea of somehow giving the player those spent SP back more quickly, though - having a huge backlog to eat through for forever isn't great.
If it were me, I'd just multiply the bonus payout rate by how many story points are in the backlog.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Helldiver on April 01, 2021, 06:28:32 PM
A few colonies are story-critical and can't decivilize until you've done the relevant story missions.

That feels really artificial since it blocks natural game mechanics with no in-world explanation. If having the missions work differently based on your actions is too much work, why not let the colonies decivilize normally and instead just have alternate flavor text when you do the mission thing? i.e instead of meeting a story character at a bar, you meet them in a shelter among the lawless remnants of the population.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 01, 2021, 06:37:59 PM
is it just me, or do certain planets not decivilize anymore?
i have been trying to raid these pirates out of the system for 15 years now and they are still just rolling around

A few colonies are story-critical and can't decivilize until you've done the relevant story missions.
[/quote]

i take it "Donn", the pirate world in the try tachyon "core system" is one of those story relevant missions?


that is actually way more annoying than youd think, considering i had planned to take that world for a long time now
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 01, 2021, 06:52:32 PM
Maybe after some time, like after a month or the start of a new year, you get a story point for free and/or pay off xp debt.  It is not like the player will wait around doing nothing for so long, except maybe babysitting a colony.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Hiruma Kai on April 01, 2021, 07:29:44 PM
Edit: I'd also appreciate more feedback on how the new/reduced XP requirements for SP past max level feel! Though, yeah, given a pre-RC12 save does make that kind of impossible.

Essentially wrapping up my first run (which started in RC9 and is on RC12 now), with all the bonus XP I'm gaining SP at a fairly rapid clip.  Essentially 1 per end game fight because of the backlog of bonus XP and the fact I'm using a relatively compact fleet (5 capitals, 4 cruisers + logistics ships).  At this point, I've started S-modding my logistics fleet of Revenant cargo ships, to add surveying equipment in addition to expanded cargo holds and auxiliary fuel tanks.  I've spent 10 on personal skills, 38 SP in hull mods, another 10 invested in colonies, and spent about 17 on officers (fired one and replaced with a found level 6).  Another 5-10 have been spent on other things like escaping a fleet early game, recovering my flagship twice, some story line dialog options because they sounded interesting, and historian blueprints.  So late game, I feel like I've got plenty of story points at the new rate.  Although I was already post level 15 at the time RC12 came out.  XP tool tip says I've got 32 million bonus XP still.

Speaking of s-mods on Revenants, I find it slightly odd they count as combat ships, and thus count against Weapon Drills, yet can't be equipped with weapons.  Are they missing the civilian-grade hull mod, or is that intentional?  Are there other reasons they aren't civilian (to prevent militarized subsystems?).  Maybe they need a built in non-combatant hull mod that makes them not count against combat DP skill limits?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Histidine on April 01, 2021, 08:35:24 PM
Alex, I want to poke you on the skills thing a bit:

I'm not choosing a playstyle with my skill points, because I don't have enough for even one playstyle.
Hmm - I'm not sure that "being able to pick absolutely every single thing that improves X" is a super reasonable definition of "having enough for a playstyle".
For personal combat skills, it turns out you can actually get pretty close! (double back through entire Combat aptitude, then pick one skill each from the Tech 2 and Industry 2 pairs, for 12/14). Fleet combat buff skills too (11/14 with a double Leadership line and single Technology line).

More to the point though:
If you want some fleetwide or combat buffs in general, they're always available, even if the specific skills that are available may not be the ones you want. Like, if you want a missile buff in particular then having to get all the way to Combat 5 is annoying, but there are other skills you can get instead that are also pretty good. Players investing in Technology and Industry can also pick up some handy combat skills in their own aptitudes (albeit this is a double-edged sword, they may not want combat skills).

Colony skills? It takes 5 skill points to get the first skill. Then 5 to get the next. Then 5 to get the next! (and now we're out of skill points)


Have you seen my thread here (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=20311.0)? Not necessarily the specific mechanics changes proposed, but rather the discussion about what people want from their skills and the barriers in the current system.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Demiglace on April 01, 2021, 08:50:32 PM
Does anyone find it incredibly difficult to justify bringing midline/high tech ships in your fleet? I continue to get zerged by pirate fleets/armadas. I can only deploy 8 ships (140) supply vs their 25+ and i get overwhelmed and sending in reinforcements is almost impossible because of the time delay if you aren't next to the bottom of the map. I feel like my fleet combination is good ,however, i can't deploy enough of them to justify spending all the extra maintenance cost and crew they require.

I don't play super aggressive I usually tell all my ships to guard my capital ship and i pilot it pretty conservatively.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Farlarzia on April 01, 2021, 09:11:22 PM
High tech ships are generally speed demons - they're masters at being able to pick and choose fights against less agile foes, kiting them while waiting for an opportune moment, which also works well at making the enemy fleet scattered, further playing into this by then being able to take out any stragglers before they can regroup with their superior speed.

By tying them down to your capital, you're removing most of this utility - they're not slow hefty brawlers like low tech. Which is why you're going to get 'rushed' down against a foe with superior numbers with that tactic - that'll let the enemies make a huge death ball, where it becomes hard to attack into them, as any time you damage a ship it'll just retreat as another takes its place, slowly whittling down your inferior numbers.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 01, 2021, 09:34:52 PM
@Voyager I: Hmm - lots to think about there. I don't *think* getting those SP back really becomes an issue until max level, though - I mean, ok, you can have a bit of a backlog, but until you get to the level cap, that backlog is also helping you level up faster, so it feels pretty good. It's once you get the max level that the backlog can feel like "waiting a long time to get your points back" - but at that point, the SP gain bar is decoupled from level gain, and more fine-tuned solutions are possible.

If it were me, I'd just multiply the bonus payout rate by how many story points are in the backlog.

Yep, something like that could perhaps work once past max level!


Edit: I'd also appreciate more feedback on how the new/reduced XP requirements for SP past max level feel! Though, yeah, given a pre-RC12 save does make that kind of impossible.

Essentially wrapping up my first run (which started in RC9 and is on RC12 now), with all the bonus XP I'm gaining SP at a fairly rapid clip.  Essentially 1 per end game fight because of the backlog of bonus XP and the fact I'm using a relatively compact fleet (5 capitals, 4 cruisers + logistics ships).  At this point, I've started S-modding my logistics fleet of Revenant cargo ships, to add surveying equipment in addition to expanded cargo holds and auxiliary fuel tanks.  I've spent 10 on personal skills, 38 SP in hull mods, another 10 invested in colonies, and spent about 17 on officers (fired one and replaced with a found level 6).  Another 5-10 have been spent on other things like escaping a fleet early game, recovering my flagship twice, some story line dialog options because they sounded interesting, and historian blueprints.  So late game, I feel like I've got plenty of story points at the new rate.  Although I was already post level 15 at the time RC12 came out.  XP tool tip says I've got 32 million bonus XP still.

Thank you! Really good to know, and I'm glad it sounds like it's working pretty well.

Speaking of s-mods on Revenants, I find it slightly odd they count as combat ships, and thus count against Weapon Drills, yet can't be equipped with weapons.  Are they missing the civilian-grade hull mod, or is that intentional?  Are there other reasons they aren't civilian (to prevent militarized subsystems?).  Maybe they need a built in non-combatant hull mod that makes them not count against combat DP skill limits?

Made a note to check into this.


Alex, I want to poke you on the skills thing a bit:

For personal combat skills, it turns out you can actually get pretty close! (double back through entire Combat aptitude, then pick one skill each from the Tech 2 and Industry 2 pairs, for 12/14). Fleet combat buff skills too (11/14 with a double Leadership line and single Technology line).

More to the point though:
If you want some fleetwide or combat buffs in general, they're always available, even if the specific skills that are available may not be the ones you want. Like, if you want a missile buff in particular then having to get all the way to Combat 5 is annoying, but there are other skills you can get instead that are also pretty good. Players investing in Technology and Industry can also pick up some handy combat skills in their own aptitudes (albeit this is a double-edged sword, they may not want combat skills).

Colony skills? It takes 5 skill points to get the first skill. Then 5 to get the next. Then 5 to get the next! (and now we're out of skill points)


Have you seen my thread here (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=20311.0)? Not necessarily the specific mechanics changes proposed, but rather the discussion about what people want from their skills and the barriers in the current system.

So - 85% (12/14) vs 75% (3/4). Fair enough, but also feels like splitting hairs a bit :)

But! But! Here's the important part. You actually *can* get all the colony-boosting skills. You just can't get all the colony boosting skills AND the number-of-colonies boosting skill. So really, a somewhat better analogy (but still imperfect, analogies being what they are) would be saying that you can't max out your flagship while also maxing out all the fleet-related skills. (Apologies if I seem to be moving the goalposts here; I just wasn't thinking about that aspect of it before.)

And unlike combat ships, where getting the skills on an officer vs getting them on the player is a huge difference, for colonies, it doesn't really matter where you get the skills that boost them individually. Having to make the choice of "I want more colonies" vs "I want all of my colonies to be top-notch" seems pretty reasonable.

I did see your thread, btw! I think that some relatively small tweaks can smooth things out nicely. L1 needs some help, I4 needs to sort itself out so that getting both isn't counter-productive (somehow! that one's tricky), perhaps C1R could have some nominal effect that affects the ship and not just fighters so it feels better to get on second go-around. The fleetwide-DP-limited skills could probably use a boost in the DP cap. T4 needs to be more clear about which one of them is better for phase ships without asking "how many"; that sort of thing. IMO trying to revamp the entire system as a result of the feedback so far would be an overreaction. It's *different*, yes. I think for that reason alone it needs some time to settle.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Longsaddle on April 01, 2021, 10:11:02 PM
I'm sorry if this is a stupid question/it's been answered before and I just failed to see the answer but I was wondering if the update is compatible with the previous update.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on April 01, 2021, 10:16:36 PM
If you mean do saves from the old version work: no, they don't! Many mods do not either as of yet, but you can check the status of many of them here: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=177.0

And the modders are hard at work in the acid mines getting things up to date.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Voyager I on April 01, 2021, 10:20:36 PM
After all these effortposts, it's occurring to me that I might have completely pooched my Bonus XP totals by playing with settings.  I usually raise the level cap and let the natural growth of the XP requirements serve as a soft cap, but it didn't occur to me immediately just how much this would mess with the Bonus XP calculations (I was aware of how it would mess with my SP after level 15, but I figured that was something I could deal with later).  I'm guessing stacking up bonus XP with the level cap set to 40 (before the tuning to lategame development, no less) made the math go some kind of crazy.

I still maintain that the pace at which the player earns SP doesn't line up with their actual demand for them and judging from the comments we've seen from other people there's still an issue with the backlog, but it's not as insane as it is on my file.  Sorry for taking your time on bad numbers.



I'm sorry if this is a stupid question/it's been answered before and I just failed to see the answer but I was wondering if the update is compatible with the previous update.

If you're talking about the various fixes to 0.95, what we've received so far have been minor tweaks and fixes that shouldn't meaningfully disrupt a saved game.  This does not guarantee that saves might not be broken unexpectedly or that there will not be more substantial changes to this version later on that will not be save compatible.

If you're talking about saves from 0.91, the previous version of the game, there have been too many changes for those to be compatible.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TaLaR on April 01, 2021, 11:09:26 PM
I wonder - it might be worthwhile to just convert ALL of the deferred bonus XP to story points when the player maxes out their level. Since they're not gaining levels at that point, parceling out the XP piecemeal doesn't seem super necessary. That might create a weird incentive to spend the points right before reaching max level, though... maybe the "deferred" bonus XP can just spend 10x more quickly, or something. I'm definitely on board with the idea of somehow giving the player those spent SP back more quickly, though - having a huge backlog to eat through for forever isn't great.

Maybe increase bonus exp multiplier if player has more than X deferred SP after max level?
x2 for 1-7 SP, x4 for 8-15 SP, x8 for 16-31 SP, etc.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sutopia on April 01, 2021, 11:36:00 PM
A few things I'd like to mention:

Is there a way to make expedition not overlap? I encountered overlapping triple fleet (3x2) expedition and there is no possible way fending it off.

Same faction in-system supply getting interrupted is unreal, not to mention I'm only hostile to pathers and none of my colony has pather cell.

Why is there a hard cap of size 6?

proc gen mission survey shouldn't use the mission [Redacted] system
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Baqar79 on April 01, 2021, 11:39:36 PM
Probably a bit pedantic, but I would love it if the s-mods would appear in the order that they are installed in (ie how normal hull mods are installed), rather than being sorted alphabetically.  I've just got my first Paragon (despite how late it is in the game) and 'Efficiency Overhaul' is something I like to put at the end of all my hull mods, however it will insert itself between the 'Augmented Drive Field' and 'Hardened Shields' when using a story point to integrate it into the ship (the first 2 mods are already installed).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on April 02, 2021, 12:16:23 AM
For personal combat skills, it turns out you can actually get pretty close! (double back through entire Combat aptitude, then pick one skill each from the Tech 2 and Industry 2 pairs, for 12/14). Fleet combat buff skills too (11/14 with a double Leadership line and single Technology line).
Yeah, combat is an outlier in that it's really focused. It buffs your flagship and that's it. Though I personally don't think combat is worth double-dipping, since many skills only benefit one playstyle and you don't want to be switching ships constantly, but be using the strongest ship in your fleet instead.
I did see your thread, btw! I think that some relatively small tweaks can smooth things out nicely. L1 needs some help, I4 needs to sort itself out so that getting both isn't counter-productive (somehow! that one's tricky), perhaps C1R could have some nominal effect that affects the ship and not just fighters so it feels better to get on second go-around. The fleetwide-DP-limited skills could probably use a boost in the DP cap. T4 needs to be more clear about which one of them is better for phase ships without asking "how many"; that sort of thing. IMO trying to revamp the entire system as a result of the feedback so far would be an overreaction. It's *different*, yes. I think for that reason alone it needs some time to settle.
O sidhe, me naming scheme is canon now! I mentioned in that thread that C1R and L1L should perhaps get swapped. For I4R, if you're going to change it significantly, I'd make it let you recover all the ships and/or possibly let you recover your own ships when retreating. Now you have synergy with I4L, because any ship you fight, you get, and no matter the ship's initial condition, you'll fix her up.
And can you make Revenant and Phantom not count for phase skill, thanks.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on April 02, 2021, 12:21:20 AM
Re: Story point feedback

Before RC12 I was in late level 12, then after the hotfix it launched me to the end of level 14 so from 12 to 15 I got only 2 story points, I can't really comment there. But at lvl 15 story point gain seems alright, it's certainly better than at RC11 lvl 12 which says a lot. That said I'm pretty much using story points just for s-mods (I have the tech skill for the 3rd s-mod) because that seems like the best way to power up my fleet without just adding new ships. So in the end it's kinda dry for me but I'm curious how it'll go once I'm happy with my fleet. Anyways I wouldn't try to lower it back, this currently seems like a sweet spot, but I'll comment again once I'm done with the playthrough.

Anyone else having a single story point for emergencies than immediately using the 2nd one for an s-mod?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 02, 2021, 03:41:41 AM
Probably a bit pedantic, but I would love it if the s-mods would appear in the order that they are installed in (ie how normal hull mods are installed), rather than being sorted alphabetically.  I've just got my first Paragon (despite how late it is in the game) and 'Efficiency Overhaul' is something I like to put at the end of all my hull mods, however it will insert itself between the 'Augmented Drive Field' and 'Hardened Shields' when using a story point to integrate it into the ship (the first 2 mods are already installed).
Ah!  Alphabetically is a nice feature!  I was waiting to get more hullmods so that I can install them alphabetically.  Nice that I can integrate mods whenever and they will list alphabetically.  Please do not remove that feature!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on April 02, 2021, 03:48:11 AM
I would rather have all hullmods be sorted by OP, in descending order. I accidentally installed stabilised shields instead of hardened shields, because I assumed that because Hardened Shields were on top of the list a couple of times, it was sorted by OP, when it wasn't.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Baqar79 on April 02, 2021, 04:25:37 AM
Probably a bit pedantic, but I would love it if the s-mods would appear in the order that they are installed in (ie how normal hull mods are installed), rather than being sorted alphabetically.  I've just got my first Paragon (despite how late it is in the game) and 'Efficiency Overhaul' is something I like to put at the end of all my hull mods, however it will insert itself between the 'Augmented Drive Field' and 'Hardened Shields' when using a story point to integrate it into the ship (the first 2 mods are already installed).
Ah!  Alphabetically is a nice feature!  I was waiting to get more hullmods so that I can install them alphabetically.  Nice that I can integrate mods whenever and they will list alphabetically.  Please do not remove that feature!
I'm just suggesting being able to install them in whatever order you wish (alphabetical, OP point size, type, colour, etc).  Currently there is no choice in the matter; sure an automatic sort option would be good for some, but a manual option wouldn't have any restrictions.  Alternatively allowing the player to alter the s-mod order after installation would be fine (and you would still have the automatic alphabetical sorting), I just want to put the s-mods in a particular order for my ships. :D

Actually for that matter, I wouldn't mind being able to manually drag and drop the order on normal non-integrated hull-mods as well.  Usually after integrating a new hull mod I need to alter the current hull mod list, either by adding a new system or rearranging the order to be a bit more aesthetically pleasing to me; this usually means clearing the current mods and switching between the loadout screen and mousing over the saved design of that ship to make sure I install all the mods I want back.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 02, 2021, 05:57:24 AM
I'm noticing a strange issue where ordering weapons, not ships, from my production tab gives me supplies, fuel and crew for some reason. I'm not ordering any ships and I don't have any active Tech Mining industries, so I'm not sure where they're coming from.

EDIT: One of my colonies has an active Pather Cell supported from an unknown base, but I'm not getting the bar event to figure out where the base is located. I had the same problem with pirate bases, come to think of it, but at least in their case the game gives a hint as to their relative distance and "right next door" isn't difficult to guess at any rate. But Pather bases could be anywhere from next door to the other side of the sector as far as I know. Is this intended or a bug?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: DancingMonkey on April 02, 2021, 09:25:05 AM
I'm noticing a strange issue where ordering weapons, not ships, from my production tab gives me supplies, fuel and crew for some reason. I'm not ordering any ships and I don't have any active Tech Mining industries, so I'm not sure where they're coming from.

EDIT: One of my colonies has an active Pather Cell supported from an unknown base, but I'm not getting the bar event to figure out where the base is located. I had the same problem with pirate bases, come to think of it, but at least in their case the game gives a hint as to their relative distance and "right next door" isn't difficult to guess at any rate. But Pather bases could be anywhere from next door to the other side of the sector as far as I know. Is this intended or a bug?

The Panther bases can be found via the E screen. At least they show up for me just look at the arrow coming from a star towards your colony. The Pirate bases are usually in the same constellation as the colony.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 02, 2021, 09:39:04 AM
After all these effortposts, it's occurring to me that I might have completely pooched my Bonus XP totals by playing with settings.  I usually raise the level cap and let the natural growth of the XP requirements serve as a soft cap, but it didn't occur to me immediately just how much this would mess with the Bonus XP calculations (I was aware of how it would mess with my SP after level 15, but I figured that was something I could deal with later).  I'm guessing stacking up bonus XP with the level cap set to 40 (before the tuning to lategame development, no less) made the math go some kind of crazy.

I still maintain that the pace at which the player earns SP doesn't line up with their actual demand for them and judging from the comments we've seen from other people there's still an issue with the backlog, but it's not as insane as it is on my file.  Sorry for taking your time on bad numbers.

Ahh, ok, thank you! Yeah, setting the level to 40 would make deferred bonus XP numbers... let's just say we're lucky they didn't roll over into the negatives.

As far as getting more SP early, I feel like that's a good thing - it encourages you to spend them, and gives a new player more ways to get out of dodge. As long as stuff is tuned so that you truly get those SP back in a reasonable timeframe, I think this works out well.


Maybe increase bonus exp multiplier if player has more than X deferred SP after max level?
x2 for 1-7 SP, x4 for 8-15 SP, x8 for 16-31 SP, etc.

Right, yeah - like someone else was suggesting, something based on the number of SP it equates to; exact formula TBD.


Is there a way to make expedition not overlap? I encountered overlapping triple fleet (3x2) expedition and there is no possible way fending it off.

There's a bug, fixed for the next hotfix*, that's allowing this to happen in the first place.

*Well, more of a warmfix - we're fixing up a bunch of lower-priority issues for it, as well.

Same faction in-system supply getting interrupted is unreal, not to mention I'm only hostile to pathers and none of my colony has pather cell.

Hmm. As far as I can tell that'd require some hostile presence in the system - possibly pirate fleets? Let me make a note though; in some cases it really wouldn't make sense regardless.


proc gen mission survey shouldn't use the mission [Redacted] system

Thank you - already have a note about that!

Why is there a hard cap of size 6?

TLDR: because I think it makes more in-fiction sense and mechanically it's just a number, that is, "the things you can actually do" is not tied to the number necessarily being higher or lower.. It's been discussed extensively elsewhere on the forum; not sure which thread it was - possibly this one, actually?


O sidhe, me naming scheme is canon now! I mentioned in that thread that C1R and L1L should perhaps get swapped. For I4R, if you're going to change it significantly, I'd make it let you recover all the ships and/or possibly let you recover your own ships when retreating. Now you have synergy with I4L, because any ship you fight, you get, and no matter the ship's initial condition, you'll fix her up.
And can you make Revenant and Phantom not count for phase skill, thanks.

It's a good scheme! I like it.

Re: Derelict Contingent, I'd like it to somehow enable a "junk fleet" style, though. Actually, recalling some of the original thinking here - that it's relatively "ok" for it to be useless on second go around, since functionally that makes getting the second I5 colony skill cost two points, which doesn't seem all that unreasonable. Still, it'd be nicer if it wasn't.


Before RC12 I was in late level 12, then after the hotfix it launched me to the end of level 14 so from 12 to 15 I got only 2 story points, I can't really comment there. But at lvl 15 story point gain seems alright, it's certainly better than at RC11 lvl 12 which says a lot. That said I'm pretty much using story points just for s-mods (I have the tech skill for the 3rd s-mod) because that seems like the best way to power up my fleet without just adding new ships. So in the end it's kinda dry for me but I'm curious how it'll go once I'm happy with my fleet. Anyways I wouldn't try to lower it back, this currently seems like a sweet spot, but I'll comment again once I'm done with the playthrough.

*thumbs up*

I'm noticing a strange issue where ordering weapons, not ships, from my production tab gives me supplies, fuel and crew for some reason. I'm not ordering any ships and I don't have any active Tech Mining industries, so I'm not sure where they're coming from.

Custom production orders always send you some fuel and supplies based on the total value of the order, as a "bonus".

EDIT: One of my colonies has an active Pather Cell supported from an unknown base, but I'm not getting the bar event to figure out where the base is located. I had the same problem with pirate bases, come to think of it, but at least in their case the game gives a hint as to their relative distance and "right next door" isn't difficult to guess at any rate. But Pather bases could be anywhere from next door to the other side of the sector as far as I know. Is this intended or a bug?

Yeah, I've got an item about this - apparently that and pirate base bar events got borked somehow.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: sector_terror on April 02, 2021, 09:58:49 AM
Now that I think about it....I've only seen the "hey, here's a panther base" show up once...period, and the pirate one not at all. The panther one has shown up, once, but that's about it. Might just be more rare now.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Wyvern on April 02, 2021, 10:15:41 AM
Yeah, I've got an item about this - apparently that and pirate base bar events got borked somehow.
I have, if it helps, seen the pirate base bar event. Once. In some random core system I didn't care about. So it clearly can trigger, it's just not getting the priority it should.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sutopia on April 02, 2021, 10:28:33 AM
Same faction in-system supply getting interrupted is unreal, not to mention I'm only hostile to pathers and none of my colony has pather cell.

Hmm. As far as I can tell that'd require some hostile presence in the system - possibly pirate fleets? Let me make a note though; in some cases it really wouldn't make sense regardless.

So since it’s in-faction supply it should be carried out by fleet of my faction. I’m sitting at +80 relation with pirates so only mission or distress pirates would ever attack me, not to mention my minions that never leave the system.
I can send my save if you need.


Some more things:
For once I encountered a situation when I didn’t do any combat but turning on my transponder immediately dropped my relation with pirates to hostile. Not entirely sure what happened, not able to reproduce.

The micro wormhole thing seems super lackluster for the requirements. I don’t even know what to do with 5th industry slot, there’s simply not that many industries to begin with.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Hiruma Kai on April 02, 2021, 10:29:17 AM
Re: Derelict Contingent, I'd like it to somehow enable a "junk fleet" style, though. Actually, recalling some of the original thinking here - that it's relatively "ok" for it to be useless on second go around, since functionally that makes getting the second I5 colony skill cost two points, which doesn't seem all that unreasonable. Still, it'd be nicer if it wasn't.

Out of curiosity, what was wrong with the old industry method of making d-mod ships simply not be terrible?  I.e. 50% less penalty on the d-mods plus monthly supply cost reductions?  I mean it is still in theme for industry to reduce your operating costs.  Or is it a question of not being strong enough for end game fights?  If that's the case, bumping up the penalty reduction to 66% or 75% or so.  It really would be like allowing you to ignore how many d-mods you have without removing them.  A -15% becomes 3.75% penalty at 75% reduction which is probably enough to shrug your shoulders at and say it gets lost in the noise.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 02, 2021, 10:30:35 AM
Quote
Re: Derelict Contingent, I'd like it to somehow enable a "junk fleet" style, though. Actually, recalling some of the original thinking here - that it's relatively "ok" for it to be useless on second go around, since functionally that makes getting the second I5 colony skill cost two points, which doesn't seem all that unreasonable. Still, it'd be nicer if it wasn't.
The issue with making junker fleets viable, at least as far as I see it, is that the only natural benefits that d-modded ships currently have over pristine ones is that they're cheap to get and deploy in battle. But spamming ships like Pirates really isn't viable for the player because of the 30 fleet limit (going over the limit costs more supplies to maintain the fleet -> no benefit to many d-modded ships over fewer pristine ones). Not to mention the inflated fuel costs for maintaining a large fleet, supplies to repair and bring salvaged ships back to combat readiness, and so on.

I'd bring back the -50% d-mod penalties the last patch had, and make it so that penalties introduced by hullmods have d-mod properties so they'd get reduced to. Obviously would need a serious balancing pass, but just as a general idea. A starting point, which undoubtedly needs work.

Also, don't really agree that I4 being useless the second go around is okay, even relatively. First off it's only I4R that's useless if you picked I4L, if you picked I4R the first time than the second go around would completely invalidate a previously chosen skill. Second, I don't think I5R is worth any amount of skill points as it currently stands. Tl;dr: Early colony profitability, especially when trying to achieve any amount of growth on anything but the most habitable of planets, is so badly nerfed that being able to handle three colonies/admins is basically tantamount to setting yourself up for bankruptcy. Unless you've already got stable colonies providing passive income, but by that point you can just slap in alpha cores instead of paying two very rare and precious skill points on, basically, convenience.

(So my limited experience goes, anyway. Next playthrough I think I'll do more thorough exploring and focus on getting more Domain era artefacts, maybe they'll make as major a difference early on as they did when I actually managed to find some of them.)

Quote
Yeah, I've got an item about this - apparently that and pirate base bar events got borked somehow.
Also about Pather cells, what determines whether they're active or sleeping? I've had one pather cell activate, go dormant and than re-activate all within the span of like one ingame week. I thought for a second that the pathers were strategically shutting down their cell whenever I got close to my colony so I wouldn't be able to get the pather cell bar event ::).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 02, 2021, 11:47:26 AM
Quote
Also about Pather cells, what determines whether they're active or sleeping?

cells that have a station linked to them are active, cells that dont have a station arent
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 02, 2021, 11:56:51 AM
Quote
Also about Pather cells, what determines whether they're active or sleeping?

cells that have a station linked to them are active, cells that dont have a station arent

Oh yeah, to clarify! Cells go from sleeper to active if the colony is "ranked" as important enough. Basically the top worst-offenders (from LP's point of view) get active cells, then the next X get sleeper cells, which are kind of a warning. This includes non-player colonies as well. So thinking about it.. in theory selling items that boost Pather interest to other colonies could divert their attention from you.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 02, 2021, 12:01:15 PM
After watching Pather cells in previous releases, it is best to assume that Pathers can wake up anytime.  I rather avoid the problem by never letting interest exceed 6.

I also eventually steal items from core worlds to 1) weaken their expeditions and 2) remove Pather cells.  Win-win.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sutopia on April 02, 2021, 12:17:24 PM
Quote
Also about Pather cells, what determines whether they're active or sleeping?

cells that have a station linked to them are active, cells that dont have a station arent

Oh yeah, to clarify! Cells go from sleeper to active if the colony is "ranked" as important enough. Basically the top worst-offenders (from LP's point of view) get active cells, then the next X get sleeper cells, which are kind of a warning. This includes non-player colonies as well. So thinking about it.. in theory selling items that boost Pather interest to other colonies could divert their attention from you.

Doesn’t this mean player can alway get away with 9 interest since there is a AI admin on one of the core colony? That’s a big oof for me trying very hard to prevent cells from spawning. Cutting in big margins.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 02, 2021, 12:18:48 PM
Doesn’t this mean player can alway get away with 9 interest since there is a AI admin on one of the core colony? That’s a big oof for me trying very hard to prevent cells from spawning. Cutting in big margins.

It's not just one world they put active cells on, nor is it one per base.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 02, 2021, 12:20:32 PM
I get cells the moment interest hits 7 or more.  If it is exactly 7, they are sleepers (that eventually wake up).  If I get 8 or more, they are active and want to burn my colony down now.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Rain on April 02, 2021, 02:36:29 PM
Minor (potential?) bug/error: got a pirate fleet spawned from a salvage ping thingy ("whatever it was, it has to be close nearby") with 14 (I counted) Atlas MKII plus a bunch of smaller things in it; I guess it might be an intended rare thing or something, but if not it looks a bit like a leftover from a more capital-spammy time.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sutopia on April 02, 2021, 02:45:32 PM
Minor (potential?) bug/error: got a pirate fleet spawned from a salvage ping thingy ("whatever it was, it has to be close nearby") with 14 (I counted) Atlas MKII plus a bunch of smaller things in it; I guess it might be an intended rare thing or something, but if not it looks a bit like a leftover from a more capital-spammy time.
It has been there since 0.9.1a iirc.
The distress signal may be an independent fleet asking for fuel or pirate ambush
14 atlas mk2 doesn’t sound super off as their DP is quite low as capital ships.
I think in one of my .91 runs I got ambushed by THREE of those, was good times since they’re made with plastic bags anyways.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 02, 2021, 02:56:26 PM
Minor (potential?) bug/error: got a pirate fleet spawned from a salvage ping thingy ("whatever it was, it has to be close nearby") with 14 (I counted) Atlas MKII plus a bunch of smaller things in it; I guess it might be an intended rare thing or something, but if not it looks a bit like a leftover from a more capital-spammy time.

Thanks! Made a note to have a look; yeah that's kind of a lot.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Pokpaul on April 02, 2021, 03:39:55 PM
Minor (potential?) bug/error: got a pirate fleet spawned from a salvage ping thingy ("whatever it was, it has to be close nearby") with 14 (I counted) Atlas MKII plus a bunch of smaller things in it; I guess it might be an intended rare thing or something, but if not it looks a bit like a leftover from a more capital-spammy time.

Were any of them a XIV battlegroup MKII Atlas? If you ever get a chance to salvage one, give it a try. They are actually a lot of fun to fly I find.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Mach56 on April 02, 2021, 04:11:32 PM
Minor (potential?) bug/error: got a pirate fleet spawned from a salvage ping thingy ("whatever it was, it has to be close nearby") with 14 (I counted) Atlas MKII plus a bunch of smaller things in it; I guess it might be an intended rare thing or something, but if not it looks a bit like a leftover from a more capital-spammy time.
Minor (potential?) bug/error: got a pirate fleet spawned from a salvage ping thingy ("whatever it was, it has to be close nearby") with 14 (I counted) Atlas MKII plus a bunch of smaller things in it; I guess it might be an intended rare thing or something, but if not it looks a bit like a leftover from a more capital-spammy time.

Were any of them a XIV battlegroup MKII Atlas? If you ever get a chance to salvage one, give it a try. They are actually a lot of fun to fly I find.
Those are from a mod, not vanilla.

Were any of them a XIV battlegroup MKII Atlas? If you ever get a chance to salvage one, give it a try. They are actually a lot of fun to fly I find.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Pokpaul on April 02, 2021, 04:27:58 PM
A few times now I've found over 30,000 ore in mining stations or their debris field. If you happen to hit salvage all and not notice, the extra cargo will eat up all your supplies in a few seconds.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Baqar79 on April 02, 2021, 05:23:49 PM
A few times now I've found over 30,000 ore in mining stations or their debris field. If you happen to hit salvage all and not notice, the extra cargo will eat up all your supplies in a few seconds.

Same here, but I'm usually careful to make sure I have the cargo space (exception being supplies of course, no point chucking them might as well use them at an increased rate).  I wonder if there should be a hard cap on the number of cargo you can take over the limit to avoid this sort of thing happening.

Also, how much would it cost to run a fleet capable of carrying 30,000 ore?  15 Atlas's, 150 monthly supply, 90 fuel/light year...hmmm maybe it would turn a profit, but if you can afford that fleet to begin with, I'm not sure if it would even be that lucrative, though that is merely my uninformed opinion (need to dig further into the math to see whether it makes sense or not).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Gosts on April 02, 2021, 05:27:36 PM
A few times now I've found over 30,000 ore in mining stations or their debris field. If you happen to hit salvage all and not notice, the extra cargo will eat up all your supplies in a few seconds.

This happens to me a lot. I know that, really, this is user error. The game DOES give me notifications that I am carrying too much. But in situations this extreme, I feel like there should be some kind of additional warning. If I just salvage things really fast sometimes I don't notice, and then I literally lose a thousand supplies in seconds, and I have to load my game. Maybe there could be a popup if you're carrying 150% of your inventory? or even 120% or so? Or maybe before you hit 'OK' when you're taking things, the button can flash red or something to indicate you have WAY too much.

It's not strictly necessary but it'd be a great QOL feature.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 02, 2021, 05:38:28 PM
Yeah, I've got a TODO item about this...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 02, 2021, 05:54:21 PM
While you are at TODO, maybe have difficult recovery not be the first thing that pops up if they are the only ships.  More than once, I clicked recover all, and almost confirmed until I saw green and held at the last second before wasting SP by accident.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Voxette on April 02, 2021, 06:04:25 PM
I really love this game, and the new patch is great.

A few pieces of feedback:

The game is, in opinion, way way way too easy, even on the Spacer start. Not necessarily in the combat, which is challenging if it's an even match, but the economy. I really wish there were a harder mode that would tighten the economy up so it's not laughably easy to rack up enormous profit margins just by knowing how to use the F1 key and looking for shortages (and the old standby of taking drugs and weapons to the Pathers). I feel like this harms the game narratively, as I don't feel like just another spacer trying to get by in a harsh post-Collapse world but some kind of Horatio Alger version of Gordon Gekko. Anything I touch, money just pours out of. If I go bankrupt, I just glance at my bootstraps. In the real world, if there's a way to make tons of money for nothing, people all go do it, so it doesn't stay that way! It might make some sense if the fiction were like Eve Online, where capsuleers are almost like gods, but the Starsector fiction seems to want to make them much more grounded.

The new skill system feels odd in some ways. It is weird that the two new phase ships count as "phase combat" ships, apparently, when there are no other phase non-combat ships. Hopefully, that is just a bug.

I feel somewhat punished for taking "fun" skills like personal combat, when it would be more "optimal" to go for the fleet bonuses.

I don't like this odd feeling of being actively pushed to spend story points on 100% bonus things I don't need, just to increase my XP gains to rank up my skills. I also think you rank up way too quickly at the early ranks.

I feel like smuggling is a little too easy and dull once you learn how to do it. Not to mention that the penalties from just openly trading on the black market are so mild that transponder-off smuggling feels totally optional.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: pairedeciseaux on April 02, 2021, 06:25:32 PM
While you are at TODO, maybe have difficult recovery not be the first thing that pops up if they are the only ships.  More than once, I clicked recover all, and almost confirmed until I saw green and held at the last second before wasting SP by accident.

Hmmm. I am not a fan of the recovery screen. IMO, having two tabs means means bad UX:

Personally, I would prefer to see all ships at once when the recovery screen pops up.

I also think you rank up way too quickly at the early ranks.

I have had this feeling too.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 02, 2021, 07:00:41 PM
I feel somewhat punished for taking "fun" skills like personal combat, when it would be more "optimal" to go for the fleet bonuses.
This is how I feel about Automated Ships vs. Special Modifications.  Special Modifications is great for those with story points to burn.  Automated Ships, is fun, but less so when one Radiant has to work with low CR (or even Brilliant with less than max CR).

If I plan to play a given game a long time, I would pass on Automated Ships for Special Modifications because I want more powerful flagship (and fleet too).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sedrido on April 02, 2021, 07:20:42 PM
some folks way back on page 13 or so said that people autopilot because they suck at combat but for me thats not true i like sitting back watching the pretty colors (and calling back that one suicidal frigate before the horde of fighters takes it to brazil) of the fleet of ships that i lovingly customized destroy any and all challengers, incidentally that makes personal combat skills matter less to me i almost think that combat skills should grow and develop alongside other skills depending on how you fight so it feels like you arent just losing out taking them over utility skills (also can you remove the command point cost from actions using the ship you command? it just feels weird is all as you can make it do all the things you were going to give it commands for manually anyway)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Flet on April 02, 2021, 09:40:55 PM
Thats why i tend to like sitting in carriers. You go through the effort of finding the perfect officer and making a ship for them, i like to watch them act.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Rain on April 03, 2021, 12:01:53 AM

Were any of them a XIV battlegroup MKII Atlas? If you ever get a chance to salvage one, give it a try. They are actually a lot of fun to fly I find.

No, the only mods I've been running to start with are portraits and GraphicsLib, so it was all straight up the vanilla pirate junk. :) I did break them all, I just thought it was a little at odds with what I'd read about this release being intended to reduce capital ship spam, hence I posted about it. And so it apparently was, judging by the above dev response.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: CrashToDesktop on April 03, 2021, 12:21:33 AM
I've got a bit of a problem with a blueprint.  Fairly early in the game, I came across a system with a coronal hypershunt in it - poked my head in, saw the baddies, noped out, but I cleaned out the rest of the system - debris fields, derelicts, Domain probes, ruins, the lot of it.  Much later picked up a bar event to find a blueprint, one for a Phantom, that happened to be located in the same system.  I came back with a sizable fleet and defeated said baddies, pulled off everything I could from their hopefully-dead-this-time-for-sure hulks, jumped back home, picked up the pieces, and came with a fleet more suited to looking for goodies (and fending off overly-territorial prospectors).  I scoured that system top to bottom again with no results.

So I took a peek in the save file, and it turns out, the blueprint appears to be held in the hypershunt itself.  But I didn't get the blueprint when I defeated the baddies, only loot from the baddies themselves, and I can't go back and get any loot from the hypershunt (even if I activate it).  I reactivated the baddies through modifying the save file and defeated them again, but to no avail.  Is this an oversight?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 03, 2021, 04:41:01 AM
@ The Soldier:  Is that blueprint quest given by a "flashy" guy?  If so, you need to survey a planet for ruins and loot the blueprint from there.  I got a Phantom blueprint quest, killed all of the Indie claim jumpers in the system (had to detour to Red Planet to recover a Radiant to overpower and kill that Odyssey and friends), then scanned the planets.  Found Phantom blueprint after looting one of the ruins.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 03, 2021, 08:28:16 AM
Question:  Is Decivilized more common on habitable planets now, or is that just unfavorable sector generation?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: CrashToDesktop on April 03, 2021, 08:33:15 AM
@ The Soldier:  Is that blueprint quest given by a "flashy" guy?  If so, you need to survey a planet for ruins and loot the blueprint from there.  I got a Phantom blueprint quest, killed all of the Indie claim jumpers in the system (had to detour to Red Planet to recover a Radiant to overpower and kill that Odyssey and friends), then scanned the planets.  Found Phantom blueprint after looting one of the ruins.
Aye, given by a "flashy" guy, so plenty of overly-aggressive indies.  As said though, I cleaned out the system a dozen cycles previously.  All planets surveyed, all ruins explored.  Double and triple-checked all the planets again after I got the quest.  I peeked in the save file, and it implies the blueprint is locked in the hypershunt, which as far as I can tell, I can't actually loot (it seems to think the hypershunt is any other station that I can salvage).  The indies were also interested in the hypershunt, though they could never get close.

Question:  Is Decivilized more common on habitable planets now, or is that just unfavorable sector generation?
In my sector gen, I've only got a dozen or so Decivilized worlds, with dozens more habitable planets.  Just unfavorable generation.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 03, 2021, 09:37:56 AM
Yeah, this looks like a bug - thank you! Made a note to investigate. The Hypershunt is not salvageable so it's odd... ah, it still has the salvageable tag for some reason. Maybe that's the problem - I'll take a look!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 03, 2021, 10:05:03 AM
Are there more than two cryosleepers per map in 0.9.5? If not I don't think they should be able to generate within 3.3 lightyears of each other as they did in my game. Makes them really...well, of limited use.

(MN-6593263186804071588, Mokosh and Delta Zabazio, bottom-left of the map, in case that's helpful)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: rude_strudel on April 03, 2021, 10:19:43 AM
Just dropped in to say holy crap I'm loving this release! I took a few days off and i'm already 30 hours into my new vanilla campaign. The changes feel great to me!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 03, 2021, 10:35:16 AM
Just dropped in to say holy crap I'm loving this release! I took a few days off and i'm already 30 hours into my new vanilla campaign. The changes feel great to me!

:D Thank you!

Are there more than two cryosleepers per map in 0.9.5? If not I don't think they should be able to generate within 3.3 lightyears of each other as they did in my game. Makes them really...well, of limited use.

(MN-6593263186804071588, Mokosh and Delta Zabazio, bottom-left of the map, in case that's helpful)

There are 2 cryosleepers, yeah. Their placement is fairly randomized, in systems with the "domain exploration drones" theme, but preferring systems with good planets if possible. Might not be a bad idea to spread them out, but... well, let me think about it!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Farlarzia on April 03, 2021, 11:40:35 AM
Some more notes from my playthrough:

Several times I have seen fleets being listed as 'running from your fleet' for them to actually directly follow and sit on top of my fleet, even in motion, although they don't interact with you. They weren't quest or mission related, or had anything other than generic comms dialog.

The story mission to
Spoiler
meet Baikal Daud
[close]
is incorrectly listing his office to be in Kazeron in the mission description. The icon itself appears at the correct location on the star map.

The none story missions from Galatia Acedemy often seem predisposed to offer missions in the same cluster of planets. From what I can tell, these long distance missions seem to be to encourage and make exploration more profitable, so the fact they repeatedly send you to locations you've already scoured isn't very useful. Dead drops seem to also suffer this, to a lower extent.

An odd side effect of building in hullmods, is that if you so want, you can build in a hullmod that requires militarized subsystems, and then remove militarized subsystems while keeping the built in that requires it.

As people have already mentioned, the new phase logistics ships count as militarized ships despite not being combat worthy, and thus count against those skills.
I understand that they're not really 'civilian' in the fact they're highly advanced phase ships, especially in the case of the Phantom which is designed for ground attacks, and giving them the civilan hullmod would mean breaking the set rule that 'ships in x class have y base sensor strength and profile' to keep them at their current statline.
I think its fair trade off for these logistical ships to make your direct combat skills less effective, due to other passive buffs they provide to the fleet being more powerful than regular civilian logistical ships. The Revenent could probably do with a minor buff in this circumstance though, perhaps giving it a phase equivilent of Shielded Cargo Hold hullmod?

This hasn't really become too much of an issue yet, but after visiting the same port many times throughout the game, the comms tab is starting to become cluttered with contacts I didn't want (4 contacts I turned down, 1 I actually kept). Perhaps there should be a limit to the total contacts per location, or for contacts you don't accept to disappear entirely after a while?

This is more of a personal greivance, but Buffalos are 2 OP off being able to install saftey overrides. This might be intended, to keep them within their slow lumbering cargo haulers role, even for the player. But it does remove the option for the player to sacrifice a built-in logistically advantageous Dock hullmod, for a more speedy run away from danger blockade runner fleet within disengage scenarios.
Since there are many variants of the Buffallo, but only 2 which actually have a statistical difference, one of which is a straight upgrade (Pirate version with Shielded Cargo Hold), and one is a sidegrade (Hegemony Auxillary with Militarized Subsystems), perhaps the TriTach version could gain 2 OP to open up another choice in which buffalo to choose.

Another weird skill interaction, is that built in fighter wings still count towards the total flight decks for the skill tree, when most of the built in fighter wings are on ships you certainly wouldn't class as a carrier.

Regarding the paper book historian - He's super neat! But past that, it would nice to be able to get the unrelated story tidbit informations even if you accept his tangible offers of blueprints or rare items (I mean technically you can, but its not super intuitive). The story point for different ship classes might also need adjusting - its a single story point for a measly frigate, but also only a single story point to point out a Paragon blueprint. I'd also say that the 4 story points needed for a rare item really stings, when you consider that 0% bonus xp goes along side that, though I understand these items can be very powerful - still, its a lot, especially when you consider how far those story points could go if you sunk them into a colony. If the ship options are to stay at 1 story point, maybe it could point out 2/2/1/1 blueprints depending on size, to make spending the point on lower tier ships a little more cost effecient - or you could just turn up the bonus XP for smaller ships past 0.

Edit: Something extra that I forgot when I was writing this, is that the interaction with the Persean Intelligence Officer, you can repeat that dialog infinitely by just bringing up comms again, and gain 5 rep with him each time while doing so (not that this does anything currently I believe)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Vespa on April 03, 2021, 02:27:43 PM
Yay! Some of the updates will finally allow me to play the game (it wasn't possible on my newish system). Can't wait!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sutopia on April 03, 2021, 03:21:02 PM
Bug: sometimes the fleet that picked up the probe and you pay them to retrieve what's yours, they may infinitely try to pursue you and do nothing on contact.
It renders the game nearly unplayable until you burn all the way and shake them.

Found the root cause of in-system in-faction trade disruption: random trade convoy of other faction lost
The most common ones are pirate and pathers. Since everyone hate them, even their tiniest trade fleet get crushed by other factions' trade fleet and it immediately posts -2 deficit to my own colony, which has no fault on my own logistic officers at all.
All trade convoy must carry something on both trips which makes this happen: my colonies are all self-sufficient except for organs, and in-faction supplied goods shouldn't get affected by outside traders.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 03, 2021, 03:33:03 PM
@Farlarzia, Sutopia: Thank you! Made some notes.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: WeiTuLo on April 03, 2021, 05:40:44 PM
I was near a bounty pirate station in an unclaimed system when a small pirate fleet tried to chase me. I moved far enough away from the station that the small fleet changed its status to running away, but instead it kept tailing my fleet and wound up inside the circumference of my fleet. It did not engage and kept bouncing around instead. Eventually I changed direction and it flew off, so I raided then blew up the station. It was very amusing.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Baqar79 on April 03, 2021, 05:47:26 PM
Is there some way to create a stabilization point for a comm relay in a system which has none?

I thought I heared of a device that may just do that, but just wanted to confirm.  It's not so much the stability bonus that I want, but the convenience of being able to access the market (2 of my 3 colonies exist in that system).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 03, 2021, 05:50:40 PM
Fly into the sun and click on it!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Baqar79 on April 03, 2021, 06:10:28 PM
Fly into the sun and click on it!
Oh, well I'll be....

Many thanks!  :D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 03, 2021, 06:19:53 PM
I was near a bounty pirate station in an unclaimed system when a small pirate fleet tried to chase me. I moved far enough away from the station that the small fleet changed its status to running away, but instead it kept tailing my fleet and wound up inside the circumference of my fleet. It did not engage and kept bouncing around instead. Eventually I changed direction and it flew off, so I raided then blew up the station. It was very amusing.

Fixed this one up just now, actually!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: WeiTuLo on April 03, 2021, 06:24:48 PM
Very nice!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: DancingMonkey on April 03, 2021, 06:43:07 PM
Fly into the sun and click on it!

Is this a new feature?!?!?

LOVE IT.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Hiruma Kai on April 03, 2021, 07:32:55 PM
Fly into the sun and click on it!

I feel like this statement really needs to be a loading/saving tip.  I'm not sure how else this is communicated to the player at the moment.  And despite being really cool, I feel is somewhat non-intuitive - generally solar coronas are bad, and presumably clicking on the sun is not going to be something most people try during the game.

Alternatively, there needs to be a colony pop up that explains this perhaps?  Actually, I have those off - maybe there is one explaining this already?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 03, 2021, 07:57:37 PM
... yeah, let me at least add a loading screen tip about it. It's pretty well hidden. (Not in the help popups, no.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on April 03, 2021, 08:58:08 PM
Just started playthrough 2! Going for the high tech frigate build this time.

Comments so far: Energy Weapon Mastery is funny, but probably too strong. I can see the bonus being 25% at max flux instead of 50% for a level 2 skill being about right. That puts it in line with other lower tier damage boosters (10% for L1, 0 to 20% for C2). I think the reason its so strong is that for ships that want to use it, they are always going to be in range so there's no tradeoff happening. The elite skill for it is also really excellent, one of the best elite skills out there.

Not that I'm not having fun... its a blast to use, just a little much. :D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Baqar79 on April 03, 2021, 10:39:49 PM
Comments so far: Energy Weapon Mastery is funny, but probably too strong. I can see the bonus being 25% at max flux instead of 50% for a level 2 skill being about right. That puts it in line with other lower tier damage boosters (10% for L1, 0 to 20% for C2). I think the reason its so strong is that for ships that want to use it, they are always going to be in range so there's no tradeoff happening. The elite skill for it is also really excellent, one of the best elite skills out there.
I have to admit that I have chosen this skill for four of my level 6 Lieutenants (3 for my Hyperion frigates, one on my Doom cruiser). 

Still it feels about right for the additional risk it entails to get close to that 50% bonus buff (you need to be under 600 units as well as have high flux) and it's unlikely your sitting at 50% regularly unless you have your shields down or are decloaked.  I haven't really paid much attention to what the average damage is however.  I think my Doom tends to run a bit higher in flux normally than my Hyperion's so it is quite possible I'm averaging less than 25% for my Hyperion's, but more for my Doom. 

If the maximum damage was reduced to 25% and the flux bonus needed to max the effect was halved (ie max damage at 50%+ flux level), it probably wouldn't make much difference to the overal damage of my fleet.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Voyager I on April 03, 2021, 10:41:29 PM
... yeah, let me at least add a loading screen tip about it. It's pretty well hidden. (Not in the help popups, no.)

I know it's legit, but "grab an alpha core and fly into the sun" sounds exactly like the kind of advice you'd give your little brother on his Ironman save.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on April 03, 2021, 11:18:40 PM
Comments so far: Energy Weapon Mastery is funny, but probably too strong. I can see the bonus being 25% at max flux instead of 50% for a level 2 skill being about right. That puts it in line with other lower tier damage boosters (10% for L1, 0 to 20% for C2). I think the reason its so strong is that for ships that want to use it, they are always going to be in range so there's no tradeoff happening. The elite skill for it is also really excellent, one of the best elite skills out there.
I have to admit that I have chosen this skill for four of my level 6 Lieutenants (3 for my Hyperion frigates, one on my Doom cruiser). 

Still it feels about right for the additional risk it entails to get close to that 50% bonus buff (you need to be under 600 units as well as have high flux) and it's unlikely your sitting at 50% regularly unless you have your shields down or are decloaked.  I haven't really paid much attention to what the average damage is however.  I think my Doom tends to run a bit higher in flux normally than my Hyperion's so it is quite possible I'm averaging less than 25% for my Hyperion's, but more for my Doom. 

If the maximum damage was reduced to 25% and the flux bonus needed to max the effect was halved (ie max damage at 50%+ flux level), it probably wouldn't make much difference to the overal damage of my fleet.

In comparing it to other skills I was guestimating half flux for about a 12.5% damage boost, pretty in line with L1 and C2... it is a lot smaller, but medium energy hardflux weapons only go out to 600 range anyways before hullmods, so frigates and destroyers are probably operating within the range band no matter what. Comparing it to ranged specialization, which is level 3, competes with armor, and requires either a specialized long ranged cruiser build or a capital with 900 range weapons, gunnery implants, and ITU to get the max bonus, energy weapon mastery is just very easy to get a very large damage boost.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TaLaR on April 03, 2021, 11:33:13 PM
In comparing it to other skills I was guestimating half flux for about a 12.5% damage boost, pretty in line with L1 and C2... it is a lot smaller, but medium energy hardflux weapons only go out to 600 range anyways before hullmods, so frigates and destroyers are probably operating within the range band no matter what. Comparing it to ranged specialization, which is level 3, competes with armor, and requires either a specialized long ranged cruiser build or a capital with 900 range weapons, gunnery implants, and ITU to get the max bonus, energy weapon mastery is just very easy to get a very large damage boost.

EWM competes vs Gunnery Implants, which is also good on pretty much anything. Even frigates that don't benefit much from range at least contribute a lot to ECM (6%).
EWM needs to be more than merely okay to be worth taking vs GI.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Vind on April 04, 2021, 02:01:17 AM
Energy weapon skill is barely enough to do anything with high tech ships. As almost every ship got officers with skills for armor boosting energy weapons need this to even remotely compete with Kinetic/HE weapons combo. Pirates tank 2 blasters like some peashooters while flux is not at max level.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on April 04, 2021, 02:09:20 AM
I was near a bounty pirate station in an unclaimed system when a small pirate fleet tried to chase me. I moved far enough away from the station that the small fleet changed its status to running away, but instead it kept tailing my fleet and wound up inside the circumference of my fleet. It did not engage and kept bouncing around instead. Eventually I changed direction and it flew off, so I raided then blew up the station. It was very amusing.

Fixed this one up just now, actually!

Sort of adjacent to this.
I was flying between two of my colonies in the same system, and one of my own faction fleets did this exact same thing to me. Pursued, and then bounced around once it caught up. Did nothing else, and followed me around everywhere in the system.
When I clicked on the fleet it prompted a 'contraband scan' dialogue, in the same manner as if you'd been caught with no transponder on in a core system.

Never seen this from the player faction before and it doesn't make a ton of sense, so it may not be intended behaviour.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Soban on April 04, 2021, 02:59:47 AM
The mission rewards for "Drop this into a system", "Install a covert surveilance satellite" and "Raid X at Y location" seem to be bit too small currently. Does not seem to be worth the effort, especially for the faction penalty standing afterwards.

Also a bug.

Was exploring a system and noticed it had a stable location, nearly in the middle of the sun. Picture below.

https://i.imgur.com/J6Gb7Ir.png
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 04, 2021, 04:28:58 AM
Damper field's shot damage threshold is too high. AI allows ship to melt while under fire from wide array of weapons such as Thumper or Autopulse Laser without single use of the system.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: FreonRu on April 04, 2021, 05:20:41 AM
Good day. I apologize in advance for using google translate. I will share my impressions and thoughts on the update.
To begin with, the update is long-awaited and amazing. I feel a couple of hundred more hours in the Starsector world. With a complete passage (so to speak), I had several questions and reasoning on their topic, I will try to state as they appear:
 
1 Quests - bounty hunting. There is not enough intermediate link between "a fleet of four rusty cans" and "a fleet of 10 conquerors and another 10 smaller ships, with officers on each vessel." A sharp leap, my personal fleet is not replenishing at such a rate.
2 The reward for pirate bases is very small. Here a simple comparison is suitable - one pirate base is equal in cost to research in a distant system of any planet or researching artifacts in a domain. But! To destroy a pirate base, you need to spend several orders of magnitude more credits and then pay more for repairs and supplies than to make a research fleet and calmly receive the same amount of credits.
3 Officers. Found a couple of level 7 officers in random locations - awesome! But! They cannot change their behavior model - I am ready to invest a couple of history points in them and even improve their skills, but there is no possibility. Although I am very glad that there are fewer problems with officers now - and the window for choosing skills is larger and it is now not so difficult to find them, given the possibility of retraining with history points.
4 Inhabited worlds (colonies for the player). How many did not play constantly have no luck with inhabited worlds that can be populated closer to the center of the map - there is all life (quests, shops, conflicts, etc.). And that's why I always populated Penelope (taking into account the terraforming fashion) - there are many planets - all colonies in one place at once - patrol fleets tear everything they see. And there are all stable points! Subject to a new subject (another industry if 10 light years away from a coronary shunt). Moreover, it is simply pointless to colonize very distant worlds - the level of accessibility is 0%. And the gates located nearby (active) do not give an increase of 100% - although it would seem logical.
5 Payment for colonies (costs for palnetary modifiers) at the initial stage is capable of ruining, but without this there is no increase in the colony. Those. to start building in this patch, you need to already have a good initial capital or look for a planet (or better just 4 or 6) that will not require a constant infusion of money. After the development of industries, this question disappears, but the initial stage must be lived through.
6 Attacks on colonies - the logic is this: "Your colony produces a lot of products (insert what you need), we are now going to ravage your colony, kill innocents and mock the population, you have the option to take a fair fight or pay money (using a history point). My officer on tactical operations, he says that patrol fleets will tear them to shreds (taking into account the item that was found in the ruins of the Domain) - so I calmly continue to explore the world and complete quests. The enemy fleet arrives and naturally dies ... and my reputation is lost. It%u2019s okay to go to a fair fight, lose in it and then reduce your reputation? Why did you fly in at all? We are not enemies at all, and not allies, relations are friendly, but flying to die and take away your reputation is strange.
7 Skill points - in this thread, it is already written that the skill points are not enough and why (it does not make sense to duplicate), in my personal opinion, for an extremely comfortable game, about 5 skill points are missing - exactly half of the skills may be in the player (just possible connect with the main quest - by the way, very interesting)
8 Galatia learned about the academy by accident! Maybe at least get an invitation from them or mention them in training.
9 Gate activation. Why does the gate use fuel? in this navrenye is the idea of %u200B%u200Ba gate so that without spending gigatons of fuel to move between large distances? Can a player's merchant fleets use a gate? It would be very convenient.
Also, on the map of flights through the gates, there are very few quest marks (for example, I flew to research or once again try my hand at a new enemy).
10 New (spoiler) enemies are just hell and vietnam! Cool! But! Why, for example, when we take Ziggurat away from it becomes much weaker than when we try to defeat him? I was hoping to cause hell for the pirates ... but it turned out the opposite.
11 I found domain mirrors in distant systems on two planets (for reflecting light or vice versa for focusing) - why can't you pick it up and take (tow) to your habitable system? Suppose they weigh a lot and it will be necessary to take several freighters to move them, or the speed of the fleet will be very limited. Or just colonize a lonely planet very far from the center of the map?
12 The more time passes in the game, the thicker and angrier the pirates - they corny will destroy everything inhabited.
13 Checking hegemony for the presence of AI cores - only two options - to patch, taking into account the waste of history points (very rare - only unicorns are less common) or destroy them (just make hegemony your enemies) - you can just pay without history points - albeit more expensive, but so much more options?
14 New items are awesome! Although the availability of new items makes you wonder where to build colonies - or in a world where there are a couple of suitable planets for human habitation or for work items. The same example for an increase in industries - it means find a world with a coronary bypass and no further than 10 light years look for a suitable place, which, according to the law of meanness, will be very far from the inhabited worlds, will have 0% availability and there will definitely not be a cryosliper nearby. By the way - why can't you tow the cryosleeper to your colony? Let it be long and expensive - but why not? Pain and suffering.
15 Neutrino detector - pain and suffering. Used only on a quest. His testimony is very strange.
16 Lobsters! How about lobsters! I did not find an object or planet where and how they can be grown - I saw only in the Ascona system.

Requests / questions not for the patch, but for the game as a whole:
1 Why is there no high-tech medium-sized aircraft carrier (astral large), tanker and cargo carrier? I love the design of the hi-tech fleet.
2 Garbage fields - can you make them disappear after collecting them? I constantly return to the already assembled ones (distracting, get ready to carry a few rigs with me).
3 How about an item or an autonomous fleet which in the player's colony (in the system where the player's colonies are) will remove nebulae by transforming their items. It's just not nice to lose acceleration due to clouds of fog, and so they will serve as an additional source of items and you can ennoble your colony.
4 How about the transfer of captured or newly built ships to the patrol - let it be useful there. And even more - how about creating an item that transforms the industry - a military base into an attacking outpost - that will automatically send a punitive fleet (possibly even represented by the player) to clean up the pirate base from which the pirate raid is taking place.
5 The limit on the size of the deployed fleet of 400 units is small. Can we go back to the previous 500, please.
6 The flashes from the explosion of ships and the transition from screen to screen are very inconvenient.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 04, 2021, 07:12:58 AM
Frigates on escort order tend to rotate into back-to-enemy nose-to-escorted position or get stuck in the broadside orientation while having only forward facing hardpoints (Brawler). You can say that escorting ships waste toomuch time maneuvering in a very odd pattern and not firing their guns. With a very dire consequences as a result.

Not a thing while not under escort order.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: bluevulture on April 04, 2021, 07:19:29 AM
10 New (spoiler) enemies are just hell and vietnam! Cool! But! Why, for example, when we take Ziggurat away from it becomes much weaker than when we try to defeat him? I was hoping to cause hell for the pirates ... but it turned out the opposite.

The only difference between the ziggurat you fight and the one you get is the "High Volition Attractor" hullmod, which improves the motes (light balls that do EMP damage), so if it's massively under-performing you just probably don't have it setup the proper way. For reference the lvl 10 captain on the Ziggurat when you fight it has these skills:

Spoiler
"helmsmanship"
"target_analysis"
"impact_mitigation"
"gunnery_implants"
"energy_weapon_mastery"
"reliability_engineering"
"ranged_specialization"
"missile_specialization"
"phase_mastery"
"damage_control"
"navigation"
[close]

on elite. Not to mention that the default loadout is pretty powerful (plasma cannons, reapers, disintegrators and heavyneedlers).

16 Lobsters! How about lobsters! I did not find an object or planet where and how they can be grown - I saw only in the Ascona system.

As the name would suggest the lobsters are only grown on the water world of Vulturn, in the Askonia system, and to my knowledge ther is no way to get them, or grow them anywhere else.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Histidine on April 04, 2021, 07:24:59 AM
Do bounty sizes still scale faster than linearly (while bounty payout scales linearly, with the difficulty tier)? Eyeballing CBPirate and the FleetSize enum, it kind of seems that way (and also since the difficulty component of payout is added to a flat amount).

If the consensus is that late game bounties remain too hard (as they were in 0.9.1), this may be a contributor to it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 04, 2021, 07:59:09 AM
Do bounty sizes still scale faster than linearly (while bounty payout scales linearly, with the difficulty tier)? Eyeballing CBPirate and the FleetSize enum, it kind of seems that way (and also since the difficulty component of payout is added to a flat amount).

If the consensus is that late game bounties remain too hard (as they were in 0.9.1), this may be a contributor to it.
Early bounty strength seems the same as before, which is too fast like in earlier 0.9a releases.  Also, it jumps from one or two capitals in 200k bounties to six or more at 250+k, sort of like last release.

For the moment, after acquiring Radiant and another capital, I can deal with bounties from 180k to sub-250k.  Once they go to multi-capital and full officer spam, I may abandon combat with bounties unless I can find a way to win flawlessly with a conventional fleet.  (I still do not have unlimited money and fully developed colonies yet.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TaLaR on April 04, 2021, 08:08:29 AM
I think current best solutions to high tier bounties are player-piloted Afflictors or Doom. Or Derelict Contingent cheese, possibly combined with AI ships.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 04, 2021, 08:15:35 AM
I think current best solutions to high tier bounties are player-piloted Afflictors or Doom. Or Derelict Contingent cheese, possibly combined with AI ships.
I want to avoid cheese if I can, because I do not want to learn Spec.Mods. permanently, and respeccing gets expensive after several skills become elite.  (I did not elite any of my skills yet because I do not want to burn too many story points after respec.)

That is why I mentioned conventional fleet.  I have read the topics of various cheese.

I do not want Derelict Contingent because I want pristine ships, and Field Repairs is the only cheap way of removing d-mods from s-mod ships, even if it takes way too long for d-mods to disappear.  (Buy/build new ship then spending story points is too expensive, restore is too expensive.  Losses are too painful.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 04, 2021, 08:22:24 AM
I just noticed that the colony skills of administrators look like elite skills, they have the triple star border around them. Seeing as how those skills don't have elite effects I'm not sure why they do, either way they shouldn't.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: WeiTuLo on April 04, 2021, 08:27:01 AM
Is it just me, or are Lumens very hard to recover without using story points? Must have fought 10+, got 4 opportunities to recover brilliants without using story points, and many Glimmers, but 0 for Lumens.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 04, 2021, 08:56:09 AM
They can be sometimes recovered normally instead of (with) difficulty.  In case of Lumen, you get 87% bonus XP with difficult recovery, which may be acceptable.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: WeiTuLo on April 04, 2021, 09:05:42 AM
Another ship for my collection.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: oooh_senpai on April 04, 2021, 09:36:06 AM
Hi, was playing a lot with a new update. Feels like paragon has became even worse with it's DP cost due to larger number of officers in enemy (especially redacted) fleets and it's uneffectivness; he's still constantly dropping his awesome shields in duels or against stations even with zero flux levels and shooting all of autopulse laser charges at the distance when the target is out of range. Also shooting his buddies with hardpoint weapons... Feels like it would be better to just take more dooms as changebals and make all the work by myself with a cool fireworks show.
Story spoilers next
Spoiler
I've completed story missions in Academy, decided to not use gate when was running away from pirates after raid variant of getting the last scientist from Kanny. But when I got to Academy they still shown me my fleet running through the gate and teleporting... Maybe photoshop will still exist. Ok, so after that I've got the device that, as it's description says, will allow my fleet to use gates if I'll right click on it, so that was done; some message about devicename was installed appeared. But how to use gates now? Nothing still happens then I choose to fly through the gate, only able to scan the gates that wasn't scanned yet. Got the device two patches ago maybe, but still can't get how to use it on the newest patch.
[close]
Also seems like colony expeditions haven't got any more time between them, still constantly having two or three in colony threats tab (with one colony). New items are pretty rare usefull due to planet conditions restrictions. Maybe lowering bonuses from them if conditions are not met will be a better option?
I like ability to build mods into hull a lot, even after loosing full-upgraded with built-ins fleet for two times (I'm playing on ironmod, so ohh).
Fleet-wide phase ship skill counts non-combat phase's as combat ships, making skill completely useless in case of using them. Some of another fleet-wide skills become way less cool pretty fast due to low DP cap (any ways to keep up with enemy fleets without enought ships if i don't really want to disengage all the time after reaching clean disengage?(have 178 DP of combat ships, only ships with weapons in my fleet are 2 dooms and a shade, all other DP are from militarised subsistems and phase tenders)).
I do really lack 3 skill points after reaching max level, even without picking any colony or raid skills. Feels like new skill sistem makes combat builds less combat-capable.
P.S.
Very cool update, adds a lot of new endgame goals for me.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on April 04, 2021, 12:20:18 PM
Potential issue. Or at least somewhat confusing.

The Galatia fluff text is going into detail about me having done things that I do not recall doing.
Specifically scanning the ziggurat.
To my knowledge I have not done this, having had only a single encounter with it very early game which I very bravely ran away from.
My guess is that the encounter I had counted as a 'scan' and so part of the script gets skipped.

Maybe there needs to be a bit of an alternative text loop if the player encounters this thing before doing the Galatia missions, because this is currently reading like I've missed a step somewhere and it's super confusing.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Chaos Blade on April 04, 2021, 12:40:12 PM
I seem to be having a bug with one of the mission types, going to the bar fellow warning about pirate raids, and I seem to be getting an error, thus far doesn't seem to be mod related (it only really started after I updated to RC12. admitedly a mod might be messing with this, but a bit hard to track this down, any console commands to try and prop the barfly into being?)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sutopia on April 04, 2021, 01:09:40 PM
In my current playthrough I feel that low and med danger beacons are extremely sparse and the outer rim of the sector is all damn red.
Is this bad luck or proc gen broken?

Also, medium danger beacon systems don't spawn damaged stations, which made it extremely hard to farm core with mediocre fleet. Not sure if this is intentional.

If a battle is not avoidable, it shouldn't apply instant hostile penalty sine the fleet IS hostile on you on it's behalf and no fault on me.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on April 04, 2021, 01:10:50 PM
I think this is just bad luck - I've got a lot of medium ping systems and 2 of them so far have damaged stations.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: evzhel on April 04, 2021, 01:42:00 PM
  • Randomly generated planets in the core (including Duzahk and Penelope's Star) should no longer be habitable
In my game (0.95), the planet Yamaros' Work in Duzahk is habitable, with low gravity, abundant organics, sparse rare ore deposits, adequate farmland and widespread ruins (100% hazard). Actually a very nice planet.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: GenericGoose on April 04, 2021, 01:43:39 PM
class 5s seem to be more common now (still a lot that are unfortunately overrated, because of ruins, that still seem to be less useful than desired)? also every decent planet seems to be high gravity, while low gravity is extremely rare. maybe it's just the seed.
upd: my legion just burn drived into a battlestation and died. I get that the officer was reckless, but I thought they are still supposed to be more well-informed on the burn drive safety...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sutopia on April 04, 2021, 01:43:44 PM
Other minor suggestions: make pirate base has chance to move after reaching max size so they don't plow the same region over 100 times and leave the rest intact.

Possibly bug: the bonus xp % for spending story point after max level has been based on old value of 1 mil (RC12 currently 400k)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: FabianClasen on April 04, 2021, 01:58:11 PM
Anyone else having trouble finding Pather Bases that target your colonies in this update`? Used to be an option to ask around at your colonies, wich does not seem to work anymore. How do you find those bases now?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on April 04, 2021, 02:32:15 PM
Same here, but with pirates.
They targeted my colonies with -3/-50 and I can't find the guy in the bar who reveals the location.
I checked all the nearby systems...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: oooh_senpai on April 04, 2021, 02:41:24 PM
Same here, but with pirates.
They targeted my colonies with -3/-50 and I can't find the guy in the bar who reveals the location.
I checked all the nearby systems...
I saw pathers base directly from colony threats tab, without bar meeting or something
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on April 04, 2021, 02:56:06 PM
I still can't find the pirates...
And 3/50 is very damaging...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Wyvern on April 04, 2021, 03:01:09 PM
I saw pathers base directly from colony threats tab, without bar meeting or something
This happens when someone has set a bounty on them at some point in the past, and you therefore already 'know' they're in that system.

I still can't find the pirates...
And 3/50 is very damaging...
You can use the console commands mod to help with this - it's not a perfect solution by any means, but you can run 'openmarket' with no arguments to get a list of markets that exist, and just start going through the pop-up pirate and pather stations at the end; 'openmarket xyz123' or whatever the market ID string is, double-check that it's actually a pirate station, then blow it up. Repeat until your pirate infestation magically goes away.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: BGrey on April 04, 2021, 03:27:22 PM
I did have the old bar mission pop up eventually with the pirate base location, it had started as -1 stability and I only came across the bar mission when it had hit -3.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on April 04, 2021, 03:35:47 PM
That's really annoying. Even more so than the babysitting in 0.9.1
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on April 04, 2021, 05:27:20 PM
Observation: the current battle system, where the deployments points aren't redistributed and almost entirely officer dependent creates a situation that is very disadvantageous for low-tech capital ships.

Suggestion: increase the battle size to 500 or reintroduce redistribution or make the deployment point a bit more dependent on fleet size.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Histidine on April 04, 2021, 06:50:15 PM
Story spoilers next
Spoiler
I've completed story missions in Academy, decided to not use gate when was running away from pirates after raid variant of getting the last scientist from Kanny. But when I got to Academy they still shown me my fleet running through the gate and teleporting... Maybe photoshop will still exist. Ok, so after that I've got the device that, as it's description says, will allow my fleet to use gates if I'll right click on it, so that was done; some message about devicename was installed appeared. But how to use gates now? Nothing still happens then I choose to fly through the gate, only able to scan the gates that wasn't scanned yet. Got the device two patches ago maybe, but still can't get how to use it on the newest patch.
[close]
There's a bug with it, you can work around it by doing the thing Alex says in this thread (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=20493.msg313439#msg313439) (note that devmode can also be turned on and off with Console Commands mod).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on April 04, 2021, 07:14:51 PM
Just realized that a nanoforge creates pollution when installed on an Orbital Works. I think it sounds silly that something installed orbiting the planet causes pollution...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Radicaljack on April 04, 2021, 08:28:23 PM
It clearly states it will cause pollution and the module is meant to be balanced. If it's in orbit it's spewing *** into the atmosphere, if you need a lore reason to justify it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: ANGRYABOUTELVES on April 04, 2021, 09:12:19 PM
Just realized that a nanoforge creates pollution when installed on an Orbital Works. I think it sounds silly that something installed orbiting the planet causes pollution...
Gravity still exists in orbit and garbage will fall down.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on April 05, 2021, 12:22:56 AM
Playing a lot more in the end game, I feel like we did a complete 180 on the fleet meta. People cried so much about frigates being useless that now the role shifted to destroyers and frigates became the most annoying, scary buggers in the game. With they way DP allocation works now, you pretty much NEED lighting fast ships to cap those first points. And all of the skills buffing damage seem pretty much focused on smaller ships and smaller fleets, there's like one or two good personal skills specifically for larger ships. Combination of EWM and the skill giving bonus damage to larger ship sizes makes frigates phase ships but without the actual phase. You know something's not right when I'm more scared of a random SO frigate than an SO Hammerhead.

The only time I've lost either my Scarab or Tempest is when I lost half of the fleet due to a super hard bounty. In all other 50 or so fights they're just casually walking up to destroyers and cruisers and just wrecking face. Alex pls don't nerf decent ships just because skills make them broken. I'd rather have good ships out of the box that are useful rather than gimped toys that become godlike with appropriate skills.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 05, 2021, 12:49:38 AM
Observation: the current battle system, where the deployments points aren't redistributed and almost entirely officer dependent creates a situation that is very disadvantageous for low-tech capital ships.

Suggestion: increase the battle size to 500 or reintroduce redistribution or make the deployment point a bit more dependent on fleet size.

it does this for everyone especially the player
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 05, 2021, 04:12:23 AM
Fights are no faster than before, and bringing frigates in late-game fights are very annoying because of low PPT.  Wolfpack Tactics may help, except it requires Leadership (no good for 5/5/5 in Combat/Tech/Industry spread) and requires officers in frigates.  I have considered Shrike as a Tempest replacement, but it is probably too sluggish unskilled and not disposable enough once it gets s-mods to offset low OP.

PPT needs to be raised across the board, or fights shrunk to what they were before 0.8a.  Also, AI made macho again like in 0.7.1a and before.

Also, make defensive skills weaker and offensive skills stronger for faster kills, and make losses less punishing (or jack up rewards way higher to compete with raids and supply or drug sales).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Chaos Blade on April 05, 2021, 05:39:53 AM
Just realized that a nanoforge creates pollution when installed on an Orbital Works. I think it sounds silly that something installed orbiting the planet causes pollution...
Gravity still exists in orbit and garbage will fall down.

Not really, somethng in orbit is in freefall, meaning it will always fall "over the horizon"  I mean, the orbit can decay, over time, but we aren't talking about gases or refuse, those can be easily put in orbit or sent, with a loving nudge, towards the sun or a gas giant or whatever.

I understand game balance, and it is a fair point, but it needs a better reason for being. an organic reason, which is missing atm

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: GenericGoose on April 05, 2021, 05:41:18 AM
Officered enemy ships take like 20 times more damage before they die, it's insane. Germlin just casually tanking autopulse like it's nothing.
Also, what happened to the merc marines bar event? I thought patch notes said it was changed to give you more and veteran marines, but it's just gone. I really liked it, even if it's just flavor, sad to see it gone.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 05, 2021, 06:37:47 AM
Officered enemy ships take like 20 times more damage before they die, it's insane. Germlin just casually tanking autopulse like it's nothing.
Also, what happened to the merc marines bar event? I thought patch notes said it was changed to give you more and veteran marines, but it's just gone. I really liked it, even if it's just flavor, sad to see it gone.
I think I might have seen it once this release.

That said, in last release, I mostly saw it in worlds with low stability.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on April 05, 2021, 07:54:04 AM
The mission "At The Gates" has a bit of misdirection in it.
The text says the objective is on Kazeron, but it's actually on Chico.
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/v3ACgC0.png)
[close]

And lol @ the <event> that pushed my entire fleet into red CR all at once and cost me 700+ supplies in recovery.
(https://i.imgur.com/OGqRfbZ.png)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on April 05, 2021, 08:24:41 AM

And lol @ the <event> that pushed my entire fleet into red CR all at once and cost me 700+ supplies in recovery.

Ooof, ate that one too.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Histidine on April 05, 2021, 08:27:40 AM

And lol @ the <event> that pushed my entire fleet into red CR all at once and cost me 700+ supplies in recovery.

Ooof, ate that one too.
David did it to us on purpose.
Spoiler
Of course we were gonna stick around to watch the pretty explosion, did anyone expect differently?
[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Wyvern on April 05, 2021, 08:29:27 AM
The thing I find annoying there is that the explosion only affects you. Not the pirate fleet that was right next to me. No, they're somehow fine.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: bluevulture on April 05, 2021, 08:35:06 AM
Is that the
Spoiler
first Janus device test
[close]
? Cuz, yeah, at least that could throw you out of speedup mode. I didn't even realise what happened before it was over.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: stormturmoil on April 05, 2021, 08:48:08 AM

And lol @ the <event> that pushed my entire fleet into red CR all at once and cost me 700+ supplies in recovery.

Ooof, ate that one too.
David did it to us on purpose.
Spoiler
Of course we were gonna stick around to watch the pretty explosion, did anyone expect differently?
[close]

I Knew something hinky was gonna happen, and I still got caught by it

Also, nice touch is that if you go back, the Jump points have destabilised and can't be used, just like Galatia in the Tutorial, so you can't colonise that system (hint, pick a system with nothing worthwhile but the gate in)

Another cute Idea might be that next time (during the Magec escape) you decide not to trust the Janus device and have an option to send one ship ahead as a test...only or it to work fine, but for your ship with the Janus device to be on the wrong side and leaving your fleet down a ship and having to get to Galatia the Slow way...
the Price of Paranoia.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 05, 2021, 09:42:01 AM
The thing I find annoying there is that the explosion only affects you. Not the pirate fleet that was right next to me. No, they're somehow fine.

Huh? It totally affects every fleet it hits! I tested it quite a bit. And, in fact, tested again just now, because paranoia.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Wyvern on April 05, 2021, 09:49:19 AM
Huh. Maybe I was mistaken? I'll have to test it again the next time I get there. If there are pirates around again, anyway.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 05, 2021, 11:05:34 AM
Problem: I've noticed some inconsistencies with whether the game will allow me to auto-resolve fights. Specifically Pirate fleets spawned by pirate raids, despite the fleets not being consistently larger/smaller some I can auto-resolve and others not. IIRC there was also a point where I couldn't auto-resolve one fight against a Pather fleet near a Pather base (far enough away that the base was not part of the combat, mind you), but after a reload and moving further away from the base I suddenly could. Are there special mechanics in play that I'm not aware of?

Also, as far as the main story missions are concerned, one minor point I have to mention from pretty far in (I'm assuming):
Spoiler
"I believe the trade tariffs are too high. Especially for me." My captain is too much of a straight shooter to clown around with someone as high up as the man, but still, ;D
[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on April 05, 2021, 11:07:47 AM
AFAIK the game only allows for auto-resolve if the enemy is running (a pursuit battle). So the fleet being nearer or farther from the station makes sense: presumably when its close it will drag the station into the fight with it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 05, 2021, 11:14:44 AM
AFAIK the game only allows for auto-resolve if the enemy is running (a pursuit battle). So the fleet being nearer or farther from the station makes sense: presumably when its close it will drag the station into the fight with it.
In both cases it wasn't close enough to drag the station into combat, though that said only being able to pursue fleets that are actually fleeing makes sense. I do wish I could auto-resolve more fights, though, at least things like low-quality pirate fleets which haven't been an issue in I don't know how many cycles.

Also, something else I just noticed: On the Command/Colonies screen the colonies which are size 6 will still show their growth percentages. I've got one colony at level 6 and 100% growth, which looks really off. I can understand still keeping track in case I decide to increase the max colony size in the settings mid-game, as well as the artificial limit placed on colony size for lore purposes, but showing that it's merely an artificial limit ingame is less than ideal.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: boredom974 on April 05, 2021, 11:29:51 AM
What values in settings should I change to prevent enemy fleets from having any mercenaries? I don't like the late game officer spam, so I set "officerAIMaxMercsMult" to 0 and "officerAIMercsStartingFP" to something absurdly large. This seems to work for normal factions, but remnant fleets haven't had any officers at all. Are all remnant officers treated as mercs or something like that? Are there values I can use instead to get a better result?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Radicaljack on April 05, 2021, 11:32:28 AM
Yeah I've not had luck changing those values as well, it's ruining the game for me at the moment. Hate having to play capture the points instead of having fun enjoying the fight, even then the enemy fleet is full from the start and i'm with two caps or 4 smaller ships. This is not a good change at all and is just a boring worse version of capital spam.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Anvel on April 05, 2021, 11:41:21 AM
During a station attack, there is no capture points so no chance to increase dp, if the enemy has a big fleet(s) of defenders our dp is set to a minimum, and even if you killed the station or a lot of defenders cap doesn't change.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: GenericGoose on April 05, 2021, 11:51:45 AM
Officered enemy ships take like 20 times more damage before they die, it's insane. Germlin just casually tanking autopulse like it's nothing.
Also, what happened to the merc marines bar event? I thought patch notes said it was changed to give you more and veteran marines, but it's just gone. I really liked it, even if it's just flavor, sad to see it gone.
I think I might have seen it once this release.

That said, in last release, I mostly saw it in worlds with low stability.
Just got the event on my own colony. damn, it's so rare, it's been like 15 in-game years, first time seeing it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Ishman on April 05, 2021, 12:16:47 PM
Is the tri-tach story mission phase fleet intended to show off how powerful the harbinger's system is? Because trying to beat that mission legitimately without using carrier spam was one of the most frustrating things I've attempted to do in my recent memory, before I gave up. (I didn't want to just spam carriers to experience the new content, so my fleet is 3 conquests, one paragon, 2 apogees,a harbinger, a tempest, and two omens, with some tenders - all loot found in the deep reaches.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: boredom974 on April 05, 2021, 12:33:07 PM
Is the tri-tach story mission phase fleet intended to show off how powerful the harbinger's system is? Because trying to beat that mission legitimately without using carrier spam was one of the most frustrating things I've attempted to do in my recent memory, before I gave up.

Yeah, many fights require the player to have fleets that counters the enemy specifically. I have encountered similar phase fleets doing bounty missions. Carrier spam isn't the only solution though. Long range high alpha beam weapons like tachyon lances are a viable counter, since they can instantly punish any ship that un-phases in range.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Rain on April 05, 2021, 12:36:26 PM
Assorted and mostly-disorganized bits and bobs of feedback after way too many hours in way too few days, and having ran through the story twice. I'm not necessarily very in touch with balance, but this is more of a commentary on the feels-good/feels-bad of the game now:

- Enemies getting to harass you when you use the disengage SP has a bit of a potential strange feel to it. As an RP thing it makes total sense to me, if for no other reason than your fancy maneuvers could also put some stress on your ships (and is obviously still way preferable to just getting caught and wrecked). I do lean heavily towards "RP and verisimilitude" as high priorities, perhaps more than most, but I could also see new players finding it a bit of a wth-moment about the mechanics to spend one of those relatively-scarce points and still having to pay the supply-price. No right answer, I think, but a thought that dawned on me.
- In my last game I got a pirate station spawned in Duzhak, and I think it was trying to orbit around Aka Mainyu, causing pirate fleets to keep bouncing against the star next to it as the station got squished in between the gas giant and the star. A very minor issue, all things considered, but looks kinda funky and maybe it's worth failsafing by not letting pirate bases spawn that close to stars?
- I'm a bit on the fence about raiding; on the one hand it's kind of trivial to just run around raiding pirate planets and stations, but on the other it does come with the cost of maintaining and keeping a marine squad so it's not really just "free stuff", even if it feels like it is in the moment. Right now it feels too easy but it may be a perception thing rather than a real issue. I ended up feeling like something like the vengeance fleet mechanic from I think it's Nexerelin could fit in there. Say, if you don't hide your tracks with the SP option, repeatedly preying on a faction makes it end up sending bounty hunting fleets after you eventually? That brings some more of the core combat into the raiding loop, too, which at present it tends to miss, particularly in the core worlds. Otherwise, it's pretty slick and elegant to divide forces between what you want to steal. 
- Ships on personal contact elite bounties not salvaging with their built-ins is a bit of a FeelsBad. I can see the reasons, and it's not inexplicable but one of the charms I've felt of the game is that whenever you encounter something you think is BS you can generally salvage, turn around and use it yourself in some capacity; this is perhaps now a (not necessarily THE biggest, but a) contributing factor to the enemy officer spam kinda feeling bad as well. Minor story thing:
Spoiler
Especially given you can salvage the Ziggurat.
[close]
Maybe allow elite ships to be salvaged with their built-ins, but force difficult recoveries for such ships when they're taken from NPC fleets, so you have to pay something of the appropriate resource, but get a discount for it being on a ship you might not necessarily want and/or be hullmods you're not ordinarily interested in? At least they do pay pretty well, which leads me to...
- Most Contact Bounties feel underpaid for the risk/reward, plus all the travel costs involved when they're placed far out. Maybe they could reward other stuff next time you visit, like some supplies/fuel, repairs, introduce you to possible (mercenary?) officer candidates... Say after you build some rep and you do a bounty for someone, come back, accept another bounty and then they go "hey I got something for ya before you go...", maybe some extra credits if you lost ship(s) in a previous bounty you did for them? There's something to be said for the simplicity of getting paid only in credits, but it's not necessarily how a world works?
- It's still somewhat unclear to me what the Importance of contacts actually does. That might be a me thing though, and it being a little vague might just be a good thing.
- The Fury is really fun to play and has enough punch to really play to high-tech's hit-and-run nature even against big and nasty stuff. This is probably to be expected from someone who already likes the Shrike (but finds it a bit under-armed) and Odyssey as well as the sort of "light destroyer/cruiser/capital" 'subclass' of ships.

Feedback that touch on story elements and other minor spoiler things:
Spoiler
- Generally I found the story quite fun, especially the current finale part(?) (at least I've not found anywhere it'd continue after Scylla and Elissa bugger off). "Baird always gets her way", right? :)
- I really did enjoy the little glimpses into the workings of the world. The little headbutting between Laicaille/Kazeron, the seeming-anarchists at Fikenhild, the little events with PL/TT/Heg agents coming to say hi at the bars/in fleets... The Interfactional Dispute Council line came a bit out of nowhere and opens up a lot of questions, but maybe that's one of those "explaining the mystery takes the fun out of it" things in the end. What is it, what does it actually do, who's on it, is it anything more than a token formality entity, etc etc etc.
- The Gates ending up being used as a fast travel system is neat. I keep messing it up and underestimating the fuel use, but that's a me problem.
- The Ziggurat's threat assessment may be a little undertuned? Then again, it might make sense given it's supposed to be something completely new and unfamiliar. I *think* I could've beaten it the first time I encountered it and it assessed as two-star (it wrecked me and my whole fleet, after I'd already lost most of my previous fleet and all its story point investments to the Tri-Tach phase squad) if I'd treated it more aggressively and didn't let it do the phase ship dodgyness, but that might be overclownfidence. When I came back later and it assessed as a one star and I fought it much more aggressively it still disabled two cruisers which isn't what I'd expect from such an assessment.
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Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Ishman on April 05, 2021, 01:07:56 PM
Well, after spending two hours trying to legitimately beat that tri-tach phase fleet, and giving up and just moving on, I've now gotten my first run in with the
Spoiler
ziggy (https://i.imgur.com/Qy9xixX.png)
[close]

A visual feast to fight it - but it was quite easy, the only ship to have more than the paint scratched was the harbinger (which did work till it got to high flux, whence it hugged it at point blank in phase till it fluxed out and died, I presume it's AI couldn't handle the missiles still tracking it in phase, and realize it should retreat through an allied ship to vent).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Radicaljack on April 05, 2021, 02:12:32 PM
Is there a reason to fight the phase fleet? I left after trying a few times and getting annoyed by the millions of mines being spammed.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: ANGRYABOUTELVES on April 05, 2021, 05:57:33 PM
If you reduce the Orbital Fusion Lamp's demand to 9 Volatiles with a gamma core you still get a 5% increase in hazard from not supplying 10 Volatiles.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 05, 2021, 06:09:28 PM
If you reduce the transplutonics demand of a flux shunt tap to 9, it does not work. I also don't think it's possible to get 10 transplutonics. I believe it's base 4 production for a size 6 colony +1 from admin + 2 from item + 1 from alpha core + 1 from story points is 9 total. Unless I'm missing a boost I could apply? Pretty disappointing tbh after all the effort I went through to get there.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sutopia on April 05, 2021, 06:17:09 PM
If you reduce the transplutonics demand of a flux shunt tap to 9, it does not work. I also don't think it's possible to get 10 transplutonics. I believe it's base 4 production for a size 6 colony +1 from admin + 2 from item + 1 from alpha core + 1 from story points is 9 total. Unless I'm missing a boost I could apply? Pretty disappointing tbh after all the effort I went through to get there.
Simply pile up like 10k into storage and flip the switch to use storage while shortage. 0 production needed.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 05, 2021, 06:28:23 PM
If you reduce the transplutonics demand of a flux shunt tap to 9, it does not work. I also don't think it's possible to get 10 transplutonics. I believe it's base 4 production for a size 6 colony +1 from admin + 2 from item + 1 from alpha core + 1 from story points is 9 total. Unless I'm missing a boost I could apply? Pretty disappointing tbh after all the effort I went through to get there.
Simply pile up like 10k into storage and flip the switch to use storage while shortage. 0 production needed.
That's even worse than it not working. I have to play supply mule now?

Also, it makes no sense that satisfying 9 demand and using a beta core to reduce required demand, but not using the beta core and putting resources in storage does work.

I'm also not convinced that there are enough transplutonics in the sector supply even one of the 4 taps I found, and I have no desire to spend hours flying around buying it. I just checked and transplutonics drain faster than they are supplied by my 9 production refining world due to one tap installed on that world (with 9 demand met).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Retry on April 05, 2021, 06:59:01 PM
I'm like 90% certain my new Refinery colony has 4 Transplutonics at size 3, with only the Item currently buffing it.  At size 6 that should be 7, +1 from admin, +1 from alpha core, +1 from story point for the full 10.  In that case, it's feasible

Of course, that still means you have to spec into T5 Industry (unless you just so happen to find an Administrator with it, but finding skilled admins at all is a crapshoot), a special refinery item, spend at minimum 2 skill points, get on the Hegemony's bad side (AI core), clobber the end-game threat at the superstructure, and acquire and invest twelve and a half Atlas's worth of raw material at the superstructure (in one bulk payment, no less), just to have the opportunity to make use of another item which unlocks the ability for one colony to acquire one extra industry.

That's a lot of investment, and I don't really see me ever going on a run long enough to actually be able to make use of it.  Special items are also really rare and I doubt either of the required items are guaranteed to spawn, so I'd imagine it's not just a question of when, but if.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: HiddenPorpoise on April 05, 2021, 07:06:02 PM
Extremely minor story bug:
When Siyavong's fleet intercepts you after you become Yaribay's envoy you can call back after the conversation ends. The Navarch pouts and restarts the conversation tree. I was able to read every option doing this. The standing improvement path is repeatable
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Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 05, 2021, 08:02:11 PM
I'm like 90% certain my new Refinery colony has 4 Transplutonics at size 3, with only the Item currently buffing it.  At size 6 that should be 7, +1 from admin, +1 from alpha core, +1 from story point for the full 10.  In that case, it's feasible

Of course, that still means you have to spec into T5 Industry (unless you just so happen to find an Administrator with it, but finding skilled admins at all is a crapshoot), a special refinery item, spend at minimum 2 skill points, get on the Hegemony's bad side (AI core), clobber the end-game threat at the superstructure, and acquire and invest twelve and a half Atlas's worth of raw material at the superstructure (in one bulk payment, no less), just to have the opportunity to make use of another item which unlocks the ability for one colony to acquire one extra industry.

That's a lot of investment, and I don't really see me ever going on a run long enough to actually be able to make use of it.  Special items are also really rare and I doubt either of the required items are guaranteed to spawn, so I'd imagine it's not just a question of when, but if.
I have a size 6 colony with refining and it only produces 4 base (I have the screen open while writing this). I don't know of any reason why that would be different from your game, so I think you might be misremembering.  I have an admin with +1 resources, the +2 refining item installed, an alpha core in refining (+1) and 2 story points invested (+1). That leaves me at 9. It is not possible unless there is another buff that I have not just listed.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Farlarzia on April 05, 2021, 08:30:56 PM
For the transplutonics: You need a planet that has +1 (or 2) bonus to transplutonics production.

And for Alex: Even more things!

Finally found another instance of misgendering in dialog, hope this helps.
img:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/GR2R6zU.png)
[close]

Horus Yaribay doesn't have a contact specialty, unlike every other contact I've seen.

AI wise, the AI seems to *massively* overreact to targets on its flank. The player can definitely use this to abuse the AI, and its very powerful in doing so. Going behind any ship with a phase ship (I use an afflictor, but I've had people report this even works with an unarmed kite), even if the ship is in phase, and its got a cruiser shooting it from the front (or even if its overloaded that cruiser, and its the easiest kill in the world), the ship you're behind will freak out and lose all focus on the ship, completely swinging around to focus on the ship behind. I used this extensively against the BIG SPOILER
Spoiler
Tesseract boss, to very easily force them to disengage from my ships, when they could have easily killed my the ship it was previously focused on in mere moments. An example, it was 1v1ing my Aurora, no other ships nearby, it overloaded it, and instead of giving it the 1 second of focus it'd take to finish it, it goes after the ship behind it instead.
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TL,DR:  Ships seem to give too high a priority to ships behind them in curcumstances they should be (somewhat) ignoring them.

Strange dialog number labelling bug in the interaction with the
Spoiler
suspicious scavenger fleet, during the scan the gates story mission
[close]
img:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/1OWoteo.png)
[close]

Although you fixed the adjusted weapons stats when they were being affected by skills or hullmods being reflected on the weapon cards, I think being able to see these numbers reflected on the cards is actually very useful (much like you can see the effect of hullmods and skills on ship cards).

The changes to low and midtech stations, to also give them a mine based ability seems strange to me - having mines was previously the identity of the high techs, and although its still a lot more powerful on hightech, it definitely feels like low and midtech have somewhat infringed on its station indentity with the addition of mines.

When you fight the
Spoiler
Tesseracts
[close]
, despite the location being inside a stars corona, the battlefield conditions are normal, although this is probably intentional.

As a general quality of life, it'd be super useful to be able to install cores or upgrades into colony buildings from anywhere, as long as those objects are already in storage there, after all, you can already order the construction and destruction of said buildings from anywhere.

For some reason, the skill that lets you have an AI ship isn't permanent - doesn't this mean you could get an AI ship, then respec and keep it?

I've noticed that although being able to pay for bar events you can't afford has been fixed, the same issue still occurs with bar missions that require you to contact someone elsewhere for surplus materials - you can pay for them without actually having enough.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Wyvern on April 05, 2021, 08:35:25 PM
For the transplutonics: You need a planet that has +1 (or 2) bonus to transplutonics production.
I think you're confusing the unrefined ore with the refined metal?

For some reason, the skill that lets you have an AI ship isn't permanent - doesn't this mean you could get an AI ship, then respec and keep it?
You're missing the not-clarified-in-the-skill built-in hullmod 'Automated Ship' that reduces the ship's maximum CR by 100%. The base 100% bonus from the skill counteracts that exactly, leaving you at the regular +70% CR. Lose the skill and max CR goes to zero or less. (Well, I guess maybe you could manage up to 15% with all the CR-boosting skills including derelict contingent. But that's not really useful.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 05, 2021, 08:53:04 PM
Yes the shunt requires refined metal from a refinery not transplutonic ore from mining. I'm not aware of any planet conditions that would give a boost to refining, but it's possible I suppose. There's not one in my sector though, I've explored pretty much every planet.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: CrashToDesktop on April 05, 2021, 09:29:25 PM
despite the location being inside a stars corona, the battlefield conditions are normal, although this is probably intentional.
For what it's worth, it is stated to be intentional when you Explore the structure - your tactical officer explains the magnetic field generated by the structure deflects the star's corona, and that you should be able to fight unaffected by it.

For lore reasons, I suppose it's also reasonable to ask why the magfield doesn't also deflect the corona on the campaign map.  Might be nice for it to act like a planet in that fashion, stopping the corona in the area behind it.  Would make getting to somewhat easier, too.  Tough fight, and going in with less CR (from getting lightly toasted by the corona, emergency burn, or both) kinda hurts.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Retry on April 05, 2021, 10:30:20 PM
I'm like 90% certain my new Refinery colony has 4 Transplutonics at size 3, with only the Item currently buffing it.  At size 6 that should be 7, +1 from admin, +1 from alpha core, +1 from story point for the full 10.  In that case, it's feasible

Of course, that still means you have to spec into T5 Industry (unless you just so happen to find an Administrator with it, but finding skilled admins at all is a crapshoot), a special refinery item, spend at minimum 2 skill points, get on the Hegemony's bad side (AI core), clobber the end-game threat at the superstructure, and acquire and invest twelve and a half Atlas's worth of raw material at the superstructure (in one bulk payment, no less), just to have the opportunity to make use of another item which unlocks the ability for one colony to acquire one extra industry.

That's a lot of investment, and I don't really see me ever going on a run long enough to actually be able to make use of it.  Special items are also really rare and I doubt either of the required items are guaranteed to spawn, so I'd imagine it's not just a question of when, but if.
I have a size 6 colony with refining and it only produces 4 base (I have the screen open while writing this). I don't know of any reason why that would be different from your game, so I think you might be misremembering.  I have an admin with +1 resources, the +2 refining item installed, an alpha core in refining (+1) and 2 story points invested (+1). That leaves me at 9. It is not possible unless there is another buff that I have not just listed.
Ah, you're right.  I forgot that I had +1 from the admin skill, and was effectively counting it twice.  In that case, it really is impossible to get enough production to run the tap....
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Voxette on April 05, 2021, 11:07:08 PM
More feedback: I feel like the missions I've been offered so far pay ridiculously little, to the point where they are not worth it.

Let's see, do I do a raid mission and make 37,000 credits? Or raid a convoy or just do some trading to a place that has shortages and clear 500,000 easy?

Edit: I'm also finding it astoundingly hard to find Vulcan Cannons.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: GenericGoose on April 06, 2021, 01:46:36 AM
Why is capital and escort ai so bad? Ive been using 2 onslaughts and a paragon with some cruisers like eagles, falcons and auroras. At best, 2 of the capitals are fighting the enemy, while the 3rd one is just sitting behind them. On top of that, they always seem to turn their flank to the core of enemy fleet to shoot some frigate (and fail because they can't hit it). The escorts also just sit behind the ship they're supposed to support and do absolutely nothing while it's getting dogpiled. But only when they aren't getting in front of the capital to block it's line of fire and get killed. The ai is so poor and the DP cost is so high that unless you're piloting them yourself these capitals can't do anything. I imagine I'd get better results with Odyssey or Conquest or a fleet of cruisers.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Flet on April 06, 2021, 03:22:50 AM
Why is capital and escort ai so bad?
Ive heard some explanation for this. I dont know if its right but its the only explanation ive heard so far: A combination of ai tweaks and enemy fleet composition changes conspiring to create a lot of circumstances where your fleet defaults to defensive behavior and refuses to do anything but an anemic fighting retreat. Apparently your ai will change its behavior to timid if it judges the enemy fleet to be stronger than its fleet, and this seems to be based on number of officers present in each fleet and the comparative weapons ranges. Because there are many situations where the enemy has more officers than you, and situations where even if you are fully specialized towards ecm you will still get out-ecmd, there are many opportunities for your ai to see itself in a losing condition even if it could win if it would just act normally.

After hearing the above explanation ive taken to trying to pay close attention to when and how my ai does things that make me say "what are you doing?" out loud in frustration. Sometimes certainly ai seems to behave normally and ive even had a few enjoyable situations that make me smile when a particular ship goes on a rampage. Im trying to see if i can detect any trends.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 06, 2021, 06:01:32 AM
More feedback: I feel like the missions I've been offered so far pay ridiculously little, to the point where they are not worth it.

Let's see, do I do a raid mission and make 37,000 credits? Or raid a convoy or just do some trading to a place that has shortages and clear 500,000 easy?
Worse, doing those raid missions may send a revenge fleet after you even if you stealth raided the place.  If they do not know for certain who did it, why should they send a fleet after you?  Said fleet was close to 200k bounty strength.  I tried to kill it but my fleet could not win in a fair fight without taking too many casualties (not waiting a year to clean up new d-mods when I already have other d-mod ships to fix).  Eventually, I led it to my colony where it got totally crushed and humiliated by my orbital station for easy flawless victory.

Basically, now I know to skip those missions unless my fleet is endgame strong because of the risk of having a high-powered headhunter fleet after you.  Better to raid zombie pirates for supplies or drugs and sell them elsewhere for better profit and no chance of revenge fleets.


@ Farlarzia:  All star fortresses had mines since v0.9a.  High-tech just spawns more of them than midline.  Low-tech do not mine strike the same way the other two do.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sutopia on April 06, 2021, 06:25:49 AM
More feedback: I feel like the missions I've been offered so far pay ridiculously little, to the point where they are not worth it.

Let's see, do I do a raid mission and make 37,000 credits? Or raid a convoy or just do some trading to a place that has shortages and clear 500,000 easy?
Worse, doing those raid missions may send a revenge fleet after you even if you stealth raided the place.  If they do not know for certain who did it, why should they send a fleet after you?  Said fleet was close to 200k bounty strength.  I tried to kill it but my fleet could not win in a fair fight without taking too many casualties (not waiting a year to clean up new d-mods when I already have other d-mod ships to fix).  Eventually, I led it to my colony where it got totally crushed and humiliated by my orbital station for easy flawless victory.

Basically, now I know to skip those missions unless my fleet is endgame strong because of the risk of having a high-powered headhunter fleet after you.  Better to raid zombie pirates for supplies or drugs and sell them elsewhere for better profit and no chance of revenge fleets.


@ Farlarzia:  All star fortresses had mines since v0.9a.  High-tech just spawns more of them than midline.  Low-tech do not mine strike the same way the other two do.

Aren’t headhunters all just trash fleet pirates that you tank 100 DP with 6 and win easily?
Free exp for me!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 06, 2021, 06:28:40 AM
The revenge fleet after me was a pristine Indie fleet of primarily high-tech ships, about 180k to 200k bounty strength, full of level 6 officers.  Basically a mini-version of the infamous capital and officer spam endgame fleet.  My fleet was roughly the same size, but most of my skills were campaign QoL, and my officers were not max level.  Also had ECM disadvantage.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on April 06, 2021, 07:18:18 AM
Please make the DP less officer-dependent. It's very frustrating that I can't even deploy a full battle line of low-tech capitals. I think I'm not the only one here, who doesn't want to actively participate in every battle...
I would rather concentrate on managing my fleet instead of playing rambo with my ship since I'm not a terribly good pilot. The current version amplifies your piloting skills both by reducing the overall DP and creating many disadvantageous situations where you have comparatively less DP and the enemy has way more officers.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on April 06, 2021, 07:21:35 AM
Just to clarify. I think in the last version combat was too easy, but in this version, it's very frustrating. Even if the battle is not particularly hard to win, it's still frustrating because of the changes.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Farlarzia on April 06, 2021, 09:05:13 AM
For the transplutonics: You need a planet that has +1 (or 2) bonus to transplutonics production.
I think you're confusing the unrefined ore with the refined metal?


Oops, I sure am!
I've done that quite a few times with procurement missions in the campaign too  :-X


@ Farlarzia:  All star fortresses had mines since v0.9a.  High-tech just spawns more of them than midline.  Low-tech do not mine strike the same way the other two do.

Welp! Another silly mistake on my part, not sure how I never noticed this, I played the hell out of 0.9a as well  :-\
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 06, 2021, 09:08:37 AM
Read everything, thank you everyone for the feedback! Made a few notes regarding the bugs reported. Just a few quick specific responses:


For lore reasons, I suppose it's also reasonable to ask why the magfield doesn't also deflect the corona on the campaign map.  Might be nice for it to act like a planet in that fashion, stopping the corona in the area behind it.  Would make getting to somewhat easier, too.  Tough fight, and going in with less CR (from getting lightly toasted by the corona, emergency burn, or both) kinda hurts.

It does protect you from the corona in the campaign as long as your fleet circle is touching it, IIRC.

Ive heard some explanation for this. I dont know if its right but its the only explanation ive heard so far:
...
Apparently your ai will change its behavior to timid if it judges the enemy fleet to be stronger than its fleet, and this seems to be based on number of officers present in each fleet and the comparative weapons ranges. Because there are many situations where the enemy has more officers than you, and situations where even if you are fully specialized towards ecm you will still get out-ecmd, there are many opportunities for your ai to see itself in a losing condition even if it could win if it would just act normally.

(Ah - I have no idea where you got this information, but this has absolutely zero basis in reality. There's nothing even remotely similar to that going on.)


On top of that, they always seem to turn their flank to the core of enemy fleet to shoot some frigate...

Hmm - do you happen to have a save handy where I can directly observe the behaviors you're describing? That'd be very helpful.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: GenericGoose on April 06, 2021, 09:30:30 AM
On top of that, they always seem to turn their flank to the core of enemy fleet to shoot some frigate...
Hmm - do you happen to have a save handy where I can directly observe the behaviors you're describing? That'd be very helpful.
It's nice that you are reading feedback.
Unfortunately, no. It may have been a slight exaggeration, but I can be a bit more specific. I've observed this sort of behavior a few times. I had a smaller fleet of bigger ships (2-3 capitals and cruisers) vs big enemy fleets of close to 30 ships. I group all my ships together and wait for the enemy blob to come. What happened fairly often is 2 capitals would fight the blob, sometimes the third one too, but instead of shooting into the blob, they would try to shoot single ships that split off from it to flank, usually smaller ships, but sometimes bigger ones. The issue is that it enabled the blobs to concentrate fire onto the capitals, while taking no return fire, as they're facing the other way, which is naturally way worse than a single ship trying to flank. All of the officers were steady. But yeah, essentially, the entire fight they would face away from the main force and try to very slowly pick off separating ships.
Even more specific information if you want to try and recreate the fight:
Spoiler
400 battle size, had to cap 2 points to deploy all that.
My fleet: 1 paragon with 2 tach lances and 2 autopulses, 2 14th onslaughts, 2 auroras, an SO harbinger. Auroras escort onslaughts. Steady lvl5-6 officers.
Enemy fleet: 2 guardians, about 14 ramparts, 13 smaller drone ships. 2-5 dmods and red officers in each. (a rare bounty, I assume).
Maybe I deployed them wrong, but pretty much always the auroras would sit behind the ships they're guardiang, doing seemingly nothing. One of the onslaughts would also remain behind between the 2 other capitals, seemingly not even trying to engage.
[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 06, 2021, 09:38:17 AM
Thank you for the added info! Could you clarify on the exact order setup you have to make them "blob"?

(One thing worth mentioning, btw - just in general regarding aggressiveness - is that the "aggressiveness" setting in your faction doctrine will apply to ships without officers. Doesn't sound like it's factoring in here at all, but just good to be aware of.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: BGrey on April 06, 2021, 09:49:33 AM
Ive heard some explanation for this. I dont know if its right but its the only explanation ive heard so far:
...
Apparently your ai will change its behavior to timid if it judges the enemy fleet to be stronger than its fleet, and this seems to be based on number of officers present in each fleet and the comparative weapons ranges. Because there are many situations where the enemy has more officers than you, and situations where even if you are fully specialized towards ecm you will still get out-ecmd, there are many opportunities for your ai to see itself in a losing condition even if it could win if it would just act normally.

(Ah - I have no idea where you got this information, but this has absolutely zero basis in reality. There's nothing even remotely similar to that going on.)

In a general sense I did feel like things behave that way. The AI seems to get scared off by larger fleets and basically fails to engage. I ran across a large domain drone fleet and my ships were basically not doing anything until I hit full assault which resulted in a fast win with no losses.

Could this just be from individual ships judging that they are unsafe to attack based on multiple nearby enemies rather than some overall behavior calculation?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 06, 2021, 10:11:20 AM

Apparently your ai will change its behavior to timid if it judges the enemy fleet to be stronger than its fleet
[/quote]

that actually explains SO MUCH, cause this only seem to happen in large battles

you know, when you ACUTALLY NEED your fleets to be agressive and divide and conquer the enemy out of their doomstack

this HAS to go ASAP, because this is the single reason why paragon /onslaught only fleets become mandatory endgame

because those are the ships that can at least withstand multifleet focus fire for a while

(not to mention combat ai being the worst part of the game right now by a massive margain, thanks comando points for not even giving us a manual option either)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Radicaljack on April 06, 2021, 10:14:51 AM
I hope the officer DP stuff is sorted out in the next RC, playing a late game it's ten times worse than the capital spam because the above instances of defensive behavior only make winning those fights with capitals that can tank a few waves impossible. Also CR on capitals is still as punishing, and the second you retreat one if you had a cap the enemy will rush you like mad to take the cap and then you have NO dp. Hate this DP calc more than anything in this update, have to restart any game that gets to late stages.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on April 06, 2021, 10:30:41 AM
The capital spam was only unpleasant. You could always have parity DP-wise if you had a capital heavy fleet too. So while the fleet composition was unrealistic the battle was manageable.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 06, 2021, 10:51:58 AM
Could this just be from individual ships judging that they are unsafe to attack based on multiple nearby enemies rather than some overall behavior calculation?

Yeah, that's quite possible; they generally speaking try to avoid getting flanked since that's how ships get destroyed.

Quote
Apparently your ai will change its behavior to timid if it judges the enemy fleet to be stronger than its fleet

that actually explains SO MUCH, cause this only seem to happen in large battles

(... except that it's definitely not a thing! I'm not saying nothing is happening, but that specific explanation - re officers etc - is flat-out wrong.)

I'd really love to get my hands on a save where this is easy to reproduce. So far I'm just seeing this sentiment, but not seeing the actual behaviors described in my testing.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 06, 2021, 10:55:30 AM
@Alex, can you please clarify if there is a way to get 10 transplutonics production in vanilla? I found that the best I can do is 4 base from size 6 colony +2 from item +1 from admin +1 from alpha core +1 from story points which only give 9, i.e. not enough to run the flux shunt tap. Is there some other super rare item or condition to buff refining, or is it actually impossible to use the flux shunt without manually refilling storage with transplutonics to cover the shortage (or is the intended way to use it with a beta core to reduce demand and that is bugged or something)?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 06, 2021, 11:00:41 AM
There's a bug here - getting minus one to the requirements should lower them but doesn't, actually, so it's not usable. Well, without putting transplutonics into the stockpile, but that's... not a good way to do it.

(Similar issue affects the Fusion Lamp, though there at least you can use it, just with the hazard penalty.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 06, 2021, 11:03:02 AM
It feels like I should be able to hit 10 transplutonics with a story point invested, would you consider buffing the item or the the base value for all colonies (and reducing the market share value if that's necessary to keep things balanced)?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 06, 2021, 11:05:20 AM
Hmm, I'll have a look when I get to it. Why does it feel that way - just for "pleasing number" reasons, or?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 06, 2021, 11:05:36 AM
There's a bug here - getting minus one to the requirements should lower them but doesn't, actually, so it's not usable. Well, without putting transplutonics into the stockpile, but that's... not a good way to do it.

(Similar issue affects the Fusion Lamp, though there at least you can use it, just with the hazard penalty.)
I happened to set my first colony within max distance of the Omega station (found it by chance much later after building colonies).  If meeting the threshold is currently impossible, at least I do not need to try to meet the requirements.

(On the other hand, the only red system in the game is also close to Omega system and my colonies.)

It feels like I should be able to hit 10 transplutonics with a story point invested, would you consider buffing the item or the the base value for all colonies (and reducing the market share value if that's necessary to keep things balanced)?
Player already needs to spend (at least) two story points to boost production of a refinery (if that's its improvement).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Drazhya on April 06, 2021, 11:15:01 AM
I had an event recently where I sent a Paragon escorted by two Champions against a fleet of... something-or-other. Can't remember if it was remnant or pirates, just that it was a couple cruisers and a bunch of destroyers and frigates. Anyway, the Champions hung back, off to the side, outside their own weapon ranges, fluxless while the Paragon was getting torn up. They were ordered to escort the Paragon and all officers were either steady or aggressive. Current biggest example of AI stupidity I've seen so far, and usually doesn't happen. Usually, the Champions properly support their capital ship.
I'll try to get a save if it happens again, but I've got nothing right now.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 06, 2021, 11:38:13 AM
Could this just be from individual ships judging that they are unsafe to attack based on multiple nearby enemies rather than some overall behavior calculation?

Yeah, that's quite possible; they generally speaking try to avoid getting flanked since that's how ships get destroyed.

Quote
Apparently your ai will change its behavior to timid if it judges the enemy fleet to be stronger than its fleet

that actually explains SO MUCH, cause this only seem to happen in large battles

(... except that it's definitely not a thing! I'm not saying nothing is happening, but that specific explanation - re officers etc - is flat-out wrong.)

I'd really love to get my hands on a save where this is easy to reproduce. So far I'm just seeing this sentiment, but not seeing the actual behaviors described in my testing.

if thats not a thing then all is well, still, big battles ARE very frustrating, especially thanks to the command limit
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 06, 2021, 12:05:40 PM
Yep, I've got a note to look at escort behavior specifically. But ships on an escort assignment behave very differently than when not, so - likely to be different issues.

if thats not a thing then all is well, still, big battles ARE very frustrating, especially thanks to the command limit

(Fair enough - I mean, definitely not saying there's no issue, just that this specific thing isn't it!)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 06, 2021, 12:10:42 PM
Was just talking to Thaago and he mentioned ECM as being a possible contributing factor to ship passivity. I think that actually nails it - I remember some feedback in the last version that winning the ECM battle was making fights trivial by making enemy ships act too passively. So now this is flipped around and the player is on the receiving end more often than not.

So, reining in enemy ECM - and perhaps reducing the maximum penalty some, as well - should not only fix that issue, but improve AI behavior, as well.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 06, 2021, 12:17:05 PM
Hmm, I'll have a look when I get to it. Why does it feel that way - just for "pleasing number" reasons, or?
I guess it feels nice to meet the requirement directly and gives a little wiggle room, i.e. I can choose between not use an alpha core, or story points, or an admin with the bonus and still meet the requirement.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Voxette on April 06, 2021, 12:24:08 PM
I just want to say: I have always really liked the asymmetric warfare aspect and appreciate the changes to make smaller ships better.

It feels more appropriate to me that I can't go toe-to-toe with the Hegemony and win a "fair fight"; that I have to employ tactics and guile.

But because of that playstyle, I haven't tried running big capital-ship fleets in the new update. Actually, I haven't gone bigger than destroyers so far.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on April 06, 2021, 01:01:34 PM
Just to mention. I'm very pleased with my colony defenses during raids. I've just seen, that during a Persean League raid all of my fleets quickly pulled together and swarmed the 3 attacking fleets. It was a very pleasant surprise.

As for the ECCM debate, I've observed this with the previous version. If I had longe range weapons and range bonus the enemy fleet was very wary of me. So deploying 4-5 Onslaughts with Gauss canons was surprisingly discouraging for the enemy. So I suspect Alex is right about this one.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Voxette on April 06, 2021, 01:05:24 PM
I also just want to say: I would really appreciate a hard mode for the game. The normal difficulty is fine starting out, but it's just not very challenging economically.

While searching, I found this good post (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=14114.msg245817#msg245817) on the subject from someone in 2019:

Quote
As much as I'd love to sink another 100 hours into the game, the meta is just too easy. 2h in everything seems to lose purpose as your power level just explodes.
Hyperspace travel is essentially hassle-free. The factions are either not aggressive enough or they don't have enough fleets overall ( and I'm on negative with all but Hegemony ). The only hassle is the annoyance of navigating the "storms" and occasionally avoiding the very few stronger faction fleets. Avoiding the fleets is fairly easy as the strong ones are generally much slower.

The skill-driven power explosion was unsatisfactory as well. Overall skills feel meaningless when you get so many so quickly.

The stipend + commission down-right break the already fragile economy.
By fragile I mean:
 The over-supply of ships ( they are more common than ore or basic supplies .... )
 The ship prices are ludicrously low. Even at 2x their current cost they would still be ridiculously low. ( I had an Onslaught with 1D 4h in, did not break the bank either )
 Trade routes are way too easy to abuse ( it's worse than in the usual grind-trading systems since your viable options are actually lower but the payouts much higher )
 Rewards are way too big for non-combat "quests". ( to be read as those without a cost sink )
 Basic supplies are way too cheap and abundant.
 I have more weapons than storage slots to put them in ( from salvage ). Granted, they are not rare but nor did I ever feel the need for rare weapons or stronger ships ( 7h in this run ).
 
To make things worse, the faction standings are too easy to recover from and overall feel very artificial. They switch and change too often and easily, making them lose substance.
IMHO accepting a comission should be a big, game-changing thing, not just an easy way into cash.

The explosion of skills has been addressed, but that's pretty much it.

I suppose I can look into making a "hard mode" mod myself. I've never done any modding before, but I really like this game in every other respect.

One of the biggest issues to me is that it feels like the actual fun parts are quite separated from how to make money. If I want to make money, I do a bunch of trading. Then, with that nest egg, I can go around having fights. But fighting because you're some leisure-class dilettante who wants to hunt the "most dangerous game" is very different from the idea in the lore of struggling to survive. Fighting, exploring... these are money losers (certainly when you look at the opportunity cost).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 06, 2021, 01:26:31 PM
Quote
I also just want to say: I would really appreciate a hard mode for the game. The normal difficulty is fine starting out, but it's just not very challenging economically.
Maybe the spacefarer difficulty should be enabled by default. Even if it isn't exactly what people are looking for maybe it'll at least be a step in the right direction?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: GenericGoose on April 06, 2021, 01:28:03 PM
Thank you for the added info! Could you clarify on the exact order setup you have to make them "blob"?
Well, I can't quite remember, as I've done multiple fights. Usually, I assign auroras to escort an onslaught, each, then I send the capitals to a control point or a rally point, closer to my side of the map. Depending on how the points generate, sometimes our fleets meet on one, me getting there first. Pretty much all enemy ships go to the point, except for a few frigates/destroyers and pile on from one direction, slowly trickling around.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on April 06, 2021, 01:29:46 PM
I guess right now making money from trade is not particularly difficult, however, it is very hard to collect bounties profitably.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on April 06, 2021, 01:35:23 PM
I also just want to say: I would really appreciate a hard mode for the game. The normal difficulty is fine starting out, but it's just not very challenging economically.

While searching, I found this good post (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=14114.msg245817#msg245817) on the subject from someone in 2019:

Quote
As much as I'd love to sink another 100 hours into the game, the meta is just too easy. 2h in everything seems to lose purpose as your power level just explodes.
Hyperspace travel is essentially hassle-free. The factions are either not aggressive enough or they don't have enough fleets overall ( and I'm on negative with all but Hegemony ). The only hassle is the annoyance of navigating the "storms" and occasionally avoiding the very few stronger faction fleets. Avoiding the fleets is fairly easy as the strong ones are generally much slower.

The skill-driven power explosion was unsatisfactory as well. Overall skills feel meaningless when you get so many so quickly.

The stipend + commission down-right break the already fragile economy.
By fragile I mean:
 The over-supply of ships ( they are more common than ore or basic supplies .... )
 The ship prices are ludicrously low. Even at 2x their current cost they would still be ridiculously low. ( I had an Onslaught with 1D 4h in, did not break the bank either )
 Trade routes are way too easy to abuse ( it's worse than in the usual grind-trading systems since your viable options are actually lower but the payouts much higher )
 Rewards are way too big for non-combat "quests". ( to be read as those without a cost sink )
 Basic supplies are way too cheap and abundant.
 I have more weapons than storage slots to put them in ( from salvage ). Granted, they are not rare but nor did I ever feel the need for rare weapons or stronger ships ( 7h in this run ).
 
To make things worse, the faction standings are too easy to recover from and overall feel very artificial. They switch and change too often and easily, making them lose substance.
IMHO accepting a comission should be a big, game-changing thing, not just an easy way into cash.

The explosion of skills has been addressed, but that's pretty much it.

I suppose I can look into making a "hard mode" mod myself. I've never done any modding before, but I really like this game in every other respect.

One of the biggest issues to me is that it feels like the actual fun parts are quite separated from how to make money. If I want to make money, I do a bunch of trading. Then, with that nest egg, I can go around having fights. But fighting because you're some leisure-class dilettante who wants to hunt the "most dangerous game" is very different from the idea in the lore of struggling to survive. Fighting, exploring... these are money losers (certainly when you look at the opportunity cost).
I would suggest looking at the settings.json file. A few lines there can do stuff like turn off the stipend and enable starfarer mode, which gives you a debit that you need to pay every month. More lines like recovery rates or ship sale prices are also there. You should spend some time looking through it and change anything you like
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Voxette on April 06, 2021, 01:45:25 PM
I guess right now making money from trade is not particularly difficult, however, it is very hard to collect bounties profitably.

Yeah I would definitely agree there. If you were just going off bounties and not even doing opportunistic trading, I imagine it would be almost impossible just to break even.

And thanks to those who suggested Spacer mode. I do use it. It mainly just makes the very early game harder, however. Or maybe just more tedious. You do a few smuggling runs back and forth (Jangala to Garnir always seems to work), then you can get some cheap frigate freighters and snowball from there. You get five or six of those running, then you can invest in a combat ship or two. Before that, you learn to use "Go Dark", which is actually considerably nicer and easier to use now.

But yeah, I can definitely try playing around more extensively with settings.json to see if I can get things in a bit better position. Basically if I can figure out how to take a nerf bat to trading. And maybe make faction fleets more of a threat somehow. Right now, they are only a problem when you are trying to smuggle and are therefore right up next to them (or you're getting raided by an expedition). Other than that, they don't chase you, and if they did they can't catch you if you're not dumb and lugging around Atlases without Augmented Drive Fields.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 06, 2021, 01:55:28 PM
I think commissions need a major rework, but I've thought that for a while. Free money with no strings attached is too much.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on April 06, 2021, 02:07:39 PM
Also, I think it's really challenging for Alex to find the right balance between the profitability of the different playstyles. Maybe right now the bounty hunter path is even harder, but I see why it is difficult to set the right balance. Maybe removing the officer spam is a good solution Maybe not, because last time we collectively tought, that ending the capital ship spam is a good solution.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: oooh_senpai on April 06, 2021, 02:10:02 PM
I think commissions need a major rework, but I've thought that for a while. Free money with no strings attached is too much.
Maybe if factions which are in war would try to raid each other, player could get you-must-do-it missions to defeat raiding fleets, losing rep and payment in case of not defeating enemy fleets, and getting additional rep and payment in case of defeating it. There may be another missions, cause if you are getting paid like a mercenary, you must do something like a mercenary.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Voxette on April 06, 2021, 02:10:20 PM
Also, the Bulk Transport skill that gives every ship +50% capacity of everything is... really good. Not to mention it throws +1 burn on top. I don't know if it's "too good", but it definitely seems more attractive to me than the alternative skill (more resources from exploration... but the limiting factor for me is always carrying them all). Really helps out with early game Spacer start.

And I continue to find it mystifying that the game acts like crew matter. Salvaging gives -75% crew loss in non-combat... but this is useless. Crew don't matter. I think they should matter. But to matter, they should cost at least 10x more, maybe 20x more. Then I might care if they die.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: ANGRYABOUTELVES on April 06, 2021, 02:28:20 PM
Also, the Bulk Transport skill that gives every ship +50% capacity of everything is... really good. Not to mention it throws +1 burn on top. I don't know if it's "too good", but it definitely seems more attractive to me than the alternative skill (more resources from exploration... but the limiting factor for me is always carrying them all). Really helps out with early game Spacer start.

And I continue to find it mystifying that the game acts like crew matter. Salvaging gives -75% crew loss in non-combat... but this is useless. Crew don't matter. I think they should matter. But to matter, they should cost at least 10x more, maybe 20x more. Then I might care if they die.
Bulk transport's cargo boost is good earlygame but falls off quickly and it only applies the +1 burn to civvie ships without militarized subsystems that spike your sensor profile insanely high. I find it completely useless.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Dex on April 06, 2021, 02:40:36 PM
I dont know if this is a bug or intended, but once upon a time, i ventured into the system with the
Spoiler
phase fleet
[close]
. I spotted it before it could attach onto me and i ran off. Successfully. HOURS later after some exploring, im 'legitimately' delivering some drugs to a hegemony planet and the
Spoiler
phase fleet
[close]
successfully pops out of no-where, within a core system, and latches onto me. I story point escape and believe its now following me. Evidently not, as when i return to its home system many cycles later. Its gone.

Does using the story point cause it disappear? i had never used one up to this point.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on April 06, 2021, 03:00:55 PM
A quick question because I'm not sure: Do upper level enemy officers also have all elite skills? I know I mentioned this earlier, but I think I see the elite nav skill on all remnants, so I'm wondering about things like kinetic damage on armor, etc.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 06, 2021, 03:08:59 PM
A quick question because I'm not sure: Do upper level enemy officers also have all elite skills? I know I mentioned this earlier, but I think I see the elite nav skill on all remnants, so I'm wondering about things like kinetic damage on armor, etc.
All skills are elite on Automated Ships with cores.  They also can be changed at will on the officer screen for Automated Ships.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on April 06, 2021, 03:16:15 PM
Thanks!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 06, 2021, 03:20:47 PM
i just dont understand why contracted officers are even a thing now, they bust the balance out of the door for everyone, but the ai especially, since they can just spam them without regards for, well, the upkeep and upcost

storypoints ARE precious, and having to spend one per officer per yer, while having to deal with the extra micro of managing your officers AND the mercs not only is annoying, but its wasteful...

just remove them, and keep the hard limit for everyone

8 officers is more than enough

(thats not mentioning the problem officers have with skills, and random officers ALWAYS being better than... the ones you train (hardcap on level and elite skills compared to, well, no cap on level AND again elite skills for officers youd find in pods and such)

i just find it wierd that officers you actively teach and guide... can never be as good, hell, nearly as good as officers you just... pick up randomly, especially "promising" officers

just compare them at face value

random officers are almost always level 7 (although i think i have seen a level 9 at some point iirc), meaning... 2 more skills than youd get by growing an officer yourself... and ANY of those skills have the ability to be elite too, and not limited to 1 either (granted... ironically, the "elite" in some elite skills is kind of... weak imo)

there are already alot of good uses for storypoints (especially when you get into colonies my gawd), that we (or the ai in this case)really dont need the ability to spam better officers and ecm the crap out of anything
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Voxette on April 06, 2021, 03:27:32 PM
Also, the Bulk Transport skill that gives every ship +50% capacity of everything is... really good. Not to mention it throws +1 burn on top. I don't know if it's "too good", but it definitely seems more attractive to me than the alternative skill (more resources from exploration... but the limiting factor for me is always carrying them all). Really helps out with early game Spacer start.

And I continue to find it mystifying that the game acts like crew matter. Salvaging gives -75% crew loss in non-combat... but this is useless. Crew don't matter. I think they should matter. But to matter, they should cost at least 10x more, maybe 20x more. Then I might care if they die.
Bulk transport's cargo boost is good earlygame but falls off quickly and it only applies the +1 burn to civvie ships without militarized subsystems that spike your sensor profile insanely high. I find it completely useless.

How does a flat 50% bonus fall off? I guess if you have more storage than you could possibly need...

The +1 burn I find useful in not having to stick militarized on everything, which synergizes well with the skill that buffs the hell out of that but drops off after 5 deployment points of militarized. I stick Insulated Engine Assembly on everything to cut the signature in half. Sure, you can put militarized on too and cut it into quarters, but to make it worth it I have to slap IEA on all my combat ships of the same size as well, which isn't really worth it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 06, 2021, 03:32:17 PM
Also, the Bulk Transport skill that gives every ship +50% capacity of everything is... really good. Not to mention it throws +1 burn on top. I don't know if it's "too good", but it definitely seems more attractive to me than the alternative skill (more resources from exploration... but the limiting factor for me is always carrying them all). Really helps out with early game Spacer start.

And I continue to find it mystifying that the game acts like crew matter. Salvaging gives -75% crew loss in non-combat... but this is useless. Crew don't matter. I think they should matter. But to matter, they should cost at least 10x more, maybe 20x more. Then I might care if they die.
Bulk transport's cargo boost is good earlygame but falls off quickly and it only applies the +1 burn to civvie ships without militarized subsystems that spike your sensor profile insanely high. I find it completely useless.

How does a flat 50% bonus fall off? I guess if you have more storage than you could possibly need...

The +1 burn I find useful in not having to stick militarized on everything, which synergizes well with the skill that buffs the hell out of that but drops off after 5 deployment points of militarized. I stick Insulated Engine Assembly on everything to cut the signature in half. Sure, you can put militarized on too and cut it into quarters, but to make it worth it I have to slap IEA on all my combat ships of the same size as well, which isn't really worth it.


the problem with bulk transport is its in the salvage line, that ends... on colony skills... (which doesnt make any sense), cause let me tell you as someone that likes to salvage

you are always going to have omega cores to use for your colonies, and you are never going to manage them by yourself (even if you would, admins are ALWAYS a better choice considering how horribly spread out colony skills are on the skilltrees, yes trees, you have to go through the salvage tree TWICE and then spek into another one just to get all colony skills....


skillpoints which are very limited in quantity
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Gosts on April 06, 2021, 03:33:06 PM
[long post about mercenary officers]

I agree with pretty much all of this except I think there's merit in the idea of mercenary officers. There's just too dang many. Maybe it would make sense if you can only have one or two mercenaries at a time? So you can invest a small amount of story points in having an extra officer or two. Or maybe you can have only a certain percent of your officers be mercenaries?

AI would follow the same rules, allowing them to have *more* officers, but not like, *twice as many*, making it so you get minimum deployment points almost every time.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 06, 2021, 03:58:26 PM
Yes, the capacity bonuses from Bulk Transport falls off if you bring a fleet as big as an endgame bounty.  However, the burn bonus is still great.  I replace Militarized Subsystems with Surveying Equipment for cheaper surveying.

Industry has nice QoL skills.  1, I could live without Bulk Transport, but it is really convenient.  2, I want one of them for guaranteed recovery, but I favor R for the PPT/CR boost.  3, could go either way, but running out of fuel is a bigger problem, and getting Bulk Transport can trivialize R, so L for fuel I go.  4, Field Repairs is the only cheap way to turn ships with both d and s mods into pristine, even if it takes too long to do it.  (Restore is too expensive.)  5, I want colony skills if I know I will not have time to grind for alpha cores.  Maybe L because it is safer to respec away.  (Why is 5R not permanent?  What happens to third admin if you already assigned him to colony?  Govern for free?)

Double dipping Industry is terrible; it is a no-go after grabbing a colony skill from Industry.  Paying five more skill points to get the other colony skill is not worth it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: WeiTuLo on April 06, 2021, 03:59:31 PM
Bulk Transport's bonus becomes a flat amount after a certain point, and that flat amount becomes a smaller percent of the total as the total goes up. I happen to like it, since I like to keep my fleet a bit lighter, but I think it also introduces a minor bug where the initial cargo capacity after a battle is wrong, and if you are not careful to refresh it, you will lose some supplies from being overcapacity.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Retry on April 06, 2021, 09:19:11 PM
Also, the Bulk Transport skill that gives every ship +50% capacity of everything is... really good. Not to mention it throws +1 burn on top. I don't know if it's "too good", but it definitely seems more attractive to me than the alternative skill (more resources from exploration... but the limiting factor for me is always carrying them all). Really helps out with early game Spacer start.

And I continue to find it mystifying that the game acts like crew matter. Salvaging gives -75% crew loss in non-combat... but this is useless. Crew don't matter. I think they should matter. But to matter, they should cost at least 10x more, maybe 20x more. Then I might care if they die.
Bulk transport's cargo boost is good earlygame but falls off quickly and it only applies the +1 burn to civvie ships without militarized subsystems that spike your sensor profile insanely high. I find it completely useless.

How does a flat 50% bonus fall off? I guess if you have more storage than you could possibly need...
It is not a flat 50% bonus, it's one of many Threshold skills.  It's a 50% bonus until your base storage becomes more than 2000, and the percent increase becomes less and less than that as your base storage continues to climb.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Gosts on April 07, 2021, 12:09:23 AM
Quick note: I was walking into the bar and someone asked me to break someone out of unjust confinement on my own colony. I did not accept this for fear of possible reality-shattering consequences. If I did, could I just let him leave? Do I have to raid my own colony to do it? Can you raid your own colony, hard stop??? What if there's more fleets around but they are friendly?

I don't know what to think about this but I feel it might need some tweaks.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: CrashToDesktop on April 07, 2021, 12:20:33 AM
For lore reasons, I suppose it's also reasonable to ask why the magfield doesn't also deflect the corona on the campaign map.  Might be nice for it to act like a planet in that fashion, stopping the corona in the area behind it.  Would make getting to somewhat easier, too.  Tough fight, and going in with less CR (from getting lightly toasted by the corona, emergency burn, or both) kinda hurts.

It does protect you from the corona in the campaign as long as your fleet circle is touching it, IIRC.
Far as I can tell, it isn't.  Tried hovering within the circle of the Hypershunt for a while, all I did was bleed supplies at an alarming rate for being stuck in a corona.  Before defeating the baddies, after defeating them, and repairing the structure, no effect.  Either it's not working or I'm misinterpreting how it's supposed to work - but, I can see lots of forethought went into the design of small details like that!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Rauschkind on April 07, 2021, 12:46:14 AM

storypoints ARE precious, and having to spend one per officer per yer, while having to deal with the extra micro of managing your officers AND the mercs not only is annoying, but its wasteful...


well thats one way to see it but my theory is that the intention is precisely the opposite of your understanding.
there needs to be a sp sink, otherwhise the player will just go totally nuts on build in hull mods. the way deployment works now the only way to not getting heavily outnumbered is to sink a lot of sp in officers. i think this then is the intended top priority for their use.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TaLaR on April 07, 2021, 01:01:30 AM
Officers are not a fun SP sink - you end up paying SP for mere maintenance rather than any long term power gain.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: oooh_senpai on April 07, 2021, 02:18:09 AM
Why not to just put a cap on number of officers and release a quick fix cause the problem with officers is hot? I'm pretty sure it doesn't need much testing since players are giving feedback quickly to new fixes, so it seems to me to be more effective than 1-5 player testing.
There are maybe another way to fix too unfair things with dp and range, but i think officers cap need to be included anyway.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Soban on April 07, 2021, 06:17:46 AM
The Fusion Lamp base upkeep volatile cost should probably be lowered by a decent amount. As +10 feels extremely expensive.

The pros of the fusion lamp.
 > Removes cold/extreme cold
 > Removes darkness

Cons
 > Requires 10 volatiles as upkeep
 > Adds heat debuff to planet if not cold/extreme cold

Given that you'd need to find a VERY specific planet which is worth such an extremely high demand cost, I'm not sure is it worth it in its current form. There exist non-gas planets which have volatiles, but in most cases they do have some variation of conditions which may or may not be removable with installing items.

10 Volatiles is also far outside of the output of the best planet with all the buffs that I'm able to create with a colony that is starting out. As only later once a colony grows does its mining output grow with the population amount.

Starting gas planet at size 3.

+1 Base value
+2 Plentiful volatiles
+3 Plasma dynamo
+1 Administrator

That is a total of 7. If I didn't have Plasma Dynamo I would not get up to even 5, which I thought would be a more reasonable number but, looking at this now, ouch yeah Fusion Lamp feels extremely pricy for what it does. Might actually be more beneficial to switch to a +1 Volatiles planet instead that does not have Extreme Cold and Darkness debuffs so I would not have to use the lamp.

I also haven't seen a single +3 Volatiles planet, nor a +3 Organic one. Is that intended or a weird bug?

Also on exploration.

The sector seems almost "divided" into quarter chunks. Three quarters of the map (Southwest/South/Southeast/East/Northeast & North) seem to have nothing but ruins. But the side of the map from north-northwest-west seems to be packed with Domain era stuff in space. I once found 3 domain probes next to each other by a planet. Seems really bizarre.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sarissofoi on April 07, 2021, 06:25:27 AM

Hello Alex
Derinkuyu Mining Station keep some illegal goods on open market after it switch back from pirates to independent(when you do a tutorial). Minor thing but little annoying.
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/RGqnkPl.png)
[close]
Other thing is that this station have mining industry but actually don't mine anything.
Adding maybe some condition like asteroid mining(that give it some ore/trans ore production) would be nice.
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/fo4FesR.png)
[close]

Some feedback on AI.
Strange behaviour on escorts compared to 0.9.1. They tend to be much more passive than before.
If I an make small suggestion - can escort behavior be affected by Officer/ship personality? Like with Reckless/Aggressive officer escort command make ship more about assisting in attacking(attacking the same target) when timid/caution officer serve more as backup and guard blind spot of escorted vessel(like protecting Onslaught big ass)?
Would be useful.

Also I noticed that Sindra have fuel deficit like always.
Their fuel consumption is extremely high because of military presence and their production low because of lack of violates and pirate presence.
Its usually cheaper to buy fuel anywhere else than on Sindra.
Which feel wrong. Sindra suppose to supply whole core systems.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: THEASD on April 07, 2021, 06:25:54 AM
Some modding questions, but I think they are serious issues...
Are "getDamageToFighters" and "getDamageToMissiles"(MutableStat) should use "modifyFlat" to increase the percentage damage bonus?
All new vanilla codes which are created after 0.95a from "starfarer.api" use "modifyFlat" to increase percentage damage bonus, but codes created before 0.95a use "modifyPercent", which is confusing...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 07, 2021, 06:37:49 AM
+1 Base value
+2 Plentiful volatiles
+3 Plasma dynamo
+1 Administrator

That is a total of 7. If I didn't have Plasma Dynamo I would not get up to even 5, which I thought would be a more reasonable number but, looking at this now, ouch yeah Fusion Lamp feels extremely pricy for what it does. Might actually be more beneficial to switch to a +1 Volatiles planet instead that does not have Extreme Cold and Darkness debuffs so I would not have to use the lamp.
Did you improve Mining for another +1?  Also, Alpha core adds another +1 (and stacks with the colony skills it has too).

+2 Volatiles is the highest a planet can have.  (Same for Farmland, for that matter.)

Officers are not a fun SP sink - you end up paying SP for mere maintenance rather than any long term power gain.
Agreed, especially when I want to hoard SP for s-mods and especially colony improvements (thanks insane 2^n cost).  Once I find the planets I want to colonize (my current game seed has somewhat crummy planets), I plan to dump SP like crazy into colonies.

Any power gain of officers is more like trying to catch-up with the enemy.  This is NPCs breaking the fleet cap before 0.9.1a, but with officers instead.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Soban on April 07, 2021, 07:14:55 AM
+1 Base value
+2 Plentiful volatiles
+3 Plasma dynamo
+1 Administrator

That is a total of 7. If I didn't have Plasma Dynamo I would not get up to even 5, which I thought would be a more reasonable number but, looking at this now, ouch yeah Fusion Lamp feels extremely pricy for what it does. Might actually be more beneficial to switch to a +1 Volatiles planet instead that does not have Extreme Cold and Darkness debuffs so I would not have to use the lamp.
Did you improve Mining for another +1?  Also, Alpha core adds another +1 (and stacks with the colony skills it has too).

+2 Volatiles is the highest a planet can have.  (Same for Farmland, for that matter.)

I did not improve mining with a +1 from story points. I see the storypoint upgrades as an extra, so don't look at them as a "vanilla" part of the colony experience. That and they are horrendiously expensive! Avoiding AI core use so luddics won't come bothering me.

Would be nice if High Command could have an effect that counters pirate activity -1 stab and -10% accessability. It seems like a pointless module in your planet currently due to requiring its own industry slot and Patrol HQ is enough to take back relays.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: BGrey on April 07, 2021, 07:42:15 AM
You don't have to meet the full demand for the lamp to work, you just have less of a hazard performance. So does it really cost anything at all?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 07, 2021, 07:43:24 AM
I plan to improve colonies because of all of the item restrictions, plus some items aggravate Pathers.  I want to have self-sufficient colonies, and without items, I need colony improvements and Industrial Planning.  Last release, it was flat out impossible without items.

Also, one of my colonies has Decivilized Subpopulation, and I really want to improve Pop&Inf for +1 stability to mitigate the stability malus.

Quote
I did not improve mining with a +1 from story points. I see the storypoint upgrades as an extra, so don't look at them as a "vanilla" part of the colony experience. That and they are horrendiously expensive! Avoiding AI core use so luddics won't come bothering me.
What I dislike about them is it encourages the grind for story points to feed the ever-growing black hole, much like soft-capped level limits of earlier releases.

I plan to heavily exploit colony improvements because I do not want to rely on items, unless I need to for those special 10 resource requirements, which are bugged.  I do not want to deal with Pather cells or Hegemony inspections, and sat bombing does not wipe them off the map because quests give them immunity to nukes.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Shoat on April 07, 2021, 07:54:39 AM
I also just want to say: I would really appreciate a hard mode for the game. The normal difficulty is fine starting out, but it's just not very challenging economically.

While searching, I found this good post (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=14114.msg245817#msg245817) on the subject from someone in 2019:

Quote
As much as I'd love to sink another 100 hours into the game, the meta is just too easy. 2h in everything seems to lose purpose as your power level just explodes.
Hyperspace travel is essentially hassle-free. The factions are either not aggressive enough or they don't have enough fleets overall ( and I'm on negative with all but Hegemony ). The only hassle is the annoyance of navigating the "storms" and occasionally avoiding the very few stronger faction fleets. Avoiding the fleets is fairly easy as the strong ones are generally much slower.

The skill-driven power explosion was unsatisfactory as well. Overall skills feel meaningless when you get so many so quickly.

The stipend + commission down-right break the already fragile economy.
By fragile I mean:
 The over-supply of ships ( they are more common than ore or basic supplies .... )
 The ship prices are ludicrously low. Even at 2x their current cost they would still be ridiculously low. ( I had an Onslaught with 1D 4h in, did not break the bank either )
 Trade routes are way too easy to abuse ( it's worse than in the usual grind-trading systems since your viable options are actually lower but the payouts much higher )
 Rewards are way too big for non-combat "quests". ( to be read as those without a cost sink )
 Basic supplies are way too cheap and abundant.
 I have more weapons than storage slots to put them in ( from salvage ). Granted, they are not rare but nor did I ever feel the need for rare weapons or stronger ships ( 7h in this run ).
 
To make things worse, the faction standings are too easy to recover from and overall feel very artificial. They switch and change too often and easily, making them lose substance.
IMHO accepting a comission should be a big, game-changing thing, not just an easy way into cash.

The explosion of skills has been addressed, but that's pretty much it.

I suppose I can look into making a "hard mode" mod myself. I've never done any modding before, but I really like this game in every other respect.

One of the biggest issues to me is that it feels like the actual fun parts are quite separated from how to make money. If I want to make money, I do a bunch of trading. Then, with that nest egg, I can go around having fights. But fighting because you're some leisure-class dilettante who wants to hunt the "most dangerous game" is very different from the idea in the lore of struggling to survive. Fighting, exploring... these are money losers (certainly when you look at the opportunity cost).


That's a matter of customization.
The game's plenty hard for a new player until they figure it all out out, and then it's on them to not play in a manner that trivializes the game. If you find that trading a lot early to get rich quick makes the game easy, then... don't do that?

Also:
Stipend can be turned off in the config file.
You can choose not to take a commission, or adjust how much it is worth.
You can enable spacer start (which IIRC starts you with literally nothing) in the config.
You can adjust the prices of ships and basic supplies yourself... hell, pretty much any "number isn't right for my tastes" problem you have can be solved by editing a simple text file in the game folder.

Eventually Alex will probably make a big boi difficulty himself, but until then we can help ourselves while he does more important things that we can't just adjust ourselves in text files.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Flet on April 07, 2021, 08:22:20 AM
officers
Yeah, it bothers me that officers you level up are inferior.
On one hand, the speed at which you can level them makes me feel like they are intended to be the placeholders while you go look for really good officers, but the problem with this approach is:
1. If you spend SP on them thats entirely wasted
2. It skews things towards officer management. I already feel like officer management is the better skill just because the strength of officer frigates in this version, the fact that you can get higher level officers anyway makes it even more biased in that direction because the few builds that would really improve by a 6th skill i can just hope gets covered.
3. It ignores any emotional attachment people might develop. You go through fights seeing that officer going around in the periphery of the screen doing stuff and after so many of these it feels wrong to throw them out just to replace them with some random person you found in a cryopod.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: GenericGoose on April 07, 2021, 08:56:23 AM
While we are talking about officers, Im not a big fan of how they work. I wish they had tactics setting you can change as needed, instead of personalities you can only change once. Random officers don't feel rewarding, because a lot of them can have skills that are as good or worse than regular officers, because it's random. How is a lvl6 officer with the same skills as a lvl5+carrier skill useful or rewarding to me if I'm not using carriers? It could've been a skill I'd find useful, but it isn't, because rng decided so, etc. it's also a headache to look through all of the officers to pick the one that's the least useful to toss out the airlock once I'm at the limit. Or if I want to change my fleet and now need different skills, I have to purge my officer team and hire and train a new one... 15 years serving under me only to be deleted forever... If the player can respec, why can't the officers? Please consider changing this, it would take out a lot of pointless rng and tedium out of officer management and make the game more fun.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 07, 2021, 09:03:32 AM
There are no carrier skills for officers, just warship or general-purpose skills.

However, Leadership 4L is devalued by all of the random level 7s the player can eventually loot (if he bothers to check out all random derelicts and distress calls).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 07, 2021, 09:35:55 AM
(Just, again - thank you for all the feedback; read through everything!)

Thank you for the added info! Could you clarify on the exact order setup you have to make them "blob"?
Well, I can't quite remember, as I've done multiple fights. Usually, I assign auroras to escort an onslaught, each, then I send the capitals to a control point or a rally point, closer to my side of the map. Depending on how the points generate, sometimes our fleets meet on one, me getting there first. Pretty much all enemy ships go to the point, except for a few frigates/destroyers and pile on from one direction, slowly trickling around.

Ok, thank you for the added detail!

However, Leadership 4L is devalued by all of the random level 7s the player can eventually loot (if he bothers to check out all random derelicts and distress calls).

(It's a bug that those can be found on these kinds of wrecks. They're supposed to be hard-limited in number at game start.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 07, 2021, 09:40:10 AM
Some modding questions, but I think they are serious issues...
Are "getDamageToFighters" and "getDamageToMissiles"(MutableStat) should use "modifyFlat" to increase the percentage damage bonus?
All new vanilla codes which are created after 0.95a from "starfarer.api" use "modifyFlat" to increase percentage damage bonus, but codes created before 0.95a use "modifyPercent", which is confusing...

Ah - it's a multiplier, so either way is fine. modifyPercent(25f) and modifyFlat(25f / 100f) amount to the same thing.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Shoat on April 07, 2021, 09:40:42 AM
There are no carrier skills for officers, just warship or general-purpose skills.

That's just outright not true.
Strike Commander and Point Defense can be on officers, both of them are carrier skills.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 07, 2021, 09:41:14 AM
About those level 7 officers you can find, is it possible to add some way to make them...well, not completely useless in some cases? Being able to fully re-spec them is probably a bit much, but IIRC I once found a level 7 officer specced for close range brawling...who was Timid. I mean he could pilot a really mean Buffalo pretending to be a PD platform, I guess, but...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 07, 2021, 09:50:54 AM
About those level 7 officers you can find, is it possible to add some way to make them...well, not completely useless in some cases? Being able to fully re-spec them is probably a bit much, but IIRC I once found a level 7 officer specced for close range brawling...who was Timid. I mean he could pilot a really mean Buffalo pretending to be a PD platform, I guess, but...

Long-term cryosleep does things to people...

... actually, let me make timid officers obey the Eliminate command. That'd at least add some interesting considerations to a case like this, since you could make them useful by liberally using it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Chaos Blade on April 07, 2021, 10:10:29 AM
i just dont understand why contracted officers are even a thing now, they bust the balance out of the door for everyone, but the ai especially, since they can just spam them without regards for, well, the upkeep and upcost

storypoints ARE precious, and having to spend one per officer per yer, while having to deal with the extra micro of managing your officers AND the mercs not only is annoying, but its wasteful...

just remove them, and keep the hard limit for everyone

8 officers is more than enough

(thats not mentioning the problem officers have with skills, and random officers ALWAYS being better than... the ones you train (hardcap on level and elite skills compared to, well, no cap on level AND again elite skills for officers youd find in pods and such)

i just find it wierd that officers you actively teach and guide... can never be as good, hell, nearly as good as officers you just... pick up randomly, especially "promising" officers

just compare them at face value

random officers are almost always level 7 (although i think i have seen a level 9 at some point iirc), meaning... 2 more skills than youd get by growing an officer yourself... and ANY of those skills have the ability to be elite too, and not limited to 1 either (granted... ironically, the "elite" in some elite skills is kind of... weak imo)

there are already alot of good uses for storypoints (especially when you get into colonies my gawd), that we (or the ai in this case)really dont need the ability to spam better officers and ecm the crap out of anything

I get the feeling that the contracted officers need to go, and become contracted mercs force, their own independent command that travels with you (at your supply and fuel expensens) and fight with you, much like a friendly AI force would, but for X ammount of time
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Soban on April 07, 2021, 10:25:13 AM
Think I found a bug.

https://i.imgur.com/6VHZcB8.png

The path I took to this bug is below.

Ask about brother cotton->Continue->Any of you happen to know brother cotton->Just tell Cotton I'm here. I'll wait.

Reloaded the save and tried out the same path. Happened again.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Ekibana on April 07, 2021, 10:36:59 AM
Also:
Stipend can be turned off in the config file.
You can choose not to take a commission, or adjust how much it is worth.
You can enable spacer start (which IIRC starts you with literally nothing) in the config.
You can adjust the prices of ships and basic supplies yourself... hell, pretty much any "number isn't right for my tastes" problem you have can be solved by editing a simple text file in the game folder.

Eventually Alex will probably make a big boi difficulty himself, but until then we can help ourselves while he does more important things that we can't just adjust ourselves in text files.

My personal favorites are:
- you can't buy ships, ever; only loot-restore them or build your own, but!
- no exploration until you have at least 1 cruiser(+)-sized exploration ship (like Apogee); with the above rule you have to hunt for it first
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Farlarzia on April 07, 2021, 10:37:26 AM
I'd have to agree about being able to respec, or even partially respec lvl 7 officers, or maybe even found officers in general - it really sucks to find one of the rare level 7 officers, just to have them with a set of skills that makes them worse than a level 5 or 6 officer you could make yourself. Even if it was something expensive like having to spend a story point per skill reallocation, I'd still take it.

Talking about officer RNG, I've been thinking about other points of RNG in the game in general recently. The items and story point uses you've added in this update (like changing officer agressiveness, more officer skill choices, the new items meaning previously undesireable systems can become a lot more viable, adding stable points, missions giving locations for blueprints, etc etc), have been a great step towards this - but despite this, there are still instances of pure RNG that really suck for the player.

The biggest offenders of this in my eyes, are still parts of the colony system that you still can't do anything about - for example, you can heat planets up now, but have no way to cool overly hot planets (Though there is that item that interacts with hot planets, and from it description, certainly sounds like it'd cool a planet while its installed). And hoping that the good system you find, also had one of the domain era system structures, especially the comms relay (Stability is pretty managable these days, but it still feels bad to know you could have had something better but RNG screwed you over. Maybe there could be story missions like the red planet in the future to address this, or some other way to aquire them, even if the it was a 1 time thing.

Someone else has already addressed this before too, but the limited colony boosting 'relics' you can find on the map can also overlap, which can sometimes almost half the chance of a useful system being in the diminished total area they cover.

I understand that the randomness of some of this stuff is to sometimes have the player go 'wow, this system is amazing!' when they're exploring, but when you find something *almost* incredible, and then you realise its missing something you want, and choose somewhere else because of something thats completely out of your control, it doesn't feel great..

For example, in my playthough I found an amazing system with a cryosleeper, and then realised it wasn't in a tap radius (both my taps overlapped a bit, and I settled to inhabiting a sub par system in comparision, because growth doesn't matter past a certain point, but the industry bonus effect is always useful), so that wow moment just turned to resigned disappointment.

Anyway thats just my 2 cents on exploration, colonys, and their RNG currently - I'd be interested to hear what other people think about it in this update.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Shoat on April 07, 2021, 12:28:18 PM
I get the feeling that the contracted officers need to go, and become contracted mercs force, their own independent command that travels with you (at your supply and fuel expensens) and fight with you, much like a friendly AI force would, but for X ammount of time

I agree that merc officers are kinda meh, if only because it's a micromanage-y thing that only becomes relevant once you are already at max officers (which are already a bit micromanage-y to begin with).

I would much prefer if it was just "Hey I am a merc captain with these stats, in this ship, equipped with these weapons, I join your fleet for X time if you pay me" and then it's just an extra dude with his own ship fighting for you. Maybe there could also be seperate mercenary commanders that have a little fleet, whatever.

Should probably not be an independent fleet following you, tho, since that would make map navigation become awkward (they could get lost far-off, distracted, or be caught by enemies you wanted to avoid, etc.). They should just be an addition to your fleet (that ignores the 30 ship limit and you cannot directly issue commands to them in combat) instead of flying around near you independently.

I remember there was a mount&blade warband mod (was it part of floris?) where you could join some king's army as a mercenary, essentially just integrated into their army and fighting for them (instead of following them on the map and assisting), and that's kinda what I would prefer for mercenaries because, as I said, managing an on-the-map allied fleet feels really awkward.


My personal favorites are:
- you can't buy ships, ever; only loot-restore them or build your own, but!
- no exploration until you have at least 1 cruiser(+)-sized exploration ship (like Apogee); with the above rule you have to hunt for it first

Stuff like this is good, I am happy that there are some other people playing games in a way to try and have some challenge, instead of just playing the optimal way and then complaining it's too easy.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Gennadios on April 07, 2021, 03:55:05 PM
After having put a couple of afternoons into the new version:

I'm really liking the new economy and the industry items, overall I'm really enjoying the whole of the exploration and colonization aspect.

I'm really not a fan of the new combat though.

First, the AI is back to feeling way too timid like they were a few updates ago, it feels like they all just cluster up at the edge of enemy ship's firing range. They also have an infuriating tendency to block each other's firing line. Most noticeable with slower Hagemony fleets.

Second, officers were fun in the beginning, but it's time to reign them in. They're making the early game where the player doesn't have officers extra frustrating, and then end up making the late game too easy when the player gets a full roster of their own officers. My last system defense, I tied up two wolves and a Shepherd on a single Wolf with an officer, which leads to number three...

Third, why the hell does the AI still have such a massive deployment advantage over the player? Especially when we have a meta where the player may need to tie up 3 of their ships to match one of the enemies? I'm getting increasingly fatigued of getting overrun at the beginning of the battle and not being able to control enough of the battlefield to even come close to matching the number of hulls the enemy is throwing at me.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Voxette on April 07, 2021, 04:07:11 PM
I tried asking in the Modding forum but got no replies.

Is there a guide to what the options in settings.json actually do? Many of them are very unclear. In particular:

Code
"economyIterPerMonth":10,
"economyMinDemandForPricing":100,
"economyMinStockpileForPricing":100,
"economyNoDemandPriceMult":0.5,
"economyGreedFraction":0.25,

"economyDeficitPriceIncrPerUnit":0.125,
"economyDeficitPriceMultMax":1.5,
"economyExcessPriceDecrPerUnit":0.11,
"economyExcessPriceMultMin":0.67,

What is "GreedFraction"? And this says the max price multiplier is 1.5, but I'm almost sure I've seen prices higher than that?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Radicaljack on April 07, 2021, 05:24:35 PM
After having put a couple of afternoons into the new version:

I'm really liking the new economy and the industry items, overall I'm really enjoying the whole of the exploration and colonization aspect.

I'm really not a fan of the new combat though.

First, the AI is back to feeling way too timid like they were a few updates ago, it feels like they all just cluster up at the edge of enemy ship's firing range. They also have an infuriating tendency to block each other's firing line. Most noticeable with slower Hagemony fleets.

Second, officers were fun in the beginning, but it's time to reign them in. They're making the early game where the player doesn't have officers extra frustrating, and then end up making the late game too easy when the player gets a full roster of their own officers. My last system defense, I tied up two wolves and a Shepherd on a single Wolf with an officer, which leads to number three...

Third, why the hell does the AI still have such a massive deployment advantage over the player? Especially when we have a meta where the player may need to tie up 3 of their ships to match one of the enemies? I'm getting increasingly fatigued of getting overrun at the beginning of the battle and not being able to control enough of the battlefield to even come close to matching the number of hulls the enemy is throwing at me.

Really hoping the next patch comes out soon to address this, kinda shelved the new update and didn't explore all it had due to the insane DP issues of late game and midlate game. Really boring.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 07, 2021, 05:56:49 PM
@Radicaljack: What fleets specifically are you having trouble with? Just a general "too many officers" is a bit too vague to do anything about. I was just looking at fleet officer counts and - well, this thread (http://this thread) might be a good place to talk about this, actually. Sort of off-topic for it, but not quite.


Code
"economyIterPerMonth":10,
"economyMinDemandForPricing":100,
"economyMinStockpileForPricing":100,
"economyNoDemandPriceMult":0.5,
"economyGreedFraction":0.25,

"economyDeficitPriceIncrPerUnit":0.125,
"economyDeficitPriceMultMax":1.5,
"economyExcessPriceDecrPerUnit":0.11,
"economyExcessPriceMultMin":0.67,

What is "GreedFraction"? And this says the max price multiplier is 1.5, but I'm almost sure I've seen prices higher than that?

I wouldn't mess with the first four. The last four affect the price when there's an explicit shortage/excess (i.e. red/green icons); the multipliers are on top of what the price would already be due to the "regular" economy which would create a price differential based on the shortage. It's an extra multiplier to make the price changes in this situation more pronounced.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on April 07, 2021, 06:49:49 PM
Alex, would you make skills 3x4 or even 4x3 instead of current 2x5?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sutopia on April 07, 2021, 08:14:17 PM
Alex, would you make skills 3x4 or even 4x3 instead of current 2x5?
That’s still outright bad

The whole problem with current design is that player still needs to look at the entire skill map to decide the path due to limited levels available. The player is still picking from 40 skills instead of 8, which nullified the goal of current iteration of skill system.

Worst part, to achieve certain later skills players are forced to sink points into skills they have no interest into. Tech and industry T2 are perfect examples. They’re just there to waste my precious levels.

I am composing a new post to suggest how to make a skill system that is interesting while allowing meaningful choices, despite previous EW redesign suggestion was totally ignored. :'(
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sarissofoi on April 07, 2021, 08:21:50 PM
ALEX

Any chances for changes to contact bounties?
Any time I want to take one I need to check were exactly it is and that mean I need to refuse it go into Intel find the Star system look at it on map and then go back to contact/bar and ask for it again.
Please at last make it so they also tell a direction not only distance where the target is.

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Zibywan on April 07, 2021, 09:47:49 PM
Recent changes to "edge of map" and retreat behavior seem like a downgrade.

If I engage my engines to retreat, then have them knocked out by an EMP weapon, I now get repelled back onto the battlefield by an invisible wall at the edge of the map.

It used to be a retreating ship could fly off the map with their engines knocked out, or under their own power with shields raised. What prompted the change?

The current iteration punishes any ship that tries to retreat under enemy fire, since they'll frequently get stuck at the edge of the map, unable to move as their engines are knocked out over and over, and each time they try to engage them to flee, they get pushed back onto the map by some invisible force.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: EclipseRanger on April 07, 2021, 11:42:30 PM
Not sure if this is the best place for feedback,considering the multitude of other topics discussed at the same time,but here goes.

First,amazing update.I can tell a lot of effort went into it and,for me at least,it's as meaty and polished as I could hope for.Thanks for that.As for actual feedback:

-)The most important issue in my opinion,skill points.The choices per level on every tree are amazing,but locking desired skills behind ones the players doesn't care about feels somewhat unfun,especially since the late tier skills aren't in any way meaningfully better or more impactful than previous tiers.So my proposed solution would be to retain the choice aspect of the skills,but  let the players pick from whatever tier they want in a tree without needing previous tiers.However,to pick the alternative of a selected skill,you would need at least 5 points on that tree,just like in the current system.So you can pick Missile Specialisation,a T5 skill on level 1,but to pick both Missile Specialisation AND System Expertise,you need at least 5 points invested in Combat.

-)The story is amazing.The new quests are a joy to read and do,as is the world building.Major props to the writers,as well as whoever had the idea of adding choices to how quests are approached.Terrific ideas I can't wait to see more of.

-)The contact system is very helpful.My only recommendation would be to make it so whenever someone gives you a contract with a target the belongs to a faction,the name of the target colony should appear in the color of the faction.It's kind of a hassle to have to back out to see who the colony belongs to then have to reenter the quest dialogue to accept it.

-)The new weapons/ships/enemies are amazing additions.I'd love to see more weapons like the Breach,with unique functions that emphasise their role.

-)Officers feel way more impactful and are more fun to toy around with,though I believe sometimes the AI has too many,too high level officers,making fights feel one sided.Capturing points with frigates to balance it out is sometimes extremely hard,when every one of my officers is swarmed by 3 enemy officers with equal level.10+ Level 7 officers on pirate fleets feels a bit weird(where did they get such specialised,highly trained officers?).

-)Story point uses are very welcome,and I had a lot of fun thinking about how to use them effectively.The new integrated hullmods especially really help personalise a fleet or colony.

-)The scaling on some skills feels somewhat off.My biggest gripe is Auxiliary Support,which starts limiting the player after only 6 points.I feel maybe 12 or even 18 would be a reasonable softcap,given how you can't even field a Gemini at full scaling,and that's just one Destroyer.



Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Soban on April 08, 2021, 05:22:09 AM
Might have found a bug. Spoilers ahead for those who haven't completed story missions yet.

Spoiler

Finished the storyline up to a point where I unlocked gate access and went to the Aztlan system's ring gate.

Even though there is no nearby hegemony fleet nearby, I keep getting the message that a nearby hegemony fleet is blocking scanning attempts. Screenshot below.

https://i.imgur.com/95oFBft.png

[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 08, 2021, 05:30:42 AM
Might have found a bug. Spoilers ahead for those who haven't completed story missions yet.

Spoiler

Finished the storyline up to a point where I unlocked gate access and went to the Aztlan system's ring gate.

Even though there is no nearby hegemony fleet nearby, I keep getting the message that a nearby hegemony fleet is blocking scanning attempts. Screenshot below.

https://i.imgur.com/95oFBft.png

[close]

god i actually hate that so much, the whole "a nearby hostile fleet is tracking your movements", as if ID CARE WITH MY 5 PARAGON FLEET THAT A FAST PICKET IS TRACKING ME WHEN SALVAGING
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Soban on April 08, 2021, 05:52:15 AM
Might have found a bug. Spoilers ahead for those who haven't completed story missions yet.

Spoiler

Finished the storyline up to a point where I unlocked gate access and went to the Aztlan system's ring gate.

Even though there is no nearby hegemony fleet nearby, I keep getting the message that a nearby hegemony fleet is blocking scanning attempts. Screenshot below.

https://i.imgur.com/95oFBft.png

[close]

god i actually hate that so much, the whole "a nearby hostile fleet is tracking your movements", as if ID CARE WITH MY 5 PARAGON FLEET THAT A FAST PICKET IS TRACKING ME WHEN SALVAGING

That is a pretty good point. It might even be preferrable if the enemy fleet which was tracking you would either be forced to fight you or to let you do your thing if they don't want to stop you with weapon fire.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 08, 2021, 06:00:20 AM
Might have found a bug. Spoilers ahead for those who haven't completed story missions yet.

Spoiler

Finished the storyline up to a point where I unlocked gate access and went to the Aztlan system's ring gate.

Even though there is no nearby hegemony fleet nearby, I keep getting the message that a nearby hegemony fleet is blocking scanning attempts. Screenshot below.

https://i.imgur.com/95oFBft.png

[close]

god i actually hate that so much, the whole "a nearby hostile fleet is tracking your movements", as if ID CARE WITH MY 5 PARAGON FLEET THAT A FAST PICKET IS TRACKING ME WHEN SALVAGING

That is a pretty good point. It might even be preferrable if the enemy fleet which was tracking you would either be forced to fight you or to let you do your thing if they don't want to stop you with weapon fire.

especially when you have dedicated salvage ships that do the salvaging... youd imagine that your military ships would stand guard during the process... but apparently even those participate in the salvage ops
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Shoat on April 08, 2021, 07:06:08 AM
That is a pretty good point. It might even be preferrable if the enemy fleet which was tracking you would either be forced to fight you or to let you do your thing if they don't want to stop you with weapon fire.

Yeah I've always wondered why there isn't a "whatever, let them try to stop me" dialogue option there, where it either forces a fight with the offending fleet or they back down and you can do your salvaging.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Chaos Blade on April 08, 2021, 07:32:31 AM
Might have found a bug. Spoilers ahead for those who haven't completed story missions yet.

Spoiler

Finished the storyline up to a point where I unlocked gate access and went to the Aztlan system's ring gate.

Even though there is no nearby hegemony fleet nearby, I keep getting the message that a nearby hegemony fleet is blocking scanning attempts. Screenshot below.

https://i.imgur.com/95oFBft.png

[close]

god i actually hate that so much, the whole "a nearby hostile fleet is tracking your movements", as if ID CARE WITH MY 5 PARAGON FLEET THAT A FAST PICKET IS TRACKING ME WHEN SALVAGING

That is a pretty good point. It might even be preferrable if the enemy fleet which was tracking you would either be forced to fight you or to let you do your thing if they don't want to stop you with weapon fire.

especially when you have dedicated salvage ships that do the salvaging... youd imagine that your military ships would stand guard during the process... but apparently even those participate in the salvage ops

You know that could be a neat battle, you have your ships with the salvage vessels deployed (freely) behind you doing their thing and the enemy fleet coming towards your battleline

it would be a neat sort of battle (and as much as I hate escort missions, it would be neat to have some of that, if anything for mission variety)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Soban on April 08, 2021, 07:33:33 AM
Might have found a possible oversight

Spoiler

When using a gate to travel to a claimed system, there is no pop-up "Would you like to turn on your transmitter" as there is when travelling trough a jump point. This may lead to players receiving unsolicited visitations by system patrols of other factions, simply due to the player not possibly remembering to turn it on. Hence why I imagine the pop-up exists with jump points to begin with.

[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 08, 2021, 07:36:30 AM
Might have found a bug. Spoilers ahead for those who haven't completed story missions yet.

Spoiler

Finished the storyline up to a point where I unlocked gate access and went to the Aztlan system's ring gate.

Even though there is no nearby hegemony fleet nearby, I keep getting the message that a nearby hegemony fleet is blocking scanning attempts. Screenshot below.

https://i.imgur.com/95oFBft.png

[close]

god i actually hate that so much, the whole "a nearby hostile fleet is tracking your movements", as if ID CARE WITH MY 5 PARAGON FLEET THAT A FAST PICKET IS TRACKING ME WHEN SALVAGING

That is a pretty good point. It might even be preferrable if the enemy fleet which was tracking you would either be forced to fight you or to let you do your thing if they don't want to stop you with weapon fire.

especially when you have dedicated salvage ships that do the salvaging... youd imagine that your military ships would stand guard during the process... but apparently even those participate in the salvage ops

You know that could be a neat battle, you have your ships with the salvage vessels deployed (freely) behind you doing their thing and the enemy fleet coming towards your battleline

it would be a neat sort of battle (and as much as I hate escort missions, it would be neat to have some of that, if anything for mission variety)

would also give an actual reason to... you know, outfit your logistics ships for once
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on April 08, 2021, 12:36:50 PM
Another piece of feedback.
Since we no longer have the OP boosting skill, but instead we have the built-in hull mods some ships became more potent while others somewhat lost their appeal.
One particularly striking example is the Legion. At first glance, you might think that having 260 OP + 3 built-in hull mods is a big step forward. However, the improvement is less game-changing compared to the Onslaught. One reason might be, that the Legion has 4 fighter wings and a similar amount of hardpoints but only 260 OP. So giving 3 built-in hull mods can still leave the Legion to feel OP starved, while giving +26 Op might make the ship less OP starved as a battle carrier, without the hull mods.
It's not a complaint at all, it's just an impression. Legion is a big loser of this update, and other ships might get better or worse, with this new system.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: RustyCabbage on April 08, 2021, 02:11:47 PM
Also: the Gemini is getting Civilian-based Hull, so is its base burn being reduced to 8 as well?
Noticed that the base burn speed is still 9, so Militarized Subsystems puts it at 10 / frigate burn speed. Just wanna double check if that is intended?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: GenericGoose on April 08, 2021, 02:30:07 PM
some guy at a bar asked me to produce 9 units of organs at a colony, is that even plausible?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 08, 2021, 02:36:49 PM
some guy at a bar asked me to produce 9 units of organs at a colony, is that even plausible?

i was about to say "yes with vpc' chips", but then i realized thats a mod

iirc the only way you could "produce" organs was with the cryo building from cryosleepers

could be wrong tho
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Volfgarix on April 08, 2021, 02:40:37 PM
I wonder if it's okay to have storyline give you Transverse Jump for free. It kinda makes it feel mandatory to start the storyline for it if you haven't picked it as first choice in technology skill line. Seems to let you cheese the game without much of investment.

Bulk transport skill kinda doesn't make sense considering trading isn't supposed to be a main focus of the game (at least from what I gathered). More sense for me it would make first tier have you choose between increase in common goods scavenge + storage increases OR increased chance for rare finds. It would let player focus on either scavenging wreckage in safer areas and go for the bulk transport/sale of scrap (thus letting for more sustainable existence if someone wants to play as space hobo) OR to become an artifact hunter delving deep into wild parts of the Sector, going for high risk/high reward play.

Derelict Contingent needs fixing, that's obvious. D-modded ships are supposed to be a cheaper way to field ships, a trade-off. Give up quality for lower cost/higher availability. Turning them into tanks seems pointless.

Smuggling still OP, just sayian.
Edit: It should be more profitable to sell drugs in well patrolled places like Aztlan system due to high population and high amount of patrols making smuggling difficult. Otherwise players will just run drugs to easily reachable pirate/pather markets.

Some jobs/contracts are totally not worth it, could be intended, so player couldn't get too comfortable, but it essentially makes screwing around large markets unprofitable.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on April 08, 2021, 02:51:58 PM
Minor question: are the offers of 'discount' ships from contacts based upon what the player has in their fleet or what they'd purchased last? I ask because last time, my hegemony contact offered me a gryphon right after I'd bought one on the market, and then kept offering my dominator XIVs (most common ship in my fleet thanks to him). In this one, a bar event is offering a drover right after another bar event let me get one on the cheap, and my most common ship type is carriers. Just confirmation bias, or is there some behind the scenes logic at play? Either way, they keep offering me useful ships so its good!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 08, 2021, 04:23:05 PM
Bulk transport skill kinda doesn't make sense considering trading isn't supposed to be a main focus of the game (at least from what I gathered). More sense for me it would make first tier have you choose between increase in common goods scavenge + storage increases OR increased chance for rare finds. It would let player focus on either scavenging wreckage in safer areas and go for the bulk transport/sale of scrap (thus letting for more sustainable existence if someone wants to play as space hobo) OR to become an artifact hunter delving deep into wild parts of the Sector, going for high risk/high reward play.
With that, I want the rare item skill until I do not need more rare items, then respec to the bag of holding skill.

Bulk Transport is nice for 1) absorbing loot bombs (from ruins or big fights) with fewer ships and 2) no need for Militarized Subsystems on civilians for +1 burn alone.

Even if player does not care to trade, he may want room to loot if he plays (tomb) raider.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 08, 2021, 04:27:13 PM
Bulk transport skill kinda doesn't make sense considering trading isn't supposed to be a main focus of the game (at least from what I gathered). More sense for me it would make first tier have you choose between increase in common goods scavenge + storage increases OR increased chance for rare finds. It would let player focus on either scavenging wreckage in safer areas and go for the bulk transport/sale of scrap (thus letting for more sustainable existence if someone wants to play as space hobo) OR to become an artifact hunter delving deep into wild parts of the Sector, going for high risk/high reward play.
With that, I want the rare item skill until I do not need more rare items, then respec to the bag of holding skill.

Bulk Transport is nice for 1) absorbing loot bombs (from ruins or big fights) with fewer ships and 2) no need for Militarized Subsystems on civilians for +1 burn alone.

Even if player does not care to trade, he may want room to loot if he plays (tomb) raider.

OR, just be an absolute chad and yoink random atlas in pristine during your expedition runs

or be me, and do it twice
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 08, 2021, 04:42:37 PM
(The usual thank you, made a couple of notes, etc!)

A few specific responses real quick:

Noticed that the base burn speed is still 9, so Militarized Subsystems puts it at 10 / frigate burn speed. Just wanna double check if that is intended?

Made a note; that doesn't seem right!

Minor question: are the offers of 'discount' ships from contacts based upon what the player has in their fleet or what they'd purchased last? I ask because last time, my hegemony contact offered me a gryphon right after I'd bought one on the market, and then kept offering my dominator XIVs (most common ship in my fleet thanks to him). In this one, a bar event is offering a drover right after another bar event let me get one on the cheap, and my most common ship type is carriers. Just confirmation bias, or is there some behind the scenes logic at play? Either way, they keep offering me useful ships so its good!

Either confirmation bias or some kind of extra-esoteric bug :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 08, 2021, 05:06:20 PM
extra-esoteric bug

those are the best kind of bugs :y
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on April 08, 2021, 05:16:50 PM
Heh confirmation bias is real!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 08, 2021, 05:20:41 PM
Another piece of feedback.
Since we no longer have the OP boosting skill, but instead we have the built-in hull mods some ships became more potent while others somewhat lost their appeal.
One particularly striking example is the Legion. At first glance, you might think that having 260 OP + 3 built-in hull mods is a big step forward. However, the improvement is less game-changing compared to the Onslaught. One reason might be, that the Legion has 4 fighter wings and a similar amount of hardpoints but only 260 OP. So giving 3 built-in hull mods can still leave the Legion to feel OP starved, while giving +26 Op might make the ship less OP starved as a battle carrier, without the hull mods.
It's not a complaint at all, it's just an impression. Legion is a big loser of this update, and other ships might get better or worse, with this new system.

i cant speak for the regular (buu hegemony) legion, battlegroup legion is SO good, and the best flagship in the game imo

2 hyperdrivers, 1 flack in the "nose" slot, 2 hurricanes (slot out one for a locust if fighting high fighter fleets if you are scared of their... "ordinance", 4 xyphons, both missile mods, 2 maulers, whatever other hullmods you want,  and on the small slots with lots of coverage s-mortars is so good for a fleet anchor

obviously dont use it as a "carrier" and more like a "you aint gonna go past me whatever you do" point for your fleet
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on April 08, 2021, 05:50:43 PM
A bit more feedback as I'm on my second playthrough now: I haven't gotten any contacts other than the scripted one from tutorial -> coatl, despite doing missions, so I think the chance might be too low. I'm trying to do lots bar missions to get them, but so far no luck in... maybe 4 hours play on this save, maybe 10 bar contracts done? Probably another 20 or so in the other game. I know others are getting contacts so its probably not a bug.

[Edit] I tell a lie! Right after posting this I got a contact, so its not bugged. Just a bit too rare imo.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 08, 2021, 06:00:33 PM
it kind of IS rare... then again, the "core worlds" are quite the small place if you really look at it
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TerranEmpire on April 08, 2021, 06:03:14 PM

i cant speak for the regular (buu hegemony) legion, battlegroup legion is SO good, and the best flagship in the game imo

2 hyperdrivers, 1 flack in the "nose" slot, 2 hurricanes (slot out one for a locust if fighting high fighter fleets if you are scared of their... "ordinance", 4 xyphons, both missile mods, 2 maulers, whatever other hullmods you want,  and on the small slots with lots of coverage s-mortars is so good for a fleet anchor

obviously dont use it as a "carrier" and more like a "you aint gonna go past me whatever you do" point for your fleet

I think for that role the XIV Onslaught is waaaay better. Especially after the buffs.
Stronger armor, hull (basically you can afford to lose the flux war sometimes, you have so much hull and armor) heavy ballistic integration etc...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 08, 2021, 06:05:49 PM

i cant speak for the regular (buu hegemony) legion, battlegroup legion is SO good, and the best flagship in the game imo

2 hyperdrivers, 1 flack in the "nose" slot, 2 hurricanes (slot out one for a locust if fighting high fighter fleets if you are scared of their... "ordinance", 4 xyphons, both missile mods, 2 maulers, whatever other hullmods you want,  and on the small slots with lots of coverage s-mortars is so good for a fleet anchor

obviously dont use it as a "carrier" and more like a "you aint gonna go past me whatever you do" point for your fleet

I think for that role the XIV Onslaught is waaaay better. Especially after the buffs.
Stronger armor, hull (basically you can afford to lose the flux war sometimes, you have so much hull and armor) heavy ballistic integration etc...

uhm, its still an onslaught

so imma pass on that one
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on April 08, 2021, 08:08:19 PM
Alex, what are some significant changes for the next build?
Is it finally save incompatible? 
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: CrashToDesktop on April 08, 2021, 08:10:43 PM
I've noticed something with the new Converted Fighter Bays hull mod: it can be used on three ships in the base game: the Shepherd, Tempest, and Venture since you can only install it on ships with built-in fighter wings.  To use it on the Tempest would be insane, the Venture meh, and the Shepherd decent.  But, you can only use it on 3 ships - very limited, and even more limited by the fact it's a dock-only modification.  I feel like it's use could be expanded more by allowing it to be installed on any ship with fighter bays (rather than built-in fighters only), remove the dock requirement, and remove the CR penalty to do a space install, but keep the CR penalty for space uninstall.  With those changes I could see slapping this on some of my ships if I'm out exploring and go over the cap, but I gimp my combat capabilities considerably.  Otherwise, case use is ridiculously limited and the hullmod just aught not to exist.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Volfgarix on April 08, 2021, 08:11:01 PM
With that, I want the rare item skill until I do not need more rare items, then respec to the bag of holding skill.

Bulk Transport is nice for 1) absorbing loot bombs (from ruins or big fights) with fewer ships and 2) no need for Militarized Subsystems on civilians for +1 burn alone.

Even if player does not care to trade, he may want room to loot if he plays (tomb) raider.
Ah, right, the whole rare find chance thing pushes the player to maximize it because it's a limited resource.
Now I noticed there is no modifier from skills nor from other things and that's probably the best way, let's keep the chance the same because finding that stuff is difficult enough. I still wonder if Bulk Transport could be improved, because people probably will still prefer Salvaging skill(having to put in Militarized Subsystems isn't much of a problem especially that some might want to aim for SO for better escape speed).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: GenericGoose on April 09, 2021, 03:29:39 AM
I remember someone asking about the prison break mission being given targeting your own colony. Just got one myself and... you can't raid your own colony. Your only way to complete it seems to be going to the bar and talking to a guy and spending an SP and half the reward money to get the prisoner. Yeah 27k for 1sp doesn't sound very worth it, not counting the traveling cost
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 09, 2021, 07:49:55 AM
I've noticed something with the new Converted Fighter Bays hull mod: it can be used on three ships in the base game: the Shepherd, Tempest, and Venture since you can only install it on ships with built-in fighter wings.  To use it on the Tempest would be insane, the Venture meh, and the Shepherd decent.  But, you can only use it on 3 ships - very limited, and even more limited by the fact it's a dock-only modification.  I feel like it's use could be expanded more by allowing it to be installed on any ship with fighter bays (rather than built-in fighters only), remove the dock requirement, and remove the CR penalty to do a space install, but keep the CR penalty for space uninstall.  With those changes I could see slapping this on some of my ships if I'm out exploring and go over the cap, but I gimp my combat capabilities considerably.  Otherwise, case use is ridiculously limited and the hullmod just aught not to exist.
It feels like a Shepherd-only mod.  I throw it on all of them for 150 cargo frigate-sized freighter.  I would not use it on Tempest even if I want it because it needs all of the OP it can get for combat stuff.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Awe on April 09, 2021, 09:32:00 AM
I still wonder if Bulk Transport could be improved, because people probably will still prefer Salvaging skill

Always take more capacity over the salvage. Nothing vital in salvage skill, but more capacity mean slightly more slots for combat ships or just a bit easier early game because you need to buy less transports. :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Awe on April 09, 2021, 09:35:17 AM
@Alex, can you please make Atlas more common at market? I'm played 3 runs and managed to buy Atlas only once, while Prometheuses are pretty common.  :-\

PS Also, question about phase cargo ship - did it work like shielded cargo mod at pirate mule/buffalo?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: pairedeciseaux on April 09, 2021, 10:00:32 AM
@Alex, can you please make Atlas more common at market? I'm played 3 runs and managed to buy Atlas only once, while Prometheuses are pretty common.  :-\

Yeah, still playing first campaign and haven't found a single one available without commission. Have used 1 or 2 Colossus. That said, 1 Colossus seams to be enough for my needs now that fleet size is reasonable and I'm not doing delivery missions anymore.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 09, 2021, 10:04:02 AM
Salvage could be more useful if battle loot was more than +20%.

As for prog-gen stuff, it is hard to predict whether they give a little bit or a loot bomb of thousands of the stuff that overloads the fleet.  Absorbing loot bombs was the reason why I took Bulk Transport at first, but now I want Bulk Transport mainly to replace Militarized Subsystems with Surveying Equipment on all of my civilian transports (except Shepherd, for obvious reasons).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: jwarper on April 09, 2021, 01:43:53 PM
So the ability to add stable points in the system by interacting with the system's star was put in this release.  What are the limitations on this?  Are you limited to 2 or 3 stable points?  I colonized a system with 2 existing stable points, and it will not allow me to create a third one saying I have too many stable points already. 
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Wyvern on April 09, 2021, 04:48:49 PM
I believe it's just there for systems with no stable points, allowing you to get one for the basic comm relay.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SafariJohn on April 09, 2021, 05:44:57 PM
You can also spend a story point or several to go from 1 to 2 stable points.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sutopia on April 09, 2021, 07:48:27 PM
Do we have timeline for a fix?
I really don't want to waste my 20 hour save because of a NPE.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: WeiTuLo on April 09, 2021, 08:26:39 PM
I went up against a station. Deployed just my Radiant and it blew it away. No crewed ships deployed And I somehow got an Officer Promotion Candidate. I wonder if they are truly a fellow human.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Soban on April 09, 2021, 11:27:19 PM
Not sure is it an oversight, but not being able to auto-combat [Redacted] fleets feels a bit silly. Why can't I delegate my fleet of 30 warships to automaticly squish this 1 tiny patrolling frigate that is blocking me from accessing a ship/salvage field/station/planet to scan it.

Was also wondering, regarding the balancing for sunlamp/hypershunt tap.

Does the colony output/input system work in a manner if say. I have a colony that is outputting 10 Volatiles (in theory). Said colony can supply an infinite amount of input demands long as each demand source does not exceed 10 volatiles. So in theory 1 Colony which produces 10 volatiles can supply 5 planets with their own sunlamps that each have their own demand of 10 volatiles?

Wondering about it, since I have only one colony that is outputting 8 starship parts while 5 of my colonies have a demand of 3-6 starship parts each, and each of them is having their demand filled by an in-faction supply source.

This is not exactly explained anywhere, so might be helpful to have some sort of a tip on a loading screen or something if so.

A separate feedback is also the amount of officers, especially regarding the AI fleets. They seem to be able to crew an excessive, far larger amount of officers than the player, which directly seems to at least (again not told anywhere, I think?) affect the amount of deployment points you can have. Seems bit unbalanced in favor of the AI.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sutopia on April 10, 2021, 12:10:40 AM
I noticed that Astrals tend to activate recall device as soon as first wave of bomber drops bomb.
This is very problematic when using long bow + cobra: Astrals AWLAYS recall cobra before they use their reapers.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 10, 2021, 01:26:14 AM
I noticed that Astrals tend to activate recall device as soon as first wave of bomber drops bomb.
This is very problematic when using long bow + cobra: Astrals AWLAYS recall cobra before they use their reapers.
#
easy fix: dont mix bombers

which you shouldnt do anyways because of the way wings work
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on April 10, 2021, 01:30:46 AM
Does the colony output/input system work in a manner if say. I have a colony that is outputting 10 Volatiles (in theory). Said colony can supply an infinite amount of input demands long as each demand source does not exceed 10 volatiles. So in theory 1 Colony which produces 10 volatiles can supply 5 planets with their own sunlamps that each have their own demand of 10 volatiles?

This is correct.
The exact numbers don't matter, only the magnitudes.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sutopia on April 10, 2021, 01:40:19 AM
I noticed that Astrals tend to activate recall device as soon as first wave of bomber drops bomb.
This is very problematic when using long bow + cobra: Astrals AWLAYS recall cobra before they use their reapers.
#
easy fix: dont mix bombers

which you shouldnt do anyways because of the way wings work

The way wings work was designed to mix, newcomer.
If it doesn't work it's a bug.
http://fractalsoftworks.com/2016/08/
please read
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 10, 2021, 02:05:26 AM
Ships with the weapons mounts on hull's extremities, f.e. small missiles on FalconP, have serious troubles with unguided strike ordnance (Hammer, Reaper) in said mounts against mid sized targets (Eagle-Hammerhead). Even when they clearly have a shot they will rarely make it. It works as expected against large enough targets (Dominator+) or with guided strike weaponry (Atropos). And, most importantly, it works perfectly fine in the central mounts. I think ai calculations for missile trajectory are flawed somehow.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sinigr on April 10, 2021, 06:44:55 AM

  • Randomly generated planets in the core (including Duzahk and Penelope's Star) should no longer be habitable


Sector age: average.
Sector size: normal.
Domain sector registry ID: AN-4391796526086433911


[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Fenrir on April 10, 2021, 07:44:06 AM
a few buggy things noticed
-habitable planets still spawn in core world with only exception being Duzahk and Penelope's. (for example in my save two tundra worlds spawned in canaan)
-ships with built-in decks (basically Venture most of the time) that have converted fighter bay still count towards fleet's fighter bay count, I don't think this makes sense.
-Revenant and Phantom are neither phase ships nor civilian ships in custom production manual.
-Flash bombers "seem to" start launching mines too late that they never finish launching all mines before flying over the enemy hull.
-achieving 10 transplutonics production for hypershunt tap seems impossible as max output is 5+1+1+2 while using a core to reduce consumption dose not activate its effect. Similar situation happen on orbital fusion lamp as core reduces consumption but the hazard rate still get 5% penalty labeled volatiles shortage.
-several bar events require player produce commodities at unachievable amount (like 4 or more organs) at colonies
-player reported contact rep decay faster than it is possible to build
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 10, 2021, 09:18:26 AM
Something I've noticed about the new Shield Shunt hullmod: It makes Combat 4L/R a complete dud in terms of spending a skill point. I mean it'll help when you're piloting a different ship, sure, but that really doesn't help the already bad looking hullmod IMO...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: HiddenPorpoise on April 10, 2021, 05:07:12 PM
Do production contractors become less common after you have your own production facilities? I've only found one after setting up an orbital works and they only offered my own blueprint listings. I had ignored a couple full blueprint contractors early on because I thought I'd be able to find them again later when I had money.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: dragoongfa on April 10, 2021, 05:31:57 PM
a few buggy things noticed
-achieving 10 transplutonics production for hypershunt tap seems impossible as max output is 5+1+1+2 while using a core to reduce consumption dose not activate its effect. Similar situation happen on orbital fusion lamp as core reduces consumption but the hazard rate still get 5% penalty labeled volatiles shortage.

I take that it is 5 from regular production, plus 1 from admin, plus 1 from core, plus 2 from equipment for a total of 9. The last transplutonic can be produced by making improvements with story points. Should be the same with Volatiles although I haven't found an item for those.

An other solution would be to mod the settings file and allow the player colonies to grow larger and thus produce more stuff.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Fenrir on April 10, 2021, 07:41:28 PM
Spoiler
a few buggy things noticed
-achieving 10 transplutonics production for hypershunt tap seems impossible as max output is 5+1+1+2 while using a core to reduce consumption dose not activate its effect. Similar situation happen on orbital fusion lamp as core reduces consumption but the hazard rate still get 5% penalty labeled volatiles shortage.
[close]

I take that it is 5 from regular production, plus 1 from admin, plus 1 from core, plus 2 from equipment for a total of 9. The last transplutonic can be produced by making improvements with story points. Should be the same with Volatiles although I haven't found an item for those.

An other solution would be to mod the settings file and allow the player colonies to grow larger and thus produce more stuff.
Nagh, sorry I didn't make it clear when I said OFL I mean the reduction made by core raise hazard penalty, achieving 10 volatiles is fair enough to be done as long as +2 condition and plasma_dynamo are applied together on a gas giant.

By further experiments (via console), 10 transplutonics  is impossible, the 5 in my previous reply has actually involved admin but I didn't notice as it didn't show up in details on industry, so it's in fact 4(size 6 base production) +1(admin skill) +1(alpha_core) +2(catalytic_core) +1(story point improvement)=9
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Awe on April 10, 2021, 10:11:48 PM
I noticed that Astrals tend to activate recall device as soon as first wave of bomber drops bomb.
This is very problematic when using long bow + cobra: Astrals AWLAYS recall cobra before they use their reapers.
#
easy fix: dont mix bombers

which you shouldnt do anyways because of the way wings work

One type damage bombers countered by AI pretty efficient. AI drop shield before Longbows to take kinetic damage on armor or just shield deflect HE bombers like Cobra.

@Sutopia Tridents+Longbows combo should work for Astral.

Btw, imho, with nerf to recall device Astral should cost now 40 DP, not 50.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Fenrir on April 10, 2021, 11:02:45 PM
Spoiler
I noticed that Astrals tend to activate recall device as soon as first wave of bomber drops bomb.
This is very problematic when using long bow + cobra: Astrals AWLAYS recall cobra before they use their reapers.
[close]
#
easy fix: dont mix bombers

which you shouldnt do anyways because of the way wings work

One type damage bombers countered by AI pretty efficient. AI drop shield before Longbows to take kinetic damage on armor or just shield deflect HE bombers like Cobra.

@Sutopia Tridents+Longbows combo should work for Astral.

Btw, imho, with nerf to recall device Astral should cost now 40 DP, not 50.
40‘s too less, 45 I say. Also that one type bomber like Longbow, Dagger and Flash do well on themselves. Longbow's sabot may be countered via lowering shield and use armor but then its EMP damage well take effect and cause problems, especially on ships having main output weapon at front of hull
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Awe on April 11, 2021, 02:35:20 AM
40‘s too less, 45 I say. Also that one type bomber like Longbow, Dagger and Flash do well on themselves. Longbow's sabot may be countered via lowering shield and use armor but then its EMP damage well take effect and cause problems, especially on ships having main output weapon at front of hull

Combo damage is much better. Incoming Atropos torps from Tridents force AI to keep shield active, so Sabots from Longbows usually hit shields and cause crapton of hard-flux or even overload, so following Atroposes easily hit hull. 3 Longbows/3 Tridents is best practice as for me.

Not sure about deployment cost. 45 was before - with more OP and without cooldown on recall device. Now you need to spend more DP, most likely need to sacrifice more non-vital weapontry/mods or built-in 2-3 mods to fit at least something defensive after bombers. -_- Imho nerfed too hard.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Soban on April 11, 2021, 02:56:45 AM

  • Randomly generated planets in the core (including Duzahk and Penelope's Star) should no longer be habitable


Sector age: Mixed
Sector size: Large
Seed: MN-6927480176648782356

Screenshot of a habitable planet in Penelope's Star: https://i.imgur.com/vmviGXW.png

This does not seem like that big of an issue though. If its about money printing, I settled Duzakh and began selling supplies etc en masse to lots of different planets/stations. Rolling in the money.

Would it be possible for more items to be added for colony management? Some sort of an athmosphere scrubber or weather control system to combat different athmosphere effects. Ditto for pollution.

As for decivilized populace. I noticed that that once settling a planet, it changes to decivilized subpopulation with altered stats. Is this something that might eventually end, say when X amount of years has passed on a planet after colonizing so you no longer have the penalties? Having absorbed the populace into your colony.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: shoi on April 11, 2021, 05:40:01 AM
Ithaca isn't random-gen. The description hints at that.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Soban on April 11, 2021, 07:15:55 AM
Ithaca isn't random-gen. The description hints at that.

Wasn't sure about that so decided to mention it still. I figured it has a description but the wiki only said that it has random variables generated for it. I assumed it might be habitable, or something near it. But trusted that I would be corrected on it, if it was always habitable.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Rain on April 11, 2021, 09:35:00 AM
More assorted feedback (on my 3rd character now in this 095) on this-or-that; sorry for not digging through the forum to find separate threads, this is "off the top of my head" stuff :(

First block spoilered 'cause it all touches on minor story element/secret things. Hopefully all sorted in some kind of coherent order.

Spoiler
- Weird/bug/I don't know?: This MAY be a mod thing 'cause I only got it this last game (Unknown Skies, *possibly*?), in which case nevermind, but just in case it's a base game thing; I had gates spawn inside event horizon in a black hole and inside a giant star. Seems like a bad time, though I guess that's not necessarily inexplicable as such. On a similar note, gates in neutron star systems are kind of annoying but when it's just the occasional one, I guess it's not inexplicable weirdness? I used the black holed gate I got for the Janus test last game because it's pretty much a trap gate now anyway. :P
- Gate bug: even coming back after doing the scan quest and the local disrupting fleets disappear, interacting with the gate makes it say something's disrupting the scan (but there's nothing so the gate is forever dead).
- Minor issue: Gate travel could do with a transponder warning if your target is such a system; it's kind of minor but I've forgotten a couple of times now that I'm spoiled with jump points giving warning.
- Minor issue: Had a mission for Sebastyen to do "recover drone package"-style mission in a neutron star, got Scavengers-took-it, I think the scavs got blown out to the edge 'cause I had to come back way later to get them at the jump point proper. Maybe this kind of mission could use a failsafe against neutron stars 'cause the AI can't handle it yet? Potentially a confusing thing for new players that'd look like an outright bug when the fleet isn't at the "nearest jump point" as the text says.
- Cute thing/thought I had: doing dead drop missions by going through a gate or two could have some acknowledgement by reducing the chance you're followed/intercepted at all or something. You're the only one that can, right? Maybe that might adjust where the "Hey give me the thing/drop location" goons lurk?
- Spoiler giggles: Finally had a first run-in with tesseracts at a shunt and WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS HOLY JESUS. Some really alien/exotic-feeling weapons going on there compared to the normal stuff in the game, I like it. :D
[close]

- New skill system feedback: (Some of this may concern game balance things I'm out of touch with, and my feelies for what's right/wrong might be... You know, wrong, so take it with a grain of salt thusly.) I do like that each point feels a lot more valuable, and having each skill be themed package deals is something I've rather wanted from other games so that's welcome. However, so far I've pretty much ended up with the same skills by 15 on all characters I've played, just because there's that much stuff I feel like I have to have to actually function properly (with minor variance depending on if I'm in a carrier or not); T5 with +1 built-ins is just so handy to have. I feel like (and this may tie into the now long elaborated on enemy officer spam thing) I really should have one of the L4 skills to close the officer gaps. Combat without at least C1 maneuverability, then up to C4 or even 5 (when my flagships have been Plasma Burners or a missile ship respectively) gets a lot more unforgiving. T1 I want both to get my campaign move speed and sneakiness proper. The +1 built-in in particular feels THAT big, to the point it maybe needs to go away entirely (and be replaced with something else at the T5), or be a thing you get during the story, or even as a default part somewhere during the levelup process. Some other things might be contenders for "stuff you get during levelups or story as part of a starship captain getting more experienced" in general, too, though I've no particular suggestions there (yet at least), other than the general idea (and the +1 built-ins). That, and "some tuning required" but that's to be expected and I think has been elaborated on aplenty already, both in this thread and elsewhere.
- Ships: I like the new phase tender and transport. Eating into the 'militarized ships' budget is a little rough, but I do so like being a space sneak and them giving a helping hand with that in addition to carrying the necessities, my personal goon squad and a cargo hold full of my favourite chocolate is nice. They get to double as survey ships along with the salvage rigs. A possibly positive side effect of having the fleet budget on the skills is I'm no longer putting militarized subsystems by (almost-)default on my civvie ships, though it could be argued it's more of a punishment mechanic now.
- Ships: I'm going to play more with them to feel it out further still, but so far carriers feel kinda weak now (even with all the applicable fleet skills); though I understand they might've been kind of overpowered in 091, so that sort of contrast is understandable to some extent. This could be a function of the #of hangars on the carrier skills being a *little* tight and some of the previously available skills being gone; the reduced fighter damage taken buffs might be notable there, though that is also the one I'm actually actively noticing isn't there anymore.
- Smuggling: The boarding event is a nice move in the right direction, though it still might be too easy to make lots of money doing smuggling runs if you never really get inspected before you land and load off all the illegal goods. This may also serve to drive the nail in harder on the whole 'personal contact bounties pay too little for the danger' thing that's been mentioned by making black market sales too much more easy and profitable in comparison. As a side note on that I eventually just started doing the random bounties instead of the contact ones because they paid more for less danger (because I like and want to do the combat and I don't really like doing essentially no-risk smuggling runs over and over).

Obviously I'm having a lot of fun with the game though, given that's 3 characters so far and I've plans for yet more, so, overall, nice job. :D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Satirical on April 12, 2021, 06:33:41 PM
Contact reputation decay is too fast

Huh? AFAIK there's no rep decay.
Haven't had a chance to test this in RC11 yet, but I noticed that the story-offered Hegemony contact on Caotl(?) does seem to have an issue where his relationship decays for unknown reasons. I've done at least one bounty mission and bought a surplus Hammerhead from him, but his relationship is currently at 0.

For the record this doesn't seem to be an issue related to losing standing with the contact's faction, as I initially thought - neither my independent or pirates contacts cared about me getting dinged points for getting caught selling to the black market wholesale and doing everything in my power to squeeze every last possible credit out of them no matter how much death and mayhem I caused, respectively.

Yeah, colonies has been nerfed a bit too much, I think, at least the early stages. Unless a planet has 125% or less hazard rating it's pretty much not going to grow without hazard pay, and unless a planet is godlike in terms of it's profitability it's going to be bleeding tens of thousands of credits if it offers hazard pay, to say nothing of the cost of hiring an administrator. It's interesting, and kind of annoying, that it's not the threat of pirates that's keeping me from exploring right now, but the fact that if I don't stick around the core and hunt down every last credit I'm going to go bankrupt.

wtf apparently me and a couple other people are having a bug where the contact reputation resets to zero after speaking with them (or just randomly or it just resets to zero somehow)

(https://i.imgur.com/d3qYbkM.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/KIk35vJ.png)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Fenrir on April 12, 2021, 06:54:48 PM
Contact reputation decay is too fast

Huh? AFAIK there's no rep decay.
Haven't had a chance to test this in RC11 yet, but I noticed that the story-offered Hegemony contact on Caotl(?) does seem to have an issue where his relationship decays for unknown reasons. I've done at least one bounty mission and bought a surplus Hammerhead from him, but his relationship is currently at 0.

For the record this doesn't seem to be an issue related to losing standing with the contact's faction, as I initially thought - neither my independent or pirates contacts cared about me getting dinged points for getting caught selling to the black market wholesale and doing everything in my power to squeeze every last possible credit out of them no matter how much death and mayhem I caused, respectively.

Yeah, colonies has been nerfed a bit too much, I think, at least the early stages. Unless a planet has 125% or less hazard rating it's pretty much not going to grow without hazard pay, and unless a planet is godlike in terms of it's profitability it's going to be bleeding tens of thousands of credits if it offers hazard pay, to say nothing of the cost of hiring an administrator. It's interesting, and kind of annoying, that it's not the threat of pirates that's keeping me from exploring right now, but the fact that if I don't stick around the core and hunt down every last credit I'm going to go bankrupt.

wtf apparently me and a couple other people are having a bug where the contact reputation resets to zero after speaking with them (or just randomly or it just resets to zero somehow)

(https://i.imgur.com/d3qYbkM.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/KIk35vJ.png)
Maybe try disable all mods and re-install the whole SS file. I personally didn't notice any rep decay, it may be a random bug but something must have gone wrong for your games. Wish you guys can get yourselves out, good luck.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on April 12, 2021, 07:05:39 PM
I have noticed the same, but only for Tseen Ke (Spelling probably), the Hegemony contact on Coatle added by the tutorial. My other contacts (and now I've gotten several, the string of bad luck it broken!) are behavior correctly.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: shoi on April 12, 2021, 09:31:45 PM
I actually saw this too, but wasn't sure if I was just going crazy from lack of sleep or something
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 13, 2021, 08:45:29 AM
Hmm - does anyone happen to have a vanilla save handy where this contact reputation loss issue is easy to see? I've just done a bunch of missions for Tseen Ke and so far am not seeing any problems.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on April 13, 2021, 08:54:26 AM
If rep decay is not a real thing, then it is possible that the rounding of the rep gain with contacts is producing different results? You know how low it is to begin with.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: WeiTuLo on April 13, 2021, 02:56:52 PM
I previously completed a mission for Rayan Arroyo, the TriTach Sr. Executive contact that introduces you to Gargoyle. Yet my reputation with him was zero, so maybe something happened there. I made a save point, and completed another mission for him, going to see if it drops back down to zero.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: WeiTuLo on April 13, 2021, 03:04:29 PM
I defeated the bounty that Rayan Arroyo gave me and got to 2/100 reputation with him, flew about 22 lightyears back to Eochu Bres, and by that time, reputation was back down to 0/100.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 13, 2021, 03:11:08 PM
Any chance you could email me that save point?

fractalsoftworks [at] gmail [dot] com
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: WeiTuLo on April 13, 2021, 04:00:26 PM
Can do, disabling combat analytics first.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: WeiTuLo on April 13, 2021, 04:15:01 PM
Okay, so I could not replicate it, but I have the save before it happened (reputation 0) and the save after I killed the bounty, got 2 rep, explored one system in the way, scrapped a random Prometheus that was floating in space, then flew back to Hybrasil (where the reputation with the guy was reset to 0 again).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: WeiTuLo on April 13, 2021, 04:46:01 PM
Files sent, replied off of "0.95aRC12 Initial Resource Capacity Off After Battle" email chain.

So I just got a bunch of missions from Arroyo, bought his colossus and got 2/100 reputation, exited the station, reentered it, and my reputation is 0/100 again. So it's not just bounties, and might not have to travel far to trigger it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 13, 2021, 05:56:32 PM
Ah, hmm. Let me try some of these, then - no luck reproducing it so far. Thank you for the save!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 13, 2021, 06:37:11 PM
Fixed this up! The game was, ah, setting the reputation to 0 on save unless it was 5 points or more; the "is this reputation pretty much zero aside from a rounding error" check was missing a couple of zeroes after the decimal point.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Trylobot on April 13, 2021, 08:39:58 PM
Fly into the sun and click on it!

I never *** knew this Alex
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 13, 2021, 08:43:32 PM
Oh, this is new in 0.95a :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Gosts on April 13, 2021, 11:35:19 PM
I've noticed in some of the story fights, particularly some TT bounty hunters coming after you, I'll often get stuck in a situation where I cannot do anything except attack them, but the game warns me that i'd be declaring war if I attack them.

I think this is happening because my fleet is too big to disengage normally??

They'll move in to me, bring up a confrontation screen. I open coms, talk to them for a bit, close coms, and then...

My options are now:
1. Open coms again (does nothing, they will not talk to me anymore)
2. Move in to engage (Warns me that I am declaring war)
3. Use a story point to disengage. (I don't have any story points.)

It seems kind of weird and broken that this would happen. If I am getting attacked by them, it shouldn't act like I am the one making things hostile. If TT is going to be hostile to me no matter what now, shouldn't they have just changed to hostile? Or, if this isn't supposed to happen like this at all, then I think 'move in to engage' is incorrectly assuming that I am the one who initiated combat, for some reason, but I don't know why.

Normally if I get a message that attacking would start a war, it'd be in a situation where I can also just walk away from the encounter.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Satirical on April 14, 2021, 04:18:45 AM
Fixed this up! The game was, ah, setting the reputation to 0 on save unless it was 5 points or more; the "is this reputation pretty much zero aside from a rounding error" check was missing a couple of zeroes after the decimal point.
thanks so much was losing the will to play  ;D ;D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: WeiTuLo on April 14, 2021, 07:31:27 AM
What do you mean? Bug hunts are fun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_7FaWnlhS4
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Histidine on April 14, 2021, 07:50:51 AM
Is there a rationale behind battlestations and star fortresses no longer natively having officers?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 14, 2021, 08:47:02 AM
It seems kind of weird and broken that this would happen. If I am getting attacked by them, it shouldn't act like I am the one making things hostile. If TT is going to be hostile to me no matter what now, shouldn't they have just changed to hostile? Or, if this isn't supposed to happen like this at all, then I think 'move in to engage' is incorrectly assuming that I am the one who initiated combat, for some reason, but I don't know why.

Normally if I get a message that attacking would start a war, it'd be in a situation where I can also just walk away from the encounter.

Hmm. I guess it depends on the specific encounter - just generally it doesn't seem too weird that fighting back with lethal force would make the faction angry even if one of their actors initiated the hostilities. It's sort of similar to what you're saying about them just declaring war, except you do have *some* options for avoiding it - not getting caught by the fleet in the first place, or (if you have one) using that story point to escape...

That said, I'm not opposed to changing some specific encounters to give a smaller rep change instead of insta-hostile. Which ones specifically bothered you? I can note them down to have a look.

Is there a rationale behind battlestations and star fortresses no longer natively having officers?

I think they were too powerful. Probably still are, a bit.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 14, 2021, 08:58:57 AM
Quote
That said, I'm not opposed to changing some specific encounters to give a smaller rep change instead of insta-hostile. Which ones specifically bothered you? I can note them down to have a look.
I know one fleet which does the "always hostile towards you, causes hostilities if you defend against them" thing is the revenge fleet that spawns from using bought access codes during a raid. Which on paper makes sense, but I'm not sure if that holds down to the details. For instance if you use a SP to cover up your involvement in that specific raid, does the revenge fleet still spawn? If so I don't think it should cause instant hostilities if you defend yourself against it, since the revenge fleet wouldn't be able to prove you were the one that did the raiding...or something along those lines.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: WeiTuLo on April 14, 2021, 10:22:15 AM
What do access codes do? Increase raid strength/decrease raid defenses?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 14, 2021, 10:28:32 AM
What do access codes do? Increase raid strength/decrease raid defenses?
×0.05 modifier to the amount of marines lost in one raid, IIRC. Access codes require a bar mission to buy, are only good for a month/one use, and are faction-specific. And summon a vengeance fleet some time afterwards.

Totally worth it if you can get it to work out, though.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: WeiTuLo on April 14, 2021, 11:12:33 AM
Ahh, so it doesn't raid success chance? The codes tend to cost about 30k, and 30k is worth 150-200 marines, so the break even point would be around 150-200 marine casualties prevented, not counting the time take to find a set of codes and the chance of not getting to use it in time due to patrols and other unknowns.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Gosts on April 14, 2021, 12:28:33 PM

That said, I'm not opposed to changing some specific encounters to give a smaller rep change instead of insta-hostile. Which ones specifically bothered you? I can note them down to have a look.


The weirdest one to me was "Tri-Tachyon Bounty Hunters"; they had a stack of four dooms and they appeared as I was searching the edge of the galaxy for a story-related probe.

Some of the other ones were not totally bizarre, but for this one, the name "Bounty Hunters" implies (in my mind) that they aren't even directly working for Tri-Tachyon, so I was really caught off-guard that I had to go from +80 relation with them straight to war.

Personally, for these story-revenge-fleet kinda things? I would make it so fighting them gives you like... a negative 50 malus to that faction. Or even negative 80, or more. That way it has the same effect of basically going to war with them... But if you're REALLY good friends, you only have to do down to neutral instead.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: ANGRYABOUTELVES on April 14, 2021, 01:17:13 PM
Ahh, so it doesn't raid success chance? The codes tend to cost about 30k, and 30k is worth 150-200 marines, so the break even point would be around 150-200 marine casualties prevented, not counting the time take to find a set of codes and the chance of not getting to use it in time due to patrols and other unknowns.
It's not worth it if you're raiding some backwater for supplies or drugs, but if you're raiding a heavily defended system for a nanoforge or blueprints it's well worth the price.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TuxedoCatfish on April 14, 2021, 02:01:10 PM
Also marines have experience now, being able to level them up a ton without losing so many that it wipes out your XP gain is a big help.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: RedHellion on April 15, 2021, 01:04:05 AM
I feel like the automated ships skill is extremely cool in practice, but has way too little of an impact compared to the alternative. Just 30 points means that with just 3 [REDACTED] version of the kite with 3 gamma cores, i'm already at full capacity... sure i could take a bigger ship with reduced CR, but as much strong a single redacted ship can be, other than the novelty, giving 10 to flux capacitors and vents, and an extra hullmod to every single ship is just too good to pass out.  My suggestion would be to raise the maximum points, even doubling it,  reducing the points cost of the gamma core while increasing beta and alpha cores cost. 
I think it would be balanced if you could have a single good ship with a good commander and enough leftover points for a couple of smaller ships with trash commanders, or a lot of smaller ships with trash commanders , or some medium sized ship with good commanders etc, opening up to various combinations that are impossible right now

Just wanted to chime in on the Automated Ships skill with my 2 cents as well:

Not sure if this is a bug (posting this in the Bug forum as well):
With 2 [REDACTED] cruisers I'm at 50/30 for the skill already, meaning they have 60% of the normal max CR. Normally I would think that means they have 47% CR ((70 base + 8 from my current Crew Training) * 0.6 from Automated Ships), but their CR is only 38%.
If I give them both Gamma Cores, my Automated Ships skill goes to 60/30 meaning they have 50% of their normal max CR, so I would expect them to have 46% CR ((70 base + 8 from my current Crew Training + 15 from the core's Elite Reliability Engineering) * 0.5 from Automated Ships) but their CR is only 43%.
Not sure if there may be some weird interaction with the base -100% CR penalty for the Automated Ship hullmod (since that's the only other contributing factor listed for that calculation when hitting F1), or there's some other hidden math going on.

Answered by Alex in the Bug forum, I was just assuming the wrong CR calculation for Automated Ships.

And on the Automated Ships skill itself:
I feel like 30 deployment points is too low a limit, with the speed of diminishing returns so that you get half the bonus if you double the limit. We already can't fly any of them ourselves, which is understandable both meta- and lore-wise. [REDACTED] ships are cool and specifically require this skill to even field in combat, and the skill is at the end of the tree: I want to field them as a not-just-token part of my fleet for that skill investment at a CR level where they're not instantly within malfunction territory as soon as I deploy them for the first time. Currently you can run maybe 3-4 frigates, 2-3 destroyers, or a single cruiser at full max CR.
Maybe the DP cap should be raised slightly to 40, or enough to field a single [REDACTED] battleship plus an Alpha Core while still getting the full bonus? Or if that feels too powerful for no extra cost compared to the story point cost for the additional built-in hullmods granted by Special Modifications, allow us to spend an extra story point to make the skill Elite to raise the DP cap or have the skill unlock a special "[REDACTED] Overrides" hullmod that has to be built into [REDACTED] ships that gives them an extra +50% CR or something to counteract the low-CR issue on a per-ship basis.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: HiddenPorpoise on April 15, 2021, 02:42:28 AM
A REDACTED battleship with an alpha core integrated is the second most powerful ship in the game (below singing friend encounter 1 and above REDACTED 2: Electric Boogaloo). Operating at 45% combat readiness doesn't even figure into that. The larger issue with the automated ship skill is that that is the best use of it and it makes every other recoverable automated ship redundant once you can get your hands on one.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 15, 2021, 04:20:06 AM
Because I give up Special Modifications that enables +1 s-mod to the whole fleet (including flagship that I sooo want the +1 s-mod on) for killer Radiant (unless I double-dip Tech and waste more points), Radiant needs to stay overpowered.  (I do not mind a small DP increase for Radiant, but then Automated Ships DP pool needs to go way up, or cores not counted toward the pool.  Use the cores in ships is a cost after all.)

Radiant should get full CR.  The other Remnants should be overpowered like Radiant.  Not sure what to do about the other AI ships.  Maybe make Guardian recoverable?  The other Domain explorers are obvious trash ships and are a lost cause.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Rain on April 15, 2021, 06:06:19 AM
Another round of mostly-this-patch-specific feedback after reaching mostly-satiation point with my 3rd character (story done, colonies securely established and maxed out, fully explored sector with minor-spoiler exceptions:)
Spoiler
Tesseracts can keep their coronal taps though, especially when I didn't settle any of the affected systems, I'm not messing with those again 'kaythanks!
[close]

- Colony stuff: It feels like it's a bit harder and demands more investment to make profitable colonies now. Maybe Hazard Pay just makes it more obvious month by month how much money is sunk in as opposed to how growth incentives used to work, especially for high-hazard planets? Maybe high hazard planets just cost way more now and that's intended? If that is intended, okay, I -think- I like it. I have now certainly have felt the temptation to do stuff like colonize cryovolcanic worlds just for mining, or not necessarily pushing all planets to max possible size ASAP; I certainly haven't done any real math though, so that may be wrong. I also don't use AI core admins since I read that post about spamming them being kind of a temporary thing while colonies don't yet have their full gameplay purpose established. Getting fewer but more substantial attacks by the factions is welcome, too, and does feel better than a constant stream of pirate nuisances; my latest character just had a giant space battle fending off 3 fleets of Persean League goons over my 'capital' world and I found it a very satisfying battle and victory. The way officers (even when I reduced the AI merc officer multiplier from 2 to 0.4) nudge DP limits in station battles might need tweaking though. When the station eats ~50 DP and you have multiple fleets attacking you it's a real strange-feeling underdog 160-240 situation when I'd expect a big star fortress to provide a substantial defender's advantage. I guess the bigger ones do point quite a lot of guns at the enemy for the amount of DP they take up though, so maybe that's actually enough... Maybe it needs to be this way for attackers to actually have a chance to win.

- Skill system: After messing around a lot more with it now, I can appreciate the idea of the layout as it is, though the main pain points to me come from how skills that either 1) encourage you to make most of your main fleet a particular way or 2) "you really can't use both (at once)" don't necessarily seem like they fit neatly into pairings for a wrap-around kind of system. As before, I'm much more of a roleplayer than a min-max-player (though I do certainly do a bunch of that too), and as such this is more about what feels good/bad and what I feel incentivized to do/not do than exact numbers and fine tuned balance. Anything I don't mention is a pairing and choice I'm -mostly- fine with, beyond things that have already been mentioned earlier such as the ECM problems, and the one notable exception of the Automated Ships skill which I haven't yet actually played at all with. As much as I liked the fantasy of a suggestion (sorry I forgot who made it!) I saw about a skill tree going from skills concerning a single ship, to fleet-wide to grand management style skills to mirror the sort of progression you make in game, I also make the assumption we won't see a revamp on the same scale as this one was any time soon (if ever). Spoilered to keep post size down somewhat...
Spoiler
   a) Derelict Contingent: This skill suggests more or less something you are meant to tailor your whole (main combat) fleet around, and it's a very particular tailoring at that, demanding and encouraging substantial alteration and adaptation to make proper use of it. To me that might indicate that it's a skill that doesn't fit neatly into a "choose 1" system, and that it might be better suited to being learned elsewhere than in the skills, perhaps in a special quest-like a la the red planet? I also finally ran into an enemy fleet that clearly had it (derelict exploration drones) from a bounty and that was kind of frustrating when I was flying a missile ship at the time. When the enemy has it you can't really play around it much either, but if it only happens in special contact bounties I guess it's not entirely out-of-the-void; it could be really annoying to new players who don't think about a somewhat niche skill in Industry being an enemy fleet thing?
   b) Wolfpack Tactics shares the Derelict Contingent thing in that without a DP limit it also kind of suggests a "build-your-fleet-around-it" approach, however in practice I have a much easier time actually making some use out of it even without going for a full frigate focus, and it feels much more like something you can actually adapt around; especially if you take Phase Corps too/anyway and have a couple of phase frigates around for their handy utility effects. I have no clear rational reason for why Wolfpack feels better than Derelict Contingent in this sense, however; perhaps it's just much easier to figure out a couple of useful frigates than a couple of still-useful, heavily D-modded and shieldless ships? Having a big Darth Nihilus style flying wreck as a flagship does have a certain thematic appeal, however...
   c) From the C1 tier, you can't really make use of both from unless you're in a carrier or battlecarrier, so if, say, you're all in on a missile flagship, or want to gun for a master-of-combat character and need/want both the skills in higher tiers this one grates a bit.
   d) C2 at first looks a bit rough to have to take both to progress, but I've come to appreciate the value of Point Defense; getting fighter-swarmed still starts stinging when flying smaller ships, especially when I'm so in love with the Fury and want to use it to go in hard to take out enemy carriers.
   e) C4 as has been mentioned is probably the most grating tier to me; you really can't use both at once and while you -can- adapt around it having 2 different ships for yourself doesn't feel natural, especially when you consider a lot of the DP-scaled skills we now have.
   f) Overall I've ended up finding that Wolfpack, Phase Corps, Carrier Group and Fighter Uplink at least are very possible to reasonably adapt your fleet around so they're only as 'dead' as you let them be. I understand that monofleets end up pretty degenerate so I'm seeing the point of the scaled bonuses here. I'll just drop that 6 hangars feels a bit tight for the carrier skills, but I think that's been mentioned before, too.
   g) I think L1 is the tier that leaves me the most lukewarm. While Auxiliary Support like the previously mentioned skills is technically also only as dead as you let it be, and the idea is kind of neat, I'm struggling to figure out what to do with it since so many civ-ships have really awkward weapon mounts (outside of mod-added ships but I'm leaving those out for this); I guess that suggests Escort Package for PD escort ships is the easiest adaptation to make? The result of them eating into the militarized DP skills feels a bit rough though since that makes for a few, fairly niche ships in order to keep the bonus at a level that still feels impactful, and simultaneously not take away too much power from more consistently deployed main warships. Its competitor, Weapon Drills, is rather unexciting; and has the same thing going where its tighter DP limit makes the bonus shrink and become practically unnoticeable; and even at its full 10% it's kind of on the brink of what's even noticeable moment to moment. I'd not miss Weapon Drills if it was removed and replaced with something else entirely.
   h) The skills containing the crew loss reductions have some other effects that are still nice and useful, so this is pretty minor, though these components feel kind of meaningless; life is too cheap to really care much about them. Ship crews probably need to be half the size, but ask twice the pay each for these to start being noticeable, but maybe that just asking for other troubles somewhere?

Looking back on this, to think, some of my feels-bad-man moments with skills may suggest my brain is a bit mis-tuned with regards to the way the DP/hangar limits work, though; I do very much feel the compulsion to not eat so deep into the limits that the bonuses shrink so small that I can't notice them anymore (even if they may remain substantial if we had detailed breakdowns of post-combat stats), which may really not be 'correct' and more of a thing I just have to get used to.
[close]

- Spelling error: "Ancyra Station is AN bastion..."; in the mouse-over tooltip about... Well, yes, Ancyra Station.

- Not-really-this-patch-but-still: Pathers feel a bit passive; I end up fighting a lot of pirates in my games (to the point where I usually end up selling some blueprints on the black market just to vary up their ships a bit more), so maybe the occasional Pather raid from their out-among-the-stars bases to disrupt industries they hate could be a fun way to vary up the pirate raids? Like, pirates still raid to steal stuff, but now sometimes Pathers raid to disrupt offensive industry (like the major factions do you when you start eating into their market shares)? I don't think the game needs a larger quantity of raids, so just replacing ~10-15% of them with Pathers could maybe be fun. Since I rarely have to fight them, they still tend to catch me off guard with just how much more aggressive they are, which is a fun "oh right" moment when combat starts. Plus, you could keep the option to bribe them with 'tithes' if they catch you in the midst of their raids to keep them differentiated from the more 'shut up and die'-style pirates.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 15, 2021, 10:18:09 AM
Pather plant cells on your colonies if interest is too high.  It is possible that items no longer add interest or they should but a bug blocks that.

In 0.9.1a, there were cells at all of the core worlds with heavy industries (except Asher) because of nanoforge plus another interest generating industry.  Now in 0.95, there are only cells at Culann and Aregus.

Heavy Industry with forge or Fuel Production with synchrotron add +6 interest.  Any other interest generating industry (mining, refinery, tech mining, anything with AI cores) would add more interest and cause cells to appear.

Cells sabotage and disrupt industries periodically, and there is no guaranteed defense against them, and they cannot be bribed.  They can be temporarily disrupted for a year if you kill their base.  The only way to get rid of them is to remove industries and/or items.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Rain on April 15, 2021, 10:37:41 AM
I'm aware, I played 091a too. :)

I guess that's how it could be angled into a this-patch thing now; I'm getting the impression that their attention system changed because they've not bothered me at all since and maybe that got me thinking about it? I could see why, the old one didn't exactly have any substantial interactivity to it other than "don't do this stuff or prepare for whack-a-mole Pather bases". Anyway, my thought was mostly to just replace a (small-ish) % of pirate raids with Pather ones (on both core systems and on you, I guess?) as more zealously direct attempts at carrying out Ludd's will (or whatever they think they do) than the Pather cell thing, giving some more variety in enemies to fight, since (as far a I can tell, anyway) they fight a lot more aggressively than pirates which makes for a different thing to fight if I'm out harvesting system bounties for money and/or reputation.

Does that make sense?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 15, 2021, 10:39:14 AM
Automated ships skill gives you free officered ships. Meaning free ECM and some other stuff. A lot of it actually.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: evzhel on April 15, 2021, 11:21:37 AM
List of errors in 0.95:

1. Stable locations in systems with neutron stars. Shouldn't exist, or may exist at dark side of planets.
2. Mission to survey a planet in Alpha Site can't be completed.
3. Some destroyers in tutorial can't be fixed from d-mods with player skill.
4. Some sunders in tutorial have medium energy mount instead of large, changed to large if reassembled at space port for full price.

AI:
5. Cloak ships in full assault don't warp to targets, warping just briefly for no reason.
6. Cloak ships don't fly away from enemies to dump flux, just staying in battle with max flux.
7. Frigates are flying away from targets or stayng in one place far away from all ships for some time.
8. Cruisers and capitals don't fly around space stations to target working sections, just staying in one place without doing anything.
9. When switching full assault on, every friendly ship does a 360 degree rotation in one place for no reason.

10. Some seeds don't contain a single pristine nanoforge in whole sector.
11. If flagship is in combat, R (show ship info) gets stuck on flagship's target, can't turn off of focus any other ship for longer than a second.

tbc
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: RedHellion on April 15, 2021, 12:14:30 PM
A REDACTED battleship with an alpha core integrated is the second most powerful ship in the game (below singing friend encounter 1 and above REDACTED 2: Electric Boogaloo). Operating at 45% combat readiness doesn't even figure into that. The larger issue with the automated ship skill is that that is the best use of it and it makes every other recoverable automated ship redundant once you can get your hands on one.

Automated ships skill gives you free officered ships. Meaning free ECM and some other stuff. A lot of it actually.

I agree on the [REDACTED] battleship making all other [REDACTED] ships essentially worthless if you can get your hands on one, I feel like that needs to be tuned now that the player can have them all in their fleet rather than just being NPC-only ships. There should be some amount of decision-making involved in what [REDACTED] ships to keep and field based on your play style to make it interesting (like picking regular Sector ships for your personal fleet and to fly), rather than always being "[REDACTED] battleship + Alpha Core".

I disagree with the implication that Automated Ships is already overpowered or fine where it is. Given that it's at the end of the skill tree requiring 5 points of investment (1/3 of your skill points), it should be powerful; and it should also be a similar power level to the huge increase in combat power of potentially giving every ship in your fleet a free extra built-in hullmod plus more max vents (and capacitors). By contrast, even if [REDACTED] ships individually are more powerful than their Sector counterparts (debatable, at least for anything other than the battleship) they are not "free" and can't be made better by using story points: they still take a slot in your fleet, the still cost maintenance/fuel etc, they still cost DP to deploy in battle, and on top of that unless you have an extremely limited number of them (30 DP or less, which is one cruiser with a Gamma Core) they'll have such low CR that at least their accuracy will be affected or they could have a risk of malfunctions even at their max CR.
If we could spend a story point to add a special hullmod to them individually which has to be built-in and adds another +30% CR for automated ships (which maybe costs more than 1 story point for ships larger than frigates), at the very least, I would consider it on-par with Special Modifications. Right now, power level aside, I don't consider the Automated Ships skill to be rewarding for the investment beyond the (brief) initial novelty.

I feel like Zaizai summed it up really well:
Quote from: Zaizai
One choice is to make my whole fleet stronger, doubling the vents on frigates [or easing flux pressure on flux-hungry capital ships], adding otherwise extremely costly hullmod to capital ships [for just the cost of a story point] etc; the other is to get a single strong ship that i can't even use as flagship [or maybe one or two cruisers] and has lower cr than the rest of the fleet [to the point where it has accuracy and other debuffs or suffers risk of malfunction while at max CR].
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 15, 2021, 04:44:32 PM
AI cored ships do not count toward officer limit. You can have up to 10 human officers. And about five gamma cores in frigates with some combat worthy CR left. If you go full support that means +50 ECM rating. Where was a fuss about ECM wars and how you win them. This is how.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: RedHellion on April 15, 2021, 05:53:46 PM
AI cored ships do not count toward officer limit. You can have up to 10 human officers. And about five gamma cores in frigates with some combat worthy CR left. If you go full support that means +50 ECM rating. Where was a fuss about ECM wars and how you win them. This is how.

When I can do the same thing by taking and holding points on the map and just having normal ships in play do the same thing (hell, I could use the extra hullmod from Specialized Modifications to build in an extra ECM hullmod to most of my capitals and cruisers if I really wanted), I don't consider that an overwhelming argument against it. Plus there are more interesting/fun things to do with [REDACTED] ships than deploying 5 frigates for ridiculous ECM ratings by stacking the maximum number of "officers" possible (especially if you're not playing a "wolf pack" style fleet). This is just as undesirable IMO as the other meta being "get and deploy a [REDACTED] battleship with an Alpha Core and nothing else matters". To me that sounds more like the "DP cost" of cores for the Automated Ships skill needs to be reconsidered, or have a separate limit on AI cores used as officers (e.g. 1 base, 3 by making the skill Elite with a story point) or something.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 15, 2021, 06:31:26 PM
At least Radiant is fun to watch because it is a really big hammer that kills almost everything in its path.  I do not want several Lumen/Glimmer if I have a Radiant because they are not as fun to watch as a Radiant tearing almost everything near it to shreds.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Radicaljack on April 15, 2021, 06:46:05 PM
The DP calc and ECM wars stuff is the worst part of this update, if it's not balanced out I'm gonna have to learn to modify the settings to fix it, because it's so boring and unengaging.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 15, 2021, 10:00:29 PM
AI cored ships do not count toward officer limit. You can have up to 10 human officers. And about five gamma cores in frigates with some combat worthy CR left. If you go full support that means +50 ECM rating. Where was a fuss about ECM wars and how you win them. This is how.

When I can do the same thing by taking and holding points on the map and just having normal ships in play do the same thing (hell, I could use the extra hullmod from Specialized Modifications to build in an extra ECM hullmod to most of my capitals and cruisers if I really wanted), I don't consider that an overwhelming argument against it. Plus there are more interesting/fun things to do with [REDACTED] ships than deploying 5 frigates for ridiculous ECM ratings by stacking the maximum number of "officers" possible (especially if you're not playing a "wolf pack" style fleet). This is just as undesirable IMO as the other meta being "get and deploy a [REDACTED] battleship with an Alpha Core and nothing else matters". To me that sounds more like the "DP cost" of cores for the Automated Ships skill needs to be reconsidered, or have a separate limit on AI cores used as officers (e.g. 1 base, 3 by making the skill Elite with a story point) or something.

You get the ECM advantage prior to battle to win the battle. You cant spawn your ships on a ECM point.

ECM module on a capital gives you only +5 ECM. On a frigate +8 (mod itself + core). Cheapest capital platform is 10 DP (Atlas) and it is not even combat ship.

"Interesting" is a subjective. I enjoy the numbers game just as much as I enjoy personally piloting frigates or capitals.

The question was that the skill in question "has way too little of an impact compared to the alternative". Now we are debating two meta things about it. One is that it allows you to turn the ECM war the other way around and provide the option to achieve  -20 to range against any fleet you encounter. And the other is the overpowered battleship "tearing almost everything near it to shreds". How is that "too little of an impact" compared to a third SP mod and 10 caps and vents as a permanent choice?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TuxedoCatfish on April 15, 2021, 11:02:51 PM
The ECM war kind of sucks because when you're at a disadvantage it's incredibly grueling and punishing, your AI-controlled ships either accomplish nothing or get murdered, and it's basically a grind to pick off enemy officers until you get back to zero, but when you're winning a 20% range advantage means the opposite -- fleet tactics barely matter and you pretty much steamroll over everything without even really needing the player to break the stalemate via good piloting or good use of commands.

I'm not completely opposed to getting a leg up in combat through good decisions made beforehand (that's what all ship fitting and fleet composition does, after all) but ECM just completely overshadows everything else, including many systems/decisions that are much more complex and rewarding to master.

I'm looking forward to it being capped at +/-10% in the next patch and I'll reserve judgement until I've actually played with those values, but I'm starting to think the problem might just be the concept itself.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: RedHellion on April 15, 2021, 11:52:26 PM
The question was that the skill in question "has way too little of an impact compared to the alternative". Now we are debating two meta things about it. One is that it allows you to turn the ECM war the other way around and provide the option to achieve  -20 to range against any fleet you encounter. And the other is the overpowered battleship "tearing almost everything near it to shreds". How is that "too little of an impact" compared to a third SP mod and 10 caps and vents as a permanent choice?

I guess my point was that I don't find deploying a bunch of frigates with "officers" (cores) for the sole point up upping your ECM score (basically turning [REDACTED] and the Automated Ships skill into a vehicle to jsut deploy more officers at once) to be an interesting or imo intended use of that skill. At least having an "overpowered battleship tearing almost everything near it to shreds" is basically the intended use of the skill, as far as I would assume. I realize that might just be a gameplay style difference, but I don't find that to be an interesting impact compared to [REDACTED] and I don't think the skill should be balanced around that. As I said, if anything that means the ability to mount as many cores as you want or the ECM war mechanics (or total potential bonuses) need tweaking.

So I suppose ultimately, yes it has just as much of an impact - if you use it for what I believe is a loophole and not the intended purpose, and one which I (personally) find less interesting/fun for the investment I put into that skill. I want [REDACTED] ships in my fleet to do work in combat, not load up as many frigates as possible with cores and just group them all at the back of my fleet during combat so they don't get blown up (since they're hard to replace) by enemy frigates. Plus Tempests and even Wolves (and potentially other Sector frigates) can 1:1 outfight [REDACTED] frigates when equipped decently.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 16, 2021, 12:00:08 AM
2 TuxedoCatfish

I start almost every battle in a single phase ship. Hence at max possible ECM disadvantage the enemy can provide. It doesn't really matter. This is that I call the subjectivity of the opinion. Play styles are different. I myself adapted to the new system without problems. However, other players, like yourself, tend to advice to change the game according to their desired play styles.

Limiting ECM will make it utterly useless. No pronounced effect on the tactic = no reason to spend limited resources on it. But as of right now, winning the ECM game is one of the major option for the "fleet deployer" type of players. In previous version, their success was based on several things (among some cheese spam options):

1) Using only best of the best capitals.
2) Providing optimized loadouts.
3) Hand-picking officers.

It worked because:

1) AI fleet composition was doctrinal based and thus limited to certain ships and fleet compositions resulting in wastage of DP.
2) AI ship loadouts were awful. You can still see them in the sim. It was easy to produce a much more advanced variant without troubles. Typical optimized build was x 2-3 times stronger even without taking officers into account.
3) Low number of the officers and random skill distribution. Resulting in a situation when only about single officer from the AI fleet of some factions was comparable to the player's hand picked ones.

It no longer the case because:

1) Mechanics were reworked so they suit doctrinal based fleet composition. Frigates are no longer a waste of DP.
2) Advanced ai loadouts are much better now than before. You can no longer make a noticeably better variant just by filling up the vent/cap limit. Bizarre ai variants are rare in the end-game fleets. So, in general, you can have some advantage but it requires actual optimization against given target.
3) AI have much more officers and while skill distribution still random where is much higher chances to meet the actual combat worthy ones.

And this is the reason for the critics whose old approaches to the game no longer work. And the ECM is the only thing that currently can mess up the AI really bad.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TuxedoCatfish on April 16, 2021, 12:06:33 AM
Optimized loadouts and officers being the key to winning fleet battles is better than ECM being the key. Figuring out optimized loadouts is a fairly deep skill; you need to understand your options and the enemy you're up against and plan accordingly. ECM is just "get bigger number and you win."

I don't really care if limiting ECM makes it useless. ECM isn't interesting in the first place.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 16, 2021, 12:07:21 AM
2 RedHellion

You didn't find it. You was told by me. And if, for some reason, Starsector would be a game with the rail-fixed mechanics when any given skill or game feature was supposed to be used in a given manner, we would't be talking right here. Because I wouldn't even buy the game in the first place.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 16, 2021, 12:19:42 AM
Optimized loadouts and officers being the key to winning fleet battles is better than ECM being the key. Figuring out optimized loadouts is a fairly deep skill; you need to understand your options and the enemy you're up against and plan accordingly. ECM is just "get bigger number and you win."

I don't really care if limiting ECM makes it useless. ECM isn't interesting in the first place.

As I said, it was the key because ai was gimped. And now, when it less gimped (but still is), it requires the actual effort to out-fit it. For some obscure reasons players are struggling to produce it. For myself I explain it by the fact that it requires advanced understanding of the game mechanics. Too advanced for the average player. ECM is the same. Previously player could outrange almost anything simply because all its ships had ITUs and officers. ECM was an overkill. Now it is not and is a fair game but almost nobody want to use it. However they do want the game to get back to the shooting gallery stage with gimped targets in it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TuxedoCatfish on April 16, 2021, 12:22:22 AM
You don't have to be "advanced" to understand that putting ECM mods on your ships or taking the "+2% ECM for each deployed ship" skill are good ideas. Both are extremely simple decisions. They're simpler decisions than almost anything else you could do to get an advantage, in fact.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 16, 2021, 12:27:21 AM
You don't have to be "advanced" to understand that putting ECM mods on your ships or taking the "+2% ECM for each deployed ship" skill are good ideas. Both are extremely simple decisions. They're simpler decisions than almost anything else you could do to get an advantage, in fact.

Putting ECM mods on all your ships doesn't really win the ECM game. Neither picking Electronic Warfare.

Single 40 DP capital w. ECM and EW produces only +7. Five frigates for the same 40 DP produce +50. Guess who will have -20% to range.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TuxedoCatfish on April 16, 2021, 12:33:54 AM
Okay? That doesn't really have anything to do with what I'm saying.

The problem is not that people can't adapt or don't understand. You complained earlier about people being able to just auto-win by slapping an ITU on everything; if you're able to understand why that's bad, it shouldn't be hard to understand why auto-winning by getting a 20% range advantage is also bad. It's the exact same thing, the only thing that's been shuffled around a little is how you get there.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 16, 2021, 12:43:09 AM
Okay? That doesn't really have anything to do with what I'm saying.

The problem is not that people can't adapt or don't understand. You complained earlier about people being able to just auto-win by slapping an ITU on everything; if you're able to understand why that's bad, it shouldn't be hard to understand why auto-winning by getting a 20% range advantage is also bad. It's the exact same thing, the only thing that's been shuffled around a little is how you get there.

No. I was saying that right now people can no longer auto win. The most critic came in the "I'm always at -20% range disadvantage so nerf the ECM" form. Not the other way around. It happened to be too difficult to devise the particular set of skills and fleet composition to auto-win the ECM game.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TuxedoCatfish on April 16, 2021, 01:13:53 AM
Exactly what I said in my original post: ECM is a single number that has more of an effect on how combat (especially combat between AI) turns out than any other factor.

When you win the ECM war, player piloting skill doesn't really matter, and good fittings don't really matter, because unless you screwed up catastrophically you're going to win effortlessly. And that's boring. It would be good if ECM mattered less, so that other things could matter more -- especially things that are more complicated than "get as much of this number as you can."

When you lose the ECM war then player skill matters a lot (because you can claw your advantage back by killing off enemy ships/officers) -- but that still diminishes the importance of fittings and fleet composition, which isn't good either.

It would be better if these things were more equal in importance, because then you're rewarded for learning all of them, increasing the depth of the game and the time it takes to master it, and also making that mastery more rewarding. And it might even be better if those things were more important than ECM, because ECM is just "big number = better", while player piloting and fitting are both complex and involve a lot of decisions, trade-offs, and experience.

No. I was saying that right now people can no longer auto win. The most critic came in the "I'm always at -20% range disadvantage so nerf the ECM" form. Not the other way around. It happened to be too difficult to devise the particular set of skills and fleet composition to auto-win the ECM game.

If you're saying people can no longer auto-win, then you're simply wrong, because that's exactly what having +20% ECM does. It even does it for the exact same reason that the ITU used to -- range is really good and the AI doesn't understand hit-and-run tactics well enough to compensate for inferior range!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 16, 2021, 01:28:42 AM
You missed the whole point. To win the ECM game you need frigate based fleet. Good luck auto winning with them while disregarding everything else.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TuxedoCatfish on April 16, 2021, 01:29:30 AM
I didn't "miss the point." I was never talking about using frigates or not in the first place. It makes absolutely no difference to what I'm saying. If you're going to reply to a post I made then please address my argument and not some other argument you were having with someone else.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 16, 2021, 01:38:25 AM
I didn't "miss the point." I was never talking about using frigates or not in the first place. It makes absolutely no difference to what I'm saying. If you're going to reply to a post I made then please address my argument and not some other argument you were having with someone else.

It does make the difference. There is only certain way to make sure that you have that 20% range advantage against everything. And this way doesn't produce stable auto wins. Hence ECM doesn't equal auto win. And your whole argument is based on the assumption that you only have to win the ECM game and this makes everything else unimportant. Well, it is an incorrect assumption.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: RedHellion on April 16, 2021, 01:49:40 AM
2 RedHellion

You didn't find it. You was told by me. And if, for some reason, Starsector would be a game with the rail-fixed mechanics when any given skill or game feature was supposed to be used in a given manner, we would't be talking right here. Because I wouldn't even buy the game in the first place.

I said my piece and gave my feedback on what I felt could be better, and explained as much as I could why I felt that using the Automated Ships skill essentially as a vehicle for deploying more officers wasn't something I would agree with balancing around and instead saw it as a sign for fixing some of the reasons why it becomes such a stellar meta in the first place (same thing with the [REDACTED] battleship + Alpha Core being meta on the opposite end for the skill since most of the other [REDACTED] ships pale in comparison given the low DP cap for the skill). You obviously disagree, and we obviously have very different playstyles and the way we view aspects of the game, and if the way I explained my thoughts wasn't satisfactory to you then so be it - I said it to contribute to the community. No need to start getting hostile.

Ultimately Alex is the dev, and it's his vision and he will weigh all the feedback and feel how it is for himself as he moves forward with whatever changes he feels are necessary.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 16, 2021, 02:01:57 AM
OK
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TuxedoCatfish on April 16, 2021, 02:15:34 AM
You do not need to use a frigate-based fleet to the point of neglecting everything else to win the ECM war.

Even Remnant Ordos rarely have more than 40-50% ECM strength; my 180 DP fleet with 4 frigates and 5 cruisers hits 40%, and that's with zero ECM mods on any of my ships, and using mostly high-tech ships with very high DP costs. If I put ECM mods on everything I would have an ECM strength of 68%, which would translate to a -20% penalty to any enemy fleet that wasn't a deliberately-unfair endgame enemy, and would often be enough even for those. If I used ships that cost less DP then I might not even need frigates at all (although I don't mind having a few, because frigates encourage the enemy fleet to spread out chasing them).

I suppose it's technically possible to lose a fight where your opponent has a 20% range penalty, but even with full hands-off autopiloting your ships will usually win in that situation unless your fits are pants-on-head level terrible.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 16, 2021, 02:48:31 AM
It is about the random distribution of skills. 1. Cores are needed to be in frigates. 2. Cores have to have the GI skills. Low tier Ordos have lots of low tier cores with limited skill choices and frigates may be left core-less. So, your "Remnant Ordos rarely have more than 40-50% ECM strength" translates into "I rarely meet full alpha remnant fleets". Well, what can I say, this game is full of interesting discoveries and you are about to make yours.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TuxedoCatfish on April 16, 2021, 02:53:26 AM
It is about the random distribution of skills. 1. Cores are needed to be in frigates. 2. Cores have to have the GI skills. Low tier Ordos have lots of low tier cores with limited skill choices and frigates may be left core-less. So, your "Remnant Ordos rarely have more than 40-50% ECM strength" translates into "I rarely meet full alpha remnant fleets". Well, what can I say, this game is full of interesting discoveries and you are about to make yours.

So what you're actually saying is that in a tiny, RNG-based minority of the hardest non-unique fleets in the entire game, if the stars align against you, and if you insist on taking those fights, you might need to use slightly more small ships?

Those goalposts are so far away from where they started, you'd have to re-activate the gate network to reach them.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 16, 2021, 03:02:48 AM
It is about the random distribution of skills. 1. Cores are needed to be in frigates. 2. Cores have to have the GI skills. Low tier Ordos have lots of low tier cores with limited skill choices and frigates may be left core-less. So, your "Remnant Ordos rarely have more than 40-50% ECM strength" translates into "I rarely meet full alpha remnant fleets". Well, what can I say, this game is full of interesting discoveries and you are about to make yours.

So what you're actually saying is that in a tiny, RNG-based minority of the hardest non-unique fleets in the entire game, if the stars align against you, and if you insist on taking those fights, you might need to use slightly more small ships?

Those goalposts are so far away from where they started, you'd have to re-activate the gate network to reach them.

No, it is pretty typical in the end-game. When you have multiple contacts with the high importance level. I'm just saying why you are seeing what you are seeing.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TuxedoCatfish on April 16, 2021, 03:11:44 AM
So to be clear: in 99% of the game you don't need a frigate-based fleet to win the ECM war, and in the 1% that's left over, after the game is essentially over and you're doing a victory lap... you probably still don't, you just need to think a little bit about DP:ECM ratio and hull modding.

What's the highest ECM rating you've seen a single enemy fleet generate?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 16, 2021, 03:26:51 AM
So to be clear: in 99% of the game you don't need a frigate-based fleet to win the ECM war, and in the 1% that's left over, after the game is essentially over and you're doing a victory lap... you probably still don't, you just need to think a little bit about DP:ECM ratio and hull modding.

What's the highest ECM rating you've seen a single enemy fleet generate?

For me it is more like the game at this point actually begins. And prior to that it is more of the extended tutorial. Why would you even bother to install 0.95 to deal with 0.91 stuff? I mean seriously. The whole new layer was introduced and you... What? Start a new run before you even see the omega led ordo?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TuxedoCatfish on April 16, 2021, 03:30:21 AM
I've cleared all three Omega fights. You should probably try focusing on substance instead of just calling people bad when they point out that you're wrong.

Again, though: what's the biggest ECM rating you've seen a single enemy fleet generate?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 16, 2021, 03:46:06 AM
I've cleared all three Omega fights. You should probably try focusing on substance instead of just calling people bad when they point out that you're wrong.

Again, though: what's the biggest ECM rating you've seen a single enemy fleet generate?

This is the substance.

I can't remember the exact number. It was triple digit.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Anvel on April 16, 2021, 04:27:20 AM
Flying around on 180dp mid-low tech plus Odyssey fleet stumping everyone, ~80 ECM rating, the biggest remnant ECM I saw was 108. The game becomes easier than in 0.9.1, just don't spam big and dp hungry ships and capture points to even dp points with the enemy.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TuxedoCatfish on April 16, 2021, 05:25:45 AM
Flying around on 180dp mid-low tech plus Odyssey fleet stumping everyone, ~80 ECM rating, the biggest remnant ECM I saw was 108. The game becomes easier than in 0.9.1, just don't spam big and dp hungry ships and capture points to even dp points with the enemy.

Right, thank you, I appreciate having a specific number to work with.

Naturally-spawning Ordo fleets have about 21-28 ships, of which about a third are frigates. To hit 108 ECM before control points, you'd need 8+ officer frigates who rolled Gunnery Implants -- basically every single frigate in the fleet -- or two officer destroyers for each missing frigate.

Officer placement is pretty obviously not fully random; larger ships are more likely to have officers and more likely to have alpha / beta cores, while frigates are more likely to have gamma cores or no officers at all; most fleets have 2-4 non-officer ships in total, but if even one of those missing ones is a frigate, you're gonna come up short. (This would mean that only about 10-20% of fleets even pass this stage at full randomness, and less since it isn't actually random.)

If skills are random, a draw-without-replacement probability for getting Gunnery Implants is ~57% for an 8-skill Alpha Core, ~42% for a 6-skill beta, and ~28% for a 4-skill Gamma. So even if you end up with all alpha core frigates, you're roughly looking at eight coin flips coming up in the AI's favor in a row. It has a probability of happening that is just slightly over one percent... if the frigates all had Alpha Cores.

I'm sure spending hours on finding a Very High importance contact and driving their internal bounty difficulty rating up to 10 can improve on these values a little more, but you'd have to actively go out of your way to do that, and eventually even a stupid-huge, all-alpha core fleet is going to be restricted by the battle size limit, especially if you play on the default setting of 300 instead of cranking it to 400. (Which hey, I do -- but changing a setting like that away from the default is kind of asking for problems.)

This is, bluntly, not a scenario worth balancing the game around. But as it happens, the player does have the tools to do the same thing back -- it'll cost a lot of story points on ECM s-mods and hiring mercenary officers, but if you're chain-killing dozens of Ordo fleets, it's not like story points are going to be in scarce supply. It might be the only situation in the entire game where hiring and keeping mercs is actually worth it, but there you go. You still won't need an all-frigate fleet, or even a majority-frigate fleet. You'll just need to match the AI's ratio -- or not even, in fact, because Remnant ships don't pack ECM hullmods and you do.

All of which, of course, is just a distraction from what I was actually saying earlier: is winning the ECM war interesting? Is it good gameplay? Is it a complex or deep decision? No, of course not. Everything I've described is just "make this one number REAL big, bigger than the biggest unfair, post-game, easter egg enemy the game is potentially capable of spawning." There aren't real trade-offs here; just a huge resource sink.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 16, 2021, 06:05:57 AM
All this talk about frigates is why I feel pushed to Wolfpack Tactics for more PPT (and maybe the officer skill that boosts max to ten officers, which I definitely do not want because it is permanent and ruins respec options).  I do not want to be forced to give up Industry or high Combat just to properly fight endgame fights, because I need mandatory skills instead of fun or campaign QoL skills.

I guess if I cannot use frigate spam to win ECM war, maybe I could use Doom flagship cheese.  At least I can respec away from that, even if it costs a lot of story points due to elite skills.

I guess player could put ECCM on all ships to turn -20% to -10%, but that probably does not feel good either.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Anvel on April 16, 2021, 07:23:35 AM
Flying around on 180dp mid-low tech plus Odyssey fleet stumping everyone, ~80 ECM rating, the biggest remnant ECM I saw was 108. The game becomes easier than in 0.9.1, just don't spam big and dp hungry ships and capture points to even dp points with the enemy.

Right, thank you, I appreciate having a specific number to work with.

Naturally-spawning Ordo fleets have about 21-28 ships, of which about a third are frigates. To hit 108 ECM before control points, you'd need 8+ officer frigates who rolled Gunnery Implants -- basically every single frigate in the fleet -- or two officer destroyers for each missing frigate.

Officer placement is pretty obviously not fully random; larger ships are more likely to have officers and more likely to have alpha / beta cores, while frigates are more likely to have gamma cores or no officers at all; most fleets have 2-4 non-officer ships in total, but if even one of those missing ones is a frigate, you're gonna come up short. (This would mean that only about 10-20% of fleets even pass this stage at full randomness, and less since it isn't actually random.)

If skills are random, a draw-without-replacement probability for getting Gunnery Implants is ~57% for an 8-skill Alpha Core, ~42% for a 6-skill beta, and ~28% for a 4-skill Gamma. So even if you end up with all alpha core frigates, you're roughly looking at eight coin flips coming up in the AI's favor in a row. It has a probability of happening that is just slightly over one percent... if the frigates all had Alpha Cores.

I'm sure spending hours on finding a Very High importance contact and driving their internal bounty difficulty rating up to 10 can improve on these values a little more, but you'd have to actively go out of your way to do that, and eventually even a stupid-huge, all-alpha core fleet is going to be restricted by the battle size limit, especially if you play on the default setting of 300 instead of cranking it to 400. (Which hey, I do -- but changing a setting like that away from the default is kind of asking for problems.)

This is, bluntly, not a scenario worth balancing the game around. But as it happens, the player does have the tools to do the same thing back -- it'll cost a lot of story points on ECM s-mods and hiring mercenary officers, but if you're chain-killing dozens of Ordo fleets, it's not like story points are going to be in scarce supply. It might be the only situation in the entire game where hiring and keeping mercs is actually worth it, but there you go. You still won't need an all-frigate fleet, or even a majority-frigate fleet. You'll just need the match the AI's ratio -- or not even, in fact, because Remnant ships don't pack ECM hullmods and you do.

All of which, of course, is just a distraction from what I was actually saying earlier: is winning the ECM war interesting? Is it good gameplay? Is it a complex or deep decision? No, of course not. Everything I've described is just "make this one number REAL big, bigger than the biggest unfair, post-game, easter egg enemy the game is potentially capable of spawning." There aren't real trade-offs here; just a huge resource sink.
You can completely ignore it, if your ships are strong and aggressive enough they will obliterate everything even with that penalty, you have so many opportunities to make yourself op, like Wolf pack that obvious, SO ships - you can use it on any frigate-destroyer-cruiser and make it a beast, you can use phase ships(even bigger cheat than SO), you can spam missile boats, you can pick AI skill and Radiant with right loadout would kill whole fleets without your interference, you can make capitals with 30k hp invulnerable to emp and unbreachable missile protection. I mean common, look at opportunities game have, use some of those above, or find a new one.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 16, 2021, 07:28:01 AM
Math is not good.

Compared to 0.91, high-end fleets have absurd amount fp. And all of them are going in two things: larger ships and better officers. This is how full alpha fleets are born.

Skills are filled up like "all tiers from lower to higher left one first than right ones". This way Alphas always have GI. Betas too.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TuxedoCatfish on April 16, 2021, 07:49:07 AM
Does that mean Gamma Cores never have it, or just that they might have it or they might have Combat L1 L2 L3 instead?

Either way, there's still not much call to balance around it if it'll never happen in naturally-occurring fleets and is a problem that only exists in completely maxed out contact bounties. It's like okay, you mashed the button saying HARDER PLEASE until it broke, and the game delivered. And even in that situation you still have the story-point intensive merc option or, I suppose, one of the methods Anvel offered.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Flet on April 16, 2021, 09:38:04 AM
The problem with ecm is how much it takes to build around it and its all or nothing nature. If you have 60 ecm rating but the enemy fleet has 80+ then all the resource you put into getting 60, the skill points and loadout considerations, are simply worth nothing. Currently you need the ecm skill, you need some officers with gunnery implants in frigates/destroyers, and you need to build in ecm hull mods into everything at the cost of story points. Thats a big commitment.
This means then you are encouraged to either ignore ecm entirely and build around the assumption you will be at -20 at all times, or go so full hard on ecm that you are guaranteed to always have the advantage to secure the value of the investment.

This talk of simply nerfing the maximum ecm penalty only helps that first playstyle, and since the same amount of effort is going to be required to 'win' the ecm war regardless (i suppose you only need to out-ecm the enemy by 10 instead of 20), it effectively only makes going for ecm less of a viable strategy and doesnt really fix the ecm problem.

The problem i think is ecms all or nothing nature. If the enemy has 80 ecm it doesnt matter if you have 0 or 40 or 60 ecm, its all the same. I think the solution is changing the way the result is calculated so every amount of ecm has some effect on the final outcome. Going heavy ecm and coming up against an ai fleet with even more due to the officer spam issue should not negate all your investment. You aught to be able to feel like an advanced ecm based fleet coming up against a bunch of scary ais who out-do you, but of course they do they are ai, but you are far better off than a non technologically oriented fleet in that regard.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on April 16, 2021, 10:51:59 AM
There are a few benefits to having 60 ECM if the enemy has 80 ECM: The capture points will bring the penalty from -20% to -10%, instead of doing nothing, and after killing a few enemy ships their bonus starts to drop instead of staying high the whole fight (either popping enemy ships with missile barrages or hunting down their isolated frigates with interceptor carriers works well). Its not ideal to get out-ECM'd after investing resources, but there is still a point.

Since hard numbers were raised for ECM: My current 'low tech roleplay' fleet is (officer number in parenthesis) 4(4) enforcers, 4(2) condors, 4(3) lashers, 4(0) shepherds. This isn't an endgame fleet, but has been sufficient for exploration and dealing with exploration threats and ~250k bounties (so far, haven't gotten any higher). My default ECM on a full deploy is 62%, though I often do not deploy the Shepherds as they can pop, which brings me to 54%. I have not done any investment in ECM for this fleet other than T3L as Gunnery Implants is the right skill the non-carriers anyways.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on April 16, 2021, 12:08:38 PM
Another thing to consider, is that 'forcing' the player to do a specific thing in order to not have problems is in itself very limiting with regard to gameplay options.
"If you dont have frigates and don't put officers in them, you will have a bad time" does not make for very interesting gameplay decisions imho.



Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 16, 2021, 12:17:49 PM
I mean, to be fair, the whole frigate officer thing is only really an issue in super endgame against redacted and the highest levels of bounties. For 90% of the game you don't really need to care about it, and I don't think there is any content outside of those specific fights that requires you to really optimize ECM.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Xeno056 on April 16, 2021, 12:18:37 PM
So I know 0.95 just dropped, but I was wondering if there was any sort of roadmap in regards to the direction the game is going in in the future. I know right now the devs are in bug squashing mode but this release, as far as game releases go as of late, seemed very stable and one of the better in recent memory as far as the industry goes. I know that it's contentious, and I'm not going to pretend that I know all that's going on, but I think the recent additions could make for a decent Steam early access to drum up a bit more support, grow the community a bit. Not right now, but after the bug crunching concludes and focus is back on content development.

Regardless, I hope for only the best for all folks involved. Loved the update.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Klokinator on April 16, 2021, 12:28:44 PM
I've been waiting a few weeks for stuff to get caught up, bug fixes to drop, and so on.

Any planned bugfixes, necessary updates, and whatever coming up in the near future? There's like a hundred pages here, don't have much interest in scrolling back through to check.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 16, 2021, 01:19:39 PM
Does that mean Gamma Cores never have it, or just that they might have it or they might have Combat L1 L2 L3 instead?

Either way, there's still not much call to balance around it if it'll never happen in naturally-occurring fleets and is a problem that only exists in completely maxed out contact bounties. It's like okay, you mashed the button saying HARDER PLEASE until it broke, and the game delivered. And even in that situation you still have the story-point intensive merc option or, I suppose, one of the methods Anvel offered.

I do think that Gamma can have it.

Natural occuring Ordos is just a hunting ground to get the ships to get ready for the unnatural shenanigans.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 16, 2021, 01:22:08 PM
I mean, to be fair, the whole frigate officer thing is only really an issue in super endgame against redacted and the highest levels of bounties. For 90% of the game you don't really need to care about it, and I don't think there is any content outside of those specific fights that requires you to really optimize ECM.

Frigates is the best way to level up officers (up to lvl 5 in a single fight). And to farm story points (2-3 in the same fight).

x5 xp gain from the difficulty is a great thing.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: IonDragonX on April 16, 2021, 01:34:42 PM
... its all or nothing nature. If you have 60 ecm rating but the enemy fleet has 80+ then all the resource you put into getting 60, the skill points and loadout considerations, are simply worth nothing.
I can see that. It certainly 'feels bad' to invest for no reason.

@Alex
How about the ECM rating work as a ratio. 1 vs 1 = no advantage either way. 21 vs 1 is 2000% advantage. Divide that by 100 and you get 20% ECM advantage. Moving on, 25 vs 5 is only 400% advantage. Div 100 and you get 4% ECM advantage. Flet's example of 60 vs 80 would be 33% advantage for 0.33% ECM.
End result : if you totally ignore ECM but the enemy invests in it = you are in trouble. If visa versa = the enemy is in trouble. If you both invest = little to no advantage doing on when the numbers exceed a certain logarithmic breakpoint.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 16, 2021, 01:48:55 PM
I mean, to be fair, the whole frigate officer thing is only really an issue in super endgame against redacted and the highest levels of bounties. For 90% of the game you don't really need to care about it, and I don't think there is any content outside of those specific fights that requires you to really optimize ECM.

Frigates is the best way to level up officers (up to lvl 5 in a single fight). And to farm story points (2-3 in the same fight).

x5 xp gain from the difficulty is a great thing.
My point was that you can easily beat fights without focusing on ECM for 90% of the game, it's just a small part of late game where it's a problem, and that part is completely optional.

The difficulty modifiers should probably do a better job of accounting for officered frigates, but I think that's a separate issue.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 16, 2021, 02:57:32 PM
I've been waiting a few weeks for stuff to get caught up, bug fixes to drop, and so on.

Any planned bugfixes, necessary updates, and whatever coming up in the near future? There's like a hundred pages here, don't have much interest in scrolling back through to check.

Soon...ish, yeah. Working on a mainly-bugfix (and some very large-strokes balance adjustments) "hotfix" release. "Warmfix" at this point, probably?

After that the general pattern is to do a .1 release - in this case, 0.95.1a - which would have more fine-grained balance changes and so on. After *that*, it's on to the next major version.

So I know 0.95 just dropped, but I was wondering if there was any sort of roadmap in regards to the direction the game is going in in the future. I know right now the devs are in bug squashing mode but this release, as far as game releases go as of late, seemed very stable and one of the better in recent memory as far as the industry goes. I know that it's contentious, and I'm not going to pretend that I know all that's going on, but I think the recent additions could make for a decent Steam early access to drum up a bit more support, grow the community a bit. Not right now, but after the bug crunching concludes and focus is back on content development.

Regardless, I hope for only the best for all folks involved. Loved the update.

Thank you! The FAQ (https://fractalsoftworks.com/faq/) touches on the Steam question a bit, but the tl;dr version is "it's complicated". (And, yeah, very much in bug-squashing mode right now, in any case!)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Xeno056 on April 16, 2021, 08:37:32 PM
So I know 0.95 just dropped, but I was wondering if there was any sort of roadmap in regards to the direction the game is going in in the future. I know right now the devs are in bug squashing mode but this release, as far as game releases go as of late, seemed very stable and one of the better in recent memory as far as the industry goes. I know that it's contentious, and I'm not going to pretend that I know all that's going on, but I think the recent additions could make for a decent Steam early access to drum up a bit more support, grow the community a bit. Not right now, but after the bug crunching concludes and focus is back on content development.

Regardless, I hope for only the best for all folks involved. Loved the update.

Thank you! The FAQ (https://fractalsoftworks.com/faq/) touches on the Steam question a bit, but the tl;dr version is "it's complicated". (And, yeah, very much in bug-squashing mode right now, in any case!)

I gotcha. Best of luck with the bug squashing and balancing! Hope you can maybe share were you want to go next update soonTM.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SonnaBanana on April 16, 2021, 09:14:30 PM
Alex, what is the current direction of skill rebalances and skill system changes?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: RedHellion on April 17, 2021, 12:11:44 AM
Alex, what is the current direction of skill rebalances and skill system changes?

+1 for this, especially around the Automated Ships skill and being able to have [REDACTED] ships in your fleet in general as one of the newest major changes in mechanics learned from skills that affects gameplay and fleet composition.

Obviously it's quite early to tell, but if there's a general rough idea of areas which might be getting tweaked (even if those tweaks/changes aren't thought out yet) based on feedback so far and your own (and your dedicated playtesters') experiences with how games on this build are playing out...?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: EclipseRanger on April 17, 2021, 12:46:16 AM
A potential bug I ve found.Certain quests
Spoiler
like using the Janus device or returning Kanta's pet to her
[close]
allow the dialogue of completion to repeat infinitely,potentially allowing you to farm character reputation over and over at no cost.I am not sure if this is intented behavior or my saves have an issue( I updated the game to the latest hotfix only after seeing this behavior,so this might be the cause).

I should also add that
Spoiler
if you DONT use the Janus device to exit the Magec system in the questline and return normally,even though the game says you received the Janus device,it does not work.It can not be used to teleport between Gates.Going through Magec as the quest adds also gives the "You received the Janus device" notification,but the device works properly in this scenario.
[close]
Again,I do not know if this is intended,but seemed important,considering the use of this equipment.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Serenitis on April 17, 2021, 02:05:10 AM
My point was that you can easily beat fights without focusing on ECM for 90% of the game, it's just a small part of late game where it's a problem, and that part is completely optional.
If in 90% of the game this is not an issue, why is it possible to have early game trash-battles where the player ship is the only one contributing to the fight, while all the other friendlies just weave about a bit and slowly back off?

Why is the number of people struggling with this throughout the entire game not zero?

The fact this number is not zero highlights a problem that needs to addressed with a slightly more effective solution than "everything's fine here no problems for me, you just need to tug on those bootstraps bucko."
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: michail on April 17, 2021, 05:42:03 AM
Thank you for the update. The Sector feels so alive and full of people, it's amazing.

Not sure if this has already been discussed (I've only read last 40 pages or so of the thread). The way AI reacts to a raid makes it fairly easy to chain-raid systems with multiple planets. The AI seems to send every single patrol in the system to the raided planet, leaving the rest undefended, save for their orbital stations (if any). Which I don't have to engage if there's no enemy fleet around. I just need to dodge the swarm coming to the first planet and I'm free to raid the rest. It feels very cool, but at the same time a touch cheap. Surely the great strategic minds of Hegemony would've figured my tactics out after my 5th "refueling" at Nachiketa?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: slepth on April 17, 2021, 07:47:42 AM
Posting my findings:
1. [Already reported] Pirates/redacted when they see my big fleet, will show 'fleeing' in status but will stick like magnet to my fleet.

2. [Already reported] Small fleet stopping me from surveying/salvaging. Wasting my time to kill that fly. Auto resolve battle?

3. Planet survey window. Could we reduce the redundancy of the the survey/planet windows?
i. Click on planet> A new window with 2 options: 1.Survey 2. Leave> Press 1.
ii. Another window with 2 options: G. Survey Q. Leave> Press G
iii. Another windows that shows the survey result> Press G to continue.
iv. Back to previous window with 3 options: G.Establish Colony Q. Leave. W. Consider other factor> Press Q
v. Back to the 1st window with 2 options: 1. Establish colony 2. Leave> Press 2.

Could we remove the 1st window?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 17, 2021, 01:17:39 PM
Not sure if it's actually a bug or some skill combination I'm not aware of, not using carriers ATM, so I'll ask here: 602su/s Broadsword. Is that normal? I wasn't aware fighter LPC could take Safety Overrides...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SafariJohn on April 17, 2021, 05:20:30 PM
Fighters can go super-fast to catch up with their wing leader or carrier.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: WeiTuLo on April 18, 2021, 11:16:40 AM
I wonder if 6 fuel/LY for Atlas MKII and Prometheus MKII would make sense. That would match up with the new 6 fuel/LY that regular Atlas and Prometheus get.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Helldiver on April 19, 2021, 01:03:54 AM
The more I interact with the new raiding system the more I like it. The game was dearly lacking a more involved gameplay aspect to ground operations and the new system adds much to it. I hope scavenging/salvaging will receive a similar rework in the future where you interact with debris fields and derelicts more.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: sprayer2708 on April 19, 2021, 01:36:14 AM
A potential bug I ve found.Certain quests
Spoiler
like using the Janus device or returning Kanta's pet to her
[close]
allow the dialogue of completion to repeat infinitely,potentially allowing you to farm character reputation over and over at no cost.I am not sure if this is intented behavior or my saves have an issue( I updated the game to the latest hotfix only after seeing this behavior,so this might be the cause).

I should also add that
Spoiler
if you DONT use the Janus device to exit the Magec system in the questline and return normally,even though the game says you received the Janus device,it does not work.It can not be used to teleport between Gates.Going through Magec as the quest adds also gives the "You received the Janus device" notification,but the device works properly in this scenario.
[close]
Again,I do not know if this is intended,but seemed important,considering the use of this equipment.

The second one, you should have it in your inventory and need to install it like a blueprint.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: EclipseRanger on April 19, 2021, 06:19:20 AM
A potential bug I ve found.Certain quests
Spoiler
like using the Janus device or returning Kanta's pet to her
[close]
allow the dialogue of completion to repeat infinitely,potentially allowing you to farm character reputation over and over at no cost.I am not sure if this is intented behavior or my saves have an issue( I updated the game to the latest hotfix only after seeing this behavior,so this might be the cause).

I should also add that
Spoiler
if you DONT use the Janus device to exit the Magec system in the questline and return normally,even though the game says you received the Janus device,it does not work.It can not be used to teleport between Gates.Going through Magec as the quest adds also gives the "You received the Janus device" notification,but the device works properly in this scenario.
[close]
Again,I do not know if this is intended,but seemed important,considering the use of this equipment.

The second one, you should have it in your inventory and need to install it like a blueprint.

I know,I ve activated it.I also reloaded multiple saves to confirm that behavior.Unless I teleport out as the quest asks,the Gate mechanic just doesn't work properly,whether I install the device or not.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: oooh_senpai on April 19, 2021, 06:47:17 AM
A potential bug I ve found.Certain quests
Spoiler
like using the Janus device or returning Kanta's pet to her
[close]
allow the dialogue of completion to repeat infinitely,potentially allowing you to farm character reputation over and over at no cost.I am not sure if this is intented behavior or my saves have an issue( I updated the game to the latest hotfix only after seeing this behavior,so this might be the cause).

I should also add that
Spoiler
if you DONT use the Janus device to exit the Magec system in the questline and return normally,even though the game says you received the Janus device,it does not work.It can not be used to teleport between Gates.Going through Magec as the quest adds also gives the "You received the Janus device" notification,but the device works properly in this scenario.
[close]
Again,I do not know if this is intended,but seemed important,considering the use of this equipment.

The second one, you should have it in your inventory and need to install it like a blueprint.

I know,I ve activated it.I also reloaded multiple saves to confirm that behavior.Unless I teleport out as the quest asks,the Gate mechanic just doesn't work properly,whether I install the device or not.
It's a bug, you need to go to dev mode via editing settings file, interact with the gate and activate ability to use them (gray color option), save, turn off dev mode.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Arcagnello on April 20, 2021, 03:53:51 AM
Potential bug: I don't think you should be able develop contracts with pirate/luddic path operatives located in raiding bases given the fact you blast them to smithereens the moment you find them  ???
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/hWKdoip.png)
[close]
This Abaeze Mendez fellow must feel right at home among the space debris orbiting a Barren World  ;D
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/fzdim8G.png)
[close]

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: bonerstorm on April 20, 2021, 11:10:39 AM
Potential bug: I don't think you should be able develop contracts with pirate/luddic path operatives located in raiding bases given the fact you blast them to smithereens the moment you find them  ???
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/hWKdoip.png)
[close]
This Abaeze Mendez fellow must feel right at home among the space debris orbiting a Barren World  ;D
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/fzdim8G.png)
[close]

Yeah you can totally do missions for these people and they pay out. If you develop the contact and the base blows up, then they should disappear - though I'm pretty sure I've seen a contact on a planet not disappear after the planet was decivilized or abandoned, so you have to delete them manually.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 20, 2021, 11:49:51 AM
They move to another colony (and lose a level of importance) if the one they're on is decivilized. But this wasn't happening for the fringe pirate/Pather bases; fixed that up.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Havoc on April 21, 2021, 10:06:09 AM
I like the new patch
I know some are whining about the nerfed winbutton spark drover :p

had not so much time yet to test everything
improvements for me:
better enforcer^^, not overpowered but good
some new ships
new weapons( no idea how and where to use breach rocket)
elite skills with SP
SP evade scan/combat
more quests
contacts/friends
weapon/shipdealer

the only thing I would change is taking combat skill freely, so maybe only
Helmsmanship + Missle Specialisation

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 21, 2021, 10:21:39 AM
New build is up! Full list of changes in the OP.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on April 21, 2021, 10:30:55 AM
Congrats Alex, thats a lot of fixes! Time for a new game :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: shoi on April 21, 2021, 10:31:36 AM
Is derelict contingent going to be looked at or will it be staying as is ?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 21, 2021, 10:33:59 AM
Quote
Safety Overrides can no longer be built into ships using story points
I suppose that solves that problem, but is there an ingame reason why Safety Overrides is the only hullmod that can't be s-modded? And why Pather ships can have SO build in anyway, albeit at the cost of having the Ill-Advised Modifications d-mod as well? This really sounds like a meta-game band-aid rather than anything that actually make sense in-universe...

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 21, 2021, 10:34:31 AM
Congrats Alex, thats a lot of fixes! Time for a new game :)

Thank you! Whew.

Is derelict contingent going to be looked at or will it be staying as is ?

It'll absolutely be looked at (and probably have a crowbar taken to it), but that's just not hotfix material.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: DatonKallandor on April 21, 2021, 10:36:26 AM
I think if SO isn't supposed to be free (and I agree it shouldn't be), then pather ships with built-in SO should not be able to get the Ill-advised Modifications removed. Make the Ill-advised stick even through restorations and that problem is solved. It's weird that they can be fixed anyway - they're a result of the SO.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Chikanuk on April 21, 2021, 10:39:28 AM
Skills changes are generally bad, for example ECM now totally useless, this 10% is not worth the point =\
Well, at least fixes are good.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 21, 2021, 10:40:47 AM
Quote
Safety Overrides can no longer be built into ships using story points
I suppose that solves that problem, but is there an ingame reason why Safety Overrides is the only hullmod that can't be s-modded? And why Pather ships can have SO build in anyway, albeit at the cost of having the Ill-Advised Modifications d-mod as well? This really sounds like a meta-game band-aid rather than anything that actually make sense in-universe...

See this thread for a fairly lengthy discussion of an alternate approach:
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=20433.msg312668#msg312668

Anyway, as far as in-universe reason, this *definitely* makes sense. We're already talking about a "use story points to do something" mechanic, which is essentially "make up your own reason for why something special can be done". It's easy to make up a reason why SO can't be built in. It can be as simple as "the changes required are simply too extensive".

I think if SO isn't supposed to be free (and I agree it shouldn't be), then pather ships with built-in SO should not be able to get the Ill-advised Modifications removed. Make the Ill-advised stick even through restorations and that problem is solved. It's weird that they can be fixed anyway - they're a result of the SO.

I suppose! But it's kind of fun for Pather ships to be special this way. And since it's limited to a certain subset of ships, it's not an issue the way SP-built-in SO was/is.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: NoGround on April 21, 2021, 10:41:13 AM
Quote
Safety Overrides can no longer be built into ships using story points
I suppose that solves that problem, but is there an ingame reason why Safety Overrides is the only hullmod that can't be s-modded? And why Pather ships can have SO build in anyway, albeit at the cost of having the Ill-Advised Modifications d-mod as well? This really sounds like a meta-game band-aid rather than anything that actually make sense in-universe...

I knew this should have been patched. Safety Overrides is disgustingly OP and I instantly started abusing the fact that I could build them in last patch, though I do agree with this being a "band-aid" fix. Only thing I can think of is the fact that Safety Overrides is the only one that makes ships purely more dangerous to deploy for both enemies and yourself.

On a side note, I haven't seen a single Commodity Procurement remote mission in 6 cycles (the entire playthrough). Is it a mod causing it or something else? I only have Nexerelin effecting gameplay atm.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: The Scout on April 21, 2021, 10:44:19 AM
Uh alex
Spoiler
hypershunt
[close]
, and
Spoiler
Catalytic Core
[close]
are not spoilers, but the
Spoiler
lamp
[close]
is worthy of being redacted? Is this a mistake?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 21, 2021, 10:47:41 AM
Hmm what? I'm not seeing that in the OP :)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: pairedeciseaux on April 21, 2021, 10:48:07 AM
New build is up! Full list of changes in the OP.

That's a serious bug fix / balancing release, good job! Be sure to have some days off.  :)

Skills changes are generally bad, for example ECM now totally useless, this 10% is not worth the point =\

Or, depending on point of view, maybe 10% is still too high.  ;D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 21, 2021, 10:49:01 AM
That's a serious bug fix / balancing release, good job! Be sure to have some days off.  :)

Thank you! Totally planning on doing that once the dust settles here; could really use it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 21, 2021, 10:49:40 AM
Quote
Anyway, as far as in-universe reason, this *definitely* makes sense. We're already talking about a "use story points to do something" mechanic, which is essentially "make up your own reason for why something special can be done". It's easy to make up a reason why SO can't be built in. It can be as simple as "the changes required are simply too extensive".
"Make up your own reason for why something special can be done, except for this one specific thing which is the only one of it's kind which absolutely cannot be done" does not sound like it's internally consistent to me. I mean I could definitely see it pushing a ship too much and causing issues (see: Pather ships and Ill-Advised Modifications, even if they're regularly build in and not technically s-modded), but than why prevent it entirely rather than forcing Ill-Advised Modifications on a ship with SO s-modded in? I'd think the option of going full Pather would be an interesting choice to offer a player rather than just taking it off the table entirely.

Quote
On a side note, I haven't seen a single Commodity Procurement remote mission in 6 cycles (the entire playthrough). Is it a mod causing it or something else? I only have Nexerelin effecting gameplay atm.
Those random procurement missions were removed in 0.9.5, or rather they were moved to trade contacts.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 21, 2021, 10:52:24 AM
Ah - you might want to have a look at the thread I linked; the discussion there is pretty much what you're talking about.

Edit: and, I should say, it's a reasonable question/idea. But it would definitely come with making Ill-Advised unremovable to make it an explicitly bad choice, not just "you can still build it in it just costs some credits, too" since that wouldn't solve anything. But, really, this'd be more on-topic in that thread...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Hiruma Kai on April 21, 2021, 10:57:10 AM
Skills changes are generally bad, for example ECM now totally useless, this 10% is not worth the point =\
Well, at least fixes are good.

I dunno about the ECM change being that useless.  It's a 20% final calculation swing.  Or in other words, if the enemy has it and you don't, it's -10% to you, and if you have it and the enemy doesn't it's -10% to them.  As a final multiplier, on say, ITU capital ships, that's the difference of being 144% range vs 160% (1440 range vs 1600 range on a TPCs for example) or 160% vs 144%.

Non-elite Gunnery implants range bonus is +15% range (plus some other nice perks, but it's for a single ship, not an entire fleet).  At the capital scale at least, having ECM advantage versus not having it is like twice the base range value of gunnery implants.  So having that 10% ECM edge still strikes me as worth it compared to losing to that edge.

The old ECM was either must have, or must have a way of dealing with it (speed, ECCM, etc).  It turned ITU capitals (160*0.8=128) into less range than DTU cruisers (135).  Which traditionally equals kiting to death without a way to shoot back.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sarissofoi on April 21, 2021, 11:00:07 AM
Quote
Safety Overrides can no longer be built into ships using story points
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Was that heavy nerf to Impact Mitigation really necessary?
High tech skills are much better anyway.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on April 21, 2021, 11:03:41 AM
Regarding specific changes: I really like that coordinated maneuvers now gives 1% to cruisers and capitals. It eases up the math on what fleet compositions get the full 20% bonus by just a bit.

The EWM and Impact Mitigation changes I think are going to make Remnant fleets easier to kill - I think they will still be challenging, but both their offense and defense went down by a decent amount. Hull/Armor tanking by players and everyone else with IM took a hit too, so fights will be a bit faster and more dangerous.

Skills changes are generally bad, for example ECM now totally useless, this 10% is not worth the point =\
Well, at least fixes are good.

I dunno about the ECM change being that useless.  It's a 20% final calculation swing.  Or in other words, if the enemy has it and you don't, it's -10% to you, and if you have it and the enemy doesn't it's -10% to them.  As a final multiplier, on say, ITU capital ships, that's the difference of being 144% range vs 160% (1440 range vs 1600 range on a TPCs for example) or 160% vs 144%.

Non-elite Gunnery implants range bonus is +15% range (plus some other nice perks, but it's for a single ship, not an entire fleet).  At the capital scale at least, having ECM advantage versus not having it is like twice the base range value of gunnery implants.  So having that 10% ECM edge still strikes me as worth it compared to losing to that edge.

The old ECM was either must have, or must have a way of dealing with it (speed, ECCM, etc).  It turned ITU capitals (160*0.8=128) into less range than DTU cruisers (135).  Which traditionally equals kiting to death without a way to shoot back.

I agree with this. Its strong enough that the same strategies from last patch apply (either win, mitigate with ECCM, or mitigate by using speed and strike), they just won't be as hyper critical as they were. Mitigation with ECCM going from -10% range to -5% range is a nice buff for low tech ships and Conquests (missile + gun combo ships).

Quote
Safety Overrides can no longer be built into ships using story points
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I'm happy to report that your tonsils are normal, captain. :D
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: WeiTuLo on April 21, 2021, 11:19:59 AM
RC14, very nice! Was RC13 skipped for luck purposes? If so, 10-4 is a lot like that in Chinese.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Psyentific on April 21, 2021, 11:31:24 AM
goodbye, built-in SO. you were too good for us. farewell, sweet prince.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Deageon on April 21, 2021, 11:39:32 AM
SO not being able to be built in is genuinely disappointing, same with the nerf of the energy weapon mastery, otherwise, at least you fixed the shielded fighter bug.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SapphireSage on April 21, 2021, 11:41:19 AM
It seems a bit weird to me though that in a patch which seems to be buffing High-tech (Much more prevalence/focus in mobility and buffs to energy weapons specifically) that Impact Mitigation received a nerf and the insanely tanky Derelict Contingent was left untouched. Flat bonus for damage calculation might give more armor to lower armor high-tech, but higher values are exponentially stronger and so would affect low-tech more right?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Impetus on April 21, 2021, 11:45:28 AM
Say, what happens to ships that have safety overrides on as an s-mod from a previus patch? Are the mods automatically removed?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: tseikk1 on April 21, 2021, 11:46:45 AM
So, the community gave tons of different ideas and ways to nerf safety overrides, and then the most boring and blunt (just cant build it in lol, for no reason in particular, lol!!!) one got chosen?

This makes it into the hotfix, but overloaded ships gaining helmsmanship elite boost doesn't?

DP cap skills were adjusted, flux regulation (the universally stronger one) got buffed, but phase corps(the easily worse one) not, excuse me? Other than that changes in this patch are great. I still hope skills get a major rework though...
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: bobucles on April 21, 2021, 11:47:36 AM
Quote
Tactical bombardments are no longer atrocities
Praise Ludd!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 21, 2021, 11:52:17 AM
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Was that heavy nerf to Impact Mitigation really necessary?
High tech skills are much better anyway.

I think so; mainly because of how it was really making kinetics useless vs hull. I'm open to having another look at the details, though.

RC14, very nice! Was RC13 skipped for luck purposes? If so, 10-4 is a lot like that in Chinese.

There was actually an -RC13 that didn't make it! But if it had, I'd have felt a bit weird about it.

It seems a bit weird to me though that in a patch which seems to be buffing High-tech (Much more prevalence/focus in mobility and buffs to energy weapons specifically) that Impact Mitigation received a nerf and the insanely tanky Derelict Contingent was left untouched. Flat bonus for damage calculation might give more armor to lower armor high-tech, but higher values are exponentially stronger and so would affect low-tech more right?

The nerfs to IM are more about what happens to stripped armor, in particular how much kinetics are still shut down by it. And EWM got a substantial nerf here, as well.


Say, what happens to ships that have safety overrides on as an s-mod from a previus patch? Are the mods automatically removed?

They'll keep them.

... but overloaded ships gaining helmsmanship elite boost doesn't?

Oh, did I just not put it in the notes? The helmsmanship elite bonus no longer works when venting or overloaded.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: bobucles on April 21, 2021, 12:02:01 PM
Quote
The nerfs to IM are more about what happens to stripped armor, in particular how much kinetics are still shut down by it
While making the (now obsolete) armor calculator, I found that there was a HUGE difference in damage taken between the tiniest strip of aluminum foil foil armor and completely naked hull. If a ship was taking just one point of yellow damage, then it would gain a lot of bonuses from talents. Something like a gauss cannon would do very little damage, but once that last bit of tin foil was gone it was taking big meaty chunks out of hull.


I bet fragmentation weapons had it even worse, never really tested it though.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: JohnDoe on April 21, 2021, 12:05:05 PM
Quote
Safety Overrides can no longer be built into ships using story points
::)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: oooh_senpai on April 21, 2021, 12:09:11 PM
So, total number of skillpoints is still 15?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Amoebka on April 21, 2021, 12:14:02 PM
Now that high-level officers only spawn on sectorgen, the last reason to ever answer distress calls is gone. Meh.

Edit: could you actually consider adding the chance for a good officer as a potential reward for distress calls? Seems very thematically fitting (you save someone's life - they join your fleet).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on April 21, 2021, 12:15:03 PM
For those wanting to see some math and details behind kinetic rounds and armor, there was a thread about it here: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=20894.0

In that thread I under-calculated the impact of armor because the 150 stacked with base armor, but even the lower bound showed that the most lightly armored of frigates takes minimum damage to hull from all but the very heaviest kinetic weapons if they have elite IM. As an example, a non-IM Lumen takes 11.5 railgun hits to bare hull to kill. An elite IM would take 66.6 railgun shots to kill vs bare hull. With the new skill (if I have my numbers right) it will take 25.3. So elite IM will still provide excellent protection against small rounds (more than doubling hull hitpoints), but is not a 6 times increase anymore.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on April 21, 2021, 12:17:11 PM
Armour damage reduction calculation has been changed in 0.95, especially the Impact Mitigation, which once replaced residual armour with its 150, but now it adds to it (well, now adds 50). -25% armour damage shouldn't do anything after the armour has been stripped, though.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: WeiTuLo on April 21, 2021, 12:17:37 PM

Say, what happens to ships that have safety overrides on as an s-mod from a previus patch? Are the mods automatically removed?

They'll keep them.


SO my flagship is collectible now. More pirates for me! (To fight off.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: EclipseRanger on April 21, 2021, 12:38:23 PM
Great job Alex!Hotfix looks solid.
Especially appreciate the bounty rewards increase,as well as Fighter skill buffs and Gunnery Implants changes(Elite effects should be desirable and -50% recoil just doesn't cut it).

Any news on officers,especially mercenaries??Perhaps some measure of control over their skills/personality would be good,considering they sometimes have absolutely unusable combinations of skills or a non matching personality.Not a big deal since you can just shop for a better one,but doesn't hurt to ask :D
Once again,thanks for the good work and please don't forget to rest.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: zel023 on April 21, 2021, 12:43:42 PM
Quote
Safety Overrides can no longer be built into ships using story points

(https://i.imgur.com/mHVCmXe.jpg)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Flet on April 21, 2021, 12:49:12 PM
The ecm changes as a whole i dont like. It provides a suitable temporary fix because it removes the problem of always losing the ecm battle against the harder fights in the game despite investing heavily in ecm, but it does so by simply making it suboptimal to invest in ecm at all. Now you just take the 10% penalty and build around it. Making the gunnery implant ecm boost elite is kind of insult to injury though since it would not have been worth what was previously required to make ecm viable: running 5+ frigates and building ecm hull mods into everything - for a mere 10% bonus.
This patch the enemy basically just has a 10% range advantage over you built in, which is fine if that was just a difficulty/balance choice, but leaving all the remnants of ecm as a viable player option scattered around in hull mods and skills now feels bad.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on April 21, 2021, 12:53:11 PM
@Flet I refer you to HirumaKai's comment from last page: 10% isn't small, its just not as crazy as 20%
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 21, 2021, 01:01:40 PM
So, total number of skillpoints is still 15?

Yeah, not the sort of thing I want to mess with in a hotfix-type release!


Edit: could you actually consider adding the chance for a good officer as a potential reward for distress calls? Seems very thematically fitting (you save someone's life - they join your fleet).

Hmm - maybe not that specifically, but in generally I think it'd be fun to both spice up disress calls and add more kinds of fringe encounters. The issue with getting higher-level officers like that is it really devalues the Officer Training skill. (Which, I mean that could go away! But that's a whole other conversation.)


Any news on officers,especially mercenaries??Perhaps some measure of control over their skills/personality would be good,considering they sometimes have absolutely unusable combinations of skills or a non matching personality.Not a big deal since you can just shop for a better one,but doesn't hurt to ask :D

Well - reducing the number of officers in many enemy fleets indirectly buffs mercenaries. But, yeah - I've actually got a TODO item for using story points to do some form of officer retraining; will see how that ends up.

Once again,thanks for the good work and please don't forget to rest.

Thank you, I really appreciate that!


Quote
Safety Overrides can no longer be built into ships using story points
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/mHVCmXe.jpg)
[close]

(It me.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: KDR_11k on April 21, 2021, 01:17:44 PM
Hm, which skills had their DP/bay limits changed? Carrier skills now have a limit of 8 bays, anyone remember other values?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: oooh_senpai on April 21, 2021, 01:25:11 PM
Hm, which skills had their DP/bay limits changed? Carrier skills now have a limit of 8 bays, anyone remember other values?
It was 6 bays, most other values were 180 dp. Not really a big change
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: WeiTuLo on April 21, 2021, 01:35:23 PM
RC12 DP and related values:

Weapon Drills: +10% at 90 DP or below
Crew Training: +15% max CR and +30 seconds peak performance at 180 DP and below

Carrier Group: +50% fighter replacement rate at 6 bays and below
Fighter Uplink: -50% crew lost from fighter losses and +25% top speed at 6 bays and below

Auxiliary Support: +900% at 5 Deployment Recovery Cost and below
Flux Regulation: +20% capacity and dissipation at 180 Combat Ship Recovery Cost
Containment Procedures: -75% crew lost in combat at 60 Deployment Recovery Cost and below
Field Repairs: 100% ship repair rate, 50% of hull and armor damage repaired after battle for free, at 60 Deployment Recovery Cost and below

Phase Corps: -30% flux generated in phase and +180 seconds peak performance at 30 Phase Ship Recovery Cost and below

Automated ships: +100% combat readiness at 30 automated ship points and below

Bulk Transport: +50% capacity at up to 2000 base cargo capacity, 2000 base fuel capacity, and 5000 personnel capacity

Makeshift equipment: Supply cost reduction of 50% or 100 units/month, whichever is lower
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Hellya on April 21, 2021, 01:39:11 PM
Is the OP Doom finally tamed.... lets get to checking.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: KDR_11k on April 21, 2021, 01:58:54 PM
Wow, pathers sure seem to take a liking to colony items now. I'm getting +4 for every single one.

RC12 DP and related values:

Weapon Drills: +10% at 90 DP or below
Crew Training: +15% max CR and +30 seconds peak performance at 180 DP and below

Carrier Group: +50% fighter replacement rate at 6 bays and below
Fighter Uplink: -50% crew lost from fighter losses and +25% top speed at 6 bays and below

Auxiliary Support: +900% at 5 Deployment Recovery Cost and below
Flux Regulation: +20% capacity and dissipation at 180 Combat Ship Recovery Cost
Containment Procedures: -75% crew lost in combat at 60 Deployment Recovery Cost and below
Field Repairs: 100% ship repair rate, 50% of hull and armor damage repaired after battle for free, at 60 Deployment Recovery Cost and below

Phase Corps: -30% flux generated in phase and +180 seconds peak performance at 30 Phase Ship Recovery Cost and below

Automated ships: +100% combat readiness at 30 automated ship points and below

Bulk Transport: +50% capacity at up to 2000 base cargo capacity, 2000 base fuel capacity, and 5000 personnel capacity

Makeshift equipment: Supply cost reduction of 50% or 100 units/month, whichever is lower

RC 14 differences:
Weapon Drills 90->120 DP
Crew Training 180->240 DP
Carrier Group, Fighter Uplink 6 Bays -> 8 Bays
Flux Regulation 180 DP -> 240 DP

The rest seem unchanged.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: pairedeciseaux on April 21, 2021, 02:10:19 PM
I've noticed a (very) small issue. I don't remember seeing this with previous versions.

I have 3 or 4 officers. After a battle one of them levelled up. I assigned a skill to her. No other officer did level up. Then I noticed on the fleet screen that there was a '+' over player character portrait. But at that point, I checked on the skill screen, player character was at level 4, close to level 5, and no new skill point was available.

A bit later, after another battle, player character reached level 5. I choose a skill. Then I noticed on the fleet screen the '+' over player character portrait was not present anymore.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: WeiTuLo on April 21, 2021, 02:12:30 PM
Wow, pathers sure seem to take a liking to colony items now. I'm getting +4 for every single one.

If they're going to do that despite me using no Alpha Cores on my colonies, I see no reason why I shouldn't go 100% Alpha Core.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Inhilicon on April 21, 2021, 03:09:26 PM
I think it makes sense not to let Safety Overrides be able to be built in using story points. Having that, on a destroyer for example, with 30 ordnance points to spare... that's nuts. Good riddance!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: mosshadow on April 21, 2021, 03:27:53 PM
Regarding ECM Range nerf, maybe the ECM hullmod should have the opposite effect of the ECCM Hullmod (reduce range reduction from superior enemy EW by 50%) and increase enemy range reduction if within a certain range of the ship with the hullmod or if a certain number of ships in combat in your fleet have it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 21, 2021, 03:47:29 PM
"Safety Overrides can no longer be built into ships using story points"

there goes the last reason to use cruisers

or low tech

or frigates that dont teleport

or storypoints on most combat ships that arent critical to your fleet


that was the worst way to go about this... dont forget we dont have extra op anymore (not only that... but it is literally the most arbitrary way to go about it)

MAYBE look at why people put so on all of their ships in the first place... maybe... just a possibility here... its because all ships across the board are 1, too flux ineficient, and 2, too slow

food for thought
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Flet on April 21, 2021, 03:55:23 PM
@Flet I refer you to HirumaKai's comment from last page: 10% isn't small, its just not as crazy as 20%

All on its own its not small, but to reach it reliably you need to sacrifice a lot. We are talking about fleet composition being dictated to you, hull mods being dictated to you, and needing the skill. Thats three things you need to stack. ECM-superiority is an entire playstyle given all you have to do to accomplish it.

Consider what you get for simply eating the 10% hit? You could instead build expanded missile racks into everything and just have twice as many missiles on a non missile fleet. In fact given how the eccm mod works now why wouldnt you just build that into every ship instead of the ecm? Then you only get a mere 5% penalty and your missiles are all better, you dont need the skill, nor do you need to spend the elite selection on officer gunnery skills now, and you dont have to load your fleet with frigates anymore.

This is in a way, again, an improvement, in that it solves the enemy ecm issue. The main problem that remains is that it simply just does not make sense for players to invest in ecm at all now given what is required to reach the advantage against enemies it really matters for. Perhaps ecm could just be removed entirely.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 21, 2021, 04:03:20 PM
@Flet I refer you to HirumaKai's comment from last page: 10% isn't small, its just not as crazy as 20%
Perhaps ecm could just be removed entirely.

like "battle objectives" .... PLEASE
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: FooF on April 21, 2021, 04:13:52 PM
I'm not sure why the SO change is getting so many people up in arms. You can still use it just fine and get all the benefits from it. That you can't build it in just makes it less easy to bypass the downsides, one of which was always he hefty OP cost. It's hard for me to justify the extreme performance boost SO gives for "free."

And it's not like you can't still build in two other S-mods on top of OP-costing SO. Build in Hardened Subsystems or another expensive hullmod: you're still save OP and making SO ships way better than they ever were in 0.9. They just won't be grossly overpowered. Is there perhaps a more nuanced approach to built-in SO? Maybe, but I'm not particularly surprised by the implementation here.

The ECM nerf is probably for the best, but as one poster said, ECM is now a "eh" skill. I hated that it was mandatory both in the previous patch and this one because a -20% range decrease was just too much to overcome and it caused the AI to do some really foolish things. +/- 10% isn't a killer if you don't have it but is a relatively nice perk to have if you do. I don't think it's worth gearing an entire fleet for anymore so that affects other skills to some degree.

All-in-all, I think most of the changes are good or at least going in the right direction.

Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Maethendias on April 21, 2021, 04:19:25 PM
I'm not sure why the SO change is getting so many people up in arms. You can still use it just fine and get all the benefits from it. That you can't build it in just makes it less easy to bypass the downsides, one of which was always he hefty OP cost. It's hard for me to justify the extreme performance boost SO gives for "free."

And it's not like you can't still build in two other S-mods on top of OP-costing SO. Build in Hardened Subsystems or another expensive hullmod: you're still save OP and making SO ships way better than they ever were in 0.9. They just won't be grossly overpowered. Is there perhaps a more nuanced approach to built-in SO? Maybe, but I'm not particularly surprised by the implementation here.

The ECM nerf is probably for the best, but as one poster said, ECM is now a "eh" skill. I hated that it was mandatory both in the previous patch and this one because a -20% range decrease was just too much to overcome and it caused the AI to do some really foolish things. +/- 10% isn't a killer if you don't have it but is a relatively nice perk to have if you do. I don't think it's worth gearing an entire fleet for anymore so that affects other skills to some degree.

All-in-all, I think most of the changes are good or at least going in the right direction.

because its arbitrary
and pretty much is counterintuitive to the whole "story"point system in the first place
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: tomatopaste on April 21, 2021, 04:32:20 PM
Preventing SO being built-in is a good change
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 21, 2021, 04:45:31 PM
Wow, pathers sure seem to take a liking to colony items now. I'm getting +4 for every single one.

If they're going to do that despite me using no Alpha Cores on my colonies, I see no reason why I shouldn't go 100% Alpha Core.
At least it is not +6 with an item like last release.

However, with +4, player cannot put Mining (+1), Refinery (+2), and Heavy Industry (+4) on the same planet without being greeted by a sleeper cell that will go active eventually, after the colony grows to size 4.  All of the production worlds probably want Industrial Planning to help meet demand.

So, if I want to avoid Pathers, I will need one non-habitable (or eat pollution) for Heavy Industry, and one world without atmosphere for Fuel Production.  Probably will want at least one habitable for food.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: shoi on April 21, 2021, 04:46:10 PM
I'm not sure why the SO change is getting so many people up in arms.

muh free no-brainer s-mod
muh free OP

 waaaaaaahh
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Voyager I on April 21, 2021, 05:01:09 PM
Story Mod Overrides was on the short list of most overpowered things in the game's history.  Don't pretend to be surprised that it only lasted a few weeks.

While we're on the subject, the Fury definitely needs to be gazed upon by Alex's baleful eye.  I've had a lot of fun with that thing but it is absolutely wild for 15 DP.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 21, 2021, 05:20:42 PM
While we're on the subject, the Fury definitely needs to be gazed upon by Alex's baleful eye.  I've had a lot of fun with that thing but it is absolutely wild for 15 DP.
Yeah, with all the medium energy weapon improvements, it feels quite strong. Probably should be at least 18 DP, maybe 20 IMO.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: evzhel on April 21, 2021, 05:47:56 PM
Changes as of Hotfix #5 (-RC14), April 21, 2021, 1:20pm EST
  • Fixed issue with "improved" tech mining actually being 4x less effective
Eh what... there goes my 12 ingame years playthrough, gotta start anew.

With backoff pepegas mostly fixed, battles are taking twice less time now, finally the suffering has ended.
The issue with ships rotating 360 degree in full assault still stays.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 21, 2021, 05:56:51 PM
The issue with ships rotating 360 degree in full assault still stays.

I honestly have no idea what you mean here :) Can you tell me how to reproduce this?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: ANGRYABOUTELVES on April 21, 2021, 05:59:56 PM
Flux Regulation having the DP threshold increased to 240 while Phase Corps' DP threshold being unchanged is the scenario I was afraid of. There is no point to taking Phase Corps now; Flux Regulation is better for players using enough phase ships to consider spending skill points on a phase ship specific skill, as well as buffing the rest of your fleet. Phase Corps needs to have a 60 DP threshold in order to be worth taking. At about 60 DP worth of phase ships, that's a doom and 3 phase frigates, Phase Corps' benefit is halved to 15% reduction in hard flux generated and +90 PPT. The reduction in hard flux generated while phasing is more than made up for by having +20% base flux capacity and dissipation, while more PPT alone is not worth it considering the multitude of ways to get more PPT.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 21, 2021, 06:10:09 PM
I'll just say, I intend to have a look at both skills; this is just a first-order pass on things. The way FR and PC compare is something I definitely want to address; again, though this *is* a hotfix-type release, so I wouldn't treat any of the tweaks here as representing my full opinion on something, if that makes sense.

(Worth noting that PC's hard flux reduction benefit can be worth more than an equivalent percentage base flux capacity increase, since the latter just applies to the base capacity. And peak time is arguable, etc etc. But the skills could use clearer differentiation, for sure, so that trying to make this sort of direct comparison doesn't even come up.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Gennadios on April 21, 2021, 10:09:39 PM
The AI updates made ships a bit less passive and overall combat is going at a generally faster pace, however, there is still a complete lack of situational awareness as far as ships go.

I really wish I thought to take a screenshot, but my tutorial pirate fight had my hammerhead and my condor constantly bumping into each other while my Wolf was floating between the target (pirate venture) and the two ships playing bumper cars, blocking the hammerhead from firing.

Granted I haven't played the game for a while between releases, but I don't remember it being this bad.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 21, 2021, 10:17:25 PM
Impact Mitigation is overnerfed. The +50 armor as an elite choice part. There are human officers still in the game. Not just player itself and his ai core harem. +8 story points for captains, +1 each time I want an officer with a different skill set and the permanent Officer Training is now more of a must have. Not fun.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on April 21, 2021, 10:28:51 PM
Impact Mitigation is overnerfed. The +50 armor as an elite choice part. There are human officers still in the game. Not just player itself and his ai core harem. +8 story points for captains, +1 each time I want an officer with a different skill set and the permanent Officer Training is now more of a must have. Not fun.

I'm a bit confused: are you saying that the -25% armor damage and -50% engine/weapon damage is too weak, or that the 50 armor for damage reduction as elite is too strong and becomes must have, or both?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 21, 2021, 10:37:51 PM
Impact Mitigation is overnerfed. The +50 armor as an elite choice part. There are human officers still in the game. Not just player itself and his ai core harem. +8 story points for captains, +1 each time I want an officer with a different skill set and the permanent Officer Training is now more of a must have. Not fun.

I'm a bit confused: are you saying that the -25% armor damage and -50% engine/weapon damage is too weak, or that the 50 armor for damage reduction as elite is too strong and becomes must have, or both?

I took it for that armor bonus. Because frigates don't have enough basic armor to make the reduction bonus useful. I didn't test the current version with +50 bonus yet. However, there are two possible outcomes: it is still worth it and everything that I said above is true (now I have to pay for it much more in terms of story and skill points) or skill was overnerfed so much that it is no longer of use in frigates.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TaLaR on April 21, 2021, 11:06:47 PM
I'm a bit confused: are you saying that the -25% armor damage and -50% engine/weapon damage is too weak, or that the 50 armor for damage reduction as elite is too strong and becomes must have, or both?

IM was definitely a game changer with how powerful it was, but I don't see much point in taking armor skill that is weak either. Armor is a limited resource, and high tech don't have much of it to begin with. Small(=balanced) proportional multiplier doesn't do enough to compete with other skills.

With how AI functions, point in combat when it is taking armor damage is when it is losing. Old IM extended this phase so much that it changed definition of losing, new one just prolongs the agony a bit.

For any high tech frigate it is clearly 2nd tier pick at best - EWM, Target Analysis, Shield or Phase Spec, System Spec (Scarab or Tempest), GI(elite), I2 for PPT are all clearly better.

Normal officers can have only 1-2 elite skill, which is probably going to be spent on something better too.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 21, 2021, 11:25:04 PM
Frigates are way more limited resource than armor. It was the difference between losing your frigate and not losing it. Although that didn't make it the first pick neither elite candidate.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on April 22, 2021, 01:10:59 AM
While we're on the subject, the Fury definitely needs to be gazed upon by Alex's baleful eye.  I've had a lot of fun with that thing but it is absolutely wild for 15 DP.
Yeah, with all the medium energy weapon improvements, it feels quite strong. Probably should be at least 18 DP, maybe 20 IMO.
Yeah, Fury is about 2\3rds of an Aurora for half the price.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on April 22, 2021, 01:15:06 AM
There's no way Fury should have an equal or greater cost than an Apogee. Maybe play around a bit more with the nerfed Energy weapon mastery, because the old one made every non capital high tech ship seem vastly better than it actually is.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on April 22, 2021, 01:50:47 AM
I didn't actually use EWM, besides some battles to prove Doom os bonkers (and even then, I was just wrapping around for T4R). I have GI in my normal campaign and my officers, for the most part, too (I did have an officer with EWM, but she died too much and I fired her).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Sarissofoi on April 22, 2021, 02:55:07 AM
I agree with Talar that IM was overnefed.
It was useful for swarm of low tech frigates but now its just shitte.
Low tech is doesn't get any love in this patch.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: vholes on April 22, 2021, 03:42:06 AM
Hi,

A minor note - since at least 0.91 when I bought the game, the Linux version gives the relatively high severity error message

Security framework of XStream not initialized, XStream is probably vulnerable.

This shows up on the second and subsequent invocations of "sh starsector.sh > junk" in a terminal window.

On a different note, a minor QOL improvement I would much appreciate would be basic cursor text editing so I could rename "ISS Ten Thousand LIghtyears" to "VS Ten Thousand Lightyears" without having to retype the whole name.  I love the starship names, they add a lot of colour, but the prefixes get changed when they join my fleet.  ;)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Havoc on April 22, 2021, 04:46:04 AM
what linux dist do you use?

I'm playing on linux mint with openJDK  and ./ starsector.sh
it works but I can not switch to desktop while game is runnung
but no other issues yet (have not the newest patch but it is also .95a)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on April 22, 2021, 07:33:36 AM
Is there a way to rearrange the default ability assignment in campaign? Every time I start a new game, I put emergency burn in the last slot and get rid of distress call and it wastes a lot of my time.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Aereto on April 22, 2021, 08:34:22 AM
  • Tactical bombardments no longer count for "atrocities committed by player"

It's time to continue the orbital antimatter party.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Retry on April 22, 2021, 08:49:15 AM
There's no way Fury should have an equal or greater cost than an Apogee. Maybe play around a bit more with the nerfed Energy weapon mastery, because the old one made every non capital high tech ship seem vastly better than it actually is.
Fury doesn't need EWM to be exceptionally good.  I've never actually used EWM on my Furies (due to forgetting and getting Gunnery Implants instead).  Fury has a lot of things going for it at only 15 DP, if there's no other stat changes the Fury could easily become 18 DP.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Grievous69 on April 22, 2021, 09:05:02 AM
There's no way Fury should have an equal or greater cost than an Apogee. Maybe play around a bit more with the nerfed Energy weapon mastery, because the old one made every non capital high tech ship seem vastly better than it actually is.
Fury doesn't need EWM to be exceptionally good.  I've never actually used EWM on my Furies (due to forgetting and getting Gunnery Implants instead).  Fury has a lot of things going for it at only 15 DP, if there's no other stat changes the Fury could easily become 18 DP.
What is exceptionally good about it lol? People start comparing it to Aurora and then go "woah 2 Furies is much better than 1 Aurora". Well duuuh since Aurora is overpriced, and I've been saying that ever since it got nerfed. Compare it to a Hammerhead plus a frigate escort and you'll see it's not that crazy. If any high tech ship needs a slap on the wrist then it's Apogee, it should be at least 20 DP. Only then we can start discussing the real place for Fury, but I still wouldn't go higher than 16 DP.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 22, 2021, 09:29:13 AM
I used to be on the 'apogee OP' train, but it is feeling a lot worse on this patch tbh. I think it's because my officers are better on frigates now, and unofficered ships are pretty bad now that every enemy ship has an officer. I think it's fine as is. I would rather have a fury now. A fury would definitely smack a falcon or hammerhead + omen. It can support heavy blasters very comfortably with lots of flux to spare for anti-shield and also it can mount multiple medium missiles if you want to go that direction. Aurora is also much stronger with skill changes.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Retry on April 22, 2021, 10:33:22 AM
There's no way Fury should have an equal or greater cost than an Apogee. Maybe play around a bit more with the nerfed Energy weapon mastery, because the old one made every non capital high tech ship seem vastly better than it actually is.
Fury doesn't need EWM to be exceptionally good.  I've never actually used EWM on my Furies (due to forgetting and getting Gunnery Implants instead).  Fury has a lot of things going for it at only 15 DP, if there's no other stat changes the Fury could easily become 18 DP.
What is exceptionally good about it lol?
Fury has
-Cruiser grade range
-Destroyer level base speed (90) with a forward mobility system that the AI no longer uses suicidally
(Compare to Falcon at 75 base speed and MJ, Falcon has a tiny edge in overall retreat speed and Fury has a significant advantage in overall pursuit speed)
-1 to 2 Medium Missile slots in a fairly flexible configuration at its DP is simply excellent
-Excellent flux dissipation relative to the weapons available, very good for a 15 DP combatant overall
(the combination of this factor and the missile factor allows for the Falcon to function as an excellent strike boat, able to use its huge flux dissipation to comfortably power a HB + 2 secondary small energy weapons in addition to the impressive output 2 medium missiles can produce.)
-Unusually cheap shield upkeep compared to its effectiveness, and compared to other high-tech cruisers.
(0.7 efficiency and 180 upkeep, compared to Apogee's 0.7 efficiency and 420 upkeep, or Aurora's 0.8 efficiency and 400 upkeep)
Quote
Compare it to a Hammerhead plus a frigate escort and you'll see it's not that crazy.
My current favorite All-Purpose Fury (HB, 2x EMR Sabot Pods, 2x Ion Cannons) convincingly KO's a Hammerhead + Omen escort with little fuss under AI control, and that's without skills, officers, or SP.  Against less premium and more likely escorts in the campaign (ex: Lashers, Brawlers, Centurions) the Fury will effortlessly chew through the duo unsupervised, and that's before taking into account force multipliers like skills and S-mods.

The default game variants probably struggle against the matchup, but the Fury's default variants are terrible.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 22, 2021, 10:53:29 AM
There are so many good combos for fury with all the buffed energy weapons. IR pulse lasers, am blasters, pulse lasers, ion pulser heavy blaster etc. can all be used effectively. I've been enjoying pulse laser + ion pulser + 2x am blaster with a reaper launcher.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 22, 2021, 12:35:51 PM
Ok, oooone more hotfix - this one for an issue with the main storyline where
Spoiler
you couldn't escape from Magec using the gate
[close]

Apologies! Missed that somehow.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 22, 2021, 01:38:19 PM
Fury is okay and useful because it is cheap.  It cannot sustain two heavy blasters very well, but other energy weapons received buffs (while Heavy Blaster did not), so heavy blaster is not the only useful option.  Fury seems like a bigger Shrike.  I still think Aurora is overpriced (at least when map size is less than maximum), but it is not quite the lemon it was last release.  I probably prefer two Furies to one Aurora.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: vholes on April 22, 2021, 01:48:10 PM
what linux dist do you use?

I'm playing on linux mint with openJDK  and ./ starsector.sh
it works but I can not switch to desktop while game is runnung
but no other issues yet (have not the newest patch but it is also .95a)

Hi Havoc,

I'm using Manjaro (Arch variant).  I can't help with why you can't Alt-Tab out of the game, it just works for me.  The openJDK in Manjaro is currently 8u282, older than the version you are running, interesting.  Arch variants generally run newish versions of software/libraries unless there are good reasons not to... something in the Manjaro core software must need openJDK 8.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 22, 2021, 01:59:58 PM
Hi,

A minor note - since at least 0.91 when I bought the game, the Linux version gives the relatively high severity error message

Security framework of XStream not initialized, XStream is probably vulnerable.

This shows up on the second and subsequent invocations of "sh starsector.sh > junk" in a terminal window.

Oh - hi! Just wanted to mention, this isn't something to worry about. This could be a problem if, say, a program using xstream was downloading random XML files off the internet and some of them could be malicious. But since we're talking about a self-contained game loading XML files it itself is generating, it's not a problem.

On a different note, a minor QOL improvement I would much appreciate would be basic cursor text editing so I could rename "ISS Ten Thousand LIghtyears" to "VS Ten Thousand Lightyears" without having to retype the whole name.  I love the starship names, they add a lot of colour, but the prefixes get changed when they join my fleet.  ;)

(Yeah - I'd love to add that in at some point! It's kind of a royal pain, though - an outsized amount of effort compared to the result - so it's just never made it to the top of the TODO pile.)
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Ekibana on April 22, 2021, 02:40:55 PM
I wonder when will the
Code
"altMouseMoveToMassTransfer"
be defaulted to true, I can't imagine playing without it honestly :)
(to those wondering, here's a video:
hold alt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJb6esyMSHU))
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: WeiTuLo on April 22, 2021, 02:59:19 PM
I love that feature!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: XpanD on April 22, 2021, 03:59:43 PM
Same, one of the first tweaks I make to any new install.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Soban on April 22, 2021, 04:12:30 PM
Story request/thought that I thought might be useful. Spoilers, careful.

Spoiler
Currently the story ends rather abruptly after you get gate access. Return to Galatia yay! And then nothing. No missions, nothing more from that with no clues or hints what to do next (Wait for next content expansion for example) etc.

Do you think it would be possible to add a "Perhaps you should come back later" or something for the galatia academy, or if you try to contact the headmaster at the academy. She talks about a coronal hypershunt before she gets angry, but even after that I went to secure one from the super spoopy aliens that shoot what looks like dark matter at you and bring the coronal hypershunt into a working order, there is nothing at Galatia. No option to tell "Hey I secured this hypershunt that's within 10 AU of a gate" or something to the headmaster or someone else there to continue the story. Just an abrupt ending.

In the case that I'm a potato and have somehow actually missed something. Please do correct me. I'd love to continue the story. Perhaps the Galatia Academy missions could at least be kept going, as well if you've gotten all the way to the end, you're clearly a reliable little mercenary, so it wouldn't make sense, I think anyhow for them to not want to do business with you anymore. Or at least it does take replayablity away from the game since you lose access to all those missions.
[close]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: NoMercyForLudds_ on April 22, 2021, 04:57:57 PM
Story request/thought that I thought might be useful. Spoilers, careful.


You haven't missed anything. The story ends where you left it, for now.

Vanilla Starsector is a storytelling game, and it's not complete until the writers finish writing, which is hopefully in the next release.

If I remember it right, the last quest has a hint at it being the last, with some references to you stepping outside or gazing at the stars or smth like that.

I do understand your emotion though, and wish Starsector was finished here and now. The next best alternative is to play it with Nexerelin - at least it adds a win condition (and some badly needed dynamism in the Sector).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: oooh_senpai on April 22, 2021, 06:51:25 PM
New nav skill says that it gives +1% nav rating per hulls larger than destroyers, but i got only 5% with 7 cruisers (3 fury and 4 herons), is it a bug or carriers give only 0.5%?
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 22, 2021, 06:52:52 PM
Just noticed that Heavy Industry and Fuel Production without items add no Pather Interest.  Forges and synchrotron still add +4 interest, but since the industries themselves add no interest like they used to, they are now +4 instead of +6.  Mining, Refining, and Tech Mining still add interest like last release.

Also noticed that adding new items added +4 to Pather interest.  After adding the black turret to my Ground Defenses and the cyro CPU to my Military Base, cells appeared.  Annoyed, I promptly removed the items.  Now I am half expecting interest from installing other items like the Dynamo on a gas giant or the 10 demand items (Hypershunt or Orbital Lamp) on Pop&Inf.

Unless I go for size 3 colonies, I can forget about most items except obligatory forge and synchrotron (because military bases demand too much), and I can certainly forget about hypershunt/fusion lamp.  What good is getting the reward from all of the items only to be tormented by zombie cells?  +1 industry from feeding the hypershunt does me no good if I get cells for the trouble.

Also seems like if I want to play with items while avoiding cells, I need lots of planets, which means Colony Management (instead of Industrial Planning).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Baqar79 on April 22, 2021, 09:43:12 PM
@Megas
In my last game I didn't have any Pather interest (or at least I don't remember having any problems with them) despite having heavy industries with a Nanoforge and fuel production with a Synchrotron.  My hostility though isn't quite at 100% (89%), maybe that is the reason for that?  I've also never had Free Port on at any of my colonies. It's kind of nice not being bothered by the Ludic Path, though there still is a decent amount of pirate raids and expeditions.

Also with the doctrine changes there is quite a big difference in the fleet percentage as well now since that is a multiplier that comes after all the percentages (684% -> 537% which corresponds to 75% reduced to 37.5%), it's still pretty ridiculous, but I liked having a secure colony with silly sized detachment fleets.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 22, 2021, 10:16:41 PM
OK, I did tested the new IM and it is almost completely useless compared to what it was. Now it's just a buff dedicated for the low-tech ships. And the whole Combat tier 3 is now has only single more or less universally useful thing - projectile speed. What is of course elite. Because it make sense to hide that everyone will like to have under SP while providing specialized stuff for free. And for the users of high-tech ships with paper thin armor optimized for EWM the whole thing is like "move along, nothing to see here, just waste your skill point and go". Same goes for Technology tier 3. Dedicated to carriers now.

I'd dare to remind you that we already had the skill system what required you to waste skill points for access to the nice stuff.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on April 22, 2021, 10:49:19 PM
I have yet to play with IM beyond the destroyer stage, so I can't speak to how its going to play out for heavy ships, but it seems to be a good bonus. The skill is still reducing incoming damage by a pretty decent amount, still has -50% damage to weapons and engines so immediately protects from salamanders, ion chip, and medium hull hits knocking PD offline, and the elite skill protects hull decently.

It lowers the damage of a pulse laser to a hammerhead hull from 100/125 = 80% for no skill to 75/100 = 75% for non elite (not a huge reduction) to 75/150 = 50% for the elite skill, reducing the damage for that mid caliber weapon by 37.5% (quite large). For armor instead of hull, something like a heavy mortar round (110 HE for 220 damage) is going to do 67 damage to 41 damage for a relative reduction of 38.8%, or 38 damage with elite for a relative reduction of 43.3%. All the armor numbers are going to shift around as armor gets depleted, but that doesn't seem too bad, and I feel like a heavy mortar is a decently representative shot for mid caliber guns.

Lets see, for a tempest hull with elite, a pulse laser shot goes from 100/110 = 91% damage to 75/135 = 55.6% damage, or a 38.9% reduction in incoming damage. It goes from 14 shots to kill to 23 shots to kill. Thats a better bonus than damage control gives and is on top of 50% reduced damage to engines and weapons.

Its definitely a lot weaker than it was, but it feels reasonable to me. Without elite it protects armor pretty well (I'd need to do real tests to see how many more shots it allows, but I'd guess half?). With elite it protects hull pretty well - better than the industry skill that actually has a hull damage reduction % for mid caliber shots at least.

So yes the skill is weaker. But it seems to be in a reasonable shape instead of 'multiply hull by 4' levels where all but the largest shot size kinetic guns were reduced to doing minimum damage vs hull.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TaLaR on April 22, 2021, 10:58:28 PM
With armor being finite and very limited resource (for high tech), IM has to be quite ridiculous (like it was) to be attractive enough to pick it over skill that buff flux efficiency (shields, damage output, more system uptime, etc) or speed.
Armor comes into play only after AI loses flux war (which becomes MORE likely for ships that pick this skill instead of alternatives), flux efficiency and speed matter always. If AI did armor-tank kinetics selectively like player, there would be more reason to consider IM.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 22, 2021, 10:59:01 PM
Most damage is boosted now because of officer spam, often quite significantly. Not sure how well armor really stands up to all the all the stacked damage boosts you can get without some crazy derelict contingent shenanigans
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Thaago on April 22, 2021, 11:15:52 PM
Most damage is boosted now because of officer spam, often quite significantly. Not sure how well armor really stands up to all the all the stacked damage boosts you can get without some crazy derelict contingent shenanigans

I haven't had enough play time with the new values to know for sure. In RC12, an Enforcer with an officer could tank (with both shield and armor) the front of an onslaught with an officer for a long time without taking appreciable damage. Long enough to comfortably tangle and take their attention, eat the Onslaught's full flux bar, and still be at ~80% hitpoints. It couldn't solo an officered Onslaught (which would be crazy for a 9DP slow destroyer that can't kite at all) but it could comfortably tank all its firepower long enough for a few more enforcers to show up and secure the kill. Its probably not that good anymore: max armor went from 1200+150fpdr to 1200+50fpdr (not a huge change), and minimum armor for hull went from 214.5 to 114.5.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Voxette on April 22, 2021, 11:35:18 PM
Alex, is it really intentional that the non-combat phase ships count against the Phase Corps op limit?

I was hoping that would be patched. I don't know what purpose this serves, and it makes the description rather misleading.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Gennadios on April 22, 2021, 11:48:19 PM
One more thing, in the last update I ran across a hot, barren world with a decivilized population modifier. Found a smilar world to what I remembered in the current release. Named Tyronoe in the Morganna system in the new save, the only other modifiers are scattered ruins, abundant ore deposits, no atmosphere, and hot.

I don't know if this is a pre-made planet or a random generation bug, but it bugs the hell out of me every time I see it.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 23, 2021, 12:02:27 AM
There is no reason in new IM for the thin armored ships. Like at all. Want the protection - pick the ship with more armor. Only after you maxed out the armor the reason to pick IM finally emerges. Hence specialized buff for the low-tech. But since we do not have the true low tech heavy frigate it is also exist mostly for heavier ships.

Not to choose Scarab for the EWM and provide its survivability, while it is almost always at the high flux, with armor skills but just pick Brawler insteed. Zero synergy. And all those minor buffs, like "it let you survive 25% more of low powered projectiles" are of no importance. It doesn't change the bigger=better paradigm. In this case, heavier armor. And if your choice is something else the whole tier is a waste of a skill point. With the further insult of the elite "projectile speed" option.

New skill system is about major things what makes the noticeable difference. Not about minor details. You don't have the skill points for them.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TaLaR on April 23, 2021, 12:11:12 AM
At the very least the nerfed IM skill is not a generalist skill anymore. So combat 3 is now a pick between 2 specialist skills, and many ships don't benefit much from either.

Also, ships that do have enough armor to benefit from IM are mostly capitals. And would prefer RS anyway.

New skill system is about major things what makes the noticeable difference. Not about minor details. You don't have the skill points for them.

Yep, pick a small niche and hyper-specialize in it. Often to the point that you can optimally pilot only single ship.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: oooh_senpai on April 23, 2021, 12:14:51 AM
Well, before this patch +150 armor was incredibly huge, just a must-have for any ship. But you maybe forget that enemies won't have it now too, so since you are killing them way faster, you are getting way less damage. Cause there are usually more enemies than your ships it's not a bad change for your fleet to not be running of ppt at the middle of battle.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: TaLaR on April 23, 2021, 12:18:29 AM
That's true, lower average survivability = higher impact of player ship.
The only issue is the skill tree structure, that makes player suffer for every tier that doesn't have a universally useful skill (RS is good, but only for a small subset of long ranged ships. It's also at least ok for just above average range ships).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: oooh_senpai on April 23, 2021, 12:27:17 AM
Yep, i like the idea to choose skills that you actually want instead of never-good-enough binary tiers. Especially if we have such a low number of skillpoints. Especially when there are permanent skills locking 1/3 of your sp pool. But maybe Alex will bring something new with another patch, or somehow improve that we have now.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 23, 2021, 12:29:06 AM
Well, before this patch +150 armor was incredibly huge, just a must-have for any ship. But you maybe forget that enemies won't have it now too, so since you are killing them way faster, you are getting way less damage. Cause there are usually more enemies than your ships it's not a bad change for your fleet to not be running of ppt at the middle of battle.

Major cause of destruction for my frigates were random potshots or intense bursts from the large weapons. Frigate, DPSed down with the small arms fire, is my blatant mistake and nothing else.
My offensive package has already included effect of the old IM. AM Blasters and Reapers do not really care about it thanks to their huge single shot damage. No noticeable change in time to kill the target.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: vholes on April 23, 2021, 12:38:23 AM
Hi,

A minor note - since at least 0.91 when I bought the game, the Linux version gives the relatively high severity error message

Security framework of XStream not initialized, XStream is probably vulnerable.

This shows up on the second and subsequent invocations of "sh starsector.sh > junk" in a terminal window.

Oh - hi! Just wanted to mention, this isn't something to worry about. This could be a problem if, say, a program using xstream was downloading random XML files off the internet and some of them could be malicious. But since we're talking about a self-contained game loading XML files it itself is generating, it's not a problem.

On a different note, a minor QOL improvement I would much appreciate would be basic cursor text editing so I could rename "ISS Ten Thousand LIghtyears" to "VS Ten Thousand Lightyears" without having to retype the whole name.  I love the starship names, they add a lot of colour, but the prefixes get changed when they join my fleet.  ;)

(Yeah - I'd love to add that in at some point! It's kind of a royal pain, though - an outsized amount of effort compared to the result - so it's just never made it to the top of the TODO pile.)


Hi Alex,

I'm impressed you are spending time looking at minor quibbles like mine.

Yeah, the security warning isn't a biggie, it's just the only one to reach that level of severity.  I have no feeling if initialisation would be a one-line call or stupidly complicated.  My IT reflexes are to eventually nail ALL warning or higher level messages, it is amazing what comes out of the woodwork.  But doing this isn't productive in a feature development sense.

I've written that same cursor editing code several times over the years so I'm underestimating complications.  I'll live, you have plenty of more rewarding things to do.

Thanks for all your efforts!
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: oooh_senpai on April 23, 2021, 12:40:17 AM
Well, before this patch +150 armor was incredibly huge, just a must-have for any ship. But you maybe forget that enemies won't have it now too, so since you are killing them way faster, you are getting way less damage. Cause there are usually more enemies than your ships it's not a bad change for your fleet to not be running of ppt at the middle of battle.

Major cause of destruction for my frigates were random potshots or intense bursts from the large weapons. Frigate, DPSed down with the small arms fire, is my blatant mistake and nothing else.
My offensive package has already included effect of the old IM. AM Blasters and Reapers do not really care about it thanks to their huge single shot damage. No noticeable change in time to kill the target.
You want undead frigates, don't you? I'm pretty sure that's how it should work when small ships stay on the battlefield along with capitals and 25 dp cruisers.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Histidine on April 23, 2021, 12:44:13 AM
Random no-I-won't-explain thought: Buff IM back to +100 effective armor for damage reduction, or make the +50 be real armor.*

*Actually, no, that's worse once your armor gets stripped. Which just goes to show that the implementation is messed up: Fake armor is better than real armor, because fake armor can't be destroyed.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: stg7 on April 23, 2021, 12:56:29 AM
What would be nice is a reroll button to randomise a ship's name
because i'm uncreative
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Flacman3000 on April 23, 2021, 12:59:10 AM
What would be nice is a reroll button to randomise a ship's name
because i'm uncreative

Being Uncreative is itself creativity ;) just name it anything and work on it. One of my modded ships is called the Phazon just mix-up stuff.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Lucky33 on April 23, 2021, 01:03:40 AM
Well, before this patch +150 armor was incredibly huge, just a must-have for any ship. But you maybe forget that enemies won't have it now too, so since you are killing them way faster, you are getting way less damage. Cause there are usually more enemies than your ships it's not a bad change for your fleet to not be running of ppt at the middle of battle.

Major cause of destruction for my frigates were random potshots or intense bursts from the large weapons. Frigate, DPSed down with the small arms fire, is my blatant mistake and nothing else.
My offensive package has already included effect of the old IM. AM Blasters and Reapers do not really care about it thanks to their huge single shot damage. No noticeable change in time to kill the target.
You want undead frigates, don't you? I'm pretty sure that's how it should work when small ships stay on the battlefield along with capitals and 25 dp cruisers.

I want synergy between EWM and IM. Frigates didn't became undead with the old skill. It was the Derelict Contingent what made them this way. What IM did is what it noticeably lowered random loses.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Baqar79 on April 23, 2021, 01:14:41 AM
What would be nice is a reroll button to randomise a ship's name
because i'm uncreative
I'll second that!

What I usually end up doing is taking the original ship name and then just try rearranging and removing parts of the original name until something sounds like it might work.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: SCC on April 23, 2021, 03:00:21 AM
I didn't even notice IM's impact on frigates. It did make that one Hegemony bounty harder, because even though I was making progress, I just run out of PPT and so did my fleet.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 23, 2021, 04:35:11 AM
@Megas
In my last game I didn't have any Pather interest (or at least I don't remember having any problems with them) despite having heavy industries with a Nanoforge and fuel production with a Synchrotron.  My hostility though isn't quite at 100% (89%), maybe that is the reason for that?  I've also never had Free Port on at any of my colonies. It's kind of nice not being bothered by the Ludic Path, though there still is a decent amount of pirate raids and expeditions.
Which release did you play?  As soon as I updated to RC14, at least three more core worlds (Sindria, Aztlan, and one other) that did not have cells previously suddenly got them. 

Also, if your colony was size 3, then cells never appear until size grows to 4.  (If I plan to then spam spam Alpha colonies, I plan to keep all of those colonies at size 3.)

Like I wrote before, as soon as I installed items into Ground Defenses and Patrol HQ, my colony got a Pather cell because both items added +4 interest each.  Nanoforge and Synchrotron still add +4 interest, so I know I will get a cell if I put those two together on a colony bigger than size 3.

Re: Impact Mitigation
The main reason to take it now is less damage to weapons and engines.  If not for that, I would take Ranged Specialization because 800 range is not very long.  Even Harbinger can strike at about 1000 range with Q. Disruptor (enhanced by Systems Expertise) and Phase Lances with range extensions, and getting max range is not hard with a capital.  I wonder if Mine Strike counts for Ranged Specialization.

Impact Mitigation lost too much protection.  Now I am considering dropping my frigates and chain deploy solo phase ships (Harbinger or Doom) to take out their small ships across multiple rounds until only the big ships are left, then deploy my fleet against their weakened fleet.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Baqar79 on April 23, 2021, 05:06:39 AM
Which release did you play?  As soon as I updated to RC14, at least three more core worlds (Sindria, Aztlan, and one other) that did not have cells previously suddenly got them. 

Also, if your colony was size 3, then cells never appear until size grows to 4.  (If I plan to then spam spam Alpha colonies, I plan to keep all of those colonies at size 3.)

Like I wrote before, as soon as I installed items into Ground Defenses and Patrol HQ, my colony got a Pather cell because both items added +4 interest each.  Nanoforge and Synchrotron still add +4 interest, so I know I will get a cell if I put those two together on a colony bigger than size 3.

I may of dived in at the wrong time (sorry), this was on RC12 before I ran the update.  The planets are all at maximum population, I think this one should of gained their attention:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/XJBeHlk.png)
[close]

Still I was surprised I didn't get any Pather interest at all in this game, though the Pirates and expeditions still kept me busy.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 23, 2021, 05:18:41 AM
I may of dived in at the wrong time (sorry), this was on RC12 before I ran the update.  The planets are all at maximum population, I think this one should of gained their attention:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/XJBeHlk.png)
[close]

Still I was surprised I didn't get any Pather interest at all in this game, though the Pirates and expeditions still kept me busy.
You will probably get Pather cells after updating to RC14.  More core worlds suddenly got cells after the update, and they are not completely loaded like your colony.

Playing whack-a-hole Pathers at least once a year is annoying when there are also pirates and expeditions to deal with, and you still have things you want to do that take time.  There is a reason why I am obsessed with destroying all of the core worlds, namely to stop the expeditions.

However, I suppose the "Stabilize" option can be considered a bribe.  Maybe keep stability 10 at all times and "Stabilize" when the Pathers roll their 25% to penetrate your stability force.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: KDR_11k on April 23, 2021, 06:46:24 AM
If you want your 150 virtual armor go stick Militarized Subsystems on a frigate, get Auxiliary Support and combine that with Elite IM.

Which release did you play?  As soon as I updated to RC14, at least three more core worlds (Sindria, Aztlan, and one other) that did not have cells previously suddenly got them. 

Also, if your colony was size 3, then cells never appear until size grows to 4.  (If I plan to then spam spam Alpha colonies, I plan to keep all of those colonies at size 3.)

Like I wrote before, as soon as I installed items into Ground Defenses and Patrol HQ, my colony got a Pather cell because both items added +4 interest each.  Nanoforge and Synchrotron still add +4 interest, so I know I will get a cell if I put those two together on a colony bigger than size 3.

I may of dived in at the wrong time (sorry), this was on RC12 before I ran the update.  The planets are all at maximum population, I think this one should of gained their attention:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/XJBeHlk.png)
[close]

Still I was surprised I didn't get any Pather interest at all in this game, though the Pirates and expeditions still kept me busy.

Yeah, they were bugged in RC12 and ignored everything except Alpha Admin.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Alex on April 23, 2021, 07:45:21 AM
Alex, is it really intentional that the non-combat phase ships count against the Phase Corps op limit?

I was hoping that would be patched. I don't know what purpose this serves, and it makes the description rather misleading.

It's a bit weird - they don't have the civ-grade hullmod, so technically they're not civilian. But I can see how it's weird/annoying. It's on my todo list of things to look at; a ton of things are that didn't get into the hotfix.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 23, 2021, 08:03:01 AM
Currently, I have ten Phantoms in my fleet (and plan to go even higher) to help steal blueprints from Culann.  That place is a meatgrinder even after I kill the battlestation to lower its defenses, and it is only size 5.  Lose about a thousand marines.  (I do not want to think about what I need to steal from size 7 places, namely Kazeron and Sindria.  Not touching Chicomoztoc except for its forge.)

Kanta's Den is nowhere near the meatgrinder the quest for Zal claims.  I lose much less than what I lose from raiding low defense planets with blueprints.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: Megas on April 23, 2021, 08:39:01 AM
Just took a quick peek in one of the data files with the items in it, and noticed "pather4" for most equipped items, which explains +4 to interest.  The exception is Hypershunt, which has "pather8".  I guess that means +8 to interest, which is more than enough for a cell.  Since the colony needs to be big to meet 9 or 10 demand for transplutonics, I probably end up throwing the hypershunt in the trash, or maybe do some devious exploit against a core world (like plant a Pather cell to destabilize the place, unless it enforces the 10 ly restriction).
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: IonDragonX on April 23, 2021, 09:02:05 AM
Well, before this patch +150 armor was incredibly huge, just a must-have for any ship.
I think it’s the flat number that is the biggest factor. It should have been something like 50/100/150/200 based on hull size from the start. 150 is just out of balance for Frigates
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: AcaMetis on April 23, 2021, 09:08:25 AM
Just took a quick peek in one of the data files with the items in it, and noticed "pather4" for most equipped items, which explains +4 to interest.  The exception is Hypershunt, which has "pather8".  I guess that means +8 to interest, which is more than enough for a cell.  Since the colony needs to be big to meet 9 or 10 demand for transplutonics, I probably end up throwing the hypershunt in the trash, or maybe do some devious exploit against a core world (like plant a Pather cell to destabilize the place, unless it enforces the 10 ly restriction).
Last I checked it does enforce the 10LY restriction (and activation) in order to work, but they'll install it regardless, so it might still generate interest even though it won't generate any demand or do anything else?

I mean hypershunt taps are basically trophies in any case, since by the time you can use them you've proven that you're 100% done with your fleet both in terms of combat and trading, and therefore don't need them.
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: oooh_senpai on April 23, 2021, 09:13:51 AM
Well, before this patch +150 armor was incredibly huge, just a must-have for any ship.
I think it’s the flat number that is the biggest factor. It should have been something like 50/100/150/200 based on hull size from the start. 150 is just out of balance for Frigates
yea, 200 on top of 2000*0.05=300 indestructible armor. It would make capitals and some cruisers unkillable. No thanks
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: oooh_senpai on April 23, 2021, 10:05:09 AM
Changes as of Hotfix #5 (-RC14), April 21, 2021, 1:20pm EST
  • Tactical bombardments no longer count for "atrocities committed by player"
What does it actually mean? I still cannot launch tactical bombardment without becoming hostile, no matter of transponder being turned off or on.[/list]
Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
Post by: oooh_senpai on April 23, 2021, 10:05:34 AM
    Changes as of Hotfix #5 (-RC14), April 21, 2021, 1:20pm EST
    • Tactical bombardments no longer count for "atrocities committed by player"
    What does it actually mean? I still cannot launch tactical bombardment without becoming hostile, no matter of transponder being turned off or on.
    [/list][/list]
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on April 23, 2021, 10:06:35 AM
    Ah, it's not a huge deal, but I don't want to spoil it.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: IonDragonX on April 23, 2021, 10:20:35 AM
    Well, before this patch +150 armor was incredibly huge, just a must-have for any ship.
    I think it’s the flat number that is the biggest factor. It should have been something like 50/100/150/200 based on hull size from the start. 150 is just out of balance for Frigates
    yea, 200 on top of 2000*0.05=300 indestructible armor. It would make capitals and some cruisers unkillable. No thanks
    You know what? Maybe you're right.
    Lets make it 25/50/100/150 based on hull size!  :P There! All better.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Hiruma Kai on April 23, 2021, 11:09:31 AM
    So I've started a low tech run in RC14, and the larger armor tankers feel a lot squisher than they did in 0.9.1a.  Now this may be intentional, but officered Onslaughts are noticeably weaker to small and medium weapons fire.

    The loss of synergizing armor tanking skills seems to have hurt a number of armor tanking ship in the transition from 0.9.1a to 0.9.5a.  Enforcer probably doesn't notice as much since it received a fairly large armor bump.

    In 0.9.1a, skill wise the options were:
    +150 armor damage for calculation purposes (reduced to +50 as elite)
    Maximum mitigation raised from 85% to 90% (removed - so armor at best is multiplied by 6.67 instead of 10, an effective reduction of 33% at the top end, or against kinetics overall)
    -20% armor taken (increased to -25%, or 1.2 more armor converts to 1.33 more armor, a 10.8% net improvement)
    +50% armor for calculation purposes (removed - so period of maximum 6.67 reduction is reduced)
    -50% kinetic damage (removed)

    Heavy armor hull mod for a capital improved from 400 to 500 armor.  A heavy armor fully skilled Onslaught (2150 armor, 100% CR) likely was taking minimum damage from most kinetics for the entire time (i.e. 100 damage or less).  Which meant, 119,444 kinetic damage to break through to hull in one spot.  Now a heavy armored Onslaught (2250 armor, 100% CR) tanks 44,466, or about a factor of 3 less.

    It's less dramatic for energy and high explosive admittedly.  A pulse laser's 100 damage used to remain around 7.2 until around 330 armor was left.  An Onslaught's armor would have absorbed ~27,600 worth of pulse laser damage.  Now, minimum pulse laser would be 10.1, and starts to rise at around 330 armor as well. So it absorbs about ~20,500 worth of pulse laser damage.

    So against the moderate damage category (around 100 damage per shot), if armor had an efficiency like shields, it went from 0.75 to 1.0 for energy, and 0.3 to 1.0 against kinetics.

    Now, because of the residual armor mechanic, these skills have a large effect on hull damage as well.  Assuming all shots land in the same spot (a bad assumption, but it's what I've got), and ignoring shields, it took approximately 915 unskilled pulse laser shots to kill an Onslaught in 0.9.1a.  In 0.9.5a RC14, it takes about 552, roughly only 60% as much.  If you assume spread out shots, the ratio becomes even worse, as the armor holds up longer in 0.9.1a.

    On the other hand, in 0.9.1a, it took 6 unskilled reapers (4000 HE damage each) to kill , and it 0.9.5a, it still takes 6 unskilled reapers to kill, so the high end of high explosive damage is pretty much not a noticeable down grade.

    Shield tanking, on the other hand, has gotten stronger in the transition.

    For skills we had:
    -20% shield damage taken (same)
    10% of hard flux dissipation (improved to 15%)
    -25% high explosive damage (improved to -30% as elite)
    +20% max capacitors (improved to flat +10)
    +20% max vents (improved to flat +10)
    +10% flux capacity (improved to +20% for 240 DP, same at 480 DP)
    +10% flux dissipation (improved to +20% for 240 DP, same at 480 DP)

    At this point, hardened shields and shield modulation are likely much better investments on high armor AI controlled ships than Impact mitigation and heavy armor - which was kinda true back in 0.9.1a as well due to the nature of the flux war and AI.  Although, in the presence of small ships and no HE missiles, at least I saw my AI Onslaughts vent while under fire.  They seem less willing now.  I will note, if you want maximum damage absorption, you obviously take both, because they do improve things, but you should prioritize the shields first.

    If people wanted to buff high armor ships specifically, as opposed to generically help all ships minimum armor, effectively a hull tanking mechanism, the 0.85 to 0.9 maximum reduction was a good option.  It's a further 33% buff at the high end, that falls off at the low end (since there isn't enough armor to reach a 0.9 reduction level).

    I should go check to see if the AI battles mod has been updated.  I'm willing to bet shield modulation + hardened shield Enforcers and Onslaughts would beat impact mitigation + heavy armor versions in a head to head match up, all else being equal.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on April 23, 2021, 11:22:30 AM
    Thank you for the analysis! Hmm; I wonder if IM shouldn't get some kind of bonus that specifically helps vs high-damage hits in the future; let me make a note about that. It'd be thematic, useful, and it would not create the problem of nullifying kinetic/low-hit damage vs hull. Something like being able to eat an extra couple of Reapers with an Onslaught - without changing the Pulse Laser numbers - seems like it'd be really nice.

    I'm not sure whether including +flux stats skills in this analysis only on the side of the shield-tanking makes 100% sense. That is - of course they help you shield-tank! But you also get significant benefits from them while armor-tanking, since your goal there is generally to win the flux war, and the flux stats help with that, too. I'm not sure exactly how you'd compare this, though; lots of factors to consider.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SCC on April 23, 2021, 11:27:10 AM
    I would prefer bias against low-damage hits, since it means that when armour tanking, you had to watch out for big hits (reapers and whatnot) and catch them. If performance against all hit strengths is normalised, then it doesn't really matter what are you going to block.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on April 23, 2021, 11:39:43 AM
    I get what you're saying, but we're not talking extremes here. Cutting the effective damage of a Reaper by 20% or some such is not going to make it into something you don't care about blocking. It just makes mistakes be punished a bit less - one might say, it mitigates their impact*.

    (*Sorry)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: IonDragonX on April 23, 2021, 12:09:11 PM
    So I've started a low tech run in RC14, and the larger armor tankers feel a lot squisher than they did in 0.9.1a.  Now this may be intentional, but officered Onslaughts are noticeably weaker to small and medium weapons fire.
    -snip-
    I didn't see you mention the +20% damage to capitals and Frigates dealing another +20% to everything. Did I miss that? I feel like Onslaughts in particular are pretty vulnerable to both these cumulative debuffs since they can't shield their rear nor turn very well.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Thaago on April 23, 2021, 12:19:15 PM
    I can confirm that, having used a bunch of Onslaughts. They are stronger from the front that before thanks to the buffs and giant piles of OP they have, but are weaker to fast flanking frigates hitting up the engines. Its something I really need to watch out for in battle, often assigning fighter strikes to phase ships that get near with interceptors to chase them out.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Hiruma Kai on April 23, 2021, 01:14:18 PM
    So I've started a low tech run in RC14, and the larger armor tankers feel a lot squisher than they did in 0.9.1a.  Now this may be intentional, but officered Onslaughts are noticeably weaker to small and medium weapons fire.
    -snip-
    I didn't see you mention the +20% damage to capitals and Frigates dealing another +20% to everything. Did I miss that? I feel like Onslaughts in particular are pretty vulnerable to both these cumulative debuffs since they can't shield their rear nor turn very well.

    No, this was assuming attackers with no buffs to damage for both editions.  Back in 0.9.1a, there was divide armor by a factor of 1.5 for calculation purposes (or increase damage by 50% for calculation purposes) from targeting analysis, along with the flat +15% damage from Ordinance expertise, which I neglected as well as potential buffs from 0.9.5a.  I also assumed 70% CR for enemies and 100% CR for Onslaught (since that buffs armor).  I'm not familiar with the distribution of fleet skills for enemy fleets, and I assume their officers I assume have random skill distributions.  If I do a quick search for wolfpack_tactics in my current save game file, I get one hit for Kanta, but that is presumably just a snap shot of potential fleets.

    Although, now that I think about it, Targeting Analysis + Ordinance Expertise used to deal +30% to shields, and the 0.9.5a Target Analysis skill itself only deals 20% to capital shields down to 0% to frigate shields.  So that's another indirect shield buff, but only for officered enemy ships with the correct skills.  So it's hard to gauge how much it applies.  It is much easier to control for which skills I pick for my own officers and fleet benefits I have.

    I will point out, I use the omni-shield hull mod on my Onslaughts.  I actually used it back in 0.9.1a.  A fully skilled defensive officer (Evasive Maneuvers, Active Countermeasures, Impact Mitigation, Defensive Systems) in an omni-shield, hardened shield, heavy armor Onslaught was an incredibly tough nut to crack in 0.9.1a.  The AI is more willing to lower shields with omni-shields versus front shields, and helps a lot with a stray reaper or other missile from behind.  The buffs to the Onslaught in 0.9.5a improved it's shield tanking.  Cheaper omni-shield, s-mod providing more OP for capacitors, heavy ballistics integration providing more OP for capacitors, less flux spent on TPCs.  It's just those buffs are of smaller scale than the factors of 2 or more the old armor skill synergies provided.

    To be honest, all non-phase vanilla ships are shield tankers. (Yes, I'm ignoring Derelict Contingent, because it's acknowledged to be broken, and small unshielded cargo frigates, because most people don't use them as primary combat ships).  The fundamental AI is the same between an Onslaught and an Apogee.  Shields are used to absorb damage first.  An Onslaught AI is more willing to vent, as incoming damage is a smaller fraction of it's non-renewable hit points, but fundamentally it is trying to take as much incoming damage on it's shield as possible while also winning the flux war.

    Which is why it's hard to make armor skills as good as shield skills.  Shields simply are more universal and always get used.  You have to go to some extreme lengths to make armor more noticeable or beneficial to improve, as it most often comes into play under losing the flux war conditions.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on April 23, 2021, 05:44:32 PM
    Currently, I have ten Phantoms in my fleet (and plan to go even higher) to help steal blueprints from Culann.  That place is a meatgrinder even after I kill the battlestation to lower its defenses, and it is only size 5.  Lose about a thousand marines.  (I do not want to think about what I need to steal from size 7 places, namely Kazeron and Sindria.  Not touching Chicomoztoc except for its forge.)

    Kanta's Den is nowhere near the meatgrinder the quest for Zal claims.  I lose much less than what I lose from raiding low defense planets with blueprints.

    I lose about 350 marines raiding Chico for the forge without the codes, and 19 with the codes. This was after taking out its space station and tac bombing their defenses. I think defenses were around 1000 before or after the tac bombing, and I had around 10-11k raid strength from like 3k marines, various ships, and the raid boosting skill.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: THEASD on April 23, 2021, 08:05:10 PM
    Maybe issue(in RC-15):
    Spoiler
    I got an atlas2, equipped with some package.
    (https://ftp.bmp.ovh/imgs/2021/04/a5ff247d794b8090.png)

    Everything looks normal now.
    (https://ftp.bmp.ovh/imgs/2021/04/ea92540684ae22c0.png)

    Then, I built-in the package, remove mili subsystems.
    (https://ftp.bmp.ovh/imgs/2021/04/56c64bb7de46d558.png)

    Things got broken.
    (https://ftp.bmp.ovh/imgs/2021/04/52c903e8d841d98a.png)
    [close]

    And another minor issue:
    com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.intel.bar.events.BaseBarEventWithPerson
    method createPerson()
    person.setPostId(getPersonRank()) maybe some kind of code typo?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on April 23, 2021, 08:31:04 PM
    Thank you! First one's a known issue; just fixed up the second - definitely a typo there.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Sarissofoi on April 23, 2021, 08:41:38 PM
    Do assigning Alpha AI actually work?
    I started use it and it I have impression that it make loot worse not better.
    Can anyone check it?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: KDR_11k on April 24, 2021, 12:24:54 AM
    Just took a quick peek in one of the data files with the items in it, and noticed "pather4" for most equipped items, which explains +4 to interest.  The exception is Hypershunt, which has "pather8".  I guess that means +8 to interest, which is more than enough for a cell.  Since the colony needs to be big to meet 9 or 10 demand for transplutonics, I probably end up throwing the hypershunt in the trash, or maybe do some devious exploit against a core world (like plant a Pather cell to destabilize the place, unless it enforces the 10 ly restriction).
    I've had a hypershunt spawn within 10 ly of the core worlds. Also I get the sense that Alex likes the word "shunt".
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SCC on April 24, 2021, 01:37:56 AM
    Hey Alex, did you change anything about merc generation? I can't find any now. Trying to find them makes me really wish I could have more than one fleet, or at least that there were fleet templates so I could swap quickly between different fleet configurations...
    Edit: I think they are just that rare (1 in the entire sector at the time I checked).
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Lucky33 on April 24, 2021, 04:48:18 AM
    I got a mission to analyze the coronal hypershunt. Regular mission "run the sensor package" etc. Is that ok?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on April 24, 2021, 07:32:27 AM
    After killing some endgame bounties, all that is left for me to do is develop my colonies to size 6 (I finally decided where to place my permanent colonies), try to bring a coronal hypershunt online (killed off Tesseracts on one of them), and maybe try contacts.

    After that, I may write a feedback post.  I have not been able to play Starsector as much as I used to.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Histidine on April 24, 2021, 10:23:01 AM
    Impact Mitigation has lost the -50% kinetic damage to armor bonus. Advanced Countermeasures is now 1/3 dead!

    Now let's go 2/3 by removing the HE damage reduction to shields from Shield Modulation. Either bring back shield upkeep reduction as the elite bonus, or move the hard flux dissipation to it.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: DancingMonkey on April 24, 2021, 10:47:46 AM
    is it safe to just copy paste my init file onto the the new downloads? Kinda getting tired of manually redo'ing my init file every time.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Sarissofoi on April 24, 2021, 01:32:06 PM
    There is energy spec and missile spec but no ballistic spec.
    I smell a racial discrimination here.
    t. Chaingun hobbyist
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on April 24, 2021, 02:23:17 PM
    is it safe to just copy paste my init file onto the the new downloads? Kinda getting tired of manually redo'ing my init file every time.

    Are you talking about settings.json? It has the same lines between RC14 and RC15.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Anvel on April 24, 2021, 04:00:27 PM
    Impact Mitigation has lost the -50% kinetic damage to armor bonus. Advanced Countermeasures is now 1/3 dead!

    Now let's go 2/3 by removing the HE damage reduction to shields from Shield Modulation. Either bring back shield upkeep reduction as the elite bonus, or move the hard flux dissipation to it.
    Agreed about removing HE dr bonus and giving a bonus to shields rise/move speeds instead.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Histidine on April 24, 2021, 05:37:58 PM
    is it safe to just copy paste my init file onto the the new downloads? Kinda getting tired of manually redo'ing my init file every time.
    For the longer term, it can be easier to make your own mod that contains the settings overrides you want (works with config files of other mods too).
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Euripides on April 25, 2021, 10:29:56 AM
    I just want to give feedback on AI in the latest release candidate:

    It's significantly improved aggression-wise from the initial release. Currently my only serious problem with the AI now is that it massively over-values enemy fighters to the point that my frigates will actually break contact with enemy ships to go off and chase fighters around the map (!)

    In fact, I just finished a battle where 3 of my frigates followed and surrounded a lone enemy fighter, treating it as if it were a frigate, destroyer, cruiser, etc. itself while the enemy still had some 8 or so ships in play

    The AI seems to be putting far too much importance on strikecraft. Fighters can be dangerous but they do not warrant my frigates breaking off contact with actual ships to go and chase down. Meanwhile I am finding that when a frigate is being overwhelmed by fighters, it likewise won't do the appropriate thing and disengage - this is when a frigate actually needs to care about fighters. Not when a fighter is off by itself doing nothing, but when there is a swarm on the frigate and its at 80% flux or worse and needs to back out of the current engagement or die.

    I haven't seen yet if my capital ships treat fighters the same way, since I usually run very light fleets, but I certainly hope not.

    There needs to be a better estimate of the capabilities of a lone fighter and a swarm of fighters. Right now I feel like strikecraft swarms are undervalued in how dangerous they are and lone fighters overvalued. A few mods have strikecraft that are actually individually dangerous so there should probably be more taken into account than simply numbers in proximity, but at the very least a basic check in the vein of "Am I being surrounded by fighters? Yes. Ok I should back off and deal with them/move to friendly point defense/help" would be nice.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Wyvern on April 25, 2021, 10:57:22 AM
    ...You know, now that you mention that, I've seen that too.

    It is, arguably, correct behavior in one case: when fighting against [super-redacted], you do need to hunt down each individual fighter.

    But I've also seen a frigate (with an eliminate order no less!) dance uselessly around an enemy while trying to kill the target's drone, most of its shots going wide because it simply refused to focus on the thing that was spawning that drone. Admittedly, said target was a mod-added ship, so in vanilla you're less likely to see just a chain-respawned high-durability drone... but the targeting was still off; it shouldn't have been focusing on that in the first place, nevermind going cat-after-laser-pointer hard enough to kill the drone three or four times before getting around to finishing off the last sliver of health that the actual target had.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Timid on April 25, 2021, 11:44:56 AM
    May we have something in the .faction file like for officerSkills similar to how commanderSkills work? It's weird to see officers that are available to hire having phase mastery, when the faction itself never has access to phase ships.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on April 25, 2021, 11:56:51 AM
    Hmm; made a note re: fighters, thank you! Is there an easy-to-reproduce case of frigates over-targeting them when it's *not* a case of the target having drones?

    May we have something in the .faction file like for officerSkills similar to how commanderSkills work? It's weird to see officers that are available to hire having phase mastery, when the faction itself never has access to phase ships.

    Maybe? I'm not sure Phase Mastery itself will stick around as a phase-exclusive skill; so, we'll see!
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Arcagnello on April 25, 2021, 12:21:38 PM
    Hmm; made a note re: fighters, thank you! Is there an easy-to-reproduce case of frigates over-targeting them when it's *not* a case of the target having drones?

    May we have something in the .faction file like for officerSkills similar to how commanderSkills work? It's weird to see officers that are available to hire having phase mastery, when the faction itself never has access to phase ships.

    Maybe? I'm not sure Phase Mastery itself will stick around as a phase-exclusive skill; so, we'll see!

    Someone must have went over Youtube and watched some "mad skills" videos of Phase vessels just humiliating everything in general with the new combos  ;D

    There's this one video of a Harbinger dealing with the story content in a way that made me enthusiastically laugh out loud while on public transport that you ought to see if you have not already from another thread I posted this in. Spoilers ahead ofc
    Spoiler
    https://youtu.be/W7QBq55mFMw (https://youtu.be/W7QBq55mFMw)
    [close]

    And even then, mad skills aside, there are very few things that can actually deal with either one Officered Doom or a pair of AM blaster/Ion Pulser Harbingers with both phase mastery AND systems expertise. A Harbinger just chain-disrupting a single target 4 times in a row with 50% more range has got to be the most annoying thing that can happen to you in Starsector right now  :P

    Edit: Oh, OH! I did not even mention the fact you can spam Overridden Phase frigades with officers and Wolfpack Tactics, successfully combining incredibly potent officer skills, massively boosted peak performance times and damage PLUS safety overrides (which makes both phase frigades go at over 700 real time speed if I did the math correctly, with Elite Phase Mastery).

    I think you should still be able to both install safety overrides and Antimatter Blasters on both Afflictor and the..uh, the other one that not many people use because the Afflictor exists. The only issue these to little devil's have is that the AI really likes faceplanting itself into the enemy hull or shield with them, then again Wolfpack Tactics prevents the loss of the ships aswell.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: xenoargh on April 25, 2021, 12:55:14 PM
    The installer keeps locking up at overwriting LICENSE.txt.  Tried two downloads; I'll delete the directory and try again.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on April 25, 2021, 12:56:08 PM
    Yep, sometimes it does that. No idea why, Just Windows Things I think. Deleting the folder will do the trick for sure.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: xenoargh on April 25, 2021, 01:10:17 PM
    Still trying to figure that out, but yeah, just tried an older installer, same issue.  Probably my "fault" for installing something into the Desktop path; this is probably some "fix" for ransomware, lol.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: xenoargh on April 25, 2021, 01:18:58 PM
    Aha!  It is, indeed, an anti-ransomware feature.  Win10 Defender has a setting you can disable, but in my case, turning off Avast's shields sufficed. All good.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: michail on April 25, 2021, 02:04:18 PM
    (not sure if bug, sure is odd) Stumbled upon a nascent gravity well about a lightyear away from the nearest star system (Yma, I think? I'm terrible at remembering names). Didn't try to jump into it on the off-chance that it might actually throw me so far away from system's center that I'll have to waste a couple weeks getting out.

    Spoiler
    (https://i.postimg.cc/JhXtwHtQ/screenshot-2021-04-25-T17-35-40-1.png)
    [close]
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: AcaMetis on April 25, 2021, 02:13:44 PM
    (not sure if bug, sure is odd) Stumbled upon a nascent gravity well about a lightyear away from the nearest star system (Yma, I think? I'm terrible at remembering names). Didn't try to jump into it on the off-chance that it might actually throw me so far away from system's center that I'll have to waste a couple weeks getting out.
    That gravity well being there is not a bug, for the record.
    Spoiler
    Short version: It's part of the main story quests. I think you can go there early without breaking anything in the most recent RC, but don't quote me on that.
    [close]
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: michail on April 25, 2021, 11:53:36 PM
    (not sure if bug, sure is odd) Stumbled upon a nascent gravity well about a lightyear away from the nearest star system (Yma, I think? I'm terrible at remembering names). Didn't try to jump into it on the off-chance that it might actually throw me so far away from system's center that I'll have to waste a couple weeks getting out.
    That gravity well being there is not a bug, for the record.
    Spoiler
    Short version: It's part of the main story quests. I think you can go there early without breaking anything in the most recent RC, but don't quote me on that.
    [close]

    Ah, I see. Thank you. Re spoiler: this is cool, I love when games let you do something like this.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Inhilicon on April 26, 2021, 06:36:48 AM
    There is energy spec and missile spec but no ballistic spec.
    I smell a racial discrimination here.
    t. Chaingun hobbyist

    Yeah, what the heck? Chalk me up as an ally of the Ballistic Specialization skill proposition! That said, Ranged Specialization and Gunnery Implants are boosts to both energy and ballistic.

    If I had to replace a skill to make room for a Ballistic Specialization, I would pick Phase Mastery or Strike Commander. Or maybe it could be in Industry somewhere.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on April 26, 2021, 06:51:38 AM
    If I had to replace a skill to make room for a Ballistic Specialization, I would pick Phase Mastery or Strike Commander. Or maybe it could be in Industry somewhere.
    I like Phase Mastery because it speeds those ships up.  I am sick of bullet time in phase ships.  I want phase cloak to make my flagship faster, not slower.  Phase Mastery makes phase ships at least as fast as uncloaked (except Ziggurat at times).
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: IonDragonX on April 26, 2021, 07:19:39 AM
    There is energy spec and missile spec but no ballistic spec.
    I smell a racial discrimination here.
    t. Chaingun hobbyist
    If I had to replace a skill to make room for a Ballistic Specialization, I would pick Phase Mastery or Strike Commander. Or maybe it could be in Industry somewhere.
    Neat thing about modding in a skill is that it doesn't have to replace another, you can just stick #11 into any of the tiers.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on April 26, 2021, 05:04:29 PM
    I wanted to capture a Guardian ship (for science!), so I enabled its capture in the csv file by giving it the Radiant characteristics. So I wiped out a bounty, got the ship, dragged it back to my base of operations, and did my testing. Then I restored the original ship CSV file. The Guardian did not seem to have any presets available, so I created some in-game.

    When I next visited a high threat Remnant system several real life days later, I saw that certain fleets had Alpha Core Guardians in them. Some of them even had loadouts eerily similar to the loadouts that I had created days ago. And when I got the 1.3m credit bounty to hunt down a fleet with a tesseract inside, again there was an Alpha Core Guardian. I had not even gotten the Alpha Site quest yet. It took 4 reapers to the back and kept on going (but not for long!). Good thing they were busy trying to chase down some very tanky ships.

    I suspect the Remnants somehow learned how to make Guardians just from that temporary CSV change. I see it in their ship list.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on April 26, 2021, 06:40:19 PM
    Wow, hypershunt hurt less than the single tesseract bounty. Lost a monitor and a scarab, instead of a monitor and two scarabs.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Sundog on April 26, 2021, 10:06:34 PM
    My feedback on 0.95a (with spoilers!)
    Galatia Academy Questline:
    • Generally it was great. Writing was a delight to read. Characters are full of character without being caricatures.
    • Thanks for giving me the opportunity to drink Baird's wine, mock Daub's stature, and snub Sabastyan's wave (just kidding, I'm not a monster!) Humor can be risky in games with an otherwise serious tone, but I didn't find any that didn't seem fitting.
    • I was rarely left without a response option I liked, and it was generally easy to tell when decisions were inconsequential, which I really appreciate.
    • Instead of preventing actions that might decivilize story-vital markets, why not just prevent them from decivilizing until they are no longer vital?
    • Thanks for calling out my bigotry against Pathers Luddics  ;D
    • I got a bit confused and stuck at two points where the important/quest/exclamation icon tripped me up. The first was while searching for Scylla. I talked to the knowledgeable gentleman at the Kapteyn bar who told me to get in touch with a "very important customer" of his. He was referring to someone in the comm directory at Kapteyn starworks, but the quest icon was at Laicaille habitat, so I searched there again until I reloaded to read what the guy said more carefully.
    • I also had a hard time finding the probe that points to the Alpha site. Not so much because it was hard to find as that the demolished black site and TT mercs were false leads that didn't give me any indication that they weren't what I was looking for.
    • The Ziggurat is great. Fun to find, fun to fight, fun to fly. I love how Luddics respond to it. I love being serenaded as my foes flail helplessly and crumble to dust.
    • The only real plot points I took issue with had to do with characters generally being too trusting. Kanta wants me as an errand boy even though pirates are vengeful toward me? Baird has every reason to suspect that Scylla and her engineer friend will betray her at the end, but she asks them to deliver the Janus device anyway? Seemed out of character to me. I was honestly expecting her to confront me with a "them or me" style ultimatum. Maybe she trusts Scylla too much because she's her daughter? idk...
    • Speaking of Baird, I love how her character toys with tropes, starting out as a quest giver who gradually becomes more of an adversarial authority figure as she cracks under stress. I was half expecting her to be revealed as an unambiguous antagonist, but was pleased when she turned out to be something much more realistic: a competent, driven politician who unapologetically uses and manipulates people for the sake of an inscrutable ratio of personal ambition (disguised as altruism) and true altruism. I think her ratio is more or less revealed by the end, which made if very satisfying to say "You got what you wanted, didn't you?"
    Story Points:
    • I've always loved the idea of XP granting a depletable resource, and SP is a good execution of that.
    • Not sure how I feel about 100% bonus XP. It seems like the only reason not to spend SP with a full return is because you're extremely low on SP, which was never the case for me. At one point I started looking for excuses to get 100% bonus XP just to level up faster.
    • SP to disengage is a great addition for iron mode. I was surprised it became cheaper in a patch, as the cost of one SP pales in comparison to the kind of losses I tend to take from unwanted fights. I suspect the change was to discourage save-scumming? I guess I basically considered it a feature that would only be used with iron mode anyway.
    • The button for sMods should say "integrate" rather than "build-in" in order to differentiate them from built-in hullmods (not my idea, but a good one)
    • I don't mind high-OP hullmods being better candidates for being sMods as much as I thought I would, but there's one exception. I integrated ADF as an sMod on most of my cruisers and caps, and it broke my heart every time because I knew I was permanently gimping the ship. I even put it on the Ziggurat... I think ADF should grant only 1 burn for half the OP for this and a few other reasons. Even in 0.9.1 I modified ADF this way in my personal tweaks mod. With 2 burn and such a high OP cost it stratifies fleet compositions and makes base burn levels strangely inconsequential.
    • On a similar note, I get that SO was OP as an sMod, but there's gotta be a better solution than preventing it outright. As is, I rarely use it for anything other than boosting the speed of my logistical ships.
    Misc:
    • Raiding is fine as is, but I think it could be greatly improved without too much fuss. I'll probably start a suggestion thread about it.
    • I really like the ability to rescue over-leveled officers. Normally I build the officer to fit the ship, but with these I have to build a ship that suits them.
    • At one point I resorted to cheating to find an Pather "orbital habitat" that turned out to be in small asteroid field on the far fringes of the system. I vaguely recall seeing something on the forum that made me think this is a bug that's already been fixed.
    • Mission givers are too trusting, some of whom give commodities for free even if their faction is vengeful toward you.
    • Also, some bar missions fail to provide some important info, but I'm sure you already know that.
    • The historian is my new favorite bar event. I was surprised and delighted to unlock the history intel.
    • Cryorevival seems all but pointless with the population cap. Might be cool if cryorevival facilities increased the pop cap of their colony to 7, especially if only one facility could be built per cryosleeper. Could be problematic if cryosleepers can have overlapping radii though.
    • I no longer have any qualms with the combat camera! :D
    • The new ships and weapons are great! Love the Fury and Omega weapons  :)
    • The hypershunt tesseracts were a fun and interesting challenge. Next time I'll try fighting them without a Doom and see how that goes
    • Skills need some balancing, but that's been discussed ad nauseum. Only things I'll add are that I was very surprised to see flux regulation get a buff, and that I think a lot of the gripes people have could be alleviated by allowing skills from a branch to be chosen freely after investing 5 points into a it instead of wrapping around.
    • Remote Survey is huge for QoL but not much else, so I don't think it should be locked behind a T3 skill. I think it would be more interesting if it had a cost to consider other than simply unlocking it, like consuming volatiles or supplies. Perhaps the skill could do away with such a requirement.
    • Some of my old gripes still apply. Too much money for no-risk activities like holding commissions and doing fetch quests. Hyperspace travel is rarely interesting or eventful. I think simply adding more dangerous fleets to hyperspace could help a lot with both.
    • The API gets better with each update and I love it.

    That's all. <3 Fractal Softworks. Keep up the great work  :)
    [close]
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on April 27, 2021, 05:27:37 AM
    I don't mind high-OP hullmods being better candidates for being sMods as much as I thought I would, but there's one exception. I integrated ADF as an sMod on most of my cruisers and caps, and it broke my heart every time because I knew I was permanently gimping the ship. I even put it on the Ziggurat... I think ADF should grant only 1 burn for half the OP for this and a few other reasons. Even in 0.9.1 I modified ADF this way in my personal tweaks mod. With 2 burn and such a high OP cost it stratifies fleet compositions and makes base burn levels strangely inconsequential.
    I want Augmented Drive Field to stay because I made full use of +2 burn at times.  Lone big ship in a frigate fleet, lone Apogee explorer (for burn 20), Burn 6 capitals without Militarized Subsystems.

    What I would like is another hullmod that is cheaper and adds +1 burn.  All of my burn 7 capitals late in the game have ADF to keep up with my burn 8 fleet.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: TaLaR on April 27, 2021, 05:45:47 AM
    What I would like is another hullmod that is cheaper and adds +1 burn.  All of my burn 7 capitals late in the game have ADF to keep up with my burn 8 fleet.

    Exactly. I can't use (efficiently) a base burn 7 capital in base 8 fleet or base 8 capital in speed 7/9 fleet.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on April 27, 2021, 07:02:41 AM
    The one ship that really hurts to burn-in ADF is Ziggurat because it is a one-of-a-kind quest reward that cannot be replaced.  Any other ship is replaceable, even Legion XIV thanks to the historian.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Anvel on April 27, 2021, 10:20:24 AM
    Augmented Drive Field on combat ships or even build-in it... well, that's not the best idea, do you guys even know about Ox? IF you want the speed that much get perk or a couple of those frigates, ADF is good as is.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SCC on April 27, 2021, 10:37:08 AM
    ADF is nice for early lucky caps, but if I have more than one combat ship of slower burn, I drop ADF and just go around slower. Bounties don't run away from me, so it isn't an issue. I guess another Radiant's advantage is base burn level 8.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Satirical on April 27, 2021, 02:53:58 PM
    If I had to replace a skill to make room for a Ballistic Specialization, I would pick Phase Mastery or Strike Commander. Or maybe it could be in Industry somewhere.
    I like Phase Mastery because it speeds those ships up.  I am sick of bullet time in phase ships.  I want phase cloak to make my flagship faster, not slower.  Phase Mastery makes phase ships at least as fast as uncloaked (except Ziggurat at times).

    but ur ship travels normally and the other ships are in bullet time

    Phasing ships experience time 3x faster than normal meaning the other ships are 3x slower

    phase mastery just makes u even faster (+100% speed in phase mode)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on April 27, 2021, 03:30:30 PM
    Quote
    Phasing ships experience time 3x faster than normal meaning the other ships are 3x slower
    Yes, it makes the whole world outside of the flagship three times slower, which I do not like because gameplay is agonizingly slow.  I prefer my flagship sped up three times as fast, not the whole world slowed to a third.  Slow world makes traveling while phased painful.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on April 27, 2021, 04:02:40 PM
    I imagine a slider bar that determines how fast you experience time in phase, and then the real world would speed up/slow down in a way that makes phase time 3 times faster in comparison. So if you are going at 1.5x time in phase, the world would move at 0.x speed, if you go at 2x time in phase, the real world would move at 0.666x speed, and if you go at 3x time in phase, the real world would move at 1x speed. The default would be 1x time in phase, while the real world goes at 0.3333x speed.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on April 27, 2021, 05:06:06 PM
    Quick commentary about Legion XIV not worth its own topic.

    After getting the blueprint from the historian, building one, and trying it out, Legion XIV can be used as a missileship instead of a carrier, at least as a flagship.  I tried one with two Hammer Barrage or Cyclone Reaper and a variety of needlers (and flak for pd) for weapons.  Fighters were all mining pods because they were free and I needed OP for weapons, missiles, and missile hullmods (ECCM and missile racks), plus many mining pods can serve as meat shields.  It performed... decently.  Would have been great last release.  Today, with the current balance, it is clearly not top-tier.

    If player wants to use homing missiles, Conquest is probably a better ship, for whatever that is worth.  However, if player wants to aim and spam Hammers or Reapers, Legion XIV can do the job.

    I am happy Legion XIV is available as a blueprint, even if player can only get it from the historian.

    Normal Legion is a warship-and-carrier hybrid.  Legion XIV is primarily a missileship that can be used as a carrier, but it is probably best to stick with missiles.  I view Legion as a double Champion.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: ranie on April 27, 2021, 05:47:37 PM
    Playing almost full SO for the first time, all relevant officers reckless (have one steady on my single carrier).

    My eagles, enforcers and hammerheads feels more timid than reckless, and seems to be far more afraid of lesser ships than they should be, including redacteds and drones.
    An SO HSh eagle (all small energy PD) with a reckless officer should really not be afraid of 3 frigates, but scream LEROY JENKINS and charge, as it really also should do against 2 destroyers.

    They behave better under "full assault", but... Is there anything else I can do?
    In my former game in 0.95a, playing more normal, I also noticed the problem of ships huddling together, blocking and jostling each other etc, which I guess is my job to solve through better orders?

    But can you do something about my frigates flying between my flagship and whatever I'm shooting at and thus getting vaporized? Wolfs are especially prone to this, and may also blink in front of a burn driving dominator.

    No mods, but have reenabled inbuilt SO, and "hacked" my first officer from aggressive to reckless.

    Otherwise, love the game :)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Sundog on April 27, 2021, 06:14:04 PM
    What I would like is another hullmod that is cheaper and adds +1 burn.
    I think that would be an improvement, too. And honestly, in spite of personally wanting +2 ADF gone, I think that would make the most people happy. It wouldn't address my biggest gripe with ADF though, that it's such a tempting sMod candidate.

    Augmented Drive Field on combat ships or even build-in it... well, that's not the best idea, do you guys even know about Ox?
    Tugs are great for certain things, but their downsides aren't insignificant. Maybe it's just because I'm a cowardly miser, but I prefer to keep my fleet stealthy and lean most of the time.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Thaago on April 27, 2021, 06:17:31 PM
    @Megas would you care to share your legion loadouts? I've been building them with somewhat equal OP invested between the two types: 5 medium missiles on the standard for 50 and then usually 2 hurricanes for 50 or 2 Locusts for 36 on the XIV. Locusts is a bit of an early game build if I pull an XIV early from a system and want to slap ADF on it for good burn speed and pop lots of pirates.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on April 27, 2021, 06:58:37 PM
    @ Thaago:  I do not have any special loadouts for Legion.  I barely used it in 0.95 (mostly in simulator) and just threw together something straightforward, something no better than you can think on your own.  I used normal Legion in a few fights, mainly to haul it around until Field Repairs did its magic and remove d-mods, and for that, I used Gauss and Maulers, and cheap fighters.

    For Legion XIV, I just played around with it in the simulator and was amused by the carnage caused by double Hammer Barrage.  Something I was dying to see on a mass-produced ship in 0.9.1.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Thaago on April 27, 2021, 07:41:45 PM
    Fair enough! Double hammer barrage is a wonderful feeling after burn drive :)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Arcagnello on April 28, 2021, 03:07:00 AM
    Fair enough! Double hammer barrage is a wonderful feeling after burn drive :)

    I'll reinforce that statement. I've got a Legion myself with integrated Heavy Armor and Expanded Missile Racks (plus an officer with elite Missile Spec skill OFC) and I used twin hammer barrages on it until I could get my hands on double Hurricane Mirvs.

    Hammer barrage is amazing, while it still has ammo. I would really like to argue all "Hammer" missile systems should get more ammo since they run out incredibly quickly even with both Missile Racks and Missile Spec, but that'd also imply a nerf in reload speed or an even worse spread.

    That said, they could just be made a bit more expensive...
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on April 28, 2021, 05:09:06 AM
    Hammer barrage is amazing, while it still has ammo. I would really like to argue all "Hammer" missile systems should get more ammo since they run out incredibly quickly even with both Missile Racks and Missile Spec, but that'd also imply a nerf in reload speed or an even worse spread.

    That said, they could just be made a bit more expensive...
    If I want slow loaders, I would pick Cyclone Reaper, and the spread of Hammer Barrage is wide enough.  There are plenty of partial misses because of the spread.

    I would like more ammo, even if it makes the weapon more expensive.  Hammer Barrage is an Open Market weapon, though.

    Seems like Missile Specialization is almost a must.  Hammer Barrage needs it for the ammo, Cyclone Reaper needs it for the faster reload.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Satirical on April 28, 2021, 12:23:15 PM
    Quote
    Phasing ships experience time 3x faster than normal meaning the other ships are 3x slower
    Yes, it makes the whole world outside of the flagship three times slower, which I do not like because gameplay is agonizingly slow.  I prefer my flagship sped up three times as fast, not the whole world slowed to a third.  Slow world makes traveling while phased painful.
    well one fix i found is installing the speedup mod, u can disable that slowdown effect by pressing b
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on April 28, 2021, 04:02:58 PM
    Hmm... looks like I had gotten the Tesseract bounty before I knew of or cleared any hypershunts. Is this expected behavior, or is the wiki wrong?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Arcagnello on April 29, 2021, 01:58:09 AM
    Hmm... looks like I had gotten the Tesseract bounty before I knew of or cleared any hypershunts. Is this expected behavior, or is the wiki wrong?

    I'm pretty sure you should only get the one true and only imba bounty in the game after clearing out a Hypershunt, or very very late in the game years.

    Then again, I've seen threads on the forum of people that recieved survey mission for Hypershunts and that too is not supposed to be a thing...I think...unless Alex has played too much Darkest Dungeon and wants to give new players a "This is the new tutorial, fool!" experience  8)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Lucky33 on April 29, 2021, 08:33:14 AM
    No, that bounty readily available after you got yourself a contact and some standing with it. No need to do a storyline or Hypershunt first.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on April 29, 2021, 05:47:07 PM
    Ahh yes, I had about 95 standing with Tri-Tach guy.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: beholdadam on April 30, 2021, 03:50:29 PM
    ...
    • Fixed issue with "improved" tech mining actually being 4x less effective
    ...

    Oh. My. [REDACTED].
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Sinigr on April 30, 2021, 05:53:58 PM
    without changing the Pulse Laser numbers

    Oh, it is not easy to speak english for me, but I'll do it, speak about armor mechanics, problem with low bullet streanth weapons, useless of most of weapns.

    Okey, first. Armor mechanics is that armor reduces armor or hull damage taken dependings on bullet streanth.
    Formula is: x * (x / (x + y)) where x=bullet streangth, y=current armor. Also if armor is destroyed there lasts 5% of it for damage reduction defore hull damage. And maximum damage reduction is 85%.

    Second lets take some avarage armor streangth potencial without skills with armor module for medium or strong armored ships, cases when low bullet weapons are more useless.

    Hammerhead: 800/40 (40 is 5% of lasting armor for damage reduction)
    Enforcer: 1200/60

    Eagle: 1400/70
    Dominator: 1900/95

    Conquest: 1700/85
    Legion: 2000/100
    Onslaught: 2250/112,5

    Some ships have armor upgrade from XIV, so lets take a look avarage 1650 armor and 83 as 5%.

    Lets take a look for energy weapons including their potential for shield owerloading, or limited ammo.

    Small:
    Antimatter blaster has 1400 bullet, hit on 1650 armor is 642 armor damage. 54% reduction. 1321 hull damage 6% reduction, okey, low reduction but it is useless whith it's limmited armor, it is not enought while you need to hunt 10+ dominator, 5+ onslaughts/legions with other ships in one battle. (Useless because of limited ammo)

    IR pulse laser: 50 bullet streanght.  1,4 or 7.5 damage at maximum damage reduction 85%. 18 hull damage throw 83 lasting armor, 64% reduction. Usless for hull damage, but I'll use it for shield damage like one small energy weapon for sustained shield hard flux damage.

    Medium:
    Phase lance. Useless. Good for frigat oneshotting, it isall all. No hard flux, low dps: 217.
    Pulse laser. Close useless. (5,7) 15 damage, 85% reduction. 54 hull damage with 83 lasting armor 46% reduction. As you see, you will have just +- 50% hull damage of this weapon, with 300 whield dps. But we have perfect alternative.
    Mining blaster. Good, but too high flux cost. 350 shield dps. 208 armor damage 71% reduction. 625 hull damage and just 11% reduction!
    Heavy blaster. Perfect. 500 shield dps. 116 a.d. 77% reduction. 428 hull damage 15% reduction.

    Pulse laser 162 hull dps, heavy blaster 428 hull dps.

    Large:
    Autopulse laser. Useless. Low sustained damage, low armor/hull damage. 96 hull damage, 36% reduction.
    Tachyon lance. Goal of whis weapon is just to shoot small ships or hit on weak points while the shield rises. Low dps, no hard flux.
    HIL. Useless. Very low sof flux to shield. Awarage armor/hull damage.
    Plasma cannon. Perfect. Top sustained shield damdge 750. Top armor/hull damage with 500 bellet streanght, same as heavy blaster. But i think I'll better put heavy blaster in that slot, 33% less dps but with same armor penetration + 18 ordnance to inprove all stats of your shim.

    So, as you see small energy is PD or pulse laser to damage shields or PD. Medium is just Heavy blaster. Large is just plasma cannon, or thachyon lance por spetioal roles, other weapons are useless. No alternative.

    And a bit about ballistic weapons. Large.
    All weapons are useless. High explosive can not overload shields fast, but is it good with hull damage?
    Devastator is useless because it can not shoot normally at large distance because it's bullets explode before raching full range.
    Hellbore. Useless. Best armor damage and penetration, but too low dps, too low bullet speed.

    Other kinetics are good just for shield overloading, but you will hit hull for several minutes with it.

    So we have just two weapons to take a look at.

    Hephaestus assault gun. (it had one spacial oportynity, but you killed it. You could have 0 flux speed boost while firing that weapon, it was just one oportynity of that weapon, and now it is gone) we have 480 dps (240 hard dps to shieplds) But low bullet power. Just (30) 36 armor damage 85% reduction (at full armor 1650+), (144 armor dps), it is anti armor gun? OMG. 89 hull damage 26% reduction (356 hull dps)

    Mjolnir cannon. Perfect. 530 shield dps. 400 bullet streangh, stronger than hephaestus. 78 armor damage 81% reduction. (104 armor dps, lower than hephaestus.) 331 hull damage 18% reduction (441 hull dps more than hephaestus)

    So as you see, no choice. Mjolnir. Perfect in all ways. Good shield dps more than hephaestus in 2.2 times, a bit less armor damage but more hull damage. Additionally a bit of EMP damage. So, just mjolnir. With mjolnir you have all what you need from one weapon, other weapens are useless. I used many different loadounts, played tons of hours, I combined many different loadouts and just combination of mjolnirs and dual flaks is the best to hunt everything easly and the reason for this is low bullet streangh of other weapins.

    So. Conclusion. Energy: just IR pulse lasers for shield damage, heavy blaster and plasma cannons. Tachyons for frigate oneshoot, or weak point opportunity.
    Ballistic: Just dual flaks as PD and mjolnirs for sustained best damage.

    All other weapons are useless, no matter how hard you try to combine them. You will have very low hull dps. Adiitionally: if you add 50 armor for damage reduction weapons with low bullet streantgh become even more useless.

    Sorry for my english.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Thaago on April 30, 2021, 06:35:42 PM
    I also think that using 1650 for average armor is a bit high... the AI doesn't use built in heavy armor like the player does, so its really only going to be enemy Onslaughts that have that level. Even Radiants "only" have 1500. So the number are for dealing hull damage to the toughest hulled targets in the game.

    I think you may want to look again at phase lance, HIL, and tachyon lance when it comes to hull damage. All are very efficient (and HIL is very efficient as an armor cutter, though not as good as the low DPS Hellbore) and the large energy have a significant range advantage (HIL Sunder can have 1550 range with an officer). Soft flux isn't a problem when the enemy has their shield down due to flux, as it usually the case when thinking about hull damage anyways, and for the lances if the AI wants to keep its shields up and overload then thats even better. Heavy blaster is king of medium DPS, and against very heavily armored targets its damage/flux vs hull is better (using your number its .59 vs a pulse laser's .53), but its poor vs shields (.69 vs1.0).

    For Mjolnir vs Hephaestus: as long as the mounting ship has the flux to fire it its a better weapon for anti hull and anti shield, but its 667 fps instead of 480 fps. For your numbers, the Mjolnir has a damage per flux of .66 vs .74 for the Hephaestus. If the player ship has the flux (and spare OP) then Mjolnir is better, and its a good compromise weapon to pair with a shield buster for high shield enemies, but if flux is the limiting factor it doesn't necessarily win out. I do like Mjolnir's a lot though, very good weapons.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Sinigr on April 30, 2021, 09:24:38 PM
    I also think that using 1650 for average armor is a bit high... the AI doesn't use built in heavy armor like the player does, so its really only going to be enemy Onslaughts that have that level. Even Radiants "only" have 1500. So the number are for dealing hull damage to the toughest hulled targets in the game.

    I think you may want to look again at phase lance, HIL, and tachyon lance when it comes to hull damage. All are very efficient (and HIL is very efficient as an armor cutter, though not as good as the low DPS Hellbore) and the large energy have a significant range advantage (HIL Sunder can have 1550 range with an officer). Soft flux isn't a problem when the enemy has their shield down due to flux, as it usually the case when thinking about hull damage anyways, and for the lances if the AI wants to keep its shields up and overload then thats even better. Heavy blaster is king of medium DPS, and against very heavily armored targets its damage/flux vs hull is better (using your number its .59 vs a pulse laser's .53), but its poor vs shields (.69 vs1.0).

    For Mjolnir vs Hephaestus: as long as the mounting ship has the flux to fire it its a better weapon for anti hull and anti shield, but its 667 fps instead of 480 fps. For your numbers, the Mjolnir has a damage per flux of .66 vs .74 for the Hephaestus. If the player ship has the flux (and spare OP) then Mjolnir is better, and its a good compromise weapon to pair with a shield buster for high shield enemies, but if flux is the limiting factor it doesn't necessarily win out. I do like Mjolnir's a lot though, very good weapons.

    Okey, maybe 1650 it is too high, but now most ships have officers with skills, so take a look for 1000 armor, 5% 50 and 50 from skill. Than we have 100 armor for damage reduction, in my calculations i used 83. But okey, some weapons have more damage from skills. In spite of this, with full weapon and fleet power from skills i see it in every battle, that weapons with low bullet damage have so low armor and hull damage, because of that 5% and skill armor.

    How you will overload enemy shield with HIL Sunder? It dos not works so, hunt remnants, they'll kick ass like a child that Sunder. Remnants are for example, some pirates you can hunt with HIL Sunder, okey. But you can not hunt all what you see with HILs.

    "Heavy blaster is king of medium DPS, and against very heavily armored targets its damage/flux vs hull is better (using your number its .59 vs a pulse laser's .53), but its poor vs shields (.69 vs1.0)." No problem with flux, you can use 2 pulse lasers in 20 ordnance with 600 shield dps but very low hull dps in 324 or less, or one blaster 12 ordnance for 500 shield dps, much stronger armor damage and 428 hull damage, put some more wents for it in 8 ordnance if you need, sorry, but i do not have time to shoot armor and hull with pulse lasers, perfomance time is running, my ship dos not have enought time, it have to shoot tons of enemies. Also i use all medium slots with blasters, i do not have place to change 1 blaster for 2 pulses, i do not use some small slots to put more vents or other things, because small weapons are more useless))). Just play and you will see.

    About mjolnir. How you will overload shields with hephaestus? Or you will put some more guns which are more useless agains armor than hephaestus? It dos not wark so, practice show that one universal mjolnir is better than some combonation of weapons, remove them and put more vents. Like onslaught, you can leave 2 middle slots free, put one mjolnir with some aditional vent and one mjolnir will do more than any other combination of two medium and one large weapon (ok, good range weapons).

    I hope my explanations and arguments are clear.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Thaago on April 30, 2021, 11:15:52 PM
    Your explanation is good, but has one flaw: almost every real build is operating at maximum vents already, so we can't analyze balance by getting to add more vents. There's nothing more to add. Its evaluating the efficiency of what to do with those vents that I was getting at with the efficiency numbers.

    As an example, a Tempest without any skills or system or officer or anything (for ease of numbers) can get 355 flux dissipation with 10 vents and the hullmod. Running 2 pulse lasers gives 600 DPS vs shields and 600 flux for a deficit of 245 + shields. Running 1 Heavy blaster leaves them with 500 DPS vs shields and 720 FPS for a deficit of 365 + shields, and 8 free OP. Those free OP could be used for a lot of good things and this might even be a good build, but nothing is going to change the fact that the pulse lasers are doing more damage to shields while building up less flux.

    For the Mjolnir its the same thing - its a much better anti-shield option than a Hephaestus, but for a given flux budget it has worse efficiency vs armor and hull. The hardest enemies in the game have really strong shields, so I agree with you thats the performance thats needed. But if the strongest enemies had really strong armor and hull, I would consider swapping. The gun is also always going to be used alongside other weapons unless the flux budget of a ship lines up perfectly which I don't think any do.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Sinigr on May 01, 2021, 04:08:07 AM
    Your explanation is good, but has one flaw: almost every real build is operating at maximum vents already, so we can't analyze balance by getting to add more vents. There's nothing more to add. Its evaluating the efficiency of what to do with those vents that I was getting at with the efficiency numbers.

    As an example, a Tempest without any skills or system or officer or anything (for ease of numbers) can get 355 flux dissipation with 10 vents and the hullmod. Running 2 pulse lasers gives 600 DPS vs shields and 600 flux for a deficit of 245 + shields. Running 1 Heavy blaster leaves them with 500 DPS vs shields and 720 FPS for a deficit of 365 + shields, and 8 free OP. Those free OP could be used for a lot of good things and this might even be a good build, but nothing is going to change the fact that the pulse lasers are doing more damage to shields while building up less flux.

    For the Mjolnir its the same thing - its a much better anti-shield option than a Hephaestus, but for a given flux budget it has worse efficiency vs armor and hull. The hardest enemies in the game have really strong shields, so I agree with you thats the performance thats needed. But if the strongest enemies had really strong armor and hull, I would consider swapping. The gun is also always going to be used alongside other weapons unless the flux budget of a ship lines up perfectly which I don't think any do.
    I do not have maximum vents with my blasters. At first I was also scared by the flux of blaster. Due to the low damage to the hull and armor of other guns, the decision was made to simply install blasters and get used to how it will be. Okey, it is better than other options.

    Tempest. Two pulses have more shield, yes, but how long they will hit on strong armor, it is omg. Also i have one more option. Do not to use ships which can not support blasters.

    Mjolnir maybe, if they would have weaker shields and stronger armor/hull. But we see strong shields, so...
    Also, like for me, i see that better is to hunt averythyng with mjolnir, just put less weapons, full large slots with mjolnirs and full vents, it works, ok.

    Goal is that there is no weapon diversity to make perfect universal fleet to hunt everyrhyng. Okey, you can play damaging hull for loooong, but... hm...

    I do not speak about paragon, just weapon/armor mechanics and using of weapons at other ships.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Retry on May 01, 2021, 07:49:01 AM
    Okey, maybe 1650 it is too high
    Maybe?  1650 is more base armor than any ship in the game has except 1 (2 if accounting for variants), and you declared it to be an average value.
    Quote
    Also i use all medium slots with blasters,
    Quote
    I do not have maximum vents with my blasters.
    I'm curious yet concerned as to what your builds look like.  That sounds eerily like the builds newbies show up with when asking why their guns aren't firing, and why are their flux bars full all the time...
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on May 01, 2021, 02:21:42 PM
    The high armor ships are usually slow and easy to hunt down after picking off their escorts. Once their escorts are dead, it's duck season!

    On another note, the Resonator is interesting but feels very weak. Would be nice if fast missile racks helped reload it faster.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: RustyCabbage on May 01, 2021, 08:57:47 PM
    This is really minor, so I don't feel like making a thread about it, but there are a couple strange things in the various faction files:

    - The Hegemony does not know Locust SRM Launchers, nor Squall MLRS. Even the Pirates and Luddic Path know those blueprints.
    - The Luddic Church knows the Antimatter Blaster, while the Hegemony does not. I assume this is because they make extensive use of Buffalo Mk.IIs, but the Hegemony also has access to Vigilances, Centurions, Sunders, Falcons, Eagles that suggest it would make sense for them to also know the blueprint.
    - I think others have mentioned it before, but none of the factions know the Revenant or Phantom blueprints. Probably intentional at this point but I figure I'd mention it.
    - You fixed the Fury not having an inflated hull frequency of 10 in the Tritachyon faction file, but should this not also apply to the Apogee?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Undead on May 02, 2021, 01:43:14 AM
    Question - will there be any hotfixes/updates soon? I want to update to RC15 from RC12 and start a fresh run, but if there will be another update in my RC15 run that will be somewhat annoying, I would rather wait a bit if there is an update on its way.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Sinigr on May 02, 2021, 03:38:40 AM
    Okey, maybe 1650 it is too high
    Maybe?  1650 is more base armor than any ship in the game has except 1 (2 if accounting for variants), and you declared it to be an average value.
    Quote
    Also i use all medium slots with blasters,
    Quote
    I do not have maximum vents with my blasters.
    I'm curious yet concerned as to what your builds look like.  That sounds eerily like the builds newbies show up with when asking why their guns aren't firing, and why are their flux bars full all the time...

    1650. Okey, key. Than calculate 100 armor, not 83 as I

    All medium mounts with blasters. No maximum vents. That ship can hunt everything including remnants, and it has sane armor/hull damage. You shoot hull fast, no need to shoot it for half of hour with weak bullet weapons. (https://i.imgur.com/LTTgkqu.png)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Lucky33 on May 02, 2021, 07:35:38 AM
    As far as I'm aware, most of the guns balanced in a way that standard cruiser sized target (sim Eagle) can not be gunned down in a standard overload duration (10 sec). It provides the need for the strike weapons and makes cruisers distinguishable from the destroyers.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on May 02, 2021, 06:19:31 PM
    After mining a triple Radiant Ordos fleet and the second Tesseract infested hypershunt to death with chained Doom flagship abuse (because I had nothing better at the time), I think I finally finished playing this release.  The only thing I have not done yet is develop a contact to spawn Tesseract bounties (for their weapons), but I do not feel like grinding for that.  I am writing a draft of a feedback post, though it is a mess at the moment.  I may try to finish and post the feedback recap "soon".
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Vanshilar on May 02, 2021, 10:13:19 PM
    Not sure if this is something new to 0.95a or not, but I've noticed a variety of AI stupidity. Currently using RC12. My fleet consists of me using an SO Aurora, with 4 SO Medusas and 4 Drovers. Yes I know SO is no longer possible via SP, but I don't think it matters here.

    The Medusas have 2 dual autocannons, and either 1) 2 IR pulse lasers, a cryoblaster, and an ion pulser, or 2) an IR pulse laser, an ion cannon, a cryoflamer, and a heavy blaster.

    The Drovers have spark/broadsword, 4 salamanders, and 2 light machine guns.

    All officers are aggressive.

    1. Medusas sent to capture an objective will retreat away from enemy frigates. I'm talking about 2 Medusas sent to the same objective deciding to run away from a lone Glimmer, letting the Glimmer capture the objective.
    2. Medusas will overload a frigate and then back off instead of finishing it off. No other ships/fighters in the vicinity, and Medusas at low flux.
    3. The Medusas seem to be much more timid than the Drovers, despite all having aggressive officers. Even when the whole fleet is ordered to attack a target, the Medusas will often hang back behind Drovers.
    4. The Drovers meanwhile seem to have no problems drifting into multiple Brilliants, etc. Supposedly when armed with just missiles and point defense (LMG) they should be staying away (especially with the pilum bug -- I'm still using RC12), but no, they'll just saunter up to big ships. I've even seen a Medusa at low flux fleeing from a Fulgent, with a Drover drifting in behind the Fulgent, almost chasing it (except facing the wrong way). The Fulgent then gives up chasing the Medusa and then blows up the Drover.

    I'm not sure what might be helpful for diagnosing these AI problems. Unfortunately Starsector doesn't have a playback feature, and since I'm concentrating on my flagship, usually by the time I notice the AI being stupid (which happens unpredictably -- it'll be okay for a while, then suddenly make stupid decisions) the screen wasn't on them beforehand so it's hard to tell what got them in that situation in the first place. I also don't know of a way to see what the AI is "thinking" at any given time. (I used to use the AI Flag Tool mod by Blothorn in 0.9.1a but haven't tried it for 0.95a.)

    Generally speaking the AI seems to do fine in "small" situations. When I first started playing, the fact that frigates would juke around your projectiles, run behind your other ships to block you from hitting them, was fantastic. However it seems to make a lot of "strategic" errors once there are more ships, basically drifting away from the rest of the fleet unless you use a "Defend" command to leash it, getting itself cornered through bad positioning, not understanding that the Radiant is very dangerous and not drift toward it (Medusas will teleport away when flux is high, but Drovers just simply drift into range -- should it not realize that it's in the firing range of a capital ship?), etc. That leads to me spending a lot of time trying to save them instead of them taking care of themselves.

    Edit: Attached are some screenshots of this happening. I have the Ship Direction Marker mod installed, which allows you to see what direction the ships were heading toward.

    Screenshot037-min: The battle commands. Basically, at beginning of combat, I set them all to capture the lower left objective, and also set the defend waypoint. This way, after they capture the objective, they'll automatically defend the area and stay leashed (most of the time, anyway). At this point, the Radiant has made its way to the lower left, and I'm coming in from the right, with the main fleet vs fleet engagement already underway.

    Screenshot036-min: This Drover is around 1000 su away from the Radiant, at full flux, yet heading full-speed toward the Radiant (you can see via the Ship Direction Marker icon where it's headed). Its engines were functioning, so this was an AI choice (and not the result of flameout); it changed course and started going straight for the Radiant right before the screenshot.

    Screenshot038-min: Meanwhile, the Medusas are around 2500 su away from the Radiant, but actively backing off, despite being SO ships at 0 flux.

    Screenshot040-min: This Medusa is also backing away with nearly 0 flux, despite having an easy target right in front of it that was just damaged. Is it that scared of the Glimmer's ion beam or something?

    These kinds of AI mistakes make fleet combat very frustrating, especially when this game opts for a "player commands are more of suggestions than actual commands" approach to player control, plus the player is limited in how many commands can be given. In a typical RTS for example, the player can give commands to units at will and the units will follow the player's commands exactly, for better or for worse, so the units act as the player intends. This game's approach means that the units are more or less trying to "intuit" the player's intent, or more accurately, the player is trying to "intuit" what the AI might do since the AI won't directly obey the player. This may be good when the AI is reasonably well-behaved and predictable, but just leads to frustration when it's not.

    [attachment deleted by admin]
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on May 03, 2021, 02:28:37 PM
    Not sure if this is something new to 0.95a or not, but I've noticed a variety of AI stupidity. Currently using RC12.

    (Hi - just super quick; I'm pretty sure the majority of what you're talking about AI-wise is fixed in RC15.)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Dread Pirate Robots on May 03, 2021, 03:18:43 PM
    The only thing I have not done yet is develop a contact to spawn Tesseract bounties (for their weapons), but I do not feel like grinding for that.

    I think this bounty only spawns once anyway, or at least that has been my experience and some people on discord agreed.

    I think it's a little unfortunate and you should be able to do it multiple times, although I assume we're going to be seeing more of them at some point through some different mechanic.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on May 03, 2021, 06:39:49 PM
    Not sure if this is something new to 0.95a or not, but I've noticed a variety of AI stupidity. Currently using RC12.

    (Hi - just super quick; I'm pretty sure the majority of what you're talking about AI-wise is fixed in RC15.)

    Alpha Core Radiant still gets a bit shy in RC15 when the two sim onslaughts start their annihilator rocket barrages. Usually starts happening at 1600 range (Bridge to Bridge?) when one Onslaught is almost fluxed out and the Radiant backs off to 1800-1850, drops shield and vents (with very little flux) and lets a couple rockets hit armor.

    Outside of the sim there are very few rocket pods and there are lots of supporting ships guarding the flanks so it is far more aggressive. If I recall correctly, the Squalls can also spook it.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on May 03, 2021, 06:47:50 PM
    Alpha Core Radiant still gets a bit shy in RC15 when the two sim onslaughts start their annihilator rocket barrages. Usually starts happening at 1600 range (Bridge to Bridge?) when one Onslaught is almost fluxed out and the Radiant backs off to 1800-1850, drops shield and vents (with very little flux) and lets a couple rockets hit armor.

    Outside of the sim there are very few rocket pods and there are lots of supporting ships guarding the flanks so it is far more aggressive. If I recall correctly, the Squalls can also spook it.

    Right, missile-related behavior is entirely separate both from the bug that was present before and from its fix in -RC15.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on May 03, 2021, 07:05:21 PM
    Thanks!
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Voyager I on May 05, 2021, 06:12:21 PM
    Okey, maybe 1650 it is too high
    Maybe?  1650 is more base armor than any ship in the game has except 1 (2 if accounting for variants), and you declared it to be an average value.
    Quote
    Also i use all medium slots with blasters,
    Quote
    I do not have maximum vents with my blasters.
    I'm curious yet concerned as to what your builds look like.  That sounds eerily like the builds newbies show up with when asking why their guns aren't firing, and why are their flux bars full all the time...

    1650. Okey, key. Than calculate 100 armor, not 83 as I

    All medium mounts with blasters. No maximum vents. That ship can hunt everything including remnants, and it has sane armor/hull damage. You shoot hull fast, no need to shoot it for half of hour with weak bullet weapons. (https://i.imgur.com/LTTgkqu.png)

    You realize Safety Overrides completely changes the flux economy for a ship and also necessitates specialized builds to leverage the rules it imposes, right? Most ships won't have SO, and the ones that do don't play by the same rules as normal ships.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Satirical on May 05, 2021, 11:44:19 PM
    For the marine bar missions I only get them at my own colonies for some reason  :( never found a marine bar mission at hegemony / tritach / independent bars

    and by marine bar missions i mean the one where u pick up extra marines who fight in vac or black
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on May 06, 2021, 12:22:42 PM
    Those marine bar missions have been very rare. I have only seen one so far in 0.95a, and I should have several hundred hours of gameplay already.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Histidine on May 06, 2021, 05:38:08 PM
    They need a stability 6 or lower market to show up, which sounds like they should be rare but not super rare.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on May 06, 2021, 06:31:03 PM
    Oh that makes sense. I increased the base stability everywhere.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Vanshilar on May 07, 2021, 03:18:01 AM

    (Hi - just super quick; I'm pretty sure the majority of what you're talking about AI-wise is fixed in RC15.)

    Thanks for looking into it; I updated to RC15, using the same RC12-generated saved game (not sure if that matters), but still see a lot of AI issues -- not necessarily the same ones as before though:

    1. The Medusas, when told to eliminate a target, will happily expose their rear (unprotected) engines to other ships to get blasted to smithereens. Not sure if this has to do with the Medusa having omni shields by default but having the front conversion hullmod; not sure if the AI takes this into account. Granted, elimination command does mean "eliminate at all cost" but it should not mean "eliminate at unnecessary cost", when the Medusas will either maneuver or teleport from previously safe positions to positions where they expose their vulnerable parts to other ships. This also includes taking on a lone Radiant when a lone Medusa (other ships weren't there yet) at high flux will maneuver/teleport to directly in the path of the Radiant's front hardpoints to get obliterated by its autopulse lasers. In fact generally speaking Medusas will happily engage Radiants but hesitate to engage frigates/destroyers, but not sure if this is just confirmation bias.
    2. The Medusas still seem to be more "scared" of enemy ships than the Drovers. I still see Medusas disengaging from easy kills when at low/zero flux, while nearby Drovers are still charging full speed ahead. Again, all ships (Medusas and Drovers) have aggressive officers, while Drovers only have Salamanders and Light Machine Guns as weapons, so there's no reason for Drovers to be more willing to engage ships than Medusas.
    3. I thought maybe there might be something to do with the Eliminate command, but even with Engage, Medusas will back off (in fact back off even more i.e. farther away), while Drovers still run in.
    4. Even when told to Eliminate, i.e. to save a Drover under fire, Medusa will come close and then back off, letting the Drover die. Medusa was at zero flux.
    5. Generally speaking, there's no reason for Drover AI to decide to get closer to enemy ships than Medusa AI, when the Drover only has Salamanders/LMG (and broadsword/spark) while the Medusas have SO and lots of short-range weapons. But I still see this happening very frequently. I thought it may just be due to inertia (for example, Medusas can retreat faster than Drovers, maybe Drovers simply couldn't change direction quickly enough, etc.), but I'm seeing Medusas running away while at low/zero flux while Drovers will just stay in melee range of enemy ships.
    6. Funny thing is, enemy Scintillas (destroyer carriers) have no problems running away from me, i.e. I can see them starting to back off long before I get into weapon range, and they have worse speed/maneuverability stats than Drovers, plus actual non-PD weapons. Not sure if there's something wrong still with carrier AI when they only have missiles and PD regarding staying a proper distance away from enemy ships, or something with Medusas (due to SO or whatnot) being unnecessarily hesitant.

    On a separate note, I messed around with having a Radiant in my fleet. The Radiant seems to drop its shields and try to armor tank unnecessarily, i.e. at low flux, when in combat. This means its weapons quickly get disabled and it disengages. That's not good AI behavior when it's the tank.

    Screenshots:
    screenshot002.jpg and screenshot003.jpg -- At the bottom is a lone Lumen. The Medusas to its right were attacking it, then backed off. The Drover kept pressing forward. Maybe the Medusas were leashed by the "Defend" and "Capture" commands, but I doubt it, since they will happily pursue ships much farther away before being leashed. Those commands were set at the beginning of battle and in fact the nav buoy used to be mine before the ships left to pursue other ships. The Drover kept trying to chase the Lumen while the Medusas backed off, when the Medusas were perfectly capable of finishing it off.
    screenshot013.jpg -- The Drover at the top went out of position, then got in trouble. So I ordered the Medusas to "Eliminate" the Fulgent that's attacking it. The highlighted Medusa closed in (to around where the missile above it is), then backed off without firing. Zero flux. Drover died.

    [attachment deleted by admin]
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on May 07, 2021, 08:00:58 AM
    Hmm - what's the loadout of the Drover? And, are you able to observe this behavior in the simulator?

    (Are you sure it's not just it being unable to back off fast enough, while the Medusas *are* able to, and leave it behind?)

    Quote
    I still see Medusas disengaging from easy kills when at low/zero flux

    My guess would be it's due to the danger of being flanked! In general - I appreciate all the info, but there's *so much* going on in battles that, functionally, I can't do much without being able to reproduce the behavior myself.

    (Re: #1 - as you noted, the tooltip for eliminate does state "at any cost". At that point, the decision is in the hands of the player. The AI is very concerned about getting flanked - it can be disastrous! - and the primary function of Eliminate is to tell it not to be. So that's actually pretty much working as intended; it's very much not a "fire and forget" command. If you want "more cautious but still try to attack this" behavior, there's the Engage command. Edit: as it looks like you're aware :) )
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on May 09, 2021, 12:17:25 PM
    I have contacts on my colonies offering me Surplus Nanoforge Production opportunities with my own blueprints at a markup. It's very amusing. Do they not realize that those are my nanoforges? Now if they offered use of their own blueprints, that could be interesting.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on May 09, 2021, 12:41:29 PM
    ... yeah, the trader/military versions should probably not be offered at player colonies, really. I mean, I could see them being marginally useful by increasing the total production (since you could do that *and* normal production), but on the balance...
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on May 09, 2021, 01:28:11 PM
    Perhaps they could occasionally buy some production capacity from us as well. Then when they try to sell some back to us, that could explain it.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Gothars on May 10, 2021, 03:38:28 AM
    I have contacts on my colonies offering me Surplus Nanoforge Production opportunities with my own blueprints at a markup. It's very amusing. Do they not realize that those are my nanoforges? Now if they offered use of their own blueprints, that could be interesting.

    My favorite way of dealing with that would be to have a dialog option where you reveal your identity and them fleeing the bar in a panic ;D  Same with some other underworld bar missions, btw.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Undead on May 10, 2021, 05:29:07 AM
    I have contacts on my colonies offering me Surplus Nanoforge Production opportunities with my own blueprints at a markup. It's very amusing. Do they not realize that those are my nanoforges? Now if they offered use of their own blueprints, that could be interesting.

    My favorite way of dealing with that would be to have a dialog option where you reveal your identity and them fleeing the bar in a panic ;D  Same with some other underworld bar missions, btw.

    I like your proposal, add flavour to the game ;D
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on May 10, 2021, 07:43:39 AM
    That would be glorious!
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Sinigr on May 11, 2021, 12:27:12 AM
    It seems in r15 most contacts are not adding to contact list in intel, no future communication available. Much missions froc contact where done.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Sinigr on May 11, 2021, 12:32:46 AM
    Okey, maybe 1650 it is too high
    Maybe?  1650 is more base armor than any ship in the game has except 1 (2 if accounting for variants), and you declared it to be an average value.
    Quote
    Also i use all medium slots with blasters,
    Quote
    I do not have maximum vents with my blasters.
    I'm curious yet concerned as to what your builds look like.  That sounds eerily like the builds newbies show up with when asking why their guns aren't firing, and why are their flux bars full all the time...

    1650. Okey, key. Than calculate 100 armor, not 83 as I

    All medium mounts with blasters. No maximum vents. That ship can hunt everything including remnants, and it has sane armor/hull damage. You shoot hull fast, no need to shoot it for half of hour with weak bullet weapons. (https://i.imgur.com/LTTgkqu.png)

    You realize Safety Overrides completely changes the flux economy for a ship and also necessitates specialized builds to leverage the rules it imposes, right? Most ships won't have SO, and the ones that do don't play by the same rules as normal ships.

    It is that goal. You need to put SO to take some blasters, if you would not do so you will shoout hulls for very long. Just try shoot onslaught from simulation with some other weapons (exeption plasma cannons) and than shoot it with balsters, you will see. Also, if you are going to speak about missiles look for 5+ onslaughts and fight it, than you will see that you do not have enought missiles for that.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: TerranEmpire on May 11, 2021, 04:37:16 PM
    Hi Alex!

    Do you have any plans to make low-tech ships relevant for endgame or from now on they are officially not on par with high-tech?
    I have a feeling, that their slow speed is more or less the culprit, but I have no idea how to remedy the situation :(
    Maybe a few new skills targeting low tech for eg. especially to improve their performance against [REDACTED]?
     (I mean they did win or at least not lose against [REDACTED]...)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Thaago on May 11, 2021, 04:44:02 PM
    Low tech ships work just fine for endgame though. I was just popping the omegas and ordos using a pure low tech fleet.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: TerranEmpire on May 11, 2021, 04:53:22 PM
    Can you share your fleet composition?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Thaago on May 11, 2021, 05:06:36 PM
    Sure, it was Onslaught (D hull so it was a bit fragile), Legion (regular), Dominator, Mora, 8? Enforcers, 2 Condors, Lasher (singular). It wasn't really an optimized fleet for fighting Omegas as fighters do not do well against them and I had the wrong missiles (too many reapers: great against regular enemies and ordos, but omegas are too fast for them).

    Onslaught: HVD's in the 4 corner medium mounts, heavy mauler in the front, 4 reaper pods (good vs normal enemies), flaks in the center 4 front and back, vulcans in the smalls, storm needler center, mk IX sides. The MVP was a storm needler on the central large: Vs reckless shield enemies like remnants/omegas/high tech bounties its just crazy good.

    Legion has Mjolnir, Mk IX, 3 sabot pods 2 reaper pods (again wrong missiles), 2 gladii 2 talons. The interceptors work against most enemies quite well and helped with last stage cleanup, but weren't great. The sabots and guns did a lot of work.

    Enforcers were Heavy needler, 2x heavy mortar, 2x vulcan, 2x sabot/reapers for the officered half, 3x HVD + harpoons for the non-officered. DP cheap workhorses that are tough and bring lots of missile boom.

    Moras are my bomber carriers with 3x khopesh and 2x reapers (and were absolutely useless in the omega fight, live and learn). An aggressive officer makes them fly right up to the enemy which is where they belong, the invincible torpedo spewing bricks. Condors have thunders and either pilum or harpoon depending on my mood (ECCM pilum is... acceptable as a non-officer pressure weapon, and thunder condors are often too far away to fire harpoons).

    Lasher was non-SO and just kind of left over... it has like 5 d mods at this point the poor thing. Still, it distracts and I throw it at auto-pursuits. Build is 2x mortars in hardpoints, light needler, 2x reapers, 2x vulcans. Its ok against normal enemies for 4 DP but remnants/omegas pop it real fast.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: danando123 on May 11, 2021, 06:21:47 PM
    I was wondering, will we not be getting any sneak peeks? like uhm, Dev Diaries, etc
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: supremequesopizza on May 11, 2021, 06:25:26 PM
    Sorry if this is the wrong spot to report a minor bug, but I caught a typo during the search for Scylla plotline that I thought I'd bring up. (https://i.imgur.com/MST4cdj.png) sprawling spelled as spawling.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on May 11, 2021, 06:30:30 PM
    I was wondering, will we not be getting any sneak peeks? like uhm, Dev Diaries, etc

    I'll write a blog post! ... at some point in the not-too-distant future. Already know the likely topic, but want to get further with it first.

    Sorry if this is the wrong spot to report a minor bug, but I caught a typo during the search for Scylla plotline that I thought I'd bring up.

    Thank you, fixed this up!
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SonnaBanana on May 11, 2021, 07:26:24 PM
    Alex, are you planning on adding more skills?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on May 11, 2021, 08:00:45 PM
    I built a one sided long range conquest with a flak cannon and an aggressive officer. Its minimum range is 1750, but it keeps on closing into 1200 in the simulator, and stopped doing that once I removed the flak cannon. Is it trying to melee the enemy with the flak cannon? Flak cannon had its own weapons group.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Wyvern on May 11, 2021, 08:10:24 PM
    I built a one sided long range conquest with a flak cannon and an aggressive officer. Its minimum range is 1750, but it keeps on closing into 1200 in the simulator, and stopped doing that once I removed the flak cannon. Is it trying to melee the enemy with the flak cannon? Flak cannon had its own weapons group.
    Yep. Aggressive officers will do that; "all the ship's weapons" includes PD weapons. Unfortunate here, yeah, but also necessary for, say, having an aggressive officer on a Lasher close to machine-gun range.

    ...I do wish we had some finer-grained control of AI behavior. Doubt we'll get it, but one can wish.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on May 11, 2021, 08:39:05 PM
    Ahh that explains it. I recently repaired all the dmods on a ship at a station, and then a while later, it said that it was fixed when it was already fixed. I have a save before it if needed, think I saw it in bug reports before.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SonnaBanana on May 12, 2021, 12:34:09 AM
    I built a one sided long range conquest with a flak cannon and an aggressive officer. Its minimum range is 1750, but it keeps on closing into 1200 in the simulator, and stopped doing that once I removed the flak cannon. Is it trying to melee the enemy with the flak cannon? Flak cannon had its own weapons group.
    Yep. Aggressive officers will do that; "all the ship's weapons" includes PD weapons. Unfortunate here, yeah, but also necessary for, say, having an aggressive officer on a Lasher close to machine-gun range.

    ...I do wish we had some finer-grained control of AI behavior. Doubt we'll get it, but one can wish.
    *Sigh* I should have known this earlier..........

    Also, agree with wanting fine tuning AI.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Delta_of_Isaire on May 13, 2021, 02:53:25 AM
    Just finished reading this entire thread. Haven't actually played 0.9.5 yet aside from some testing, and I'll probably postpone an actual playthrough until the next non-hotfix patch and/or I've finished my faction fleet balance mod. That's just my idiosyncracies though, nothing against the game!

    Balance issues and flawed mechanics annoy me, and ruin most games for me (speaking as an aspiring game creator). Starsector is one of the only games that holds up good enough to still be fun for me. It is very good quality, most flaws can be fixed with modding, and the lead developer actually listens to his audience. There's still a few things I hope will be improved though. So Alex, do please consider this feedback :)



    (Typo in 1st word of 3rd paragraph of Fury's description. "Dimissed" isn't a word :p)



    Question: why Heavy Ballistics Integration buff for Onslaught? It wasn't underpowered in 0.9.1. Legion could have used it much more, though that would get weird with the Legion (XIV) having missiles instead.



    Main point of contention is the skills system. It isn't perfect yet. Histidine made a good post about some of the issues here (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=20311.0). Some good points are raised in that thread.

    My initial reaction to the skill system was this:
    The current system forces you to get skills related to a number of different playstyles while preventing you from getting most/all skills related to one particular playstyle. You end up with only some of the skills you really want, and also some skills you don't really care for. IMHO the point of skill trees with choices and limited total skill points is to incentivize specialization and meaningful choices. Saying that I can't get e.g. all colony skills (both L5 and both I5 skills) is basically saying I'm not allowed to fully specialize in Empire-building, and that's just not right.

    There is a (conceptually easy but difficult to design) way to fix this: re-arrange the skills so that most skill pairings relate to 2 different playstyles, in a way that minimizes 'unwanted' picks for most playstyles. I went ahead and puzzled this out. This is the result:
    Proposed skills re-arrangement
    COMBAT
    • 1: Helmsmanship / Impact Mitigation
    • 2: Systems Expertise / Point Defense
    • 3: Ranged Specialization / Missile Specialization
    • 4: Target Analysis / Strike Commander
    • 5: Shield Modulation / Phase Mastery
    LEADERSHIP
    • 1: Crew Training / Officer Training
    • 2: Coordinated Maneuvers / Space Operations
    • 3: Weapon Drills / Auxiliary Support
    • 4: Carrier Group / Wolfpack Tactics
    • 5: Officer Management / Ground Operations
    TECHNOLOGY
    • 1: Special Modifications / Flux Regulation
    • 2: Navigation / Sensors
    • 3: Electronic Warfare / Energy Weapon Mastery
    • 4: Gunnery Implants / Phase Corps
    • 5: Automated Ships / Fighter Uplink
    INDUSTRY
    • 1: Bulk Transport / Salvaging
    • 2: Reliability Engineering / Makeshift Equipment
    • 3: Containment Procedures / Colony Management
    • 4: Field Repairs / Derelict Contingent
    • 5: Damage Control / Industrial Planning
    [close]
    Reasoning behind this (wall of text)
    COMBAT
    - Helmsmanship vs Strike Commander. Ship benefit vs Fighter benefit is a good playstyle choice. However, top speed is a critical stat for a dedicated carrier to avoid direct engagements, so there is synergy between these skills if you care about Fighters.

    - Target Analyis vs Point Defense. An offensive vs defensive choice, which again looks good on paper. Personally I would really, really want both these skills. When forced to choose, Target Analysis is probably the better pick in like 90% of cases, which seems   little skewed.

    - Impact Mitigation vs Ranged Specialization. Again, defense vs offense, and again it sounds like a good gameplay choice. But consider that heavily armored Capitals (Onslaught, Legion, Paragon) also tend to use large weapons with 900-1000 range (boosted to 1440-1600 by ITU). Thus, the ships that benefit most from Impact Mitigation also benefit greatly from Ranged Specialization. Consequently there is high synergy from having both these skills, particularly for capital-vs-capital fights.

    - Shield Modulation vs Phase Mastery. Now here is a choice that is clearly not synergistic. Good!

    - Systems Expertise vs Missile Specialization. Every ship has a system so Systems Expertise is generally an awesome pick. Not everybody uses Missiles so that skill might be chosen less often. And IF you use missiles, then Systems Expertise is often 'nice but not vital'. With a few key exceptions, notably the Gryphon.

    So, there's a lot of synergy problems here. Partly this is inevitable due to the nature of Combat skills. Even so, we can try to avoid it. Let's first identify the most desirable skills for some different playstyles:
    > Pure carrier: you want Strike Commander and/or Point Defense, Systems Expertise and Helmsmanship.
    > Low-tech Battleship: you want Target Analysis, Impact Mitigation, Point Defense and Helmsmanship.
    > Midline/High-Tech Battleship: you want Target Analysis, Shield Modulation, Helsmanship, and any of a number of other skills.
    > Long-range support: you want Ranged Specialization, Helsmanship, Target Analysis and Missile Specialization or Systems Expertise.
    > Phase ship: you want Phase Mastery, Target Analysis, Helsmanship and probably Systems Expertise.

    Which set of 5 choices best caters to these preferences? And what's the best order? My suggestion:
    1: Helmsmanship / Impact Mitigation (Low-tech will want both, as do Paragon, Champion, Conquest etc)
    2: Systems Expertise / Point Defense (Interceptor Carriers might want both. I would want both for Midline ships)
    3: Ranged Specialization / Missile Specialization (Most support loadouts specialize in either guns or missiles)
    4: Target Analysis / Strike Commander (Carriers can let their Fighters do the damage. Only Legion wants both)
    5: Shield Modulation / Phase Mastery (clearly no synergy. Note Shield Shunt ships want neither skill)

    It's not perfect, but it doesn't get much better.
    [close]
    LEADERSHIP
    - Weapon Drills vs Auxiliary Support. Extra weapon damage is universally useful so it's the default pick. Deploying Militarized ships in combat is cool, but also fairly niche. The main ships to use it would be Atlas II, Prometheus II, Venture, Colossus II/III Gemini and Kite. All ships that could use a buff compared to 0.9.1 so it's a cool idea. Main concern is that base deployment limit of 5 restricts the usage of upgraded Auxiliaries to at best 1-2 Capitals, 2-3 Ventures or a handful of Gemini/Kite. That's not a lot, so a universal damage bonus quickly becomes more attractive.

    - Coordinated Maneuvers vs Wolfpack Tactics. Love the boost for smaller ships. But to make it work beyond the early game you'd really want both skills, so being forced to choose is NOT AWESOME. Furthermore, for players who prefer cruisers/capitals both skills are an 'empty' pick which is EVEN LESS AWESOME.

    - Crew Training vs Carrier Group. Extra CR is universally useful and +30s deployment time is significant for Frigates/Destroyers so Crew Training is the default pick. Carrier Group sounds like it is for Fighter lovers, but the limit of 8 bays is like 2 Legions, 3 Herons or 4 Condor/Drover, which isn't a lot. Not saying this skill isn't good for fighter lovers - I'm saying that even casual users of Fighters can get most of the value out of this skill. Which means a substantial fraction of players would want both skills if they could afford it.

    - Officer Training vs Officer Management. Better Officers or more Officers. Nothing wrong with either skill, but again players really, really want both these skills, so please don't force the choice!

    - Space Operations vs Ground Operations. Once again, two skills governing the same aspect of gameplay. And at the end of the skill tree so getting both is way too expensive.

    So the main problem in this skill tree is forcing choices between skills related to the same playstyle. It means a player with 5 skillpoints invested in this tree has bought skills pertaining to 5 different aspects of play, and that is generally not how we want to spend our skillpoints. Let's re-arrange the skills!

    One aspect to keep in mind here is distinguishing skills you want early from skills you want later. For example, Auxiliary Support is something you want fairly early so putting it at tier 5 is a bad idea. Conversely, Officer Management is something that can wait so let's not put that at tier 1 or 2. Another note: Weapon Drills is somewhat outclassed by Crew Training because +15% CR offers +5% Weapon damage as well as several other bonuses. Compared to at best +10% Weapon damage that stacks up unfavorably. Partly Weapon Drills could use a modest buff, partly Crew Training is just a great pick in general.

    > 'Wolfpack' fleets want Wolfpack Tactics, Coordinated Maneuvers, Crew Training and both Officer skills.
    > Carrier fleets want at least Carrier Group and Officer Training, and probably Crew Training.
    > Cruiser/Capital fleets want at least Officer Training, Crew Training and probably Weapon Drills.
    > Civilian/Auxiliary fleets want Auxiliary Support, Carrier Group, Crew Training and Coordinated Maneuvers.
    > Industrial/Imperial players want Space Operations and Ground Operations, and general-purpose picks like Crew
    Training and Weapon Drills.

    Suggested new arrangement:
    1: Crew Training / Officer Training (Yes you want both skills, hence easy wrap-around. It's a necessary evil)
    2: Coordinated Maneuvers / Space Operations
    3: Weapon Drills / Auxiliary Support (Auxiliary fleets could use Weapon Drills, but it's not a huge priority)
    4: Carrier Group / Wolfpack Tactics (Wolfpacks are least likely to want Carrier Group)
    5: Officer Management / Ground Operations

    A possible improvement is swapping Officer Training with Weapon Drills. However, Crew Training is superior to Weapon Drills in most cases so tier 1 would become a non-choice. Similarly, Officer Training is almost a must-have, so nobody would ever pick Auxiliary Support. Most other potential changes result in similar drawbacks.
    [close]
    TECHNOLOGY
    - Navigation vs Sensors. A decent choice. Most players will pick Navigation. Stealthy players also want it, but Transverse Jump being available through Story missions helps.

    - Gunnery Implants vs Energy Weapon Mastery. From an Energy weapon point of view the trade-off is solid: choose between long-range support and close-combat. With the damage bonus reduced to 30% I think the balance is OK. Another thing to note is both skills are playership-only while some players may prefer fleetwide bonuses.

    - Electronic Warfare vs Fighter Uplink. With AI fleets being more ECM-heavy now, the EW skill has become almost mandatory unless your fleet specializes in close-range combat (e.g. SO builds or Wolfpacks). Fighters are close-range too, so for a dedicated Carrier fleet the choice between these two skills is OK.

    - Flux Regulation vs Phase Corps. I see two problems with this. First, Phase Fleets would also want Flux Regulation. Second, Flux Regulation is so powerful and so universally useful that it is a must-have.

    - Special Modifications vs Automated Ships. Automated Ships is cool and reasonably balanced. But Special Modifications is so universally powerful that it's a must-have and a complete no-brainer.

    Looks like this skill tree does the most things right so far, but also contains the biggest flaws. I'm not going to talk about skills needing rebalancing, which is arguably the case for Special Modifications, Flux Regulation and Energy Weapon Mastery. Instead I'll note that Special Modifications, Flux Regulation and to a lesser extent Electronic Warfare are no-brainer must-haves for most playthroughs and proceed accordingly.

    Suggested new arrangement:
    1: Special Modifications / Flux Regulation (Purposefully force this choice, but allow easy wrap-around)
    2: Navigation / Sensors (it's an OK choice, and still easy enough to wrap around)
    3: Electronic Warfare / Energy Weapon Mastery (short-range tactics don't require ECM as much)
    4: Gunnery Implants / Phase Corps (Phase ships don't rely on long range)
    5: Automated Ships / Fighter Uplink (TBH these are the two leftover skills. Not a perfect arrangement, but not
    terrible either)

    Yes, Special Modifications is strictly better than Flux Regulation. That doesn't mean the skill arrangement is bad - it means Special Modifications is overpowered.
    [close]
    INDUSTRY
    - Bulk Transport vs Salvaging. Salvagers are always short on cargo space and would therefore want Bulk Transport as well. On the other hand, at 1st tier wrapping around to get both is feasible.

    - Damage Control vs Reliability Engineering. Again both skills are playership-only which is undesirable. Damage Control is clearly aimed at Low-Tech ships, while Reliability Engineering is good for all ships but particularly for smaller ships. TBH +15% CR is by itself reason enough for most players to skip Damage Control.

    - Containment Procedures vs Makeshift Equipment. Both are Campaign skills, which means players who care about maintenance cost want both, and players who care about combat performance want neither. That's not ideal. Having said that: Containment Procedures does have some combat utility, so it's not all bad.

    - Field Repairs vs Derelict Contingent. This is a genuinely good choice: either repair D-mods or embrace them. That's cool! Pretty much precludes wrap-around though due to conflicting bonuses.

    - Industrial Planning vs Colony Management. Again, colony-lovers don't want to be forced to choose.

    Main thing to do here is putting skills related to the same playstyle into different tiers.

    > A Salvager playstyle wants Salvaging, Containment Procedures, Field Repairs, Makeshift Equipment and Bulk Transport.
    > Industrial/Imperial players want Colony Management, Industrial Planning, and possibly Makeshift Equipment and/or Bulk Transport.
    > Clunker/Trash/Zombie fleet players want Derelict Contingent, Containment Procedures, Salvaging and probably Reliability Engineering.
    > Normal combat-oriented players want Reliability Engineering, Damage Control, Field Repairs and Containment Procedures.

    Suggested new arrangement:
    1: Bulk Transport / Salvaging (Salvagers may want both, but can wrap around easy enough)
    2: Reliability Engineering / Makeshift Equipment (Combat vs Campaign, both solid desirable choices)
    3: Containment Procedures / Colony Management (Combat vs Campaign, although CP has campaign utility as well)
    4: Field Repairs / Derelict Contingent (D-mods: use or lose. Most players want one or the other, but not both)
    5: Damage Control / Industrial Planning (Combat vs Campaign)

    There might be a slight nagging feeling that Damage Control is 'too weak' for tier 5. To which I say: skill value should not depend on tier: all skills should be roughly equally good. If Damage Control feels weak that's because it is.
    [close]
    [close]
    This resolves a lot of the complaints that I've seen. And with these changes, 15 skill points may actually be sufficient. This re-arrangement does, however, necessitate rebalancing of some skills, so that all 40 skills are about equally powerful. In the current system it seems high-tier skills are more powerful, but with my new design principles that just doesn't work. Skills in general could use a balance pass anyway. Biggest problem is there are too many skills that are absolute must-haves for *any* playthrough (T4L, T5L, L3L, etc).

    Then again, I have seen Alex arguing that you're not supposed to get all skills related to the same aspect of gameplay, or at least not easily. And Alex seems to be conservative about major changes to the skills system. So I'm seriously considering if he has a point. Let's go back to his Skills blogpost to see his reasoning.
    Spoiler because long. Some important points come up though
    "So, what are the goals of the skill overhaul? First and foremost, the skill system should increase the replay value of the game – that is, depending on what skills are picked, the player should be able to explore new ways to play the game."
    >>> Fair enough. But "exploring new ways to play" sounds like "choosing different specializations" which I think is facilitated better by my skills re-arrangement than by the current design.

    "Most skill tiers offer a choice between a generic skill and a specialized one. (..) The generic choice is always weaker than the specialized one – otherwise, there’s no reason to specialize."
    >>> OK. Having checked this, it seems to be mostly true. Left skills tend to be generic, Right skill tend to be specialized. Good job. However, there are several examples of skill pairings where a player with that particular specialization would really want the associated generic skill more than the generic skills from other tiers. The most notable ones are C3, L2, L5, T4, T5 and I5, but there are others. So the current arrangement doesn't appear to be optimal. Going over my suggested skills re-arrangement (see above), the pattern of generic skill + specialized skill is retained for 15 out of 20 pairings. And I wasn't aware of this desired pattern when I designed the re-arrangement so I didn't optimize for it.

    "Specialization is what increases replay value."
    >>> Big agree. Which makes the existence of choices like the abovementioned ones weird. By my definition of specialization, for choices like L5 both skills relate to the same specialization, namely making colonies better. Does Alex have a different idea of what constitutes a specialization? Because I feel specialization is easier with my skills re-arrangement.

    "If specialization leads to mono-fleets, that’s a problem – instead of encouraging variety, it’s doing the opposite. Fleetwide specializations should be 'use some of this in your fleet' rather [than] 'use only this in your fleet from now on, because it’s got stat bonuses now and it’s better than anything else'."
    >>> Ah, that's it. This sounds like "you're allowed to specialize, but not too much". Well, you did implement it that way, so props for being consistent. I get that variety is good, but ultimately that should be a player choice. IMHO you shouldn't enforce variety. Instead you make it a balanced and fun option, available to players who don't want to specialize as much. Full specialization shouldn't be a dominant strategy, but it shouldn't be weak or flat-out impossible either.

    "The solution is to scale the effects of all fleetwide skills based on the ships they affect. (..) Since non-specialization skills also scale their effects (albeit at much higher point values), it also rewards smaller fleets by making them more efficient."
    >>> This is a somewhat artificial way to balance specializations, but it is effective. And it doesn't conflict with my skills re-arrangement. Be aware though that there's a trade-off between variety within one playthrough and variety between playthroughs. Alex tries to avoid fleet compositions where all ships are the same (low variety within a playthrough). But if you push that too far (as is the case right now!) you get a situation where all fleets are forced to be 'some of X, some of Y, some of Z' ALL THE TIME (low variety *between* playthroughs). This requires careful balancing to find a good middle ground. In particular, the DP thresholds for effect scaling are impactful parameters that require careful balancing, and I suspect there is a fine line between too much and too little.

    [Example: Automated Ships] "One battleship, with moderate combat readiness? A couple of cruisers? A pack of frigates? All viable options."
    >>> Those *should* all be viable options, but that will require a balance pass. Radiant in particular is way too powerful for its DP cost. Always has been. It is easily worth 60 DP but costs only 40. This was less of a problem while it was AI-only because Ordos are supposed to be challenging, but in player hands it's overpowered. Even if it can't be piloted directly. Conversely, Brilliant is underwhelming and Lumen is downright outclassed by Wolf if you ignore Officer/AI Skills.

    "I think reducing the number of options at any given point will also make for more impactful and considered choices for players of any skill level."
    >>> To some extent yes, but not fully. Given a limited number of skill points you still need to plan ahead for which skills you want to end up with. Unless you respec, but respeccing costs story points if you've elited some skills, and there are skill picks that cannot be refunded. If you truly want to achieve "consider only these X skills" then the choice for each set of skills should always be available and it should not be possible to get all skills of any one set. For the new skill system that would be achieved by giving the player 20 skill points but not allowing wrap-around. That's rather drastic though and shouldn't be necessary, particularly with a clever skills arrangement that minimizes the desire to wrap around (like mine).
    [close]
    TL;DR My skills re-arrangement doesn't appear to undermine Alex's design philosophy, although we might disagree on how much specialization should be allowed :)



    Finally, some minor poins of feedback.
    Spoiler
    Minor pet peeve #1: An unlimited number of Mercenary Officers is overpowered. For (endgame) AI fleets it makes these fleets too strong compared to a normal/casual player fleet, because Officer Skills provide a massive boost to a ship's strength. It is also abusable by the player in an unfun way: grind XP to stockpile ~100 story points, then hire ~20 Mercenaries and go on a rampage. That strategy shouldn't be required to beat the endgame. >>> Solution: limit number of Mercenary Officers to 1/2 the number of normal Officers, for both Player and AI. >>> Is this achieved for AI by setting "officerAIMaxMercsMult" to 0.5?


    Minor pet peeve #2: Random Officers potentially being better than the best Officers you can train normally (with Officer Training skill) is BAD and should be removed. Because becoming as strong as you can be should primarily depend on invested effort, not on luck. Luck should affect whether you reach max power faster or slower, but it should always be possible to compensate for bad luck by trying harder. That is exactly how it works for Blueprints, where you can raid factions for ones you can't find in salvage.
    >>> This can be changed with "maxSleeperPodsOfficerLevel" setting?


    Minor pet peeve #3: Why Missile Specialization and Energy Weapon Specialization but not Ballistics Specialization? Naïvely I would say that means either Ballistics miss out, or missile/energy weapons are underpowered without their appropriate skill. I think the latter is certainly the case for missiles (primarily because limited ammo is too limited sometimes), and probably also for energy weapons (although the high flux stats of high-tech ships compensate for that already).


    Minor pet peeve #4: Flet makes a good argument here (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19253.msg318979#msg318979) about how ECM mechanics are all-or-nothing, which can lead to 'wasted' investment of Hullmods and skills if you don't get your rating up high enough. Having said that: the new maximum penalty of -10% range is low enough to accept if you don't want to invest in ECM so it's not all bad. And the difference between -10% and +10% is still enough to warrant fully investing in ECM.


    Minor pet peeve #5: Hiruma Kai makes a good analysis here (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19253.msg321484#msg321484) and here (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19253.msg321530#msg321530) to argue that 0.9.5 has nerfed armor tanking in favor of shield tanking, and in general nerfed defense in favor of offense. This worries me because (1) I like tanking and (2) 0.9.1 already favored shields. In 0.9.1, the best defensive hullmod for an Onslaught was Hardened Shields, not Heavy Armor, which feels wrong for a low-tech ship. In 0.9.1 Heavy Armor was defensive hullmod priority #6 for me on Onslaught, after Hardened Shields, Solar Shielding, Resistant Flux Conduits, Reinforced Bulkheads and Armored Weapon Mounts. In 0.9.5 I might favor it over Reinforced Bulkheads, but only because the higher OP cost is negated by making it permanently built-in.


    Minor pet peeve #6: I agree with the point raised in this post (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19253.msg314570#msg314570) about how the game is too easy. At least it was in 0.9.1 and I haven't seen anything that would significantly change that. More specifically, jumping from the early to the late game is way the hell too fast, to the point where it doesn't feel like there is a substantial mid-game. Previously in 0.9.1 I did a playthrough with 5x cost for ships and weapons and that was still quite manageable if you know what you're doing. The only drawback was that replacing lost ships or paying for D-mod removal got expensive quickly.

    There are mods and settings that up the challenge in some ways and that's good, and you can use self-imposed challenges (my fav is not allowed to use black market, ever) but it feels like there's a more fundamental pacing issue in that the early-and especially mid-game is too short. Not sure if there's an easy fix for that though - and not all players may want that fix, so maybe an optional gamemode? - because a lot of simple tweaks like slower XP gain or higher prices could just make the game feel more grindy instead of more fun. This might be a me-thing though since I love slower/longer playthroughs.

    Good player-adjustable bounty levels *should* help, if it works properly, because bounty difficulty escalated way too quickly in 0.9.1.

    Another part of the problem is it's too easy to explore and salvage the galaxy with a small fleet. There just aren't enough systems that are too dangerous to explore with a fleet of say 3 mules and 3 combat destroyers (particularly if you use stealth), but not so dangerous that you need an endgame fleet. My personal preference would be that a basic fleet of Apogee + 3-4 frigate/destroyer escorts (about 50 DP worth of combat ships) and some civilian ships shouldn't be able to safely survey more than 40-50% of planets.

    TL;DR there need to be more challenges appropriate for a 50-100 DP fleet!


    Minor pet peeve #7: not a priority, but one can dream :p I'd like better/more options for controlling ship AI behavior, most notably Aggressive officers who don't count PD weapons for determining engagement range. Ideally I'd want independent ways to toggle preferred engagement range, flux level at which AI retreats, aggression towards high-flux/overloaded opponents, and ratio of Fighter Escort/Attack. Probably too much to ask though.

    And a way to tell ships to not launch anti-armor missiles like Hurricanes, Annihilators or Reapers towards targets with low flux, because that is a major contributor to AI prematurely running out of ammo. Or to not launch Swarmers against Destroyers and up. Or to not launch Squall against Frigates. Et cetera :p
    >>> This is moddable to an extent? E.g. removing the hint CONSERVE_5 from Hurricanes in weapon_data.csv makes the AI use them similar to Harpoons? Or giving it CONSERVE_FOR_ANTI_ARMOR? Or setting PD_ONLY for Swarmers? Guess I'll have to play around with that...
    [close]
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SafariJohn on May 13, 2021, 05:23:49 AM
    Cool feedback and ideas Delta. I hope Alex reads it all carefully.

    Quote
    I'd like better/more options for controlling ship AI behavior, most notably Aggressive officers who don't count PD weapons for determining engagement range.

    Hey, that could be the new "Steady"! Move the Steady AI down to "Cautious", Cautious down to "Timid", and bump the current Timid off completely because it is useless.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Undead on May 13, 2021, 07:59:36 AM
    Hey, that could be the new "Steady"! Move the Steady AI down to "Cautious", Cautious down to "Timid", and bump the current Timid off completely because it is useless.

    Interesting proposal
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on May 13, 2021, 09:23:40 AM
    I kind of like Timid AI on my ships.  I would not use it now due to gameplay changes since the 0.7.x releases, but I would have used it for Pilum spam fleets when Pilums were useful before 0.8a.  (I did not build such a fleet because it was too specialized and tedious to replace after novelty wore off.)  I would use Timid on ships with only long-range missiles and civilians (if I deployed them for their hullmods).

    Cautious is one I never use, although I can see the use on carriers.

    On the other hand, enemy is not allowed Timid for good reason (too hard to kill before PPT timeout), so maybe it should be removed for symmetry's sake.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on May 13, 2021, 10:39:45 AM
    ...

    Just wanted to say, thank you for your feedback! I appreciate the thought you've put into the revised skill arrangement. I'm not sure I entirely agree with your reasoning and approach, but still, some thoughts definitely worth looking at :)

    (I've got some fairly extensive things in mind for skills, anyway - keeping the things that I think work well/are good, and adjusting things that don't.)


    Question: why Heavy Ballistics Integration buff for Onslaught? It wasn't underpowered in 0.9.1. Legion could have used it much more, though that would get weird with the Legion (XIV) having missiles instead.

    Because it can't point all of its large ballistic slots in the same direction. HBI makes putting large ballistics in these slots more viable. For a ship like the Legion, I don't think HBI makes much sense - if you want to buff the ship, you would probably just give it more OP. (I suppose there could be some highly specific case where you really want to encourage the use of large ballistics on a ship while keeping its other options more constrained but that seems... well, I'm not sure why/how a case like that would come up.)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: intrinsic_parity on May 13, 2021, 11:47:29 AM
    For what it's worth, I think having skills in the same tier being good in the same build is a good thing. It makes for an actual decision, where having mutually exclusive skills makes the choices a lot easier (and thus less interesting). I also think specifically for combat skills, it feels pretty bad to be heavily restricted in your flagship because of your skill choices. I'd like to see those skills be a bit more general.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Madskills on May 14, 2021, 10:09:20 PM
    In my latest modded playthrough I had no idea which ship I'd end up using and I kept switching them the entire game. And obviously the current flagship skill tree design is really opposed to that idea because I have to very deliberately choose a path for my flagship. So I ended up spending the entire 10 points into flagship tree to get all 10 skills so that I'd be able to fly any ship I want (even though at a time I only use ~70% of those skills). By far the biggest offenders are the phase skill, the shield skill, the missile skill and the carrier skill.

    Still, the 10 point investment was well worth it because I no longer had to worry which modded ship to fly as I could fly any ship I wanted to try.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Sinigr on May 15, 2021, 07:25:58 AM
    Alex, we have Derelict Contingent.

    More specifically:
    15% chance per d-mod to have incoming hull damage reduced by 90%
    +5% minimum armor for damage reduction per d-mod for unshielded ships.

    Now, just take a look: https://youtu.be/IXy8t-FhwF4

    Are you shure, Alex, that it is OK? :D
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SCC on May 15, 2021, 07:32:44 AM
    Alex is already aware of this. (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=20227.msg311468#msg311468)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: some guy on May 15, 2021, 08:37:26 AM
    Recently registered a forum account, gotta say this update is a bit of a mixed bag well lets start with the good.

    . The raiding system change (for THIS patch), gotta say like it a lot no more goose steping over 9000 times over the span of a rl year just to get some blueprints, doomstack, turn the weapons area into a dance hall, profit

    . The built in hull system is nice, can't wait to figure out how to tweak it as I spy fun time's...question if automated ship was somehow added to say a mudskipper in this case would we be able to add a core to it?

    . Automated ships...it's nice that the player can now get them without editing ships.data but the limit seems a bit harsh maybe have it be dependent on non automated fleet point's or whatever their called again sorry for me it's late and I'm running on coffee and sugar.

    .The contacts system nice to have some additional revenue and maybe a mission or two you like being somewhat reliably available

    .Some of the story point stuff is cool and all but... well see below

    now for the things I think are a negative,

    . Story point. neat concept but in their current form seem slightly shoehorned in.

    . The skill system change...oh boy, honestly it feels like some skill's were butchered to give story points weight...even though I know a lot were merged, and it seems most skills were hit with the nerf stick a bit too much in an effort to make large fleets unattractive but that's just how I'm seeing things, also the mutual exclusivity of certain skills (at least untill loop around) made me look for a mod to disable that

    . Scavenging only works once now... gotta say this is a stinker, given how hard it is to find some items it used to take me a few tries to get them i liked the diminishing returns system better

    . the changes made to sychron core and nanoforge, given how hard they were to find, the change to scavenging, plus the added pollution (to nanoforge) and condition requirement (to synchron core) makes them golden turds (and disincentivize installing mods that add to the loot pool).

    .the bribe option for inspections requiring a storypoint to do... idk makes glassing or razzing the hegemony into oblivion at the first opportunity seem REALLY appealing in comparison, that seems kinda bad... i've not had the event yet but i'd rather use the story point to pay a less ridiculous bribe or if ones not available pay a LOT of money.

    Sorry if any of this seems harsh i was trying to give as honest feedback as i could. also how do i get godiva into the game or find fresh bread planets of steamy goodness (by the way this is joke question nice cat though)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on May 15, 2021, 09:09:59 AM
    . the changes made to sychron core and nanoforge, given how hard they were to find, the change to scavenging, plus the added pollution (to nanoforge) and condition requirement (to synchron core) makes them golden turds (and disincentivize installing mods that add to the loot pool).

    .the bribe option for inspections requiring a storypoint to do... idk makes glassing or razzing the hegemony into oblivion at the first opportunity seem REALLY appealing in comparison, that seems kinda bad... i've not had the event yet but i'd rather use the story point to pay a less ridiculous bribe or if ones not available pay a LOT of money.
    Player NEEDS synchrotron and a nanoforge to meet demand for Military Base (and High Command) if he wants to meet demand in-faction, even if they are too picky for location criteria.

    If I plan to abuse cores, wiping Hegemony off the map for peace of mind would be a priority for me.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: DJ Die on May 16, 2021, 03:21:32 AM
    Now, the question is, how do you remove the pollution effect from the nanoforge? Which file is it? Thanks.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Sinigr on May 16, 2021, 10:36:24 AM
    Now, the question is, how do you remove the pollution effect from the nanoforge? Which file is it? Thanks.
    Just put it on uhabitable world.

    [attachment deleted by admin]
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on May 16, 2021, 12:46:54 PM
    Now, the question is, how do you remove the pollution effect from the nanoforge? Which file is it? Thanks.

    Make a backup of your save file, then edit it off your planet if you like. As long as you don't uninstall then reinstall it, the pollution will not return.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: DJ Die on May 16, 2021, 02:35:58 PM
    Just put it on uhabitable world.
    Yeah, already have my main industrial colony on a habitable planet....

    WeiTuLo: Now, that sounds great, thanks.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: sprayer2708 on May 18, 2021, 12:40:33 AM
    Now, just take a look: [snip]

    What mod makes the explosions so pretty?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Gothars on May 18, 2021, 02:52:48 AM
    Now, just take a look: [snip]

    What mod makes the explosions so pretty?

    That would be GraphicsLib (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=10982.0).
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Morrokain on May 20, 2021, 12:55:00 PM
    Slowly but surely I'm working my way through this update though there is a lot to explore yet.

    One thing that is very noticeably different to me from testing, however, is phase AI. It has vastly improved from the last update! Nice work Alex! Even 1v1 phase battles aren't nearly as long AI vs AI and that is really saying something. (I've heard the player can do some serious damage with them as well, heh.) Last update, it would be more accurate to describe 1v1 as a stand off until CR drain rather than a battle. No more!

    I don't know if the changes were small or large in nature, but they've really made a difference from what I can see.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Ekibana on May 23, 2021, 11:44:41 AM
    Sorry if already answered:

    Is this the final version of the current build? Like we had 0.9.1a for almost two years.
    Or is there gonna be another "final" patch before Alex moves to the next bigger update?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on May 23, 2021, 12:23:47 PM
    Hi! There'll be an 0.95.1a release with a bunch of tweaks, adjustments, polish, etc, before the next "bigger" update.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: danando123 on May 24, 2021, 10:30:50 AM
    I was wondering, will we not be getting any sneak peeks? like uhm, Dev Diaries, etc

    I'll write a blog post! ... at some point in the not-too-distant future. Already know the likely topic, but want to get further with it first.


    Awesome @alex, i was also wondering, because the game takes a while to load when you have tons of mods, if there is plans to make the game load quicker to main menu, i don't do coding etc., so i guess its hard to do, and guessing that at the start loading bar, its loading all of the mods every time on startup :/ Thanks for all your hard work @devs
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on May 24, 2021, 10:42:57 AM
    Hi - yeah, that's just kind of how it works, apologies. The upside of that is there's no (well, hardly any) loading time/transitions once the game is up and running. Just with the way things work, trying to get to the main menu more quickly and load some things later would be... complicated.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on May 25, 2021, 10:10:29 AM
    Are there any plans for nameable save files and manually overwriting older save copies from within the game? Like a "Save As" function that would replace "Save Copy".
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Sutopia on May 27, 2021, 11:15:30 AM
    In the codex, selecting and deselecting Assault fighters are not properly updating shown fighter variants. (No mod)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on May 30, 2021, 04:01:14 PM
    Hmm... I set up a Steady Conquest with long range weapons and one dual flak, and it still likes to go to 1000 range or so, presumably to fire the dual flaks at the enemy. The dual flak is in its own group and removing the dual flak removes the behavior. Would I need to get a cautious officer/go without PD to get the Conquest to stay at range? Putting the dual flaks on the other side also did not work.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: halloween20 on May 30, 2021, 04:04:01 PM
    uhm

    I am new and feeling a little dumb right now
    was it changed that every fleet from any faction coming to my colony i have to pay a skill point (+20k credits) to bribe them?
    i read some threads where the costs for this was only mentioned with 100k credits.
    in the patch notes i only find this change for the hegemoni AI inspection. but i have the same price for fending off the jealous factions as well...
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: AcaMetis on May 30, 2021, 04:09:04 PM
    Any and all colony expeditions now cost a story point (and money) to bribe off, yes. It indeed doesn't make a whole lot of sense for the market share based expeditions, especially once you take a look at the actual numbers involved.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: halloween20 on May 30, 2021, 04:43:41 PM
    uhm... ok
    the first expedition was Tri-Tachyon and was killed by my patrols
    the second one from persean league was catched by me...

    was buged me is that, despite what was written in the encounter text, killing them droped my reputation with the faction...
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SCC on May 30, 2021, 10:26:24 PM
    Expedition failing for any reason decreases your reputation with the faction that sent it.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Arcagnello on May 31, 2021, 02:03:45 PM
    Why must you toy with me Alex!
    Spoiler
    (https://i.imgur.com/qecdmha.png)
    [close]
    (https://i.imgur.com/vuxElm9.png)
    How am I supposed to enact Ludd's Path if our Avatar's very soul is reincarnated into such a vessel?!
    Have you forsaken us Luddites? How could a sacred being like you hurt our fervent pride and purpose this way!
    I am contactng the nearest Pather Cell near you to write a formal mail of complaint about our damaged expectations in addition to an official Luddic Path reinbursement lawsuit of Supplies and Antimatter Fuel that were required scouring the entire known sector for our foretold Prophet only to come to the conclusion he resided inside a Dram Light Tanker!
    No more Tea at a local bar for you!
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: IonDragonX on May 31, 2021, 06:38:22 PM
    Why must you toy with me Alex!
    Spoiler
    (https://i.imgur.com/qecdmha.png)
    [close]
    (https://i.imgur.com/vuxElm9.png)
    How am I supposed to enact Ludd's Path if our Avatar's very soul is reincarnated into such a vessel?!
    Have you forsaken us Luddites? How could a sacred being like you hurt our fervent pride and purpose this way!
    I am contactng the nearest Pather Cell near you to write a formal mail of complaint about our damaged expectations in addition to an official Luddic Path reinbursement lawsuit of Supplies and Antimatter Fuel that were required scouring the entire known sector for our foretold Prophet only to come to the conclusion he resided inside a Dram Light Tanker!
    No more Tea at a local bar for you!

    Now, if only it was a Dram IED (LP) from the Luddic Enhancement mod! Boom!
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: THEASD on June 01, 2021, 07:11:09 PM
    Another report about maybe-typo in 0.95a RC-15.

    com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.hullmods.OperationsCenter, line 43
    Maybe, fleet commander won't be assigned to variable `commander`, making enemy fleet never acquire the bonus effect?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Sutopia on June 03, 2021, 02:11:07 PM
    Another report about maybe-typo in 0.95a RC-15.

    com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.hullmods.OperationsCenter, line 43
    Maybe, fleet commander won't be assigned to variable `commander`, making enemy fleet never acquire the bonus effect?

    AI fleet commander doesn’t use command points at all iirc.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on June 03, 2021, 03:34:21 PM
    AI fleet commander doesn’t use command points at all iirc.

    They do!
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Arcagnello on June 03, 2021, 03:51:27 PM
    AI fleet commander doesn’t use command points at all iirc.

    They do!

    Ah, Ludd forgive me, you beat me to replying that!

    How many Command Points does the AI get by the way? Does he get any skills like we do that affect both the original Command Point Amount and at what rate they regenerate during battle?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on June 03, 2021, 03:53:26 PM
    Same's the player IIRC? Been a while since I looked at that but I'm not sure why it'd be different.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Arcagnello on June 03, 2021, 04:18:04 PM
    Same's the player IIRC? Been a while since I looked at that but I'm not sure why it'd be different.

    Good to know, I'll make sure to look at my guy as soon as I start a new campaign (as soon as the next "mini-balance" update hits, whenever that'll be) and I will know how many commands the AI gets and how fast they regenerate as soon as I'll look at the tactical screen.

    On a quick side-note: what's your current view on [Redacted] balance-wise?

    1)AI core officer spam wrecking the Deployment Point Balance is an issue I definetly feel you already got on your sights
    2)ECCM spam got somewhat adressed by nerfing the maximum nerf to -10% maximum energy/Ballistic weapon range only, but I don't think you see it as a complete "fix" just yet
    3)Radiant is still 40DP despite being significantly stronger than a Paragon, I've got a solid feeling it would be much more in line with the rest of the [redacted] units at 60 Deployment Points even accounting for the fact it's significantly stronger than any other ship in that DP range. A quick look at both its Standard and Strike variants to make use of the rebalanced weapons/hullmods might not be a bad idea either, but the main issue with the ship is mostly revolving around Autofit really, really liking to install medium sized weapons into the large slots.
    4)Some [Redacted] variants seem to be very outdated and could use some quick modifications. Both Strike and Support versions of the Scintilla for example don't even have Expanded Deck "Crew" and that's not the most questionable set of cases either.
    5)Do you have plans for introducing some simple Overridden variants to [Redacted] ships which could most benefit from the hullmod? Namely the Glimmer, Fulgent and Brilliant?
    Edit
    6)This is a very minor but also very needed change: can [Redacted] Ship Variants get their missiles firing in LINKED mode instead of Alternating? Even the poor Strike Version of the Radiant has those 4 Sabot Pods firing on alternating...
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SCC on June 04, 2021, 02:25:27 AM
    My Radiant has sabots and reapers on alternating and it isn't afraid of dumping them to destroy frigates (or even fighters...).
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Arcagnello on June 04, 2021, 11:37:19 AM
    My Radiant has sabots and reapers on alternating and it isn't afraid of dumping them to destroy frigates (or even fighters...).

    True, but to a fault. Radiant is probably the least effective ship I could mention to advocate for [Redacted] getting their missile groups to fire on "Linked":

    1)Support Variant of the Fulgent has both the two Typoon Reaper Launchers and the Sabot SRMs on Linked. A ship as small as that that even has Expanded Missile racks would have a much better performance using Linked mode on the missile groups.
    2)Strike Variant of the Scintilla has the two Sabot SRMs firing on alternating. It would be better for the carrier to have them linked to both defend itself better AND give it a better chance of overloading the enemy and shooting it with the singular Typoon Reaper launcher it gets.
    3)Support Variant of the Scintilla has 2 Salamanders on alternating, which reduces their overall fire rate and chanches to go through enemy PD and strike true
    4)Strike Variant of the Radiant has 4 Sabot Pods (without Expanded Missile racks) that would fire a lot more sabots quicker if they were all Linked. Potentially a waste against frigates? Yes. Definetly a gamechanger when trying to crack enemy capitals open with Sabots and then drill them with the Tachyon Lances? Definetly.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Vanshilar on June 04, 2021, 08:43:30 PM
    Eh briefly...

    1)AI core officer spam wrecking the Deployment Point Balance is an issue I definetly feel you already got on your sights

    I'm not really sure why this is an issue; in 0.9.1a we started out at 40% of battlesize, vs 60% enemy battlesize, against large fleets as well. Just that in 0.95a we have an option to get ourselves up to 60% early on now, rather than grind it out at 40% of battlesize until the end.

    3)Radiant is still 40DP despite being significantly stronger than a Paragon, I've got a solid feeling it would be much more in line with the rest of the [redacted] units at 60 Deployment Points even accounting for the fact it's significantly stronger than any other ship in that DP range. A quick look at both its Standard and Strike variants to make use of the rebalanced weapons/hullmods might not be a bad idea either, but the main issue with the ship is mostly revolving around Autofit really, really liking to install medium sized weapons into the large slots.

    Rather than thinking about Radiant DP cost in terms of how it "should" be in terms of ship powerfulness relative to other ships, think of it instead in terms of how it affects gameplay.

    If the Radiant is on the enemy side, then changing it to 60 DP means that 1) the initial enemy fleet spawning with the initial Radiant will be smaller and thus easier, and 2) fewer Radiants spawn together near the end of the fight. Endgame fleets capable of farming Ordos fleets can be as little as roughly 120-160 DP; assuming the player can get 2 objectives, getting to say 55% of battlesize, this means a battlesize of 220-290 or so, meaning the Ordos fleet might only be able to put out as little as 131-175 DP at a time. At 40 DP, this means there can be up to 3 Radiants on the map at a time, but at 60 DP, it would mean only 2 Radiants, which then makes the fight much, much easier. Undervaluing the DP is a way to preserve the challenge of the endgame fight.

    If the Radiant is on the player side, then it's a matter of balancing if having an under-DP ship is too strong relative to the other fleet options (taking Special Mod instead, frigate spam, whatever), considering that the player had to take the Automated Ships skill to get it. IIRC if you're not using Derelict Contingent, then you basically get 1 Radiant at 60% CR or 2 Radiants at 30% CR each. The question is whether or not that's too powerful for the player to have relative to the other possible uses for 40 or 80 DP (and getting other skills instead of Automated Ships). Thus far (while it's fun to watch 2 Radiants running around) I haven't found it to be more powerful than other fleet setups. So I don't think it really needs to be weakened (i.e. by raising DP to 60).

    4)Some [Redacted] variants seem to be very outdated and could use some quick modifications. Both Strike and Support versions of the Scintilla for example don't even have Expanded Deck "Crew" and that's not the most questionable set of cases either.

    I'm not sure how the game creates enemy ships (it can be found in the game files though, look for something along the lines of "fleet factory" I think), but I don't think it strictly adheres to the variants given in \starsector-core\data\variants\remnant\. I count 5 unique variants for the 7 Brilliants in my test fleet, even though there is only 1 variant file in that folder. Of those 7, only 1 has a plasma cannon, despite it being the large weapon shown in the file. Basically so I don't think you should put too much weight in the variants as given in that folder as what enemy ships will actually spawn with.

    5)Do you have plans for introducing some simple Overridden variants to [Redacted] ships which could most benefit from the hullmod? Namely the Glimmer, Fulgent and Brilliant?

    Brilliants can already spawn with SO. Though in my case the SO Brilliant had a graviton, a heavy autocannon, a mining blaster, a PD laser, a pilum, 2 ion cannons, a spark wing, and ITU. So it clearly wasn't exactly optimized for SO...
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Arcagnello on June 05, 2021, 03:59:59 AM
    Quote
    I'm not really sure why this is an issue; in 0.9.1a we started out at 40% of battlesize, vs 60% enemy battlesize, against large fleets as well. Just that in 0.95a we have an option to get ourselves up to 60% early on now, rather than grind it out at 40% of battlesize until the end.

    Personally speaking, it is an issue.
    Not because it makes fighting [Redacted] harder per-say, but because it's artificially making it harder. Deployment Point balance now is modified the most by the amount of officers and their quality. While it was very much entirely possible to negate the initial [Redacted] Deployment Point advantage in battle during 0.91 and under by just having a lot of Deployment Points worth of combat ships, the simple nature of how Vanilla Starsector generates [Redacted] Ordos makes it impossible to do the same in 0.95a-RC15.


    Picking both Officer Management and Officer Training skills (which implies spending 9 skills into leadership)can get you up to a total of 10 level 6 officers with 40 Normal Skills and 20 Elite Skills.

    A really, really small ordo by comparison that, say, has 7 Alpha Cores, 3 Betas and 2 Gammas will have a total of 7 Level 8 Officers, 3 level 6 officers and 2 level 4 officers, with a total of 82 ELite Skills in total

    Explain to me how that abomination of a mechanic is supposed to make the game more interesting, as opposed to (I don't know) having Vanilla Starsector stop spamming the moloch-cursed officers upon reaching a treshold (which would be difefrent depending on factions) and start applying INtegrated Hullmods on the bigger, badder ships instead?

    Quote
    Rather than thinking about Radiant DP cost in terms of how it "should" be in terms of ship powerfulness relative to other ships, think of it instead in terms of how it affects gameplay.

    If the Radiant is on the enemy side, then changing it to 60 DP means that 1) the initial enemy fleet spawning with the initial Radiant will be smaller and thus easier, and 2) fewer Radiants spawn together near the end of the fight. Endgame fleets capable of farming Ordos fleets can be as little as roughly 120-160 DP; assuming the player can get 2 objectives, getting to say 55% of battlesize, this means a battlesize of 220-290 or so, meaning the Ordos fleet might only be able to put out as little as 131-175 DP at a time. At 40 DP, this means there can be up to 3 Radiants on the map at a time, but at 60 DP, it would mean only 2 Radiants, which then makes the fight much, much easier. Undervaluing the DP is a way to preserve the challenge of the endgame fight.

    If the Radiant is on the player side, then it's a matter of balancing if having an under-DP ship is too strong relative to the other fleet options (taking Special Mod instead, frigate spam, whatever), considering that the player had to take the Automated Ships skill to get it. IIRC if you're not using Derelict Contingent, then you basically get 1 Radiant at 60% CR or 2 Radiants at 30% CR each. The question is whether or not that's too powerful for the player to have relative to the other possible uses for 40 or 80 DP (and getting other skills instead of Automated Ships). Thus far (while it's fun to watch 2 Radiants running around) I haven't found it to be more powerful than other fleet setups. So I don't think it really needs to be weakened (i.e. by raising DP to 60).

    Alright, fair enough, let me explain how I think the Radiant used to and currently affects gameplay then: It's a bloody crutch that kept the [Redacted] competitive before 0.95 because the faction was terrible that is now being used as a blunt object for Remnants to hit the player experience over the head with it in 0.95.

    Nothing more, nothing less. The faction needed an absolute balancing abomination to stand a chance before 0.95 but now that the [Redacted] are the only faction in vanilla that consistently gets more fleet wide buffs and twice the amount of officers with elite skills than the player the ship DP is overdue for an increase.

    Would it nerf the faction as a whole? Ludd yes, but there are much better ways to buff it back to be a proper endgame threat, I'll tell you that much. Speaking of which:

    Quote
    I'm not sure how the game creates enemy ships (it can be found in the game files though, look for something along the lines of "fleet factory" I think), but I don't think it strictly adheres to the variants given in \starsector-core\data\variants\remnant\. I count 5 unique variants for the 7 Brilliants in my test fleet, even though there is only 1 variant file in that folder. Of those 7, only 1 has a plasma cannon, despite it being the large weapon shown in the file. Basically so I don't think you should put too much weight in the variants as given in that folder as what enemy ships will actually spawn with.

    I wasn't sure about how that worked either until a few days ago with the help of a lot of people explaining stuff to me:
    All [redacted] units have 1 or 2 Variants like "Standard", "Support", "Strike" and so on. Those are the targets the actual AI fleets try and aim at, you will sometimes see those exact same builds while playing starsector, but most of the time the game will "approximate" the variant with its own spin. It sometimes, very rarely works at the AI's advantage but, most of the time, it's a terrible "custom variant" that's even worse than the (decent at best, horrible at worse) "target" variants [Redacted] have.

    In short, you don't only have a faction that constantly likes gimping their own superior ship stats with subpar setups, but that even mutates them further from the intended "target" most of the time.

    Wouldn't it be great if the "Superior Artificial Intelligence" that gave the entire Persean Sector so much trouble during two Ludd-forsaken AI WARS at least had decent Variants of its own ships and an autofit option that would not butcher them even further more than half the time? Food for thought.

    Quote
    Brilliants can already spawn with SO. Though in my case the SO Brilliant had a graviton, a heavy autocannon, a mining blaster, a PD laser, a pilum, 2 ion cannons, a spark wing, and ITU. So it clearly wasn't exactly optimized for SO...

    That' a product of Autofit modifying the only Vanilla Variant of the Brilliant, which is the following brought to you by a shameless self-insert:
    Brilliant-class Droneship Cruiser
    (https://i.imgur.com/coKujWR.png)
    Codex Entry
    Spoiler
    (https://i.imgur.com/4Ah1oj1.png)
    [close]
    Brilliant's Stats (above) compared to a Dominator (Middle) and an Aurora's (below)
    Spoiler
    (https://i.imgur.com/oTMS1ln.png)(https://i.imgur.com/HZ4Ab3X.png)(https://i.imgur.com/51cK0dq.png)Please don't mind the "Low Maintenance" Hullmod on the Dominator reducing its maintenance, which is from a mod called "Low Maintenance" by Zym.
    Or do mind it and install it from its official thread link over here, since it's really good!
    https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=21715.msg327897#msg327897
    [close]
    Overview
    This asymmetric Cruiser a mixture of everything that's Remnant and is the only ship in the roster (so far) that can mount ballistic weapons, two medium hardpoints worth of them in fact, along with 1 medium missile, 1 large energy, 1 medium energy and 2 small energy. It's the second most potent Remnant ship in their roster at 25 Deployment Points and it's one of the only three ships that generally deal the most damage to your fleet along the Fulgent and the Radiant. There apparently is no Overridden variant in the Starsector Variant files, so it must be a rare occurrence for when the stars align and Autofit does something good for once.

    Vanilla Variants
    Standard       Personal Rating:  Annoying Shielded Gaming Mouse
    Armament : 1x Plasma Cannon (alternating), 1x Sabot Pod (linked), 2x Hypervelocity Driver (linked), 1x Heavy Burst laser & 2 Burst PD lasers (linked)
    Hangar Bay: 1x Spark Interceptor Wing
    Hullmods: Integrated Targeting Unit

    Despite the rather terrible weapon range synergies, this variant somewhat works and poses a hassle when faced not because it does a lot of damage compared to other Remnant Ships, but because it's incredibly durable for the amount of DP it takes to deploy, especially when an AI officer with Elite Shield Modulation and possibly even Elite Impact Mitigation and Elite Damage Control is sotting at the helm.

    I'm aware I've got to edit that thread a bit since the Brillian does not have a Medium Missile but a Medium Synergy Hardpoint on that top left side.



    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on June 05, 2021, 07:09:43 PM
    Nitpick:  Second AI war did not involve AI ships.  Just a... dispute between Hegemony and TriTach that involved the use of a planet killer on HP, in a system with the League plus pirates at Qaras.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on June 05, 2021, 07:40:54 PM
    ... as opposed to (I don't know) having Vanilla Starsector stop spamming the moloch-cursed officers upon reaching a treshold (which would be difefrent depending on factions) and start applying INtegrated Hullmods on the bigger, badder ships instead?

    The game does limit the number of officers for most factions, btw, with the actual limit depending on the faction. The Remnants just aren't one of them. Their officers aren't really "officers" and don't need to follow anything like the same rules. Expectations for them to do so are misplaced, and, frankly, they're supposed to be a challenge! This could also involve integrated hullmods (and does in places) but exactly which levers are used to make ships tougher... well, that's just a detail.

    On a quick side-note: what's your current view on [Redacted] balance-wise?

    1)AI core officer spam wrecking the Deployment Point Balance is an issue I definetly feel you already got on your sights

    Probably not a surprise after reading the above, but: that's all working entirely as intended.

    (Edit: I wouldn't rule out possible tweaks to the mechanic itself, though, but I don't have anything specific in mind right now.)

    2)ECCM spam got somewhat adressed by nerfing the maximum nerf to -10% maximum energy/Ballistic weapon range only, but I don't think you see it as a complete "fix" just yet

    I don't have any specific plans but it's something I'll have another look at and give it a think. Was just thinking about it the other day, actually. I think the maximum value feels good, but is reached too quickly. So maybe something like reducing the various sources of it across the board, or something along those lines...

    3)Radiant is still 40DP despite being significantly stronger than a Paragon, I've got a solid feeling it would be much more in line with the rest of the [redacted] units at 60 Deployment Points even accounting for the fact it's significantly stronger than any other ship in that DP range. A quick look at both its Standard and Strike variants to make use of the rebalanced weapons/hullmods might not be a bad idea either, but the main issue with the ship is mostly revolving around Autofit really, really liking to install medium sized weapons into the large slots.

    I'll probably adjust it when I tweak the AS skill!

    4)Some [Redacted] variants seem to be very outdated and could use some quick modifications. Both Strike and Support versions of the Scintilla for example don't even have Expanded Deck "Crew" and that's not the most questionable set of cases either.

    I mean, "crew", so no, they wouldn't!


    5)Do you have plans for introducing some simple Overridden variants to [Redacted] ships which could most benefit from the hullmod? Namely the Glimmer, Fulgent and Brilliant?

    Not really! I mean, I'm not specifically against that, either, but it's not something I've really thought about one way or another.


    Edit
    6)This is a very minor but also very needed change: can [Redacted] Ship Variants get their missiles firing in LINKED mode instead of Alternating? Even the poor Strike Version of the Radiant has those 4 Sabot Pods firing on alternating...

    Hmm, I'll need to have a look. I don't think I'll want to do that, though; if anything I'd want to adjust alternating group behavior to be more effective. But generally the idea is to have missiles last longer.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Delta_of_Isaire on June 06, 2021, 04:57:06 AM
    Remnants aren't the only faction whose performance is crippled diminished by poor-quality goal variants and autofit randomization. All factions struggle with that really, except maybe the [super-redacted]. It's just more visible for Remnants because people expect them to be strong.

    For what it's worth: I'm working on a mod that addresses this, among a few other things :)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Arcagnello on June 06, 2021, 05:14:59 AM
    Nitpick:  Second AI war did not involve AI ships.  Just a... dispute between Hegemony and TriTach that involved the use of a planet killer on HP, in a system with the League plus pirates at Qaras.

    Oh, you got me there. I need to read the sacred lore texts once again...

    To @Alex: You can skip the stuff in the Spoiler Tabs, they're there just for context
    Quote
    The game does limit the number of officers for most factions, btw, with the actual limit depending on the faction. The Remnants just aren't one of them. Their officers aren't really "officers" and don't need to follow anything like the same rules. Expectations for them to do so are misplaced, and, frankly, they're supposed to be a challenge! This could also involve integrated hullmods (and does in places) but exactly which levers are used to make ships tougher... well, that's just a detail.
    [insert Complaingnello comments here]
    Probably not a surprise after reading the above, but: that's all working entirely as intended.

    (Edit: I wouldn't rule out possible tweaks to the mechanic itself, though, but I don't have anything specific in mind right now.)

    I won't foolishly disagree with the fact AI Cores used as officers do not follow the same "rules" as human officers (which they're not supposed to either), but what I mean to say is that the "Elite Skill Count" of Remnant fleets is so off the charts even serious officer tryharding plus the Automated Ships skill does not even come close to contesting the DP balance of, say, even a decently sized ordo like this one:
    Spoiler
    (https://i.imgur.com/ANCepe1.png)
    [close]
    I know I've got mod ships in there but I'm 99% sure none of them modify the presence or absence of AI cores in any way. I'm counting 9 Alpha Cores, 2 Beta Cores and 2 Gamma Cores, which amount to that Remnant Ordo fielding 92 Elite Officer Skills in total.

    By comparison, assuming you for some reason decide investing 9 skill points into leadership to be able to field 10 level 6 officers with 2 elite skills each (totaling up to 40 Skills and 20 Elite Skills) and then invest another 5 skill points to get Automated ships, then field 6 Gamma Core Glimmers (which amounts to 24 Elite Skills if you integrate each and every one of them into their respective ships) you're going to end up with a fleet able to field a total of 40 Officer Skills and 44 Elite Officer Skills in total

    Assuming the game also values Elite Officer Skills more than normal Officer skills when calculating the Deployment Point Balance thru the algorithm, even going fully nonsensical with officer spam does not put a dent in the skewed balance.

    Having Vanilla prioritize giving a core to every single Remnant ship and only then thart "upgrading" the core type on the bigger ships first (while not giving Destroyers or Frigates Alpha Cores at the same time) up to a still high (but more sensible) Elite Skill treshold would feel a lot more organic.

    Also, introducing a mechanic that adds Integrated hullmods (on the bigger, badder Remnant Ships) instead once every ship gets an AI Core officer fitting the ship it's at the helm of would be a much preferred option to the current Remnant Patrol generation slapping Alpha Cores everywhere

    Quote
    [Regarding the ECM rating]I don't have any specific plans but it's something I'll have another look at and give it a think. Was just thinking about it the other day, actually. I think the maximum value feels good, but is reached too quickly. So maybe something like reducing the various sources of it across the board, or something along those lines...

    I don't speak from experience since I've "only" been playing this game for a year and a half, but I remember being informed that ECM rating used to affect things other than maximum energy/ballistic range.

    Having it both tick upwards slower and preventing not only the AI but also the player from abusing ECM rating spam with the help of Gamma Core Frigates augmented by both Wolfpack Tactics, Coordinated Manouvers and the Elite Gunnery Implants skill (you can realistically get more than 10% ECM rating for every gamma Core Frigate with all the Commander Skills, officer Skills and Integrated Nav Package stacking) but also provide different kinds of buffes/nerfs to in-combat stats would be very interesting.

    Do you have some ideas on the matter? I'd personally focus on ECM affecting:
    -chance of missile to ignore passive countermeasures/failure of missiles to track the target even in the absence of passive countermeasures
    -weapon recoil
    -peak performance time (maybe? it sounds more like a Nav Rating thing, should it also tick slower and start affecting more things)
    -missile range/travel speed/handling/fuel
    -damage to weapons and engines
    -fighter/bomber LPC range
    -autofire weapon accuracy across the board
    and so on.

    Quote
    [Regarding the Radiant being 40DP]
    I'll probably adjust it when I tweak the AS skill!

    That's the best news so far today  :)
    Just...uh...make sure to tweak its Vanilla Variants a bit to be more befitting of a 60DP capital ship.
    Spoiler
    Radiant-class Drone Battleship
    (https://i.imgur.com/UGnAZar.png)
    Codex Entry
    Spoiler
    (https://i.imgur.com/bIOXSEv.png)
    [close]
    Radiant's Stats (above) compared to a Paragon's (below)
    Spoiler
    (https://i.imgur.com/m2TLvAg.png)
    [close]
    [..]
    Vanilla Variants
    1)Standard        Personal Rating: Wasted Large Weapon Mounts
    Armament: 2 Autopulse Lasers (Linked), 2 Locusts (Alternating), 1 Paladin PD & 6 PD Lasers (linked), 4 Ion Beams (Linked), 4 IR Pulse Lasers (linked)
    Hullmods: Integrated Targeting Unit, Expanded Magazines, Heavy Armor
    9 Capacitors, 50 Vents

    Without going into potential modifications to the Vanilla autofit, this is a textbook example of how to NOT set up a Radiant and it's the setup you wish for when fighting an Ordo. Heavy Armor is a 40OP dead weight unless it's integrated, Locusts not only do pathetic damage to anything but weaksauce frigates but they also don't even have expanded missile racks, 4 Ion beams is overkill even for me and IR pulse lasers are as pointless as nipples on a breastplate.

    2)Strike         Personal Rating: Deployment Point Imbalance Incarnate
    Armament: 5 Tachyon Lances (linked), 4 Sabot Pods (Alternating), 10 PD Lasers (Linked)
    Hullmods: Integrated Targeting Unit, Advanced Optics, Resistant Flux Conduits
    0 Capacitors, 50 vents

    This is the most infamous Remnant setup in the whole roster despite being horribly unoptimized. It's more or less a testament to how the Radiant Stats are so broken across the board for a 40DP ship they are able to pull the suboptimal setups up in performance by sheer brute force. Advanced Optics is not only useless since the ship never makes use of that extra range but it also makes T-lances and PD lasers even more unwieldy to swing around and hit their targets. Sabots are both firing in ALTERNATING MODE and without Expanded Missile Racks.
    [close]
    A Remnant Ship with a 0.6 shield and a litteral Fearless Personality that already has 1000 range weaponty with ITU and most likely also GUnnery Implants does not Need Advanced Optics, just to name one example out of many.

    Addendum: I know what I'm about to write will sound both entitled and silly considering it's adressed to someone that's been nicely balancing this game for almost a decade (as in you) but I'll say it anyway: be very wary of buffing the amount of Automated Ship Points we get from the AS skill. We players can already abuse the skill to disgusting degrees by either blotting out the sun with Gamma Core Frigates and their 10%+ ECM rating each and also deploy two Alpha Core radiants still sitting above 42% Combat Readiness with the help of both Crew Training (and a fleet under 240DP of combat ships) plus 3-Dmods at minimum on each ship with Derelict Contingent.

    Having the AS skill make AI cores consume more Automated Ship Points each the more of the same type that are present (and probably doing the same to multiple ships of the same type) as you raise the avaiable Automated Ship Points of the skill would not be a terrible idea.

    Quote
    [Referring to the possiblity of both Scintilla Drone Carrier Variants having Expanded Deck "crew"]
    I mean, "crew", so no, they wouldn't!

    Have you considered giving the Scintilla (and possibly also the Brilliant) a brand new Integrated Hullmod called "Combat- rated Drone Autoforges" witht he same effect of Expanded Deck Crew as a solution? The recent (and most welcome) carrier changes have somewhat butchered the Remnant carriers as a whole, especially combined with the very needed Spark nerf.

    Quote
    [Referring to the possibility of introducing Overridden Variants of Glimmer, Fulgent and Brilliant]
    Not really! I mean, I'm not specifically against that, either, but it's not something I've really thought about one way or another.

    I would personally suggest having one Overridden Variant for each of those 3 Remnant Ships. The strength of a SS faction is not in a small way affected by the variety of the same Ship classes it can field. Having multiple decently effective variants of the same ship will go a long way into making the faction as a whole more competitive, especially if they cover eachother's weaknesses.

    Quote
    [Referring to all Vanilla Remnant Ship Variants having their missile weapons on "Alternating" instead of "Linked"]
    Hmm, I'll need to have a look. I don't think I'll want to do that, though; if anything I'd want to adjust alternating group behavior to be more effective. But generally the idea is to have missiles last longer.

    I'm really looking forward to the changes to how the AI uses Alternating weapon groups  :)

    As for the idea of putting Remnant missile weapon groups on alternating to have missiles last longer, I don't think that helps the faction peform better at all and makes it more dependant on the plehora of buffs vanilla SS gives them as a whole.

    Most remnant ships are generally slower than their manned counterparts (aside from the Radiant), meaning they perform best with higher amounts of burst damage allowing them to quickly paralyze the enemy and prevent it from easily getting away without suffering serious or catastrophical damage first.

    This also applies to ships like the Radiant which have the ability to suddenly get into the range of the enemy.
    More strike damage on a ship that teleports right behind (or in front of you, does not really matter) and saying "Sorry Human, nothing personal" before blasting you with 8 Sabots at the same time to then melt your face off with 5 Tach Lances works a lot better than a slow pathetic drip of 2 Sabots at a time giving the enemy the chance to retaliate before the radiant can do its thing.

    Remnants aren't the only faction whose performance is crippled diminished by poor-quality goal variants and autofit randomization. All factions struggle with that really, except maybe the [super-redacted]. It's just more visible for Remnants because people expect them to be strong.

    For what it's worth: I'm working on a mod that addresses this, among a few other things :)

    I am very pleased to hear that! Can I PM you about it?
    I may just have extensively tryharded Vanilla Remnant ship setups enough to provide you with 3 to 6 very well performing variants of each ship in the roster, including additional variants making use of 1,2 or even 3 Integrated Hullmods!

    Edit: I've sent you a PM @Delta_of_Isaire!

    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on June 06, 2021, 08:26:51 AM
    Quote
    I don't speak from experience since I've "only" been playing this game for a year and a half, but I remember being informed that ECM rating used to affect things other than maximum energy/ballistic range.
    Before ECM, it merely increased stats like Nav does for speed.  Originally, it extended shot range.  Then, for a few releases, it increased damage (like old Ordnance Expert).  Lately, it reduces the shot range of the enemy.

    Starsector has an obsession of making shot range as painfully short as possible, turning guns into metal sticks to whack enemies with.  I like to see ECM increase shot range like it originally did.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on June 06, 2021, 08:29:58 AM
    ... but what I mean to say is that the "Elite Skill Count" of Remnant fleets is so off the charts even serious officer tryharding plus the Automated Ships skill does not even come close to contesting the DP balance of, say, even a decently sized ordo like this one:

    Yep, I understood what you meant!

    Assuming the game also values Elite Officer Skills more than normal Officer skills when calculating the Deployment Point Balance...

    It doesn't; the number of officers and the officer level are the main factors. Ships also factor in but only slightly.


    I don't speak from experience since I've "only" been playing this game for a year and a half, but I remember being informed that ECM rating used to affect things other than maximum energy/ballistic range.

    Ah - I think that was before ECM rating etc? At one point Sensor Arrays gave a bonus to weapon damage.

    The thinking is that for ECM to be worthwhile, it has to affect a really primary gameplay stat, and that means either weapon range or ship speed. Hmm..


    Variants:
    I do need to look at the various variants at some point. Generally speaking they're, ah, more thematic than optimized; it's never quite felt like the right time to spen a bunch of time optimizing them.

    Autofit in general operates under some constraints as far as what it makes available to install. That is, when the loadout algorithm goes to work, it doesn't have access to every single thing the faction has. This is meant to represent, well, not everything being available all the time! ... I think people tend to interpret it as autofit being terrible, at times :) So, e.g, when it's putting a Mining Blaster in a large slot, that's because it's all it has to work with. (Or, well, it rolled the "do fairly random stuff" option, the chance of which is configured per faction, via "autofitRandomizeProbability".)

    Some encounters (such as the Red Planet defenses) make everything available, though.



    Addendum: I know what I'm about to write will sound both entitled and silly considering it's adressed to someone that's been nicely balancing this game for almost a decade (as in you) but I'll say it anyway: be very wary of buffing the amount of Automated Ship Points we get from the AS skill. We players can already abuse the skill to disgusting degrees by either blotting out the sun with Gamma Core Frigates and their 10%+ ECM rating each and also deploy two Alpha Core radiants still sitting above 42% Combat Readiness with the help of both Crew Training (and a fleet under 240DP of combat ships) plus 3-Dmods at minimum on each ship with Derelict Contingent.

    All good, I appreciate it. The 2x Radiants thing given DC kind of slipped through the cracks, to be honest - but DC overall is, let's put it mildly, not in a good place.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SafariJohn on June 06, 2021, 01:33:01 PM
    I don't speak from experience since I've "only" been playing this game for a year and a half, but I remember being informed that ECM rating used to affect things other than maximum energy/ballistic range.

    Ah - I think that was before ECM rating etc? At one point Sensor Arrays gave a bonus to weapon damage.

    The thinking is that for ECM to be worthwhile, it has to affect a really primary gameplay stat, and that means either weapon range or ship speed. Hmm..

    On the subject of affecting primary gameplay stats, shield efficiency and minimum armor percent are also big stats that could be interesting to boost with objectives, etc.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Thaago on June 06, 2021, 04:05:19 PM
    Not sure if this is still a thing being looked at, but I just got a water world in Duzahk which I thought wasn't supposed to happen. Seed is MN-4958611206903144980, only mod is Detailed Combat Results.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on June 06, 2021, 04:22:58 PM
    This world is a moon, right? IIRC that's still an issue - proper worlds won't be habitable, but moons still can be.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Thaago on June 06, 2021, 04:29:42 PM
    Yup, that it is.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Arcagnello on June 06, 2021, 05:47:45 PM
    I'm on the phone right now, but I've got something in the works which includes some 19 Vanilla Remnant Ship Variants without Integrated Hullmods that have been working very well for me in my first 0.95 campaign.

    I'll make sure to pass a cut down, shorter to read version of it over to this thread too. I've made opportune modifications to the designs in order for them to all:
    -equip the right weapon size on all mounts
    -fill every weapon mount
    -not use anything the Remnants would not use (IE Mining Lasers, Mining Blasters, Mining Pods, Hammer Barrage...)

    There are some 7 Radiant Variants (which are all quite different from each other) that still end up beating 120 Fleet Points worth of stuff without integrated Hullmods and just an Alpha Core as officer and Coordinated Manouvers, Flux Regulation and Electronic Warfare as Commander Skills (same ones the Remnants have).

    All of these Variants work quite nicely with the Default Weapon Groups and firing modes the game likes to give them, altough some of them benefit from custom grouping and firing modes more than others.

    The 4 Brilliant and 7 Radiant Variants are all individually designed to counter a specific set of enemies, but there are some of those setups that are significantly better than the others in most aspects.
    You could say the additional "Cool" variants not only add "Flavour" but also significantly dilute the "There is no flavour here, say hi to Ludd for me when you meet him" ones among them to an acceptable degree  :P
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Thaago on June 06, 2021, 06:21:11 PM
    My 2 cents on improved variant packs: just don't do linked missile tricks, its too mean. Good variants with default weapon groups are a good challenge for players without just exploding the first ship that comes into contact. (And realistically if the enemy had those tricks, players would use bait frigates with like 7 D mods and reinforced bulkheads and just deploy them to deplete enemy missiles every fight, which is just cheesey.)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Arcagnello on June 06, 2021, 06:33:37 PM
    My 2 cents on improved variant packs: just don't do linked missile tricks, its too mean. Good variants with default weapon groups are a good challenge for players without just exploding the first ship that comes into contact. (And realistically if the enemy had those tricks, players would use bait frigates with like 7 D mods and reinforced bulkheads and just deploy them to deplete enemy missiles every fight, which is just cheesey.)

    Oh, It's definetly a lot nastier than just putting the same missile weapons in the same weapon group and having them fire in Linked mode.
    I was fiddling like a child in a candy shop while finding ways to murderize an Overridden Fulgent further when I tried giving it Antimatter blasters and Sabot pods (in all the weapons that could take either and still fire at the front without turning the ship).
    Turns out that the AI behaves very nicely with all Antimatter blasters togheder with Sabots all in the same weapon group and on Linked mode, so well I ultimately decided it would be too mean (even for me) to propose it  :P
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Thaago on June 06, 2021, 06:48:50 PM
    : Shivers in fear :
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: TaLaR on June 07, 2021, 12:19:18 AM
    I'd prefer Remnants to be strong because they use proper loadouts with moderate pure stat buffs (Radiant being what it is, number of cores, etc) rather than overcompensating ridiculously bad loadouts with equally ridiculous buffs.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: AdmiralRem on June 15, 2021, 12:48:12 PM
    So after a good number of hours and a few start overs, I have to say I'm not loving the new skill system. So it certainly doesn't seem worse. It just feels like a lateral movement. There is less overall progression, I feel limited by it and I really don't like that there are skill I have to get that I don't want just to get to the next one I actually DO want. I like that we can remap the skills but some are permanent and therefore you're stuck with an entire skill branch that may no longer be needed. Are there less skills over all now too? I didn't find the old system confusing at all, I thought I had read that was one reason for the revamp?

    Anyways, just some feedback, I don't hate it but I don't love it.

    Oh the D-mod removal skill is fantastic and maybe OP in my opinion which how much $ you save just... existing. As much as I love it, it maybe should be elite?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on June 15, 2021, 02:55:21 PM
    Oh the D-mod removal skill is fantastic and maybe OP in my opinion which how much $ you save just... existing. As much as I love it, it maybe should be elite?
    Making everything good Elite means respec hurts more, making the story point cost more than one.  I rather have Elite stuff minimized so that respec stays relatively cheap.

    Making respec expensive defeats the point of it.  At least permanent skills will not be next release.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: IonDragonX on June 15, 2021, 04:42:00 PM
    Making everything good Elite means respec hurts more, making the story point cost more than one.  I rather have Elite stuff minimized so that respec stays relatively cheap.
    I halfway agree with you. I'd like to see the Elite tag on the skill say even if you respec out of it. That way, you can have strong Elite effects that you voluntarily disable if you respec out of it. Then, if you change your mind later, you can respec back to the Elite-tagged skill. Basically, you bleed out Story Points for being indecisive.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Sutopia on June 15, 2021, 04:57:15 PM
    I don’t know if it’s proper to ask here, but is there plan to extend contact related content?

    For example, spend contact rep instead of faction rep to avert expedition. It’s currently a never pick because beating expeditions result in merely 5 rep loss while averting cost much more.

    It’s also (probably) a popular request that you should be able to ask contact for a favor.

    Overall I feel there’s a lot of potentials in this.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on June 15, 2021, 05:54:46 PM
    So after a good number of hours and a few start overs, I have to say I'm not loving the new skill system. So it certainly doesn't seem worse. It just feels like a lateral movement. There is less overall progression, I feel limited by it and I really don't like that there are skill I have to get that I don't want just to get to the next one I actually DO want. I like that we can remap the skills but some are permanent and therefore you're stuck with an entire skill branch that may no longer be needed. Are there less skills over all now too? I didn't find the old system confusing at all, I thought I had read that was one reason for the revamp?

    Anyways, just some feedback, I don't hate it but I don't love it.

    Oh the D-mod removal skill is fantastic and maybe OP in my opinion which how much $ you save just... existing. As much as I love it, it maybe should be elite?

    I appreciate the feedback! Well, the good news is I'm doing a fairly extensive update of the skill system - keeping the aspects that I think worked well, and adjusting the rest. I'm pretty excited about it, actually, since I think/hope this'll really make the whole thing click.

    I don’t know if it’s proper to ask here, but is there plan to extend contact related content?

    For example, spend contact rep instead of faction rep to avert expedition. It’s currently a never pick because beating expeditions result in merely 5 rep loss while averting cost much more.

    It’s also (probably) a popular request that you should be able to ask contact for a favor.

    Overall I feel there’s a lot of potentials in this.

    Yeah, maybe? I have some notes on what I'd like to perhaps expand about the system, at some point - so let's just say I generally agee with your sentiment here, about there being a lot more potential here, but it's nothing I'd call "plans", exactly.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: code99 on June 16, 2021, 02:15:17 AM
    Well, the good news is I'm doing a fairly extensive update of the skill system - keeping the aspects that I think worked well, and adjusting the rest. I'm pretty excited about it, actually, since I think/hope this'll really make the whole thing click.

    Oh thank god. That is indeed good news.

    I hate the the new skill system. I agree with AdmiralRem, i feel limited by it and i shouldnt have to take a skill i may not want just to reach a skill i do want.

    Looking forward to the rework!
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: TottiTheTurtle on June 17, 2021, 03:38:53 AM

    I appreciate the feedback! Well, the good news is I'm doing a fairly extensive update of the skill system - keeping the aspects that I think worked well, and adjusting the rest. I'm pretty excited about it, actually, since I think/hope this'll really make the whole thing click.


    Will this reworked/updated skill system be part of 0.95.1 or the next BIG update? My fingers are itching man!
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on June 17, 2021, 05:05:30 PM
    This is for the .1 release, yeah!
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Timid on June 18, 2021, 12:06:55 AM
    This is for the .1 release, yeah!
    About the 0.95.1 update, I'm concerned about the respeccing of permanent skills... especially in a mod that I'm developing that involves invisible skills assigned to the player. I'm afraid of them respeccing and getting more spec points than necessary. Will there be a tag to make respec ignore these skills? Much thanks!
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on June 18, 2021, 08:15:10 AM
    Is it already an issue? I don't think anything regarding this would change. And invisible skills shouldn't be affected by respec, unless they have other skills as requirements.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SonnaBanana on June 18, 2021, 09:42:57 PM
    So between the new destroyer's hullmod and the latest AI change, are we getting a snipe order or anything to force AI to engage from maximum range?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Yunru on June 19, 2021, 01:03:45 AM
    So between the new destroyer's hullmod and the latest AI change, are we getting a snipe order or anything to force AI to engage from maximum range?
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't Steady and below already do that?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SonnaBanana on June 19, 2021, 01:23:53 AM
    So between the new destroyer's hullmod and the latest AI change, are we getting a snipe order or anything to force AI to engage from maximum range?
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't Steady and below already do that?
    If that's true then we need to add information about officer aggression to the game tips or the codex.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Yunru on June 19, 2021, 01:25:38 AM
    Truth.

    I have no idea where I saw it, but I believe Aggressive will always try and keep all weapons in range, and Steady will try to keep the longest weapon in range. I imagine below that is more concerned with avoiding enemy ranges.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SCC on June 19, 2021, 07:27:49 AM
    This is for the .1 release, yeah!
    I can't wait for people to get disappointed you didn't revert back to 0.9.1 skills.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Yunru on June 19, 2021, 10:52:27 AM
    I can't wait for the point where the skill tree turns into a skill web :P
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on June 19, 2021, 11:15:52 AM
    So between the new destroyer's hullmod and the latest AI change, are we getting a snipe order or anything to force AI to engage from maximum range?
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't Steady and below already do that?

    My steady Dual Gauss Cannon Conquest officer tried to get flak cannons into range so often that I completely removed PD from the ship.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on June 19, 2021, 11:56:07 AM
    My steady Dual Gauss Cannon Conquest officer tried to get flak cannons into range so often that I completely removed PD from the ship.

    Are you sure that's what was going on? The AI makes a distinction between PD and non-PD and a steady officer generally speaking shouldn't do that (unless, perhaps, ordered to Eliminate a target), and I'm not seeing any hints of that behavior with such a loadout. If you've got a case where I can see this behavior in a vanilla simulator setup, I'd love to take a look!
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Sutopia on June 21, 2021, 08:55:50 AM
    I feel megaport and waystation are brainless picks for colonies and provide next to no depth in decision making, worse than commerce (which at least takes an industry slot).
    I really hope they can get a vanilla change in their mechanics, not just player specific cheat to tank accessibility at next to no cost.
    For example, megaport allowing stockpile of imports and reduces impact of demand shortage; Way station takes an industry slot but becomes system-wide effect.

    Another piece of feedback is adding a facility that produces a small amount of organs that allows player to have self sufficient organ supply without using any AI or improvement. It’s the only vanilla commodity that I simply have no way to get a closed loop when role playing pather.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: AcaMetis on June 21, 2021, 09:13:27 AM
    Another piece of feedback is adding a facility that produces a small amount of organs that allows player to have self sufficient organ supply without using any AI or improvement. It’s the only vanilla commodity that I simply have no way to get a closed loop when role playing pather.
    Without Freeport I don't believe you colonies will import Organs/Recreational Drugs even if you have a sufficient supply in-faction, so such a facility would really only be useful for the colony it's build on.

    I would also like to add that both Luddic and Pather worlds are exempt from Pather Cells even if they exceed the usual thresholds, so I don't believe that roleplaying a Luddite (of either shade) should exclude you from using Domain-era tech or even AIs. Pathers won't judge their own, so a fanatic using the tools of Moloch against itself is not out of the question.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Sutopia on June 21, 2021, 09:25:34 AM
    I would also like to add that both Luddic and Pather worlds are exempt from Pather Cells even if they exceed the usual thresholds, so I don't believe that roleplaying a Luddite (of either shade) should exclude you from using Domain-era tech or even AIs. Pathers won't judge their own, so a fanatic using the tools of Moloch against itself is not out of the question.

    In that case I will swing my hammer in the name of Ludd and bring them Armageddon.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on June 21, 2021, 12:34:58 PM
    My steady Dual Gauss Cannon Conquest officer tried to get flak cannons into range so often that I completely removed PD from the ship.

    Are you sure that's what was going on? The AI makes a distinction between PD and non-PD and a steady officer generally speaking shouldn't do that (unless, perhaps, ordered to Eliminate a target), and I'm not seeing any hints of that behavior with such a loadout. If you've got a case where I can see this behavior in a vanilla simulator setup, I'd love to take a look!

    Only mod I have is Detailed Combat Results, are you able to accept a file with saved results from that, or is a version without it better?

    I just tested it with two steady officers. Without the flak cannon, the minimum range is 1750 from ATU and the skill, and on autopilot it would happily stay around 1900-2000 units away from Onslaughts/Paragons.

    With the flak cannon, even when I changed my fleet doctrine from Aggressive (3) to 2, the Conquest would still try to close to ~1250 range of the Onslaughts or Paragon. This was with a flak cannon in its own weapon group (#7).

    Testing the flak cannon in weapon group 4, this did not happen in one run, but happened in subsequent runs. It also happens if I put the flak cannon on the side opposite to the broadside.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on June 21, 2021, 12:38:01 PM
    I can try it - worst case I'll just install Detailed Combat Results, it's just one mod.

    fractalsoftworks [at] gmail [dot] com

    Thank you!
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on June 21, 2021, 01:00:25 PM
    I can try it - worst case I'll just install Detailed Combat Results, it's just one mod.

    fractalsoftworks [at] gmail [dot] com

    Thank you!

    File and screenshot sent under header "Steady Conquest Moving Into Flak Cannon Range". Running RC15. It shows up most of the time when fighting 2 Onslaughts at once, without burn drive use. Also shows up reliably vs Paragon.

    It also tries to do it with dual flak, but it happens more rarely, perhaps because of high flux from getting so close.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on June 21, 2021, 02:40:49 PM
    Thank you! Hmm. The Onslaught scenario is a bit difficult to have be the same due to burn drive changes on my end, but it didn't seem to get closer than necessary, at least not intentionally. Vs the Paragon, I tried maybe 5-6 fights, both with an officer on the Conquest, and without, and did not see it come in too close even once (this is with the Flak in that one slot). Without the flak the behavior was exactly the same. I'm not sure what we're doing differently here - I suppose it's *possible* this is related to some AI change I made in the dev build? - but I don't recall touching anything that should have affected it.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on June 21, 2021, 03:01:48 PM
    Thanks for taking a look! I'll let you know if it shows up next patch. Or if I figure out how to upload videos.

    I uploaded the video. Also had it happen in the Last Hurrah refit simulator with no officer.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on June 21, 2021, 05:44:25 PM
    (Quick update: thanks to the video, had another look and found the issue. Medium and large PD weapons were being counted for "minimum non-PD range" - though not for the "optimal" range; this would occasionally have the effect of a ship closing in more than it should. Fixed this up.)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: WeiTuLo on June 21, 2021, 07:55:12 PM
    Nice!
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: LuckViValhalla on June 24, 2021, 08:53:28 AM
    "Safety Overrides can no longer be built into ships using story points"

    Not pretty sure if I want to download this update anymore...  :-[

    In my opinion this update was so fun because I could put Safety Override on some ships (like the hammerhead, of course, and on Fury and Aurora, but having to pay the OP will basically destroy my builds...).

    I mean, yeah, it was REALLY strong. My Aurora can just tank everything (SO, Hardened Shields) and kill everything (3 blasters are really strong, and the SO can tank the flux hit)...
    But removing the option of making a offensive ship... Doesn't feel right.

    You could do something different... It's "SAFETY" Override so I don't know, make your shields take more damage? Lower your armor? I mean, that way you could still go out and kill fast, hitting with strong weapons, but you would need to think first, it would be a "High Risk High Reward".

    Removing it just cripples a LOT of fun builds... I was playing vanilla and was dreaming of playing with mods, I could do a lot of different strategies, but now...
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on June 24, 2021, 09:58:06 AM
    I mean... you can still use it! And if you build in another hullmod, the effective penalty for not building in SO is just the difference between its cost, and the cost of the other hullmod you've built in.

    It's definitely less powerful, but since it was *extremely useful* before building hullmods in was even an option, I think it's a long, long way from "crippling" fun builds. As you say re: thinking first, you just have to do a bit more of that when loading out the ship :)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SCC on June 24, 2021, 10:19:21 AM
    Considering people were faring pretty well with SO ships even before 0.95, where the best you could get was 10% more OP, I don't think not being able to build SO results in SO being completely unusable.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Undead on June 24, 2021, 11:59:53 AM
    I think not being able to built in SO is fine. It is the most expensive OP wise hullmod, and S-modding it in saved way to many OP up to a point that it was a no brainer move to install it on some ships. Also, this makes pather ships more unique, as they are the only ones that have a free built in SO.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SonnaBanana on June 24, 2021, 08:23:59 PM
    Polarized Armor (industry for some reason)? Field Manipulation? Hype!
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Lucky33 on June 24, 2021, 08:44:16 PM
    Looks like a successor to the Derelict Contingent. And it is good old Shield Modulation. Not Manipulation.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SonnaBanana on June 25, 2021, 01:50:15 AM
    Looks like a successor to the Derelict Contingent. And it is good old Shield Modulation. Not Manipulation.
    PA is pilot/officer skill, not fleet skill.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: EclipseRanger on June 25, 2021, 05:49:51 AM
    (Quick update: thanks to the video, had another look and found the issue. Medium and large PD weapons were being counted for "minimum non-PD range" - though not for the "optimal" range; this would occasionally have the effect of a ship closing in more than it should. Fixed this up.)

    Seeing this,I wanted to add that my Gryphons also suffered from the same problem.When given the order to eliminate with 2500 range missiles,they always close in on PD range.You think that this was the culprit for this too???Also,when can we download this fix so I can(hopefully) fulfill my fantasy of space artillery :D?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SonnaBanana on June 25, 2021, 07:22:14 AM
    (Quick update: thanks to the video, had another look and found the issue. Medium and large PD weapons were being counted for "minimum non-PD range" - though not for the "optimal" range; this would occasionally have the effect of a ship closing in more than it should. Fixed this up.)

    Seeing this,I wanted to add that my Gryphons also suffered from the same problem.When given the order to eliminate with 2500 range missiles,they always close in on PD range.You think that this was the culprit for this too???Also,when can we download this fix so I can(hopefully) fulfill my fantasy of space artillery :D?
    Loadout, officer aggresiveness and doctrine (in the command tab) if no officer assigned?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Lucky33 on June 25, 2021, 07:37:42 AM
    Looks like a successor to the Derelict Contingent. And it is good old Shield Modulation. Not Manipulation.
    PA is pilot/officer skill, not fleet skill.

    Fleets do not have skills.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Yunru on June 25, 2021, 08:19:08 AM
    Looks like a successor to the Derelict Contingent. And it is good old Shield Modulation. Not Manipulation.
    PA is pilot/officer skill, not fleet skill.

    Fleets do not have skills.
    My fleet is very skilled at retreating against orders.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: EclipseRanger on June 25, 2021, 08:34:23 AM
    (Quick update: thanks to the video, had another look and found the issue. Medium and large PD weapons were being counted for "minimum non-PD range" - though not for the "optimal" range; this would occasionally have the effect of a ship closing in more than it should. Fixed this up.)

    Seeing this,I wanted to add that my Gryphons also suffered from the same problem.When given the order to eliminate with 2500 range missiles,they always close in on PD range.You think that this was the culprit for this too???Also,when can we download this fix so I can(hopefully) fulfill my fantasy of space artillery :D?
    Loadout, officer aggresiveness and doctrine (in the command tab) if no officer assigned?
    Loadout is PD weapons,except for the missiles,which aare all 2500 range missiles(Squals+Harpoons).Gryphons aren't officers,but doctrine focuses on Steady officers.I don't know the exact behavior of Eliminate(Does it bring ALL guns to bear,even PD??Does it just use the range of the shortest non PD weapon???In this case,it should all be the 2500 range of the missiles,as i want it to).
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on June 25, 2021, 09:17:47 AM
    Seeing this,I wanted to add that my Gryphons also suffered from the same problem.When given the order to eliminate with 2500 range missiles,they always close in on PD range.You think that this was the culprit for this too???

    Ah - that'd be expected behavior for the Gryphons, actually - "Eliminate" makes the ship behave as if the officer is reckless, for many (but not all) purposes, and one of them is closing to minimum weapons range.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: EclipseRanger on June 25, 2021, 11:53:11 AM
    Seeing this,I wanted to add that my Gryphons also suffered from the same problem.When given the order to eliminate with 2500 range missiles,they always close in on PD range.You think that this was the culprit for this too???

    Ah - that'd be expected behavior for the Gryphons, actually - "Eliminate" makes the ship behave as if the officer is reckless, for many (but not all) purposes, and one of them is closing to minimum weapons range.

    I see,that makes more sense.Is there any way to ask my Gryphon(or any other group of ships really) to open fire at a target from max range?They have those missiles and I d quite like them to provide pressure without going toe to toe with a Dominator.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on June 25, 2021, 12:00:16 PM
    You could put an "Engage" order on the target, that *should* do it. Of course that means other ships won't have the "Eliminate" behavior, either.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SonnaBanana on June 26, 2021, 08:02:45 AM
    Reliability Engineering is now called Combat Endurance and is now a Combat Skill.
    Not to mention, Retrain! Those LV7 officers will finally be useful!
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SCC on June 26, 2021, 08:07:43 AM
    I hope L4L will get some buff to make it more attractive over getting more officers and finding those level 7 popsicles everywhere.
    Also, Reliability Engineering is Combat Endurance again? I wonder what skill does it replace.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: IonDragonX on June 26, 2021, 08:20:31 AM
    Reliability Engineering is now called Combat Endurance and is now a Combat Skill.
    Not to mention, Retrain! Those LV7 officers will finally be useful!
    Those aren't live yet, are they?
    I with the patch notes for the next push were on the OP because its a lot!
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SonnaBanana on June 26, 2021, 08:45:16 AM
    I hope L4L will get some buff to make it more attractive over getting more officers and finding those level 7 popsicles everywhere.
    Also, Reliability Engineering is Combat Endurance again? I wonder what skill does it replace.
    Phase Mastery.
    Field Manipulation, which uses Shield Modulation's icon and is also a Combat Skill, will deal with Shields/Phase Cloaks/Damper Fields.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: EclipseRanger on June 26, 2021, 09:31:26 AM
    You could put an "Engage" order on the target, that *should* do it. Of course that means other ships won't have the "Eliminate" behavior, either.


    Sorry Alex,I feel like an idiot and felt I should correct this report.It was my fault all along,I had set up the fleet Doctrine wrong.When switched to Cautious,my Gryphons behaved exactly as I d want them to,so everything ok now :D.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Undead on June 26, 2021, 09:40:21 AM
    I like to think that when you spend a cp to change the personality of an officer to timid what happens is player character continuously spook the officer from behind as the officer eats in the canteen, until the said officer develops neuroticism and panic attacks.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Undead on June 26, 2021, 09:59:49 AM
    Also, I feel like changing personality so drastically is odd. Perhaps it should be 1CP for one step in changing temper? So that if you want to turn a timid officer into reckless youll have to spend 4cp total. I mean, if it was an AI core then yes, it would make total sence to be able to alter the personality radically in one step
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on June 26, 2021, 10:53:29 AM
    Sorry Alex,I feel like an idiot and felt I should correct this report.It was my fault all along,I had set up the fleet Doctrine wrong.When switched to Cautious,my Gryphons behaved exactly as I d want them to,so everything ok now :D.

    Ahh! So I Cautious doesn't close to min range with Eliminate on? Could've sworn they would! ... and looks like they do. So I'm assuming you've got a combination of Engage + Cautious, right? Since that's the combo that produces the results I think you want.

    Also, I feel like changing personality so drastically is odd. Perhaps it should be 1CP for one step in changing temper? So that if you want to turn a timid officer into reckless youll have to spend 4cp total. I mean, if it was an AI core then yes, it would make total sence to be able to alter the personality radically in one step

    Yeah, I'd actually changed it to that about 15 minutes after that tweet :) It steps on "Mentor"'s toes too much, too, if you can just force-set it to any value.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: EclipseRanger on June 26, 2021, 12:19:29 PM
    Sorry Alex,I feel like an idiot and felt I should correct this report.It was my fault all along,I had set up the fleet Doctrine wrong.When switched to Cautious,my Gryphons behaved exactly as I d want them to,so everything ok now :D.

    Ahh! So I Cautious doesn't close to min range with Eliminate on? Could've sworn they would! ... and looks like they do. So I'm assuming you've got a combination of Engage + Cautious, right? Since that's the combo that produces the results I think you want.


    Indeed!The loadout is 2500 range missiles on all slots,and PD on all ballistic slots.Cautious Gryphons with Eliminate(or even Engage) now perfectly maintain a comfortable distance,preventing anything slower than them from engaging,while still peppering them with missiles.When given more close combat loadouts,like Atropos,they tend to be more aggressive,but they still maintain their distance,long before flux would be an issue.If they see a kill however,they will rapidly close in,fire the Atropos,back out again.It's excellent and exactly what I was hoping for.

    On the same subject,I also run tests with Vigilances armed with Pilums and Heavy Burst Laser PD.The plan was to try to get them to keep firing Pilums at a target without letting it get close enough,as long range fire support.When the enemy is marked with Engage,if I select some of them and right click on that enemy,the selected Vigilances remain at a good distance and fire their missiles at this target,even in the presence of other targets,which works perfectly.If the enemy is marked as Eliminate,and I select them and right click that enemy,they close in with their PD as well.So I think both orders are working as intended.Just to confirm though,marking an enemy with a command(say,Engage)and then selecting some of my own ships and right clicking on the target makes them want to Engage,correct???Not Eliminate.I ask because the default of Select+Right Click is Eliminate.

    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on June 26, 2021, 12:24:15 PM
    Right, yeah - you can tell which command it is on the map, and right-clicking things onto an existing Engage keeps its type.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: DancingMonkey on June 27, 2021, 10:51:32 AM
    I remember seeing like a month ago that there would be a final 0.95 release soon, do you have any timeframe for when you plan on releasing it?

    I haven't got the chance to play much recently but as always great game I always recommend it to other people.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: IonDragonX on June 27, 2021, 10:57:40 AM
    I remember seeing like a month ago that there would be a final 0.95 release soon, do you have any timeframe for when you plan on releasing it?
    ??? ::facepalm:: Don't you know that, every time you ask for a date/time, it pushes it back a month?!  :'(
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on June 27, 2021, 12:01:14 PM
    Sorry, all timeframes are on  "when it's ready" basis :) That said, it *is* a .1 release, not a full-blown major release - but also, it'll probably be a bit more meaty than the typical .1 release, too...
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: DancingMonkey on June 28, 2021, 06:35:37 AM
    Sorry, all timeframes are on  "when it's ready" basis :) That said, it *is* a .1 release, not a full-blown major release - but also, it'll probably be a bit more meaty than the typical .1 release, too...

    oh so it won't just be a polish but actual extra content? more of a 0.96? Cool to know.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Vanshilar on July 01, 2021, 09:48:54 AM
    • Unusually high-level officers now only found in cryopods generated on Sector creation

    Just curious, what are the chances of getting the level 10 officers that people post about here and there? I've started multiple new games looking for them (going into save file and looking for "l="10"" or "l="9""), but have never seen any above level 7. Yes I know that "maxSleeperPodsOfficerLevel" in settings.json is set to 7, but I'm wondering if vanilla has a hidden override that occasionally spawns level >7 officers, or if those are from mods (or the person changing settings.json).
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on July 01, 2021, 09:55:12 AM
    Any officer above level 7 is from mods, yeah.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Vanshilar on July 02, 2021, 01:31:34 AM
    Any officer above level 7 is from mods, yeah.

    Ahh okay darn :( Thanks for clearing that up.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Thaago on August 13, 2021, 03:56:43 PM
    A tiny thing I just stumbled on: the player can find ships with safety overrides built in while exploring! Its apparently very rare as this is the first I've found, but I have a slightly used wolf with both SO and Hardened Subsystems built in.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on August 13, 2021, 04:28:17 PM
    Thank you - pretty sure this one is fixed in dev :)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: JAL28 on August 13, 2021, 09:29:05 PM
    • Unusually high-level officers now only found in cryopods generated on Sector creation

    Just curious, what are the chances of getting the level 10 officers that people post about here and there? I've started multiple new games looking for them (going into save file and looking for "l="10"" or "l="9""), but have never seen any above level 7. Yes I know that "maxSleeperPodsOfficerLevel" in settings.json is set to 7, but I'm wondering if vanilla has a hidden override that occasionally spawns level >7 officers, or if those are from mods (or the person changing settings.json).

    While level itself never goes above 7, it seems that enemy captains do actually have a "shadow level" represented by their skill count, which can go up to(as I have observed currently) 9. This can be observed by killing fleets with the Capture Crew and Captains mod enabled, some level 7 captains can have over 7 skills despite them not having a corresponding level.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on August 13, 2021, 09:39:56 PM
    (This just applies to enemy fleet commander skills; they don't count against their level but rather the number of fleetwide skills is determined by it, iirc. So the level is always an accurate representation of the number of combat skills an enemy officer has.)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: JAL28 on August 13, 2021, 09:42:37 PM
    Oh, well that's interesting.

    But that brings the question...just how broken will the game be if you make a fleet entirely composed of captured fleet commanders?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SCC on August 14, 2021, 05:54:50 AM
    They don't seem to be commanding any fleets if they're serving as ship officers in your fleet.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on August 14, 2021, 08:16:52 AM
    Right, yeah - fleetwide skills only apply if they're on the fleet's commander.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: TLW on August 25, 2021, 10:06:26 AM
    So - some thoughts from someone who got the game relatively recently, and so am mainly comparing 0.95a with 0.9.1a, not anything before that. I bought Starsector and ended up playing a fair bit on 0.9.1a, and really enjoyed it. Then work happened, and I had to drop it for a while. I've finally had some free time recently and realized "oh hey, there's a new patch I should try". Started playing 0.95a. And then... gave up and went back to 0.9.1a, for several reasons. I've been debating making this post (showing up with negative feedback is iffy at the best of times); as you can see I did indeed decide to post this rather than just having silence.

    The main issue is this: from what I've played 0.95a feels like a more polished experience... focusing on emphasizing the components of 0.9.1a I liked the least at the expense of the components of 0.9.1a that I liked the most. (One exception, as nothing is ever black and white: from what I've seen the story and lore of 0.95a is great.)

    (Fair warning: the below is a mix of the partial playthrough I did on 0.95a, reading the forum thread, and seeing the changelog. Some of the later game stuff in particular I have not personally experienced but am extrapolating from the thread/changelog and my experiences on 0.9.1a.)

    Even on 0.9.1a the early-mid game (the 2-3 combat ship portion in particular) was kind of meh for me. I am not and likely never will be the person who enjoys individual control of a single unit in a larger engagement alongside non-human-controlled allies. (I'm decent at it; I just don't like it. Control of a lone ship? Sure. Guiding a bunch of semi-autonomous units? Sure. Fighting alongside allied artificial stupidity? Not so much. Fighting alongside allied artificial stupidity when I can do better magicially? No thank you.) In 0.9.1a I moved away from fleet compositions where I had to directly control the flagship ASAP in flavor of overall larger-scale tactics. Ditto, I find cases where things are obviously different for the player simply by virtue of the player being the player jarring, and I rather dislike hard caps/limits/'you can't do that' as opposed to 'it's likely a terrible idea to do that' approaches. (It's a bad idea to jump into a [REDACTED] fight with a bunch of tankers and nothing else... but you can try if you want. The game doesn't go 'you don't have X capital ships so you cannot jump into the system'.)

    On the other hand: I rather enjoy the lore and story. (And from what I've seen, 0.95a improves on this. Kudos.) I really enjoyed the trading (/trading contract/black market/etc) aspects, as well as later-game colony development (from the first fledgling colony on up to becoming a fairly decent power). I also rather enjoyed the exploration aspects; I always ran a fast fleet and generally kited and picked my battles (or just avoided them), and I liked the tradeoffs of sustained burn / running dark / emergency burn / etc.

    So, back to 0.9.1a and 0.95a. Much of this has been talked to death in this thread already; I'll mention those components that particularly stand out to me.


    Balancing this, we have things I found better about 0.95a:


    Many of these appear to be accomplishing their seemingly-intended effect; the intended effects of many of these end up making me like the game less to the point of abandoning the playthrough because I realized I wasn't enjoying it and was mainly slogging through so I could catch the story expansions/extensions. Which... fair enough; it's not my game. I'm just saddened.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SCC on August 25, 2021, 11:08:39 AM
    0.95a makes it apparent that the later-game largescale colony development and management I rather enjoyed is not an intended game feature, to the point of putting hard caps on player colony development (see above re: different for the player).
    Do you mean the population limit? While you can still makes lots of money (thank you Commerce, very cool), you cannot have all the numbers be big, no. You can still have as many alpha core colonies as you want. On the upside, there are more colony items now.

    Speaking of skills, the whole 'diminishing returns' skill amusements pushes towards relatively 'tight' fleets (well, when it doesn't simply end up with me disregarding the skill entirely)... which in turn pushes strongly for direct player control in engagements as doing slightly better than the AI improves outcomes substantially. I also find the 'I can find x% extra space on ship A or ship B, but if I put them in a fleet together suddenly I can't find x% extra space?' thing annoying in the player-is-special department.
    The deployment point changes... been talked about to death already, but adding my two cents: it makes it more important to directly control the flagship (and see above re: obviously different for the player), and is obviously different for the player directly (primarily due to officer limitations).
    It isn't necessary to deploy the flagship, actually. Nor the flagship has to be a combat ship. I wonder, do you even get any DP advantage, if you have no combat skills?
    The diminishing returns skill weren't meant to push you towards combat skills per se, but rather change it so that they don't seem like an optimal pick (or spamming Paragons like the strategy that makes the most out of your skills), unless you are a combat god.

    0.95a has made me completely disregard ECM and design things assuming the deck is stacked against me, compared to in 0.9.1a where it was a definite tradeoff and another set of decisions to be made. Retaining the changed mechanics and dropping to +-10% makes this even more the case.
    The tables have turned and this time it's the player that's range-crippled! I wonder if Alex is going to do something with ECM or remove it, since I don't think it serves any real purpose beyond making Remnants even harder to fight.

    RIP carriers... which I used largely because I really didn't like the RNG of ship losses and D-mods (you overextend with a carrier fleet, you lose a bunch of supplies and crew, depending. Reasonably consistent. You overextend with a ship... salvage being salvage, not so much.) Ship loss RNG is still annoying, and the 'use carriers' workaround is no longer viable... and the improvement on that front (removing d-mods) is _itself_ RNG-based, and a (even more so with 0.95a) limited skill too. And meanwhile the balance changes seem to encourage non-AI-friendly designs.
    If you have never or rarely lost ships while using carrier fleets, I have a feeling that you were (knowingly or not) powergaming and removing the challenge from your game, only now experiencing the intended gameplay experience.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on August 25, 2021, 11:13:00 AM
    Hi - just wanted to say, I appreciate your feedback. Much of this does seem to be just a "you're looking for something that's not the game's focus", as you say - which, I mean, it's absolutely fair, but, right. So much of the game's focus is on controlling a ship in combat - I can respect that it's not your thing, but the fact that you can actually play the game without it (and, as far as I'm aware, that's still quite doable, if harder) is more of a happy accident than a specific goal. Still, feedback duly noted!

    (Not sure what you mean by "when I can do better magically", specifically as it pertains to fighting alongside your allies in combat, btw.)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SCC on August 25, 2021, 11:17:34 AM
    I am guessing he means "player is smarter (better) than AI at controlling ships", which isn't true for every player anyway, if Reddit is to be taken into consideration...
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on August 25, 2021, 04:27:16 PM
    0.95a makes it apparent that the later-game largescale colony development and management I rather enjoyed is not an intended game feature, to the point of putting hard caps on player colony development (see above re: different for the player).
    Do you mean the population limit? While you can still makes lots of money (thank you Commerce, very cool), you cannot have all the numbers be big, no. You can still have as many alpha core colonies as you want. On the upside, there are more colony items now.
    He probably wants a large empire at least the size of Hegemony or League.  Today, that is not really possible without core abuse, which leads to perpetual harassment from zombie Pather cells (if worlds grow to size 4+) and Hegemony (if not wiped off the map).

    Game mechanics is less of concern.  I want a big empire because I do not want my character to be a big stupid dog completely reliant on the largesse from his masters.  I want my guy to be in charge, keeping my bases healthy and producing everything my fleet needs to function.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: I thought it was an RTS on August 25, 2021, 05:35:09 PM
    So much of the game's focus is on controlling a ship in combat - I can respect that it's not your thing, but the fact that you can actually play the game without it (and, as far as I'm aware, that's still quite doable, if harder) is more of a happy accident than a specific goal.

    I only discovered this game at 0.95a. I didn't know that was true, it's not stated anywhere that I noticed. I skipped the tutorial and finished the game without knowing how deep the ship controls were. I thought you could only use wasd to move the ship and shoot with the mouse hehe. So needless to say I always ran on autopilot...

    I mostly fought battles by flipping between the tactical map and queuing orders like in StarCraft... Capturing the points to get more deployment points for more ships hehe.

    Great game considering I played and explored/finished everything the wrong way and had a blast!

    0.95a makes it apparent that the later-game largescale colony development and management I rather enjoyed is not an intended game feature, to the point of putting hard caps on player colony development (see above re: different for the player).
    Do you mean the population limit? While you can still makes lots of money (thank you Commerce, very cool), you cannot have all the numbers be big, no. You can still have as many alpha core colonies as you want. On the upside, there are more colony items now.
    He probably wants a large empire at least the size of Hegemony or League.  Today, that is not really possible without core abuse, which leads to perpetual harassment from zombie Pather cells (if worlds grow to size 4+) and Hegemony (if not wiped off the map).

    Hey so honestly this is my only complaint about the game. I wanted a huge empire, 'cause I was playing it like an RTS... I thought I was supposed to conquer the galaxy. The hegemony would not leave me alone, so I tried to exterminate them and other factions (Apparently, even the Hegemony's enemies get upset when I repeatedly bombarded the Hegemony worlds... That seemed weird to me but I guess it makes sense).

    That led me to discover that certain planets of these factions are not able to be rendered uninhabitable. I found that really emersion-breaking and frustrating.

    So basically my complaints in a nutshell:

    Other than those 2 complaints, this was an awesome game. Kind of felt like Mount & Blade in space hehe!
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SafariJohn on August 25, 2021, 05:51:08 PM
    So much of the game's focus is on controlling a ship in combat - I can respect that it's not your thing, but the fact that you can actually play the game without it (and, as far as I'm aware, that's still quite doable, if harder) is more of a happy accident than a specific goal.

    I only discovered this game at 0.95a. I didn't know that was true, it's not stated anywhere that I noticed. I skipped the tutorial and finished the game without knowing how deep the ship controls were. I thought you could only use wasd to move the ship and shoot with the mouse hehe. So needless to say I always ran on autopilot...

    I do not blame you for thinking the game is an RTS.

    Default ship controls are still A-D to turn, right? It's almost impossible to play that way; turn-to-cursor should be the default.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on August 25, 2021, 06:01:13 PM
    Another comment about empire.

    I has hoped that progression would be akin to early D&D fighters.  You guy gets stronger, then after he levels up enough (and becomes famous), he graduates from a no-name murderhobo to a land baron that rules a small kingdom and leads an army to kill other armies or singular strong opponents like an evil wizard, a dragon, or the balrog.  I imagine it would be a gameplay shift, likely a good one.  At least the player is leaving an impact on the world by becoming a power, not stuck at a dead-end job of mugging monsters and/or grinding or fetching for monster body parts for the adventure's guild in a stock jrpg (and possibly isekai) setting.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on August 25, 2021, 06:02:41 PM
    Great game considering I played and explored/finished everything the wrong way and had a blast!

    I wouldn't call it "wrong", specifically, just... not necessarily "right", either :) But the absolute main thing is you had fun!

    • Couldn't fully eliminate the core factions. I warning dialogs should warn you that it breaks game mechanics, but otherwise you should let the player do what they want. I wanted to conquer the galaxy and I couldn't :(

    You *can* do it after you complete the main storyline. Still, yeah, that's worth thinking about some more. I understand where you're coming from there, but on the other hand, *a lot* of people would miss it/click through and mess up their saves...


    Default ship controls are still A-D to turn, right? It's almost impossible to play that way; turn-to-cursor should be the default.

    I've got to say, that's really subjective - you're not wrong *for you*! But for example, I play exclusively with hold-shift-to-turn and use tank controls quite a lot.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on August 25, 2021, 06:05:50 PM
    I've got to say, that's really subjective - you're not wrong *for you*! But for example, I play exclusively with hold-shift-to-turn and use tank controls quite a lot.
    As a former long-time Doom/Quake player (and other games that need a lot of keys to move and shoot like Robotron ports), tank controls are natural for me.  I only use mouse to aim weapons and pan the screen.  I use the keyboard for piloting my ship, and it is much like playing Doom with the keyboard.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SonnaBanana on August 25, 2021, 06:15:10 PM
    Anyway Alex, I know you're planning a colony and strategic overhaul... not asking what would you change or add but how do you want that aspect to feel like?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on August 25, 2021, 06:21:06 PM
    Anyway Alex, I know you're planning a colony and strategic overhaul...

    I've seen you mention that a couple of times, and I'm not really sure what you mean :)

    Re: any potential colony adjustments, the general idea is to give them a purpose (rotating around letting you *do* things) and then shape the mechanics to support that.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: hydremajor on August 25, 2021, 11:02:11 PM
    so a change to how industries work ?

    instead of locking a industry slot down when build we get to switch them around as is needed with a downtime period ?

    or maybe roll refineries into heavy industry/light industry/mining for a lesser output than dedicated refineries ?

    or industry slots added by medium and large space stations ?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SonnaBanana on August 26, 2021, 12:56:36 AM
    so a change to how industries work ?

    instead of locking a industry slot down when build we get to switch them around as is needed with a downtime period ?

    or maybe roll refineries into heavy industry/light industry/mining for a lesser output than dedicated refineries ?

    or industry slots added by medium and large space stations ?
    It's more about giving Industries additional functions: Patrol Bases can send fleets to assist the player, Tech-Mining might give missions to find Domain goodies etc
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: hydremajor on August 26, 2021, 01:57:56 AM
    It's more about giving Industries additional functions: Patrol Bases can send fleets to assist the player, Tech-Mining might give missions to find Domain goodies etc

    not sure about that, but what if they could dig up location data for other ruins ?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SCC on August 26, 2021, 07:22:40 AM
    He probably wants a large empire at least the size of Hegemony or League.  Today, that is not really possible without core abuse, which leads to perpetual harassment from zombie Pather cells (if worlds grow to size 4+) and Hegemony (if not wiped off the map).

    Game mechanics is less of concern.  I want a big empire because I do not want my character to be a big stupid dog completely reliant on the largesse from his masters.  I want my guy to be in charge, keeping my bases healthy and producing everything my fleet needs to function.
    In this respect, nothing has changed between versions, you are limited by planet limit and administrators either way.

    Default ship controls are still A-D to turn, right? It's almost impossible to play that way; turn-to-cursor should be the default.
    For most omni-shielded ships, it's good to at least occasionally rely on tank controls to control movement and shields independently. I do this even on Tempest, sometimes.

    I imagine it would be a gameplay shift, likely a good one.
    I imagine that this precisely is the reason for Alex not to do it, since this means he has to make another game again... It's probably also why he's so against letting you control other fleets, unfortunately.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on August 26, 2021, 07:57:45 AM
    He probably wants a large empire at least the size of Hegemony or League.  Today, that is not really possible without core abuse, which leads to perpetual harassment from zombie Pather cells (if worlds grow to size 4+) and Hegemony (if not wiped off the map).

    Game mechanics is less of concern.  I want a big empire because I do not want my character to be a big stupid dog completely reliant on the largesse from his masters.  I want my guy to be in charge, keeping my bases healthy and producing everything my fleet needs to function.
    In this respect, nothing has changed between versions, you are limited by planet limit and administrators either way.
    Not exactly.  Last release, you could get up to seven with Industry alone, maybe eight with Ground Ops too.  That did not take all of your points.

    Today, you need to spend ten points in Industry to get both colony skills for six planets and IP, and the last five go into one of the colony skills in Leadership (say Ground Ops).  Getting Leadership 5 for colony skill means you are locked into it since Leadership 4 are permanent skills.  Getting Industry 10 for colony skills means player gets Field Repairs and Derelict Contingent, and DC is ruined by Field Repairs.

    It is impossible to get all of the colony skills in this release, and you get less.  Last release, player could get all colony skills, and while it was costly, it did not cost everything and lock the player into a single path like today.  (Last release I could not get the armor skills that made ships beefy tanks or carrier skills for maximum Drover and Sparks power because they went into Industry for colony power.)

    Building a empire close to size of Hegemony or League was possible with skills alone last release, and if that was not enough, Pather bug and easy Hegemony money bribes made alpha cores painless to use and full Sector colonization and conquest an option.  (It also made colony skills pointless, but that was okay if I meant I get full combat power AND a big empire.)  Today, the drawbacks caused by alpha core use cannot be completely ignored.

    I imagine it would be a gameplay shift, likely a good one.
    I imagine that this precisely is the reason for Alex not to do it, since this means he has to make another game again... It's probably also why he's so against letting you control other fleets, unfortunately.
    Gameplay may not need to change too much.  But it could evolve into more than just cowardly AI duels with bigger numbers and/or cheap gimmicks for bosses.

    I do not want an RTS, but it would be nice if the player did more than play the dumb merc for hire or play more or less the same from beginning to end.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SafariJohn on August 26, 2021, 09:57:29 AM
    Default ship controls are still A-D to turn, right? It's almost impossible to play that way; turn-to-cursor should be the default.
    For most omni-shielded ships, it's good to at least occasionally rely on tank controls to control movement and shields independently. I do this even on Tempest, sometimes.

    Yeah, I do that too, but for me it is more of a "keep ship facing same direction while I block something" switch.


    I could play using tank controls. It would suck, but I could do it. That's not the problem, the problem I see is it's the default. How many new players are being lost because they don't realize turn-to-cursor is an option?

    I don't know how you would even find that out. Sending a survey to people who ask for a refund might catch some, but not many.  You could survey people a couple weeks after they register the game, I guess, but there are a ton of caveats on that. The forum/Discord/Reddit/4chan are all biased towards people who love/hate the game, not people who gave up on it. Meh.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: I thought it was an RTS on August 26, 2021, 11:06:12 AM
    Default ship controls are still A-D to turn, right? It's almost impossible to play that way; turn-to-cursor should be the default.
    For most omni-shielded ships, it's good to at least occasionally rely on tank controls to control movement and shields independently. I do this even on Tempest, sometimes.

    I could play using tank controls. It would suck, but I could do it. That's not the problem, the problem I see is it's the default. How many new players are being lost because they don't realize turn-to-cursor is an option?

    To be fair tho, I skipped the tutorial lol that's on me. They felt natural to me, like an FPS. Although I couldn't figure out how to do a lot of things on my own (Like the teleporting thing the autopilot would do for me). And I always found the autopilot/ai always managed the flux better than I could.... It could teleport away and vent, but I never did figure out how to do that. Beyond just the teleporting, I always felt slower than the same ship on autopilot... Especially if I had to rapidly change course, it felt like I was stopping a train.

    You can't please everyone 'cause if you made even a basic tutorial mandatory, people would likely complain about that instead lol. I'm really impressed with the balance this game strikes, 'cause I never felt punished for playing the way I played.

    To put my play experience another way... I don't think the controls are an issue per se, but a lot of the other mechanics make a lot more sense now. It's a major perspective shift, though.. Some players will have a player-centric perspective so the ships in their fleet and even their ship itself is to aid the player. I guess the rest all flows from that naturally, too (The limitations on your colony's ability to become fully self-sufficient and grow without limitation etc... As it would render a player-centric perspective moot).

    But I had the perspective from the tactical map, with my ship on autopilot. The ship meant nothing to me, it was just another ship in my fleet lol. So then you see the game from a very different perspective (Ships are just meta at this point, right? All I cared about were very specific stats like the ship's deployment points, movement speed (To quickly take the beacons for more deployment points lol), time to kill and combat rating (If their combat rating's too low, the ttk drops off a cliff very quickly in large battles and esp. in repeated battles).

    My ultimate goal was always to increase my ability to produce ships. More ships & better ships. I wanted to make my own ships, weapons, drones, supplies & fuel to keep the war going.... 'cause from my perspective I thought for sure the game designer wanted me to conquer the core worlds haha. In fact, I was so sure of this it's what pushed me to explore the entire galaxy... I thought there must be a "perfect sector" out there somewhere that would make everything easier for my empire.

    Even my preferred/favorite ships are different. So many people on this forum talk about the Paragons and I didn't (at the time) understand why. They didn't fit my ship meta at all haha (Too slow and their deployment points are way too high. You burn all your dp with only 2-3 paragons I think (Can't remember exactly, but it seemed like a laughably low amount compared to the huge Wolf/Tempest/Fury fleets I could deploy). I initially settled on the Wolfs. An entire fleet of wolfs that I mostly scavenged and bought (With 1 Superfreighter for cargo and 1 giant fuel ship for range). Wolf's are great in the beginning... Very fast, very low deployment points and they have a low time-to-kill. The issue I had was that due to their combat rating (I think?), their ttk very quickly falls off a cliff as the battle drags on. I later experimented with a Medusa fleet ('cause their ttk doesn't drop off as quickly as the Wolfs), but they didn't have the teleportation ability and their deployment points made the actual combat fleet much smaller. I couldn't make Tempests at the time, and I avoided using ships I couldn't make myself (Buying ships from your enemy is a pretty terrible idea right? I had to be able to make them myself)... So then I experimented with and fell in love with the Fury. Absolutely perfect ship for my play style. I stomped all over the entire galaxy with them, including those 2 angry ships :P

    So yeah, that was my experience/perspective. Like I said I had a blast so hopefully it doesn't sound like a complaint ;)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on August 26, 2021, 11:13:57 AM
    So yeah, that was my experience/perspective. Like I said I had a blast so hopefully it doesn't sound like a complaint ;)

    Not at all! This was a really interesting read, and I appreciate you sharing your perspective. Also, I'm happy that it's possible to play (and enjoy) the game this way, even if it's not specifically built towards that :)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SCC on August 26, 2021, 01:25:45 PM
    Some players will have a player-centric perspective so the ships in their fleet and even their ship itself is to aid the player. I guess the rest all flows from that naturally, too (The limitations on your colony's ability to become fully self-sufficient and grow without limitation etc... As it would render a player-centric perspective moot).
    Player-centric playstyle is pretty viable, since AI isn't good at pushing aggerssively and assessing risk, whereas the player can be. If you capitalise on that with some powerful ship, you can either finish off enemies your ships have been bothering the entire fight, or you can make your ships follow you and make your seemingly suicidal charges quite unsuccessful at killing yourself.

    So then you see the game from a very different perspective (Ships are just meta at this point, right? All I cared about were very specific stats like the ship's deployment points, movement speed (To quickly take the beacons for more deployment points lol), time to kill and combat rating (If their combat rating's too low, the ttk drops off a cliff very quickly in large battles and esp. in repeated battles).
    Considering having AI ships in your fleet isn't optional (or wasn't, until Phase Mastery and System Expertise...), I imagine most people think about ships in terms of what they can do for your fleet, though perhaps with different priorities (such as survivability - I don't babysit my ships).

    I later experimented with a Medusa fleet ('cause their ttk doesn't drop off as quickly as the Wolfs), but they didn't have the teleportation ability and their deployment points made the actual combat fleet much smaller.
    Wolf and Medusa have the exact same ship system. Maybe you mistook Shrike for Medusa? Shrike has the plasma burn ability, which AI won't use for anything but going forwards.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Dri on August 27, 2021, 05:56:19 PM
    Aren't the .1 patches mostly just balance tweaks and QoL changes? What be the hold up, bub?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: FooF on August 27, 2021, 06:15:34 PM
    Aren't the .1 patches mostly just balance tweaks and QoL changes? What be the hold up, bub?

    Not to speak for Alex but skill re-vamp (which should be enough said but...), new ships, looks like some new visual stuff, balance tweaks, new autofit for Remnants, QoL stuff...

    Seems like he might have hit some feature-creep but think of this way: this is what we're going to have for the foreseeable future. Once the next development cycle starts, anything that was close-but-not-quite has to wait another who knows how long. You have to put the kibosh on it somewhere but I don't mind waiting a little longer if it means I have more to play with it once .95 is done.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on August 27, 2021, 06:33:41 PM
    Yeah, let's just say that this .1 is going to have stuff that's a good bit meatier than the usual .1 fare. I'm not sure I'd call it "feature creep", since it's all stuff that I'd like to be in the game eventually - but I suppose strictly in the context of a .1, one might reasonably see it as that. I'd rather look at it as me taking an opportunity to sneak some fun stuff in that I'm super excited about, though :)

    (On a related note, I'd love to do another blog post in the near-ish future...)

    (And I'm kind of debating whether to call it .1 or .96 at this point.)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SonnaBanana on August 27, 2021, 06:56:50 PM
    Yeah, let's just say that this .1 is going to have stuff that's a good bit meatier than the usual .1 fare. I'm not sure I'd call it "feature creep", since it's all stuff that I'd like to be in the game eventually - but I suppose strictly in the context of a .1, one might reasonably see it as that. I'd rather look at it as me taking an opportunity to sneak some fun stuff in that I'm super excited about, though :)

    (On a related note, I'd love to do another blog post in the near-ish future...)

    (And I'm kind of debating whether to call it .1 or .96 at this point.)
    Yes please, we all would like to see whatever you're planning.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SCC on August 28, 2021, 01:06:17 AM
    (And I'm kind of debating whether to call it .1 or .96 at this point.)
    98. Then ME.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: hydremajor on August 28, 2021, 01:25:28 AM
    (And I'm kind of debating whether to call it .1 or .96 at this point.)

    you could always just call it .5 or some bigger number and call it a day

    in fact if you were to call it "95.69 cocobongo edition" nobody'd get a say in it....
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on August 28, 2021, 08:39:18 AM
    98. Then ME.

    ... this has a certain appeal.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Timid on August 28, 2021, 08:39:42 AM
    (And I'm kind of debating whether to call it .1 or .96 at this point.)

    Just say not save-game compatible (sorry!)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on August 28, 2021, 08:45:38 AM
    Ah, but I'm bending every effort to make sure it is :)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: FooF on August 28, 2021, 02:08:25 PM
    If it's any consolation, I really like starting over. I'm rarely married to any particular run-through. :D
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: TLW on August 28, 2021, 03:40:03 PM
    [...]
    I mostly fought battles by flipping between the tactical map and queuing orders like in StarCraft... Capturing the points to get more deployment points for more ships hehe.

    Great game considering I played and explored/finished everything the wrong way and had a blast!
    [...]
    Sounds like you ended up playing in much the same manner as I did.

    Hi - just wanted to say, I appreciate your feedback. Much of this does seem to be just a "you're looking for something that's not the game's focus", as you say - which, I mean, it's absolutely fair, but, right. So much of the game's focus is on controlling a ship in combat - I can respect that it's not your thing, but the fact that you can actually play the game without it (and, as far as I'm aware, that's still quite doable, if harder) is more of a happy accident than a specific goal. Still, feedback duly noted!
    My frustration is mostly... well, intentional or not, it was a manner you could play in a fairly decent manner.

    And even now the game is largely presented as though that remained the case... when it was, and now isn't.

    (For instance, the blurb on the main page: "...open-world single-player space-combat, roleplaying, exploration, and economic game. You take the role of a space captain seeking fortune and glory however you choose." ... which I took a look at and went "meh, the single-ship realtime combat portion isn't my cup of tea, but yay economics and exploration, and it explicitly mentions that you can take different paths so I can largely avoid the small-scale mercenary portions I don't like". Which was true of 0.9.1. Not so much 0.95.)

    0.9.1 felt like you were able to bootstrap up to better and greater things; 0.95 feels like you're being railroaded into being a dumb mercenary. (Perhaps hyperbole, but the trend is there. Much of the flexibility of choice in 0.9.1 has been nerfed in 0.9.5, and, perhaps more importantly, has been decreed to be unintentional or unsupported. The writing is on the wall.)



    Is it intentional that you can make ~250k (or likely more) in Galatia before the tutorial finishes by just repeatedly shuttling recreational drugs from Ancyra to Derinkuyu? At this point ships don't care about you having your transponder off, so the only issue is the pirate patrol around Derinkuyu, which is very simple to avoid. (It also pushed my level high enough that I actually had improved salvaging before I grabbed the ships at... Tetra I think?)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on August 28, 2021, 04:30:08 PM
    "Dumb merc" sounds like a low-level job.  This is why I wish for things greater than what a dumb merc can do, and I do not mean stuff like sending more unfair cheese fleets that make triple Radiant Ordos fleet with twenty alpha AI officers look easy.  I mean stuff that a head of state or guildmaster could do, like sending fleets to raze core worlds to the ground while player is busy razing AI Nexus to the ground, or setting up a "pilgrimage" to the nearest hyperstunt to haul all of that metal needed to bring it online, or maybe have player build an artificial planet to populate like a colony (or use it as a death star superweapon), or (like last release) colonize the entire sector.  Basically do high-level things you expect a high-level D&D spellcaster can do to shape the world.

    People complained about income too high for colonies.  It would have been a great opportunity to introduce actions that require millions of credits to execute and make the player feel like a ruler or pirate king.  Instead, income was slashed and we still feel more or less like low-level thugs at a dead-end path.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on August 28, 2021, 04:32:35 PM
    0.9.1 felt like you were able to bootstrap up to better and greater things; 0.95 feels like you're being railroaded into being a dumb mercenary. (Perhaps hyperbole, but the trend is there. Much of the flexibility of choice in 0.9.1 has been nerfed in 0.9.5, and, perhaps more importantly, has been decreed to be unintentional or unsupported. The writing is on the wall.)

    I'm not really sure I see how that comes out of "if you pilot your flagship, you'll do better". Which was always the case, it's always been the objectively superior choice power-wise; by a bit more now. But I don't see how one makes the jump from "piloting the flagship personally is now slightly more powerful, but not doing it is still quite possible" to what you're saying. Am I missing something, or interpreting what you're saying incorrectly?

    Is it intentional that you can make ~250k (or likely more) in Galatia before the tutorial finishes by just repeatedly shuttling recreational drugs from Ancyra to Derinkuyu? At this point ships don't care about you having your transponder off, so the only issue is the pirate patrol around Derinkuyu, which is very simple to avoid. (It also pushed my level high enough that I actually had improved salvaging before I grabbed the ships at... Tetra I think?)

    Hmm - maybe not intentional, but hey. Sets the tone and all that. Though, yeah, I should probably make a note to have a look at that at some point.

    ... so I can largely avoid the small-scale mercenary portions I don't like".

    (And, hey - other ways of making credits are a way to do that. Smuggling is just the easiest alternative one, and of course not limited to just this specific situation...)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on August 28, 2021, 04:36:23 PM
    People complained about income too high for colonies.  It would have been a great opportunity to introduce actions that require millions of credits to execute and make the player feel like a ruler or pirate king.  Instead, income was slashed and we still feel more or less like low-level thugs at a dead-end path.

    Some of those kinds of things could be fun, but colony income being reduced has nothing at all to do with them being or not being in the game, so I don't think that framing makes much sense. It was simply too high; even assuming endgame-level uses for large amounts of credits, you don't want colony income to so completely dwarf typical fleet-related expenditures. It's not like the game would become a 4x at that point; it's still fleet-focused.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: FooF on August 28, 2021, 05:06:16 PM
    As it is, Star Fortresses cost literally a million credits. I don't know how much higher you'd want to go. Relative to fleet expenditures, this is insane (in a good way). Colonies themselves are massive money sinks: it's just that once you have a decent income, that kind of expenditure doesn't seem that ludicrous. I've got a single colony making 650k/mo right now and at that point, I've "beat" the economy portion of the game. Even if there was some end-game expenditures that cost 5 million, all it's done is delayed the inevitable. That's why I like the Coronal Hypershunt "mega project:" its cost isn't credit-based. That would be too easy. You have to plan the logistics of transporting that kind of giant payload.

    Again, we're still lacking an end game to use all the credits on so I think it can be forgiven that we're drowning in them right now. If [Super Redacted] suddenly started popping up out of Gates and routinely wrecking our fleets, all that cash would go into repairing/rebuilding. Or raising our own Secondary/Auxiliary fleet to run errands, hunt bounties or tag along with us for really difficult targets. We just don't have those kind of options right now.

    Also, I've never felt like a "low-level thug." Thugs don't have 5-6 planets underneath them and own entire systems. I suppose that is all in the eye of the beholder but once I (or my fleet) start piloting Cruisers, I think the moniker of "thug" just doesn't carry weight anymore. I never feel like a proper faction but I'm ok with that: a rose by any other name. I mean, when you own something like 35-40% of every commodity market, you might not get treated like your own faction but you're actually more profitable than any of them. Maybe take a page from Crusader King and start giving us titles... :D
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Histidine on August 28, 2021, 06:05:37 PM
    Maybe take a page from Crusader King and start giving us titles... :D
    Speaking of this, one idea that's come up on the Discord server a couple of times is letting the player specify a rank/title (maybe in the faction name/flag setup screen?), which gets used in dialogs. Instead of always "captain", which starts looking weird when the player has a large fleet and even more so when they have a multi-system faction.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on August 28, 2021, 06:26:05 PM
    As it is, Star Fortresses cost literally a million credits. I don't know how much higher you'd want to go. Relative to fleet expenditures, this is insane (in a good way). Colonies themselves are massive money sinks: it's just that once you have a decent income, that kind of expenditure doesn't seem that ludicrous. I've got a single colony making 650k/mo right now and at that point, I've "beat" the economy portion of the game. Even if there was some end-game expenditures that cost 5 million, all it's done is delayed the inevitable. That's why I like the Coronal Hypershunt "mega project:" its cost isn't credit-based. That would be too easy. You have to plan the logistics of transporting that kind of giant payload.

    Again, we're still lacking an end game to use all the credits on so I think it can be forgiven that we're drowning in them right now. If [Super Redacted] suddenly started popping up out of Gates and routinely wrecking our fleets, all that cash would go into repairing/rebuilding. Or raising our own Secondary/Auxiliary fleet to run errands, hunt bounties or tag along with us for really difficult targets. We just don't have those kind of options right now.
    Income from colonies is like a curve.  Big sink early, but once it is size 6, player can remove hazard pay, and the colony is likely big enough to take care of itself, which means Free Port!  It is like after reaching a point of singularity, the colony goes from barely making ends meet to a massive cash cow in an instant.  But by then, the game is practically over unless my goal was to colonize the whole sector with cores.

    Hypershunt revival was a disappointment.  It is a matter of stacking a bunch of Atlas and stockpiling metal to enable the action, then do it once (or twice).  Then I can scuttle most of the Atlases I stockpiled for that purpose.  And the reward for bringing the shunt online... enables the use of a tap (if it drops) that implants a Pather cell (thanks +8 Pather interest) and raises demand for transplutonics.  Better use of the tap is to sell it to someone to sabotage their markets (by forcing transplutonics shortage and possible Pather attacks).

    Player losing his fleet probably means s-mods down the drain and loss of story points.  If I think fights will be so hard that all victories are pyrrhic, then that might push more people toward the new Hull Restoration skill to repair their ships as good as new without spending money at shops or restore.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SonnaBanana on August 28, 2021, 07:01:25 PM
    We do need better ways with of dealing with Pathers that doesn't involve babysitting.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: ANGRYABOUTELVES on August 28, 2021, 09:12:05 PM
    We do need better ways with of dealing with Pathers that doesn't involve babysitting.
    I'm pretty sure that's planned. The unused and non-functional "Orders" tab in the colony management screen and the vestigial High Command upgrade for the Military Base implies quite a bit. I wouldn't hold your breath about it though, it's at least one or two major updates out.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: JAL28 on August 28, 2021, 10:44:10 PM
    I don’t think the High Command is vestigial, I do believe it does add more fleets than Military Base(at least according to the wikia)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: hydremajor on August 29, 2021, 12:42:07 AM
    On the topic of AI controlled fleets, is there a feature to make ship designs for the A.I. to use ?
    or is that planned to happen further down the line ?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on August 29, 2021, 06:45:06 AM
    Also, I've never felt like a "low-level thug." Thugs don't have 5-6 planets underneath them and own entire systems. I suppose that is all in the eye of the beholder but once I (or my fleet) start piloting Cruisers, I think the moniker of "thug" just doesn't carry weight anymore. I never feel like a proper faction but I'm ok with that: a rose by any other name. I mean, when you own something like 35-40% of every commodity market, you might not get treated like your own faction but you're actually more profitable than any of them. Maybe take a page from Crusader King and start giving us titles... :D
    Five to six worlds would be nice, except player needs either Colony Management or cores.  Out-of-the-box, he can have up to four worlds.  Without favorable planet generation, that is the minimum he needs.  That said, four is on par with a minor major faction.  Okay, sure, not everyone can be a land baron, but currently, player can do little with it.  It is mostly a vault and/or factory that has some guards.  It does not feel like the player commands more than just his personal fleet.  He has mostly those mascots or cheerleaders that are semi-common to anime protagonists.

    As for fleets, in this game, nearly every chump thrown at the player late in the game has the infamous capital spam fleet.  Even early in the game, defense fleet equivalents are thrown at a starter player who dares to attempt stealth or raid missions, or progress with the main quest.  Player is not exceptional with his fleet at any point, he is yet another brick in the wall at best or a tiny bug to be squashed at worst.  At least factions can throw more than one such fleet at a problem (i.e., expeditions).  Player, being a major faction in his own right by the end, cannot do the things other factions can do.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Serenitis on August 29, 2021, 07:03:53 AM
    If it's any consolation, I really like starting over. I'm rarely married to any particular run-through. :D
    Same.

    Although I've not touched the game since April, so this is perhaps not really that much of an endorsement.
    It has, I think given me enough separation to analyse things without the filter of annoyance though.
    There's a bit to unpack here, and it's all tangled up together like a decades old ball of string that's all manky and you can't find the end of...

    Why I 'fell out' with Starsector
    One of the things I thought was really neat about Starsector was the setting - everyone is just about making do, new stuff is locked behind ridiculous DRM nonsense that people guard bigly. And anyone without access to this has to use handed down stuff, or dig it out of a junk pile.

    This is p. great as far as settings go, and imo it felt p. great to jive with this by leaning into it super hard and using whatever stuff could be found or recovered.
    There were even skills available that allowed you to do that more effectively, and that was really apropos for the setting.
    And so I spent a ton of time just repeatedly doing this as my core gameplay, and building around it as various things happened or were found.
    Really leaning into the mechanic that these ships might be trash, but I can support and deploy more of them explictly because of that.
    It felt right.

    So having those particular skills straight up removed from the game in 095 was... Not really the best feeling I've ever had tbh.
    Even more galling was the (excuse my language) absolute dogs dinner that was the new Derelict Contingent skill, which would have been the perfect place to put those particular abilities but instead had some really odd/unbalanced effect that runs into another issue I have.
    It requires an officer to work.

    This is something I can't get my head around. At all.
    There are skills that do literally nothing unless you have an officer in a ship.
    But there are no guaranteed ways of getting an officer (except for picking Kite as your starting companion), so these skills are dead weight or path blockers unless you've been lucky enough to find an officer, and lucky enough that the officer you find is actually useful to you in the first place.

    And as if that wasn't quite odd enough, the entire deployment mechanics for your whole fleet now depend on how many officers you have compared to your opponent.
    Your opponent will always have officers. Lots of them.
    While you the player will only have the number of officers you have managed to find. It is not uncommon in my case for this number to be zero for a significant amount of time since I don't obsessively check comm directories on the few occaisions I visit the core, mostly because I'll forget about it.

    Now, I'm not exactly great at combat in the first place. I have less than great physical dexterity because I used to be a riveter and whitefinger is a ***t of a thing.
    But I've found the combat in 095 to be significantly harder than it was in 09.1 to the point that I just don't want to deal with it.
    I can't quite identify what it is that's making things feel this different, but I suspect it's because I don't have nearly as many officers as the opponent and that's making them really aggressive, while my guys are really passive.
    (This is all guesswork on my part - so ??)

    I could restart on easy, that might be something to look at.
    But this has a downside: It messes with the drop tables and makes things more common, which is the opposite of what I want.
    So no matter what I do here I'm going to get unrewarding gameplay.

    Honestly, I think this is one of the worst design descisions. Basing fundamental game mechanics off luck based events.
    If this is staying in, there really does need to be some way for the player to create officers. Raise crew from the ranks etc.

    The skills themselves are not bad in a vacuum.
    But the fact they are chained together in such a way that things you want are trapped behind things you either don't care about, or actively do not want is... Less than great.
    Having to choose between two things you want equally because you need both to do the thing you want to do is particularly irritating, and just introduces a huge time-gate onto progression because now I'm literally grindng xp to get more skills so I can wrap around to get the other half of the skill I missed before I can even start doing the main thing in the game I want to do - explore.
    Ugh. The whole thing just makes me feel viscerally ungood just thinking about it...

    Another thing that was something of an irritant was the rather restrictive limit for the number of colonies the player can control.
    In 09.1 the player could ultimately control 4 planets directly, plus another 3 via governers for a total of 7. This was fine.
    In 095 the player can control 2 planets directly, plus another 2 via governers for a total of 4. This, less so.

    One of my obsessions is having colonies with access to all resources.
    If you're super lucky you can do this with 2 planets. If you're unlucky you'll need 4.
    The problem being that being unlucky is vastly more likley than being lucky, and by using your colonies in such a fashion you have just locked yourself out of ever doing any tech mining.
    Which is somewhat annoying.
    And also introduces/encourages metagame behaviour like doing all the tech mining first then doing colonies, which is p. silly.

    Imo, 5 is the absolute smallest number of colonies that the player can have and still have access to everything.
    4 to cover resources plus 1 for tech mining.
    If you can get all your resouces in fewer planets, then lucky you. More tech mining or less overheads.

    Removing direct player control and doing it all via governers could be a way to look at.
    It's not that big of a deal for this to be gated behind rng as it's not required.
    And porting it all over to governers potentially unlocks the possibility of it being uncapped entirely, and letting expenses/overheads be the soft-cap.


    All of this is a shame, because the story (what I've seen of it at any rate) is really nice.
    Even if it does have some really dumb missions that are a bit tedious.

    I super-miss being able to find a beat up junk ship and actually be able to use it almost as well as a shiny new ship because I've invested time and skills into being able to do that.
    Feels like theres no point at all in doing this now. (D)amaged ships are always pure negative. Where previously they were negative, unless you deliberately built yourself around using them and then they became partially positive.
    Which was fun and thematically appropriate for the setting.


    I made this as a joke, but it came true and I hurt my own feelings because I am literally a pratfall given form:
    Spoiler
    (https://i.imgur.com/6LAqJB3.jpg)
    [close]

    [close]
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on August 29, 2021, 07:49:14 AM
    One thing I dislike about the old Starfarer lore was the post-apocalyptic setting that wanted to enforce Thunderdome and clunkers for everything and I am so glad that it is downplayed to near-irrelevance.  I am a big fan of pristine and top-of-the-line shinies (in part because the game is balanced with pristine as the baseline).  If Hull Restoration is required to keep those multi-s-modded ships clean at all times (because expecting AI to play perfectly and not die at any time is a bit too hopeful), I might grumble a bit, but I probably will bite the bullet like I did with Field Repairs this release.  (That might get in the way if Neural Linked Radiant becomes addictive, and I want Combat skills and Hull Restoration.)

    The things I dislike about officers most are the following:
    * AI can have more than ten officers and break caps if they want, which they did not do before.  I blame mercs for this, and I wished they were never implemented.  At least AI would have no excuse for breaking caps if mercs were never implemented (and if it did anyway, it would be a blatant violation of rules like fleet caps were in previous releases.)

    * They (and not your big endgame fleet) dictate how much you deploy.  Combined with above, player can be assured of permanent disadvantage in the fights that matter (those hard enough that flawless victory is not a given), with DP limits and -10% shot range.

    About planets.  Yes, with only four, I felt like I had no room for Tech Mining or even a convenient pop-up colony as a temporary base.  (I had a crappy planet spawn in my 0.95 game.)  I suppose I could get Colony Management (I had Field Repairs, so sparing one point for Industry 5 was not onerous), but that meant I needed alpha cores that I did not have if I respec'ed out of Colony Management.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SCC on August 29, 2021, 08:25:29 AM
    While you the player will only have the number of officers you have managed to find. It is not uncommon in my case for this number to be zero for a significant amount of time since I don't obsessively check comm directories on the few occaisions I visit the core, mostly because I'll forget about it.
    Have you not found any officers in cryo pods? They aren't terribly common, but I typically found at least five of them. At some point I was even thinking that Officer Training skill is pointless, since you will find enough level 7 officers out in the rim anyway...

    Now, I'm not exactly great at combat in the first place. I have less than great physical dexterity because I used to be a riveter and whitefinger is a ***t of a thing.
    But I've found the combat in 095 to be significantly harder than it was in 09.1 to the point that I just don't want to deal with it.
    I can't quite identify what it is that's making things feel this different, but I suspect it's because I don't have nearly as many officers as the opponent and that's making them really aggressive, while my guys are really passive.
    (This is all guesswork on my part - so ??)
    If you don't bother hiring officers, that's probably it. 0.9.1 could be played without ever taking Officer Management, so the base number of them was 4. Now it's 8, and you (and the enemy) can get mercenaries, too.

    Honestly, I think this is one of the worst design descisions. Basing fundamental game mechanics off luck based events.
    That's basically campaign, isn't it? You can be certain to find in the outer rim, in the enemy fleet, for sale or raid for a ship/weapon/officer/blueprint, but if you want the ship/weapon/officer/blueprint, you have to get lucky the game rolled the dice in your favour. At least now you can mentor officers to change their personality slightly and get more skills to choose on promotion.

    If this is staying in, there really does need to be some way for the player to create officers. Raise crew from the ranks etc.
    There's an intel message you can receive after combat (it's random), that let's you promote a member of your crew to a full officer.

    In 09.1 the player could ultimately control 4 planets directly, plus another 3 via governers for a total of 7. This was fine.
    In 095 the player can control 2 planets directly, plus another 2 via governers for a total of 4. This, less so.
    Plus 1 more directly and 1 more via admin, if you take Colony Management.

    I would also say that when it comes to "I waste a skill point because to get a skill I want, I first need to get a skill I don't want" issue, that was a thing in 0.9.1, too. You could get 49% of all skills, instead of 38% now, but people didn't mind wasting a skill point, because the value of each skill point was low, because you had 52 of them (and now just 15).

    * AI can have more than ten officers and break caps if they want, which they did not do before.  I blame mercs for this, and I wished they were never implemented.  At least AI would have no excuse for breaking caps if mercs were never implemented (and if it did anyway, it would be a blatant violation of rules like fleet caps were in previous releases.)
    Two mercenaries at all times are sustainable. Alex is also extending contract duration to double, so it should be possible to have four. I hope he will implement a way to find multiple mercs to hire (not hire multiple mercs, because I don't want to pay four story points to get one good merc and three I don't care about).
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on August 29, 2021, 09:53:00 AM
    Now, I'm not exactly great at combat in the first place. I have less than great physical dexterity because I used to be a riveter and whitefinger is a ***t of a thing.
    But I've found the combat in 095 to be significantly harder than it was in 09.1 to the point that I just don't want to deal with it.
    I can't quite identify what it is that's making things feel this different, but I suspect it's because I don't have nearly as many officers as the opponent and that's making them really aggressive, while my guys are really passive.
    (This is all guesswork on my part - so ??)
    If you don't bother hiring officers, that's probably it. 0.9.1 could be played without ever taking Officer Management, so the base number of them was 4. Now it's 8, and you (and the enemy) can get mercenaries, too.
    They did not affect DP distribution back then, so officers were less critical than today.

    * AI can have more than ten officers and break caps if they want, which they did not do before.  I blame mercs for this, and I wished they were never implemented.  At least AI would have no excuse for breaking caps if mercs were never implemented (and if it did anyway, it would be a blatant violation of rules like fleet caps were in previous releases.)
    Two mercenaries at all times are sustainable. Alex is also extending contract duration to double, so it should be possible to have four. I hope he will implement a way to find multiple mercs to hire (not hire multiple mercs, because I don't want to pay four story points to get one good merc and three I don't care about).
    How many will human endgame fleets have?  12?  14?  All at level 6 and 7.  Will player be assumed to get both officer skills (for ten level 6 officers)?  I probably will not get officer skills myself.  Today, AI cores in player's fleet count toward officers, but they will not next release.

    I do not want to burn story points extending contacts with mercs, and I do not want to tour the sector looking for mercs at all times.  That is too similar to playing whack-a-mole pirate/pather base.  Oh, their salaries were much higher than officers (maybe close to colony admins), and I could not afford that at the time since I did not have colonies built up enough for high income when I needed them.

    But fights against Ordos are the only recurring fights that matter at endgame.  (They are much stronger than any NPC human fleet, and a decent endgame fleet can rollover said human fleet for easy flawless victory.)  Before 0.95, they (Remnants) obeyed the same officer cap as the player (I guess), but they clearly do not now.  That one picture against Ordos(10) in the blog had twenty ships, and every last one of them had an alpha core officer.  Is that the standard Ordos fleet that the player will fight to grind for cores in a red system after they reach max strength?  Isn't all elite skills on their officers enough of an advantage?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on August 29, 2021, 10:01:35 AM
    This is p. great as far as settings go, and imo it felt p. great to jive with this by leaning into it super hard and using whatever stuff could be found or recovered.
    There were even skills available that allowed you to do that more effectively, and that was really apropos for the setting.
    And so I spent a ton of time just repeatedly doing this as my core gameplay, and building around it as various things happened or were found.
    Really leaning into the mechanic that these ships might be trash, but I can support and deploy more of them explictly because of that.
    It felt right.

    So having those particular skills straight up removed from the game in 095 was... Not really the best feeling I've ever had tbh.
    Even more galling was the (excuse my language) absolute dogs dinner that was the new Derelict Contingent skill, which would have been the perfect place to put those particular abilities but instead had some really odd/unbalanced effect that runs into another issue I have.

    I'll just say, the skill changes for the next release go back in that direction. This (https://fractalsoftworks.com/2021/07/02/skill-changes-part-1/) blog post goes into some detail about it; you can search for "Derelict Operations".

    Re: officers - just to make sure, you're aware that you can hire them at colonies, right? To do this, open the comm directory and look for an "Officer (available for hire)". There's not *always* going to be one but they're pretty common, to the point where while there is some RNG in getting them, you shouldn't have any trouble filling out your roster over the medium to long term.

    (Edit: ah, re-read what you said, and you did mention not checking comm directories. I mean, fair enough if you don't want to do that. But, the game assumes that you *will* have officers, and provides you with a reliable means of getting them; not having any is pretty far outside the norm. I mean, in some sense "not using officers" is a choice you might make, but it just makes the game 10x more difficult for no real benefit, so it's not a choice the game design really considers, if that makes sense.)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SonnaBanana on August 29, 2021, 06:25:12 PM
    Is Impact Mitigation kind of redundant and underperforming compared to new armor/hull skills now, any plans for replacement?

    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SCC on August 30, 2021, 09:44:52 AM
    Why would you not want to stack them?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Serenitis on September 13, 2021, 11:34:46 AM
    "not using officers" is a choice you might make, but it just makes the game 10x more difficult for no real benefit,

    It's not as if I'm deliberately avoiding them though.
    I'm just not often in a position to pick any up via markets, and when I am I'm pre-occupied with other things.
    And those that are 'rescued' have to be evaluated as 'is this person useful right now?', because it's going to be a non-trivial amount of time before I can throw them at an academy to change them to a disposition I can actually use.

    It just seems a bit rough when officers are now hard required or it makes the game 10x harder, but the only way to get them is play 3 separate lotteries each of which involves a significant investment of playtime which may or may not line up with what you actually want to do.
    If officers are so vitally important that the game is significantly harder without them, why is there no guaranteed way of getting them regardless of what the player is doing?

    That the 'raise from the ranks' is a thing that already exists is good.
    I've not seen it yet though (in my admittedly small time playing this version).
    I'd like to be able to spend a story point to force this though. That would probably remove this issue entirely tbh.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on September 13, 2021, 12:26:28 PM
    ... and when I am I'm pre-occupied with other things.

    Honestly - I mean, I get how this might happen, and do the same sort of thing in other games sometimes (hello, never using the Adrenaline ability in Jupiter Hell...) - but I feel like at that point that's on you, if that makes sense. It's a reliable (over the short to medium term) way of getting officers and it's there and you're not using it, you know?

    That the 'raise from the ranks' is a thing that already exists is good.
    I've not seen it yet though (in my admittedly small time playing this version).

    I bet you might actually have run into it! It's just easy to miss - but the good thing is the intel sticks around for a long time. ... or, wait, is that a change in the in-dev version? It might be, actually, so never mind that aspect of it :)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Hiruma Kai on September 13, 2021, 01:06:42 PM
    And those that are 'rescued' have to be evaluated as 'is this person useful right now?', because it's going to be a non-trivial amount of time before I can throw them at an academy to change them to a disposition I can actually use.

    Out of curiosity, what is the academy that can change an officer disposition?  Is it from a mod?  I'm unfamiliar with that in the base game.  I am familiar with the mentoring option accessed from the officer screen in the 0.95a release, which lets me spend a story point and shift an officer's original nature by 1 along the timid/cautious/steady/aggressive/reckless continuum, along with being able to pick from among 3 skills at level up instead of 2.  Admittedly, that option is greyed out for max level (or higher) officers you happen to find, but it is an instant effect otherwise.

    Although, question to Alex, would it hurt to allow it to at least shift a max or higher level officer's nature, even if you don't get the leveling benefits?  It would certainly mean those high level cautious/steady officers I find in escape pods in the wild would be more likely to be used.

    It just seems a bit rough when officers are now hard required or it makes the game 10x harder, but the only way to get them is play 3 separate lotteries each of which involves a significant investment of playtime which may or may not line up with what you actually want to do.

    To be honest, officers are only required for the combat portion of the game.  If you're not focusing on combat at the time, then you can pretty much ignore them, and simply run from/avoid significant threats.  If you're not doing a lot of combat, officers are a negative as they're just draining credits without doing anything. 

    The way I see them, is when I'm gearing up to a combat fleet, officers are just another piece of the puzzle I have to put a little time into getting, along with good combat ship hulls, sufficient rarer weapons, and hull mod unlocks.  All of which are lottery driven as well.  Although I do tend to grab good officers/weapons/hull mods as I find them and hoard them in anticipation of that transition.


    If officers are so vitally important that the game is significantly harder without them, why is there no guaranteed way of getting them regardless of what the player is doing?

    This could be leveled at any of the random aspects of the game that feed into fleet strength.  At the moment in 0.95a, I personally don't have too many issues with officer rarity given the new mentoring mechanics, as 80% of starting officer dispositions are at least usable (cautious->steady and reckless->aggressive help a lot), and 3 picks at level up leaves me with at least one good skill pick. 

    Finding an Odyssey to purchase, on the other hand, when I've got more than enough credits on hand is a pain.  Or making sure I've got Plasma Cannons/Tachyon Lances stored somewhere, as the shops inevitably don't have them when I finally have a ship to fit them on.  I feel like many veteran Starsector players have a giant stash of weapons they collect and never sell, since selling them isn't really worth it, and the stores never have that one weapon you're looking for when you need it.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SCC on September 13, 2021, 01:13:51 PM
    I feel like many veteran Starsector players have a giant stash of weapons they collect and never sell, since selling them isn't really worth it, and the stores never have that one weapon you're looking for when you need it.
    The better question is, why don't you have a hoard of weapons? It's the only way to guarantee you'll have at least basic access to every role you need.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on September 13, 2021, 01:16:12 PM
    Although, question to Alex, would it hurt to allow it to at least shift a max or higher level officer's nature, even if you don't get the leveling benefits?  It would certainly mean those high level cautious/steady officers I find in escape pods in the wild would be more likely to be used.

    Ah - from the in-dev (not published) patch notes:
    Officers at or beyond max level and with maxed out elite skills can be "retrained"
          Elite skills changed
          Personality changed (+- 1 step)
          Costs 1 story point and grants 100% bonus XP
          Works on level 7 cryopod officers
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Brainwright on September 13, 2021, 02:00:52 PM
    I feel like many veteran Starsector players have a giant stash of weapons they collect and never sell, since selling them isn't really worth it, and the stores never have that one weapon you're looking for when you need it.
    The better question is, why don't you have a hoard of weapons? It's the only way to guarantee you'll have at least basic access to every role you need.

    The even better question is why don't markets supply equipment that is in demand?

    The single best reason to make a colony is storing your stock of weapons.  It's a pain.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SafariJohn on September 13, 2021, 05:07:50 PM
    IMO basic weapons really ought to be available in basically infinite amounts everywhere. Maybe literally make them infinite like a lot of games do - you can buy however many you want. That would also be really nice for player-made weapons, instead of having to order them in advance/hoard them.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Hiruma Kai on September 13, 2021, 05:15:33 PM
    I feel like many veteran Starsector players have a giant stash of weapons they collect and never sell, since selling them isn't really worth it, and the stores never have that one weapon you're looking for when you need it.
    The better question is, why don't you have a hoard of weapons? It's the only way to guarantee you'll have at least basic access to every role you need.

    Never said I didn't.  Having played since 0.7.2, I feel like I fall into the veteran category for Starsector by now, so in my mind, I was including myself in the statement. :)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Vanshilar on September 13, 2021, 06:03:57 PM
    It just seems a bit rough when officers are now hard required or it makes the game 10x harder, but the only way to get them is play 3 separate lotteries each of which involves a significant investment of playtime which may or may not line up with what you actually want to do.
    If officers are so vitally important that the game is significantly harder without them, why is there no guaranteed way of getting them regardless of what the player is doing?

    Eh I think you're looking at this situation wrong.

    We as fellow forum-goers are trying to tell your that officers will help your fleet immensely. Basically that it's worth your time to get them.

    If you choose not to make the effort, you don't have to, but then that's on you as a player, to play the game that way. It's not up to the game to force you to get officers via some guaranteed means, you're supposed to make the effort. You can lead a horse to water and all that. Yes it's probabilistic. But the chance of you never coming across an officer is vanishingly small after a little bit of play time. I mean there's a chance of you rolling a 1 100 times in a row, but we don't really worry about that.

    Also, the game does guarantee you officers, if you go out and explore. There are a guaranteed number of officers per game that you'll find in cryo pods; in fact IIRC Alex will be decreasing that amount next patch because there are currently too many (i.e. it's too easy).

    If you're visiting markets, you're bound to come across officers on the comm board. If you're exploring, you're bound to come across officers in cryo pods. If you're fighting, you'll get officers from your own crew. So the game gives you officers pretty much no matter what you're doing, unless you're not visiting markets, not exploring, and not fighting, in which case, I'm not sure what else there is to do.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Deshara on September 13, 2021, 07:14:28 PM
    ... and when I am I'm pre-occupied with other things.

    Honestly - I mean, I get how this might happen, and do the same sort of thing in other games sometimes (hello, never using the Adrenaline ability in Jupiter Hell...)

    oh my god i do that too!! lol thats why i only play recon at this point. idk what it is about the way the game is presented to the player but i never think to use adrenaline but i will remember to use stealth -- and the funny thing is, I only use stealth in the exact way that adrenaline is supposed to be used; to get myself out of a bind on the turn before im probably gonna die by getting off a safe heal. it's just, for some reason using energy to pop stealth so i can use medkits without being attacked hits my brain different than using fury to pop adrenaline so i can ???? heal in some way ????. my brain never quite glued on to how its healing works or how much its supposed to be. probably why i dont play that class. its a solid abject lesson in the importance of informational clarity
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: FooF on September 13, 2021, 07:33:13 PM
    Re: Officer chat

    As vital as they are, and as much as veteran players know how valuable they are, I don't think the game really tells you this. If you don't pick bounty hunter with a starting officer, I don't even know that a new player would be aware of their existence until they start surveying skills. Granted, it has been awhile since I've done the tutorial but granting an officer as a reward during the tutorial (and explaining what they do and how to acquire them) would go a long way in telling new players "hey, these guys are super important in combat." Or heck, make the reward officer a "free" Mercenary and kill two birds with one stone. It would be a temporary power-up for a new player and it would explain how both officers and Mercs work.

    Also, if I didn't know from patch notes that officers and/or their level increase your deployment size against larger fleets, I would not guess that at all. I can't seem to find any tooltip in-game that suggests this. Now that I think about it, outside of the brief patch notes that tell me this is the case, I don't know how the mechanic functions at all. I always run with maximum officers about as soon as possible so I guess I don't run into any issues but if a new player that doesn't know much about officers and doesn't routinely hire them, what kind of disadvantage are they (unknowingly) getting into? What's the worse-case scenario?

    Re: Weapons

    Yes, I hoard my favorites but collect just about everything early. Weapons as a commodity seems to be intentionally neutered (kind of like ship hulls) so hoarding them at the Abandoned Station in Corvus and then later at your first colony is par for the course. It snowballs really fast, though, especially if I have my eye out on black markets early game. I'll buy a Heavy Blaster, Needler, or the odd Large Energy when I see them available because that will pay dividends down the line. The weapons stash becomes a bit absurd by late game, especially now that recovered ships don't lose weapons.

    I don't see this as a problem, per se, but it does make returning to your "stash" pretty mandatory every time you want to change the loadout of a ship. I know we have the odd production slot guy at worlds who will custom order ships/hulls/fighters but wandering merchants/arms dealers would kind of be welcome, especially if their wares are top-shelf (albeit at a premium price). The closest we get are the tough guys that needs a few marines to steal a ship or contacts that give you a good deal on a pristine faction ship. But just more Joe Business fleets that roam around the Core Worlds and can be interacted with (and targeted by pirates!) would be cool and serve a useful function.

    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on September 13, 2021, 08:12:33 PM
    Spoiler
    oh my god i do that too!! lol thats why i only play recon at this point. idk what it is about the way the game is presented to the player but i never think to use adrenaline but i will remember to use stealth -- and the funny thing is, I only use stealth in the exact way that adrenaline is supposed to be used; to get myself out of a bind on the turn before im probably gonna die by getting off a safe heal. it's just, for some reason using energy to pop stealth so i can use medkits without being attacked hits my brain different than using fury to pop adrenaline so i can ???? heal in some way ????. my brain never quite glued on to how its healing works or how much its supposed to be. probably why i dont play that class. its a solid abject lesson in the importance of informational clarity
    [close]

    (Ahh, same! I think the issue is Adrenaline requires Pain to use and it just never lines up to where 1) I remember to use it and 2) the Pain level is high enough that it's good...)


    As vital as they are, and as much as veteran players know how valuable they are, I don't think the game really tells you this. If you don't pick bounty hunter with a starting officer, I don't even know that a new player would be aware of their existence until they start surveying skills. Granted, it has been awhile since I've done the tutorial but granting an officer as a reward during the tutorial (and explaining what they do and how to acquire them) would go a long way in telling new players "hey, these guys are super important in combat." Or heck, make the reward officer a "free" Mercenary and kill two birds with one
    stone. It would be a temporary power-up for a new player and it would explain how both officers and Mercs work.

    Hmm, that's a good idea - at least specifically about introducing officers in the tutorial (maybe the agent you contact at Derinkuyu needs a lift off the station and joins you?). Not 100% on it being a merc, worth thinking about though.

    Also, if I didn't know from patch notes that officers and/or their level increase your deployment size against larger fleets, I would not guess that at all. I can't seem to find any tooltip in-game that suggests this.

    The tooltip on the deployment points bar in the deployment dialog explains this.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SonnaBanana on September 13, 2021, 08:20:01 PM
    Looking forward to the new Technology Story Point option(s) since +1 s-mod is now a Leadership thing!
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Vanshilar on September 13, 2021, 09:09:23 PM
    Hmm, that's a good idea - at least specifically about introducing officers in the tutorial (maybe the agent you contact at Derinkuyu needs a lift off the station and joins you?). Not 100% on it being a merc, worth thinking about though.

    Actually a good time might be when the player goes to retrieve the ships, since that's near the end of the tutorial (since officers have upkeep), and it's when the player will feel more like they have a "fleet" of ships now.

    The officer should probably have a fixed personality of steady, not sure if the skill should also be fixed, to prevent the player from getting something wonky. A timid or reckless officer might turn a new player away from getting more officers.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Serenitis on September 22, 2021, 04:33:30 AM
    Here's another way to think about the officer stuff:

    Officers have been changed from 'nice' to 'required'.
    Okay. Not nescessarily an issue in and of itself.
    But how do you get officers?
    The only ways available are essentially roulette wheels, of which the most 'effective' one is to trawl around as many colonies as you can in order to find them.

    This is the problem.
    What has been introduced here is a mandatory 'shopping' requirement to play the game at all.
    And that is neither fun nor interesting.
    I don't want to go shopping. Not interested. Which is why it gets 'forgotten'.

    Previously this was not an issue, as officers while certainly very good things to have were not a hard requirement for anything other than min-maxing.
    You could quite easily do your own thing and not worry about them at all because it simply was not an issue.

    Trying to do this in the current version gets you stonewalled fairly early on because the core gameplay has been altered to require officers, but the means of getting them has not been altered to take this into account.
    Which is an inconsistency - If a thing is required, it should be readily available without the player having to go out of thier way to get that thing.

    Officers being required is not the problem. Forcing players to grind through a 'shopping minigame' or 'roulette wheels' in order to get them is.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Grievous69 on September 22, 2021, 04:46:11 AM
    What you said would be true if we didn't have the option of mentoring them to change behaviours. If these changes were made before we had story points, I'd probably agree with you, but it honestly isn't such a hassle to find a few officers as you picture it out to be. How's that any different from trying to find a decent warship for your fleet? It's RNG again baby, even trying to recover one in combat is pure luck.

    I'm not saying I don't understand you, I'm just telling you that it's likely an exaggeration, no offense.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on September 22, 2021, 10:55:00 AM
    It is easier to get officers.  A significant number came from after-battle promotions.  Mentoring is a no-brainer, no need to shop for behaviors or save-scumming to level up the desired skills.  And a endgame fight is enough to level up one from 1 to 5, which is good (for disposable officers).

    However, I am not happy that officers alone determine fleet size on deployment, especially now that mercs are in play.  Mercs were the worst addition to 0.95, because now that gave the enemy justification to break the officer cap, like that Remnant fleet with alpha cores in all 20+ ships in that one pic.  Plus, mercs are income hogs until colonies start making lots of money, which happens at the end of a playthrough (unless player wants to colonize the whole sector with cores).

    I did like that officers were optional in previous releases.  Not so much today since they are practically required (barring unconventional fleet configuration).

    Just raise in-game setting's maximum back up to 500, or better yet, up to about 1000 as long as capital spam (by the enemy) is here to stay.

    500 was great back when the hardest fight was Hegemony Systems Defense Fleet, or a 200k bounty, but now it is barely big enough for modern capital spam.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: pairedeciseaux on September 22, 2021, 02:25:31 PM
    My understanding is: all of this is by design.

    Player fleet size limit, late game fleet being stronger than player fleet, officers, ...

    The point is precisely to provide a greater challenge compared to previous version of the game, largely preventing player brute force, having player use legitimate tools to succeed (including officers!).

    Regarding officer availability, I have not seen any issues: every time I visit a core market in the early to mid game, I look at potential contacts and recruitable officers, easy-peasy. My main complain regarding this process would be the UI, that I don't love. Also, I think I have only used mentoring once, and never used mercenaries.

    That said, maybe officer promotion should happen more often, especially very early game? Could happen right at the end of the campaign tutorial - when completing the last mission before leaving starting system, getting some money ensuring player can afford the new officer's pay for long enough. Tutorial would then explain the different method to recruit officers. If there's a guaranteed recruitable officer waiting in Jangala and player is told about it, then player learns by example the other way to obtain an officer while starting his campaign journey.

    Also there could be some bar events/missions where player end-up encountering a character that wants to join his fleet as officer (uhhh, this one doesn't already exist, right?).

    I remember reading on the forum that some improvements are coming for mercenaries.

    By the way, you guys are monsters! Every time this thread gets updated I'm like: this is it, new release available! - Hmmm, wait, what did I just do.  ;D
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: FooF on September 22, 2021, 05:08:17 PM
    My understanding is: all of this is by design.

    Player fleet size limit, late game fleet being stronger than player fleet, officers, ...

    The point is precisely to provide a greater challenge compared to previous version of the game, largely preventing player brute force, having player use legitimate tools to succeed (including officers!).

    Regarding officer availability, I have not seen any issues: every time I visit a core market in the early to mid game, I look at potential contacts and recruitable officers, easy-peasy. My main complain regarding this process would be the UI, that I don't love. Also, I think I have only used mentoring once, and never used mercenaries.

    That said, maybe officer promotion should happen more often, especially very early game? Could happen right at the end of the campaign tutorial - when completing the last mission before leaving starting system, getting some money ensuring player can afford the new officer's pay for long enough. Tutorial would then explain the different method to recruit officers. If there's a guaranteed recruitable officer waiting in Jangala and player is told about it, then player learns by example the other way to obtain an officer while starting his campaign journey.

    Also there could be some bar events/missions where player end-up encountering a character that wants to join his fleet as officer (uhhh, this one doesn't already exist, right?).

    I remember reading on the forum that some improvements are coming for mercenaries.

    By the way, you guys are monsters! Every time this thread gets updated I'm like: this is it, new release available! - Hmmm, wait, what did I just do.  ;D

    Pretty much agreed. I generally don't use Mercs due to limited availability and them being non-aggressive but if I could have 2-3 of them on payroll at any given time, I probably would use them. I tend to mentor most of my officers early because SPs are plentiful and it means I can take a Steady officer and move them to Aggressive. The extra skill choices help, too.

    As for the end game, I'm routinely smashing Ordos with far less than a maxed out Fleet Size (usually only 1-2 capitals) but I'm always maxing officers. I can't imagine not trying to cap out your officer limit as early as possible because an officered ship is just so much more powerful, whether it's a frigate or an Onslaught. It also makes going the Leadership tree sort of mandatory because either way you go with the Officer skill, you dramatically increase your fleet's effectiveness. I can't think of a run where I didn't pick it.

    I also wouldn't mind earning officers through bar missions. I'd be all for some captain to join your fleet in his/her ship (Allied NPC) and the two of you go hunting a particular bounty. If you succeed, you don't get credits but they join your fleet as an officer and you keep the ship.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Hiruma Kai on September 22, 2021, 05:27:42 PM
    Also there could be some bar events/missions where player end-up encountering a character that wants to join his fleet as officer (uhhh, this one doesn't already exist, right?).

    The reveal the location of a Pather base bar event has the option of spending a story point to turn the "contact" into an officer instead of paying them off with credits.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: intrinsic_parity on September 22, 2021, 05:40:45 PM
    Does mentoring re-roll available skills for an officer if they have unselected skills? I usually mentor officers to get more choices and adjust aggressiveness, but I just realized it would be really advantageous to save mentoring for the last skill or two if it let you re-roll to try and get a skill you missed.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Thaago on September 22, 2021, 05:52:24 PM
    Does mentoring re-roll available skills for an officer if they have unselected skills? I usually mentor officers to get more choices and adjust aggressiveness, but I just realized it would be really advantageous to save mentoring for the last skill or two if it let you re-roll to try and get a skill you missed.

    I'm not sure, but I'll note that I've never had a mentored officer that didn't have pop up one of the skills I wanted. Mentoring is one of the +100% XP uses of story points, so in my mind every officer should be mentored.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: intrinsic_parity on September 22, 2021, 10:04:34 PM
    Does mentoring re-roll available skills for an officer if they have unselected skills? I usually mentor officers to get more choices and adjust aggressiveness, but I just realized it would be really advantageous to save mentoring for the last skill or two if it let you re-roll to try and get a skill you missed.

    I'm not sure, but I'll note that I've never had a mentored officer that didn't have pop up one of the skills I wanted. Mentoring is one of the +100% XP uses of story points, so in my mind every officer should be mentored.
    When I'm doing frigate or phase officers, I usually have some specific set of 5 skills I want and so I frequently miss on the last skill and have so settle for something suboptimal.

    I agree that every officer should be mentored, I was just thinking it might be useful to delay mentoring to get a re-roll when you need one if that was how it works.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Serenitis on September 23, 2021, 12:25:02 AM
    Why it is so frustrating is because this is a problem that has already been removed from the game - in the design stage.

    Gating an element of gameplay (combat) behind trading items back and forth between colonies is something that Starsector was specifically designed to avoid, because it's not "fun" gameplay unless that's explicitly what your game is about.

    With this update combat is now hard-gated behind travelling back and forth between colonies to find officers, which may or may not be present.
    How is re-adding something that was removed at the design stage just with slightly different variables, good?

    It's the same thing. A non-trivial investment of effort which is required before you're "allowed" to have fun.
    Why?

    There's ways around this.
    As mentioned above, making the promotion event more common, or even guaranteed if there's an open officer slot.
    Allowing the player to spend a story point to force the promotion event.
    Rescuing officers from defeated fleets with a "defection" event.

    You know, get officers by doing officer-ish things that the player will be doing no matter how they play.
    And respect the player's time by not gating "fun" elements behind "not fun" elements.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on September 23, 2021, 04:30:42 AM
    As for the end game, I'm routinely smashing Ordos with far less than a maxed out Fleet Size (usually only 1-2 capitals) but I'm always maxing officers. I can't imagine not trying to cap out your officer limit as early as possible because an officered ship is just so much more powerful, whether it's a frigate or an Onslaught. It also makes going the Leadership tree sort of mandatory because either way you go with the Officer skill, you dramatically increase your fleet's effectiveness. I can't think of a run where I didn't pick it.
    The near mandatory of Leadership is what I do not like.  I like Combat, Technology, and/or Industry more, and since we have limited skill points, I leave Leadership out, but it hurts.  First with Wolfpack Tactics for frigates (I do not think frigates are worth using without Wolfpack - too low PPT without it), and then officer skills to keep up with the DP balance when everyone else has greater officer power.

    AI can gave themselves as many mercs as they want.  Player has to play whack-a-mole markets to maintain his merc force and pay them highly inflated salaries (which require high colony income to absorb).

    Quote
    The point is precisely to provide a greater challenge compared to previous version of the game, largely preventing player brute force, having player use legitimate tools to succeed (including officers!).
    Brute force is fun.  Especially before 0.8a when AI was less cowardly and more macho.

    I do not mind fleets getting harder if they play by the rules.  I do not like it when they get harder by cheating, like breaking meta caps (like having many more ships than you can have by breaking fleet cap.)  That said, boss factions that are stronger because they have superior tech (cores for officers with AI factions, Remnants having the overpowered 40 DP Radiant, Omegas having weird alien stuff player cannot easily acquire) are fine.  What I do not like is stuff like seeing AI having a hundred ships in their fleet but I can only have 25 or 30.  That is NPCs getting harder by cheating, and I avoid playing such games because they are not fun (even if I can win by cheesing the game).

    I am not fond of mercs, because officers are practically mandatory and because of mercs, AI has plausible deniability of filling every ship with an officer, but all AI needs to do is spawn them out of nothing and put it on everything without any effort (like that Remnant fleet with Alpha cores on all 20+ ships), while player has to constantly play whack-a-mole market to maintain his merc force and pay them (I think) 25k?/month plus story point for each merc.  Don't get me started with the story point costs for mercs.  If I want to bleed lots of story points, I rather spend them on colonies which have escalating 2^n costs (which is also stupid).

    And if Alex really wants small fleets, he should go back to Logistics instead of having ship limits but low DP limits from skills because the enemy loves to spam capitals all over the place (while PPT and battlemap size have not kept up).  Bring the upper cap back down to Hegemony System Defense Fleet levels or low 200k bounty equivalents, not this capital and cruiser spam that is a slog to grind through.

    I would not mind capital spam if the fleet cap, PPT, and maximum battlemap size were raised.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SafariJohn on September 23, 2021, 08:44:18 AM
    In my current game I am level 7 after 8 months, I've picked up 2 officers from exploring, hired 1, and promoted 1. I've passed up 2-3 promotions/hires because they were cautious.

    That feels about right to me, and I made no special effort to hunt officers besides checking comm directories when I am at a port.


    Now checking comm directories is something I can complain about. Comms and the bar are like the annoying split between the tab map and the intel map. Two interfaces that are too similar to be separate IMO because I have to make myself look at the one that is harder to interact with.

    Heck, combining comms and the bar could be as simple as putting the button for the bar at the top of the comms directory like the old mission board and give it the 1 key as its shortcut. It would be "open market" -> 1 -> 1 -> you're in the bar. Then you would be able to glance at the comms as you are on your way in or out of the bar.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SCC on September 23, 2021, 09:11:11 AM
    Gating an element of gameplay (combat) behind trading items back and forth between colonies is something that Starsector was specifically designed to avoid, because it's not "fun" gameplay unless that's explicitly what your game is about.
    Looking at weapon availability, I wouldn't be as sure so as to make such a bold claim...

    Yeah, comms screen and bar being separated is pointless. In fact, there should be a unified "interact with the colony" screen for comms, bar and other activities, like going to meet Arroyo or Daud.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on September 23, 2021, 10:33:12 AM
    A non-trivial investment of effort which is required before you're "allowed" to have fun.

    I appreciate that this is in fact frustrating for you and don't want to minimize that. I think this point specifically is where we're having a hard time seeing eye to eye - from my perspective, the investment of effort here *is indeed trivial*. It's something less than, say, stocking up on supplies/fuel and hiring extra crew when you're in port, or checking for new ships to buy - and unlike these other activities, you stop needing to do it at all past a certain point. In my playtesting, I don't recall ever having trouble picking up officers as needed.

    So, while I respect that this doesn't match your experience, I also can't really change the game based on that, not if it runs so against what I'm experiencing; I hope that makes sense.


    One thing, though, that might help you in the next release - the "officer promotion candidate" events will stick around for 4 months instead of 1, so it'll be easier to not end up missing them.

    And, something you can do right now - in settings.json, there's:
    "maxOfficerPromoteProb":0.1

    You can increase that to make the promotion events more likely. The probability is based on the number of fleet points destroyed relative to the number of points in your fleet, and this is just a cap on the max value, but it should still have a meaningful impact if you were to increase it. For the next release, let me also add "officerPromoteProbMult", so you can have full control over the promotion event rate.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SafariJohn on September 23, 2021, 11:35:16 AM
    Yeah, comms screen and bar being separated is pointless. In fact, there should be a unified "interact with the colony" screen for comms, bar and other activities, like going to meet Arroyo or Daud.

    Oh yeah, those are also in the first set of options. Compressing all that into one spot is a good idea.

    I was thinking it would be nice to be able to add more location buttons in the comms directory than just the bar - for example the Roider Union's ship retrofitting service could be there instead of tucked away in the bar. Something like:

    COLONY NAME
    |-----------|
    |      Bar     |
    |-----------|
    |  Retrofits  |
    |-----------|
    | Meet Daud|
    |-----------|
    | NPC | NPC |
    | NPC | NPC |
    |                |
    |-----------|
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Hiruma Kai on September 23, 2021, 09:28:19 PM
    Yeah, comms screen and bar being separated is pointless. In fact, there should be a unified "interact with the colony" screen for comms, bar and other activities, like going to meet Arroyo or Daud.

    Oh yeah, those are also in the first set of options. Compressing all that into one spot is a good idea.

    I was thinking it would be nice to be able to add more location buttons in the comms directory than just the bar - for example the Roider Union's ship retrofitting service could be there instead of tucked away in the bar. Something like:

    COLONY NAME
    |-----------|
    |      Bar     |
    |-----------|
    |  Retrofits  |
    |-----------|
    | Meet Daud|
    |-----------|
    | NPC | NPC |
    | NPC | NPC |
    |                |
    |-----------|

    I do wonder from a "How many buttons do I need to press to do X", whether this is an improvement or not.  If you're not actually merging the bar sub-options  (i.e. press 1 to talk with historian, press 2 to talk with merchant, press 3 to talk with pather) with the comm directory screen (all the administrators/officers/etc), that doesn't sound like an improved flow to get to the bar options.  Especially if it's press 1, mouse over to the graphical representation of the bar, then go back to pressing buttons to talk to the historian.  The mouse flow interrupts and slows the whole process down.

    If you're simply putting all the comms and bar and such under a new sub-menu (like how the military options are combined), then we're just adding more button presses compared to what we have now.  Press 1 and then 1 again to get comms, press 1 and then 2 to get bar strikes me as slower.

    I feel like you'd have to merge it all on to one screen (so no separate bar sub-menu/screen) would be the only real way to improve interface flow over what we have now.  There is also some mechanical differences between bar, quest actions, and comm directories in terms of when you're allowed to access them.  If you're hostile to the station with transponder on, your only option generally is the comm directory - no access to things like the bar.  Not to mention quest actions on planets without a comm directory.    Although I'm guessing that wouldn't be too hard to code into such a composite screen, but potentially could get crowded with a lot of mods.  I guess I'd need to see a better mock up to get a feel for how the user flow would go and how expandable it'd be.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SafariJohn on September 24, 2021, 04:42:33 AM
    I am trying to make it easy to look at the comm directory at the slight expense of the bar's interaction flow. Like you are thinking with the submenu, but the comms directory is the submenu so it is streamlined.

    Going to the bar would be "arrive at market" -> press 1 "look at comm/market directory" -> press 1 "go to bar". 1-1 instead of 2; no big deal, just a quick double tap.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Hiruma Kai on September 24, 2021, 10:05:12 AM
    I am trying to make it easy to look at the comm directory at the slight expense of the bar's interaction flow. Like you are thinking with the submenu, but the comms directory is the submenu so it is streamlined.

    Going to the bar would be "arrive at market" -> press 1 "look at comm/market directory" -> press 1 "go to bar". 1-1 instead of 2; no big deal, just a quick double tap.

    I think I see what you're suggesting.  It would be a rework of the comm directory such that you can interact with it via mouse or keyboard press, since currently there are no number options available on the comm directory.

    I still feel like it is two screens to look at to get the information you want, namely "Is there anything interesting on this planet I care about?".  Forcing the player to go the through the comms screen when there's nothing interesting there (i.e. no one to hire, no quests, no contacts), from a design standpoint, feels less than optimal to me.  Especially, if you're then diving into the bar to find nothing there as well.  It can also still lead to people skipping it if they get in the habit of double clicking and don't bother looking as they speed through,especially if they've got a full compliment of officers/administrators already.

    I feel like in a really good user interface, information the player cares about (i.e. what makes this planet unique to interact with) should be presented front and center, from the very first screen.  Enough information so that you know looking at any given sub-screen is worth while.  Looking at a comm directory screen if there is nothing the player wants to do with it is pointless and just busy work, even if it is quick busy work.  If you have AI cores to turn in or want to start a commission, you actively know you want to go there, so no highlighting or extra communication necessary, and you are actively using the screen.  The random elements which aren't there all the time are the ones that need to be advertised prior to the screen.

    Another way to put it is if a player is being led through a screen, even briefly, you should be able to answer the question "Why does the player want to look at this screen right now?".  If the answer is, to see if anything RNG has shown up, then I'd ask, could that randomly rolled presence or absence have been communicated earlier in a reasonable way?

    So I'd almost rather the comm directory option at the top level (i.e. "1. Open the comm directory), be changed when officers/administrators, or quest contacts are available.  So if there's no one to hire present, it's the default "1. Open the comm directory", but if there's a hireable, do something like "1. Open the comm directory along with independent personnel advertisements".  You could also do this with the bar.  If there's nothing available in the bar it could say, "Take a shuttle down to visit a mostly empty dockside bar".

    Going further along UI changes, I could see changing the text color of the comm directory to some color-blind friendly other color when there is an "!" (i.e. quest action) as well.  Change the text color on the "go to bar" to the same color when there's a specific quest interaction there as well (getting roughed up by the local intelligence authority comes to mind).  Also highlight the military options when you have a quest to do a particular military action.  I know I've gotten confused at least once on which military option does what to accomplish the goal someone has provided me.  Highlight the interactions which lead to the quest action in some way, all the way from the very 1st interaction screen.  We already have these kinds of meta information details (the ! in the first place), so I don't feel like the highlighting would be out of place.  However, this potentially is much harder to code up, as it'd require some kind of flagging system that passes information through a text tree.

    The comm directory being the place to interact with your contacts to get missions, but the bar being where you get other missions does feel a bit weird, and I feel like is one of the driving forces behind this discussion.  A potentially easier to code rework than reworking the comm directory GUI completely would be to instead add a text option in the bar (instead of the gui mouse like comm directory) if you've got contacts on the planet. Like "1. Pull out your off-brand tri-pad and call...", and then go to a sub-text menu that gives numerical options for the contacts "1. Jill, your military contact", "2. Jack, your trade contact", "3. Jim, your underworld contact".   Then getting to your only contact on planet becomes a quick press 2, press 1, press 1.  Exiting out of the conversation drops you back to the bar, ready to go look for more missions, rather than the very first planet menu.

    You could also add an option "2. Browse through the local personnel advertisements", that then lists "1. Jason, a freshly graduated cadet", "2. Jacelyn, a battle hardened veteran officer", representing the officers that could be hired on the comm directory.  If there are no contacts, or no one to hire, then neither sub-menu shows up in the bar menu.  This means pressing 2 once, and reading the options is enough to know if there's anything RNG related that might be of interest is on planet.  A single, unified RNG related menu.

    Essentially, instead of making the comms directory the one stop shop, you could make the bar the one stop shop for RNG stuff.  I feel like text menu changes are easier than GUI overhauls, although I could be wrong.  The comms directory would remain exactly the same, and would be a fall back to get further missions if the bar is inaccessible (due to hostilities for example).  So you would have two different ways to hire officers or reach your mission contacts instead of one like we have now.
     
    Anyways, that is how I'd approach it.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Mortrag on September 25, 2021, 03:54:04 AM
    After the officer-discussion some pages ago, there is somthing bugging me. So, with the increased importance of officers in 0.95a and the reduced number of them floating through space in the next patch:
    Will there be a option added in the future, to capture officers after a battle?

    So far, you are able to loot ships and weapons and so the only thing that prevents you from a full looter-playstyle is, that you can't loot/capture the now gamewise necessary and intended officers. Just to make myself clear, it's not about adding a 4X-element, but a way to aquire a now necessary ressource for combat. (And if Nexerelin builds up on that, it's there thing.)

    (And I know that there is already a mod for that out there, but because of the big impact on battle-balancing, it may be better handled in vanilla.)
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on September 25, 2021, 05:42:25 AM
    Occasionally, you can promote someone into an officer after a battle if you have a story point (+100% XP).  That said, it is infrequent enough that player still needs to shop for them.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Amoebka on September 27, 2021, 04:41:23 PM
    I'm one of those players who really stuggle to fill up on officers too. My main reasons for being this way are:

    1) I don't spend much time in the core worlds. Cryopod officers are 95% total garbage because they have afwul skill combos and personalities. Promoting just feels like a noobie trap because 100% story points are not really free at all with how god damn long it takes to farm XP at max level.

    2) I refuse to pick up officers with skills I perceive as bad. Level 1 hire has damage control or ranged spec? Timid/cautious personality? Into the trash he/she goes. This is more of a problem with skill balance, but it also makes me feel like "good" officers are incredibly rare to find for hire.

    3) There's no way to change portraits without editing save files. Alex please. It's so frustrating having two officers with the same portrait but different skill sets.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on September 27, 2021, 06:22:54 PM
    I'm one of those players who really stuggle to fill up on officers too. My main reasons for being this way are:

    1) I don't spend much time in the core worlds. Cryopod officers are 95% total garbage because they have afwul skill combos and personalities. Promoting just feels like a noobie trap because 100% story points are not really free at all with how god damn long it takes to farm XP at max level.
    Story points eventually catch up if player starts grinding endgame battles constantly.  BUT... if the player does not want to fight (because he does not have the fleet to kill endgame fights flawlessly, or wants to do some non-combat stuff like trading instead of non-stop combat), then story points may not catch up.

    Occasional story point use with +100% XP is practically free, but only for those combat junkies who fight endgame battles constantly.  (And I only get about +100% since I bring big fleet with lots of Phantoms and maybe other non-combatants that count as combat ships.  I do not have the skill loadout for those small super fleets for +500%.)

    Before I started fighting endgame fights constantly, my fleet was running drugs and raiding pirate bases for loot.  I could never get enough XP to pay the story debt.  But once I swapped from campaign activities to dedicated bounty hunting and Ordos farming, it did not take too long for the story debt to be paid.  To put in another way, it was faster to clear the story debt than it was to wait for Field Repairs to turn several of my d-modded clunkers into pristine neon knights.

    It would be nice of player did not need to be a combat junkie to make practical use of +100% story point use.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Amoebka on September 27, 2021, 06:28:05 PM
    Story points eventually catch up if player starts grinding endgame battles constantly.

    I do grind battles constantly (at around +200-250%). It's not enough unless you do it flawlessly, because recovering ships and s-modding lost ones costs more points.

    The difficulty XP also seems to severely overvalue officers, ironically enough. You can have a fleet so weak you can't even win reliably, but the game will think it's +0% because you have a level 3 officer in each frigate.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on September 27, 2021, 06:33:50 PM
    Story points eventually catch up if player starts grinding endgame battles constantly.

    I do grind battles constantly (at around +200-250%). It's not enough unless you do it flawlessly, because recovering ships and s-modding lost ones costs more points.
    It is true that fights must be flawless.  It is a reason why I took Field Repairs so that fights do not always need to be flawless, but given how slow d-mods are removed, the fleet cannot afford more than a few casualties.

    Field Repairs can be funny at times.  Once, I lost three phase ships (I think Dooms), and recovered them all without any d-mods.

    I greatly look forward to what Hull Restoration can do.

    Restore costs too much, and s-modding new ships burn story points.  So... that leaves Field Repairs as the only viable cheap restoration option, but only if there are not too many d-mods.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Amoebka on September 27, 2021, 06:41:20 PM
    I greatly look forward to what Hull Restoration can do.
    Oh yeah, I bet both of us will love that one, lmao. Especially since it gives CR for s-mods, so it doesn't even feel like a "waste" when you want combat power.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on September 27, 2021, 07:07:13 PM
    I greatly look forward to what Hull Restoration can do.
    Oh yeah, I bet both of us will love that one, lmao. Especially since it gives CR for s-mods, so it doesn't even feel like a "waste" when you want combat power.
    Not to mention one of the new Industry combat skills (Polarized Armor) has one of my favorite buffs from old Power Grid Modulation 2, faster vent speed - great for high-tech ships (piloted by player), even if it is an elite effect.  Maybe the return of vent spamming when combined with Resistant Flux Conduits.

    I want Polarized Armor primarily for the elite's faster vent speed.  I want to be able to spam blasters and dump flux fast like in the old days.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: FreonRu on October 03, 2021, 06:27:00 AM
    Alex, good day. We all really appreciate your work and I will repeat myself again - your game is amazing. I closely follow the development diaries.

    While playing, I once again caught myself on the following thought: in the main quest chain there is a location that can only be reached with the help of a skill (everyone who played knows), but this is the only place (that I have seen) where this method is applied.

    Will there be more places like this in the next patch? Secret places or places that can only be accessed through a gate? New coordinates for the gate?

    Thank you in advance
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: hydremajor on October 04, 2021, 05:08:52 AM
    Hm here's a thought

    with the whole "damper field instead of shields" deal, does that mean there'll be ways to add more effects to defenses of ships ?

    Like say, someone feels like making the Damper fields not disable weapons and give a speed boost, would a modder be able to get to that or is the system just not built for that ?
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Alex on October 04, 2021, 11:36:57 AM
    Alex, good day. We all really appreciate your work and I will repeat myself again - your game is amazing. I closely follow the development diaries.

    While playing, I once again caught myself on the following thought: in the main quest chain there is a location that can only be reached with the help of a skill (everyone who played knows), but this is the only place (that I have seen) where this method is applied.

    Will there be more places like this in the next patch? Secret places or places that can only be accessed through a gate? New coordinates for the gate?

    Thank you in advance

    Well - the next release isn't really a content-focused one (despite the detour into sensor ghosts and such). On the other hand, this sort of thing is neat and I wouldn't want to spoil it by talking about it much even if it *was* being added :)

    Thank you for your kind words, by the way!

    (Also, technically, a *skill* isn't required - an ability is, but you can get the ability by doing the Galatia Academy mission line.)

    Hm here's a thought

    with the whole "damper field instead of shields" deal, does that mean there'll be ways to add more effects to defenses of ships ?

    Like say, someone feels like making the Damper fields not disable weapons and give a speed boost, would a modder be able to get to that or is the system just not built for that ?

    Ah - it was already doable, and to my knowledge a bunch of mods have right-click ship systems in them! Main new thing from that perspective is official UI support for it as far as showing the cooldown/charges/etc.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: JJ842 on October 06, 2021, 12:05:36 AM
    Here's some quick feedback on the current version after finishing a second playthrough recently, even though some of it is probably a bit belayed. Please feel free to disregard stuff that's already being changed etc.

    Skills:

    I'm not sure whether this is being addressed in the coming skill tree revision but the skills that have diminishing returns based on the player's fleet composition/size feel bad in general. I'd suggest making them work so that the player'll always get a baseline benefit and a bonus on top of that based on fleet metrics. Even if the final numbers would end up being more or less equal to what we have now it would in my opinion feel better that way around (i.e. no skill would ever give _zero_ benefit regardless of the player's fleet because of the "baseline" bonus).

    The fighter skills feel a bit too weak overall with the bonuses enemy officers can get vs. fighters. I generally don't bother with fighters at all now becuse they get shot down in quick order when deployed against any serious opposition which is very sad. Maybe giving them some sort of evasion stat so that only point defence weapons/anti-fighter missiles would be able to target them consistently would help?

    Also built-in drone wings counting for the skill limits is silly and should be changed. As is the new phase transports/freighters counting as "combat ships" even though they have no weapons at all.

    This might be a personal thing but I feel that the progression from lvl 10-12 onwards feels a bit too fast? At least with the big fights that I was constantly getting into I reached max lvl really quickly. Maybe tweak down the xp awarded from fighting numerically superior but weak enemies like the domain drones? Fighting those always makes me feel dirty with how much xp I get for bullying them, especially later on once their numbers go through the roof.

    Items and exploration

    The new domain artifacts that can be found are an awesome addition overall, but I feel like the supply demands for some of them (fusion lamp and hypershunt tap) are way way overtuned for what benefit -and when in the campaign- they give. When exactly is the player supposed to make use of them? It's only possible with maxed out colonies and perfect or near-perfect mining setups, but the added benefits are barely noticeable then.

    It would also be nice to be able to move the domain sleeper ships to other systems, even if at significant cost. I must have been really unlucky but during both of my campaigns the sleeper locations were terrible with no potential systems inside the effect radius.

    Domain exploration drones should maybe get to have more varied/intersting interactions. They appear to be spawned in "clusters" with several constellations having nothing but probes/survey ships in them, which is kinda demoralizing when you run into one because you'll know that there's probably not too much else of interest salvagewise in a given area. In my last campaign I headed elsewhere to explore pretty much immediately when encountering them because it kinda feels boring to salvage system after system of nothing but probes.

    I've noticed that most of the pirate fleets that "spawn in" from quests etc. now have the "fighting these guys will not affect your reputation" tag, which is very nice when the player is trying to build up rep for the pirate faction. For some reason not all of them do, however. I think at least the ones that spawn from fake distress calls and booby trapped derelict ships. Maybe add it to them as well, or at least an option to talk them out of attacking if the player has high enough reputation with pirates?

    Weapons and ships

    Most of the "spoiler" weapons feel disappointing for their extreme rarity & generally high op costs. Maybe I'm just not using them right? Also, the hidden cache the player can find early should not have totally random weapons in it in my opinion, feels really bad when you don't get any of the better ones. Maybe buffing the rest would help, I dunno.

    The new Hyperion is all kinds of awesome! Really just love everything about it. Just needed to get that out there.

    The new AI-driven ships that can be salvaged with the right skill feel a bit weak overall with the exception of the bigger ones, they keep getting blown up with little to show for it. The suicidal ai might be to blame here, would it be possible to manually set the ai to cautios/steady/agrressive etc?

    Also, had a new hull mod idea when fitting out the Venture which imo is really let down by the built in drone wing: Convert hangar housing "built-in fighters" to one that can use any fighters (no penalties other than the increased crew requirement since it's already an actual hangar and not a shuttle bay). Can't be used on (non-civilian?) frigates.

    Colonies and economy

    Overall I feel like the current update was a big step forward in this regard. The pather interest values from the new colony items feel a bit too much though, basically if you ever use any you'll more or less automatically spawn a cell, which was something that could be avoided in the previous version with careful planning.

    Also, it would be nice to get a more transparent breakdown on how much interest you're generating with ai core usage (is there even a limit value or is it just a timer that'll eventually trip even if you're just using a single gamma core?). Given how limited the benefit from the lowest tier cores generally is I feel like a certain ability to "fly under the radar" with limited use of cores would not be too overpowered.

    Selling space drugs and weapons (bought from tritach markets with zero risk) to pirates that have constant shortages of them feels like cheating with how easy it is to accumulate money that way. Maybe give the pirate bases a "rampant basement drug labs" industry or something that reduces the local demand so that it's less over the top profitable?

    Finally

    Just wanted to give huge props for making the game, it really has come leaps and bounds from the early days. Just stellar work all round, it's really telling how minor the criticism I can scrape together ends up being. For most in dev games I wouldn't even bother giving feedback but this one really is special :)

    e: Added some stuff I forgot
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SafariJohn on October 06, 2021, 06:53:01 AM
    Overall I feel like the current update was a big step forward in this regard. The pather interest values from the new colony items feel a bit too much though, basically if you ever use any you'll more or less automatically spawn a cell, which was something that could be avoided in the previous version with careful planning.

    Path cell smuggler fleets should be Luddic Path instead of independent. Would make the mechanic way less annoying IMO
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Megas on October 06, 2021, 07:34:53 AM
    I'm not sure whether this is being addressed in the coming skill tree revision but the skills that have diminishing returns based on the player's fleet composition/size feel bad in general. I'd suggest making them work so that the player'll always get a baseline benefit and a bonus on top of that based on fleet metrics. Even if the final numbers would end up being more or less equal to what we have now it would in my opinion feel better that way around (i.e. no skill would ever give _zero_ benefit regardless of the player's fleet because of the "baseline" bonus).
    Agreed!

    The fighter skills feel a bit too weak overall with the bonuses enemy officers can get vs. fighters. I generally don't bother with fighters at all now becuse they get shot down in quick order when deployed against any serious opposition which is very sad. Maybe giving them some sort of evasion stat so that only point defence weapons/anti-fighter missiles would be able to target them consistently would help?
    Agreed on fighters too weak.

    No to THAC0 or evasion stat!  It would be frustrating for a clean hit to magically passthrough the fighter like that.  Anti-missile PD weapons are not that great against fighters.  Better anti-fighter weapons are stuff like phase lances and pulse lasers.  Plasma cannons are good against fighters because it passes through them (while damaging or killing them), and plasma is good against everything.

    Fighters (and possibly some carriers) need better stats, and Expanded Deck Crew made cheaper or removed and its effects made the baseline, especially if dedicated fighter skills will be removed.  Also, carriers and their systems not over-nerfed too.  Drover is 15 DP and its system ruins its replacement rate.

    This might be a personal thing but I feel that the progression from lvl 10-12 onwards feels a bit too fast? At least with the big fights that I was constantly getting into I reached max lvl really quickly. Maybe tweak down the xp awarded from fighting numerically superior but weak enemies like the domain drones? Fighting those always makes me feel dirty with how much xp I get for bullying them, especially later on once their numbers go through the roof.
    You need the fast XP gain by max level to clear the story point debt you will get from spending story points with bonus +xp%.  If anything, it is not fast enough once player reaches max level, unless the player is a dedicated combat junkie.

    Items and exploration

    The new domain artifacts that can be found are an awesome addition overall, but I feel like the supply demands for some of them (fusion lamp and hypershunt tap) are way way overtuned for what benefit -and when in the campaign- they give. When exactly is the player supposed to make use of them? It's only possible with maxed out colonies and perfect or near-perfect mining setups, but the added benefits are barely noticeable then.
    I like the idea, but I do not like that it makes it harder to find the ones you need, namely pristine nanoforge and synchrotron, because it dilutes the item pool.  Before 0.95, it was unlikely player did not find at least one.  Now, player will probably need to raid Chicomoztoc, Kazeron, and/or Sindria to get those two vital items to meet demand for Military Base.

    And yes, the lamp and tap are not worth it for your colonies.  If player does not want to bother with Pather cells, those items are poison pills.  No way player can meet demand without size 6 colony, so no size 3 colony with those items to evade cells and expeditions.  However, maybe the player can sabotage some markets by selling those items to them and cause a perpetual shortage (and maybe free disruptions caused by Pather cells on them!)

    Weapons and ships

    Most of the "spoiler" weapons feel disappointing for their extreme rarity & generally high op costs. Maybe I'm just not using them right? Also, the hidden cache the player can find early should not have totally random weapons in it in my opinion, feels really bad when you don't get any of the better ones. Maybe buffing the rest would help, I dunno.
    Some are indeed mediocre, but there seem to be a few gems among the junk.

    I read that cryoblaster is a super heavy blaster, and the videos seem to demonstrate its effectiveness.

    The one Omega weapon I played with much was Rift Cascade Emitter, and it is a huge disappointment for its cost.  Basically a worse Tachyon Lance with the OP cost of a plasma cannon.  It does slightly more damage, but only at close range (because some damage is from explosions, which require close range to proc), and it does not pierce shields or EMP targets.  Tachyon Lance is a better sniper, and plasma cannon is a better assault weapon.  Rift Cascade Emitter tries to do both but fails horribly.  It current stats would be fine as a 20-22 OP weapon, not 30 OP, because it is inferior to Tachyon Lance as a sniper hitscan beam weapon.  Rift needs to be stronger or cheaper to use.

    The new AI-driven ships that can be salvaged with the right skill feel a bit weak overall with the exception of the bigger ones, they keep getting blown up with little to show for it. The suicidal ai might be to blame here, would it be possible to manually set the ai to cautios/steady/agrressive etc?
    AI is suicidal thanks to being locked at Fearless.

    Radiant is overpowered.  It alone is the only thing that enables Automated Ships to compete with the awesome power of Special Modifications.  For the moment, the other AI ships is another way to get more officer power and EMP into your fleet.  The Remnant frigates are okay earlier in the game.

    Also, had a new hull mod idea when fitting out the Venture which imo is really let down by the built in drone wing: Convert hangar housing "built-in fighters" to one that can use any fighters (no penalties other than the increased crew requirement since it's already an actual hangar and not a shuttle bay). Can't be used on (non-civilian?) frigates.
    So far, Venture is the only standard ship bigger than a frigate that has built-in wing.  Just give the Venture back its normal fighter bay from before 0.8a without any hoops.  It used to be a decent warship back in the day.

    As for frigates, Shepherd is now the best frigate-sized freighter because that hullmod that removes fighters and adds +50 to cargo gives it 150 cargo, and it probably will not get deployed in a normal fight after early-game.

    Colonies and economy

    Overall I feel like the current update was a big step forward in this regard. The pather interest values from the new colony items feel a bit too much though, basically if you ever use any you'll more or less automatically spawn a cell, which was something that could be avoided in the previous version with careful planning.
    It is annoying.  You need pristine nanoforge and synchrotron to feed your military bases, so you have items for two more planets.  Best one after classic nanoforge/synchrotron is Dealmaker Holosuite for boosting Commerce.  Runner-up is the biofactory to boost drug production.

    Also, it would be nice to get a more transparent breakdown on how much interest you're generating with ai core usage (is there even a limit value or is it just a timer that'll eventually trip even if you're just using a single gamma core?). Given how limited the benefit from the lowest tier cores generally is I feel like a certain ability to "fly under the radar" with limited use of cores would not be too overpowered.
    If you use even a single gamma in your colony, big H will come to inspect, so it does not matter with them!  If you get Pather cells, they tell you how much interest cores generate for cells.  If you plan to use cores (and suffer cells), might as well go big and use as many cores and other items as you can... and colonize more and more planets with alpha core admins.
    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: SCC on October 06, 2021, 10:08:48 AM
    I'm not sure whether this is being addressed in the coming skill tree revision but the skills that have diminishing returns based on the player's fleet composition/size feel bad in general. I'd suggest making them work so that the player'll always get a baseline benefit and a bonus on top of that based on fleet metrics. Even if the final numbers would end up being more or less equal to what we have now it would in my opinion feel better that way around (i.e. no skill would ever give _zero_ benefit regardless of the player's fleet because of the "baseline" bonus).
    No skill ever gives zero benefit to you already, even if you have a lot of ships, the benefit just gets spread so much it isn't very much - but, for comparison, if you have 50 Paragons in your fleet, aren't your flagship skills similarly less significant, simply because you have to outperform 50 Paragons?
    There's technically bottom floor for DP-limited skills, but it seems to be just 1%, so no skill will ever be entirely useless (unless requirements aren't met).

    The new AI-driven ships that can be salvaged with the right skill feel a bit weak overall with the exception of the bigger ones, they keep getting blown up with little to show for it. The suicidal ai might be to blame here, would it be possible to manually set the ai to cautios/steady/agrressive etc?
    Autonomous Ships skill is balanced entirely around the Radiant and it's the only ship worth taking currently, but it's very much worth it.

    Also, it would be nice to get a more transparent breakdown on how much interest you're generating with ai core usage (is there even a limit value or is it just a timer that'll eventually trip even if you're just using a single gamma core?). Given how limited the benefit from the lowest tier cores generally is I feel like a certain ability to "fly under the radar" with limited use of cores would not be too overpowered.
    Yeah, AI inspections will go after you if you use any AI cores in any capacity in your colonies. And yeah, gamma cores still suck, even though Alex made economy more dependent on other factions to make money for you.

    Title: Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
    Post by: Thaago on November 13, 2021, 04:55:18 PM
     Was this meant for the current patch notes thread? In either case I'll lock this one to avoid confusion.