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1

Blog Posts / Re: Save/Load UI, Autosave, Intel Map Markers, and More

« on: April 10, 2024, 01:09:34 PM »

Excellent stuff. Don't have anything to add except:

Oh, and also – there’s now a shortcut (“Q”) to select the “Major events” tag. That’s the one for important stuff like Colony Crises, Hyperspace Topography, and TBD in the future.

When I first read that my brain thought TBD was an abbreviation for some kind of new game mechanic, leaving me wondering what Terraforming something something, Teleportation Bridge Device, or something something Death otherwise went completely unmentioned. Oops .

2

Blog Posts / Re: Simulator Enhancements

« on: March 13, 2024, 03:50:53 PM »

Needing AI cores on hand to simulate AI core officers seemed a bit from a gameplay perspective, though it does make sense that whatever onboard computers you (presumably) use to run the simulator cannot easily simulate a dozen+ alpha core level AIs. And a simple config option can turn it off, so no problem either which way.

3

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.96.1a (In Development) Patch Notes

« on: January 01, 2024, 11:58:50 AM »

Luddic Path cells can once again cause incidents are player colonies

"Take all" button no longer takes over-capacity fuel

Great change, but muscle memory is going to result in me yeeting my entire collection of supplies/fuel more than once, I fear .

Increased amount of fuel available for purchase at colonies by 50%

Yes please. Me buying up entire fuel planets worth of fuel lategame was getting a bit silly.

4

Suggestions / [0.96a-RC10] Confusing Combat Readiness information in Refit screen

« on: December 13, 2023, 05:19:08 PM »

Setting a ship's CR value in the Refit screen to 40% can have the ship be just outside malfunction range or just inside of it, depending on precisely where the CR slider is set, although both cases will report the ship having "40%" CR. This extends to running a simulation, meaning a ship will not risk malfunctions if the bar is in the white section of 40% or have them if it's in the yellow section. The same, incidentally, occurs at 20% CR being both yellow and red simultaneously.

Fortunately I've only noticed this issue on the Refit screen, not the fleet screen (though I'll admit I don't try to fly low CR ships if I can avoid it), but it is still very confusing insofar as what CR value ships start risking malfunctions.

5

Blog Posts / Re: Colony Crises

« on: November 28, 2023, 10:46:24 AM »

Ground defenses, if we're being totally honest, I'm not sure that they have too much of a role right now. They're neat conceptually but would much be lost if planets just had certain baseline ground defenses built-in with no industry to represent that? I don't think so. I could see reworking that at some point. I guess the only thing they really do is make certain core worlds that don't have them more vulnerable to raiding.

Maybe they can use a balance pass, but for what it's worth I do think it's a useful lever to have insofar as making a planet not a sitting duck without having to make it a minor fortress with an Orbital Platform/Patrol HQ.

6

Blog Posts / Re: Colony Crises

« on: November 25, 2023, 05:50:29 AM »

Interesting new system for sure, curious to see how it plays out.

That said, RE: League,

Spoiler

there really should be a way to threaten(/bluff?) those "enforcer" fleets with you, as representative(/unquestioned dictator) of your faction, making deals with other factions if they don't leave you (and/or the rest of your faction?) alone - pointedly calling the Hegemony the actual authority of Domain space and saying you'll ask them to patrol your volume if there's a need, some kind of business agreement with Tri-Tach "safe travel and freedom of commerce is our raison detre" Corporation and how the League is disrupting their precious commerce, parlaying with Kanta to keep pirates out of the local volume in the first place (with an underlying threat that those pirates will be turning their attention elsewhere in such a case, which a less savvy player might not realize is the reason the enforcers really don't like that particular option ), maybe even the League itself depending on which League sub-faction those Enforcers belong to and who they really don't want to end up reporting to/being replaced by. And, of course, it could be especially interesting to threaten/bluff to make a deal with the Sindrian Diktat, since they're allies of the League. And, you know, the Sindrian Diktat. There's a line of thought that's just going to go every kind of nowhere possible if the PC tries it, I feel like.

And yes, threatening to make deals with factions the League doesn't like absolutely should escalate their crisis. Even more so if you end up threatening a deal with a faction that's particularly not liked, and especially if you end up making good on that threat .

[close]

7

Blog Posts / Re: Wormholes and Sundry - Getting Around the Sector

« on: September 02, 2023, 05:38:10 AM »

I'm sure there will be absolutely zero unexpected consequences to directly connecting the core worlds to a high threat [REDACTED] system down the line .

8

Blog Posts / Re: Wormholes and Sundry - Getting Around the Sector

« on: August 31, 2023, 12:48:38 PM »

Hah, yeah. Might be kind of fun though, honestly; just imagining the visual of a bunch of enemy fleets coming out of slip-burn all around you.

I'm now imagining Pather tithe collection fleets blasting in at Mach 20, overshooting their target and coming to a stop several lightyears away...right next to a Hegemony patrol fleet in the core . All the player sees is a weird blur in hyperspace, probably being dismissed as a sensor ghost.

Actually, that might be a good way to handwave other fleets ostensibly having this ability, but the player not seeing it used by them ingame - super fast sensor ghosts flying past so quickly you can't make out what they are before they're several lightyears outside sensor range.

Spoiler

And than it turns out those super fast sensor ghosts were never other fleets all along when one does end up coming to a stop next to you when you're in the abyss, instead revealing something else entirely .

[close]

9

Blog Posts / Re: Wormholes and Sundry - Getting Around the Sector

« on: August 31, 2023, 10:49:08 AM »

Oh, this is definitely player-only stuff.

For what it's worth I'm actually glad to hear this, because when I read "up to burn level 900+" my first thought was Pathers setting up hyperspace cannons to slingshot tithe collectors to every random fleet within a ~10 lightyear radius. Definitely looking forward to trying these things myself, though .

10

Mods / Re: [0.96a] Terraforming and Station Construction (v8.4.5)

« on: August 16, 2023, 10:07:47 AM »

RE: The station faction information bug, something you can do is manually set your faction information after founding a station first by "renaming" your faction in the colony screen. If you do that the game will still bring up the faction naming window when you colonize a planet, but the information you put in earlier will still be there, so you can just click confirm.

11

General Discussion / Re: N00b questions

« on: August 06, 2023, 03:04:28 PM »

The Sensors skill gives you a x0.75 modifier to your Sensor Profile, a x1.25 modifier to your Sensor Strength, and adds +3 maximum Burn level to the speed at which your fleet is considered "slow moving". A slow moving fleet is harder to detect in certain types of terrain, and is able to avoid certain hazards when travelling through them.

As an example of how much the sensor profile reduction does, take a look at the screenshot. Normally my Sensor Profile would be 300 (base value) + 450 (the sum of the five ships in my fleet with the highest Sensor Profile) * 2 (from having Sustained Burn), +1000 (from having Sustained Burn) = 2500. The Sensors skill brings that down to 1875, which is little more than a Domain-era Sensors Array, or little over a quarter of a map square, taken off. Obviously not an especially relevant example if you're doing smuggling runs in the core, but while exploring that difference can save your life.

In the other extreme case, where I'm going dark in an asteroid belt with phase ships in the fleet, you can see the sensor profile reduction doesn't make too much of a difference - ~31 instead of ~42. However in that scenario the +3 maximum burn level when moving slow comes into play. Without Sensors I'd be limited to Burn 4 if I wanted to keep a low sensor profile, since the slowest ship in my fleet has burn 8, and your maximum slow moving speed is half that. The +3 from Sensors pushes that up to Burn 7, meaning I can move nearly twice as fast while maintaining a low Sensor Profile. Needless to say that makes dodging patrols a lot easier, especially when you can see said patrols coming from further away thanks to the sensor strength bonus.

If you want to run a stealth fleet I'd highly recommend the Sensors skill. Mainly for the +3 burn level at which you're considered slow moving, but the combination of higher sensor strength and lower sensor profile shouldn't be underestimated either. Especially if you don't have Phase ships in your fleet to give you their bonus to reducing your sensor profile.

12

Suggestions / Re: What should the Historian ramble about?

« on: August 03, 2023, 06:08:40 AM »

I remember the historian talking about most major factions (or at least a topic central to said faction, I.E. Ludd for the Luddic Church), but I don't remember the historian saying anything about the Persean League. You do get to interact with the League a few times during the game's various missions, but I'm sure there's something the historian can add.

13

General Discussion / Re: What's the fastest way to gain reputation with Pirates and Pathers?

« on: July 18, 2023, 12:40:12 PM »

As far as I know the only way to get contacts is to do bar missions (bar the story contacts, though none of those are Pirate/Pather associated as far as I know). Some might require you to annoy one of the other factions, yes, but usually you can mitigate the damage a lot by managing to do the job with your transponder off.

Which can be hard for the "spawn a giant death fleet around this market while this mission is active" missions, but, well, let's just say you learn to tune those out sooner rather than later.

14

General Discussion / Re: What's the fastest way to gain reputation with Pirates and Pathers?

« on: July 18, 2023, 11:17:17 AM »

Contacts can offer you a steady supply of jobs that raise your rep with either faction, without costing you reputation with another faction. The Path (and other factions except Pirates, I think) also accepts AI cores in return for rep, although their monetary bounty on them is anaemic at best .

15

General Discussion / Re: Highest value S-Mods for Logistics ships?

« on: July 17, 2023, 08:15:11 AM »

Insulated Engine Assembly, Solar Shielding, and I rarely have the story points to burn on giving Logistics ships a third S-mod. If I did probably just Aux Fuel/Expanded Cargo as appropriate, though.