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1

Mods / Re: [0.97a] Industrial.Evolution 3.3.e - Campaign content expansion

« on: April 02, 2024, 06:09:08 AM »

My question is, is that "automated ship" even implemented yet?

It's not some new ship, the station generates a random existing hull type and slaps the super-automated ship tag onto it 10% of the time. The same one Sentinel AI ships use in vanilla. So you can get an automated Conquest, an automated Gremlin, etc.

Thanks a lot for clarification.
Still hoping the next update brings the unique ship though ^^

2

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.97a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: April 02, 2024, 03:12:49 AM »

I've played around with the new update for a while. I love it.

I mean, it's still disgusting to have the fun police as usual, and it's a regular frustration with every update, but the new additions at least help with dealing with the sour taste of it.

I'm really hoping for the Abyss to get more content in the future. It really looks promising.

And man, I absolutely adore the fat buff that the Storm Needler got. Finally it's a viable weapon.

Skill tree changes are great too. No more need to dump 70% of skill points into technology tree just so I can unlock Neural Link and Automated ships at once.

3

Mods / Re: [0.97a] Industrial.Evolution 3.3.e - Campaign content expansion

« on: April 02, 2024, 02:55:17 AM »

Could you please elaborate? Is that actually a 10% chance? Is it in any way affected by the type/quality/size of the ships I'm sacrificing?

Yes, it's flat 10% on every roll, there are no ways to manipulate the chance.
Ships you sacrifice don't matter, only the DP of sacrifices does. The shipyard generates a random ship that costs less DP than the combined sacrifices. So if you want smaller ships, don't sacrifice too much at once. Again, none of this has any effect on the chance of getting an automated ship.
When you do get an automated ship, it can be cloned using the hull deconstructor / hull forge, and the copies will also be automated.

My question is, is that "automated ship" even implemented yet?
I've noticed there's a new hidden ship class, which the game will occasionally flash when I'm opening the game menu. I can see it and summon it through the console commands, but it has a whole 1 point of hull health and something like 14 armour, one built-in weapon slot with no weapon in it, and a bunch of modules attached. Looks like unfinished ship. Or perhaps it's intentionally this way so it cannot be cheated in...?

4

Mods / Re: [0.97a] Industrial.Evolution 3.3.e - Campaign content expansion

« on: March 31, 2024, 03:37:30 PM »

Wish the Automated Shipyard had some unique ships to pay out, with how much flare it has.

It has a 10% chance to spew out a super-automated ship that doesn't require the skill to use.

Could you please elaborate? Is that actually a 10% chance? Is it in any way affected by the type/quality/size of the ships I'm sacrificing?
I've mocked about with it a bit with save scumming, and it seems to insist to always give me a Conquest or Odyssey with D-mods, even if I'm sacrificing my entire fleet, or spawning multiple radiants with console commands.

5

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.97a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: February 12, 2024, 08:59:34 PM »

*sigh* As per tradition with every major update, the nerf circus continues.

• Cyclone Reaper Launcher:
  • Reduced ammo to 14 (was: 20)
  • Increased refire delay to 15 seconds (was: 10)

• Proximity Charge Launcher: increased refire delay to 2 seconds (was: 1)

• Safety Overrides: can no longer be installed on ships with Flux Shunt (i.e. the Monitor)

Rest in peace SO Monitor. It was fun while it lasted...

At least in exchange this update also contains some much needed buffs. Especially Storm Needler is now going to be interesting to use.

Not to mention the plethora of amazing features. Can't wait for the mods to catch up so I can try this.[/list]

6

General Discussion / Re: Carriers in 0.95

« on: October 12, 2021, 09:14:57 PM »

I'm not the best mechanical player at combat, but carriers always seemed like a force multiplier rather than a flat force.  Specifically when you've got a combat line of brawling-with-guns capitals and adding more capitals isn't beneficial because there's not more room for ships to engage with the enemy.  This is when having a carrier or two that can send in supporting waves of fighters that don't have to worry about physical collisions can really focus firepower.

It's certainly not .91a anymore, but I do feel like the current balance rewards a heterogeneous fleet and maybe that's a really good thing?

In that case I rather field more escorts instead of carriers. Currently a bunch of frigates, or a destroyer/cruiser assisting my main brawler capitals brings in far more value than carriers. Escorts will flank, harass and distract the target, as well as keeping the opposing escorts from doing the same to my caps, where as fighters will mostly just die to PD.

The only carrier I find worth bothering with in the current update is my Astral, acting as a backline artillery, lobbing Hurricane MIRVs and waves of Flash bombers.

7

General Discussion / Re: Carriers in 0.95

« on: October 12, 2021, 05:54:00 PM »

@ Wapno:  Another hard counter against fighters is Ziggurat's motes, although Ziggurat needs something like it because its firepower all goes forward.  Without motes, Ziggurat would be a sitting duck like Harbinger is.  Of course, Ziggurat is the queen of hangar queens, taking ages to heal enough CR to fight back after one fight even with Efficiency Overhaul.

Yup, that's what I was referring to as "endgame boss" in my previous post. Also agree about the hangar queen part.

8

General Discussion / Re: Do people use Hyperion without Safety Override?

« on: October 12, 2021, 03:57:29 PM »

And that use requires elite Helmsmanship.  Without that (and SO), the Hyperion needs to fully vent to zero before it can jump.  Even with elite Helmsmanship, dropping shields before jumping is not ideal.  SO bypasses that flux or shield management mess.

Which is why I'm worried Hyperion will be nerfed again in the next update. I feel like the whole point of the last changes to phase teleporter was to prevent it from being used to escape when being shot at. In that context, SO almost seems like an exploit, by letting you bypass the zero-flux engine boost requirement.

Would be a damn shame really. Aside from just being plain fun, it actually makes the ship viable.

I tried non-SO Hyperion with guns and ITU, and tried to brawl like a normal warship.  Without skills, it did not last long enough (not enough PPT) compared to other ships, and I was better off with those other ships.

Then I tried SO Hyperion, and it played much like it did before this release, except it is tougher and stronger.  Only problem, too low PPT without all the PPT up boosts (needs Leadership, Combat, and maybe I2R).

SO loadout I used was Heavy Blaster (anti-armor and good dps), Ion Pulser (EMP), and either HMG or chaingun (cannot remember, but I think chaingun because bypassing shields with unlimited teleport was relatively easy.)  Non-SO Hyperion cannot sustain that loadout continuously for very long.

Pretty much agree, even down to the loadout. I used HMG, since Heavy Blaster and Ion Pulser already provide enough anti-armor punch, making Chaingun redundant in DPS department. Chaingun also doesn't have enough burst DPS to be useful in shield-bypass ambush, where as HMG at least provides some flexibility against targets with omni shields and such.

9

General Discussion / Re: Carriers in 0.95

« on: October 12, 2021, 02:40:48 PM »

I love that game, and I hope Alex will read that thread. Or at least, that someone will reach him with the feedback he probably needs to see where are the problems. Since fixing ships is probably the least amusing side in creating a game. Balance is hard to find. And each future minor changes can break and create huge gaps.

Rest assured - he does read the forums, and he confirmed that on multiple occasions.

I think we need someone, who can bring upon reliable carrier build that can fight through all the game content.

I think the crux of the problem here is that there is no such build in the current iteration of the game. Besides the carriers being generally underpowered, there exists a ton of things which either directly hamper their effectiveness, or are outright a hard counter. Doom's mine strike being a prime example, which is a "delete all fighters now" button. The "endgame boss" fight is another one, which features a system that murders fighters even faster than Doom's mine strike (even having additional bonuses specifically against fighters).

The worst thing is that there's not much that can be done to counteract this. You can minmax all you want, stack Expanded Deck Crew with Carrier Group skill, best fighters, etc., but you're still going to quickly run into a scenario where carriers are just not viable. This is unlike warships and phase ships, which can be made to work in pretty much any situation, given the right build and skillset.

I've literally instagibbed the "endgame boss" using two paragons with tachyon lances, while practically suffering no significant damage, thanks to heavy armor + resistant flux conduits + shield shunt. With carriers, you can bring whatever you like, but it's probably just going to casually wipe all your fighters with its ship system, and then proceed to tear apart your fleet now stuck at 30% fighter replacement rate.

Remember Carriers are under-tuned partly as a result of deployment is more restricted than before. If the game is modded with enough deployment points so that everything can always deploy, carriers would make up half or more of the fleet because of stacking firepower per area. If by chance, the game will allow us to deploy more than what we have now, carriers will become better in a sense.

Probably ain't going to happen. Deployment points limit is not a balancing issue, but a hardware requirements issue. Battles have limited DP specifically so that you don't turn the game into a slideshow by having too many ships present (battlesize can be increased in the settings btw).

10

General Discussion / Re: Do people use Hyperion without Safety Override?

« on: October 12, 2021, 01:27:55 PM »

You again, I remembered you. You are the one who spread lies about how bad hyperion is.
Just admit that, Hyperion best ship in the game and we can move along. I don't know in that world you living there Hyperion weaponry are sub-destroyer.
Fury (a very efficient light cruiser): 15DP, 9000/600 flux, triple the fuel, worsen shield and shield arc
Hyperion: 15DP 8000/500 flux, faster, a frigate therefore can done +20% damage to everything except frigates (wolfpack)
Medusa: 12 DP, 6000/400 flux
Once again, being a frigate it has superior maneuverability, strife speed and acceleration, swarm AI behavior, kiting tactics. The ability to mount machinegun just pushes it further even then firing same amounts of flux as compared ships.
Just yield, dude, you cannot win. You still not provided anything.

Not sure what your problem is, but I'd appreciate if you stop that caustic attitude of yours.

Not once did I say a lie in my posts, while you on the other hand are consistently ignoring my arguments.

Even in my previous post here I've openly stated that - yes - Hyperion can be effective, provided you slap SO on it, have all the necessary skills, can afford its high logistics apetite, and are okay with it being unable to fight two full-fledged battles in a row. The last one especially can be a pain in the neck, and makes it mandatory to have some backup warships in your fleet in case you run into two battles and your Hyperions are in the red CR at the moment - else you're helpless.

Got wolfpack tactics and everything else needed? Well, more power to ya - you got a cool strong ship. Would like to use something else than frigate swarm, and/or would like to invest skill points somewhere else than leadership (Automatic Ships maybe)? Tough luck - Hyperion is a flashy useless ship, crippled by all its downsides too much to be practical. It requires putting all your eggs in one basket to be useful.

All of the ships you've mentioned in your comparison can achieve the same exact thing as a non-SO Hyperion, but without wolfpack tactics, for half the maintenance cost and without dropping 40% CR per battle. Especially Medusa, which ironically is faster at running away with its phase skimmer, while non-SO Hyperion cannot use its system without zero-flux engine boost (which even with elite helmsmanship means having to hold fire and drop shield - likely a dangerous move in a situation where you're at high flux and have to flee in the first place).

11

General Discussion / Re: Do people use Hyperion without Safety Override?

« on: October 11, 2021, 02:31:06 PM »

I find Hyperion without SO not worth using at all. For what the costs of operating this ship are - both in and outside the battle - its all flash over substance.

WITH SO however it becomes so deadly that there's not much reason to not use the hullmod. 3 of those officered can destroy almost any threat in the game. Of course there's a caveat, that you need to minmax into the required skills so that the ship lasts long enough to do its thing before falling apart. This is probably the biggest problem, as it forces you into a very specific playstyle when using this ship. In my Hyperion run, I had to permanently shelf my Radiant, because out of all skills, the only one I could reasonably afford to drop was Automated Ships (Systems Expertise gives Hyperion more PPT and is a huge boon to lots of other ships, so it stays. Field Repairs isn't going away, as not having to restore a ship every time it gets a D-mod from being randomly blown up in combat is way too much of a QoL to pass up).

Another problem with SO Hyperions is that unless the battle was extremely short, they're already in red CR after just one engagement. If you rely on those and are faced with two engagements back to back - you've got nothing to defend yourself with.

In the end, despite the caveats, the ship is just begging for SO. If you're not committing to that, it's absolutely not worth the hassle. Its destroyer-class stats, sub-destroyer-class weapon mounts and its gimmicky system are not worth the 40% CR per deployment, 30 maintenance cost, and 15 DP, unless maybe to capture a point and then immediately retreat it.

12

General Discussion / Re: A Noob's Insight on: Ships!

« on: October 09, 2021, 05:04:25 AM »

As for Doom mining fighters, since fighters are effectively missiles and vice-versa, I have no problems with mines spawning directly on top of them for the instant kill.  As far as I am concerned, mines are effectively anti-missile for that use.

I think the whole mindset of "fighters = missiles" is heavily oversimplifying that aspect of the game, but regardless, I hold that Doom, or any ship for that matter, should not be a direct hard counter to all carriers like it is now.

Non-hybrid carriers nearly completely rely on their fighters for firepower, and mine spam shuts it down at pretty much zero cost to Doom, rendering the carriers useless (especially at 30% replacement rate). Notice that there isn't any other interaction like that between ships within the entire game. Imagine if there was something that could easily and permanently shut down warships and their weapons.

Maybe the closest things currently in existence to that are the Harbinger (which can turn off a warship, but only for a fraction of a second), Ziggy (which is a unique end-game ship, and comes with its own host of issues), and Shade/Omen with their ion emitter (which gets stopped by shield and isn't permanent anyway).

Furthermore, besides carriers, there are no other ships so heavily affected by perfect PD (except maybe the gimmick ship Gryphon, which is still a fully capable warship with multiple ballistic mounts at the front).

The current situation is simple and totally binary. If I see carriers in enemy fleet: field my Doom and never worry about any bombers in the entire fight. If I see Doom in the enemy fleet: DO NOT field any of my carriers - they'll get shut down easily.

Doom represents a nearly perfect, nearly zero cost PD, therefore it's overpowered.

Changing from fighters-as-ships to fighters-as-missiles has caused worse problems than those it fixed.

I disagree. Before the fighters-as-weapons change, there was practically zero point to piloting carriers, which were nothing but anemic watered-down warships acting as a repair point for drones which you don't even have any direct control over. I can say with 100% certainty that back then I never even bothered with carriers or fighters. They were just boring.

IIRC according to one of Alex's old blog posts, the change was supposed to give player a fun interaction with fighters and incentivize piloting carriers, which in my opinion it achieved without a doubt. I can't argue with you that the solution isn't without issues, but there is no legitimate reason to claim that it is worse than the previous system, which frankly was just horrible.

13

Suggestions / Re: On Recall Device and Carriers

« on: October 06, 2021, 09:38:45 PM »

I rather it be a system where it is toggled on and off and automatically recalls a fighter group when it decides to rearm or repair. Ofc at a cost of flux or charges.

That's a really interesting concept! Although I feel like one of its downsides is that it would partially remove the "control" aspect of the system. Being able to recall your bombers at a tap of a button is much more appealing than toggling a largely passive system, effect of which is triggered directly only by AI, which may or may not decide to use it at an optimal moment. Given how atrocious AI is with proper missile usage, I wouldn't trust it with fighter recall micromanagement like that either.

14

Suggestions / Re: On Recall Device and Carriers

« on: October 03, 2021, 01:54:44 AM »

I have to partially go back on my word and admit that the nerf isn't that crippling. I mean, it is still a blow to Astral's utility, and absolutely forces placing missiles in the two large slots, but it can be worked around. Systems expertise does a bit to mitigate the pain of the cooldown, and with missiles occupying the large slots, the vent rate wouldn't allow spamming the system anyway, at least not in any practical manner.

15

General Discussion / Re: A Noob's Insight on: Ships!

« on: September 30, 2021, 06:07:16 PM »

Look, I've provided screenshot, video and a meme to assure my dominance. And you still not inpressed, huh? Well, that just means we are in I'm right you're wrong situation.

I'm agree that scarab is stronger, but telling that you can field two Scarabs instead of one Hyperion is just fundamentally wrong and the reason why is officer cap. You cannot fill all dp with officered scarabs so it just needed to be implemented with higher dp ships.

So as I said, I'm right you're wrong.

2 scarabs with one of them having an officer is still better bang for the buck in my opinion, so it being "fundamentally wrong" is just your view. Not every playthrough is a frigate swarm of 20 scarabs, you know.

Like you apparently, I also think you're consistently ignoring most of my arguments, so to that, I'll just quote you - I'm right you're wrong ^^

Also lmao, "assure my dominance". Sounds like you might have some complexes man.

An interesting consequence of the Hyperion costing 40% per deployment is that it costs very little supplies to start ticking down CR during a fight. Ticking a whole 40% only costs 15! For comparison ticking down 40% on a Lasher costs 16. So while the PPT with SO may be short, its actually very economical to just run the thing straight into malfunction territory. For this reason the most valuable hyperion skill is a skill that I get on every officer no matter what anyways: Reliability Engineering. The PPT increase may only be half as much, but the -25% to tickdown rate is huge, especially when combined with hardened subsystems.

I feel like with phase ships, they need a suite of skills to make them very powerful, while Hyperion just needs a good build.

Yup, interesting point. Although I believe it has to be taken into account that Lasher's CR is going to start decaying later, meaning an overall supply cost per time spent in battle might still be in its favor versus Hyperion. Still, I'm more concerned about the volatility of using Hyperion in a state where it risks malfunctions, considering how brittle it is without the shield (have an engine flame out while your teleporter is still on cooldown, and you're risking taking an alpha strike that will kill you).

I still hold that this ship absolutely needs certain skills to be in a usable condition, and is just not worth the price tag without them.

Without skills, Doom is good and worth the 35 DP, just as deadly as last release.  With skills (specifically elite Helmsmanship, elite Phase Mastery, and Systems Expertise), Doom is too powerful.

Without skills, Harbinger is merely an easier-to-use AMB Afflictor that costs 20 DP instead of 8 DP.  With skills (same as Doom), it can brawl from near medium range with Phase Lances; basically a poor-man's Doom that cannot handle fighters.

However...
Ziggurat needs skills (elite Helmsmanship and Phase Mastery) just for QoL in using it.  Without skills, Ziggurat is slow as molasses and not fun to use.  It is like Hyperion in that way.

Also, unskilled fighters die to 30% rate after about a minute or so of fighting late game enemies, making them even more similar to missiles, but without the control and burst.  Thus, carriers need skills to be worth using, maybe.  Without skills, fighters are about as weak as they were in the 0.7 releases, and carriers are overshadowed by conventional warships, let alone phase ships.

Honestly, skills in the current version make the Doom even more OP than it ever was against fighters and carriers. As if "press F to delete all fighters now" wasn't bad enough, there are now skills with significant boost to phase ships, where as carriers not only rely on their skills to function (where as phase ships are still usable and deadly without them), but their boosts are somewhat weak compared to those of phase ships.

You might as well not even field any carriers now if there's a Doom in the opposing fleet, unless you're minmaxed against it.