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Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.9a (Released) Patch Notes
« on: December 12, 2018, 04:28:40 PM »
Seconding as having never, ever noticed this before.
Starsector 0.9.1a is out! (05/10/19); Blog post: Writing Starsector (12/18/20); Starsector 0.95a In-Development Patch Notes (10/16/20)
The player is limited by human reaction times and precision while the AI is not. Even if the player is able to react fast enough to counter the AI (which not everyone will be able to), the amount of effort/skill required to beat that sort of ship (AI playing optimally) is totally disproportional to the size and value of the actual ship. The player would have to devote their full attention and resources to defeating one frigate worth 8 op. A frigate should not require more skill/effort to defeat than a capital ship. Also, the optimal strategy would be to deploy 20 phase frigates of your own. If the AI could actually use them, they would be much more cost effective than any other ship in the game.
AI could potentially be faster than player, sure. But the way it's currently implemented, it seems actually slower. Probably both for performance reasons and to avoid situation you describe.
My experience with high mobility ships is that they are easy to scare away (with fighters or beams), but if you aren't paying attention or are isolated, they will punish you. I think that is ok general balance for player vs AI, but in AI vs AI, the defending ship doesn't make the mistakes that allow for punishment (they are always paying attention), so the mobility ship doesn't get any value. I don't think that really changes until the AI becomes too frustrating to deal with as the player.
If you have an overwhelming advantage how do you lose? When the AI has an overwhelming advantage it will tend to push it
Because I have six destroyers and twelve frigates trying to jump an overextending cruiser. But rather than push that advantage, I get mobbed by the entire enemy fleet before noticing my fleet decided to quickly 180 and fly to the furthest corner. Because *** gameplay, I guess.
I could think of all sorts of nasty Buffalo Mk.II builds with Militarized Subsystems and Converted Fighter Bays. Mmm.
Would scaling the rep penalty to planet population make sense? A few thousand dead is some ruffled feathers (and TBH, numerically equivalent to blowing up a large fleet), a million dead is a major diplomatic incident, hundreds of millions dead becomes casus belli. It means that if you do build up the population of your pet colony to the 10^8 level, then when it gets bombarded you may console yourself in the fact that Diktat fleets are getting ganked by Hegemony and Luddic patrols across the sector.That got me thinking. Huge endgame fleets have a few thousand crew. You can smash few such fleets in a huge extended battle, and those not involved in the fighting do not care. You bombard a puny colony with no more people than all personnel in a large fleet and everyone who is not their enemy will blacklist you, but not if the AI factions do it? (What hypocrites!) In particular, why would all of the Independents care enough to blacklist if I bomb someone who is not them? (I guess you could be considered Independent, and they do not want to be lumped in, but you cease to be Independent after you establish a colony.)
Quoteunless it just exists to be slaughtered and the player should never use it, which is not fun/good balance IMO.Only if both sides need to be balanced. If you need wimps that level 1 characters can fight and win, then such obviously inferior options serve their purpose. Pirates are the rats, goblins, and kobolds in space that players get to kill before they become strong enough to safely take on dragons and kings.
Buffalo 2 has struck me as an obviously inferior ship for pirates to use, much like Thumper for weapons. (Pre-0.8 Thumper was so bad that empty mount was a better option.)