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1

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.9a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: December 12, 2018, 04:28:40 PM »

Seconding as having never, ever noticed this before.

2

General Discussion / Re: What's Your Battle Size?

« on: November 03, 2018, 06:47:05 PM »

I wouldn't put too much stock in this anyhow.  It's pretty common to see people acting as if bigger numbers = more fun and doing silly things based on that assumption.

See:  32 Player Instant Respawn 24/7 Dustbowl player who hates the Demoman with the fury of a dying star.

3

Blog Posts / Re: Once More, with Feeling

« on: November 03, 2018, 06:43:08 PM »

I have been playing this game for literal years and tbh I am probably gonna pick the start that opts out of the single frigate start.  It was a nifty experience the first few times, but it outstays its welcome after half a decade and the eternal duel Starter Wolf vs *** Hound is not the real meat of the game.

4

Blog Posts / Re: Portrait Hegemonization

« on: November 03, 2018, 06:41:40 PM »

The Mr. Potato Head method works for Battle Brothers (and works well for their needs) because they use one general structure of face that only ever gets seen from a single perspective.

5

Suggestions / Re: Progress on Tutorials; Demo Viability

« on: October 30, 2018, 07:17:55 AM »

I believe Alex is keeping things deliberately low-key until the game is closer to final release, which at the rate we're moving through versions is probably still gonna be like two years from now.

The first impression is the most important impression, and he doesn't want that to be based on the game in an unfinished state.

6

General Discussion / Re: Do-nothing AI.

« on: October 29, 2018, 09:42:33 PM »

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.

IIRC the AI has built-in delays to its reaction times with stuff like shield micro to make it appear less robotic and give the player opportunities to outplay it.

Might be nifty to see handicaps like that taken off on some kind of REDACTED boss ship though.

7

General Discussion / Re: Do-nothing AI.

« on: October 28, 2018, 02:46:57 PM »

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.

Really?  I've kinda found it to be the opposite - the AI has a hard time correctly evaluating the threat levels of ships that break the conventional rules of combat and often lets ships get caught out by predictable interactions because it doesn't know how to think that way.  Phase ships are some of the biggest offenders (the AI doesn't understand that it can go from 'out of effective range' to 'behind me' faster than it can turn around), but you can even see it with stuff like combat-bonused player ships that have much higher burst damage than is typical.

8

General Discussion / Re: Do-nothing AI.

« on: October 27, 2018, 05:41:02 PM »

Yeah my argument against Hyperions and the turbo-Phase ships has always been that the counterplay, where it exists, is typically "huddle your whole fleet in a ball so there's nowhere it can get behind anybody and cower together like this until its CR runs out and it withdraws".

The AI actually being able to use phase ships to their full potential would be the *** worst.

9

General Discussion / Re: Do-nothing AI.

« on: October 26, 2018, 10:12:17 AM »

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.

We could provide better feedback if you posted examples of things that really happened instead of raging.

10

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.9a (In-Dev) Patch Notes

« on: October 21, 2018, 09:34:09 PM »

I could think of all sorts of nasty Buffalo Mk.II builds with Militarized Subsystems and Converted Fighter Bays.  Mmm.

I think they call that ship the Condor.

It's pretty good!

11

Blog Posts / Re: Once More, with Feeling

« on: October 07, 2018, 02:52:53 PM »

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.)

I know, right!  Some big-shot general kills thousands and thousands of soldiers in a campaign and it's totally fine, but you slaughter a few hundred civilians in one Vietnamese village and suddenly schoolchildren have homework assignments about what a monster you are.  It's all ***, man.


(Funnily enough, this also ties into the "so why is it only a crime against humanity when I do it - look at how many atrocities get committed by the United States or Russia or China in any given decade, and then observe that the rest of the world is very much still engaged with them)

12

Blog Posts / Re: Once More, with Feeling

« on: October 05, 2018, 05:58:26 PM »

This is the first economy take that didn't make my brain bluescreen, so it's definitely a positive change.

13

General Discussion / Re: Release When?

« on: October 03, 2018, 06:36:28 PM »

To put things in perspective:  I am a few years away from having a common law marriage with my partner.  I downloaded this game before we met.

Without jest, I'd give it about 50/50 odds that we put down money for a house before 1.0

14

General Discussion / Re: UNLIMITED SPEEEEE

« on: October 03, 2018, 06:30:43 PM »

This sounds completely broken, but if you mod in a way to make projectiles inherit the velocity of the ship they were launched from I would be totally down to play high-speed Torpedo Tag.

15

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.9a (In-Dev) Patch Notes

« on: September 22, 2018, 08:55:50 PM »

unless 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.)

Yeah basically the whole purpose of Pirate ships is to be garbage fodder for new characters to farm.  I don't think there's a single P ship you would ever want in your fleet unless you were leaning really hard into a clunker run, but their existence serves a necessary role for the game.