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1

General Discussion / Re: Anyone have data on the Pursuit mechanics?

« on: April 13, 2024, 01:07:15 AM »

I've been wondering myself, but in reality does it matter? It gives you the option if your forces are overwhelming, so you don't have to play out every tedious battle.

Does the mechanic need to be revealed and under a spotlight? I play with it just fine and treat it more of a convenience, it's a nice quality of life feature, that's it. I don't feel like it really needs to be specifically explained in game (imo).

2

General Discussion / Re: Does anything genuinely benefit from the existence of story points and s-mods?

« on: April 11, 2024, 01:26:15 PM »

I always end playthroughs sitting on 20-40 SPs. I get they are supposed to be for fleets, but I've always considered them "cheaty" in a way since they squeeze essentially free OP out of a ship

IMO SPs aren't cheating. The NPCs are the ones "cheating":

1- The enemy often brings way more than 30 ships to a battle, often by combining multiple fleets, which you can't feasibly do except on defense
2- NPC factions don't have to manage expenses or logistics and can have huge fleets with many capitals they don't have to pay for
3- NPC factions can instant spawn huge fleets for free... yours would take months to replace if lost
4- They may not have an officer cap either (Remnants for sure don't)

Basically, enemy factions have the advantage of quantity and are basically unaffected by attrition. The player needs to be able to compensate with quality. If NPCs had to pay for supplies, fuel, repairs, officer cost, construction times, purchasing weapons, etc., then I'd agree.

I 100% agree with this.. If the DP mechanic was removed and NPC / player fleets both had either the same or no officer cap (making the game fair) - Then story points wouldn't be so necessary.

I'll concede that I think the player gets too many story points, but they are useful to have and just allow for more fun, which a video game should be.

3

Suggestions / Re: Hull Restoration is way too overpowered

« on: April 11, 2024, 01:16:24 PM »

I agree with the OP, it seems the best skill to have by a long margin. I didn't spend a penny on any capital ships, all captured and slowly repaired to full over time with no d-mods.

Also it allows you to be much riskier and liberal in combat, not worrying about losing ships.

The drawback is that it means your going to invest in the Industry tree, which isn't the best one for when you want to build a pure optimal death stack.

I've heard from a few people that having officers and s-modded ships also makes them recoverable, is that the case? Or is it not a guaranteed recovery?

4

General Discussion / Re: Does anything genuinely benefit from the existence of story points and s-mods?

« on: April 11, 2024, 12:45:18 PM »

The entire argument of "Well you don't have to use <insert whatever system>" is irrelevant.  People use this to whitewash issues with games everywhere and it's silly.

In the case of s-points, it's just a ridiculous argument.  It's a system in the game, the player should be expected to utilize them in varying capacities.  If they change the game in a way that's undesirable, telling players to just not use them instead of acknowledging that there might be a problem is ignoring the topic entirely.

My suggestion is a pretty easy / quick solution that doesn't upset the player base that actually enjoys s-points and gives at least an option for people that don't like them and requires no code changes on Alex's part.

If it makes the game too easy for you, you don't have to use them.

The problem is "Just don't use SP" doesn't solve any problems with SP.  You don't fix a system by pretending it's not there.  Your suggestion is not a solution at all.  It's not even a suggestion.  I don't actually know what it is.

How is it not a suggestion? It's aimed at people who think story points make the game too easy, don't use them?
What other alternative is there right now? Why don't you suggest an answer instead of pointing out other people not suggesting solutions (even when they have)

Do you want Alex to remove story points? What do you want to happen? Do you want Star Sector to take another 10 years to develop and finish because you want to re-work all the game mechanics?

Please, do enlighten us all..

5

General Discussion / Re: Does anything genuinely benefit from the existence of story points and s-mods?

« on: April 11, 2024, 03:25:52 AM »

It's like the people complaining about the micro-transactions in Dragon's Dogma 2.. You don't have to buy them.
If you don't like story points, don't use any?

I don't necessarily disagree with the rest, but this is quite possibly the worst argument you could make for it! AAA game devs consistently mess up the balancing and pacing of the base game in pursuit of selling more microtransactions yes, even in single player games. The typical move is to make the game less convenient and add annoyances and problems, then sell the solutions for real money, which they did. It doesn't matter at all whether you "have" to buy them, it aligns the dev and publisher's incentives towards making the game worse! Running defence for a billion dollar AAA corps making games worse to make more money is so weird, still don't really understand why do people do this.

The argument I'm making is: Don't use story points if you think they make the game too easy. That was a really big gas-light attempt by you, don't obsess over micro transactions. I just used that as an example of 'something being in a game that you don't have to pursue'. Do you not like story points, why exactly? Be clear in your argument. This is a conversation about story points not insidious AAA corporation agendas and greedy finance strategies. 

People genuinely defending this kind of microtransactions in a 70 USD AAA title gives me zero hope for the future of gaming.

I don't think I am defending micro transactions, I hate them too. In terms of Dragon's Dogma for example (I've waited years for DD2) - people complained and focused about 95% of the negativity towards the micro transactions, when the game had bigger issues like performance problems and Denuvo anti-cheat resource hogging software. I actively fight against micro transactions by not supporting them and not purchasing them.

I've also put thousands of hours into Dragons Dogma, played and completed all of the Dark Arisen content and waited with great anticipation for DD2. I didn't purchase the game due to the negative steam reviews, which were mostly people complaining about aggressive micro transactions. Personally that wouldn't of bothered me because I would of just ignored them. But in reality the game had much bigger problems such as poor performance and lack of starting a new game etc..

The entire argument of "Well you don't have to use <insert whatever system>" is irrelevant.  People use this to whitewash issues with games everywhere and it's silly.

In the case of s-points, it's just a ridiculous argument.  It's a system in the game, the player should be expected to utilize them in varying capacities.  If they change the game in a way that's undesirable, telling players to just not use them instead of acknowledging that there might be a problem is ignoring the topic entirely.

My suggestion is a pretty easy / quick solution that doesn't upset the player base that actually enjoys s-points and gives at least an option for people that don't like them and requires no code changes on Alex's part.

What are you suggesting exactly? How am I avoiding the issue entirely?
Do you want:
- Remove story points completely? (Large change it's ingrained in a lot of stuff ATM)
- Add a tick box in the options to not use story points (Possibly a larger change, littering if() conditional logic through the codebase, turning off story points in all the different screens and dialog)
- Have a version of star sector available for download / purchase that doesn't have the story point mechanic? (Old historical versions?)
- Nerf story points so they aren't used in certain situations? (Escaping a big fleet or embedding s-mods?)

I could produce loads of other examples of solutions, a little different to just moaning about a problem and not suggesting any feedback. Rather than just gas-lighting and moaning, be specific about what you don't like then suggest some solutions for those problems.

If there's a chocolate bar downstairs do you have to eat it just because you know it's downstairs? Are you going to complain to people that it exists and that it shouldn't exist? or do you have some will power and choose to not eat it? That's the entire basis of your argument at the moment.

6

General Discussion / Re: Punishing Remnant Points / Character Points?

« on: April 09, 2024, 04:45:21 AM »

On a completely separate note, loving the Invictus ship, lot of fun.

I'd like to see more dreadnaught class ships from other factions potentially in the future.
It's a monster when used with the heavy armour mod, auxiliary thrusters, ablative armour, impact mitigation, damage control, helmsman-ship, ballistic mastery, gunnery implants.
Seems like a good way to spend 60 DP points, I can throw myself right in the front line and not fear anything..

The flux is a bit of an issue but you just have to be disciplined and usually fully vent after using the lidar array or when you have a gap.
No overload due to no shields is a big bonus too.

7

General Discussion / Re: Punishing Remnant Points / Character Points?

« on: April 08, 2024, 02:26:26 PM »

In terms of the sci-fi lore.. you just made that completely up 

I actually made it up when first thinking of the skill mechanic. But either way, it's still completely made up - and what of it? Making up stuff to make things make sense is like half of the fun! You could make up a bunch of different explanations for it that make some sense in their own way.

To your point, though - in terms of power imo it is a solid pick, so I think we just disagree there. The things you're suggesting, I get where you're coming from with it, but I don't think it works out how you're really want it to. For example:

AI core turns on you: basically RNG, extremely frustrating if it happens in a tough fight, right?
Ways to control the core in game: you'd basically just always do it, it's extra busywork, not a meaningful limit; the mechanic would need to be balanced assuming you did all that, it'd be overpowered otherwise.

It's fairly easy to just increase the number of automated points the skill grants if you just want to play with more AI ships, though! Just have to run:

BaseSkillEffectDescription.AUTOMATED_POINTS_THRESHOLD = <some large number>;

In a ModPlugin somewhere. I'm fairly sure there's a mod that already does this.

I don't think it'd be frustrating, it'd actually be quite interesting and would add some tension to deploying a dangerous AI weapon into the field. If it meant quelling the rebellion and taming it (at least for a limited period of time) Where the AI would behave for a while until it starts feeling rebellious again..

At least the player has the option to make a big fleet of Remnant AI ships, some which could turn on the player if he's not careful and over-uses it. It's giving the player choice (even if they make a bad one) rather than just outright limiting. Right now, If I stick an Alpha core in a Radiant I can basically only use one ship, even then it's CR is really low, not worth it.

Instead I've balanced it to:
- Apex (Alpha)
- Apex (Beta)
- Brilliant (Gamma)

Which brings them up-to 50% CR, a decent balance but 3 midline Remnant ships is not that impactful, especially with no bonus to DP points.

Also, I don't want to mod / change the base game to get more fun out of it, that's deflecting the issue and doesn't help the base vanilla game in any way.  It wouldn't be much of an issue if the character level was 20, because you'd still be able to comfortably get the extra officers and officer training, but we can't do that, too powerful right?

Finally your point about the AI core being naughty and deceitful and needing humans to keep an eye on it.. Wouldn't that also apply to assigning a Core to a colony? Which could be even more disastrous? Skynet? But there's no real penalty to that directly, but there is to putting it in a ship?

8

General Discussion / Re: Punishing Remnant Points / Character Points?

« on: April 08, 2024, 01:57:10 PM »

An Alpha Core is more powerful so if anything, the CR should be increased, not reduced.

Just wanted to say, in terms of how one might picture this in-fiction: an Alpha Core is powerful and unpredictable, and its loyalty is questionable at best. So your crew spends a lot of effort installing governors, limiters, safeties, and so on - things that guarantee its loyalty, but detract from its combat potential. Whereas for an automated ship with a lower-level AI core (or none at all), your crew can spend most of its time and effort actually preparing the ship for combat, rather than guarding against a possible backstab.

Of course, the actual mechanical goal is balance; an Alpha Core Radiant is immensely powerful even with lower CR, and having more than one of these would be I think more power than the skill should provide.

One is powerful, sure.. But when your stacked against 15 enemy officers and a full fleet of big ships, it's not that impactful. It still costs 60 DP (which is a lot) and requires a heavy investment in the technology stack.

It feels to me playing with remnants is more for potential fun (despite the limiting) as opposed to an efficient way to compose a fleet. It seems better to invest in leadership and get the extra officers. For the DP benefit and the more granular control you have over behaviours / aggression.

In terms of the sci-fi lore.. you just made that completely up  But if that's the logic you're going with, I'd include it in the item description for Alpha Core's or some lore description when the player is assigning Core's to Ships. Or the hover-over when viewing the Remnant skill on the character screen.

Or maybe rather than permanently nerfing CR, add a feature where an AI ship has a chance of turning on you, or give the player the chance to 'train' an AI core by battling it and / or spend story points on making the core domestic, or something.

There's ways to create control barriers and still have cool features, but without having to always resort to basic limit point sliders, hard blockers.. it just ends up being a frustrating barrier, at least in my opinion.

If I was able to change just one thing though, I'd go with with including AI officers in the DP point distribution, that'd make the skill investment much more worthwhile.

9

General Discussion / Re: Punishing Remnant Points / Character Points?

« on: April 08, 2024, 01:46:46 PM »

Some interesting replies, thanks.

So what constitutes being able to recover ships? I have Hull restoration But I'd be happy to give it up if officers / s-modded ships are recovered by default?

Are the AI ships with Core's always recovered?

10

General Discussion / Punishing Remnant Points / Character Points?

« on: April 08, 2024, 02:23:42 AM »

I'm not sure I like the idea of limiting combat-readiness of AI ships by having limited 'points' you can spend on the ships.
But I assume that's a mechanic to stop the player becoming too powerful.

My real issue is with including an Alpha Core as a pilot, it dramatically lowers the CR and spends most of the points (with decent size ships)
That'd make more sense with using a Gamma Core on a big capital ship (The AI isn't powerful or smart enough to control all the systems) so CR would be reduced.

An Alpha Core is more powerful so if anything, the CR should be increased, not reduced.
But it's done this way purely to stop the player becoming too powerful?

It doesn't make sense (IMHO) because:

- A 'Radiant' class ship is still 60 DP
- You still need to get hold of an Alpha Core
- The player is investing a full Alpha Core in a ship (Then being punished for it?)
- The player has to spend precious skill points on the technology tree to then get the ability to have AI ships
- Unless the player has the hull restoration mod, there's a risk of losing the ship and Core.

Possible Solutions
 If we really need a limiter think I think it would be better if:

- Limit the penalty to ship sizes only, remove the Core use penalty. (Don't punish the player for investing a full Alpha Core into a destructible ship)
- Make all remnant ships require a Core to be useable by the player. (If no Core used, then big CR penalty)
- If the player uses a cheap Gamma Core on a big / medium AI ship, lower the CR, not increase it. A weak AI shouldn't cope well with controlling a big ship.
- Make 'Beta' and 'Gamma' cores more frequent and Alpha Cores really rare? I seem to find Alpha's pretty easy. Investing an Alpha should be a big decision but also have a decent reward.
- Allow AI officers to be included in the DP / fleet size calculation for DP battle distribution. The fact that it's not also doesn't make sense IMO.


It seems to just dilute any value in having the remnant skill. It's a heavy investment due to it being on the far right of the skill tree, but it doesn't seem worth it, compared to having more officers, which has good benefits to DP and they don't screw with each other in terms of Combat readiness. 

It doesn't seem like a good idea running with AI ships and not having 'Hull restoration' - Because they will get destroyed and swarmed, you don't want to lose the ship and the Alpha Core.
I think Hull restoration is one of the most useful skills, but again it requires a lot of investment as it's on the far right of the industry tree.

So if you want some AI ships and maximum officers in the fleet, you can't. It seems you have to choose one or the other, again limiting the player / fun factor.
It's not like the AI ships are that good, they are all fearless and rush in head first and have a reasonably large DP cost, isn't that limiting enough?

 

11

General Discussion / Re: Does anything genuinely benefit from the existence of story points and s-mods?

« on: April 08, 2024, 01:40:14 AM »

I disagree with the OP, I think story points is one of the smartest (and most fun) mechanics added to the game.
It's the kind of feature that you could include in different games, making things more interesting, fun and accessible (outside of Star Sector)

It gives the player more choice and freedom, which can't be a bad thing.

If it makes the game too easy for you, you don't have to use them.

It's like the people complaining about the micro-transactions in Dragon's Dogma 2.. You don't have to buy them.
If you don't like story points, don't use any?

12

General Discussion / Re: AI fleets in Endless Sky

« on: October 09, 2023, 12:45:46 PM »

How is the game garbage? Maybe you're just bad at it? Also how is the writing terrible? For an open source game I think the writing is excellent for the most part. It has a deep lore and connection between the alien races and the Drak, if you bother to play it and find out.

Maybe the 'toxic' community didn't respond well to your sweeping statements about their game being 'garbage'. Absolutely ridiculous statement. Be specific what is garbage exactly? I'd say ES is probably the second best space sim I've played next to Star Sector.

If you want to say a game is 'garbage' how about Naev, have you tried that one?
Now.. that writing IS bad.. The combat is also horrific, the character portraits look like they were done in paint by a 12 year old.
The story is non existent. (See how I'm giving some actual examples?)

In terms of capturing the A.I ships, I managed to capture about 2x 64 bit A.I ships, 1x 256 bit, about 3x Kor Sestor 349's, 11x 16 bits, 6x 32 bits.. That's without the improved automatons plugin.

I recommend the plugin because it's a lot more fun, it reduced the exploding RNG and also makes the A.I ships crew able (200 crew in a 256 bit AI ship? Yes please.

There's loads of good plugins if you want more content and fun, recommend obviously completing the vanilla base game first.

13

General Discussion / Re: Considering buying this

« on: October 06, 2023, 12:09:28 AM »

Ive put countless hours in EV and more recently Endless Sky (on the steam deck) close to 800 hours and now experimenting with plugins.

Star Sector is nothing like it, they are both unique games within their own right. Star sector has much more depth and complexity and polish, tons more features..

But ES is great for a more casual, simpler experience. One big differerence in ES is that you can have as many ships as u want in a fleet, all fighting at the same time, battles can be huge and chaotic.. especially when you encounter the Hai and Hai Unfettered race. (War) Ive never seen or experienced any performance issues even running high DPI assets plugin (comes by default with Steam)

The outfits and equipment in ES is absaloutely critical for success and progression, but in Star Sector you can get by with reasonable loadouts and not have too much trouble. In ES theres about 11/12 different races (that ive discovered so far) each offering unique ships and outfits.

It had a pretty decent back story and lore for an open source game, some of the writing is simply excellent.

14

General Discussion / Re: Return of the King: 5 Onslaughts vs. 6 Remnant Ordos

« on: August 11, 2023, 12:13:01 AM »

Thanks for sharing, just some feedback on the video, would of preferred some editing out of the constant map/command screen as it distracted from the action too frequently and got annoying.

Interesting build though might try that the next time I pick up the game.

15

General Discussion / Steam deck eligibility

« on: August 08, 2023, 01:07:06 PM »

Has anyone tried it on a steam deck yet? I'm wondering if it'll be worth a try or how difficult / finicky the key bindings are.

Obviously one advantage of a game released on Steam is you get pretty good community control bindings, but with it being non steam, is it viable?