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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Messages - Zenobious

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1
Mods / Re: (0.8.1a) Shadowyards Reconstruction Authority 0.6.2
« on: June 28, 2017, 11:08:16 PM »
  • Added Vardr-class battleship
I immediately started a new game to give this thing a spin and.... it's showing up as a cruiser in-game, with cruiser costs for hullmods and whatnot. Looks like the hullsize entry in its .ship file is wrong?

Looks beautiful though. Nice to see a shadowyards ship that's more capable of brawling. Beam sweep effects are appreciated too!

2
Mods / Re: Another ship addition [0.8a compatible]
« on: May 19, 2017, 09:10:24 PM »
First and most importantly, this thing is worth WAY more than 30 supplies for deployment. 30 is an Aurora! This is worth 40 at least, and arguably 45 or more. Even under AI control, this ship will immediately dumpster an Odyssey or Conquest, and most variants of the Onslaught too.

OP are quite a bit too low. Per the modding guidelines thread, it should be 20 per large, 10 per medium, 5 per small, and 10 per fighter bay, plus filling 50% of vents/capacitors. On this ship, that adds up to 335 OP, while it currently has 300. It's pretty awkward to fit even a standard loadout on it right now, much less one with any useful hull-mods. Note that the Conquest has fewer mounts and a hull-mod that reduces the cost of Large Ballistics by 10, but still has 315 OP.

Skeleton crew numbers (300) are probably too low, compared to other ships of its size and their relative number of weapons mounts and fighter bays. It should probably be closer to that of an Onslaught (500) or at least a Conquest (400). CR loss per deployment is possibly a bit too low, and CR recovery a bit too high. Compare with other low/mid-tech capitals and cruisers. I'm not sure exactly where you intend this to fit on the technology scale, which would affect final numbers.

Some of the turret firing arcs are too generous, while others are too small. Specifically, the front 3 medium turrets and 2 of the front smalls are fixed and cannot traverse at all. Assuming that was intentional and not an oversight, it is typical to provide fixed hardpoints with at least some traverse -- this applies to the side large missile mounts as well. See the Dominator for an example of what hardpoint mounts, both ballistic and missile, should have for firing arcs.

Many of the other mounts have very large firing arcs which overlap the hull too much. Take a look at the arcs of the turrets on the Conquest and Onslaught -- even when on the corners of the hull, very few turrets have even an 180 degree arc, and many are far less. Here's a pretty quick example i cooked up in paint of more reasonable arcs, which maintains the spirit of your layout without being near so generous:

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As for overall balance, that's a bit more problematic. In general I think the flux, armor, speed and shield stats are all pretty good. Burn Drive is an appropriate, albeit somewhat boringly conventional, ship system for a battlecruiser. Even with the small number of OP it has, it's still quite effective, although I ended up leaving the less useful no-traverse forward turrets empty to free up OP for other things. The fundamental problem with balancing this ship is that anything with 4 Large Ballistic with overlapping arcs of fire *and* 4 Large Missile has overwhelming firepower even with mediocre flux stats and very limited ability to armor/hull tank.

The obvious armament that presents itself when provided 4 Large Missile in fixed off-axis mounts is 2 Squalls and 2 MIRVs, and this setup by itself is just about enough to win capital engagements while the ammo holds out -- and extended missile racks can make that a pretty long time. Add in 4 overlapping Large Ballistics, and 2 fighter bays as well, and it's extremely hard to stop this thing from just wading in and crushing anything with relentless barrages of missiles and shells. This is why I think a deployment cost of 45 or more wouldn't be unwarranted, depending on what (if any) changes you end up making.

An obvious suggestion that can be done is to make the rearmost Large Ballistic face backwards, while leaving the other 3 with only a 90-degree arc -- centered forward for the other aft turret, and to diagonal angles outward of maybe 30 degrees on the front two (this would have the added benefit of stopping the two forward Large Ballistic mounts from overlapping their sprites when traversed to the side). Removing 1/4 of the heavy ballistic firepower and restricting that of the others to a lower area of overlap would help its balance somewhat and requires no sprite changes. Another suggestion for an easy "soft" nerf would be to equip the fighter bays with a fixed loadout of less-effective wings. More drastically, the missile mounts could be changed to mediums, or turned into built-in weapons with something not particularly effective, like Locust launchers.

On a more more trivial note, I'm not particularly fond of the Core autofit provided -- Storm needlers are a substantial OP investment and flux-hogs to boot, so on a ship of these stats they're a poor match. And no DTC or ITU on a capital is unthinkable. Here's the loadout I used to test it a bit:

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In case it isn't clear, that's 2x Mark IX, 2x Hellbores, 2x Squall, 2x MIRV, 2x Flaks, Vulcans in all the small mounts, a Warthog wing and a Broadsword. No exceptionally good weapons or fighter wings, and a DTC instead of ITU to try and represent a cheap and simple "standard" build. I left the forward mediums and smalls empty to save OP -- if it had 335 or more, and they had larger firing arcs, I'd fit them with a pair of Vulcans, a Flak and Maulers or Heavy Autocannon. If the aft turret faced rearwards, I'd fit it with a Devastator or Hephaestus.

One final question is where you see this ship fitting in, lore-wise. Is it supposed to be a low-tech battlecruiser, as the engine color suggests? A mid-tech alternative to the Conquest? A cobbled-together pirate ship, or a carefully crafted cutting edge design? One thing that could be done to vary it up and give it a bit more character and variety would be to make some of the small or medium mounts energy weapons, as on the Conquest. But a lot of decisions like that depend on your vision for what this ship is, and where it came from.

I had a lot of fun playing around with this thing tonight, and I'm excited to see where you take the design and what else you have to add!  :)

3
Modding / Re: Modding Guidelines
« on: May 17, 2017, 07:33:48 PM »
Now that fighter bays are a weapon mount that takes up OP, is there a recommendation for what amount of OP each should receive, as there is for the other weapon mount sizes? Scrolling through the list of fighter options suggests to me an average value somewhere around 10-12 but I would love to hear other people's opinions.

4
Modding / Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
« on: May 16, 2017, 02:19:54 AM »
Disclaimer: I never played the original mod, so I can't say I have a "feel" for what the faction should have/did play like compared to vanilla balance back in the day. I'm just giving it my best go at it compared to how it plays with the game right now.

The vast majority of ballistics will need a substantial balance pass once their ammo restriction is removed -- right now most of (all?) the kinetic weapons all put out higher DPS than their flux cost, for example, which is not the norm for most vanilla weapons outside of some small mounts and the needlers. For example, the Mass Driver has the same range, accuracy, traverse etc as the Hypervelocity Driver -- but it does 208 DPS for 167 flux/s, while the HD does 138 DPS for 178 flux/s, *and* the Mass Driver has exceptional armor penetration with its 1,500 damage shot. This is all worth far more than 17 OP. Another big offender is the Cain, which beats out the Mjolnir in efficiency and the plasma cannon for raw energy damage. For starters, I'd suggest going through the medium/large ballistic weapons and inverting their DPS and flux/s where appropriate... that seems like it might be a good starting point.

Some of the missiles will need to be reworked too. Right now the medium MLRS mount is pretty much a strictly inferior Annihilator -- 800 vs. 1500 range is a cripplingly bad deficit, and it has few other features that justify a 50% OP cost increase. The large mount at least does substantially more damage, but the range is still incredibly restrictive. Even SRMs reach 1,000.

Like Surge mentioned, the fighters need a substantial balance pass as well. Both the Tracer and the Hornet are very slow at 100 and 125, barely capable of catching capitals with the zero-flux boost on, making them incredibly vulnerable to defensive fire... especially the Tracer, since it closes to a pretty short range to drop its torpedoes compared to the Atropos-equipped vanilla bombers. Even the Warthog goes 130, and the Piranha 150. The Foxbat has an acceptable speed of 200, but even that is only comparable to heavy fighters, and far lower than most other fighters classified as "interceptors," a number of which exceed 300.

Also, I believe the Hornet should get the *single* Sabot launchers like the Longbow uses. It's not necessarily imbalanced if it has 2 Sabots instead of the 1 the Longbow has, but right now it's using a pair of the standard Small Missile Mount Sabots, not the Longbow's single-shot fighter version, which makes it ludicrously overpowered as a single 8-OP wing of them is dumping 12 Sabots in a pass! With higher speeds, they'll also need higher OP costs; the Tracer is only 12 OP compared to the 20/28 for the Dagger/Trident; and the Tracer is 4 less than the Longbow, which has half the Sabots.

The Antares and Zephyr are still using point-defense drones as their ship systems; and the Mercury has sensor drones. The standard now is to have drones as a built-in fighter bay, with something else as a ship system, so that's something to consider an alternative for. Also, the Antares just sucks in general: too few weapons mounts, flux stats no better than a cruiser, *and* slower than either of the vanilla battlecruisers... despite a 40-supply deployment cost like the Conquest.

I can't really comment on the balance of anything but the capitals, as they're all I've experimented with in the simulator so far. As mentioned, the Antares sucks. The Auria and Titan feel like they're in a pretty good place, and the Yukon feels balanced for its deployment cost -- but its stats are more those of a cruiser than a capital, so it might stand to be reclassified. EDIT: the Titan might be a bit *too* good actually; the teleporter is incredibly powerful. Perhaps should get a higher flux cost, or fewer uses/longer recharge. /EDIT

More minor quibbles, but worth noting: missing ship, ship system, and item descriptions all over the place. Various typos in some others ("Hedgemony" instead of "Hegemony" in the Antares description, for example). Lack of Autofit options for the ships. CR costs on deployment are very low (about 1/2 vanilla numbers) across the board -- not sure if that was an intentional balance point for the mod, or just a different standard for an older version of the game.

Hope that helps!  :)

5
Mods / Re: [0.8a] Neutrino Corp. (v. 1.84RC1)=
« on: May 12, 2017, 11:33:14 AM »
Hey, Mac user here, my game crashes every time i come into contact ( simulations/combat ) with the neutrino factions ships. This could be a weapons thing with the grpahicslib and the fact that im a mac user but i've checked that i've downloaded all the libs needed. When the game crashes it comes up with this message.
Fatal: com/fs/starfarer/combat/systems/H
Cause: com.fs.starfarer.combat.systems.H
Check.starsector.log for more info.

I feel like something has flown right over my head but I cant seem to see it.
I really love the art style and the design of the ships and would love to keep playing with them.
Any tips with fixing the problem?

Try checking the version of SS you have against the latest available for download -- I had a similar error when I first tried to use the Neutrino mod, and updating SS fixed it. There was a mini-patch at one point after the 0.8 release, and I'm pretty sure Neutrino will only work with the absolute latest version.

6
Mods / Re: (0.8a) Shadowyards Reconstruction Authority 0.6.1.1
« on: May 10, 2017, 07:38:12 PM »
I'm not entirely sure I like the new paint scheme. Conceptually, I think it's more interesting than the previous scheme, and I actually prefer the darker shades of green... but the striping seems to obscure the fine details of the hull beneath because it has a kind of dazzle-camouflage effect on it. The sections of the ships covered by the stripes feel like they are more of an undifferentiated mass of stuff, as opposed to previously where they stood out in contrast. It's by no means a deal breaker -- the ships are still gorgeous -- but it does make them stand out a bit less, especially in-game when zoomed all the way out.

The alternate piratical color scheme is wicked sick though. I would sell my soul to the Shadowyards for a pirate Mimir....  :D

7
Mods / Re: [0.8a] Arsenal Expansion v1.3.4 - Pest Control
« on: May 08, 2017, 01:11:37 AM »
Messed around with the Blueslaught a bit this afternoon. A few things about it are bugging me. For example, here's a comparison of the base Onslaught, XIV, and Blueslaught with similar loadouts--



The location of most of the turret bases is unchanged from the base Onslaught/XIV sprites -- yet the locations for some of the weapon sprites are subtly different. Some of them have had their firing arcs adjusted, but that shouldn't change the center point of the turret... and others have the same firing arcs but have still moved a bit, like the centerline medium and large ballistic mounts. Was this intentional or an oversight? It's a very minor complaint, but unfortunately bugs me a lot now that I've noticed it. Can't unsee!  :P

The deployment cost also seems a bit high. While it offers a fairly unique mix of direct assault firepower and fighter bays, it doesn't seem to deserve 50 points. In AI-controlled sim matchups, the Paragon consistently beats it, while the Odyssey and Astral can fight it to a standstill. While I agree it should be higher than the base Onslaught or the Legion -- both of which it can quickly kill with a good loadout -- 50 is probably too far. I'd suggest 45.

I'm not sure I like the changes to the side Large Ballistic mounts. With both of them more forward-facing, it very quickly runs out of flux, especially since it's been lowered from the base Onslaught's capacity. This isn't so much a problem when flying it personally, but in AI hands it seems to run up its flux a bit too fast. Outfitting it with low-flux weapons like Hellbores helps a lot, but tweaking the turret arcs to be more similar to those of the original version would help as well I think.

Quite a lot of fun to play with though. Good work!  :)

8
Mods / Re: [0.7.2a] Portrait Pack v1.2
« on: March 18, 2016, 04:16:53 PM »
This is terrible... I might just have to uninstall this mod. I tried to start a new game, but the sheer number of great portrait options made me incapable of picking just one. What have you done, HELMUT!?  :-[  :D

Update time! Added 68 new portraits (thanks to TrashMan). Tweaked the FM2 ones to be more colourful and contrasted. Also added support for the ICE faction mod.

Download

Code
v1.2
*New portraits added.
*Tweaked the colours of the FM2 portraits.
*Added support for ICE.

The link here is giving me a 404, although the one on the first page works properly.

9
General Discussion / Re: TIL: the Onslaught XIV can slaughter templars
« on: March 07, 2016, 09:34:52 AM »
You started off with... four Onslaughts? And ended up with three, although two of them would need serious repairs and more crew before continuing. Only one total write-off.

Honestly, I don't find that a humiliating loss, considering that you wiped quite a few Templar capital ships. Two (or was it three?) of your losses looked to be solely from Templar post-disable nukes, which are sometimes just inevitable. Your best bet here is to slap the "avoid" command on every Templar capital -- since the Onslaught is slow and the Templars like to spam their Holy Charge, the ships will still end up fighting; it just won't be as much at knife range, which the AI seems to like. And Steady officers too, of course.

Similarly the behavior at 2:40 is probably also because you've set a waypoint with defend orders on it. That's probably influencing your ships to stand their ground a bit more than they would otherwise. With four Onslaughts, I would put two together with defend orders on each other, and then the third defending my ship. That should keep them close enough for support, without tying them to a specific point on the map that they can get pinned against.

10
Mods / Re: [0.7.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.8.2 - New 0.7.2a update!
« on: March 06, 2016, 09:44:11 AM »
Took the Desdinova out for for some testing. I miss the feeler-antennae on the front... the new mandibles just aren't quite as cool. That's definitely the only thing I miss, though; the ship's new handling and performance seems a lot more interesting and suited to the fluff description. It's got a weighty, powerful feel to it, like a beefy muscle car. Knocking around frigates and even other destroyers with its mass and velocity is a lot of fun, the only downside being losing all my forward armor when I accidentally ram an asteroid with the shields down at over 400 su. And the overall quality of the sprite has definitely improved -- I can't wait to see what you've got in store for the other ships!

I thought I would miss the medium ballistic slots on the Nevermore, but in practice it doesn't seem to matter as much as I worried it would. Still a great cruiser, and almost as fun to fly as the new Desdinova. I agree that it seems to help the AI out, as previously when I ran into enemy Nevermores they seemed to be piling on way too much soft flux and thus easily overloaded or ignored.

The new destroyer is less exciting, but probably only because it has to compete with the Desdinova and Nevermore for my attention -- a comparison that would leave most ships feeling underwhelming. It's a solid addition to the destroyer lineup, though; I like ships with heavy forward firepower and good maneuverability, and it fits that quite nicely.

11
Mods / Re: [0.7.1a] Diable Avionics 1.6 - Transforming Frigate (20/02/2016)
« on: February 20, 2016, 09:43:32 AM »
The new frigate is awesome! I've been dreaming of some sort of transforming large ship ever since I saw the Wanzers.... fulfilled!  ;D

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Mods / Re: [0.7.1a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.8.1 - Updated
« on: February 09, 2016, 08:39:28 PM »
I like Cicada but I'm sort of settling on Weevil because it needs to be a beetle, giving it some more consideration though.

Firefly? Longhorn? Darkling? Glowworm? Whirligig?

Personally I'm fond of "Firefly", it helps that it has a neat history of military usage... although now that I look at the last link, "Lampyridae" sounds pretty cool as well, but I suppose it breaks your syllable rule too.

Quote
Working on the destroyer that will be the counterpart to the Scorpion.

Desdinova will recieve the designation Heavy Destroyer, become less common, and recieve a few changes, along with a future sprite/layout cleanup.

Can't wait to see both the new destroyer and the updated Desdinova!  ;D

13
Suggestions / Re: Looking at the Starsector fuel & supply economy
« on: January 30, 2016, 05:28:19 AM »
CR clearly represents a lot more than just tying the cargo down. It's a generalized representation of the maintenance level of the ship, as well as supplies like ammunition for the weaponry -- note how a ship with low CR may no longer have missiles, and its other weapons may fail to fire. Obviously, even if you're still within "peak performance" time, you've still caused wear and tear on the ship, expended ammunition, etc etc. Combat vehicles are maintenance-intensive, whether they're used to fight or not. Just look at the incredible amount of man-hours needed to keep fighter planes in flying condition even in peacetime! You can't skip maintenance on a fighter plane even if all it did was take off, fly in circles for half an hour, and then land again.

Of course, looking too hard for "realism" or real-world justifications for specific systems in the game is pointless -- Starsector is quite abstracted, on many levels. I don't think we're to assume that ship weapons like light-speed lasers are actually capable of shooting no more than a few ship lengths. Nor should we necessarily assume that SS ships are literally only capable of a few minutes of fighting before needing to retreat -- note that on the strategic map, battles between fleets can last for days even though they're only a few minutes of fighting if you join in! These are gameplay abstractions in order to have quick, intense battles of close-range maneuvering and action.

Personally speaking, I enjoy managing ship readiness and supplies, and I like that fleets have to be more than just fighting ships in order for optimum effectiveness. CR is an elegant mechanism that smoothly blends multiple simulation-style aspects of strategic gameplay, without bogging the game down in more tedious nitpickery like buying ammunition for individual weapons. If I wanted to do literally nothing but fly around and make things explode, I'd be playing one-shot missions that just consist of set-piece battles (which the game also has!), not engaging in strategic-level gameplay of fleet management and command. Different people are looking for different things in Starsector, as this thread amply demonstrates, but I find that CR and supplies/fuel in general fits the level of attention to detail and management effort that SS seems to be aiming for.

14
Blog Posts / Re: Phase Cloaking - a Deep Dive
« on: January 29, 2016, 01:31:49 PM »
Some of these are just what I've been wanting for a long time. Others I would not have thought of, but like the sound of. Quite exciting overall, but most especially:

Quote
Phasing/unphasing is still instantaneous, but there’s a 2 second cooldown after unphasing

PRAISE BE. Nothing was more eye-roll inducing than watching an AI flicker its phase on and off quickly enough to dodge even near-instantaneous weapons.

Quote
The AI will try to “suppress” phased phase ships by firing a small number of weapons at them

Perfection. Suppressive fire was always useful against phase ships, but only being able to manually do it was pretty tedious. This is a very welcome addition to the AI.

15
General Discussion / Re: Simulator Smashers of 0.7.1a.
« on: January 23, 2016, 09:49:27 PM »
How do mod capitals fare compared to the vanilla ones? Are any of them as good, or better?
I took the NGO battleship into the simulator. Max character skills (lvl 70+), so a lot of extra OP points to add hullmods. After it casually crushed the basic ship lineup, I started throwing more mod-ships at it. It soloed:

-the entire vanilla fleet
-the entire SS+ fleet (which includes a half-dozen more capital ships)
-almost the entire AI War fleet

...before finally losing out to the Spire battleship, mostly because it had dropped below 30% CR.

I expect a lot of other mod capitals would do similarly well, such as the aforementioned Spire battleship. Honestly, the only thing that's really going to stop a ~50 FP capital piloted by a human using an officer with max skills is the deployment timer and CR loss.

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