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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 - Kothar

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1
Mods / Re: [0.6.1a UPDATE!] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.42
« on: October 03, 2013, 04:14:04 PM »
Is the Mantis supposed to only regen 5% CR per day instead of 15% like most frigates? I can't quite tell from the description if it's supposed to be super expensive to deploy like the Hyperion, but right now it seems really high to me. Even the Desdinova regens 8% per day.

2
I could go either way on that, but it's a bit of a rabbit hole. If weapons work, the you might ask why the ship can't maneuver, and at that point, it might as well be normally deployable. Lore-wise, for me, "engines only" just means that the crew has to focus all of their attention and shipboard power on the combat drive, to keep it going without malfunctions. Note that they're actually not suffering malfunctions - unlike a ship with low CR that actually had weapons active.

At any rate, I think an argument rooted entirely in realism is not, well, entirely constructive. You can pretty much always come up with reasons for why something does or does not make sense, given the extent of the technobabble that's not explicitly explored by the game. It just depends on whether you're looking to make things make sense or to make things NOT make sense.

(All that said, having 0-CR ships be able to put up a bit of a fight sounds like it could be fun.)

I feel like it could make sense to say that the unready ships are entirely on autopilot - this could allow for all weapons to be on autofire, the engines like now working but not having any maneuvering, but no ship system/shields. Possibly allow malfunctions on the weapons? In any case, the crew would be too busy keeping everything working minimally to take the ship off of autopilot.

I guess you said arguments rooted in realism aren't really the point, but I couldn't help myself!

3
It costs 8 supplies to get a Lasher or a Wolf from zero to full (60%) CR, 16 for both.

Deploying a Lasher costs 20% CR, a Wolf 35% CR. If you had full CR and deployed both, it will cost you not even 8 supplies to get them back to full CR.

A fight that you can win with these two frigates without significant damage can easily bring you about 50 supplies in direct loot alone. For example a Buffalo MK.2 with fighter escorts.
 That will leave you enough to repair previously damaged ships after a few fights.

Maybe you could try to suspend repairs, so you have enough supplies left for full CR and then pick a few easy battles?

This matches my experiences well too. The only other thing I can think of is if Xareh is still prioritizing weapons over supplies when getting near max cargo space. Most weapons are now worth way less cash per cargo space than supplies.

4
Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.6a (In Development) Patch Notes
« on: September 12, 2013, 03:01:05 PM »
Man, and I thought I was being pessimistic with my "greater than a month" post.

This delay is starting to be seriously irritating.  I've been checking this site out for months now, hoping for an update.  If, last November, you had posted "working on next update, won't be around til next September", I wouldn't have spent all this time refreshing the site.

Being slow to update isn't nearly as bad as it being hugely uncertain when you will get to play the game you've been reading about for months.

You could just sign up for the mailing list, which only sends out emails when new versions are released...

5
Suggestions / Re: "Quickfire" weapon groups
« on: May 03, 2012, 04:17:31 PM »
Not a real problem since you can just set your main weapon group on auto-fire all the time, it won't fire if you have it selected but will if you switch to fire another weapon group so this isn't really a problem.

I still love this idea but I've found a problem with it.

The most glaring flaw of this idea is targeting. Not a problem for Hard Points but Turrets present a problem. For one, you can't target with them while actually controlling another weapon group, both because you can't see their ranges and because they simply don't follow your cursor. Can be solved by making them follow it anyway and showing their ranges, might clutter things a bit but there is no reason it couldn't work.

Hmm that's a good point about turrets. If quickfire groups always follow the cursor it should work alright - I'm not sure if showing the range would be too much clutter or not. Not showing the range for quickfire groups might be fine too, as it is sort of an advanced control mode anyway.

Then again, maybe it would be better to limit quickfire to hardpoints/missiles only?

Sorry if I only now say these things after suggesting you should post this here, reading it again made me think about it some more. I do like your idea.

No problem, the whole reason to start another thread for it is to examine the idea and talk about this stuff!


6
Suggestions / "Quickfire" weapon groups
« on: May 03, 2012, 02:41:36 PM »
For certain weapons, most notably missiles and antimatter blasters, they are frequently used by quickly switching to them, firing, and switching back. This can get a little awkward, particularly if you want to continue firing some other weapon at the same time - right now you have to enable autofire for your current group, switch to missiles, fire, switch back, disable autofire. Why don't we add a setting that makes pressing the button to select the group instead fire it?

I know this has come up in the past, but I feel there was no good way to integrate the idea into the UI before. With the new weapon group UI, I think there is now a good way to use this idea - on the refit screen where you select autofire groups, you can add another row along the top called Quickfire, which would on a per-weapon group basis enable this idea: If Quickfire was enabled for weapon group 3, pressing 3 would fire off a shot from that weapon group (or multiple if the group was linked).

The AI could entirely ignore this setting for AI-controlled ships; after all, they don't have any problems rapidly switching between weapon groups like humans do!

There is already a little discussion of this idea (and some enthusiasm!) in this thread: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=2483.0, but I felt it appropriate to start a thread in Suggestions regarding the idea.

Any thoughts?

7
Perhaps in the screen where you select weapon groups & autofire, there could be one more row for 'quickfire'? Which would mean pressing the button for the group fires the group instead of selecting it. I'd find this extremely handy for missiles, tachyon lance, and even antimatter blasters!
Hmm, interesting. Might work very well with weapon group number 2.

I like this idea.

EDIT: Have you made the suggestion? You should.

I'll make a post on the suggestion right now!

8
It would be nice to have  a 'fire missiles' key/button (with an option of which bank to map it to, of course). I find switching weapon banks just to fire a missile and then flipping back really disrupts my tempo, so I'll sometimes put my missiles on auto-fire because I won't make use of them manually.

Perhaps in the screen where you select weapon groups & autofire, there could be one more row for 'quickfire'? Which would mean pressing the button for the group fires the group instead of selecting it. I'd find this extremely handy for missiles, tachyon lance, and even antimatter blasters!

9
Suggestions / Re: Being able to shoot other weapon groups with a key press.
« on: February 17, 2012, 03:54:31 PM »
I'd like to be able to focus my pulse laser on a target and constantly hammer him in just that right spot and reach over and tap a key to fire off some missiles.  Especially since the default configuration has shift be the same key to strafe as to lock in autofire, pain in the ass to be maneuvering around while switching weapons.

I totally agree with this - I'd love to have a FIRE ZE MISSILES button.

10
General Discussion / Re: How do i buy individual things...?
« on: February 16, 2012, 05:13:10 PM »
Shift-click.

11
Suggestions / Re: Plotting on the Map
« on: February 16, 2012, 03:59:26 PM »
Alex has said he's going to add a lot of functionality to the map, don't worry! This version is just extremely barebones, just the minimum to make the campaign playable.

12
General Discussion / Re: Hidden Secrets of the Loadout Masters
« on: February 16, 2012, 12:11:06 PM »
Rather than a Venture, I like using the Odyssey as my flagship, which also takes care of the carrier needs. Having the flight deck RIGHT THERE helps keep the bombers fighting.

I also swap out the IR lasers on the left side of the ship for antimatter blasters, which really makes the broadside deadly. For the final touch, swap out the pilums on the front of the ship for torpedo launchers  - they actually swivel far enough to contribute to the broadside as well.

I leave the right side of the ship as is - fighters/frigates tend to try to attack that side to avoid the broadside, so the huge concentration of PD and IR lasers gets a lot of use.

13
Suggestions / Re: Flight Decks
« on: February 16, 2012, 10:04:21 AM »
I'm pretty sure they will add more carriers as well. Something between the condor and astral is desperately needed. And the Venture and Odyssey don't count.  :)  I mean dedicated carriers.

Agreed! A cruiser with two flight decks would round that out nicely.

14
Bug Reports & Support / Re: Ship Prices
« on: February 15, 2012, 11:43:55 PM »
I just checked again and I can't reproduce it - I must've gotten something wrong. Sorry for the false alarm!

On another note - is there supposed to be a Burst PD Laser in weapon group 1 with the Autopulse Lasers for the balanced variant of the Odyssey? I kinda feel like that would make more sense in weapon group 4...

15
General Discussion / Re: Crew Assignment
« on: February 15, 2012, 05:31:01 PM »
No breakdown yet - will be in the crew tooltip at <some future date>. Briefly - better movement, less damage taken, better aim. Some penalties in the same vein for "green", and "regular" is neutral.

Put the ships you want the most experienced crew on first in the fleet list.

I know having more crew than you need for your ships bumps up repair rate; is there any bonus to using more experienced crew (does it hit the max 200% repair rate sooner or something), or are all crew the same for that purpose?

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