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Messages - CaptainWinky

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1
Mods / Re: [0.9a] Stop Gap Measure - Ships for Vanilla
« on: November 30, 2018, 11:13:55 PM »
This is odd, the link works fine, but I cant seem to extract it.

Works for me using 7zip.

2
General Discussion / Re: Terrible Game
« on: July 22, 2018, 01:37:23 PM »
Back to the actual game at hand, there's no doubt a very narrow path to financial success.

Combat: Bounty hunting (only viable reason to fight willingly) - Also inaccessible as a feature until sufficient fleet strength. 
Trade: Buy low, sell high (multiple ways to achieve this) - Decent feature and can be fun!
Scavenge: Good way to make money at the start, can be risky and requires lots of fuel and supplies.
Station Building / Industry: ?? Never experienced this as I didn't stomach the game long enough.

I'm sure that are other ways, but there's a small number of actual successful ways to make money it seems.
The real currency in the game appears to be supplies though, they are required for far too many actions and extremely costly to replace in bulk.

The fear of actually making any meaningful decision in iron man mode seems to just be punished by losing supplies at a rate of knots..
Once your supplies are gone you dig into your wallet to replace them, rinse / repeat.

Getting your fleet large enough to handle pirate patrols is the toughest part of the early game IMO.  Until then, you can tag along with bigger friendly fleets and help them with fights--like help Hegemony fleets in Corvus so that you can take advantage of the first systemwide bounty offered by Jangala at the start of the game.  You get less post-battle salvage immediately after battles, but you can stay and salvage the debris field afterward.

Scavenging and surveying in remote systems does require some initial investment (freighters to haul the loot, tankers to haul enough fuel for all your ships to get there and back, then the cost of the fuel and supplies) but if you can get several missions in the same direction it becomes very profitable as you only pay expenses for one trip but get multiple mission payouts.

Trading is currently not a great way to make money unless you count food shortages.  You're not missing anything with outpost building BTW, that is not implemented in 0.8 but will be in the upcoming 0.9 release.  I believe 0.9 will improve on trading as well.

I don't think many people currently use ironman mode.  I definitely don't, because while it can be fun to deal with the consequences of an unexpected defeat, it can also be very frustrating to (for instance) enter hyperspace and bump into a giant hostile fleet that happens to be entering that jump point but decides to stop and wreck you.

BTW for supplies and fuel: Chicomoztoc for supplies, Sindria for fuel.  Low-stability markets may sell these commodities for lower prices.  Also don't be afraid to use the black market to avoid huge tariffs, especially if the market is owned by a faction you don't deal with often.  If you don't have anything outright illegal they can't do much to you other than give you a rep hit.  Get in, get the cheap goods, get out and leave the spacecops eating your exhaust.  Going to a smaller low-stability market, snapping up their guaranteed 50 supplies and 50 fuel in the black market, then leaving scot-free because they don't have patrols to deal with you is great in the early game.

3
Modding / Re: [0.8.1a] Reclaimed Derelicts 0.2a
« on: June 09, 2018, 09:25:51 AM »
I love the aesthetic and feel of the derelicts, bulky, straightforward (a couple armored plates with guns strapped to an engine and thrusters), and lack of comfort for organic crew.

Do they have shields? I played around with derelict ships before and even without the built in D mods they die incredibly fast without Makeshift Shield Generators.

I also hope you do make a patched up and modified Mothership eventually as a capital class drone ship like the Boss ship from the IBB in the Ship and Weapons pack.

The Defender Mk.II, Bastillon (F), and Fathom have omni-shields and the Warden (P) has a frontal shield equivalent to what Makeshift Shield Generator would give it.  I had some success flying a Rampart (P) with a Makeshift Shield Generator recently, but it (deliberately) doesn't leave you with a lot of OPs to spare.

Given some of the changes that are coming in 0.9, I might add a blueprint package that lets you produce regular versions of the derelict drones including the Warden, Rampart, etc. en masse at your colonies.  Then I'd have a separate package for the drastically modified ships like the crewed drones, Bastillon (F), Fathom, and Chimera.

A modded mothership could be interesting....I thought about doing a modified probe but the image for the probe is too small to work with directly.  I could use the mothership as a base and make something based on the shape of the probe though.

4
Modding / Re: [0.8.1a] Reclaimed Derelicts 0.2
« on: April 06, 2018, 01:37:42 AM »
New tanker, new high-tech frigate, some minor fixes.

Reclaimed Derelicts v0.2a

Version 0.2a
------------

+ added Fathom drone tanker
+ added Glimmer Mk.II frigate
+ modified vanilla Automated Ship hullmod to prevent installation of Converted Hangar
+ adjusted weapon cover colors for the non-pirate Domain drones
+ adjusted sprites for Bastillon (F) and Rampart (P) slightly and adjusted bounds polygon on Bastillon (F)
+ removed text about unrecoverability from Mk.II drone descriptions

5
Modding / Re: [0.8.1a] Reclaimed Derelicts 0.2
« on: April 01, 2018, 12:13:09 PM »
A small update with a new fighter wing and destroyer.  See OP for details.  If you have a save with the old version, the hullmod change will probably break it.
Download Version 0.2

Version 0.2
-----------

+ added Watchman fighter drone, integrated into indie/League/Diktat/pirate fleets with Dynasector
+ added Chimera modular destroyer
+ fixed launch bay location on Rampart (P), increased OP to 120
+ changed name of Crewed Derelict hullmod to Crewed Drone
+ Mk.II drones are recoverable and have built-in Reinforced Bulkheads hullmod, lowered hull points to compensate
+ adjusted ship distribution

6
General Discussion / Re: Missions, contracts and pirates thread
« on: October 09, 2017, 10:46:24 PM »
1. I haven't really experienced this lack of procurement missions though some of the "merchandise" needed are annoyingly hard to find. I might be wrong, but I think the game's config file might have an option to increase it.

Yep it does.  When you play with a lot of faction mods, you will notice fewer missions at each market because the same number of missions are being spread out over many more markets.  Check out starsector-core/data/config/settings.json (back it up first!) and search for "maxMarketProcurementConcurrent".  You can increase the max number of procurement missions as well as scan and survey missions.

7
General Discussion / Re: Mods are like kitties
« on: September 29, 2017, 11:45:13 PM »
Nexerelin - Has a "Vengeance fleet" mechanic (originally from another mod). If you are on bad terms with another faction, get ready to be hunted...alot.

If you try Nex and don't like the vengeance fleets, they can be disabled in exerelin_config.json.  Search for "enableRevengeFleets" and set it to 0.

8
Modding / Re: [0.8.1a] Reclaimed Derelicts 0.1a
« on: September 21, 2017, 11:49:42 PM »
is this mod going to be updated soon? non pirate derelicts have stopped dropping for me. the same thing is happening with the other mod that allows you to get the [REDACTED] ships too. I can still use the ones I have already have (for both mods) but they won't drop anymore

The Sentry, Picket, and Defender Mk2 are unrecoverable by default.  The tradeoff is that they're very cheap to buy, if you can find them for sale.  The pirate and Pather ships, as well as the Bastillon (F), are recoverable.  If you want to make the smaller Mk2 drones recoverable here's a quick patch you can unzip over the existing mod folder.  All it does is remove the UNBOARDABLE hint from those ships that have it in ship_data.csv.

Recoverable Drones Patch

The Mk2 drones are technically separate ships which is why Useable REDACTED doesn't allow you to recover them.  The same applies to droneships added in other mods such as Ship and Weapon Pack (Wall, Shimmer) or Arsenal Expansion (Merlon), as Useable REDACTED only affects the vanilla drones.  I tested Reclaimed Derelicts alongside Useable REDACTED and I was able to recover vanilla drones from domain probe battles.  If you do want to recover the drones from other mods, you can edit the ship_data.csv in those mods (back up first, of course) and remove the UNBOARDABLE tags like this patch does.

I had some ideas for new drone-derived ships but got sidetracked a month ago and kind of forgot about it since then.  I'll come back to this mod at some point but I'm playing some other games to avoid overdosing on Starsector :).

9
Browsing the forum earlier, I noticed Histidine mentioned a problem where mod factions would fail to post bounties in a randomly generated sector if the mod didn't force a certain function to be called.  Easy enough to fix.  I also have some tweaks for the Innogen so it seems like a good time for an update.

Download Tore Up Plenty v0.8.2a (full mod)

If you already have 0.8.2 just grab this small patch and overwrite where necessary.
Download v0.8.2->0.8.2a patch

Changes:
Spoiler
Version 0.8.2a
--------------
+ (Nex) Scavengers properly offer bounties when using randomized sector
+ tweaks to Innogen: longer flames on engines, small hybrid mount is now small universal, more hull, lower supply cost
+ Zephyr's description now shows up properly
+ slight filesize reduction for mission icon PNGs
[close]

10
Modding / Re: [0.8.1a] Reclaimed Derelicts 0.1a
« on: August 15, 2017, 06:11:22 AM »
That sounds fun, maybe a new hull built from several chopped-up derelicts could be cool.  I might also do a remnant-inspired ship, something newly manufactured by Tri-Tach where the designers went through their archives and found a forgotten drone design.

11
Modding / Re: [0.8.1a] Reclaimed Derelicts 0.1
« on: August 13, 2017, 10:43:28 AM »
Quick update to nerf Pickets' speed.  Without degraded engines, their default top speed makes them quite annoying.  Also stealth update to remove Pickets from "fastAttack" roles in pirate fleets because I forgot that this goofs up pirate fleet compositions.

Download Version 0.1a

12
Modding / [0.8.1a] Reclaimed Derelicts 0.2a
« on: August 12, 2017, 09:40:55 PM »
Download Version 0.2a

Inspired by Inventor Raccoon's Useable REDACTED mod, I thought about what the factions in the sector would do if they could reuse the janky old Domain drones.  This is what I came up with: an alternate version of every derelict except the mothership.



The Picket, Sentry, and Defender Mk. II have slightly duller paintjobs.  The Defender also has a weak omni-shield.  These variants are used by the Hegemony, Diktat, League, independents, scavengers, and pirates.  They are cheap and have reinforced bulkheads so you can experiment with your own builds to get the most out of their tiny OP allotment.  No crew, almost no cargo space.

The Bastillon (F) is a Bastillon with most of its mounts removed and reduced armor and hull to give it cargo space comparable to a Mule.  It has a bad omni-shield and its four rear mounts for protection but will probably not hold up against a serious pirate assault.

The Warden (P) is a pirate-crewed version of the Warden with a makeshift front shield generator that provides little comfort to its crew.  It has a new built-in hullmod, Crewed Drone, which replaces Automated Ship.  This hullmod reduces armor and hull by 20% to provide space for human crew.

The Berserker (LP) is a Pather-crewed Berserker with built-in Ill-Advised Modifications, Safety Overrides, and Crewed Drone mods.  The Pathers didn't care enough to add a shield to this thing.

The Rampart (P) is a pirate-crewed Rampart with built-in Ill-Advised Modifications, Degraded Engines, and Crewed Drone mods.  One of the large ballistic mounts was ripped out to provide room for a fighter bay.  No points for guessing what sprite the fighter bay came from.  Believing that the best defense is a good offense, the pirates who designed this version did not bother with shielding.

Version 0.2 introduces a new fighter and a new destroyer!


The Watchman is a drone fighter based on a never-used Domain design.  Ludd knows where the developers found the original LPC.  It uses a scaled-down, single-barreled Devastator cannon which does well against unshielded ships, but it can't focus fire on more maneuverable fighters.  There is a Condor variant that uses Watchmen in independent, scavenger, League, and Diktat fleets, and the fighter wing is added to Dynasector's selection of fighters.

The Chimera is a destroyer with a medium missile mount, expanded missile racks and an autoforge to keep it fed, and two frontal weapon modules made from drone parts.  If the main ship's shield overloads, the modules can continue firing...until they get shot off.  This ship can hit hard especially in player hands, but it can't hold up against flanking or fighter strikes.  It should show up mostly in scavenger fleets, sometimes in regular independent fleets, and rarely in pirate fleets.

Version 0.2a adds a large tanker as well as a non-brick ship.


The Fathom is a large automated tanker which combines Rampart chunks with Phaeton fuel tanks.  The end result has slightly more capacity than a Phaeton but is slightly less fuel-efficient.  Besides being a brick, it has a built-in Nav Relay and a medium missile mount to help it serve as a support ship.

The Glimmer Mk.II is a newly-produced Tri-Tachyon frigate that looks oddly familiar.  However, this ship requires crew and has been nerfed quite a bit from the base design.

I'm trying to keep the new ships uncommon but not too rare.  Let me know if something should be easier (or harder) to find.

changelog
Spoiler
Version 0.2a
------------

+ added Fathom drone tanker
+ added Glimmer Mk.II frigate
+ modified vanilla Automated Ship hullmod to prevent installation of Converted Hangar
+ adjusted weapon cover colors for the non-pirate Domain drones
+ adjusted sprites for Bastillon (F) and Rampart (P) slightly and adjusted bounds polygon on Bastillon (F)
+ removed text about unrecoverability from Mk.II drone descriptions

Version 0.2
-----------

+ added Watchman fighter drone, integrated into indie/League/Diktat/pirate fleets with Dynasector
+ added Chimera modular destroyer
+ fixed launch bay location on Rampart (P), increased OP to 120
+ changed name of Crewed Derelict hullmod to Crewed Drone
+ Mk.II drones are recoverable and have built-in Reinforced Bulkheads hullmod, lowered hull points to compensate
+ adjusted ship distribution

Version 0.1a
------------

+ removed Picket Mk.II from pirate fastAttack role
+ reduced base speed of Picket Mk.II

Version 0.1
-----------

initial release
[close]

13
Erick's new ships are in!  Mk2 ships are back!  I also tweaked the fleets in the missions a bit, mostly to get rid of fighter wings that don't have carriers as they can act weird in this version of Starsector.  In some cases I added a ship or two to the player's fleet or removed ships from the enemy's fleet to try and balance things a bit.  Mission 10 is the hardest in my opinion but it is doable.

The starting ship selection is updated.  If you're playing with Nexerelin, use the ship selection randomizer to get some of the alternate choices.  Also the Ryker and Hermit now have mining abilities to match their descriptions.

Download Tore Up Plenty v0.8.2
Be sure to delete your old TUP directory completely before unzipping, I'm pretty sure overwriting the old version will break stuff.

Changes in version 0.8.2:
Spoiler
+ added new ships: Rurhland, Rurhland (P), Innogen, Sojourner, Buffalo XL
+ updated Overlord sprite, added built-in hellbore cannon and 2 fighter bays
+ all Mk2 ships are reenabled in faction fleets and markets
+ starting ship selection has been updated to account for new and returning ships
+ fleet distributions reworked to add more variety and allow vanilla scavenger fleets to use some TUP ships
+ standalone missions adjusted somewhat, background in missions 10 and 11 changed because incoming sabots blended in
+ lots of small stat tweaks, mostly nerfs to OPs on some ships, nerfed speed on Void
+ shipbreaking facilities give more rep
+ Scavenger banner color adjusted
+ (Nex) Ryker and Hermit now have built-in mining abilities
[close]

Brief description of the new ships:
The Rurhland frigate is a tanky low-tech freighter, not as much storage space as the Skylark SC but harder to destroy.
The Rurhland (P) has been given the pirate treatment, resulting in damaged armor and subsystems but also tricked-out engines and shielded cargo holds.
The Buffalo XL is an elongated version of everyone's favorite vanilla loot pinata.  This one has 1.5x the cargo capacity and enough PD mounts to slightly increase survivability, plus machinegun drones.
The Innogen is a powerful but fragile destroyer with a large ballistic mount and medium missile mount.
The Sojourner is a high-tech reimagining of the Condor and Talus.  Three fighter bays but only a few small weapon mounts.  Slow default speed but also has plasma jets for bursts of maneuverability.  Eats supplies like candy.

Lore, loadouts, and abilities for these ships are not set in stone.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

And with that, I'm going to stop staring at Starsector for the night.  Have fun!

14
It's been a couple months since I posted in here but rest assured that I haven't forgotten about you guys.  I started working on this again on the weekend and made some progress on the missions.  The next release will have the Mk2 variants back in the regular fleet distribution...as well as a couple all-new ships.  Erick has some unused sprites including an updated sprite for the Overlord, so I have adjusted the Overlord a bit and plan on putting in the new ships soon.  Before I go to bed, here's one of those ships, a more spacious and slightly more defensible Buffalo.  I might give it laser PD drones instead of the machinegun drones.


15
Mods / Re: [0.7.2a] Autonomous Ships 0.4.1
« on: June 19, 2017, 09:36:37 AM »
Less good news, I'm stuck in the tutorial (the first big battle after you get the derelict ships). I get wrecked by the AI all the time for some reason. I don't know if I forgot how to play, or if there's some new mechanics at play that I've overlooked.

This battle can be one of most difficult fights in SS if you get unlucky with weapons looted from derelicts and available in shops (no Blaster = Wolf is near useless, few/none railguns/needlers/maulers), while enemy gets good fleet composition (it is very random, both ships and their weapon selection).
Can be quite easy if neither of these things happen.

For me the main factor in succeeding is being able to separate the two rogue miner fleets.  Individually they're easy, together they're beatable if you use every ship but it's much harder.  Weapon salvaging is helpful but I think the station commander gives you enough weapons to put together a competent fleet.

Looking forward to an update for this mod.  Being able to assign a ship to dedicated fighter-hunting or automatically retreat after missile dumping is quite nice.

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