Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

1

General Discussion / Re: Should there be more Large missiles that don't shoot Large missiles?

« on: August 06, 2022, 09:02:24 AM »

Just to make sure I was accurately remembering, I went into the sim and tried to shoot down frigates with the Hurricane. Even if the target is overloaded it usually misses with half its payload and then the target survives because the reload time and flight time are so long. The Hurricane, is not a "large Harpoon".

As far as "the same weapon in multiple sizes" being a bad thing.... no?  Ballistic slots literally do this. A railgun upgrades to a hypervelocity driver, upgrades to a gauss cannon. They do approximately the same thing, they work the same way, just more damage and longer range. Or if you prefer something more shotgun-like, there's Needlers for all mount sizes. There's HE guns for all slots, there are shrapnel guns for all slots.  Energy weapons are an overall more varied group, but you still have options for "punching down": nimble targets might evade your plasma cannon but they aren't going to avoid a tachyon lance or high intensity laser.

I was not expecting this much opposition to variety. The existing Large missiles are pretty much all big cumbersome weapons best used against big cumbersome targets, and neither Ballistics nor Energy have this limitation.  I guess it's accurate to say "Wait and see" with regards to the future directed energy missiles, the Hydra might actually deliver on what the Hurricane attempts to do.

2

General Discussion / Should there be more Large missiles that don't shoot Large missiles?

« on: August 05, 2022, 02:28:45 PM »

Here's the thing. When you have a Small missile mount, you have all your bases covered. You've got anti-shield Sabots, you've got anti-armor Breachers, dogfight-ending Harpoons, anti-fighter Swarmers, dumbfire Annihilators, and if you're lucky and patient you can get a hit in with a torpedo.

When you upgrade to a Medium mount, you basically have the same options as a Small mount, but MORE: either more missiles carried or bigger volleys, or usually both. There are some changes to the lineup: You gain the frustrating Pilum missile which...no thanks.  You lose the rather nifty Swarmer launcher and Atropos torpedo in favor of the Proximity Charge Launcher which is a little clunky. But overall Medium missile mounts are really great and I would rather spend OP on Medium missiles than most other gun mounts.

Then you get to Large mounts, which should basically be the pinnacle of "I am now a terrifying god of missile delivery!" But.... It's not. At least I don't feel like it is.  The problem is your choice of weapons basically gets cut in half once you reach Large missiles. Your anti-everything Annihilator is replaced by the Squall, which fires slooooowly and in huge, long clumsy bursts that waste ammo. And according to the blog, this is going to change so that it's more anti-shield than anti-everything, so even LESS like the Annihilator.  Large-mount Sabots? No. Large-mount Breacher or Harpoon? No. You don't even get a less-bad mounting for the Pilum. The only Large mounts that even seek targets are the Harbinger (which is very slow and carries painfully limited ammo and basically outclassed by the Hammer Barrage) and the Locust which has the same problem as the Squall in that it fires in enormous wasteful bursts.

Is there anybody else that feels like there should be some more Large missile mount options that are more... flexible? Or carried more ammo? Or didn't fire in huge salvos? How many Harpoons or Sabots could you fit on a Large mount???  Or since Pilum was introduced at medium tier, would a Large Pilum recharge faster or have a bigger magazine?  Would a Large Prox Launcher have twice the ammo and fire rate?

Basically, it feels like there's really good options in Medium class missiles for punching both above and below your weight class while everything in Large mounts is only suitable for barge-on-barge combat with the exception of Locust which.... sure, it erases fighter swarms, but by the time you have a ship that actually HAS a large missile mount you care more about taking down carriers than fighters.  There is nothing stopping a cruiser with Large Ballistics from using its guns to one-tap an enemy bomber then completely brutalizing a frigate then turning to a slugging match with an enemy cruiser. Where, if you have Large Missiles, you only get to kind-of do one of those things and then back off and reload for a while...and then you're out of ammo.

3

General Discussion / Re: Level scaling is overly agressive and immersion breaking

« on: March 25, 2019, 11:20:00 PM »

There basically is scaling, but Alex indicated, it's not level. It's time and success. Which is counter to how some people will want to play the game, right?  If the game makes harder and harder encounters the longer you play and the more successful you are, what room is there for players who only want to run a micro-fleet of 2 or 3 ships?  Isn't this system forcing players to become admirals, when they might prefer the idea of being a very small, very elite force instead of an armada?

I'm honestly not trying to be hostile here, just asking how design meets gameplay meets player dreams. I think some people want Battlestar Galactica and other people want Firefly, and I'm just wondering whether there is enough room (in a constantly upgrading universe) for small time operators.

4

General Discussion / Re: Removing D-class mods

« on: September 04, 2018, 12:17:17 PM »

Do people not keep damaged ships in general? I was finding that, in conjunction with the skill that reduces supply costs for damaged ships, I could do just fine. My ships were a bit banged up but I could field my biggest ships on a regular basis because my fleet's overall supply demand was down quite a lot. The only thing I vigorously avoided was damaged engines on frigates (because if your frigates can't move around well, why bring a frigate).

5

General Discussion / Re: Matching skills with NPC fleet commander... takes dedication.

« on: August 27, 2018, 06:49:07 PM »

How overpowered would it be if you could ride tandom with an Officer? Maybe only on bigger ships. Like Cruisers and Capital scale ships, if they have an Operations Center module, you can assign an Officer but ALSO use it as your personal flagship. Skillset used is the highest rank that either of you has.

(Though I still personally really like the idea of giving in-combat clickies to non-combat skills.)

6

General Discussion / Re: Matching skills with NPC fleet commander... takes dedication.

« on: August 27, 2018, 12:30:37 PM »

Isn't it kind of a good thing if skills are good enough that you *want* them all but can't do everything at the same time?  Doesn't that lead to meaningful build variety, and replayability?

I'd argue that the real problem is that a "non-combat" admiral has very little to actually do during combat. They won't have the skills to be as good a front line fighter as their combat-specced officers, and most of the other stuff is numeric or systemic buffs rather than a button you can press during combat.

Would be awesome to have in-combat equivalents of the map level stuff like emergency burn, dark mode, etc, abilities on a cooldown that come from investing in fleet support abilities...   ECM commander?  All missiles and fighters currently in flight have a chance of having their guidance system friend. Logistics commander? Relief shipment, restores some combat readiness to your ships based on how many ships you left in reserve...

7

General Discussion / Re: Starsector beginner guide

« on: August 22, 2018, 06:38:52 PM »

However, it works very well for Lasher

So I am not the only person to try putting 2 Assault Guns and 3 Vulcans on an Overriden Lasher?

8

General Discussion / Re: Starsector beginner guide

« on: August 22, 2018, 10:12:04 AM »

I'm fairly new here but I gotta agree that I do way better in Hammerhead than Enforcer. Better top speed means you can control engagement distance versus more enemies, plus the "Front" shield is darn near an "All Around You" shield, combined this means you don't get surrounded and flanked easily. Ammo Feeder gives you, at least in short bursts, nearly as much ballistic firepower as an Enforcer at half the flux cost which matters a LOT for when creating or seizing an opening. Hammerhead is certainly more fragile if you're forced to take down your shields, but it's better at not being put in that situation.

9

General Discussion / Re: what is wrong with trade?

« on: August 21, 2018, 10:24:08 AM »

Since you mentioned EV:N, did you play before they nerfed the Opal run?  I don't remember the name of the system but the idea was pretty simple.  There were two planets in system, but very far apart (by EV:N standards).  One had opals at a low price, one had them at a high price, so obviously stupid easy trade.

Not even that route. I did one where you never left safe sectors at all. I want to say...Medicines and luxury stuff....?  It's been years.

The buy and sell values never change so as long as the route is profitable then it will stay profitable until the end of time and just become more and MORE profitable as you hire freighters to follow you around. Smaller profit margins just means a slower pace of geometric growth. Pretty terrible really

10

General Discussion / Re: what is wrong with trade?

« on: August 18, 2018, 09:17:18 AM »

I like a good bit of trading myself and was a bit little sad as a new customer that it .... doesn't really seem to be a thing.

Totally understand why trading is an icky thing in a lot of games, where it essentially becomes rote repetition. Location A sells product 1, you carry it to Location B to trade it for product 2, then finally Location C and sell your product 2 for insane profits. Then you do it over again.  The thing that makes systems like that terrible are lack of unpredictability...  EV:Nova was absolutely terrible about this, where you could run the same freight loop a few times, hire a freighter, run the loop, hire a bigger freighter, run the loop, and then before you even start doing anything fun in the game you have oceans of cash that you didn't really earn. THAT should be avoided, yes.  But Starsector already has concepts in place to prevent that, i.e. pirates and dynamic economies. Even the fact that in Starsector you have to pay for fuel and supplies acts as an informal trade tariff in its own right, since unlike most similar games we have to pay to move freight around

It seems like trading is a thing that could be in the game and not completely destroy the fun, so long as you're actually competing against other agents for the cargo and so long as the pirates become very interested in what you're up to. A massively profitable trade route should either be temporary (causing a scramble of activity when it opens) or very dangerous (known routes would be ambush bait). Would love to see the 30% trade tariffs reconsidered in light of the otherwise wildly unstable economy, as well as some new missions offered to players. Either one-off "courier this small valuable thing", or bulk freight where the base pay is really pathetic but we get a bonus by the ton for how much freight we arrive with. Or even sign on to a convoy, where we put in some money to help stock the convoy and everybody shares the profits at the end.

(shrug)