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

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Topics - Sandor057

Pages: [1] 2
1
Suggestions / Allow gate deployment over existing structures
« on: March 15, 2024, 06:11:43 AM »
Just a minor annoyance I've found with the gate deployment. So once the Gate Hauler arrives in a system you've specified, it needs a stable location to deploy the gate carried. If the system you are deploying it in already has your colonies with patrols, they will set up Comms, Nav and Sensor Relays in every possible location. Now, if the Gate Hauler's location is sufficiently far away from the stable location, then by the time you arrive back one of your patrols will have constructed some kind of a relay there (if no targets are present, patrols will race to the recently emptied stable location). A small change and solution to this could be the option to deploy the gate on a Relay you already own (replacing it in the process).

2
Suggestions / Combat Extraction timer to stop after successful extraction
« on: February 07, 2024, 12:10:56 PM »
I think it makes sense that you have to get the guy out of prison in a given time before he talks, gets transferred elsewhere, or possibly executed. But the mission expiring after successful extraction makes no sense. What are you going to do now with the extracted faction agent, criminal or whatever in your fleet? And why would their faction not want them back after a brief stay with your fleet?

In all its shameful seriousness though, there were too many times when I tried to chain missions together just to fail the extraction because I got distracted.

3
Suggestions / Converted Fighter Bays to be made usable for any carriers
« on: February 06, 2024, 09:03:52 AM »
Currently the hullnod can only be used for ships with fixed fighter bays, such as Shepherds or base Venture. However it would be rather welcome to be able to slap it on the occasional Gemini or Condor, so that they don't decrease the fighter skills' effectiveness once they have outlived their usefulness. Or possibly when I just want to use an Astral as a highly inefficient freighter :D.
Preferably removing the docking restriction for using it would also help in slapping on the hullmod on obsolete carriers while on the move.

4
Bug Reports & Support / Release date is off by a year
« on: February 03, 2024, 01:02:52 PM »
So looking at the 0.97a release happening, something looked a bit off  ;D
Spoiler


[close]

5
Suggestions / Make the administrator of Ancyra a contact
« on: February 02, 2024, 03:14:55 PM »
Replaying the tutorial for 0.97a got me thinking, the guy you meet trying to dock with the Academy becomes a contact when you visit him later, but the administrator who hires you to help save the whole Galatia system from being isolated does not? After so much you've been through together? I think there should be an option to make him a contact after the Stabilize the Jump-points tutorial mission.

6
General Discussion / On Mercenary Officers
« on: January 24, 2024, 08:23:44 AM »
So checking the comms, see the nice officer with the green text in his name and think: "Cool, this guy has 4, 5 or 6 skills, a few of them elite, unlike grunt with just his name in plain text with just Helmsmanship. Costs a story point to hire and gets double pay, so he must be worth it." Ok, let's hire the guy, stick him in a ship. Look at my Overdriven Hammerhead rip like there's no tomorrow! Wow, cool, he doesn't count against the officer cap! Can't wait till this guy gets extra levels and elite skills from my player skills. Eh, they don't get new levels? And I can't give them new elites? What's the point?
- me, the first time I've hired a merc, circa 2023 AD

Has this, or similar happened to you? Well, you're not alone! It's a neat idea to be able to hire some "real pros", but ultimately the current Mercenary Officers seem to be 100% functionally identical to regular Officers. Albeit with drawbacks, such as: 1SP to hire, not benefitting from player skills directed at officers, or not being possible to improve.

Until you are below the officer cap it seems to be a waste to hire them, afterwards they are just "legit" ways to bypass it. In a late game scenario their only purpose is to fill in empty ship slots and possibly man unofficered frigates to win the ECM war. Although ECM will get an overhaul in the next update, so that won't necessarily remain a relevant use for them.

What's also not optimal is that you have to hope you get one with the right skills, because you won't be able to change anything in their skillsets later on. That in and of itself is arguably harder than picking the skills you actually need out of the 4 or 6 offered while leveling an officer.


Anyway, now that I had my rant to my heart's delight, I have some suggestions what would, in my opinion, make mercs a bit more interesting.

The player should have a cap on one (maybe two, with a skill) mercs at once. However they should bring some bonuses in proportion to their increased value. I would think on one fleet-affecting skill. Possibly new merc skills, which the player cannot get themselves. These could be a boost to carriers, or speed, some kind of DP reduction, or a buff to Phase ships. Something that forces the player to choose whether one merc type of merc to use, or another.

Other than that, I believe that the merc should be customizable, at least to a limit. Say they have 6 skills, 3 fixed and 3 which the player can change similarly to AI Core skills. At the same time to change the SP dump mercenary employment nature of getting even with the Alpha Core spam of late game ordos, I suggest either an increase of the base officer count, or an increase of skills giving officers (either increasing the number of officers given by Officer Management, or have more skills increase the number of officers).

So in essence you get a bit of the old package (an officer who doesn't care about the cap), and also an officer who provides a fleetwide buff, hence receiving a function actually different from regular officers and making them worthy of the distinct green text in their title.

7
Modding / Enable colony markets without Commerce Industry
« on: July 27, 2023, 04:46:17 AM »
I vaguely remember some posts about this few years back but could not find it no matter how I looked, so here goes the question:

Is there a way to enable markets by default (without the need of Commerce) in player colonies? And if so, could military markets be added to player colonies as well (if military base is present of course)?

No matter how I search for this, couldn't really find any clear answers and editing the industries and settings.json did not really yield the wanted results (...it yielded a re-install of Starsector due to me not making a back-up copy... ah well). So if anyone has any ideas on this, that would be appreciated!

8
General Discussion / Administrators, colonies and glowing blue balls
« on: January 04, 2022, 06:56:27 AM »
There comes a time in most games one plays when a colony has to be established. One can have many reasons: found a profitable system, great modifiers with low hazard on a planet, too much storage space is used up by all the cool guns you are carrying, or you simply like the colour of the planet. All valid and relevant reasons. The next thing you need to decide is how you'll set up that colony you've just founded. Are you going to get Heavy Industry right away? Focus rather on stuff that nets you cash? Do you have the reserves to queue up a few structures? Can you do it with multiple colonies without going broke?

Once all that is done, one thing you need to decide from the moment the colony exists is who's going to govern it?

Here comes the part when I rant about what changed in the last few versions regarding colony management skills, administrators, costs vs value, and the good old days in general.

So first off, what new players will have to realise quite soon, is that right off the bat you can only have a very limited number of colonies without penalties (2 governed by the player and 2 more governed by admins). The other thing one can't help but realise is that there is only 1 skill affecting colonies currently the player or admins (in which case it's a watered down version) may get: +1 stuff produced and 50% more Heavy Industry ship production value. Starting out, choices here are hard. For the player, the skill competes with practically every other one, and as it does not affect your fleet in any direct way, it is easy to pass on it. For admins however, it's darn expensive. The production bonus can help if the colony produces valuable commodities, however it's not that useful for all situations.

Now to contrast it with how it used to be, admins used to be able to get 2 skills (out of 3) at max and had lower costs in comparison. The skills were +2 stability bonus, +1 industry production and +20% accessibility bonus (although I am not entirely certain about the third one anymore). You could boost accessibility for farspace colonies, boost stability during a raid or otherwise mix and match admins to maximise profit. This versatility is currently missing.

And now for the meat of the matter: the glowing blue balls, aka Alpha Cores. There are some slight differences between them and administrators. First off, they can command ships. Which is neat. Second, they get the industry skill, without billing you 20k per month. You can also assign them to industries and structures for various kickass effects and so on and so forth. The Hegemony gets a bit *** and the pathers will not stop hassling you, but hey, you were going to have trouble from them in the long term anyway. On, and there is another great characteristic they have. You can have a bazillion of them and and colonise the entire Sector if you so wish.

So considering the above, if the player forced, or at least coerced into using AI Cores in the long run? Sure, initially it is beneficial to only have colonies using admins, so that you don't *** off the Hegemony before you can handle them, but still, if you want to roleplay as an honest to Ludd pather, you cannot claim all habitable worlds in the name of Ludd without AI interference (or editing the settings file for a more reasonable admin number like 200 or so). While combat is undoubtedly the focus of the game, are there others also a bit bugged by this? I know, it's not a 4X game, still, small size 3 outpost colonies at strategic locations should not be too much to ask for, are they?

9
Suggestions / Dock fighters
« on: August 26, 2021, 01:49:46 AM »
Currently you can have your fighters/bombers regroup around your ship, cover an ally or go and attack an enemy. To me, it would make sense to have the option to actually recall your fighter craft to your hangars and have them take off once you are ready to send them off. Maybe this could also have some over-time repair effect on them.

10
General Discussion / More music?
« on: August 24, 2021, 01:14:54 AM »
IMO Starsector has quite a kickass soundtrack conveying the atmosphere of different factions and the excitement of deep space exploration very well.

There are some factions/encounters, which are lacking their own unique soundtrack, and while it is understandable in some cases, (e. g. Persean League using the independent tracks as per the lore they are semi-autonomous polities only allied against common, external threats) it makes some tracks a bit repetitive.

While I would welcome a separate Remnant, Omega, Derelict and combat track, and maybe 1 or 2 new campaign tracks for variety, the more relevant question is, are there going to be any new tracks for the Persean League? Perhaps even separate tracks for the player colonies?

Also, a friendly track for the independents? The music variety suggests, that you can either be hated (hostile track) or tolerated (neutral track) by the factions using it. Feels like a kind of wariness "Yeah, we know you have aided us up big time and are an upstanding part of our plight and practically help out wherever you can... but watch your step stranger". Feels kinda cold... It's the sector, so not expecting anyone to welcome you with open arms, but still.

11
General Discussion / Player colony markets by default?
« on: May 31, 2021, 01:48:19 PM »
I have always found it rather strange, that other factions had markets at their colonies without the need for the Commerce industry, yet the player is required to have it and doesn't even get all the markets (no military and no black market).
Is there a way, or a setting to change, which enables standard, military and black markets at player colonies by default, without the need for Commerce?

12
Suggestions / Steal ship mission ideas
« on: April 08, 2021, 04:31:27 PM »
You enter a dockside bar and notice a grim figure growling and intimidating anyone who steps near. Being the ballsy dude/dudess you are, you stare him down, then get down to business. He happens to know how to liberate a specific ship from a compromised hangar and is willing to organise the whole action for quite an advantageous price. All he needs is a few dozen people, all of them devout believers in walking softly in their powered armour and carrying a big gun. Thanks to his visionary guidance these doers of good work sucessfully liberate and place under your command an entirely new vessel for way less than the standard market price. After the operation you bid farewell to the grim figure, and save his comm-ID. It may be useful in the future.

For me the best part of the 0.95 update is the addition of the new missions and the potential contacts who offer them. And while I really like this very type of mission, I do have some ideas to make the average Starfarer's life more difficult (and fun).

To take the mission fully apart here's what it looks like: you meet the grim figure, he mentiones a ship, you like that ship, you provide the necessary amount of grunts to obtain the ship, then you get it. So basically you need to have a set amount of marines and some cash to get a ship for a really low price. And either I'm incredibly lucky, or there are plainly no downsides if you take this mission.

It would feel appropriate to me to raise the black market suspicion level after the sucessful performance of this mission roughly by the value of the ship you just got. After all, there should be someone from the planetary defense who starts thinking "Where have I seen that exact ship before?"

Apart from the above, I could imagine a slight reputation drop with the faction you stole from. As in, they can't prove it was you, but that ship suddenly appearing with you does fit the description of the one recently stolen.

Also, this might have a consequence/follow-up mission with an official of the faction you stole from blackmailing you for money (or even a favour in form of a mission) to keep the theft a secret.

13
Bug regarding a story mission from the Galatia Academy. You've been warned.

Spoiler
I couldn't find whether it's already been reported, but I've got an error after declining the deal of the merc hunting me during the Finding Coureuse mission. This happened a while after I left the Westernesse system. What I was doing currently is possibly unrelated to the error: I was doing the The Kallichore Archive mission as well and have been just told by Arroyo to find Gargoyle

[close]


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14
Suggestions / More battle entry points
« on: January 14, 2021, 08:07:57 AM »
Battle with allies is fun. What's not that much fun however is when you already have your allies deployed at around the bottom center of the map, sluggishly blobbing together and then slowly spreading around in one direction, then blobbing up again until an enemy ship gets within sight. While not a hard blocker of deploying your own fleet, it does however prevent effectively maneuvering your own fleet to more advantageous position, not to mention is quite a hazard for more fragile Frigates if they don't really have space for maneuvering.

Alternatively, you've got Orbital Station defence. According to my experiences, allies will usually bunch up somewhere between the Station and the bottom center of the map with only a few ships daring to fly to the sides of the Station. Ships are further back if the Station in question is a Star Fortress with it's defensive drones still around, meaning, that you either cannot (or at the very least should not) deploy more fragile ships, as they get destroyed due to collission damage even before they can fire a single shot, or need to wait for quite a while to get an opening at the bottom center of the map to be able to deploy a bunch of your ships.

(Or you can deploy 2-3 at a time, but come one, where's the fun in that?)


So this begs the question: Could multiple battle entry points be added?


As far as I understand there should not be many issues with this, as standard battles already offer a number of entry (and exit) points. Standard battles offer an entry point for the player and allies at the bottom center of the battle area, and another for the enemy on the top center of the battle area (they also serve as exit points respectively).
When you are in a pursuit battle, you have 4 entry points. One point somewhere between the middle center and bottom center of the map for the retreating fleet, one point at the bottom center, where the main body of the pursuing fleet arrives from, and one point each at the right and left side of the top halves of the map for frigates to intercept.

Now, the above tells me, that it is possible to make multiple entry points for even the same main entry areas. For example, your allies would enter the map from the bottom right, while you could enter it from the bottom left. Or perhaps you (or the enemy even) could have alternative entry points for the battle if some time passes: say, you could send Frigates to attack from the sides, but unlike in pursuits, they would take some time (say, a minute of two) to get in position. Even if the latter options would not warrant any consideration, I'd still push the option to have a separate entry point for your fleet and your allies', so that they won't hog all the space in front of you.

TL;DR
Could multiple battle entry locations be implemented to prevent crowding?

15
Suggestions / Suicide by Flash Bomber/Piranha
« on: December 16, 2020, 07:46:07 AM »
I enjoy larger fleet battles with extensive front-lines and all kinds of cruisers and capitals skirmishing back and forth in the center, while destroyers and frigates are skirmishing at the flanks. Meanwhile I usually keep my carriers behind the center line, so that they can assist in pushing the center line. As such, I usually employ bombers, with the occasional interceptor/fighter mixed in if I'm lacking for anything else.

Now, although Daggers and Khopesh are quite fine choices, I pretty much like the area denial effect of the Piranha and the Flash Bombers. My only issue is the way they release their bombs. As the bombs have quite a long lifespan, they begin releasing them from quite far away. While they have some consideration for friendly ships, they don't seem to mind the player's ship's position that much. I prefer to use sluggish ships in larger engagements, like the Dominator or the Onslaught, which can tank quite some damage, however with my engines being bombed to smithereens, floating into the middle of enemy lines is not all that useful for life expectancy.

Normally I can sort of work around this, with making a gap in the front between my lines and that of the enemy, but it's not always feasible.

In conclusion, my suggestion would be to restrict when Piranha and Flash Bombers can release their bombs, so that they don't propel the player's flagship into the enemy.

I could not find topics with the same issue, so qurious if anyone else has had this experience?

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