These are random comments of various aspects of 0.97a, some may be repeats of what I probably posted elsewhere previously.
Gameplay
Spoiler
The seed I played did not have great planet generation. One of the best systems was one of the closest to Limbo, and the other was nearly as remote. What made one of the systems good enough was not only it had a gate, but it had two Domain relays, the only low hazard habitable with max farmland and three other resources at +0 in the second, and the gate always orbited a jump point, so all I had to do was T.Jump, take the jump point, then enter gate.
Tried to ride Black Market train like last release, but the market changes put a stop of easy non-stop shortage loops that were easy to exploit. Now, I need a combat fleet to kill fleets and break stuff to create shortages. I eventually parked much of the fleet in Mayasura and ran around with a Dram doing exploration scan missions to raise cash. Eventually, I made it to level 6 and got Hull Restoration to fix ships and slowly build up a fleet that can fight midgame bounties. Soon, bounties were getting stronger faster than I could keep up, and I eventually exploited the infinite credit bug because I did not feel like spending hours chasing and grinding bounties to get the cash I need to build up colonies and prepare for the massive crisis fleets which were mostly as huge and near-endgame strong as I anticipated.
The second industry on most of my worlds was Military Base because I need a steady supply of marines to replace those killed from raiding big homeworlds with high ground defense like Kazeron. I need an overwhelming attack score to stealth raid big worlds with an intact battlestation (cannot fight it with Ziggurat in the fleet, nor would I want to even without Ziggurat because I lose even more rep), and the only way to do it without the bonus from Gunnery Drills in Leadership is marines, lots and lots of marines, and raider ships with ground assault hullmods, ideally Phantoms. Core worlds do not sell enough marines to quickly replace more than a thousand I can lose in raids, so I need my colonies to produce marines.
For crises, Pirates were the first to appear, but soon, Tri-Tachyon and the League joined in. Tri-Tachyon was the first crises I got, and it was the best of them all. League was the most difficult crisis I fought and I lost the most rep purging them from my system for no reward that was useful. Pirates was the third crisis and somewhat fun. Lots of fleets, much like when they raid the core worlds, but more of them, about twice as many fleets. Reward is nice, +10% accessibility and Pirate Activity is always overridden by Piracy Respite for no more stability hits from being targeted by a "Station King". Knights was crisis #4, and while the fight was underwhelming (only a single fleet with three Invictus and other ships), the reward with more stability and production for Ludd worlds, is nice for a farm and commerce world. My fifth and last crisis was Diktat. Played out like old expeditions except they will sat bomb your fuel world if they win. +25% to fuel income is good. Could not trigger the Hegemony crisis no matter how many points they built up, probably because I stole their spool and synchrotron. By this point, I considered my game done. In a fork save, I tried out the Pather crisis, which was very unrewarding. Remnants is simply an alternative way of core worlds claiming their systems.
Kind of annoying that if I steal items for some core worlds, their crisis will not trigger and I lose out on the crisis and reward if I win. I do not know if giving back the item will let them start the crisis later, but I am not waiting the game to tick another four to five years while I am away from keyboard to find out.
Raiding
Spoiler
While waiting for colonies to build up and crises to come, I built up a massive raiding fleet and discovered the joys of pure high-tech phase fleet (that have Phase Field for campaign map) and Insulated Engines. I had fun sneaking among heavily guarded systems without being seen and raiding worlds without a fight. I obtained most rare blueprints by raiding the core worlds. Discovered some things about raiding:
- You need some combat capable ships to scare enemy pickets and merchant convoys into not defending a colony. You cannot bring 30 Phantoms and almost 6000 marines to overwhelm colony defenses when a weak fleet with nothing but tankers and other civilians will jump in the way and defend the colony.
- Ziggurat is a good ship for a phase raiding fleet because 75 DP is a massive chunk of DP toward scaring pickets and convoys from defending the worlds they orbit during the encounter menu, which means fewer Dooms toward 240 or so DP of combat ships and more Phantoms in the fleet for more ground power. Of course, you can never fight with Ziggurat in the fleet without destroying rep, but the goal of stealth raiding is going in, stealing things, and getting out all unnoticed, not fighting; although the fleet might still be able to kill some weaker enemy fleets that Ziggurat can safely attack. After all, Ziggurat and/or Dooms are in the fleet, even if some of their hullmmods are dock mods normally not used in full combat loadouts.
- When raiding, steal only blueprints and use only the minimum marines needed to succeed. If you do, the target takes a -2 stability hit after the raid. If you get greedy and use more force for whatever reason, stability hit will be -3, and that is bad. Since stability loss from raids take three months per point to heal, -2 means waiting six months to stabilize and raid the target again, while -3 means waiting nine months instead. There are a lot of blueprints to raid for, and if you do not want to decivilize their world, you want the least stability lost so you can raid them more often.
- 20 Phantoms and 4000 marines with low bonus for literally over 9000 attack bonus meant I could stealth raid any world except Chicomoztoc even if the battlestation is fully operational. I may lose over a 1000 marines raiding a size 7 homeworld, but I still get the blueprints and xp for the survivors, and I can just get more from all of my military bases for the next raid elsewhere.
Colonies
Spoiler
Now that some crises may be far bigger than what expeditions of previous releases used to be, assuming that they even attack directly rather than attempting a blockade or siege, ground defense is useless for the player. (Ground defense is still useful for the enemy for how many marines I need and how many they eat when I raid them.) Things like Planetary Shield and Heavy Batteries? A cash drain for nothing. Also, High Command; if I cannot min-max it like crazy, it is worse than useless because it adds more upkeep, raise demand higher than everything else on the colony, and slows down Hostile Activity point gain at a time when I want the point gain to be faster and trigger other crises sooner.
I am not sure if there is a first thing to build immediately like Patrol HQ in the last release or Orbital Station is releases before that one. Patrol HQ is still handy for +1 stability and to retain control of relays when small fry pirates spawn and maybe try to steal your relays. So is Waystation if the colony is remote and I need fuel and supplies to restock immediately.
With crises the way they are, defeating them in battle is generally the best outcome because of the reward from victory. Only pirates (and perhaps Pathers) offer better reward for avoiding the crisis with a bribe. On the other hand, I need a near-endgame fleet that can easily defeat max strength 250k+ bounties to play the colony game once the first colony grows to size 4 just so I can smash their crises fleets and get their reward. Sure, I can avert crisis without a fight, but after seeing the rewards for beating them up in a fight, why would I? Some of the peaceful solutions are not so good when it is stuff like join up with the League or eat patrol scans in your home system plus a blockade or Diktat demanding your fuel profits or else they nuke your fuel world. So if I want to play the colony game in a way that feels good (by not giving in to any of their outrageous demands), then I need to crush their crises fleets in combat, and I need a near-endgame fleet to do that.
I like that winning the crises makes most factions leave you alone for good. The constant babysitting of previous releases was annoying, and probably drove many to stack all defenses to one system so that they could outsource the babysitting to patrols and other automated colony defenses. Now I can feel more comfortable spreading out colonies among more systems if I want to do that.
Skills
Spoiler
I took mostly the same skills as last release. The biggest change was replacing Flux Regulation with Neural Link. Also had different combat skills since I favored an Afflictor and Radiant duo late instead of Ziggurat. I could not use Ziggurat in every fight when I could not afford to reveal my identity during the course of crises.
Target Analysis: Since it gives a bonus against frigates at elite, and I was piloting Radiant when I made it to max level, I took this skill instead of Ballistic Mastery (in case I swap to Ziggurat or other capital later). Conversely, since none of my homegrown officers had elite skills, I avoided Target Analysis on all of them. If I needed a damage skill for them, I would give them Ballistic Mastery and/or Missile Specialization instead.
Systems Expertise: Started picking this skill more instead of one of the damage reduction skills for some Automated Ships.
Neural Link: Much better by the latest hotfix. It is more usable on capital ships and especially automated ships. While the OP tax is still annoying, it is not too hard to squeeze it in somewhere on the majority of ships. Best of all, Automated Ships do not take an excessive penalty for using it. The extra 10% DP cost on automated ships is more reasonable. Radiant is still very powerful, but not Ziggurat strong without Reality Disruptor to stunlock enemies, and the other Remnants are not unfairly penalized. Derelicts are still out of the question with their tiny OP totals - they have trouble affording the basics, let alone luxuries like Neural Integration. I used Neural Link for much of the game. My main flagship was Afflictor, and I linked with a variety of ships until I got Radiant from the Red Planet. Before I got Radiant, I used Instant Transfer to recharge Afflictor's system and had enemies glowing radioactive almost constantly. Was a letdown on Apex and Fulgent, the first two automated ships I found, although I was not at max level at the time for more combat skills.
Ordnance Expertise: I guess it is better balanced if I could take it at tier 1 like officers can, but at tier 2, it is not so great as a skill that takes two points to buy like Gunnery Implants is. If I do not want high Industry, I would dump the tree in a heartbeat now that Ordnance Expertise is not so powerful anymore. I took it only because I wanted more Industry skills. For officers, I gave them Ordnance Expertise to mimic Support Doctrine and to make all ships have the same dissipation no matter which officer pilots it. Kind of annoying giving officers ships they cannot use that I can use because they are missing Ordnance Expertise and do not have the dissipation to use the ship the way I can. Either everyone has Ordnance Expertise or no one has it.
Hull Restoration: Much better for pre-endgame. Now I do not need s-mods for more max CR, and I do not need Best of the Best for the full +15% max CR. Also, faster repair for cheap ships is nice. It is based on OP, so I can repair big civilians about as fast as small combat ships, right? Still, if I had unlimited money (which I had with infinite credits bug) and used Alpha cores for admins, then Industry is still prime dump material if I am interested in a strong flagship I can pilot backed up by a strong fleet (which means Combat/Leadership/Technology).
Weapons
Spoiler
There were several types I produced a hundred at a time. They were Railguns, Heavy Mauler, Hypervelocity Driver, Breach missiles, Gorgon missiles Mining Lasers, and IR Autolance.
Railgun: Still the best all-around light kinetic when I can afford it. When I could not afford Railgun, I used Light Autocannon instead.
Light Needler: I used this weapon more than Railgun early because I found the blueprint much earlier than Railgun's. Once I found the Railgun blueprint, I promptly mass-produced a couple hundred of them and replaced the needlers on every ship that was not a phase ship. Between Light Needler and Railgun, Light Needler is a weapon for phase ships.
Heavy Autocannon: The efficiency buff means it works much like a medium Railgun, but with less accuracy. I have used this more since it is cheaper than Railgun plus Ballistic Rangefinder.
Heavy Needler: Since Heavy Autocannon became more efficient, I have barely used Heavy Needler, and I used it only on Ziggurat and maybe Paragon. Now, Heavy Needler is mostly a phase ship weapon who can phase between needler's reload delay. Heavy Needler is too expensive now for what it does. Probably needs to cost 12 or 13 OP now if the rest of its stats stay unchanged. The short range and low hit strength kill the weapon for any ship that does not phase.
Storm Needler: Seems good, definitely better than before. Feels much like the original Storm Needler without the windup delay. When I tried it, enemies lose the flux war fast if they get into range, and that is an if. I actually spent time trying Retribution with Storm Needlers and Mining Blasters for a little while. Still a suicide ship that takes a few ships down before it does.
Breach: They seem unchanged, and they were my general all-purpose small missile of choice.
Gorgon: The refire delay probably helped more by throttling fire rate and preventing cheap ships armed with only Gorgons from dumping everything on the first target. Now my Lumens and Buffalo IIs can fill up with Gorgons, launch four at a time, wait a bit, launch another four, and so on.
Proximity Charge Launcher: Half fire rate ruined their burst potential and made them less of a super Annihilator Pod clone. Still prefer them over Annihilators because Proximity charges hit things more easily. I now take them if I want an endurance option that does not run out of ammo quickly.
Squalls: Much more vulnerable to PD than last release. If the target has two dual flaks or a bunch of burst PDs, about a third to half of a burst of Squalls will be shot down. Still lethal against ships with no or weak PD, but it is not the one missile to rule them all, at least if not massed. This was the one large missile I used the most by far, with Hurricane MIRV as a distant second, and the dumb-fires a few times on Legion(XIV) and Rampart. Next game, I would not try to use so many.
Cyclone Reaper: Not sure if Cyclone is worth the OP now that it lost ammo. While it costs about two-thirds more than Hammer Barrage like Typhoon does over Jackhammer, Cyclone no longer has the same ammo count as Hammer Barrage like Typhoon and Jackhammer, and instant max speed does not do enough to make up for that. While Cyclone may have been a near no-brainer over Hammer Barrage, at least I paid the OP for an elite weapon. Now, I do not get my OP's worth in ammo. The only reason why I may use this instead of the other dumb-fire option that is Hammer Barrage (if not give up and just use MIRVs instead) is if I want to throttle fire rate for endurance use and prevent NPC ships from wasting all missiles immediately like they do with Hammers. Maybe Typhoon for medium size is the outlier now and needs its ammo count rolled back to the original 5.
Hammer Barrage: It is much cheaper than Cyclone (10 OP difference), and unlike medium size, it has more ammo than Cyclone, where Jackhammer and Typhoon have the same ammo count. With cheaper Barrage combined with less ammo for Cyclone, and after some experimenting, I prefer Hammer Barrage over Cyclone Reaper for general use if I do not mind my ships using the ammo faster.
Dragonfire: Still too expensive and prone to getting shot down by larger ships. If there were any buffs (I remember reading about activation range), I did not notice them.
Mining Laser: I have used this frequently as budget PD cheaper than Vulcan even after IPDAI on low-tech ships that have more mounts than they need. While I could have done that last release, I have used more Mining Lasers for PD in this release than before. Also, it was my goto filler weapon on every civilian ship I got my hands on since it is only 1 OP and fits in either energy or ballistic mounts. (Most mounts civilians have use ballistics.)
Phase Lance: Much better now with 0.8 efficiency. Used them on Tempests and Medusa up until endgame. Tried them on Harbinger (why not since I have Neural Link), but phase lances were not as useful as heavy blaster and ion pulsers, and got dropped. Does not help that lances with enough range boosts will outrange Quantum Disruptor.
IR Autolance: Still used them as the default choice that got mounted on everything when OP and/or flux cost were issues. Got the blueprint for this by raiding the pirates (Kaptyen Starworks).
To end with a few final comments, once I reached max level and gave Systems Expertise to my Neural Linked Radiant, I had fun punishing cowardly enemies that taunted me with their constant backpedalling. It felt good to teleport up to their face, unload triple plasma and beams, and if they keep backpedaling away, just skim again to keep up and punish them some more until they die.
