Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

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

Show Posts

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.

Topics - Philder

Pages: [1] 2
1
Suggestions / Low-tech Station Critical Vulnerability To Hammer Torpedos
« on: October 08, 2019, 06:44:21 AM »
I haven't tested it out with other missiles or stations, but against a tier 1 lowtech station I was able to damage the main component by firing hammer torpedos at the station wings surrounding it. Basically, you can could use a buffalo mk2 with Expanded Missile Racks to kill a t1 lowtech station. Seems...unintended.

2
Suggestions / Custom Campaign + Settings
« on: February 01, 2019, 01:12:47 PM »
Foreword: Anything mentioned in this post is a suggestion of an idea. I'm not asking that these ideas be implemented exactly as written. It is assumed that Alex will modify or decline any idea as he see's fit. This post is for Alex, so I will also not be replying to anyone but Alex. Feel free to comment if you'd like to add anything but keep in mind that Alex is the final arbiter and likely has a better grasp on the ins and outs of game development so if you have objections to my ideas, commenting about it is rather pointless....but if you feel like Alex doesn't have the intellect to reach the same conclusion as you, feel free to criticise as you'd like.

The Short:
It would be great if we could easily create campaigns with customized values to suit the level of difficulty and reward we enjoy most, to add variety by trying to play the game different ways, and experimenting with different levels of balance. This could also be of aid in finding balance profiles and gameplay styles that players tend to enjoy.

What Exactly?
A custom campaign mode where the player can change values via a slider, a seed value so players can easily communicate their full setting profile, and recommended presets for setting profile archetypes that best suits a certain player such as New Player, Default, Easy Progression, and Hard to start off with which can be fine-tuned for later patches, and an option to add/remove presets using seed values, including adding the current settings of a live campaign). It would be best if the 'customize' window is hidden by default so new players aren't overwhelmed, with a checkbox to show customizable settings for the players who wish to delve into that. Extra: an options menu for live campaigns whereby players can adjust settings which can be adjusted in a live campaign. If using a preset or seed to change it, omit any setting not changeable in a live campaign.

Suggested customizable options:
(note: a category listed in plural means just a single suggested slider option, but each category listed is an individual suggested slider option itself)
-Name of custom campaign settings
-Reward scaling for the different mission types
-Difficulty for the different mission types
-Frequency of the different mission types (including up to 0, ie: no missions of that type)
-Fleet sizes and number of fleets for the different factions (including the player's)
-Global damage modifier for the different factions (including the player's, and also affection auto-resolved combat)
-Scaling base cost of weapons, commodities, data, special items, blueprints, and ships.
-Scaling sell value of weapons, commodities, data, special items, blueprints, and ships. (% of base cost)
-Drop rates of weapons, commodities, data, special items, blueprints, and ships.
-Reputation scaling for acts of aggression, trading, missions, and assisting fleets in combat.
-Experience gain for the player, combat officers, and administrators.
-Scaling for fuel, CR and repair costs.
-Chance of player ships being disabled rather than destroyed.
-Chance of additional d-mods for recovered player and enemy ships.
-% recovery rate of the different ship sizes (with cost rates scaled respectively).
-Deployment Point cost of the different ship sizes.
-Maintenance and Deployment impact of d-mods.
-Frequency of pather, pirate and hostile faction planetary events.
-Impact of planetary stability events
-Starting wealth
-Spawning chance of specific officer attitudes. One slider for each, scaled against each other:
Code
[Spawn chance of [Attitude]] = [Weight Value of [Attitude]] / [Sum of all Weight Value]
Where [Weight Value] is some arbitary positive integer range of 0 to >0.
-Spawn frequency and quality of debris fields.
-Spawn frequency of hyperspace storms.
-Spawn frequency of random events such as distress beacons and derilicts.
-Spawn frequency of scavanger fleets and etc.
-Size of 'Universe'.
-Density of system groups.
-Min and max density of systems within a system group.
-Density of core systems.


The Long:
1) Although a properly enterprising fellow can go into the game files and edit some things, this is laborious, can only support one setting profile at a time, and is obviously inaccesible to the less tech savvy or time restricted. Mods can ease the burder, somewhat, but it still doesn't offer the ease of use and accessibility of a feature implemented into the core game, especially with features that mods cannot easily create, or create at all. And mods all rely on someone doing the work. If there is plenty of interest but no modder available or interested in creating it, there is nothing.

2) I enjoy playing with very hardcore difficulty settings, from harder-than average difficult to true roguelike hardcore nightmare difficulty as well as bullet-hell type combat messiness, where a single errant shot can end it all. I play games like Diablo2/3 and PoE on high difficulty hardcore, where you can spend weeks building up a character who can die and disappear from this world in a split second. (Whereby 'hardcore' game mode means that you have only a single life)

I realize that this preference is rather extreme, but I know I'm not alone in wanting a greater challenge than the default options available. A strong indicator interest in this would be the prevalence of such custom game create settings in roguelikes that have had large cult followings and have lasted for up to over a decade, Dwarf Fortress being the perfect example, and the popularity of hardcore difficulty settings in ARPGs like Diable2/3 and PoE.

And this can go in both directions. New players can also meet a more forgiving, relaxed and rewarding game, reducing the pressure of trying to learn a new game with punishing penalties, ie: losing ships they're attached to from a momentary mistake, and long-time but less skillful players (a large and important portion of most cult community) can enjoy a more relaxed experience tailored specifically to their preferences.

3) Large scalar changes to these values can create a whole different meta, or in other words, whole different game. Players can create a campaign where trading is the only truly profitable enterprise, or progression is slower paced, the player is less likely to be fleet-wiped and faction events have larger impacts on the flow of the game so its more like a story, or scavenging can become a proper way-of-life, or factions are a lot more resistant to player interference, or larger ships are rarer and/or more expensive to employ and a well built fleet of smaller ships is more important than just getting bigger ships and better weapons, or the game focuses more heavily on planets and politics, or the outter systems are the wild wild west, or etc etc...

This game has so many different aspects to it, and many of them can be explored in many different ways. By changing the settings with which each campaign is built upon, players can force themselves to into a new meta with which they can strive their best against rather than setting up arbitrary rules that they can easily break during a moment of weak will. Although the difference may seem insignificant to some, it actually has a huge effect on motivation. Just look at the post-secondary education industry. There is plenty of accessible literature for those who have the know-how, the motivation and the discipline to teach themselves nearly anything they want, but how many people are actually self taught? People are way more motivated to 'play the game' in a fabricated game environment with which they have no control over.

4) It should be self-evident that test servers for players are highly useful in the development of video games. Putting the controls of the 'test server' in the player's hands will allow the community to help itself find what they find most fun, giving Alex feedback on more than just what's currently apparent in the latest release. If the game also sent back the data on [duration of game session] and [total time spent] on certain seeds, it would be invaluable for shaping the default game modes into both more enjoyable experiences as well as experiences that players are willing to invest a lot of time into. This kind of data is also crucial for tailoring the game for the different types of players that play or MAY play the game. That second part is very important for the success of a game. The game has to be able to retain the interest of new players, and I personally feel like the introduction for new players in this game can use some work. The game-mode that players start off with is, in my opinion, too punishing and places too much pressure on a player that is still brand new and learning the game. Finding the right balance for each group in the player base is very difficult, especially for new players. There has to be just the right amount of punishment, reward and learning curve to keep the largest common denominator of players interested in the game. And then after that, there has to be enough variety and interaction to turn interested players into long-time players.

So my suggestion is that rather than limiting the play-testing to just the one or two game-modes of the current release and the less accessible option that is modding, why not allow players to freely and easily explore the field of possibilities themselves and get hard data back on who plays what and what tends to work and what doesn't? I'm sure it would much less biased, a much more populous and more efficiently consumed dataset than community comments...in addition to the other points I've made, of course.

3
General Discussion / Neat Oddysey Build
« on: January 04, 2019, 03:24:31 AM »
The Build

High Intensity Laser
Plasma Cannon
Locust SRM
3x Sabot Pod
LR PD Laser - on all slots with a left-facing arc
PD Laser - on all else
2x Wasp wings
Integrated Targeting Unit
Expanded Missile Racks
Hardened Shields
Leftover OP into vents



Capabilities:

vs Fighters: LRPDL, Wasps and HIL will vaporize fighter wings. Wasps will delay fighters at range, ensuring HIL remains effective despite its slow turn speed. If there are enough fighters to overwhelming your two Wasp wings, you can launch some Locusts, turn your Plasma Cannon to autofire to land some lucky shots, or pull your Wasps back and take some hits while your wasps clean up.

vs Missiles: You've got enough PD to stop most missiles threats, and the ship system will boost you out of the path of any dumbfire threats you can't handle. With your anti-Fighter capabilities it'll to rare for this to happen anyway. Your PD capabilities as a whole are quite long range, allowing you to defeat most missile and fighter threats before they can even get nearby.

vs Frigates: LRPDL, Wasps and HIL will vaporize most frigates aswell. If there's too many frigates, your Locusts and Plasma Cannon will once again lend a helping hand. Although Plasma Cannon has trouble hitting the fastest of frigates at long range and short range, they typically won't have the durability to survive your Wasps and LRPDL, and the Wasps will keep them occcupied anyway so your large energy weapons will be able to contribute.

vs Destroyers: You'll be able to bring your Plasma Cannon to bear, so they'll be easily handled very quickly. Your speed is comparable to Destroyer class ships so you'll also be able to handle large amounts of them with a firing retreat combined with your superior range. This firing retreat will also make it easier for your Plasma Cannon to land hits. LRPDL, Wasps and HIL will of course contribute.

vs Cruisers: In addition to everything mentioned vs Destroyers, you also have three Sabot Pods you can employ to instantly overload a cruiser. Leaving your HIL on autofire at all times and turning your Plasma Cannon to autofire vs cruisers will ensure they won't try to drop shields to avoid being overloaded. If they have PD capable of reducing your hail of Sabot missiles, time your launch in combination with your Locusts so that the PD focuses on them instead. Although you may lose out on one of the following aspects, you'll typically have superior firepower, range, speed, maneuvreability, PD, and defenses. Even against groups you'll be able to keep yourself alive while still being able to fight back at full power.

vs Capitals: with proper maneuvreing and use of Sabots, this build can defeat most capital ships. For the most part, keep your Wasps on escort. They won't accomplish much offensively, and their additional PD will be a lifesaver. Sabot + Locust will get you past the shields of most capital ships. Onslaught can easily be outmaneuvred and outfluxed. Conquest is slower and has much worse defenses, thus you can easily control the flow of the battle. Legions can be tough depending on their build, but in the end your PD is MUCH superior so you can whittle down their fighter replacement rate until you can safely engage the mothership. Ship to ship, you win. Astral is tough. The fighters and large missile weapons can wreck you if you're not careful. Maintain a safe distance from the Astral until the fighter replacement rate has slowed down, or go all-in and blow it up ASAP when it sends its fighters to attack a different target. Paragon is tricky but doable. You MUST maneuvre away from its front end, and depending on its PD it might be difficult to land your Sabots. Approach it while staying away from the dual large energy weapons at the front. Get close enough so that your Sabots+Locust barrage can land without interference. Turn off HIL until its shields are down. Keep your Plasma Cannon on to pressure its flux. Active-vent when Fortress goes up. It'll take some time, but you'll win eventually. Once you're away from the pointy end you'll gain the firepower superiority, so all you need to do is build up its flux. It also won't be able to obliterate you there if you drop shields so you can active-vent when necessary.



A Few Notes and Recommendations:

- The main reason for this build is that the biggest threats to Capitol ships are missiles, fighters(bombers), and getting overwhelmed by numbers. I tried to figure out something that could deal with them pretty effectively while still being able to defeat most ships in the game, and I think I've accomplished that. It's not as overpowered as a Paragon can be, but the ship is vastly more useful and much more fun to pilot.
- Why LRPDL? Because Tactical Lasers are too expensive in all aspects and have 1/5th the turn speed, and PD Lasers are too short. LRPDL may have less listed DPS than Tac Lasers, but the increased turn speed and 'projectile speed' ensures that LRPDL spends a lot more time actually hitting the target. You also won't need to spend OP on Integrated PD AI. Burst PD is also a no-go because it has lower range, a low overall DPS, and tends to waste a lot of that damage on overkill. On the other hand, LRPDL combos very well with Wasps and is cheaper on both OP and flux.
- Why Plasma Cannon and High Intensity Laser? Because Plasma Cannon has the best constant hull dps in the game, and HIL has the best constant armor dps, even against high armor targets, in the game. And they're both very good against armor and hull, respectively, too. Plasma Cannon is also good against shields of smaller ships, so you can save your Sabots for Capitals and Cruisers, and Locusts bridge the gap for fighter and frigate threats you otherwise can't handle. Also, because of the Oddysey's fantastic flux stats the HIL can be left on autofire without building up flux so you can even use it wastefully against shields or fighters, which combos with the LRPDL AND Wasps. It also ensures your targets don't drop their shields vs your Sabots.

- Be intelligent about when to back off. You have the mobility for it.
- Don't send your Wasps futilelly to their deaths. Despite their low OP cost and fragility, they are fantastically useful ships....but only if they're alive and able. If the enemy fighter swarm is too big, pull them back to your ship and let your ship draw their fire while the wasps zap whatever gets too close. 12x PD lasers is a constant 900 dps to a target in range, and nevermind their proximity mines or your own PD. Get used to the size of fighter swarms that your Oddysey and its Wasps can quickly vaporize without much losses, and pull your wasps back if the enemy swarm gets too big. Wasps are better when you can concentrate their fire. Too many targets vastly reduces their effectiveness.
- edit: If you're fighting a cruiser or capital ship that's overloaded, send your Wasps in to launch a few promity mines their way and then pull them back. It's a nice free boost of HE damage.
- If you're fighting a deathball, back off and let the faster ships move away from the deathball so you can pick them off. Turn off main weapons and let them approach to a range where you can kill them before they can retreat out of your range if you can't instantly vaporize them.
- Don't impatiently waste your Plasma Burn to approach targets if you're about to get into or are in battle. If *** hits the fan, Plasma Burn can save your ship by moving you out of the path of dumbfire missile weapons or getting you out of range.
- etc...: (fineprint: stupid decisions can turn even the most advantageous position into a losing one. even a Paragon can be casually deleted in the hands of an oblivious nincompoop.)

edit: forgot to add Wasp bombing

4
Work WITH your other ships!

The AI isn't 'smart' enough to be your wingman, so the way they'll work with you to increase YOUR combat effectiveness is by accidental.

What CAN be done, however, is you can change the way you go about making choices in the game, from outfitting, to piloting, to giving commands, and the way you're going to want to do these things is to think about working FOR your allies.

The only specifics I'll mention is that rather than expecting a relatively 'dumb' AI to be YOUR wingman, you should act to be THEIR wingman:
- Stick close to your allies so you can use your ship tank for your allies who are in trouble (provided you aren't killing yourself as a result), and visa versa
- Target the same enemies as your allies, and wait for them to start hammering on a target before commiting your flux capacity to unloading on the target. Attacking simultaneously as a group is much more effective than going in one at a time and giving them the opportunity to retreat and/or dissipate flux.
- Keep an eye on the whole battlefield and help out where you'll be most effective (also good for being a better commander, as in, giving orders). Killing ships faster is great and all, but preventing loss is the more effective priority in terms of resource consumption (which may include but does not necessarily always mean killing ships faster). You might have a favorite allied ship to 'wingman', but your overall battle might be better accomplished by going over to your ships that are in danger and keeping them from being blown up. If you can't be everywhere you need to be, then decrease your workload by changing your fleet, outfits, and combat orders appropriately.
- For allied ships that would be more effective if you could move them around the field more often and/or more accurately but you don't have the command points to do so, consider ordering them, instead, to escort you and move yourself around the field as needed and changing your overall fleet/outfits/orders appropriately.
- Flanking is very effective! Don't just charge into the thickest part of battle. Wrapping around the edges of the enemy lines with either yourself or a few escorts is a good way to decimate the enemy fleet quicker.
- Acrively switch ships in combat that you're piloting depending on the situation. Often-times, the big slow-ass gunship you're pilotting is relatively much less effective with you piloting it, compared to piloting the another ship in the right circumstance. For example, when single ships are fighting for control over strategic points away from the main battle, taking control of the right ship to blow through all the enemy ships that come to contest the point can allow more of your ships to get to the main battle quicker, you'll get control over the points quicker, and you're still lowering the enemy's numbers. Piloting a Gryphon or Heron, for example, to quickly mop up all the frigates trying for the control points. That may even be more effective than doing the same in the middle of the main battle since the enemy ships won't have nearby allies to counter your attacks or prevent you from chasing your target until it's dead.

Anyway, just thought I should mention this all since I often see and hear others playing the game like they and their single ship of choice are the hero and all ally ships are just side characters there to assist them. :P

5
General Discussion / Misc Flux Theory
« on: May 18, 2018, 04:39:52 PM »
While outfitting some lowtech ships I noticed a thing.

Let's just say you've got an Onslaught on the field that has filled out their flux cap (whether through shields or weapon load, doesn't matter). This isn't an unusual occurance, of course. So, now they're in a place where their use of shields and weapons (especially their PD) are limited to their flux dissipation rate. And it's not just either/or. It's BOTH. Shields will be flickered whenever possible, and weapon use will be secondary.

By this point armor/hull will also be taking hits, of course, which is a lowtech's strength, but regardless of that, shields will still be used, and weapon use will be limited. High armor can absorb kinetic damage just fine, but high explosive and energy damage is obviously a danger. So, we can easily conclude that in this situation reducing those sources of damage is crucial. How do we do that? By increasing the ship's ability to use it's shields and shoot down torpedoes and missiles. How do we do that?

Maximize flux dissipation.

Kinetic damage is mostly irrelevant to lowtech because of their inefficient shields and high armor. Combine that with their poor maneuvrability and what you get is a ship that has very little ability to manage kinetic damage and the consequences of it. Increasing flux cap is pointless to them. Better to just let the armor suck it up, and maximize flux dissipation.

And not only that; if your increased flux dissipation is allowing you to tank more explosive and high energy damage, wouldn't that also mean that your need for armor is lessened? After all, at the level of armor that lowtech has, more armor is practically irrelevant for absorbing kinetic damage, and explosive and high energy damage will blow through it anyway. Wouldn't you say that maxing flux dissipation is therefor the most important defensive stat for them? And to add on to that, armor mods decrease their already low maneuvrability and their turret turn speed. When it comes to tracking targets, both maneuvrability and turret turn speed are necessary. Wouldn't removing those armor mods therefor increase their ability to deal damage and utilie PD more effectively?

And on further thinking, this flux>armor/caps isn't isolated to just lowtech. When *** hits the fan, most ships would benefit from this outfitting strat. I believe the only exception would be ships with high speed that require a ton of leeway for a high alpha strike before fleeing out of range, like an Aurora loaded with blasters or Safety Overriden ships.

Anyway, just thought I'd share my thoughts. Enjoy.

6
Disclaimer because people here like to put words into mouths of others: My suggestions are not an immediate demand for Alex to drop everything and do exactly what I suggest immediately. Whatever suggestion I make, I assume that Alex, the very capable person capable of creating such an interesting game by himself, is also capable of determining for himself when best to spend time on what, and to modify ideas and suggestions appropriate to fit well within his game as well as his dev schedule.

Also, I realize that I write a lot, but if you're just skimming and have an argument against something I've written, please read the whole post before replying. I'm getting tired of repeating myself and won't do so anymore.


While I'm very much used and happy to work within the bounds of the AI at my disposal in the nth number of games I've played, I've always been a fan of customizing the behavior of my AI allies and thought it would be great fun to design/customize the behaviors of your team's AI and pit it against other's.

After having played and watched others play Starsector, however, I've found myself thinking that SS could benefit a lot from enhancing the AI behavior features already present in the game. The most common complaint I hear from other players is about the AI's intelligence. Usually vehemently so.

So what I've been thinking is that a system sort of like that found in Gratuitous Space Battles would be fantastic. Players could customize their allies as they like, remove the frustration of allies suiciding stupidly or retreating when they should go in for the kill and etc. That way they also wouldn't be so frustrated with the game and their seemingly meaningless losses because of the 'stupid' AI.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting a clone of the GSB AI customization, nor am I suggesting that newbies be dumped straight into that level of depth and complexity. My suggestion is along the lines of the following:

- Implement a system that allows AI behaviors to be customized. Some of these behaviors may be one dimentional spectrums, like 'Be More/Less Aggressive' with a value between 0 and 100, some may be range based, such as 'Maintain x range from hostile ships during engagement', or stat based, such as 'Move to x range from hostile ships when flux reaches y percent', or even static traits like 'Don't engage x size/type ships' or 'Prioritize attacking enemy ships with high flux'.

- Create behavior profiles for AI's, with a range of variety for certain parameters so that they have a small measure of 'personality'. Perhaps certain factions will have modifiers to suit their factions traits.

- Start officers with behavior profiles just like ships without officers, but allow the player to increasingly modify their individual parameters as they gain experience. There are a lot of ways to do this, but I'm not sure which would be best. You could have it so that levels unlock more parameters and/or unlock the ability to move parameters further from the officer's starting skills. Or set behavioral 'goals' for the officer, and their behaviors slowly move towards those 'goals' you set as the officer gains experience in battle, or to a much slower degree, as you fly around in space and they 'train' through simulations in their imaginary free time. Or as you gain experience points, you also get training points with which you can use to change their behavioral parameters. etc etc..

- Allow players to choose from a small set of basic profiles so that the officers automatically adjust themselves without the player needing to fiddle with it if they don't want to. Those profiles being basic, however, the officers would be much more effective if the player skillfully managed the behaviors themselves.

- Create archetypal profiles for officers in AI fleets, specialized towards the ships they're pilotting. And, of course, tailor it so that their effectiveness in combat presents an appropriate level of difficulty. This initially sounds like a lot of work, but IMO the way you would go about doing this is to make a list of the 'perfect' behavioral settings for each archetype, and just randomly assign a certain number of those settings in line with the level of difficulty that AI should present to the player while keeping the rest at the default settings. That'll give AI officers a lot of variety and personality, making the game a lot more roguelike in flavor and giving players plenty of variety as they make their way through the game.

- I'm not sure about this one, but it's an idea to play around with: Allow the player to assign 'fleet doctrines' in combat using command points, which modify the behaviors of your fleet. Make it set to a specific setting, with the condition that your AI ships, including those without officers, will have a certain parameter adjusted by X amount, up to whatever specific setting you chose, so that you don't accidentally turn already aggressive ships overly aggressive (aka:suicidal) or make cautious ships retreat from battles and never engage. I imagine that each 'doctrine' would be unlocked as the player gains levels.

- Allow your fleet's AIs to decide when to retreat, but give that parameter a lot of variety so that they aren't just perfectly retreating when appropriate. I think that having to waste command points on retreat orders is too expensive. Rant/Explanation:
Spoiler
The opportunities for which you can perform valuable/effective commands in a battle greatly outnumbers the amount of command points at your disposal. Saving a ship forces you to choose between potentially losing a ship and making making your AI fleet more effective. And I believe that the very limited number of command points has created a tendency for players to just ignore commanding their fleet for the most part because they have so few to experiment with, but at the same time we MUST save a certain amount for emergencies or risk the agony of slowly watching our precious ships get destroyed while the command point regen bar moves at a snails pace. IMO command points should be revamped so that the command resources consumed more accurately reflects the value of the command. As it is, players are pidgeon-holed into using command points for only the most impactful effects, which are typically just to raly most of your fleet at a specific point for the majority of the battle, fighter strikes, escorts, and retreating. There is very little room for strategic maneuvering, so players rarely bother and thus have to face the consequences of that.
[close]

- Change officer experience gain to be split based on the deploy cost of their ship vs the total amount of deployment points 'used' in the battle. It'll be more in line with the actual acquisition of experience and skill, where people who spend more time and effort and face more difficult tend to learn more, faster. IRL, your skills develop much more slower when you're just easily stomping over your enemies.

Creating all the different behavior profiles sounds like a lot of work, but I think that after tinkering around with it a little you'll find that there will be many consistencies across them all, and for the most part you'll just be making smaller modifications to the more default profiles. And players could contribute a LOT towards creating these profiles. I'm sure it wouldn't take too long for the community to find plenty of optimized builds.

I don't disagree that this would all still be a fairly sizable project. It would change the game pretty drastically. Anyway, this is just all just a suggestion. A casual passing-on of a, perhaps, interesting idea. As I mentioned above, Alex is free to do whatever with it as he likes. I won't be responding to criticisms or anything because this truly is a half-baked idea. Proper implementation would require a lot of work to iron everything out, and I'm really not interested in working on that with random internet denizens, especially since this isn't a guaranteed-to-be-implemented project. It's just a general idea for Alex to kick around as he likes.

Anyway, sorry for being all cranky-pants about it, but it is what it is. Just the same, I hope ya'll are having a nice day. You especially, o esteemed creator. Thanks for this great game!

7
Suggestions / Seasonal Ladders
« on: April 10, 2018, 04:52:08 PM »
Was just thinking it would be neat if we had an online competitive ladder league similar to the ones found in ARPG titles like Diablo and Path of Exile which are more like PvE ranking systems rather than PvP.

Rankings would be determined by your total wealth, although to make it more meaningful, financial dynamics would need to be tuned to be much less...gratuitous.. than they currently are. It should be more challanging to progress through the game, and impossible to reach the point where you can stomp everything and ez-grind as much net profit as you want. It should be a competition of skill to make it as far as you can go. It should also be a mandatory Ironman Mode, to prevent people from save-scumming their way to victory. Without Ironman (or hardcore as its commonly called in other games), save-scumming becomes a competitive obligation it just turns into a game of who has the most time to waste.

I would propose two leagues, Casual and Pro, and you can only compete in one. Top rankers of casual can only play Pro once the next season starts. Pro players above a certain rank can no longer play Casual. That's all to prevent sandbagging; more skilled players playing in lower skilled competitions for the purpose of easy wins.

This would all be done in a seperate game option than campaign, so that players aren't forced to compete in a game balanced for a more challanging playstyle.

Ranking boards would include some details, but not enough to spill the beans on a players specific strategy and tactics. Ingenuity should be rewarded, rather than allowing everyone to just copy someone elses more successful strategies (without their permission). Some details that others could see in the ranking ladder:
-Current fleet size (in deployment points)
-Total cost of ships and equipment lost in combat
-General arrayment of skills. ie: how many you have in each of the 4 trees.
-Maybe: Favorite ship piloted. ie: most time spent piloted.
-Maybe: Ranking of favored ships to deploy; basically just gives each ship type a +1 each time you deploy it, and displays it in a top10 list, for example, but hides the specific number of times deployed.

And maybe when the ladder details are saved, it also uploads other stats that Alex or whoever can peruse to get information to help with balancing (or discover cheating).

I think this would have a lot of benefits for everyone.
-Players would get to experience some competitive multiplayer, without the huge hassle of supporting simultaneous multiplayer, massive multiplayer, or anything of the sort. (presumably, Starsector would just create a log of certain details, and when the player saves and exits, the log gets uploaded to a server and the server log linked to the player's account is saved. This would also encourage people to properly buy the game, so they can compete in the ladder).
-Alex would get details to help with the multiple areas of game balance.
-Players could get more solid details on what is or is not doable in the game by players with higher scores than them, encouraging and motivating them to improve themselves. (Players who don't want to compete or witness how their casual skills stack up against gaming fanatics can just ignore the Ladder game option).
-Ladder seasons would give players a sense of activity and accomplishment not otherwise seen in the game.
-Alex can test new and whacky ideas by creating rules or introducing new stuff to each season, and players will get to have fun with that.

This wouldn't necessarily have to be done by Alex. I'm sure this could be modded into the game. You'd just have to manually send or use a third party program to send your log to a server. It would have to check for mods installed and other things to ensure that everything is koshur (details added to log).

It's a fair bit of a work, but it'd be a neat addition to the community. It'd give streamers something great to record, too.

As far as adding mods to the ladder, I think that would be a very difficult endeavor because it would require the cooperation of all mod devs to help balance keep their mods updated. Balance in particular would be a very big issue. Not to mention the danger of accidental cross-mod synergies, even mods that have made it into the main AI Tournament competitions would be outrageously unbalanced for the scope of this ladder competition. After careful considering, maybe one or two factions mods could be playable. If it could be done, however, adding factions but not allowing them to be playable (or their ships/equipment usable. ie:vendor trash) would be doable. Nexelerin would be fun. We'd just need to figure out how to accurately calculate a players wealth, seperate from their faction's but including the value of the cash they invest or investment lost.

Anyway, just some ideas I had to help lay the foundation (if my suggestion will ever fly). However it may end up, it'd be neat to see a well done, fair and challenging ladder system.

8
General Discussion / A Case for the Gemini
« on: April 06, 2018, 10:15:39 PM »
Most people probably don't like the Gemini given the cost and what you get in it as a combat ship, but after some thinking I believe that it can be made viable. Not the best, no, but viable enough to be an additional option when you're in the early and mid-game and are struggling to get ships that can more quickly deal with the enemy with lower risks of death.

Now, why do I think the Gemini can be worthwhile? 4 things: Reserve Deployment, Medium Missile slot, EMP, and Medium Ballistic slots.

First, RD: RD's benefits are quite obvious to most people, but to optimize it you have to play to its strengths: utilize wings and fighters with longer times to replenish both individual ships and whole wings, and wings that strongly benefit from the number of additional craft. The magic numbers are 2 and 4, which give you 1 and 2 (respectively) additional fighters for the best bang for your buck.

Medium Missile Slot: Both the Annihilator Pod and Pilum LRM have good damage, and tons of ammo to fire on potentially many many different targets. The only problem is that they're either too slow, weak or dumbfire. And that's where EMP comes in.

EMP: I really like fighters with EMP for two reasons. EMP typically costs a lot of flux, so offloading it onto your fighters is free flux dissipation for you, and fighters will naturally flank, so killing ships engines is a breeze, making them sitting ducks for your various missiles.

Medium Ballistic Slots: Medium Ballistics gives you access to excellent PD and more easily accessible long ranged kinetic weapons to kill your opponents shields. Gemini has comparitively more limited flux dissipation considering it's weapon mounts, so you can really only afford a single kinetic weapon. Ideally a Heavy Needler, but Heavy Autocannon, Arbalest, Light Needler or Railgun are fine, too. As for the other slot, I like a Flak Cannon for the PD, range and efficiency. If a frigate gets within range, it's highly efficient as a whole against the combination of defenses. Dual Flak is good too. And you can eventually drop an HVD or two on it to keep it effective in mid-game.

Anyway, the strategy here is essentially just disable engines, overwhelm shields, missiles go kaboom, and to do that you're going to need either a Thunder or Claw wing. Thunder benefits from getting a 50% increase in the number of fighters in the wing from RD and circumventing the long 15sec base replacement time (2x15sec=30sec). Claw benefits from a lesser increase of fighters, but can replace a larger build time equivalent of fighters (5x8=40sec). I prefer the Thunder because they're much faster, provide greater shield pressure, the rockets are nice distractions for the PD, they themselves are helpful as PD, and their massive engagement range also pretty much guarantees you can catch a ship trying to flee. Claws are great totally disabling ships, however, so they go well with Pilums if you can't get your hands on Anni Pods.

Devils Advocate: You can do a similar build with the other two carrier destroyers. Condor is slightly cheaper, but doesn't open up the option for Medium Ballistic weapons and has drastically worse flux stats. It also doesn't have Reserve Deployment. While that's easily offset by having two flight decks, it also means you'll need to procure an additional fighter lpc, which can create some problems. Getting your hands on two Thunder lpcs is going to be difficult, and mixing Thunders with another type will have compatibility problems; your Thunder fighters will always get to the target first, which may result in their premature death, meaning you now have wait to for them to rebuild to get that EMP on the ship engines. If your other wing is a Claw, what's the point of having the Thunders if they're going to have trouble with replenishment and getting their EMP off? Might aswell opt for something more effective against shields....but then you lose the incredible speed and engagement range to chase flee'ers.

Drover only suffers from being stuck with small slots, but that's sort of made up by the higher flux stats, additional missile slots, and additional fight deck. You would go with 4x Swarmer instead of 1x Anni Pod. If I had a choice, I'd pick the Drover as it has a higher ceiling of capability and viability further into the campaign. It is, however, 33% more expensive and requires more slots filled with potentially rarer stuff.

And finally, the cargo space is also really nice at the beginning of the game. Many people underestimate the usefulness of gratuitous amounts of cargo space, especially at the beginning of the game, even if you're going full bounty-hunter. Think of how often you have to keep going back and forth to sell stuff. That ends up turning into a lot of wasted monthly supply and wasted time while bounties tick away. It also limits how many supplies people are willing to stock up on. One of the things that helps me tremendously with early game is hunting for cheap supplies and getting as many as I can afford and fit into my fleet. And because supplies cost so damn much in the majority of stations, it's very simple to liquidate my stash (for a significant profit) when I need to buy something.

Again. Not saying Gemini is exceptionally good. Just saying it's viable early to mid game until you replace it with more efficient carriers, freighters, and platforms for long-range kinetics.

9
I'm looking to analyze, compare and contrast both vanilla and mod ships and weapons, but I'm not sure where I can find vanilla data among the Starsector files.

Why don't I use the info from the wiki or patch notes? Because gathering it all into neat ordered spreadsheets is pointlessly arduous by comparison, the wiki isn't always correct and is missing details, and I'm crossing my fingers that the vanilla data is in a similar format as the mod .csv files so I can just copy/paste it right into my sheets that already have formulas and everything set up.

Thanks!

10
Suggestions / Additional Scenarios for Combat Maps
« on: June 08, 2017, 09:17:56 AM »
To add some variety to combat, it would be nice to have a few more scenarios. Something like..

- Asteroid Field Chase: A long and thin map littered with asteroids of varying sizes. Fleets start similar to the Disengage/Fleeing scenario but without the chasing fleet being able to insert ships in the forward left and right positions. All ships start at the bottom.

- Partial Asteroid Field Fleet Combat: Maps with 1/4 or 1/3 of the map covered in asteroids. The shape of the asteroid field could vary, which would change the dynamic of the battle between fleets as it may give an advantage to one fleet or the other, making each battle in the Partial Asteroid Field feel more unique and memorable. It would add some character to the maps.

- Nebula Storms: Add the hyperspace storms to the combat map, which cause % damage to the ships caught in them, and destroys missiles, rockets and torpedoes that are within the storm field when it triggers. Causes small amount of EMP, enough to disable fighters with one storm-strike. Visual range due to fog of war is decreased.

- Above the Planet: When combat is initiated near a planet with a magnetosphere protecting it. One side of the map is the planets atmosphere, and if ships travel into the field they'll be increasingly slowed and slowly damaged as they go deeper into it. Also, since combat is occurring within the magnetosphere, all the high-energy particles bouncing around interferes with sensors and guidance systems. Weapon accuracy drops and guided missiles lose turn speed.

- Gas Giants: Most of the map is an atmosphere field, and the deeper you go into it, the more drastic the damage accumulates. The opposite side of the atmosphere field is a sparse field of asteroids.

- Inside the Nebula: Most of the map is covered in nebula clouds, with only a few lanes of clear space, making those areas high value (maybe position some tactical nodes in the clear spaces so that the AI automatically gravitates towards them). Visual range is decreased.

11
The idea is for a class of ship above and beyond the current meta, which are so massive that they are like moving structures in the background. They would fly on a separate layer, similar to how fighters fly on a separate layer, and the ship and its armor would be so massive that to destroy it you would have to take it down component by component Star Wars style.

Each component (including weapons, engines and subsystems) would occupy a space in the regular layer, allowing regular ships to fight and collide with them. Destruction of a component would act like a destroyed ship, drifting in space, detached from the mothership.

I think this would be a fantastic addition to the game as it would allow structures/levels to be tackled by players as well as open up a new form of warfare in late-late game. This would also open the game up for fixed emplacements like space stations and moon/asteroid installations to be a part of the combat field, giving the battle map a larger variety to it.

I'm super tired so I have no idea what I'm writing, but I wanted to get the idea down before I forgot it. I'll write more later. This is a thing often seen in bullet hell/chopper attack style 2d arcade shooters.

12
General Discussion / Anti-Fighter Tactics and Strategies
« on: May 05, 2017, 12:40:05 PM »
Now that we've entered the age of fighters, we're going to need to come up with some good ideas on how to efficiently counter carrier fleets without resorting to just carrying more fighters ourselves. Although fighters are nice, and more fighters are great, some of us may want to try another route instead of being forced into a specific fleet comp.

So, what tactics and strategies have you come up with to combat the fighter menace? What ideas or idealogies are you working with?

.

I'll start off with something on fleet tactics: One problem with fighting fighters is that once they start mixing into your forces, friendly fire becomes an issue. As such, I've been thinking that going the route of Burst PD and Swarmer SRM would be the most effectient way to go. Machineguns and Vulcans are too short ranged, and getting your hands on enough turreted medium ballistic slots for Flak means investing in Enforcers (I don't like enforcers...). LAGs only seem to be an option for the Sunder and phase ships, as LAGs become flux expensive while they try to mow down small and fast moving fighters (also, friendly fire), so low-tech ships with bad shield efficiency and flux cap will struggle to deal with fighters.

In comes Burst PD and Swarmers! Swarmers is rather obvious as they're purposely designed for fighters. The low DPS is countered by a high hit%, HE damage, zero flux costs, and the ability to be shot through allied ships. A cost is the loss of a missile slot that could otherwise hold some dangerous harpoons, but a benefit is that Swarmers are so spammable that they'll create missile screens for your other ships that DO have harpoons. Now as far as Burst PD, their burst and tendency to have plenty of downtime means that their DPS over time is closer to 214dps rather than the 64dps. Two subtle benefits of Burst beams are, 1) the way that burst beam affects interact with armor ( http://starsector.wikia.com/wiki/Armor ), giving Burst PD a slight increase in damage, and 2) the hit rate. While ballistic alternatives may advertise higher damage number, Burst PD actually does the damage it says. Add on the increased range, the option to further increase the range with Advanced Optics, and the plethora of ships with small energy slots and you've got a pretty good tool for dealing with fighters.

As such, I nominate the Medusa and mid-tech ships as ships that can effectively mount anti-fighter capabilities while still being able to deal with larger ships. The Conquest and Odyssey are attractive anti-fighter platforms as well. The Conquest in particular I can't wait to try. I think I would set a support Eagle to escort me in the Conquest, and while my fleet faces off with the main enemy force I would sneak around the sides to take out any lightly defended carriers.

13
General Discussion / Brawler vs Lasher
« on: May 03, 2017, 02:13:02 PM »
Same supply and deployment costs (Brawler has longer PPT, however).

I'll assume everyone would prefer to pilot a Lasher, so what would you prefer to hand over to AI control and why?

14
General Discussion / Is hull now treated as armor? [resolved]
« on: April 29, 2017, 11:11:15 AM »
Quote
Armor value for damage reduction no longer goes below 5% of base armor value

Does this mean hull is always treated as armor, with appropriate weapon type modifiers applied?

15
It seems pretty strong. It probably wouldn't even need additional front PD, allowing you to grab HVDs and Light Needlers. Heck, if you're close enough you could get better efficiency wailling against shields than even energy weapons, and Burn Drive lets you get there. Even if you don't get that close, smaller and quicker targets won't be able to dodge your spray, which you'll be able to use against multiple enemies simultaneously. Another bonus is that the 580 flux/sec is mostly sustainable, meaning that holding down the trigger to hit targets at longer ranges isn't a waste since you can afford to keep it going.

Pages: [1] 2