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Suggestions / Re: Vent delay
« on: December 14, 2014, 02:23:35 AM »
This has come up before, the suggestion I was most fond of was to simply stop weapons from reloading while venting if I remember correctly.
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2
Suggestions / Re: Limit active venting spam
« on: August 05, 2014, 08:15:39 PM »
Vent spam can feel a little cheesy, and it isn't something you're likely to see the AI do. Pausing reloads while venting is a logical from a lore-based perspective (or is for me anyway), and would reduce the effectiveness of such a strategy. It would also make the behaviour more of a trade-off, trading damage for reduced flux and greater ability to shield oneself, which is preferable to a straight up performance increase in its current status. Such an implementation would also only effect the specific spam-venting behaviour, and would be preferable to a cool down for venting, which could become very annoying and possibly introduce more complications for the AI.
As such, +1 for pausing reloads while venting.
As such, +1 for pausing reloads while venting.
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General Discussion / Re: Passive/Distracted AI
« on: October 18, 2013, 01:57:28 AM »
Regarding fighters, it seems to be that they are very averse to attacking anything head on, even retreating ships, and will instead opt to circle around outside range of the enemy weapons to get to the back. This causes problems when the enemy ship is moving and particularly turning, as it means that the fighters are almost perpetually moving around the ship to try and get to the sweet spot behind it, and hence end up contributing very little in the way of firepower or damage.
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Suggestions / Missile firing and venting/overload
« on: September 19, 2013, 02:11:44 AM »
Currently in the 0.6a patch it is possible to fire missiles while your ship is venting or overloaded. While this is currently considered a bug, I feel that it is actually a fun feature that helps further distinguish missiles from other weapon types. It also adds utility and interesting tactical choices to missile use, for example using an annihilator swarm as cove while venting. Lorewise it also makes sense, as missiles currently don't require and flux investment in firing and hence could be thought of as separate to the more flux inhibited ballistic and energy weapons.
As such, I feel that such a feature adds an interesting element to combat and helps distinguish missiles, and so would request that such a feature be left in. Added a poll to see what the general consensus on the way missiles currently work is.
As such, I feel that such a feature adds an interesting element to combat and helps distinguish missiles, and so would request that such a feature be left in. Added a poll to see what the general consensus on the way missiles currently work is.
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General Discussion / Re: AI Shielding too good?
« on: June 30, 2013, 10:19:54 AM »
The AI shield usage is quite good but has some noticeable flaws. On low tech ships, such as the dominator, it is far too cautious and keeps shields raised if you are so much as looking in its general direction. This prevents it from dissipating flux efficiently (due to the flux upkeep of the shield) for no real gain, as changes to the speed at which frontal shields raise has made it much more difficult to "snipe" or slowly pick away at the edges of the ship before shields can be raised to block the shots (which is most likely the reason for its overly cautious behaviour).
It is also predictable in always trying to block explosive missiles with the shield, to such an extent that raising the enemy ship to high flux and firing a harpoon will almost always cause it to raise shields and you can easily overload it by firing at it as the harpoon is on approach. I find doing so to be much more effective at overloading ships than using sabots funnily enough.
It is also predictable in always trying to block explosive missiles with the shield, to such an extent that raising the enemy ship to high flux and firing a harpoon will almost always cause it to raise shields and you can easily overload it by firing at it as the harpoon is on approach. I find doing so to be much more effective at overloading ships than using sabots funnily enough.
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Suggestions / Re: Beam Weapons
« on: June 16, 2013, 04:00:52 AM »
Ignoring shield efficiency is an elegant way of making beams better at combating high tech ships without buffing them against low tech, where they are already quite strong. As far as this introducing new rules for weapons, beams are already a special case wherein they only deal soft flux, and so adding a note that beams behave in such a manner to the game would be fairly trivial. I can't actually remember ever seeing anything that explains that beams only deal soft flux anyway, so perhaps something could be done about that.
As far as the other options, making them deal hard flux and reducing their range is akin to just making a faster firing and more accurate pulse laser, and I feel would just homogenize the energy weapons for no real gain. Making beams deal a proportion of their damage in hard flux means that kiting would still be the optimal strategy, and would also be a slow, tedious affair.
As far as the other options, making them deal hard flux and reducing their range is akin to just making a faster firing and more accurate pulse laser, and I feel would just homogenize the energy weapons for no real gain. Making beams deal a proportion of their damage in hard flux means that kiting would still be the optimal strategy, and would also be a slow, tedious affair.
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Suggestions / Re: Fighters and heavy weapons
« on: April 20, 2013, 09:58:25 PM »
One idea I had for this a while back was tying damage to fighters to the pd flag. So for example all pd weapons do 100% damage to fighters, while all other weapons do a reduced amount, possibly based on the weapon size. So for example, a small weapon might do 80%, a medium 60% and a large 40%. This would reflect the relative effectiveness of using each weapon size against the small fighters, and would also somewhat balance the different hull sizes against fighters (frigates don't suddenly become useless against them, destroyers are still powerful etc).
It would also give a buff to the Integrated Point Defence AI hull mod which doesn't see much use aside from specialized builds currently, such that if you expect to fight a large number of fighters, you might slap on IPDAI to increase the effectiveness of your ships against them.
I suggest damage reductions instead of random chance, because I personally find random chance infuriating on occasion and much harder to predict or work around in general. (Final boss in FTL landing 5 hits in a row with maxed engines and crew multiple times, looking at you)
It would also give a buff to the Integrated Point Defence AI hull mod which doesn't see much use aside from specialized builds currently, such that if you expect to fight a large number of fighters, you might slap on IPDAI to increase the effectiveness of your ships against them.
I suggest damage reductions instead of random chance, because I personally find random chance infuriating on occasion and much harder to predict or work around in general. (Final boss in FTL landing 5 hits in a row with maxed engines and crew multiple times, looking at you)
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Suggestions / Re: Commisioned Refits
« on: April 11, 2013, 04:34:01 AM »
Agreed, spending 20 points into the tech tree gives you essentially 50% more ship for each ship in your fleet, which seems a tad strong when compared to the majority of the other choices available. I suspect this is also why fighters are seen as a tad under-powered at the moment, as they don't gain any benefit from the increased OP skills.
I'd suggest changing one of the OP increasing skills to something else, as currently Computer Systems and Mechanical Engineering are the only two skills that "double dip" into increasing OP. Perhaps change mechanical engineering to 3% increased sensor range for each ship in your fleet per rank or something?
As to the commissioned refits, perhaps they can be rare blueprint type things that you can find on abandoned stations, hulks etc which allow you to fit out your ship in the way specified by the design. Maybe make them buy able/trade able as well. This could also add a sense of exploration or discovery for finding rare things.
I'd suggest changing one of the OP increasing skills to something else, as currently Computer Systems and Mechanical Engineering are the only two skills that "double dip" into increasing OP. Perhaps change mechanical engineering to 3% increased sensor range for each ship in your fleet per rank or something?
As to the commissioned refits, perhaps they can be rare blueprint type things that you can find on abandoned stations, hulks etc which allow you to fit out your ship in the way specified by the design. Maybe make them buy able/trade able as well. This could also add a sense of exploration or discovery for finding rare things.
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Suggestions / Re: Damage effect with depth
« on: April 01, 2013, 02:29:21 AM »
Interesting to compare how each of the disabled ships look. The Hammerhead for instance seems to look much worse with the damage decals than the larger ships. Do the damage decals scale, because if they don't it could explain the large disparity between the ships, as the hammerhead has a smaller hull and so each decal effect covers a much larger area of real estate on the model, so can obstruct the "form" much more destructively, hence the loss of depth or detail in the destroyed version.
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Suggestions / Re: Fighters, Carriers, and Schematics
« on: March 28, 2013, 06:19:39 PM »
Agreed, having to buy a "licence" in order to create or field each fighter squadron would be an interesting way of getting around the whole spamming fighters for no appreciable cost thing. For instance, if you went to a station, instead of buying each individual talon wing, you might buy a licence for a single wing. After that you'd be free to create and field that single talon wing, but wouldn't be allowed to field more than the single squadron due to the DRM and its "install limit" of just the single wing. You'd still be free to rebuild the talon wing on carriers in or out of combat (aside from the cost in supplies and/or CR), but would only be able to have as many fighter/bomber wings as you have the licences to own.
This would also mean that fighters would be better in terms of actually surviving battles, as one of my biggest gripes at the moment is that fighters can very easily fly into situations that they can't readily get out of (getting a little close to an astral or onslaught) and get completely destroyed. It would also somewhat balance the survivability of the fighters in the long term, as losing both fighters in a two fighter squad wouldn't be a massive money sink, and hence they would be more attractive to use in fleets. As it is currently, I find the two fighter wings far too fragile and easily destroyed to really rely on or invest in, as the reduced wing size makes them far more likely to suffer total losses, rather than having a single fighter escape and make it back to a carrier as is what happens much more often with talons and even broadswords.
This would also mean that fighters would be better in terms of actually surviving battles, as one of my biggest gripes at the moment is that fighters can very easily fly into situations that they can't readily get out of (getting a little close to an astral or onslaught) and get completely destroyed. It would also somewhat balance the survivability of the fighters in the long term, as losing both fighters in a two fighter squad wouldn't be a massive money sink, and hence they would be more attractive to use in fleets. As it is currently, I find the two fighter wings far too fragile and easily destroyed to really rely on or invest in, as the reduced wing size makes them far more likely to suffer total losses, rather than having a single fighter escape and make it back to a carrier as is what happens much more often with talons and even broadswords.
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Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.6a (In Development) Patch Notes
« on: March 14, 2013, 01:13:22 AM »
With the removal of the zero flux speed boost, the 5 and 10 point perks in the Helmsmanship aptitude are no longer applicable, and hence will need changes. Just thought I'd mention it as those perks aren't mentioned in the patch notes.
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General Discussion / Re: We need more official cruisers, damnit! What would be a good fit?
« on: March 09, 2013, 07:32:32 AM »
As mentioned by nautfrago, a larger ship that uses drones offensively would be lovely. A faster destroyer or cruiser based carrier would be nice too, as currently the smaller ships with dedicated flight decks double as freighters, and hence are somewhat slow and unwieldy in combat which makes an early fighter based fleet slower and less effective than an equivalent frigate group.
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General Discussion / Re: I have underestimated phase ships.
« on: February 22, 2013, 03:33:52 AM »
It's worth noting that the combat tree has a skill that is very well suited to phase ship use, Power Grid Modulation, which gives 50% faster venting and 30% reduced flux generation from phase cloak, which means that you can spend longer cloaked and greatly reduce the time you are at risk when venting flux.
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Suggestions / Re: Limitation on Repair on the Run
« on: January 29, 2013, 08:07:42 AM »
If repairs cost the same amount but took a few minutes of sitting around to complete at a station though, what would be added but pointless tedium?
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General Discussion / Re: What is your favorite ship?
« on: January 06, 2013, 01:39:55 AM »
Would have to be the Onslaught.
Nothing says subtlety like burn driving into the midst of an enemy fleet.
Nothing says subtlety like burn driving into the midst of an enemy fleet.