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1

Suggestions / Re: Ability to raid colonies and turn the population into harvested organs

« on: November 13, 2023, 04:59:47 AM »

Games get banned, declassified, or heavily censored all the time. Rimworld and the controversy surrounding it is just low hanging fruit and applicable due to the organ harvesting mention.

If you want some light reading on banned, restricted, and censored games and the reasons the local law makers gave have a look.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_video_games_by_country

Just because it's not a western country doesn't mean it doesn't matter. Starsector could already be banned or censored because of terrorist themes, crimes against civilian populations, depictions of drug use/sale, violent narrative elements, and anti-religious/antigovernmental ideological themes, and plenty of other obscure local laws. Sure, that will likely not impact a majority of a small indie game's player base, but it does potentially limit it and adding options that deepen the violent or criminal aspects of the game will limit it further.

Adding more options and expanding the darker elements of the game to make the dystopian nature of the universe it's set in isn't wrong, and it's not a bad idea. One major reason a game developer may choose not to make that choice is more severe ratings, marketing limitations, and censorship battles.

2

Suggestions / Re: Adjustable game start tech & economy strengh

« on: November 12, 2023, 12:07:03 PM »

Since everyone is getting hung up on the words "tech level" let me call it "decay level" instead. The premise here is that humanity has lost ground, lost worlds, lost blueprints, lost items that make life better, and lost information needed to reclaim or reproduce them.

This doesn't necessarily mean the economy will be weaker. You can still have a functional economy with goods moving around and massive fleets filled with cargo from the independent factions and the trade unions from major companies associated with factions, but those people wouldn't have access to the faction's strongest weapons and ships because the items needed to manufacture those ships and weapons have become rarer though destruction or theft.

The highest end ships and weapons for them, from all factions, would be excluded from their military markets and anything worth keeping protected would be locked up behind the defenses of that faction's strongest world. Blueprints out in the outer sectors would be rarer, especially high end ones, and colony items would be less common if the sectors "decay level" was cranked up.

Sure, the big military fleets, the system defense fleets and heavy patrols, would still have the faction's power on display, but smaller things like patrols and raiding fleets would have a more generic ship set to show the loss of items needed to produce things in dread abundance.

A very low decay level would do the opposite. Fancy faction specific blueprints would be more common, rare and expensive ships would be easier for the player to source, and even the most poorly defended core worlds might have a colony item or two.

making the tech slider would take considerable time for little return since you are essentially just reducing the amount of ships in a game about ships.

I don't think I addressed this one before. There are so many ship hulls that don't currently see any gameplay because they're so suboptimal. They're that way by design, and are generally meant to be left behind when the player finds better options. Wouldn't it be kind of fun, for some people, sometimes, if it took a little longer to find those better options? It might be fun, for some of us, to have big fleet clashes where hounds, buffalo MkIIs, Hermes shuttles, and gremlins fight armed with lower tech weapons. That's not really an option right now outside of the simulator because no fleets in the game that are large actaully employ ships like that. It doesn't make sense in the current SS universe. But it would be fun if it COULD make sense. It would be fun if that were an option players had available to them

As for mods, they break every single time the game updates, and they either get updated or they don't. Choosing not to add a feature that deepens the possibilities of the core game because "muh mods" is pretty moot when they're going out the window next update anyway. The mod makers will adapt. 

It may seem, on the surface, that a low decay level would also lead to a strong economy, but that's not necessarily the case. A low decay, low economy situation could come from frequent wars, low relations between factions, EXTREME pirate presence, the path being wildly active due to them also having access to stronger blueprints and weapons, or higher AI presence than usual.

Some of the wealthiest places on our planet have extreme disparity between living conditions for the hyper wealthy and the lowest classes of people who live under their rule. Saying that the average person has $1,000,000 in the bank doesn't mean everyone is rich. Ten families could have 200 billion, and the other two million families could be slaves who have ZERO and the average would still be $1,000,000 per family. The state of decay in that situation is extremely high, as 99.9999% of the people live as slaves.

A playthrough of starsector is generally 20-70 years. Plenty of times in our history have seen awful social situaions that disenfranchised 80+% of the population continue for decades, so I don't think it's too extreme to assume its possible for it to happen in the SS universe.

3

Suggestions / Re: Ability to raid colonies and turn the population into harvested organs

« on: November 06, 2023, 01:35:43 PM »

The darker a game gets, the fewer countries will endorse or allow it's distribution on the open market. Slavery, drugs, and organ harvesting has caused a lot of controversy for games like Rimworld, and has seen the game banned or restricted in a handful of countries during its lifespan.

As a mod or an enablable option I'm 100% behind this and things like taking the crew of defeated fleets prisoner and slowly having a percentage of them turn from 'prisoner' to 'crew' each month, or being able to sell off 'prisoners' to planets with the 'free market' tag.

Again, probably not an option because of the media distribution and morality laws around the globe.

4

Suggestions / Re: Adjustable game start tech & economy strengh

« on: November 06, 2023, 01:23:31 PM »

Luddic Church and Hegemony exist already. If you wish you fought them more, perhaps you should fight them more.

Not really the point. Asking for the option to see what the sector would look like if the outcome of the last AI war was more severe and it has become harder to get by has nothing to do with the major factions as they are now.

Tech levels are essentially a variety and playstyle thing though, not a difficulty modifier or progression scale. It seems to me that factions losing access to ships that their fleets were designed around just decreases said variety. Its fine if you personally want to customise your game in that way, but vanilla Starsector isn't really built around this idea of tech progression, making the tech slider would take considerable time for little return since you are essentially just reducing the amount of ships in a game about ships.

This isn't suggesting that people should be forced to limit themselves, it's suggesting that people should have the option to limit themselves, or the option to explore more rare and difficult to discover ships and weapons without being forced to spend the time it would normally take grinding or searching for them.

If you want to have access to more ships then click the economy strength and overall tech level of the sector up a notch or two.

If you want to challenge yourself and see what it would be like if hullmods didn't exist on the open market, tick the economy strength down. If you want to play through a game where high tech ships haven't been developed yet or are ultra rare, just to see what that's like, tick the tech level down a notch or two.

Adding something that limits NPC fleet generation and market ship stocking to certain ships doesn't take extra dev time because it already exists. Breaking the ships down into sets like 'high tech', 'midline', 'low tech', 'phase', 'unshielded', and 'civilian' also takes zero dev time because it again already exists.

Adding an extra set of UI boxes on the 'sector creation' screen that allows a player to limit or omit certain ships or technologies from their playthrough would take very little dev time, and gives players more options. Giving vanilla players who don't have any interest in mods or who are extremely casual players and who don't want to spend time searching for or learning how to install mods, options to play in different ways or with faster/slower game progression is good. Allowing people who normally struggle with games like this, but who are interested anyway, the option to explore the cool features of the game with a reduced barrier is a good thing.

5

Suggestions / Re: Adjustable game start tech & economy strengh

« on: November 06, 2023, 07:24:59 AM »

Low and high tech are relative at the end of the day. If high tech ships didn't exist at all, then mid lines would be the new high tech.

If experimental tech was widely available, it wouldn't be experimental anymore it would just be the new high tech.

If almost every elite ballistic blueprint was destroyed or kept under tight wraps then what we currently call "outdated" weapons would be the norm.

Adjusting tech level down would mean fewer/no colony items being employed by major factions, a percentage of high tech ships replaced with midline, a percentage of midline replaced with low, and might even see major factions employing conversion ships like MKIIs or P variant because they've lost access to blueprints they would have used otherwise. The most advanced ships (things with 'high maintenance') wouldn't be used outside of the occasional bouty fleet or high end bounty hunter fleet.

Adjusting tech level up would do the opposite, and for factions that use low tech ships on purpose, it would see fewer D-mods, and more faction specific variants employed (Hegemony using more XIV ships, for example). The core worlds would have more colony items being employed, and blueprints would appear in open markets in higher volumes and frequencies.

6

Suggestions / Adjustable game start tech & economy strengh

« on: November 05, 2023, 12:24:28 PM »

It would be interesting to be able to change the available tech and economic strength of the sector when we start a game to have different experiences available within the core worlds of the game.

Adjusting the tech level down would reduce the availability of elite weapons, high tech ships, and would make unshielded and outdated ships more prevalent in fleets overall, while adjusting it up would do the opposite and would see ships like the hyperion and phase ships fielded more frequently in the sector along with elite weapons and even experimental tech seeing use from time to time.

Adjusting the economy strength down would reduce the use of pure combat ships, the size of trade fleets, and would see more D-mod ships used, even by major factions that normally wouldn't touch them. Cheaper ships would be the norm, and desperate fleets would even be employing shuttles as combat ships in an effort to get by. On the flip side, adjusting up would see pristine ships in higher weight classes and massive lumbering trade flotillas drifting through the sector defended by an array of capitals and advanced support ships.

At the most severe ends of the scales the game would be almost unplayable for stupid challenge runs. Like playing in a sector so poor that scraping together fuel to get from one end of the core worlds to the other would be hellish, and going on a salvage run to the rim would be a serious undertaking.

Or playing in a sector so rich that there are almost no shortages to exploit and even the pirates and pathers are usually content with the good they're receiving from smugglers.

7

Suggestions / Re: Ships should be invulnerable after leaving combat area (minor issue)

« on: August 02, 2023, 10:02:33 AM »

Retreating ships being pulled by by an invisible force when they had momentum to leave the map has just felt wrong to me for ages. Not being able to leave the sides I can understand, but a ship that is moving at 150 speed, gets its engines popped, and then hits the end of the map and just promptly stops because of nothing and spins in a circle feels so SO wrong. It's the same kind of wrong when a twin engine ship like a hound or shade tries to retreat, but only one engine is running so it just flies in a big stupid circle until something finally manages to get in weapons range and finish the job.

I'm all for a ship with a retreat order being able to push through the cellophane barrier on the maps North and South ends even with its engines out, and for a ship that activates travel drive always having linear forward movement, even if they only have their left engine running.

The cellophane barrier has bothered me from the beginning though, and I would love to see a more real barrier on the edge of the map. dense asteroids, volatile gas clouds, visible storm lightning, any reason not to go near it because it's a legitimate threat would be better than the cartoonish invisible barrier.

8

Suggestions / Fighter craft should fly evasion patterns on approach

« on: August 02, 2023, 09:45:05 AM »

Fighter AI is currently pretty basic. Fly straight at your target in a set formation until you get into range, then break formation and strafe the target until the wing is too weak to matter, flux is too high to fire, or primary ordinance is depleted.

This works gloriously for strike craft that just need to get in range one time for a brief moment to have the full impact of their payload matter before falling back, but interceptors, assault fighters, and large magazine strike craft struggle to pull their weight. It might makes sense for drones with limited AI and no sense of self-preservation; It's strange and jarring to watch human pilots fly straight into a hellebore round though.

All it would take to make them effective and more popular is an awareness of high accuracy or area suppression weapons on enemy ships, and a little bit of lateral movement within their wing formation on approach. Avoiding the firing line of their target's hardpoint weapons, and being able to avoid shots from railguns, hellebore cannons, plasma cannons, or high intensity lasers and attempting to approach from angles without flack cover if it's not too far (hard to get right, I know) would prevent entire wings of fighters from being dinked by weapons that, on paper, look like awful match up for nimble assault fighter craft but shred them anyway due to pilots only being able to find their W key.

Once on target, fighters should try to find gaps in PD to hide in so they can continue to deal damage without getting killed so fast, and fighters bunching up once they're on target doesn't matter since they don't have collision physics when their engines are on and larger guns can risk shooing allied ships. All PD weapons should really not have friendly fire and should fire through allied shields so we have a way to get the parasites off our friends in a fight. It would make escort frigates shine in their role, but that's a topic for a different thread.

If low health and armour ships that rely on speed or agility for survival completely fail to use their only form of defense, then what even is the point of using them unless there isn't any other option available? Let's leave the medieval firing line tactics in the past where they belong and teach the pilots of the sector that it's okay to use the Q and E keys to avoid their deaths.

9

Suggestions / Add two new fighter commands

« on: January 15, 2023, 06:04:30 PM »

1) Formation: Keeps fighters inside your shield arc so they don't get wasted by barrage fire or flanking enemies, and still provide some support against attacking fighters and missiles.


2) Rearm and Repair: Like the old recall command, the fighters would land on the carrier and relaunch when the whole wing is fully repaired and restocked with missiles, mines, etc.

Interceptors often carry a small stock of missiles to put down other fighters, but once expended the only way to get them back seems to be letting them die. I like keeping my crew alive, and I like me replacement rate high. Letting my fighters dock to rearm would be a blessing.

Some fighters are surprisingly durable. Seeing my two Xyphos down to 10% hull and wishing I could just tell them to land and repair so I don't have to go into a fight knowing I'll lose them early on. Let me repair when when I'm out of a fight to breathe, like venting flux.

10

Suggestions / Add specific types of fighter bays, like weapon types

« on: January 15, 2023, 05:56:27 PM »

Fighters already have role assignment tags, and making fighter type specific bays (such as interceptor, assault craft, support wing, and bomber) would allow one or two, type specific, fighter bays to be added on non-carrier ships.

having a wing of interceptors on a destroyer (like the hammerhead), two wings of assault craft on heavy brawling ships (like the dominator), or a wing of support fighters on high tech ships that benefit from the extra PD or fighter defense would add an extra dimension to ship loadout options.

Carriers could simply keep the type of fighter bays we currently have as 'omni' slots, just like with weapon loadouts. Adding a converted bay would add a weakened omni bay, and could even be an option on a carrier.

It would even be possible to add 'drone' as a tag and let frigates like the tempest take whatever kind of wing of drones they feel like.

11

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: April 07, 2021, 09:47:49 PM »

Recent changes to "edge of map" and retreat behavior seem like a downgrade.

If I engage my engines to retreat, then have them knocked out by an EMP weapon, I now get repelled back onto the battlefield by an invisible wall at the edge of the map.

It used to be a retreating ship could fly off the map with their engines knocked out, or under their own power with shields raised. What prompted the change?

The current iteration punishes any ship that tries to retreat under enemy fire, since they'll frequently get stuck at the edge of the map, unable to move as their engines are knocked out over and over, and each time they try to engage them to flee, they get pushed back onto the map by some invisible force.

12

Suggestions / Living Factions, Minor factions, and Available Tech

« on: March 24, 2019, 05:35:34 PM »

After seeing pathers and pirates eternally popping up on the fringes, seeing core worlds destabilize and never come back, finding ruins out in deep space where no one goes, and finding beautiful spots to build out in the far reaches of the universe I started to see a possible way to add some spice to the sector at large.

Let the Major Factions Grow and Die

If there are worlds near a major faction's territory that have a good value, let them claim those worlds slowly over time. If they have industries that are losing them money, let them remove those industries. If they could add an industry that would improve their worlds revenue then let them add it.

If their worlds aren't making enough money, or if they can't sustain a planet, let them abandon it unless their doctrine prevents them from abandoning their populations. It would be interesting to see the major factions be a bit more organic, and to see more of their worlds in the green ledger-wise.

Let major factions saturation bomb each-other. If they go for total-war on each other they should potentially wipe out planets. If they want to kill a world more "humanely" then let them set up a blockade with a massive fleet, or several fleets that stay in orbit around a hostile world keeping it's stability and accessibility at zero until the blockade is broken.



Adding Minor Factions

When the sector generates, have the generation algorithm look for systems with unusually high value averages for the planets present and mark them. As the game goes on, let those systems be populated by non-core factions with semi-randomized tech, doctrine, and hostility.

The small factions could replace the independents for the most part, or be a sub category of the independents. Their tech would be mostly trash, but with one or two blueprints for military ships at each hull-size (2-4 frigates, 1-3 destroyers, 1-2 cruisers, 0-1 capital ships). They would also have the basic weapon packages with a few extras at each weapon size.

From a game-play standpoint it gives the player either targets to fight with that aren't the core factions, or allies to work with if they've been more aggressive with the core worlds.

It also adds conflict to taking over the "best" systems in the sector, giving the player something to fight against in their colonization efforts.

Lore wise, it would make sense that the player fleet isn't the only one out there trying to rebuild humanity on the fringes, and not everyone building in the fringes is doing it for piracy reasons. Small factions are constantly cropping up and making trouble for the core worlds, and putting them all under the "independent" umbrella makes them feel like a unified faction instead of the minor factions they really are.

Lock Up The Good Stuff

Cobbling together a strong fleet feels pretty easy once you know the basics. Removing military grade ships from the civilian market, and adding extra d-mods to ships in the black market would go a long way to making the main factions feel more like dominant powers.

Removing proper military ships from the open market, most pirate fleets, most independent fleets, and reducing the options for the main factions would make them feel more distinct, and also much more powerful. It would also make finding "good" ships in salvage more exciting.

It would also make commissions with factions much more enticing, not only do you get a bounty for fighting their enemies, you also get to buy those juicy, exclusive, military ships from their markets.


Add Unique Industries

Factions should have powerful industrial or social practices that are difficult to use without a strong central government, very specific technology, or extreme loyalty from the populace. Things like a central bank for the TriTacs that adds a faction-wide boost to planet income, a military strategic center for the Hegemony that allows larger fleets, or a set of holy relic sites that improve stability on Luddic worlds.

Allying with a faction could give a player access to those bonuses, building up enough loyalty with a base commander might convince them to join you and bring their knowledge to one of your worlds (a unique skill on a manager?), rescued people from decivilized domain worlds may have knowledge about lost tech.

De-unify The Pirates and Independents

This has been in suggestions before, so brevity seems appropriate.

These people probably shouldn't even have a faction reputation statistic, and they certainly shouldn't be communicating as well as they do. Destroying pirate raiders, or a couple of smugglers really shouldn't be affecting the player's standing with every single other person who is decidedly not aligned to anyone.

13

General Discussion / Re: Legion: What role does it have in your fleet?

« on: October 17, 2017, 04:19:12 PM »

Legions currently take up a good chunk of my fleet, and are multi-role battleships in my fleet. They have excellent balance, and do well in any battle size. With a good mobility system, a solid weapons load-out for any type of officer, the ability to clean up small ships, overwhelm larger ones, and support each other from much larger distances than a traditional Battle-cruiser with no flight decks they can act as almost any ship role without much difficulty. They also still work well if they have several D-mods, which makes them attractive to a player running a salvage team.

I have three go-to load-outs I use based on the skills of the officer I'm putting in the ship, with the condition that the officer going in will always have all the carrier skills maxed. 
All varients use two wings of Warthogs, and two wings of Broadswords
For a missile/carrier I run 5 typhoon-reaper tubes, two devastator flack guns, and LMGs in the small mounts.
For a balanced carrier I run a mark IX and a helbore with a heavy mauler and a needler in the mediums in front of them, corresponding to opposite damage types. Three dual-flack in the remaining mediums, and LMGs in all the smalls.
For a long range, flux skilled captain I put two Mjolnirs in the Lrg mounts, dual-flack in the front and side mediums with Typhoon-reapers in the other two and again LMGs in all the small mounts.

For hullmods, ITU, Expanded crew deck, Recovery shuttles, and then usually just vents and capacitors.

14

Suggestions / Re: Increased variety of D-Mods

« on: October 06, 2017, 03:38:21 AM »

Insert Quote
Hmm. The set of d-mods is intentionally limited to fairly broad ship stats that are as universally useful as possible. Sometimes a d-mod won't be a big deal for a ship, and that's alright, but generally the system doesn't encourage that being a common occurrence.

This makes sense, and there may be cases where certain D-mods may only show up on certain types of ships. We already see this with only carriers getting damaged flight decks. Perhaps constraining what types of D-mods show up on certain types of ships is the way to go in the future?

There could even be some things like "punctured fuel tanks" and "depressurized cargo holds" that reduce the fuel and inventory storage for ships that are freighters, tankers, and combat/logistic hybrids. It may even be worth looking into the possibility of keeping specifically weapon effecting or combat oriented D-mods, from showing up on logistics ships.

While I consider this whole list a bit overwhelming - and some of the concepts way too damning to ever be ignored, like removing a ship's system (Eww. Bad. No. Ship systems are a key way to make a ship unique.) - I do appreciate some of them, and could definitely see them working in-game.

There are many ships I would still use the weapons frame for if the system didn't work. The hammerhead, Lasher, Enforcer, Sunder, Eagle, and Astral immediately spring to mind as being good frames, even without their special systems intact. As for very advanced frames, where the system is the selling point of the ship such as the Hyperion, Tempest, and Afflictor, paying to remove the d-mods from these already seems to be the norm, since finding the frames is often difficult to begin with, and their stats being tarnished ruins the ship for the people who usually choose to run them.

As for the list, it was meant more as a brainstorm or idea pool. I'd also prefer the in-game list didn't get too long, but as it stands now the pool of potential mods feels lacking, and I wanted to throw out as many suggestions as possible to get creative juices flowing. 

15

Suggestions / Increased variety of D-Mods

« on: October 05, 2017, 03:24:27 PM »

Ships in Starsector have a plethora of systems, and as the D-mod system stands now only a small swath of them show the ability to be crippled beyond repair.
It would be nice to see a bit more variety, both for immersion purposes, and also to further lessen the overall harshness of the early game by making "good" D-mods (ones that don't hurt specific ships quite so much) feel more common.

In addition to suggesting several new possible D-mods, I would also like to suggest increasing the number of max D-mods to 5, allowing more parts of the ship to show wear and tear.
 
NEW D-MOD IDEAS

Fused Turret Gyros: The turn rate of the ships turrets is reduced by 60%

Jammed Ammo Feeders: The ships rate of fire for Ballistics is reduced by 40%

Sluggish Charging Coils: The ships rate of fire for energy weapons is reduced by 40%

Fried Targeting sensors: Target leading for Auto Fire is much less effective, weapon recoil dissipates more slowly.

Loose Weapon Mounts: Adds a permanent 5-degree arc to target reticles, increases recoil effect, and greatly increases recoil recovery time.

Shoddy Power Couplings: Gives weapons a chance to have minor malfunctions. (Lower malfunction rate than 30% CR)

Crippled Maneuvering Thrusters: Ships turn rate is reduced by 50%

Disabled Targeting AI: Weapons cannot be set to auto-fire {OR} PD will not target missiles

Warped Shield Generator: Shield arc is reduced by (30-degrees? 50%?)

Faulty sub-system: Ships special system is useless

Weak shortwave Coms: Missile and fighter range reduced by 50%

Broken Hailing System: Ship cannot give or receive orders

Buggy intercoms: In battle weapon repairs take 50% longer

Exposed Conduits: Weapon and engine HP -50%