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.

Messages - Wapno

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 15
1
Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.97a (Released) Patch Notes
« on: February 12, 2024, 08:59:34 PM »
*sigh* As per tradition with every major update, the nerf circus continues.

  • Cyclone Reaper Launcher:
    • Reduced ammo to 14 (was: 20)
    • Increased refire delay to 15 seconds (was: 10)
  • Proximity Charge Launcher: increased refire delay to 2 seconds (was: 1)

  • Safety Overrides: can no longer be installed on ships with Flux Shunt (i.e. the Monitor)

Rest in peace SO Monitor. It was fun while it lasted...

At least in exchange this update also contains some much needed buffs. Especially Storm Needler is now going to be interesting to use.

Not to mention the plethora of amazing features. Can't wait for the mods to catch up so I can try this.[/list]

2
General Discussion / Re: Carriers in 0.95
« on: October 12, 2021, 09:14:57 PM »
I'm not the best mechanical player at combat, but carriers always seemed like a force multiplier rather than a flat force.  Specifically when you've got a combat line of brawling-with-guns capitals and adding more capitals isn't beneficial because there's not more room for ships to engage with the enemy.  This is when having a carrier or two that can send in supporting waves of fighters that don't have to worry about physical collisions can really focus firepower.

It's certainly not .91a anymore, but I do feel like the current balance rewards a heterogeneous fleet and maybe that's a really good thing?
In that case I rather field more escorts instead of carriers. Currently a bunch of frigates, or a destroyer/cruiser assisting my main brawler capitals brings in far more value than carriers. Escorts will flank, harass and distract the target, as well as keeping the opposing escorts from doing the same to my caps, where as fighters will mostly just die to PD.

The only carrier I find worth bothering with in the current update is my Astral, acting as a backline artillery, lobbing Hurricane MIRVs and waves of Flash bombers.

3
General Discussion / Re: Carriers in 0.95
« on: October 12, 2021, 05:54:00 PM »
@ Wapno:  Another hard counter against fighters is Ziggurat's motes, although Ziggurat needs something like it because its firepower all goes forward.  Without motes, Ziggurat would be a sitting duck like Harbinger is.  Of course, Ziggurat is the queen of hangar queens, taking ages to heal enough CR to fight back after one fight even with Efficiency Overhaul.
Yup, that's what I was referring to as "endgame boss" in my previous post. Also agree about the hangar queen part.

4
General Discussion / Re: Do people use Hyperion without Safety Override?
« on: October 12, 2021, 03:57:29 PM »
And that use requires elite Helmsmanship.  Without that (and SO), the Hyperion needs to fully vent to zero before it can jump.  Even with elite Helmsmanship, dropping shields before jumping is not ideal.  SO bypasses that flux or shield management mess.
Which is why I'm worried Hyperion will be nerfed again in the next update. I feel like the whole point of the last changes to phase teleporter was to prevent it from being used to escape when being shot at. In that context, SO almost seems like an exploit, by letting you bypass the zero-flux engine boost requirement.

Would be a damn shame really. Aside from just being plain fun, it actually makes the ship viable.

I tried non-SO Hyperion with guns and ITU, and tried to brawl like a normal warship.  Without skills, it did not last long enough (not enough PPT) compared to other ships, and I was better off with those other ships.

Then I tried SO Hyperion, and it played much like it did before this release, except it is tougher and stronger.  Only problem, too low PPT without all the PPT up boosts (needs Leadership, Combat, and maybe I2R).

SO loadout I used was Heavy Blaster (anti-armor and good dps), Ion Pulser (EMP), and either HMG or chaingun (cannot remember, but I think chaingun because bypassing shields with unlimited teleport was relatively easy.)  Non-SO Hyperion cannot sustain that loadout continuously for very long.
Pretty much agree, even down to the loadout. I used HMG, since Heavy Blaster and Ion Pulser already provide enough anti-armor punch, making Chaingun redundant in DPS department. Chaingun also doesn't have enough burst DPS to be useful in shield-bypass ambush, where as HMG at least provides some flexibility against targets with omni shields and such.

5
General Discussion / Re: Carriers in 0.95
« on: October 12, 2021, 02:40:48 PM »
I love that game, and I hope Alex will read that thread. Or at least, that someone will reach him with the feedback he probably needs to see where are the problems. Since fixing ships is probably the least amusing side in creating a game. Balance is hard to find. And each future minor changes can break and create huge gaps.
Rest assured - he does read the forums, and he confirmed that on multiple occasions.
I think we need someone, who can bring upon reliable carrier build that can fight through all the game content.
I think the crux of the problem here is that there is no such build in the current iteration of the game. Besides the carriers being generally underpowered, there exists a ton of things which either directly hamper their effectiveness, or are outright a hard counter. Doom's mine strike being a prime example, which is a "delete all fighters now" button. The "endgame boss" fight is another one, which features a system that murders fighters even faster than Doom's mine strike (even having additional bonuses specifically against fighters).

The worst thing is that there's not much that can be done to counteract this. You can minmax all you want, stack Expanded Deck Crew with Carrier Group skill, best fighters, etc., but you're still going to quickly run into a scenario where carriers are just not viable. This is unlike warships and phase ships, which can be made to work in pretty much any situation, given the right build and skillset.

I've literally instagibbed the "endgame boss" using two paragons with tachyon lances, while practically suffering no significant damage, thanks to heavy armor + resistant flux conduits + shield shunt. With carriers, you can bring whatever you like, but it's probably just going to casually wipe all your fighters with its ship system, and then proceed to tear apart your fleet now stuck at 30% fighter replacement rate.
Remember Carriers are under-tuned partly as a result of deployment is more restricted than before. If the game is modded with enough deployment points so that everything can always deploy, carriers would make up half or more of the fleet because of stacking firepower per area. If by chance, the game will allow us to deploy more than what we have now, carriers will become better in a sense.
Probably ain't going to happen. Deployment points limit is not a balancing issue, but a hardware requirements issue. Battles have limited DP specifically so that you don't turn the game into a slideshow by having too many ships present (battlesize can be increased in the settings btw).

6
General Discussion / Re: Do people use Hyperion without Safety Override?
« on: October 12, 2021, 01:27:55 PM »
You again, I remembered you. You are the one who spread lies about how bad hyperion is.
Just admit that, Hyperion best ship in the game and we can move along. I don't know in that world you living there Hyperion weaponry are sub-destroyer.
Fury (a very efficient light cruiser): 15DP, 9000/600 flux, triple the fuel, worsen shield and shield arc
Hyperion: 15DP 8000/500 flux, faster, a frigate therefore can done +20% damage to everything except frigates (wolfpack)
Medusa: 12 DP, 6000/400 flux
Once again, being a frigate it has superior maneuverability, strife speed and acceleration, swarm AI behavior, kiting tactics. The ability to mount machinegun just pushes it further even then firing same amounts of flux as compared ships.
Just yield, dude, you cannot win. You still not provided anything.
Not sure what your problem is, but I'd appreciate if you stop that caustic attitude of yours.

Not once did I say a lie in my posts, while you on the other hand are consistently ignoring my arguments.

Even in my previous post here I've openly stated that - yes - Hyperion can be effective, provided you slap SO on it, have all the necessary skills, can afford its high logistics apetite, and are okay with it being unable to fight two full-fledged battles in a row. The last one especially can be a pain in the neck, and makes it mandatory to have some backup warships in your fleet in case you run into two battles and your Hyperions are in the red CR at the moment - else you're helpless.

Got wolfpack tactics and everything else needed? Well, more power to ya - you got a cool strong ship. Would like to use something else than frigate swarm, and/or would like to invest skill points somewhere else than leadership (Automatic Ships maybe)? Tough luck - Hyperion is a flashy useless ship, crippled by all its downsides too much to be practical. It requires putting all your eggs in one basket to be useful.

All of the ships you've mentioned in your comparison can achieve the same exact thing as a non-SO Hyperion, but without wolfpack tactics, for half the maintenance cost and without dropping 40% CR per battle. Especially Medusa, which ironically is faster at running away with its phase skimmer, while non-SO Hyperion cannot use its system without zero-flux engine boost (which even with elite helmsmanship means having to hold fire and drop shield - likely a dangerous move in a situation where you're at high flux and have to flee in the first place).

7
General Discussion / Re: Do people use Hyperion without Safety Override?
« on: October 11, 2021, 02:31:06 PM »
I find Hyperion without SO not worth using at all. For what the costs of operating this ship are - both in and outside the battle - its all flash over substance.

WITH SO however it becomes so deadly that there's not much reason to not use the hullmod. 3 of those officered can destroy almost any threat in the game. Of course there's a caveat, that you need to minmax into the required skills so that the ship lasts long enough to do its thing before falling apart. This is probably the biggest problem, as it forces you into a very specific playstyle when using this ship. In my Hyperion run, I had to permanently shelf my Radiant, because out of all skills, the only one I could reasonably afford to drop was Automated Ships (Systems Expertise gives Hyperion more PPT and is a huge boon to lots of other ships, so it stays. Field Repairs isn't going away, as not having to restore a ship every time it gets a D-mod from being randomly blown up in combat is way too much of a QoL to pass up).

Another problem with SO Hyperions is that unless the battle was extremely short, they're already in red CR after just one engagement. If you rely on those and are faced with two engagements back to back - you've got nothing to defend yourself with.

In the end, despite the caveats, the ship is just begging for SO. If you're not committing to that, it's absolutely not worth the hassle. Its destroyer-class stats, sub-destroyer-class weapon mounts and its gimmicky system are not worth the 40% CR per deployment, 30 maintenance cost, and 15 DP, unless maybe to capture a point and then immediately retreat it.

8
General Discussion / Re: A Noob's Insight on: Ships!
« on: October 09, 2021, 05:04:25 AM »
As for Doom mining fighters, since fighters are effectively missiles and vice-versa, I have no problems with mines spawning directly on top of them for the instant kill.  As far as I am concerned, mines are effectively anti-missile for that use.
I think the whole mindset of "fighters = missiles" is heavily oversimplifying that aspect of the game, but regardless, I hold that Doom, or any ship for that matter, should not be a direct hard counter to all carriers like it is now.

Non-hybrid carriers nearly completely rely on their fighters for firepower, and mine spam shuts it down at pretty much zero cost to Doom, rendering the carriers useless (especially at 30% replacement rate). Notice that there isn't any other interaction like that between ships within the entire game. Imagine if there was something that could easily and permanently shut down warships and their weapons.

Maybe the closest things currently in existence to that are the Harbinger (which can turn off a warship, but only for a fraction of a second), Ziggy (which is a unique end-game ship, and comes with its own host of issues), and Shade/Omen with their ion emitter (which gets stopped by shield and isn't permanent anyway).

Furthermore, besides carriers, there are no other ships so heavily affected by perfect PD (except maybe the gimmick ship Gryphon, which is still a fully capable warship with multiple ballistic mounts at the front).

The current situation is simple and totally binary. If I see carriers in enemy fleet: field my Doom and never worry about any bombers in the entire fight. If I see Doom in the enemy fleet: DO NOT field any of my carriers - they'll get shut down easily.

Doom represents a nearly perfect, nearly zero cost PD, therefore it's overpowered.

Changing from fighters-as-ships to fighters-as-missiles has caused worse problems than those it fixed.
I disagree. Before the fighters-as-weapons change, there was practically zero point to piloting carriers, which were nothing but anemic watered-down warships acting as a repair point for drones which you don't even have any direct control over. I can say with 100% certainty that back then I never even bothered with carriers or fighters. They were just boring.

IIRC according to one of Alex's old blog posts, the change was supposed to give player a fun interaction with fighters and incentivize piloting carriers, which in my opinion it achieved without a doubt. I can't argue with you that the solution isn't without issues, but there is no legitimate reason to claim that it is worse than the previous system, which frankly was just horrible.

9
Suggestions / Re: On Recall Device and Carriers
« on: October 06, 2021, 09:38:45 PM »
I rather it be a system where it is toggled on and off and automatically recalls a fighter group when it decides to rearm or repair. Ofc at a cost of flux or charges.
That's a really interesting concept! Although I feel like one of its downsides is that it would partially remove the "control" aspect of the system. Being able to recall your bombers at a tap of a button is much more appealing than toggling a largely passive system, effect of which is triggered directly only by AI, which may or may not decide to use it at an optimal moment. Given how atrocious AI is with proper missile usage, I wouldn't trust it with fighter recall micromanagement like that either.

10
Suggestions / Re: On Recall Device and Carriers
« on: October 03, 2021, 01:54:44 AM »
I have to partially go back on my word and admit that the nerf isn't that crippling. I mean, it is still a blow to Astral's utility, and absolutely forces placing missiles in the two large slots, but it can be worked around. Systems expertise does a bit to mitigate the pain of the cooldown, and with missiles occupying the large slots, the vent rate wouldn't allow spamming the system anyway, at least not in any practical manner.

11
General Discussion / Re: A Noob's Insight on: Ships!
« on: September 30, 2021, 06:07:16 PM »
Look, I've provided screenshot, video and a meme to assure my dominance. And you still not inpressed, huh? Well, that just means we are in I'm right you're wrong situation.

I'm agree that scarab is stronger, but telling that you can field two Scarabs instead of one Hyperion is just fundamentally wrong and the reason why is officer cap. You cannot fill all dp with officered scarabs so it just needed to be implemented with higher dp ships.

So as I said, I'm right you're wrong.
2 scarabs with one of them having an officer is still better bang for the buck in my opinion, so it being "fundamentally wrong" is just your view. Not every playthrough is a frigate swarm of 20 scarabs, you know.

Like you apparently, I also think you're consistently ignoring most of my arguments, so to that, I'll just quote you - I'm right you're wrong ^^

Also lmao, "assure my dominance". Sounds like you might have some complexes man.

An interesting consequence of the Hyperion costing 40% per deployment is that it costs very little supplies to start ticking down CR during a fight. Ticking a whole 40% only costs 15! For comparison ticking down 40% on a Lasher costs 16. So while the PPT with SO may be short, its actually very economical to just run the thing straight into malfunction territory. For this reason the most valuable hyperion skill is a skill that I get on every officer no matter what anyways: Reliability Engineering. The PPT increase may only be half as much, but the -25% to tickdown rate is huge, especially when combined with hardened subsystems.

I feel like with phase ships, they need a suite of skills to make them very powerful, while Hyperion just needs a good build.

Yup, interesting point. Although I believe it has to be taken into account that Lasher's CR is going to start decaying later, meaning an overall supply cost per time spent in battle might still be in its favor versus Hyperion. Still, I'm more concerned about the volatility of using Hyperion in a state where it risks malfunctions, considering how brittle it is without the shield (have an engine flame out while your teleporter is still on cooldown, and you're risking taking an alpha strike that will kill you).

I still hold that this ship absolutely needs certain skills to be in a usable condition, and is just not worth the price tag without them.

Without skills, Doom is good and worth the 35 DP, just as deadly as last release.  With skills (specifically elite Helmsmanship, elite Phase Mastery, and Systems Expertise), Doom is too powerful.

Without skills, Harbinger is merely an easier-to-use AMB Afflictor that costs 20 DP instead of 8 DP.  With skills (same as Doom), it can brawl from near medium range with Phase Lances; basically a poor-man's Doom that cannot handle fighters.

However...
Ziggurat needs skills (elite Helmsmanship and Phase Mastery) just for QoL in using it.  Without skills, Ziggurat is slow as molasses and not fun to use.  It is like Hyperion in that way.

Also, unskilled fighters die to 30% rate after about a minute or so of fighting late game enemies, making them even more similar to missiles, but without the control and burst.  Thus, carriers need skills to be worth using, maybe.  Without skills, fighters are about as weak as they were in the 0.7 releases, and carriers are overshadowed by conventional warships, let alone phase ships.

Honestly, skills in the current version make the Doom even more OP than it ever was against fighters and carriers. As if "press F to delete all fighters now" wasn't bad enough, there are now skills with significant boost to phase ships, where as carriers not only rely on their skills to function (where as phase ships are still usable and deadly without them), but their boosts are somewhat weak compared to those of phase ships.

You might as well not even field any carriers now if there's a Doom in the opposing fleet, unless you're minmaxed against it.

12
General Discussion / Re: A Noob's Insight on: Ships!
« on: September 27, 2021, 04:29:22 PM »
Well that means you do not have played enough yet or always played wrong with Hyperion.
The "it aint tru, u just bad at gaym" is so far the most childish argument I saw in defense of this ship.

A kite? You here being hyperbolizing on ill state. Hyperion is unsinkable, literally. It got monstrous flux stats and impenetrable shield.
I am still baffled with just where are you pulling those bizarre statements from. No, it is not unsinkable, literally. Its shield is nowhere near impenetrable cause *cough*destroyergradefluxstats*cough*, and as soon as it goes down (or - heaven forbid - AI overloads), the only thing standing between it and death is paper armor and 2.5k hull integrity.

There's nothing that proves your point. Hyperion is unique ship which can travel entire battle map within couple of jumps. In a fights where forces are separate across the map it's priceless. It's a frigate and got battleAI as a frigate, it take harassing turns, it seeks vulnerabilities, it swarms in pair of other frigates. I got all proof of that in a video format loaded on youtube.
There is nothing you're doing to disprove my perfectly valid point either. Aside from teleporting (which in practice just means a lot of speed) nothing of what you're described other ships aren't doing already. Why would I choose a super-fast, stupidly expensive ship, if I can field a much stronger ship, which is slower, but still fast enough to reach the objective point before the enemy, AND doesn't have a whole baggage of other issues with it?

What cost are you talking right now? 15 DP? FITHTEEN DEPLOYMENT POINTS? Is this TOO much to handle?? A cost of a destroyer? Please do not mention 30 supplies, it's irrelevant in a battle and doesn't even much in a game economy. You can pay this even at the beginning of the game and feel no poverty.
Yes it is? Because for just one more DP, I can field two Tempests/Scarabs, which I can send to two opposite goals at the same time (which they will also get to quite fast) and will stay in battle for a lot longer. On top of that, 40 bloody CR per deployment. Hope you don't have to fight more than a single battle in quick succession, cause unless you're min-maxing for high CR, a single deployment already dips the Hyperion into yellow CR and malfunctions.

And 30 supplies is not irrelevant, unless you're only playing missions and not touching the campaign. Of course you can pay this, but when there are ships being able to do the same job more efficiently (and do NOT rely on a pile of specific skills to do that), it's just not worth it.

Yes, it's a hummer, but not in real life, it's a hummer in post-apocaliptic world there you can't care less about gasoline and parking spots.
Until you realize all gas stations are defunct and every drop of gasoline is now worth its weight in gold ;)

It's an S and nothing you can do about it.
Oh, but of course I can - I can back up my claims with arguments from the previous post, which you failed to do much about, besides yelling and childish meme'ing, with a bit of argumentum ad hominem.

you are running your hyperions with SO and officers right? The fact that it needs skills to function isn't a very big deal since the chances you end up in the leadership path is already really high right now.
It is a big deal for those who do not or cannot take Leadership because they ran out of skill points.

I tried to use Hyperion, but without Leadership skills, it was not worth it because SO is needed for classic Hyperion use (of teleport spam and all guns blazing), but without the bonuses from Wolfpack Tactics it lacked PPT.  Also, non-SO Hyperion was a pain to use because it could not support three medium elite guns well (not enough dissipation, so the universal needs to be a missile, or the mounts undergunned) and ship needs to drop shields to get out (even with elite Helmsmanship) and take damage.

So yes, Hyperion is only good with specific skills.  If player does not or cannot get them, do not bother with Hyperion.  This is unlike previous releases when Hyperion was usable out-of-the-box.

Thank you. This exactly. I took points out of leadership during my current run, as I wanted to boost other ship builds, which require different skills. Saying "Hyperion is uber with Wolfpack Tactics" isn't saying much - there are a lot of ships in the game which can be made overpowered with specific skills.

Bottom line: Hyperion might even be great in specific circumstances, but if it requires a specific set of skills to be usable to begin with, then it should be reflected in its rank, which in this case would definitely be way lower than an S.

13
Suggestions / Re: Bar missions - view destination on map before accepting
« on: September 25, 2021, 08:45:37 PM »
https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/1420431929736933378

:D
It's nice and I would love to have it... but how do I download it?  ???
I don't use Twitter.
If you're asking how to get that for your game: you don't, it's not out yet. Coming in next update release.
This is one of the reasons why I'd rather have the game update more frequently with such little additions instead of everything being included in those huge content updates far away in into the future. This is a badly needed QOL improvement and who knows how long we'll have to wait now, since it will have to be bundled with slipstreams, skills overhaul, and what else.

But hey, Alex & co. probably know what they're doing. I wouldn't be able to make a fraction of a project like Starsector work even if my life depended on it.

14
General Discussion / Re: A Noob's Insight on: Ships!
« on: September 25, 2021, 08:28:09 AM »

- Hyperion? In S-TIER?! Are you out of your mind?! That pile of garbage is B-tier at most. Yes, it has impressive, destroyer-grade flux stats and weapon mounts, but almost the logistics of a freaking capital ship, the most pathetic peak performance time in the game, and on top of it all, is made out of paper. Its ship system is pretty useless now for anything else than quickly closing the distance, and/or instantly putting itself in a dangerous spot where it cannot easily escape from and it dies. I don't see any practical use for it. The amount of nerfing this ship has received between the updates is absolutely comical.

Hyperion is absolutely A tier, possibly S when you stack all the relevant skills on top of it. If you put SO on it, it can use its teleport at will. With shield upgrades/skills and can take a surprising amount of damage and getting behind bigger ships to unload Heavy Blasters or Ion Pulsers is just too easy. Personally, I put a Heavy MG in the universal slot to bring down shields but you can do a lot with that mount. I like it without SO but getting out of situations is trickier because of the need for 0-flux boost to teleport. Other than that, it’s ridiculously good and easily worth the DP cost.

SO on a ship which already has the lowest PPT in the game and a tremendous CR per deployment cost? I'm surprised that thing doesn't start falling apart before it even gets to shoot at anything...

I beg your pardon? Do you actually used Hyperion? I know many players got repelled by x2 maintenance and ppt, i was one of them. But Hyperion really worth that much, it's a cruiser punch in a frigate body. With wolfpack and skilled officer it rips space and time on the battlefield. Clearly it's an SSS+ tier and 100% pick in frigate tactics, and it even good choice for admiral without red skills because how convenient piloting it is. PPT boosted like crazy also with said officers and wolfpack, and with reliable subsystems.
Scarab also sss+ tier just because 18 no cooldown sabots build exist.

Yes, the whole reason why I'm posting this is how many times I've been coming back to this frigate, and every single time the game kept reminding me how it's absolutely not worth it to touch it with a 10 meter stick.

Nope, It's not a cruiser punch in a frigate body lol. It's a destroyer punch with a survivability of a kite, a cost of (almost) a battlecruiser, cosplaying as a frigate, bundled with a gimmick system.

Being able to teleport behind enemy ship and blast it with ion pulsers sounds amazing, until you realize low tech ships aren't the only enemies, and omni shields exist. And if you REALLY want to do that, just go grab a Harbinger. That one doesn't even have to get behind the opponent to disable it.

There is nothing this frigate can do which another ship in the game cannot already do for a fraction of the cost (and can be deployed more than once). The fact that it needs officers and specific character skills to function just adds insult to the injury, and only proves my point.

Pretty much the only things Hyperion has going for are the teleporter (which gets more and more crippled with every update, and - again - right now is most useful for jumping right into a spot where Hyperion will die the quickest), and its flux stats, which indeed, are VERY impressive, but are still nowhere near a justification for its absolutely monstrous costs.

It's a definition of impracticality. It's kinda like a Hummer in real life - it's pretty, it's loud, expensive, burns a TON of fuel and unless you're going to use it to tow a freight locomotive, you really would rather drive any common city car for every day routine.

Hence, I'd place it at B rank at most.

15
Suggestions / Re: Message Log
« on: September 21, 2021, 10:02:48 PM »
That would be a very welcome addition indeed. I had that happen to me as well. Some of the notifications can be reviewed from the intel screen, but not all of them, and even then, searching through all the tabs can be tedious. A complete message log feature would be great.

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 15