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

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Messages - Chaos Blade

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1
General Discussion / Re: A Professional Critique Of Story Points
« on: May 11, 2021, 06:39:37 PM »
Re difficulty in general I was excited to try the game because it looked hard and I like the idea of trying to scrape a living in a hostile environment and slowly work up. But I soon found out that you can't die, there are big shiny ships everywhere just floating around waiting for you to put crew on, you get paid hefty sums for doing literally nothing and truly ludicrous income from building your own space empire in a couple of years, etc. etc. The 'story points' are just another dose of this painful lack of difficulty, which is strange for a game of this kind. It's like it's trying to cater to a general audience. Let's face it, nobody is going to play this game except nerds  ;D

Unfortunately, as with any game, one difficulty doesn't really fit all players.  As it is, Starsector only has two immediately accessible difficulties, easy and normal.  Alex has expressed the opinion that he'd rather see in game switches be available to make the game easier or harder as the player desires.  Things like story points or taking commissions with factions.

I'll note many people told Alex in RC9 the payouts for missions were too low, so Alex boosted them in RC10.  Players were still told him they were too low, so they were boosted in RC14 as well.  So despite your claim, there are people on these forums stating the opposite in terms of difficulty.

On the bright side, Starsector is highly configurable and moddable.  If I'm not experimenting, I'll generally run a spacer start plus iron man.  If you're not aware,  Spacer eliminates the starting income, and replaces it with a debt payed monthly that scales with character level.  It can turned on using a text editor to modify:

Starector/starsectore-core/data/config/settings.json

Change line 216 (at least in my config file):
   "enableSpacerStart":false,
to
   "enableSpacerStart":true,

There are a number of settings in there that can also be changed to make things easier or harder, but is a bit much to go through here.  As a quick example though, one could change     

"storyPointsPerLevel":4,
to
"storyPointsPerLevel":1,

There are also mods aimed specifically at increasing difficulty, such as Ruthless sector, found in the mod section of the forums.

I agree, once you've hit well developed colonies, credits become a non-issue.  Alex I believe is still planning out what the end game enemy or enemies will be that require such vast wealth.  Its one of the reasons colony growth was tuned lower this release.  Although Nexerlin (essentially a 4X mod) adds a "starfarer" option which reduces growth by a factor of 2 again, and reduces income by 10% (leaving expenses alone).  Similarly the settings.json file includes upkeep and income multipliers one could increase and decrease.

As noted in this thread, the game is actually closer to an table top RPG than a space computer game that can be lost like Stellaris or FTL, for example.  You can suffer setbacks, and even be sent back to square one in terms of wealth, but if you want to continue playing, the game will let you, similar to how a GM will often make players roll up new characters and continue on after a total party kill.

On mission payout, the issue is that sometimes you have a good payment, but with the travel time, and cost in fuel and supplies, it ends up being marginal
So it is less than the payout is big or low and more than missions have a consistent issue of not taking in account distance from core when offering rewards
So, the big thing would be a distance modifier.
There are other issues with the general value of items, selling ships being too cheap, compared to the cost of guns and the like, which feels strange, but might make sense in the setting, specially with multi Dmod hulls, but...

2
General Discussion / Re: A Professional Critique Of Story Points
« on: May 11, 2021, 11:46:52 AM »
Admittedly I love XCOM to death, but the things you mentioned are indeed things I personally didn't care for. I much prefer the XCOM2 Long War mod, which essentially removes the things you mentioned and gives the strategy layer more depth. I'm willing to be forgiving of the first XCOM since the strategy layer was kind of false, and really only served as an interface between base time and tactical missions.

I probably need to give XCOM2 another chance some time, long war and war of the chosen
But Vanilla hadn't impressed me and between the weird chuni commander fetishization, the doom clock and echoes of the nucom goescape in the new game it was, I finished, there done, now darken my door nevermore.
Running a faceless multinational spec ops war with casualties that make the Somme feel like "a good day" was what I wanted. not the artificially reduced teams or the fake AI (pod spawn in the tactical, which is far, far less forgiving than some of the strat issues, after all if you are trying to do tactical your bread and butter, it needs to be flawless, not using a cheap cinematic to hide general AI incompetence)
But, again, as you said, Longwar did fix a lot of those issues, so it stands to reason longwar for two did the same, hopefully without going full on masochistic, but...

3
General Discussion / Re: A Professional Critique Of Story Points
« on: May 11, 2021, 11:21:36 AM »
no arguments there.
I am big on organic limitations in games.
I Hate Paradox Mana, I dislike artificial limitations that seem to be there because "game balance" or what not
It speaks to me that the devs feel the need to put arbitrary limits on a game because they want it played some way.

It is the reason I gave up on Firaxis' XCOM, you could have one troop transport (named skyranger for nostalgia reasons) that had four slots and then magically could get six.
But you had one skyranger, and yet there was no reason why you had one skyranger (except the need from the devs to try and force you to pick one of three missions to handle the disaster of a geoscape they built) but you could have fighters by the bucket load, even an alien tech fighter, same with the radar sets, or satellites that could cover a country down to the borders (space magic amrite?), sorry for the ramble, that game annoyed me to no end, and for all the nice tactical combat the whole strat layer left me with a bitter taste and more than an annoyance


4
General Discussion / Re: A Professional Critique Of Story Points
« on: May 11, 2021, 10:54:26 AM »
Even if we do choose to go further with the idea of RPG elements, I'd argue that ultimately story points are still an unnecessary and very washed-out placeholder for much more engaging ideas. In terms of interpersonal stuff, even if you didn't put a second's worth of more work into it, the reputation system that already exists... Is there, and frankly could use being more useful other than on a faction level.

This isn't a tabletop, nor does it resemble one. And even in tabletops, 'GM points' are something I more tolerate than want. If I do something heroic, my reward should be being a hero. If the GM really wants to award me, maybe give me a feat (read: skill), more experience points, or maybe there was a treasure involved behind the nasty monster / from the grateful civilians. That's solid. That's tangible, real, immersive, and allows me to feel like 'Yes, I earned this, and I can't wait to use it'.

Fighting an IBB fleet is hard, long, and often requires me to think on my feet to adjust my strategy and come out alive. My reward, though, is tangible; here's a not-insignificant amount of credits (Yes these are a bit easy right now; I would say make them less easy so I actually want to do trading and bounties and be selective about colonies, and also ships are way too cheap), here's some reputation, and here's a big salvage pile full of some probably nice ships and also a unique one, have fun with that mate.

That's the crux of this issue that I don't think there's a lot of defense for. Story points are far too easy, far too disconnected, essentially meaningless, and either let you cheat the game in ways where there were obviously better options, or they artificially prevent you from doing things that have no business having a magic paywall.

I fully agree, the Story points are too easy to get and serve as gatekeeper to too many things that shouldn't.
Specially not where there could be better ways to gatekeep those options, be some skill check, an actuall skill check, or reputation based or simple logic.
But I do recall something of Alex logic for the SP was based on him not wanting RNGs or checks? or something like that, which felt a bit of a let down.
Yes, people don't like RNGs, most of the time, specially when the dice gods find you wanting, so I can understand why Alex would go this way, somewhat
But honestly I do agree SP are easy to get and do entirely too much out of nothing and while some of that could be worked around or rengieered or adjusted, the big issue is that SPs are acquired by gaining EXP, they are meant to be part of the normal game cylce.
Which is why I mentioned making them a side objective or maybe the result of willingly going against the odds, much like moxie/spunk whatever systems that the points aren't earned by the regular gameplay system.

Yes, they are GM points and, yes, they really won't work very well in a pc game, but the idea behind them of having the player needing to go out of their way, of doing something "extra" or more difficult, which is something that should work better, if Alex is married to the SP idea. and again, having effects that are far tamer than the current implementation, like making sure my buddy steve is manning the desk at the custom booth in Jangla so he can look the other way due to the favor he owns me.


I hope he won't be, trading favors, using reputation or what not sounds far more engaging and organic than just using my accumulated mana points for my spellwork.

5
General Discussion / Re: A Professional Critique Of Story Points
« on: May 11, 2021, 07:18:48 AM »
I think the issue with Story Points is that it reminds me to Eclipse Phase Moxie, at least in concept, but not in execution

It isn't an unusual resource in pen and paper but, generally you use these sport of points to, for instance, allow rerolls on a check, or to stack the deck on a roll, or turning a critical fail on just a fail, but that is the issue, there is a skill check and an RNG that happen, and either the player can use the moxie to give themselves another chance, to soften the blow or to stack their deck (depending on how and when the moxie usage is invoked, obviously)
This is the first problem, because we really don't use skill checks, and we don't see the RNG, so we can't use the points in this way in game.

But there is another issue, and that is how Moxie is accumulated and that has to do with, well, Game Master rewards.
Generally these points are given as incentives, or because the characters did something impressive, or difficult, or ROL played in character even when it was in their detriment

So, at the end of the day, the fist problem with story point is in how we get them, it isn't because we managed something epic, or tru a tale of daring do, or what not, it is earned with levels and with exp. doing things nets you story points.
That is a problem because while having clear ways of earning them should be a goal, they should be earned by going out of your way, of doing something that isn't regular or expected, it is a prize and a great one.
So just getting them break the game

I'd say we do need interpersonal skills, we do need skills period, I'd say current skills are less than skills and more perks, they do too much and change too much but have no real granularity
I am not a better frigate driver, or better with lasers or what not, I don't invest on those skills, I pick a perk that gives me this stuff, but that is another issue.


What I am trying to say if Alex wants story points, we are going to need more RPG mechanics, we are going to need character stats that are used in those interactions and we are going to need skill checks and we are going to need ways to go above and beyond what is expected of a starfarer in setting to EARN the story points that we can use to make our lives more interesting* and maybe easier

*Because that is another idea in RPG for story point, you make things more difficult, willingly, at the cost of SP and if you succeed, you get your investmend and more

Another avenue as an alternative for skills is reputations, not in the faction reputations but more in the Elite Dangerous sense, how good you are in combat, how good in trade and exploration, how trustworthy you are (completing missions, responding to SOS, assisting other fleets)
That could give a basis for how good or impressive you are, beyond factional rep.
So if you have a rep for trustworthiness, bluffing and bulllshitting a customs official seems more possible, same with facing a big fleet, sure, they outnumber two to one, in tonnage and hulls and points, but you are the demon of the mist, of course they could be persuaded to look for prey elsewhere, and so on and so forth.
We would still need some sort of RNG and skill check, but it could be a basis for those interactions not needing points, or making story points more of a matter of easing the difficulty/stacking your deck

We'd still need a different way of getting the points than through simple progression, but coupled with that sort of check, story points could be seen as a facilitator or something.
In the first example, you try to *** past the custom official and fail and use the story point to make it seem like a misunderstanding, I mean you need to chip in for the widows and orphan fund, but, that way you wouldn't get a reputation hit

I mean that is how I see SP being used, it isn't a genie, it makes recovering from a mistake easier, or avoids you getting into a shooting engagement with a particular faction and/or limits the fallout for the failure

6
Mods / Re: [0.95a] Quality Captains: A Skill Rework v1.0.2
« on: April 18, 2021, 06:39:25 AM »
I'd like to ask what is the different between the options
like, I get stock and I get set of three and get untiered, but how would skill lanes work? progressive?

Can we have screen caps with the different variants?

7
General Discussion / Re: New skill system is a step backwards
« on: April 12, 2021, 10:26:25 AM »
It literally doesn't matter how you arrange the skills.
If there are still 'gates', skills locked behind other skills there will always be someone who has been prevented from doing what they want in a game where the tagline is "seek fortune and glory however you choose".

And furthermore, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed.

I mean, I understand but I think two sets of skill levels (basic skills and advanced) the latter which become unlocked by level could sorta work, alternatively there is the idea of further developed skills, that is to say a variant on the older skill tier system, those could offer gate systems that aren't that obtrusive or are even logical.

the Carthague line is an alusion to Derelict Contingent? because if so, I am fully on board

8
General Discussion / Re: New skill system is a step backwards
« on: April 12, 2021, 08:15:52 AM »
One other thing I'd like to consider is separate skill pools:
- personal
- fleet-wide combat
- fleet-wide logistics
- colony (which may or may not be available to player character, cores and admins do good enough job there)
- free (may be put into any of available categories)

This way we won't have the officer-envy issue when player goes for 'optimal' (in some way) non-combat build and can't do anything in combat.

Honestly I am not sure, it is better than current, but where would you put trade or salvage related skills? I feel they shouldn't be on free, they totally should have an impact on colony but don't feel like they are colony skills (Trade should affect accessibility or market access or market share, salvage should be more limited to tech mining, but should totally have an impact on the game beyond simply salvaging, maybe access to salvage teams that use your colony as springboard and offer you slim picks in return?)

9
General Discussion / Re: New skill system is a step backwards
« on: April 10, 2021, 03:40:49 AM »
The previous iterations of 'open' skill paths were never perfect. But at least they didn't undermine the openness of the game like this one does.
Eh, it depends. Previously, I had a build that was optimal to me for basically any purpose, except for piloting a carrier (which I didn't want to bother with) or trading (ditto). I could put my skills in a different way, but it would be worse than my regular build. Instead I just did skill-less runs sometimes. Now... I think I would use different skillsets for different fleets, though not that many, mostly because combat seems to be made without looping in mind and because leadership is kinda underwhelming overall currently.

it probably also depends player to player.
A more open tree, with more options is always going to be better than a restrictive one with OR choices (specially OR choices that seem arbitrary, like L2, or C5)

And yeah I1's magic space folding is kinda of annoying, even if it will be atritted to nothing as the game goes on, I feel more support hulls would have been a better idea. it feels more permanent than a skill that will become less and less the more the game goes on (and there are quite a few of those skills in the perk grid already)

10
General Discussion / Re: New skill system is a step backwards
« on: April 09, 2021, 01:27:11 PM »
  • Offering a choice between two skills that affect completely different ship types increases the barrier for a player to experiment with new ships. That seems like something the game's design should encourage, not discourage. Shields vs Phase is probably the biggest offender on this front, where one of the skills is always useless for your current ship.
It might be okay if respec is cheap, but it is not if player elites his skills.  Actually, if player changes flagship a lot, and flagship needs different skills to optimize, then respec should be free.

Rather than that, it would be better going with active skills, that is to say you only can have X active skills at a time, but can buy N (with N being bigger than X)
I am not a fan of that solution, but it beats chronic respeccing.

11
Suggestions / Re: Radical Neutrino Detector revamp
« on: April 09, 2021, 06:34:58 AM »
Another "never use it" here.

Requiring resources to use is either a non-starter for things you don't commonly carry, or heavily dis-incentivised for supplies/fuel.
Unlreliable information is not a helpful factor.
There's the hidden supply cost of using it by requiring the player to fly around for an amount of time further dis-incentivises use.

And lastly, almost all the things you can find in a system are in specific places which makes them fairly easy to find without any assistance.
The few things which are out in the "far reaches" away from the bulk of the system are probes, one-off derelicts and small caches. And maybe occaiasionally habitats. None of which I care enough about to specifically go looking for.

And so the detector as it is only helps me find things I'm not bothered about finding, and requires an investment of skill points*, materiel and time that imo are better spent elsewhere.

* I'm ignoring you can get the detector skill from the academy since that whole mission chain is entirely optional.


I think that is the problem not only it requiers a consumable that you aren't carrying normally AND it offers a lot of false positives, I think it should be one or the other. preferably no consumable (maybe some carried consumable would be interesting, fuel, since it is a modification to the drive bubble)

12
General Discussion / Re: New skill system is a step backwards
« on: April 09, 2021, 05:50:50 AM »
I get the feeling this new skill map (it is no tree) was designed backwards, that is to say starting by how it should look at the end, five pairs of picks in each aptitude field, for a total of ten that should feel like a "significant" choice.
The end result is that some skills are more significant than others, some picks make some sense together, sorta
But in the end this isn't even a skill tree, this is are perks
Skills would be how good you are doing X or Y, be it how good you are with kinetics or with beams, or how good you are as a helmsman, maybe modified by ship classes, how good a destroyer skipper you are, or a carrier driver or whatever.
in the end the "skill tree" doesn't do that, it offers me some perks (at the expense of others) and sometimes it offers me perks I don't care about (say Leadership 2) or puts perks I want waay up the end of the tree (leadership, Combat)

Think about the choices as well, Combat one: better helmsman (move faster, more agile) or a carrier skill (mind, the helmsman skill is also useful to carriers)
What about industry 1? more cargo, fuel and personnel, or a better salvage experience? mind a scavenger would like both.
Iindustry 5? more colonies or a slightly better colony? (I'd get if it were a tall versus wide, but it isn't at this moment) it also still isn't a skill
The only real picks that make sense to me in the tree are combat 3 and 4

AND then you have the issue that the perks have limits that water them down as the game goes on. so early perks become less interesting and useful as you progress thru the game (it should be the other way around, new perks should be special and interesting, desired, not important because the old ones are now a watered down variant of themselves)

Finally we have the immersion breaking perk, derelict contingent, but I've mentioned it a lot (I think I am going to make it my Carthago delenda est, or rather it is quickly becoming my thing)

13
Suggestions / Re: Bounty Payout Rework
« on: April 08, 2021, 08:05:33 AM »
Hmm, I still think getting ships and weapons should be a direct consequence of battle and not received as rewards given how, lore wise, jealous factions are with their warships.

Receiving ships as pay would invalidate:

1. Commissions for access to military markets.
2. Underworld heists.
3. To a lesser degree, colony heavy industry.

Not necessarily, we are talking about, dunno, an old ship, with two or three D mods, not too big, nothing of their mainline, and as for weapons maybe a small selection, so it would be an alternative much in the same way underwolrd heist don't make commisions or heavy industry pointless

I am not seeing how they would make those unnecessary, specially if they are the result of bonus objectives (and worse come worse, each faction could get a rewards table of stuff they might be willing to give you, much like the ship graveyard in the tutorial)

14
Suggestions / Re: Deeper Salvage Mechanics
« on: April 08, 2021, 08:01:10 AM »
I don't mind any of this.
With one exception: Anything about NPCs stealing loot is a super-hard "no thanks".

Other games have done that. It's beyond irritating and introduces OOC motivation into the game.
Salvager Nomads

I dont know what to offer for cruisers...

Mora.
I'm about 99% certain that somone has already done a kitbash for this as well.
Ithink a stolen claim can be managed in some manner, that is to say, you return and find the claim stolen, you also found some hints where the guys are so you can go over there and try to talk to them (maybe use a story point to reason with them or use some canned sunshine, whatever feels more advantadgeous), or maybe even work a deal (favor for favor?)

So, less NPC steal the find and more NPC inconvenience the player into raining fiery retribution


I mean, for necessary parts, I'd go with metals and heavy machinery, mostly?  You get some when you scrap a ship, so it makes sense that trying to un-scrap a vessel would require parts. (Or a story point. Whichever.)

I think this makes sense. The original idea I had floating in my head was more along the lines of what Dex was thinking, re: a little fetch-quest-y. You find a derelict Doom and are missing <maguffin>. This starts the mini-quest of having to (jack a tri-tachyon foundry | find something on the black market | raid a domain ruin), with the story point option of one of your officers being able to fabricate said part on the spot. However, I can see how this might get a bit too fetch-quest-y, so requiring rare materials rather than specific parts might be the solution with skills bringing that number down.

I think the fetch quest could be resreved for a few extra special hulls, you know rare, maybe XIV battleggroup capital grade or some such
Otherwise it runs into the problem of fetch quests: they tend to get annoying fast.
So, a couple? sure. more than that? ehhh...


The thing would be how to limit the salvage, I could see some salvage stat that increases with use or something (or maybe salvage (destroyer)) could be booosted by an industry skill (we are sorely lacking in the industry skill tree, so...) but that would be a boost.
As for materials, well, salvage supplies could become a thing, (alternatiely a mix of metals, machines, transuranic and organics?) to make patch fixes, enough to get hte ship moving (limping?) towards civilization


Hmmm.... this could also be a contracted mission, salvage an old Hegemony cruiser, deliver the hull to, say Jangala, get paid

15
Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« on: April 08, 2021, 07:32:31 AM »
Might have found a bug. Spoilers ahead for those who haven't completed story missions yet.

Spoiler

Finished the storyline up to a point where I unlocked gate access and went to the Aztlan system's ring gate.

Even though there is no nearby hegemony fleet nearby, I keep getting the message that a nearby hegemony fleet is blocking scanning attempts. Screenshot below.

https://i.imgur.com/95oFBft.png

[close]

god i actually hate that so much, the whole "a nearby hostile fleet is tracking your movements", as if ID CARE WITH MY 5 PARAGON FLEET THAT A FAST PICKET IS TRACKING ME WHEN SALVAGING

That is a pretty good point. It might even be preferrable if the enemy fleet which was tracking you would either be forced to fight you or to let you do your thing if they don't want to stop you with weapon fire.

especially when you have dedicated salvage ships that do the salvaging... youd imagine that your military ships would stand guard during the process... but apparently even those participate in the salvage ops

You know that could be a neat battle, you have your ships with the salvage vessels deployed (freely) behind you doing their thing and the enemy fleet coming towards your battleline

it would be a neat sort of battle (and as much as I hate escort missions, it would be neat to have some of that, if anything for mission variety)

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