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1

Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.9.5a (10.06.2019) - Hotfix released

« on: August 19, 2019, 10:13:56 AM »

It is possible to find it in research station or exchange for other bp in prism freeport. Chance to buy from military? Maybe, but it's reaaally low.

Ah, okay, will keep looking then.

2

Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.9.5a (10.06.2019) - Hotfix released

« on: August 18, 2019, 06:51:56 AM »

Just to be sure. Is there a peaceful way to get Blackrock blueprints? Should some pop up as drops or none? The mod files seem to mark only some hulls as no_drop.

Is there a possibility to buy blueprints from Blackrock military or somewhere else?

3

General Discussion / Re: Hyperspace Storms: Unfun or Necessary?

« on: August 17, 2019, 01:52:27 PM »

The "consequences" are that you have to

A) navigate through them trying to time the travel through the clouds, dodging the one's with storms in them, or...

B) forgo the travel through the clouds and use the open lanes instead.

This messes with direct line travel, yes, but it costs NO extra supplies per day when you don't get hit by storms. It will however cost you more time travelling, ergo more fuel and some extra supplies due to more days spent travelling. It's now up to you to do the math and figure out if you would prefer the way around, or diving into the clouds gambling on getting hit or not, and if you get hit, if the extra supplies per day comes out as less then it would cost you to 'go around.'

Seems like a decent consequence to me.

Those "consequences" are completely inconsequential. In late game colony investments, capital ships as well as the target bounties and missions you do rank in the 200-500k range (plus significant scavenging resources which might end up your fleet with excess fuel after having stripped the wrecks clear). You can bulldoze through any storm and pay the difference because they do not matter.
I am never bemoaning the supplies or money lost, but the time me as a player wasted.

The bad thing is being thrown into a pinball machine which is simply a time waster which makes it harder to get to the exciting gameplay. As I outlined I am not fundamentally against some terrain dynamics, but they need to actually give you some positive feedback as well as negative risks to give you as a player agency and feel a negative outcome as being the fair result of some decision of yours in gameplay.
In pirates! that would be you chasing some galleon around the Carribean when you accidently clip a hurricane and now have your sails wrecked and speed impaired so running away from some privateer gets tough. The reason this kind of consequence feels fair is because that on map travel feels meaningful to get to the battles. You chase your enemies or your enemies chase you.

In Starsector all the meaningful gameplay takes place inside system at distinct locations (ABC) so everything in hyperspace is mainly idle time to get there. At best you may get a random encounter en route, but that is also no different from in system travel.

Hyperspace currently does not feel organic in how those clouds are placed, ships travel in or around it or how they interject into a player'splans. They are just something that wastes a players time before he can have fun, be it battle, trading, colony management or simply outfitting your ships.

4

General Discussion / Re: Hyperspace Storms: Unfun or Necessary?

« on: August 17, 2019, 10:02:50 AM »

They are not fun nor necessary.

I get the idea of creating "terrain" in hyperspace, but they do not really do anything but annoy you if you get into a flipper arcade for a while as you tried to cross some cloud heavy region. But that's it. You may have used more fuel and supplies but in late game that is not the issue, getting to the fun bits where you may be at risk of losing a ship or two is!

I could see a kind of weather system where currents/winds increase your burn levels to travel but can also turn bad, but overall the current solution is
1) too static, those clouds do not feel like they inform travel routes.
2) too rng. You usually cannot do anything about them. If you don't want people using that terrain, make it unroutable, at least for autopilot.
3) too dull.
4) actually without consequence (which given their rng nature is a good thing!). Maybe once in 1000 times a storm might lead you into a fight you tried to avoid. Otherwise it just annoys the hell out of you from A to B and costs more money.

I don't see how this is creating more fun or consequence. With a system of currents which connect systems and which may change or have storms from time to time I could see some Sid Meier Pirates! kind of travel mode which can be fun, but the current system is just a time waster and not adding to gameplay.

The core gameplay loop is: Get mission, go to mission area, beat bad guy, loot, repeat. This is just getting in the way of that gameplay loop.

if you'd want more of a Sid Meyer' pirates! gameplay loop you kind of need a smarter / dynamic system of hyperspace travel that right now.

5

Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.9.5a (10.06.2019) - Hotfix released

« on: August 17, 2019, 09:47:01 AM »

About that: to my knowledge, no_drop only makes it so blueprints don't spawn in the wild corresponding with that ship - when no_drop is there, the only way to get the BPs is by raiding the market of a faction that knows it from the start. This is intentional for the rarest ships in the mod. It doesn't affect the spawn rate of ships in markets, but I've confirmed they do show up eventually. If you want the BPs to show up on research stations and the like, remove no_drop.

edit: Market spawning, however, is governed partly by default_ship_roles.json which also determines how often ships show up in fleets.

Ok, was about to ask that. So given I have a Blackrock commission and maintain 100 relations while building my colonies and have my fleet full Blackrock my only way to get blueprints for my system forces is to go hostile against them?

6

Suggestions / Re: Deep Hyperspace

« on: August 17, 2019, 09:33:54 AM »

I'd like hyperspace to be more of a weather system of currents/winds, storms and shifting dynamics. As it is it really is just annoying and if I look at the map pretty much random. If you had some sort of currents going which increase your speed through hyperspace and those have a higher risk of storms there is at least some benefit to seek them out. As is they are just an obstacle which has no gameplay value beyond annoying one.

Yes, maybe once in a blue moon a bad storm throws you off and allows a stronger fleet to ambush you, but that is pretty much a forgettable ratio against the other hundreds of times where it simply made it take longer to where fun happens.

Though I guess that would take a lot of overhaul of the AI to make the pathfinding work.

I understand the wish to have "terrain" in hyperspace but really these hyperspace clouds are not the answer. Just increase the supply costs by some factor and it would be pretty much as entertaining.

7

General Discussion / So Trade rework still in progress?

« on: August 11, 2019, 05:11:51 AM »

Hey, sorry yes, that question.

I come back to the game after a year or so and it seems a lot of it is reworked, particularly intel/missions. What I was wondering is where the trade missions went, they seem very sparse and not very balanced (aka I am in luck encountering one or two missions and most are by pirate bases wanting illegal goods).

While trade was always an issue I felt the last iteration with trade missions had about the most interesting gameplay loop if you wanted to go trader for a while as you had to figure out where to find the goods demanded and see how to deliver everything on time. At least a major step up to before where the only profitable trade was food shortages.

The current state seems a major step back compared to the state last year. I also find the intel screen far less informative in gaining an overview of missions and trade opportunities.

It seems a tad strange because trade may be just a secondary gameplay loop to combat, but it is certainly more involving than surveying/exploration pretty empty space as you are at least in the region where most combat happens. Arguably I also dislike how all bounties are now miles away and you waste tons of time trekking from and to the targets. Only upside of that is that it makes faction warfare far more interesting because it is at least in the region where the fun is.

8

General Discussion / Re: Terrible Game

« on: August 15, 2018, 03:25:47 AM »

... Don't be afraid to fix the Dmods if you find you have enough cash. ...

That's kind of a good point by the OP. Wait, what? You can fix DMods?! Never knew that play this on and off for years...

I feel the game could bother with more Nexerlin like starting conditions. I usually jump to a start with destroyer simply because I feel the grind from frigate to there wastes my time and I want to have fun. Imo combat and options like trade etc. become much more viable at that stage.

9

Mods / Re: [0.8.1a] Nexerelin v0.8.3e "Battle Stations!" (update 2018-03-17)

« on: July 29, 2018, 05:32:27 AM »

...

Are you running 0.8.1a release candidate 8?  I had accidentally been running 0.8.1a RC7 and had similar crashes.

Yes, realized I had RC7. Will see if things work out now. THX! And congrats on the great mod work!

10

Mods / Re: [0.8.1a] Nexerelin v0.8.3e "Battle Stations!" (update 2018-03-17)

« on: July 28, 2018, 11:48:09 AM »

Hi, trying to get back to Starsector for a game or two, but have some weird Access error crash on fleet dialog:

Spoiler

836440 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.IllegalAccessError: tried to access field com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.FleetInteractionDialogPluginImpl.config from class exerelin.campaign.battle.NexFleetInteractionDialogPluginImpl
java.lang.IllegalAccessError: tried to access field com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.FleetInteractionDialogPluginImpl.config from class exerelin.campaign.battle.NexFleetInteractionDialogPluginImpl
   at exerelin.campaign.battle.NexFleetInteractionDialogPluginImpl.init(NexFleetInteractionDialogPluginImpl.java:299)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newui.OoOo.öØ0000(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newui.OoOo.<init>(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newui.OoOo.<init>(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignState.startEncounterInvolvingPlayerFleet(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignState.advance(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
   at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

[close]

Currently switching out all my mod versions. Could it be an outdated LazyLib or something? I also added the Mayorate mod taken over by Blothorn?

Hope it has something to do with the duplicate Nexelin config in the Mayorate mod and yours. At least Nexerlin has outdated ship data (variant/hullIds) for the new Mayorate mod.

Sadly keep getting this crash. Any hint why this happens?

11

Modding / Re: [0.8.1a] The Mayorate 0.10.3

« on: July 23, 2018, 11:02:48 AM »

Hey, cool to find someone picked this up. Maybe see to have it added to the old thread (and maybe ModIndex if the release is considered stable again) so people know the mod is worked on?

12

General Discussion / Re: .8 feedback thread

« on: June 25, 2017, 02:08:00 PM »

Not sure if I'm alone but my impression of 0.8 thus far is that balance wise the core gameplay loop is out of wack as I find in comparison to earlier game versions I now avoid combat at all costs and even in mid game find most bounty missions being more powerful than my fleet which means high risk little reward as the money won't cover potential losses and expenses, thus I rather go to survey/trade instead.

As to me the core gameplay loop of Starsector is mainly: gain funds > upgrade > fight > repeat, the fight part being not in it anymore is a worrying feeling. In the same sense trade only works via missions and survey/salvage aren't not that challenging in terms of game mechanics as fighting in 0.8 a lot seems lost balance wise.

Imo there should be some rebalance to make bounty hunting and fighting more fun and profitable to progress and an integral part of the game again. Hopefully it would suffice to have more variance in bounties aka a wider abundance of lower to higher paying bounties so if one cannot/dares not to go after the big prizes there is something smaller to go for ro build up.

13

General Discussion / Re: Help a new player out

« on: June 16, 2017, 06:31:55 AM »

What am I supposed to do to get of the ground? So far I tried scavenging and then got wrecked by pirates, so then I thought I'd start again and just hunt pirates but they are now impossible to find. so now I'm just stuck in this one system because I thought that there just might be some pirates near one there world's. Im almost out of credits, supplies, and fuel.

So yeah how do I get out of this situation?

While free trade is not possible anymore beside food relief I found doing trade missions to be quite profitable. Take an escort for yourself, add a combat freighter and do those runs till you can outfit yourself with better gear. Also let's you explore civilized space.

Only thing complicated is sometimes getting enough price data to know where to find the resources the missions want and in later stages you might find missions wanting amount of goods even the planets producing them cannot provide.

14

Modding / Re: Misc modding questions that are too minor to warrant their own thread

« on: June 15, 2017, 02:17:35 PM »

Hi! I'm currently trying to bring a homebrew faction over to 0.81 and have trouble with a very vague NullPointerException concerning Bounty Fleet spawing, I think.Thing is how to best debug the issue. I would think the main error cause may be in the ships specification or fleet description but since I don't have any JSON parsing error it must be more subtle than that, possibly the change of fighters. As it happens in different spawn iterations of the world creation I would guess it has to do when a specific ship is pulled.

How can I best activate/deactivate ships from the spawn pool to narrow down the problem?

15

Suggestions / Re: "Soft penalty" instead of "hard penalty" when delivering goods late

« on: June 12, 2017, 07:46:17 AM »

Agreed, Getting rep deduction on a late delivery mission is frustrating. Its even worst when doing those deliveries that requires you to get thousands of that commodity and when you fail, you are stuck with a large cargo of stuff and pray to what ever god you are following to find a Proc mission that is looking for that same cargo just to find profit (which is like looking for a needle in a haystack).

A little addition to that suggestion if you don't mind:

If the deliveries are getting an extension (or at least giving you a deduction on how many days you are late), how about a different trader will take the cargo from you if you fail it completely but will only pay let's say 50%-75% of the original deal? It's would be slightly profitable than just selling it directly in the market. The con is that there is a chance that the other trader is a smuggler or something and you might get a rep reduction from doing such deal.

I think that  is the risk you should have when playing as a trader and it would be mitigated by the mission not being this binary cut off.

Another idea concerning rare goods: It might be sensible and maybe optionally to mission is that instead of having to deliver everything in one go, you could make partial deliveries.

Sometimes I find it hard to find enough stuff like luxuary goods for the mission and it seems a bit weird the person should not be happy to have 240 out of 300 luxuary goods out of nothing when I'm certain I bought all markets out in six systems to bring it to him. It should still be penalized/smaller profit, of course.