Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

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.

1

Bug Reports & Support / Devastator Duds

« on: April 03, 2020, 07:54:52 AM »

I was flying around in the simulator to test out the Devastator on am Onslaught when something strange happened. Firing the gun at the back on an Onslaught caused all shells to detonate without doing damage. Landing the shells on the front of the ship seems to work normal. Pictures below.

2

General Discussion / Re: War on Vanilla

« on: June 02, 2019, 03:35:38 PM »

I don't really use Warthogs. If I want PD screen, I go for Broadswords. If I want frigates dead, I go for interceptors. If I want anything bigger dead, I go for bombers. Thunders and Xyphos have some uses, but Gladiuses and Warthogs, not so much.

This is part of the reason that got me interested in modding, right now it more or less seems that there is fairly little actual diversity in terms of fighters. Claws and Broadsword fill the Ion and Kinetic niche respectively and all you need to pair them with is the best bomber you can afford.

I always felt that the Gladius wing could stand to be 2 OP more expensive in exchange for a 3rd fighter so that the wing actually counts as a 'Heavy Fighter', right now the wing is simply too flimsy to serve that purpose. Thunder would be well-served with a stronger missile at the cost of 100 hp to push it more into a 'glass cannon' niche that actually benefits from having a Gladius wing around to screen for it. I'm not sure what the Warthog needs, but even if the wing does survive the damage seems to pale in comparison to the sheer alpha strike delivered by a Dagger Wing's 3 Atropos torpedoes.

3

Suggestions / Re: Relief Fleets

« on: January 11, 2019, 03:54:44 PM »

Hooking this into the missions system might also be an interesting. World risks destabilization, send out a mega-procurement contract that the player can take on for a big reputation bonus, a decent chunk of credits and perhaps some rare rewards - a blueprint or temporary access to the Military market?

4

General Discussion / Re: Tech mining does not fit with rest of economy

« on: January 08, 2019, 03:25:44 AM »

The resource output is actually pretty good if the ruins are large enough, although dedicated production facilities will still outclass it once the colony is large.

This. On a Size 3 world with 100% Accessibility, Stability 10 and a Colony Administrator with the Industrial Planning skill, Extensive/Vast Ruins bring in quite a lot of money:

20k from metals, 14.5k from Supplies, 13k for Heavy Machinery and 43k from Fuel for a grand total of 90.5k income just from one cheap building. The output doesn't scale the way other industries do, but a world with decent ruins is very much worth settling in the early-game. Doubly so because Tech Mining brings in a small selection of rare items each month, which could include AI cores and blueprints.

5

General Discussion / Re: What brought you to Starsector?

« on: January 03, 2019, 08:47:47 AM »

I played Freespace 2 a lot, but I always felt like it would be really cool to have a space combat game where you're in control of the entire fleet. I was looking for a game to scratch that itch when I came across Starsector and fell in love.

6

Suggestions / Allow Market Share to be a non-integer number.

« on: December 29, 2018, 01:29:15 PM »

Currently in the Starsector Economy, a colony's Market Share in a commodity is rounded to a whole number before being used to calculate the Exports Income for this commodity. This means that the effect of accessibility on income is rather coarse-grained, which can lead to some pretty strange behaviour close to the tipping point of rounding up or down. I would suggest allowing a colony's Market Share to be a decimal number to smoothen this out. This would have a couple of consequences.

Firstly, it means that Accessibility - as a player-facing stat - is a lot more intuitive. If I have a colony at 120% accessibility and I build a Waystation to get it up to 130%, my colony's exports will go up proportionally. As it is right now, some commodities may skyrocket (due to being rounded up rather than down), while others remain the same (4.9 and 5.3 are probably still rounded to 5). This makes it very difficult to tell how much of an impact increasing Accessibility will truly have. Allowing Market Share to be a decimal number is en easy fix for this and I think very desirable for a player's experience managing colonies.

(As a sidenote, I've come across an example of this kind of behaviour while writing my Economy guide. Cibola and Culann should both have a 5.42% market share in Metals, but one of them is rounded up to 6% and the other down to 5%.)

Secondly, it would make the game a lot more satisfying to try to optimize. As an avid Theorycrafter myself, I enjoy thinking about and trying to optimize my way around a game's economy - and Starsector is one of the most interesting games I've tried to tackle yet. However, the discrete nature of a colony's Market Share makes exports income wildly unpredictable. It's quite possible to predict the income of the first colony a player will settle, but every subsequent colony will have a knock-on effect on the previous ones that is hard to predict. The added supply of commodities from the second colony may or may not push an earlier colony to a lower Market Share precentage, depending on how the minutiae of rounding up or down work out, which makes it really frustrating to try to get a handle on. Making Market Share a lot more fine-grained would help smooth this issue and let me tickle that optimization itch.

Thirdly, floating-point Market Share would also impact the scalability of the game. As more factions and worlds are added by yourself, the developer, or through community mods, colonies at bottom of the production lists go into limbo. Losing or gaining 1% Market Share is not that big of a deal if you're Sindria and control the lion's share of the Fuel market. However, if you're one of the Size 3 colonies outputting 1.46% of the global Food supply, being rounded up or down can be a big deal. Allowing this colony to take 1.46% of the Global Market rather than 1% or 2% means that more worlds can be added without upheaving the economy.

Of course, this comes at the cost of storing a Floating-Point number rather than an Integer. But I think Starsector's memory footprint is small enough to allow this.

7

General Discussion / Re: An Incomplete Guide to Starsector Economy & Colonization

« on: December 25, 2018, 01:21:40 AM »

Welcome.

The first section is very thorough. Thanks for taking the time to make this.

One thing i wanted to mention (that you're probably aware of) is that in 9.1 the colony system is going to be changing a bit. Unfortunately i have no idea how to make your document easier to update as needed, but i also couldn't have made such a document without tons of trial and error, but anyway the point is i'd recommend making it so you can update it easily.

Cheers!

I haven't seen any patch notes or anything anywhere, but I assumed things would change as development progresses. That's why I've decided to make the guide in Google Docs, which allows for much easier editing than BBcode in the forums. I'm planning to update the guide as new patches are released and hope the community will help me by commenting on any outdated information as we go along.

8

General Discussion / An In(creasingly) Complete Guide to Starector Economy & Colonization

« on: December 24, 2018, 02:00:16 PM »

Hello everyone!

I've been mostly a lurker on this forum and have only recently actually signed up. I've read so much good advice and enjoyed a lot of the mods that community members have contributed, that I thought it would be nice to give something back. I've recently been delving into the Starsector economy a lot and I think I have something worth sharing, so in the spirit of a Christmas gift, I present you the first part of my guide.

An In(creasingly) Complete Guide to Starector Economy & Colonization

Feel free to add comments on the docs or in this thread. Future installments are coming soon!

All the best and Happy Holidays!

Nawyria

9

Suggestions / Re: "Combat Endurance", combat readiness, performance bonuses

« on: November 16, 2018, 03:54:51 AM »

Frigates would offer good cover and distraction if there was not CR at all. Just ruines the game by making you wait around or run from a fight because "OOPS Your CR is degrading from your lazy pilots they need a breather". It is nonsense how much damage this cr system is. Would make sense for carrier and damaged ships but, like the government, it is putting its paws into things it has no reason being in.

I think there's some very good merits to Combat Readiness that you're not seeing there. Having to think about combat readiness creates some strategic depth and fun.

• If you're looking to do some major fighting in a system, it incentivizes you to stagger your engagements. When fighting one fleet, you're forced to think about what's going to happen after - how will degraded performance affect a second encounter? Do I have enough time to recover before getting into another fight.
• By having your ships cost supplies to deploy (even if they don't take damage), there's a cost-benefit analysis that goes into every engagement. If only damage (and not combat time) had a supply tax, you could probably make a tidy profit picking on targets much weaker than yourself and overpower them. Having CR in the game means the player has a profit incentive to pick on targets your own size and to deploy the minimal amount of ships needed to win the battle. For me, this makes the game a lot more fun: I can happily ignore all the little fleets running away from me without feeling I'm losing out. Fighting them probably costs more money in supplies than I'll get in loot.
• It creates some very cool niches for high-tech frigates. If you've won a battle and some enemy ships are retreating, chances are your slow hog of an Eagle can't catch up to enough of them to make the CR investment worth it. A well-piloted Wolf, Afflictor or Hyperion, however, can single-handedly dismember a whole retreating fleet without costing too much.
• It interacts nicely with environmental hazards. Spending time in a corona, magnetic storm or hyperspace storm doesn't just cost you in the purse, it also makes flying around a little bit more dangerous.
• It makes the Emergency Burn ability interesting. If there was no degradation to CR when using it, there's no reason not to use at every possible instance. Not much of an 'Emergency', then, is it?

You could argue that the system could use some tweaking, especially when it comes to the low Peak Operating Time of Frigates and the A.I.'s current cowardly behaviour. But to say that the system is just flat out bad in every possible way is simply indefensible.

10

General Discussion / Re: [Guide] Officer Skill Builds

« on: November 15, 2018, 12:35:23 PM »

In light of some of the discussion in this thread, I've updated the guide. Major rating changes include placing more importance on Shields via Defensive Systems and shifting priority from Evasive Maneuvers to Impact Mitigation for Armour-based ships. I've also split up the Battleship category into a low-tech (emphasizing Armour) and a high-tech (emphasizing Power Grid and Range) variant. Lastly, for each officer skill I've rated and colour-coded each separate level and I've added a numbers-based rating for a more fine-grained approach.

11

General Discussion / Re: [Guide] Officer Skill Builds

« on: November 10, 2018, 11:29:36 AM »

... and any extra armor for damage reduction calculation only does nothing as long as the current armor is above that value...

That actually makes a lot of sense. If DR from Armour was not capped to 85% (or 90% with Impact Mitigation), I imagine we'd get a lot more mileage out of Evasive Maneuvers. As it stands, we actually end up 'wasting' a lot of the +50% armour bonus for DR purposes, which makes IM champion.

12

General Discussion / Re: [Guide] Officer Skill Builds

« on: November 06, 2018, 01:29:45 AM »

Also, evasive action is not the best armor boosting skill. Impact mitigation is pretty clearly better. I tested the number of shots it would take a 100 and 400 damage per shot weapon to strip various amounts of armor for the two skills:

Spoiler

[close]

Spoiler

[close]

Clearly IM outperforms EA (always takes the same or more shots to strip armor with IM). As the damage per shot increases the difference become marginal, so the choice doesn't really matter vs torpedos and hellebores, but against pulse lasers and stuff like that, IM is much better, and the benefit scales with armor amount so large ships see more difference between IM and EA.  I'm pretty  sure the increased benefit with armor amount is due to the level 2 IM skill. The general difference is due to 20% armor reduction mostly, and the +150 also contributes to that.

My assumptions making this were:
50% of current armor for armor mitigation, applied to the armor damage calculation formula
20% reduction in armor damage is applied after armor calculation (so the amount the amount of armor lost on each shot is reduced by 20%, not a 20% reduction in damage to armor)

EA also has the maneuverability bonus which is nice, but it's not clearly better, and I wouldn't take it over some other skills.

If that's true, then I stand corrected. Do you know what the exact armor damage formula is? I'd love to play around with this a bit.

I'm a big fan of advanced countermeasures 1 for the early game - its practically mandatory for frigates once the player has gotten the hang of taking kinetic rounds on armor.

I could see AC1 for a player-captained ship. But if I recall correctly, the AI isn't particularly good at deciding whether or not to take Kinetic damage on armour. Would you still recommend it for Ai ships?

13

General Discussion / Re: [Guide] Officer Skill Builds

« on: November 05, 2018, 03:04:16 AM »

In my point of view, helmsmanship should be a key skill for carriers as setting fighters in engage mode will generate some flux which means you will lose speed bonus.

+50 almost doubles the speed of all carriers.

That's a good point, I like that a lot! Changed it right away.

Decent guide. I did a run-down of skills for myself just recently. Agree with some, disagree with others.

- Damage Control, Countermeasures, and even Helmsmanship are trap options. More speed is nice, but 0-flux boost is extremely situational and I want my ships to shoot.
- If a ship uses shields as main defense, you want Defensive Systems. Even on frigates.
- If a ship uses armor instead, buff armor. Don't try to do both unless picks are imperfect.
- Power Grid Modulation is a secondary skill at best. Useful if you can spare the slot on shielded ships and phase ships.
- Target Analysis is the best offensive skill.
- Evasive Action is the best armor skill, but if you can get both, get both.
- Combat Endurance is mandatory.

In order:

- I'll agree on Damage Control and Countermeasures, but I'll make the case for Helmsmanship being stronger than you give it credit for. The speed and acceleration boost really helps AI-controlled ships crawl back from getting in too deep. The 0-flux boost at 5% means that Cautious Officers can maintain their distance by not throwing away a +50 boost while using their standoff weapons.
- I'll agree with your take on Defensive Systems, it's a lot better than I give it credit for.
- I would agree with you here on not taking Shield AND Armour boosting skills... for player controlled-ships. For instance, I don't necessarily trust my Battleship officers enough to keep themselves safe using just their shields, so I want them to have boosted armour too.
- I guess I did overvalue Power Grid Modulation a bit. 10% Capacity doesn't no nearly as much compared to, say, -20% damage on shields.
- Target Analysis, Evasive Action and Combat Endurance are indeed the three best skills. I came to pretty much the same conclusion. I would argue for Helmsmanship is a clost fourth.

- Combat Endurance is mandatory.

No levels of Combat Endurance are ever needed for flying capitals, unless some people take a lot longer than I do to finish the biggest fleet battles. Unless you're only ever going to have one capital in your fleet (presumably piloted by you), at least one of your officers can skip Combat Endurance entirely.

Cruisers and below can definitely make use of Combat Endurance 1 and I agree it's nearly mandatory, although in some cases it may be skippable. I've only had two Herons run out of peak performance a single time, during a brutal 3:2 fight against REDACTED.

With destroyers and especially frigates, Combat Endurance 2 may be helpful to squeeze some more use out of them, although you'll probably stop putting officers in frigates after a certain point, so that's worth considering.

I will never in my life take Combat Endurance 3 on any officer ever again, because frequently when you switch ship assignments you'll lose supplies unless every single one of them has Combat Endurance 3, which (to me at least) is very annoying. I'd rather have more points spent elsewhere and get by with overall lower CR.

It's not just about the Peak Operating Time, though. Combat Readiness directly affects several important in-game stats that I honestly believe are worth the hassle of switching assignments.

For every 5% below 50% CR, ships take a -1% hit to Maneuvrability and Damage Dealt, a 1% increase Damage Taken, as well as degrading Autofire Accuracy, Missile Storage and running the risk of malfunctions.
Between 50% and 70% CR, ships operate normally.
For every 3% CR above 70%, ships gain a +1% bonus to Maneuvrability and Damage Dealt, a 1% reduction in Damage Taken, as well as increasing Autofire Accuracy.

This essentially makes rank 3 Combat Endurance a +5% to three of the most important stats.

14

Suggestions / Re: QoL feature: Custom Map Markers

« on: November 04, 2018, 12:33:59 PM »

First off - welcome to the forum!

This is definitely I'd like to look at at some point - there are some good use cases, and I've found myself wanting to do this a couple of times during a recent test playthrough. I *think* it'd also fit in nicely with the new intel UI. There's no way I'd be able to add this in for 0.9, though.

No promises, of course, but I really do want to at least look at it and see how it goes.


(Side note: you'll be able to see where you've got stuff in storage without having to resort to adding markets manually; likewise, price information will be much more readily accessible.)

Awesome, I can understand that your priorities are elsewhere, with the big update that 0.9 promises to be. I'm looking forward to the new features 0.9 will bring and I'll keep notepad++ on hand until a future date. I think it's really cool that you're taking time to reply to the Suggestions threads posted on the forums, makes me feel like you're really engaging with the the community!

15

General Discussion / [Guide] Officer Skill Builds

« on: November 04, 2018, 04:12:35 AM »

Hello everyone,

I've spent a little time thinking about Officer Skills and which are useful on what kind of ship. I've compiled a few builds into a document below, along with a guide for how to use it. I'm very interested to hear if you find this helpful, if you agree with the choices I've made and how so/why not.

Cheers!
Naw

Officer Skill Builds v2.0

click here for pdf

What is this guide?

Your officers start off at level 1 with 2 skills points and gain an extra skill point at each level-up, up to a maximum of 21 skill points at level 20. This is enough to fully max out 7 skills, but unfortunately you don't always get a say in what skills your officer gets. The two starting skills are randomly selected and, upon leveling up, you are presented with two randomly generated choices allowing you to level up an existing skill or pick a new skill. You may never get the chance to pick the skill you want and could be force into picking sub-optimal choices for the officer's intended role. Therefore I've made each build into a rating list rather than a straight-up pick order, as you won't always get what you want. I've rated the skills in four categories: Essential, Good, Acceptable and Bad.

Essential - These are the skills I consider best for this kind of build. They directly boost the core idea of the build and should be taken immediately.
Good - These are skills that are good for the build, but aren't essential to making it work.
Acceptable - These are skills that provide a tangible benefit and are acceptable to take. However, they are outclassed by the two better categories and you should never pick this skill over a better one.
Bad - These are skills that you should stay away from. Any benefits they provide apply in a situation where it's already too late (e.g. an Artillery ship taking hull damage).


How do I use this guide?

The idea is that this chart can help you level up your officers to ensure you're getting the most out of spending the 21 skill points available to them over the course of their career. You can print it out and keep it on the desk with you or simply open it on your computer whenever you're leveling up. As mentioned above, you won't be able to allocate the skills exactly the way you want, but there is a strategy you can employ to get a close as possible to an ideal build. The strategy revolves around prioritizing picking up 4-5Essential skills and 2-3 appropriate* Good skills for your particular build first. This helps you avoid picking up Acceptable and Bad skill choices (which would eat away at the 21 points better spent elsewhere) by choosing to level up an existing good choice and gives your more opportunities to pick up better skills later down the road.

*By appropriate, I mean appropriate to the ship your officer is captaining. If you're putting a Carrier-build officer on a Heron with a Missile weapon in the medium slot, then Missile Specialization is an appropriate pick, but Target Analysis might not be.


Skill Picking Algorithm

Whenever you level up an officer, use the highest available option on this list.

• Pick a new Essential skill. These are the core skills of the build and you really want to have these.
• Pick a new appropriate Good skill. This improves the odds of getting a missing Essential skill later down the line and it's another skill you can level up instead of learning a new Acceptable or Bad skill.
  • EXCEPTION: If this officer has already got seven appropriate skills between their Essential and Good skills and one of the next two steps is available to you, skip this step. It's almost always better to push an existing appropriate skill to max level than it is to pick up a new one.
• Level up an existing Essential skill.
• Level up an existing Good skill.
• Level up an existing Acceptable skill. Better to level up a sub-optimal choice than a poor one.
• Pick a new Acceptable skill. These are better than Bad skills and represent sub-optimal rather than useless skills.
• Level up an existing Bad skill. Better level up a poor skill than to get a new one that might clog up your choices.
• Pick up a new Bad skill.

Builds Explained

    Artillery
An Artillery ship is any ship equipped with Tactical Lasers, Graviton Beams, High-Intensity Lasers, Railguns, Hypervelocity Drivers and Heavy Maulers. It is intended to do one thing: pummel enemy ships at long range. In order of importance, the most relevant skills for an Officer captaining this ship (1) Increase gunnery range, (2) Boost damage output and armour-cracking ability and (3) Give it enough speed to stay at range. Leftover skills are best spent improving flux dissipation and helping the ship protect itself from long-range counter-barrage.

    Low-Tech Battleship
A Battleship is the ship that is the highest weight class in the battle and can simply out-duel any enemy ship by virtue of dying last. While damage boosts are good, nothing quite keeps this kind of ship going (and pumping out damage) than staying alive. Therefore, in order of importance, the relevant skills for an Officer captaining this ship (1) Improve shields (2) Improve armour and damage reduction, and (3) Improve armour-cracking ability. Leftover points can be invested into doing additional damage, or improving the power grid.

    High-Tech Battleship
Copared to a Low-Tech Battleship, a High-Tech Battleship typically features worse armour, but more efficient shields and better flux capacity/dissipation. This shifts some of the focus away from improving armour and towards range, and the power grid so that the ship can make the best out of its shields. Therefore, in order of importance, the relevant skills for an Officer captaining this ship (1) Improve shields (2) Improve armour-cracking ability, and (3) Improve the power grid and gunnery range. Leftover points can be invested into doing additional damage, or improving armour.

    Carrier
This category speaks for itself. A Carrier is any ship that deals damage primarily through the use of fighters, rather than gunnery. In order of importance, take skills that (1) Improve its ability to replace fighters, (2) Boost fighter combat capability and (3) Keeping the Carrier out of the fight. Spare points can be invested to make the Carrier a support platform through missiles and long-range gunnery.

    Frigate
This category is for ships that are the lowest weight class in the battle, Frigates and some Destroyers. They typically have the lowest base stats in the fight and this creates two problems. Firstly, the frigate needs to stay alive by staying mobile and out of reach, secondly, the Frigate needs to do enough damage to actually cut through shields and armour. This means that the most important skills (1) Keep the ship moving fast - all the time, (2) Provide a much-needed boost to defensive capability and (3) Improve armour-cracking ability. Extra points can be spent on improving dissipation (if the ship can't fire all its guns with shields active and stay at 0 flux), Gunnery Damage, Missile Damage or a Range boost.