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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 - cerebus23

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1
yes they will but i think the bigger the colony it has to go through several "destablize" events before a final "decolnoize" event happens.

how long it takes? dunno never timed it i did my thing to =teen -20 something went off explored of farmed other faction rep stuff, the colony would always flip eventually flip i never have seen the AI make efforts like paying to undo your efforts. seemingly each step takes months i would guess.

and yes pirate raids can get to the point they will cause colonies to go under. in fully vanilla even.

have other things to do is the moral or get the nex mod so you can raid colonies outright skip the year or longer wait, and the decivilized debuff to the planet. until 1.0 enables the ability to undo that stuff.

also reading the tool top if you raid a colony to mnus 10 each point take 3 months to drop by one so that is 30 months almost 3 years to undo your pillaging and plundering. unless the AI will pay off that stuff they dooomed evenetualy.

2
small ship do have nasty habit of wandering into your line of fire and getting them selves blown up, but its rare and especially if i keep an eye out on them instead of my target. they should have a bit more sense to avoid your nuke beam of death though when they drift towards my attack, they can do that for the opposite ai right? being aware of big ships and their big weapons and not hovering about them like idiots because you cant fire through them oddly.

can be worked about be sending your small ships elsewhere of limiting their spots. and stick to sub caps. point defense at that point i think gets more key or running some carriers for defense. chasing down small orfast retreating ships is a pain but the follow up attack can finish off if you spam your small craft to kill them off. bigger ships anyway at some point they will just turn tail and run and you will get nothing.

3
yep and this game is alpha yet so some systems are yet to come like this kinda stuff i would assume.

so we relying on mods to fill in the gaps atm it remains to see how the mods align with the final builds of the game, expect much different but good different and a more complete sandbox overall.

part of the reason he held it off of steam because it was not feature complete yet. i puzzled why anyone would ask for less sandbox, if its against the lore make it difficult to do it but do not exclude it.

and people gonna mod it even if you do not do it.........

not like you have to empire build you can join a team win the game, you can play by the rules be a good little sheepy, or you can declare war on everyone and watch the univese burn. that is a sandbox.

4
General Discussion / Re: Independents mechanics in general
« on: August 24, 2019, 12:20:59 PM »
They still behave too much like a major faction.

No one sends death fleets at them (or anyone else like pirates) for setting up an independent kingdom that produces some stuff to support itself.

All of them get angry when player sat bombs anyone - hypocrites!  (I would think some would not care, and some others that would are too weak to force the issue.  Some would be angry, maybe have some rep penalty, like -5 or -8, not auto-hostile.)

They try to sat bomb the player if he builds a colony in the same system, and they are dominate.

Pirates are better independents than independents, while Pathers are better pirates than pirates.

this

few tweaks that might make independent play more "real" is a variance on if action x means you take a hit like they realy are independents, so action x rolls a check if it hit a yes check you get flagged for a rep hit.

but also reputation cratering should take alot more work with ind since even in the lore it says they really are just people who want to be left the f alone and not bothered but eeking out a life on the fringes, they are not a faction unto themselves they just a loose grouping of people who not joined anyone else and sometimes work together, so unless you outright raid or carpet bomb one of their outposts they probably should not care that much that you ganked a feet of smugglers trying to run your blockaide on a planet you were invading. so maybe some rolls on bounty and smugglers should be weighted down.

ind should be impossible to get to "go to war" outside the entire galaxy ganging up on you and them not wanting to be left out of the fun :P. or your bullying attacking them outright for some reason which should not be a thing if they not radiing your or sending revenge fleets after you they should just be "independent."

5
well in a "universe sandbox" capturing stuff is part of the sandbox.

but this has a story and the other factions are part of that so if you say start early game oblitering all the factions kinda breaks the idea that you violated the laws of the galaxy and everyone is out to get you if everyone is dead and piraterrs are almost as big a pita as the factions themselves being able to summon broken fleets.

and we can already depopulate and populate a planet and the only thing now is the stupid decivilized debuff pretty much negates the bonus of taking a core world, BUT as far as i understand it he intends to add a mechanic to remove decivilized, should just simply be paying to stabilize a place should do that, but the whole notion of "decivilized" and wtf is exactly going on is murky to begin with.

atm mods add the ability to raid stuff directly but its too easy, defenders should have a heavy modifier by default (home court advantage) and core and major worlds should have marines in the 1000s to bypass to take a colony. leveled up 1k marines will take out most planets in the modded game nm how much ground def they got. gives more a reason to level up that space and ground action skill though.

Either way the core game is going to have ways to take out colonies and recover them soon. so there is no real reason to rule out being able to do so more pro actively. embargos, attack, bribery, funding terrorists,  there should be a variety of ways to wear down a colony and topple it, and most if it should be required before you work up to a military attack on any world that is larger than say 5. minor worlds just toss marines at the problem early on. and unrest being a thing when you take over an enemy factions place should be a thing, as well as a option for genocide and resetting a good chunk of the planets population. :P

If they could pull some of that off along with honest to god diplomacy and decent faction AI, there would not be such a "drive" to commit so much genocide. Tone down the invasions stuff, add ways to negotiate tariffs and etc on trade or breaks to buff your standing with a faction, and so on. lest with the diplomacy mods the yo yoing of standing is so schitzo it hard to keep track and with every faction doing stuff, stuff get lost in the shuffle less your checking intel constantly, better UIs could help there or notification systems maybe.

But it is the limited interaction with factions and the AI is what pushes some of the genocide and taking over the universe stuff. need to be able to interact with them beyond we invade you if you do too well. and that is it you cant say tell flat out you invade me i will murder you. or offer some concessions in trade deals to smooth their anger with your success. vs raid, raid raids, got enough colonies your being raided all the time by everyone.

if it is a sandbox give us more sandbox not less conquest is part of that.

6
General Discussion / Re: Killing core to stop the babysitting...
« on: August 21, 2019, 10:08:18 AM »
beong that the AI is outright cheating its arse off non stop a way to work around it and even the odds is use the console to spawn yourself some extra patrol fleets, but check up on them on occasion because the pirate raids will  wear them down over time.

it is cheating in the i do not hing fleets you spawn count towards your expenses. but it will allow you to go do other stuff than race from colony to colony defending from pirates/luddites/expeditions.

7
General Discussion / Re: Killing core to stop the babysitting...
« on: August 20, 2019, 09:46:37 AM »
Yea as someone thaat had murdered luddic path and church, they have zero core colonies left and i own them all now, they wil still send people after you via the outposts they randomly spawn, and will be able to field massive fleets despite not having anything to their name.

Same for pirates you wipe every thing out they will send massive fleets to harass your stuff constantly, well i got a lot of places to attack so they get around, and they field bigger fleets than the factions.

8
Bug Reports & Support / Re: How can I request a refund?
« on: August 16, 2019, 06:20:47 AM »
hmm i get the hitch occasionally usually when i got videos going and my games modded to hell also. but its very occasional. certainly not frequent at all. only time i see frame dips is in combat with tons of fighter missiles or general particles flying around (a mod supposedly address that but not tried it).

good luck with your refund you are aware this game is in alpha though? and there will be more builds and updates and more content and fixes if you give it a bit of time.

9
General Discussion / Re: The new skill system
« on: August 16, 2019, 06:09:52 AM »
AAA games have gotten to the point that the only way for them to make more money is to open up new markets and demographics, if you want and yes one way to do that is to pander to the lowest common that exists all across humanity, the average intelligence and time/money to put into luxury activities like gaming.

So they "dumb down" to appeal to a wider audience and sales pick up, they just never stop at a little dumbing down and now they to the point a 3 year old can play many AAA games wo any difficulty cept maybe eye hand coordination but the mechanics of the game? child's play.

Indy games are niche, they not going to have mass appeal less they one of those "golden" titles that drops at the right time with the right combination of stuff to appeal to gamers and normies. So their bar to "dumbing down" is much lower you just do not want to make your game so obtuse it confuses players at that point, long as you sell enough copies your gonna be able to make the game you dreamed of, and make some money on top win win for everyone.

But ONE DAY some of these indy devs will become the villians we see the AAA industry being now.

Interesting take.

There's making a game too obtuse and then there's removing any semblance of any depth or decisions for the player at all, so much so that there's only a few vague orders for the rest of your fleet in combat with the rest of it being fully automated, the economy being a simulation of a simulation of an economy and now most of the character and officer development being taken out.

You think doing this kind of thing to a game, dumbing it down to this point - is good for a niche indie game?

The thing that niche/indie usually has going for it over triple-A is the depth, take that away and..

Well as a person that wants people to play games yea i want games playable, but as a hipster i want the cool stuff for myself its complicated :P. jk.

but lets look at dark souls a game that is considered "hard core" and somewhat niche as a result but got broader appeal because gamers were kind of hurting for that "gamer" experience, dark souls is one of the punishing and rewarding games you can play because you can get gud and win the game you feel like a god when you struggled on boss for 5 hours, or your fell off the walkway in blight town for the 500th time and your raging.

Now there ton of people say well dark souls needs an easy mode, (cough dl a trainer), that its too hard, but we got those games devil may cry or bayonetta is where the "dumbing down" of dark souls would lead and gamers mostly say get gud.

Balance as in most things is probably best but it hard to keep balance and what do corporations or bottom lines care about balance? they cant.

I not played the old builds to see the old skill system to compare to the new the current is there but it boils down to what ships you like to fly gun/carrier and that is going to determine the bulk of your fleets because if your not carrier spec because your not flying one why, and the rest is making money or being able to govern, and the govern ones can be gotten around with cores late game for sure.

And there is the added complexity of fitting you ships and composing your fleets and managing your "fatigue" and supplies. More going on that the skills tree for sure and is the skill tree really where you need a ton more complexity? i would vote diplomacy and ai personally the skill stuff mostly works ;p.

10
General Discussion / Re: Colonies Cause World Wars
« on: August 16, 2019, 05:52:47 AM »
I can the established colonies not liking the new kids on the block, big verse and all, but they got the trade and they make the rules, and you just come along and horn in.

But if they going to wipe you out they should ally and wipe you out since well like we can all see they all going to hate you and be at war with you eventually.

Still alpha though and i got to imagine that diplomacy and suing for peace and etc i hope are in the game, we got the remanants the luddiates and the genocidal and suicidal pirates, to keep you busy, hopefully pirates less so and remants more so in the final game.

hegemony should stay aholes, i currently exploiting the game to depopulate their bases and planets, about half their planets are now decivilized, most of the pirate worlds are wiped out and the independents had to go because they kept trading with pirates and others i was at war with so.....

You got to keep some factions alive to trade with and in theory to have allies should shtf. A few i think i could work with but the expedition stuff is mucking that up provided you not grinding missions for the factions at lest occasionally to offset the hits, diplomacy should be able to head off the messing with you stuff though when all the is done.

its alpha!

11
General Discussion / Re: The new skill system
« on: August 16, 2019, 05:39:12 AM »
AAA games have gotten to the point that the only way for them to make more money is to open up new markets and demographics, if you want and yes one way to do that is to pander to the lowest common that exists all across humanity, the average intelligence and time/money to put into luxury activities like gaming.

So they "dumb down" to appeal to a wider audience and sales pick up, they just never stop at a little dumbing down and now they to the point a 3 year old can play many AAA games wo any difficulty cept maybe eye hand coordination but the mechanics of the game? child's play.

Indy games are niche, they not going to have mass appeal less they one of those "golden" titles that drops at the right time with the right combination of stuff to appeal to gamers and normies. So their bar to "dumbing down" is much lower you just do not want to make your game so obtuse it confuses players at that point, long as you sell enough copies your gonna be able to make the game you dreamed of, and make some money on top win win for everyone.

But ONE DAY some of these indy devs will become the villians we see the AAA industry being now.

12
General Discussion / Re: Sseth Tide
« on: August 15, 2019, 12:13:23 PM »
Yea everyones first colony is doomed because you dunno wth your doing other putting down some buildings. It is not explained at all lol.

So you fail hard then you go online and look for advice and wth you did wrong.

And yea its i just maybe using your head and buying security stuff first before you put down industries. So you have some defense on your planet and a starbase of some sort defending. But that also means you need to grind money up, because you cant have a income coming in at all for months, but your mid late game before your first one usually and can run missions and etc to afford a starbase and patrol hq some marines to put on the planet and some heavy weapons i think also add defense, not sure tho.

Then when you put down that industry those initial raids are not going to be much of a threat. especially if you can run 2 starbases patrols in one system etc.

Toss that out the window if your at full on war with someone and drop a colony down anywhere near their stuff. even pirates you peeve them off badly enough they will attack anything and everything you try and put down. but generally the above holds true atm.

13
General Discussion / Re: Sseth Tide
« on: August 14, 2019, 06:33:24 AM »
Starfarer.


*Ghost of the past christmas*  uuuUuuuu.

lol star(something) one hundred games.

14
General Discussion / Re: Sseth Tide
« on: August 14, 2019, 06:19:16 AM »
I spend time on gaming forums and never even heard of this game, seith's video (and praise) peaked my interest in the game i had never heard of even. I might share the game on the forums i frequent even been enjoying it, alpha and warts and all.

only problem is starsector and starcontrol are really easy to conflait in your head when you not that familiar.

15
<ahem>

This is (kind of) my fault, OP.

I told Alex, "keep the economy really simple" ... er, 3+ years ago. 

Why?  Because I'd had experience with (and re-coded, at one point) the Mount and Blade economy, that tries to simulate a lot of things pretty directly.  Like, for example, local farmers bring grain to a local city and trade it; it gets turned into bread. 

This works OK-ish when it's that simple, but... when you start adding a lot of resources and dependencies and then let the player directly manipulate the world's supply chains, it gets super-duper broken really easily, unlike real-world economies.

It sucked and was easily manipulated by players in un-fun ways, and it's almost impossible to fix that issue, frankly. 

Really! 

The problem with economic sims that actually attempt anything like real fidelity and include a lot of goods and services is that they really require a lot of AI-like gamecode trying to make it work out or weird rules or odd fiats (like, say, Mount and Blade's "tax penalty" where the player literally got less and less tax money for each new Fief they acquired- a pure hack to keep players from ever being able to win the game in a reasonable timeframe).

Problem is, that kind of code's bloody expensive per calculation run and it scales exponentially, not linearly, with additional markets to consider.  Which is why the Mount and Blade mega-mods that add lots of cities but don't fix the economy mainly run pretty sloooooowly, even on modern PCs.

Moreover, it doesn't add fun.  This isn't a game about being a masterful economics wizard.  This is a game where we build our ride-or-die fleet of sci-fi hotrods and blow everybody away, with pyrotechnics.  Trying to also simulate a realistic economy and interactions is kind of like strapping a nuclear reactor onto a LED... sure, it can be done, and Alex sure tried, despite my advice... but it was largely a waste of time and energy.

Alex wrote two major iterations with complex economics under the hood.  If you've bought the game, you can even play these earlier iterations; all of the older Alphas are available on the website.  I'd suggest trying them out to see why things got simplified.

But, if you're willing to hear out a total stranger on the Internet... neither system worked well.  They had all of the problems I'd predicted, no real benefits to gameplay, and the UIs were so complex that I had friends try the game out and walk away muttering about how Byzantine it was.  They just wanted to do some straightforward trade runs and make a profit, but it was well-nigh impossible to figure out how, exactly.  Not good. 

If you don't wanna take my word for it, download 0.6 / 0.7 and see for yourself.  Try, for example, cornering the market for Organics, by deliberately destabilizing all Organics production in the Sector other than yours (or in 0.6, just build out Organics in ideal locations... over and over).

So, did it add Fun?  Nope.  Just easy money for the player and a Sector whose overall economy thrashes and crashes, because disabling things was easy.  Also, like Mount and Blade, there were problems all over the place with initial conditions of supply / demand that spiraled if you played a few game-years in.  No dynamism and no really sophisticated AI make for treacherous conditions to build economic sims.

Now we're here, where it looks complex on the surface, but is actually quite simple, as you've partially discovered.  I'd vote that it's hugely better, too, because it's not such a mess and it's easy for newbies to understand while having some depth.

The player's economy is largely untied from the global; the rules are straightforward and creating synergies is easy, once you understand the rules.  The trade fleets aren't dealing in "real goods"; they're actually mainly window-dressing.  The real economy is the relationships you create between your worlds. 

So, it provides something to do, it looks like an economy and for all practical purposes, acts like one, except for the complex simulation bits and connection to the other empires, which really wasn't adding anything fun.  And, unlike the two earlier systems, it performs well.

Sorry if you want to play Space Accountant 2000; this just isn't it.  But, frankly, if that's what's actually bothering you... step back, play what's actually here.  The main game isn't economics; it's not even about money, really; that's a minor obstacle at worst.  You cannot solve your main problems with cash, either, which I think is how it ought to feel.

Interesting read and thank you for sharing an "expert" opinion. And no wonder i always felt i was getting skrewed in mount and blade, because i was lol.

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