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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 - TaLaR

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1
Suggestions / Re: Change Harbinger's System to a Movement Disruption
« on: March 22, 2024, 02:28:10 AM »
I'm basing my decision to preserve phase speed bonus on personal Afflictor performance. Bypassing a fast omni-shield (like Medusa's, I think shield's base speed goes down somewhat with ship size going up. Or maybe it's just easier to bypass due to larger target area) without phase skill is very hard, much more reasonable with full phase speed effect. If I can barely do it without phase bonus, do I have any right to expect it of AI?... Then again, AI isn't even going to try.

If I remember right, phase speed bonus is actually multiplicative, but can't boot up the game right now to check.

2
Suggestions / Re: Change Harbinger's System to a Movement Disruption
« on: March 22, 2024, 01:05:01 AM »
Is phase ship pack even a workable strategy? You take 20 DP for Harbinger + 2x10 DP for 2 Afflictors. If you go any higher, your phase ships become much slower. I suppose, AI Afflictors weren't going to bypass shields anyway, so losing some speed may not matter that much to them (still enough to stay safe)...

3
General Discussion / Re: should we just nerf the Onslaught?
« on: March 22, 2024, 12:30:04 AM »
Paragon is it's own thing. It's slow and only has energy slots. Even with built-in range hullmod, any hard flux weapons on a Paragon will be outranged by any ballistic capital built for max range. But going full soft-flux sets you up for failure vs Radiants (plus AI can't corner shoot to bypass shields when opportunity is present, reducing this build's efficiency under AI by huge margin).

Then again, AI can't precisely maintain it's range-speed advantage to kite (unless it's really huge, which isn't the case), so it's not like a hard flux Paragon will get kited that badly. I'm just allergic to concept of getting kited.

4
Suggestions / Re: Change Harbinger's System to a Movement Disruption
« on: March 21, 2024, 11:51:52 PM »
Disabling enemy weapons would be very useful as part of a phase pack! Phase ships are constantly taking attrition from little chunks of damage even when they fly well, and Harbingers are fragile, so giving itself enough time to unload while protecting others would be nice.

Its also a less "unfair" ability so could be longer ranged.

This would make Harbinger mostly an enemy ship to grief the player (since I assume weapon disruption will have more range/duration, and player is the only thing on battlefield extremely sensitive to unavoidable long range disruptions - AI can't avoid the avoidable ones anyway). Or maybe an allied AI support ship. Definitely not a player ship - player should focus on delivering damage.

5
General Discussion / Re: should we just nerf the Onslaught?
« on: March 20, 2024, 11:43:38 PM »
Conquest's main issue is being broadside. AI doesn't "crabwalk" nearly enough to use broadside efficiently. There is more than enough side acceleration to do so during Maneuvering jets activation (yes, AI needs to manage timing too, rather than just activate on cooldown as it usually does).
As result, an AI Conquest moves comparably to much slower ships.

6
Blog Posts / Re: Simulator Enhancements
« on: March 19, 2024, 10:56:11 PM »
Not exactly clear from blog: is "Custom" category just for grouping already present sim opponents, or can you add your own variants (most likely from missions, because I have too limited selection in campaign)? Would be nice to be able to do this without having to create a custom mod (even if a very simple one).

7
Very nice, not quite the legendary "Buffalo mk2 vs Onslaught", but definitely impressive display.

Don't understand what makes ammo restock though. Normally it doesn't replenish between rounds. Reloader hullmod replenishes only 2 reapers on frigates (1 for each slot). And Field repairs doesn't say it recovers ammo.

8
Suggestions / Re: Change Harbinger's System to a Movement Disruption
« on: March 18, 2024, 11:19:18 PM »
This would purely an anti-player griefing ability. AI doesn't significantly rely on precise maneuvering. Player does. AI usually doesn't do the winning move even when one obviously exists and it's perfectly capable of executing it stat-wise.

At the same time rather useless to player as well - I can outmaneuver AI as is, a system that doesn't help me win the flux war (free damage/absorption/dodge otherwise unavoidable shots/etc) isn't good enough. Harbinger (with character skills) is fast enough to not need system to approach any fleeing target. Not fast enough to outmaneuver shields like a phase frigate, but proposed system won't help with this.

Hard to not waste charge of this system too. As player, you'd just bait this system by entering it's range with a safe movement vector, then start doing whatever you were actually intending to. But good luck tracking enemy cooldowns, there is no standard UI for this (maybe there is a mod?). Would be annoying as hell.

Yeah, mine strike has all the same issues.  Piddly little mines?  AI can just maneuver around and shoot with PD!  Wasted charges! useless!  Pretty easy to bait mines, too!  Just drive forward and press the Doom until it uses all its charges!  Useless!  Totally junk system.

Except, I know the AI relies on fairly precise maneuvering, so I know why mine strike works so well.


Mines allow a manner of shield bypass, which counts as winning flux war. Attack from one side, drop mines on the other - enemy can't block both. Though this is much stronger than it would have been vs theoretical perfect AI, because actual AI doesn't try to precisely time shield against mine detonations.

Mines do have griefing element vs player, true. An Afflictor with character skills is so fast in a straight line, that you can't avoid a mine dropped right before you (there is some random as to how close the mine drops, you don't have enough acceleration to course-correct vs close ones, I literally tried "perfect" reactions in slowed down time via a mod). So you can't move full speed out of phase, unless you are ready to react by activating cloak in split second reaction (so, never uncloak at full speed near a Doom, you'll die during the cloak cooldown). It is kinda fun to counter once you understand how, so you do have a point here... I don't really like the part where allied fighters become a hazard to avoid though (mines dropped on fighters can detonate instantly).

9
Suggestions / Re: Change Harbinger's System to a Movement Disruption
« on: March 17, 2024, 11:21:01 PM »
This would purely an anti-player griefing ability. AI doesn't significantly rely on precise maneuvering. Player does. AI usually doesn't do the winning move even when one obviously exists and it's perfectly capable of executing it stat-wise.

At the same time rather useless to player as well - I can outmaneuver AI as is, a system that doesn't help me win the flux war (free damage/absorption/dodge otherwise unavoidable shots/etc) isn't good enough. Harbinger (with character skills) is fast enough to not need system to approach any fleeing target. Not fast enough to outmaneuver shields like a phase frigate, but proposed system won't help with this.

Hard to not waste charge of this system too. As player, you'd just bait this system by entering it's range with a safe movement vector, then start doing whatever you were actually intending to. But good luck tracking enemy cooldowns, there is no standard UI for this (maybe there is a mod?). Would be annoying as hell.

10
Suggestions / Re: An "always autofire" toggle for weapon groups
« on: March 14, 2024, 11:27:45 PM »
Imo, there is no need to keep obvious AI flaws just for balancing. It's always possible to just nerf enemy advantage in campaign to compensate for them being smarter (fewer ships/officers/etc), and the end result would be a better experience.

11
Suggestions / Re: Built-in Drones should not be Fighter Wings
« on: March 07, 2024, 02:26:45 AM »
I do deploy Shepherds a lot, even fairly late. They are easy to replace with pristine from every 2nd black market, not that sensitive to d-mod debuffs and reasonably survive-able.
If I want a pure cargo ship that never sees combat, I use buffalo/colossus/atlas (with augmented drive and/or militarized to reach needed fleet speed).

12
General Discussion / Re: new phase is absolutely horrible
« on: March 03, 2024, 09:56:10 PM »
It was always possible to catch any and all AI phase ships. Easiest with a phase ship of your own, otherwise with something like Medusa - just use burst of mobility from system to punish their vent (or with fastest ships just the unphase cooldown itself). Maybe even with an Odyssey, if you pre-position correctly and have 2 Tachyon lances.

13
Suggestions / Re: Better hard flux bar indicator
« on: February 28, 2024, 01:17:49 AM »
Yep, +1 to Nettle's offer. Clear yet unobtrusive.

14
General Discussion / Re: Termination Sequence continues to be terrible
« on: February 27, 2024, 12:56:00 PM »
Yeah, AI is definitely not smart enough to use a system with significant drawbacks. I thought we learned this lesson with Burn Drive (which finally became abort-able for AI not that long ago)?

15
General Discussion / Re: An analysis of SP sinks and some thoughts
« on: February 26, 2024, 07:58:13 PM »
You need to spend enough SP on refundable uses until level 15 to maintain 2x leveling speed and will eventually get these SP back after level 15 via 4x exp boost.

Ship mods are semi-refundable. Part of refund is locked behind having to scrap the ship, which is often not a practical thing to do.

But non-refundable uses are truly a sink. Officers are particularly problematic with up to 3 elite skills - you need to get all 5(6) skills first, to make sure officer doesn't roll anything wrong before committing points to elite anything. And even than, that's perfect officer only for particular kind of ship, so your fleet is locked into particular build one officer at a time.

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