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2176

General Discussion / Re: Simulator: Fighter Wings vs. Big Ship

« on: June 05, 2017, 10:40:32 PM »

AI fails to exploit key Warthog weakness - their speed.

Falcon with 75 + 50 (temporary through system use) speed could kite Warthogs (130, but they have range leash) to either line them up for easier shots or simply avoid if that fails.
Hell, using hold fire to maintain flux boost, most sub-capitals could avoid them (both less usable in fleet/mixed fighters scenarios due to other threats and more due to being able to hide behind allies).

So while Warthogs do have impressive stats, what really lets them shine is AI being stupid enough to charge into cloud of Warthogs (when even simply keeping them in front would have been so much better for front-shielded ships).

2177

Discussions / Re: EVERSPACE

« on: June 05, 2017, 08:17:49 AM »

Funny thing is, I was rammed more from the sides or the back, maybe that's because I exclusively play from cockpit, but I can't enjoy such games with any other cam, plus in EVERSPACE it's damn glorious. You almost never fight 1v1, it's 1v3+.

Yeah, I play 3rd person with max FOV. Not doing that means gimping myself in pretty much any game.

Honestly Everspace could go down in space-sim history if it has an actual campaign like Seth said in Strike Suit games, and if that campaign was good. Right now its baisically randomly generated "rouge-like" which lets face it. Sucks.

It's a quite straightforward mix of FTL (run structure) and Rogue:Legacy (progression) mechanics. However it lacks finer nuances of FTL events and I'm not big fan of R:L progression (allows and to some degree requires grind to win). I'd rather have FTL progression where you can unlock more options, but do not get straight powerups for consequent runs.

2178

Suggestions / Re: Shield & phase on a toggle

« on: June 05, 2017, 08:01:46 AM »

After doing some dangerous manoeuvres in Medusa I'd like even to just have shield/phase state being shown somewhere... Maybe I pressed it too lightly, but I still lost half of my hull mostly due to concentrating on the enemy and not myself.

Yep, clear indication of current state would be nice. Easy to mess up when you flicker a lot and/or focus on target ship.

2179

Suggestions / Re: Small Energy Mounts and Hard Flux

« on: June 05, 2017, 04:08:07 AM »

Taking a stab at a medium assault energy weapon:

Plasma Battery

The premise here is not to find the middle ground between the Pulse Laser and the Heavy Blaster because that technically already exists: the Mining Blaster. You could make the flux stats more efficient, give it an extra 100 range and call it a day but I went a different route: make a weaker Medium assault weapon. The Plasma Battery fires long(-ish) range shaped charges of energy relatively accurately and efficiently but suffers from low rate of fire. (I would imagine this to be the same projectile/speed of the Plasma Cannon, just fired one at a time)

Damage: 400, 267 DPS
Flux: 390, 260 Flux/sec
RoF: 40
Range: 700
OP: 11

I view this this as a high-risk/high-reward kind of weapon. You can stay at range and fire for good chunks of damage but overall DPS is less than the other options and if you miss, the efficiency gained from being at range diminishes. The low rate of fire ensures you make every shot count. If you do get in close, you'll find the Pulse Laser and the Heavy Blaster to be much faster killers, though the Tachyon Cannon does so more efficiently. A slightly higher OP cost is due to the range advantage and efficiency. The high damage per shot makes it effective versus armor and can spike shields.

Relative to the Pulse Laser, the PB is better against armor and has more range, is about 12% more efficient but is equally less damaging. The Pulse Laser will more steady pressure on anything its firing at. Relative to the Heavy Blaster, it's half the DPS for 1/3 of the flux cost with a bit of a range advantage. If you're going for the kill shot or have the flux to handle it, the HB is superior due to its raw DPS.

This obsoletes Pulse Laser. The only thing it really loses is a bit of DPS vs shield/hull, while being a lot better vs armor. But against shield it is compensated by more important stats, namely range and flux efficiency. And difference in hull damage must be really huge to matter, since once you are there, you've already won.

I suppose you could make projectile really slow to compensate though (~Reaper torpedo speed).

2180

General Discussion / Re: Terminator Drones and Phase cloak - OP?

« on: June 02, 2017, 12:06:27 PM »

The AI knows how to kite. Phase ships can't be killed while kiting. 1+1 = yawn. At the very least, phase ships need some kind of end-battle counter that's not waiting around for a few minutes. Something to make their inclusion a positive in a fight. As it is, seeing them is just depressing. If they're supposed to be a time tax, then bravo for executing on your design I guess.

AI is not that good at kiting. If you are in phase frigate/Hyperion/phase DE yourself, catching anything is trivial.
Scarab can probably catch phase too. Wolf can catch, but will have to do so at least twice (since one Heavy blaster won't kill fast enough).
Player piloted Medusa with character skills usually allows to catch them too. AI does not fully understand your ability to chain skim x3 + insta-melt it with Heavy Blasters when picking to spot to vent.

All of above was without SO usage. With SO any frigate/DE + Aurora/Falcon cruisers will likely be fast enough.

Basically, you should not expect to counter phase by just moving in their direction and shooting. Using one of faster ships with mobility system is mandatory (or SO). Or just drown them in fighters, that works too.
Only if your fleet is capable of neither does waiting for CR become main method of fighting phase ships.

2181

General Discussion / Re: Terminator Drones and Phase cloak - OP?

« on: June 02, 2017, 10:38:52 AM »

Solo Medusa has hard time against Tempest.  Easiest way for my to win that fight is to run down the Tempest's CR to zero and kill it.  In the meantime, save Phase Skimmer charges.  When drone approaches, skim backwards, focus-fire on it before it can flank, one dead drone.  But, Tempest is faster, can kite as long as its CR remains above zero.

Let's see the opposite case: distracting/surrounding Medusa with drone is the only way to kill a sim Medusa in Tempest (no skills). Nerf drone too hard and even lowly Wolf becomes superior for this particular task, since it can point-blank skim to bypass shield.

Also if Medusa could easily catch Tempest, there would be no point for any frigates except Hyperion and phase ones to exist.

And yes, the drone is too agile and dances around shields. I agree that this is too much and way more twitch-y than how the rest of the game plays.

And it has to be that good to make Tempest competitive vs Wolf/Scarab. It has slightly higher raw stats than Wolf, but skimmer is a very good system. As is tempo shell on Scarab.
While active flares are there just to give you something on 'F' key, since drone isn't on it anymore.

The key difference difference is that AI is decent at using drone (because even fire & forget performs well enough), while it's skimmer use is only occasionally adequate.
Which makes Tempest the best frigate as far as AI piloting is concerned.

2182

Discussions / Re: Starsector vs. Starpoint Gemini Warlords

« on: June 02, 2017, 01:05:14 AM »

Have only seen a few videos, but it seems SGW has too many insta-hit (or near it) weapons for my taste. I like more dodgy gameplay.

2183

Discussions / Re: EVERSPACE

« on: June 02, 2017, 01:02:28 AM »

AI is weird, enemy fighters trying to ram you pretty often.

It won't chicken out if you fly straight at it (because that would give you easy opportunity to shoot at it's back), but otherwise avoiding collision is not an issue.

But considering that you have fast strafing (full acceleration or near it) and even reverse (both are huge changes coming from X2/X3 background), avoiding collision or outright dancing around the enemy (in scout) is not that hard.

2184

General Discussion / Re: Terminator Drones and Phase cloak - OP?

« on: June 01, 2017, 08:33:17 PM »

Trying to counter Terminator drone with PD weapons is simply wrong. None of them have decent dps against shield. Use railguns/phase lance/pulse laser/etc, preferably with gyro hullmod. Then it pops easily.

2185

Suggestions / Re: Advanced Countermeasures Ideas

« on: May 30, 2017, 04:35:24 AM »

On the topic of crazy r3 ideas, how about this one:

• PD weapons can fire (at 1/3 their normal rate) while the piloted ship is overloaded.

How often do you get overloaded? I expect something universally useful at rank 3, not partial band-aid for player mistakes.

What about firing while venting? Being able to vent and still shoot down the odd missile would be a nice perk.

Judging whether missiles are a real threat (given distance to enemies) is also part of choosing right time to vent.
I'd probably pass on that, but only because there are too few points vs amount of skills.
It does sound almost good enough in general and maybe even broken good for some specific designs (IPDAI tac lasers while venting...?).

2186

Suggestions / Re: Advanced Countermeasures Ideas

« on: May 26, 2017, 12:25:16 PM »

On the topic of crazy r3 ideas, how about this one:

• PD weapons can fire (at 1/3 their normal rate) while the piloted ship is overloaded.

How often do you get overloaded? I expect something universally useful at rank 3, not partial band-aid for player mistakes.

2187

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.8.1a (In Development) Patch Notes

« on: May 26, 2017, 01:37:29 AM »

Why would Front Shield Generator lower the top speed?
(As in both gameplay reason and lore-wise description)

Fluff: Power is reallocated from engines.
Gameplay: To prevent Hounds from kiting with Mauler/HVD.

I'm not saying it's a good decision though. Hounds have horrible flux stats, then you add inefficient shield that costs OP + OP-expensive weapon... Results were mediocre at best even before speed nerf.
Plus frigate swarms are twice obsolete anyway (due to 10 officers limit in combat and SB/EB making their burn advantage unimportant for campaign).

2188

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.8.1a (In Development) Patch Notes

« on: May 24, 2017, 10:55:03 PM »

New bounties will not spawn near where the player is

It's weird to see world rotate around player that obviously. Plus, it was nice to get extra income for surprise double bounty.

Interdiction Pulse ability

Maybe it should depend on relative sizes of fleets (both chance to interrupt SB/EB and burn level reduction. With cutoff to 0% if casting fleet is too small)? Having single frigate stop Onslaught armada in it's tracks doesn't feel right.
And would be annoying to no end if spammed by small fleets that like to swarm around player due to being too weak to attack directly.

Odyssey:
    Increased speed to 90 (was 50), also increased acceleration/deceleration/turn accel

It needed buff, but that much?... DE level speed with ability to almost insta-kill a DE when caught from long range (triple Tachyon Lance under HEF). Even frigates, while they have enough speed to stay safe, are simply not that cautious under AI control, and will likely be easy prey.

Well, at least it will be fun to pilot before it gets it's well deserved nerf.

Piranha: removed LMG, bombs have an 0.1 second arming time

Just as 0.8 made them finally worth using. I don't think I'll ever prefer a Piranha to Khopesh/Dagger after this change.

Thunder:
    Range 8000, speed 450, 500 health/75 armor (same as Gladius)
    Armed with Light Dual MG, IR Pulse Laser, Swarmers

Do they have nerfed swarmers like Talons?

2189

General Discussion / Re: Do you use point defence ships?

« on: May 24, 2017, 09:29:02 PM »

PD ship actively covering others would be Wolf (or Scarab) with IPDAI + Gyro + Tac lasers. But IPDAI is incredibly rare so you won't have it until endgame or at all.

More likely implementation is distraction ship with good PD. That can be done by Omen, as already mentioned. Or Flak Enforcer. Or anything fast with flak, phase, etc...

Though AI simply doesn't have it's priorities on countering missiles. It won't put itself in optimal position for doing this job, other than incidentally.

2190

Bug Reports & Support / Re: About (in theory never-ending?) faction hostilities

« on: May 24, 2017, 12:14:12 AM »

Have played 2 full games (to level 40) in 0.8, lasting several cycles. No single conflict ever ended, they only start to the point where everyone is at war with everyone else.
Exceptions are neutrals and syndria-persean alliance. And I think in one of 2 saves there was no syndrya-TT war (yet?).

Am not at home, so can't check saves for more details right now.