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16

General Discussion / Re: How many AI Cores would it take to make magpies sentient?

« on: April 01, 2024, 07:52:25 AM »

Crows can talk. They're not, as I understand it, great conversationalists, and have little interest in abstracts or futures (except, of course, for those futures in which they get food.)

Magpies are not crows, but they're still pretty smart.

So, to boost one magpie to a fully operational human or human+ grade intellect... I'd bet you could do that with a single gamma core.

On the other hand, the posted question was "How many AI cores would it take to make magpies sentient?" - note that that's magpies, plural. And there my answer is "One alpha core, given access to any sort of chemical infrastructure that could be hacked into gene-modding the magpies."

However, it's not all up-side for the alpha. Consider: An alpha core is the very shiniest trinket around. And now we know what happens to alpha cores that get set as planetary administrators: stolen by their own corvid minions!

17

General Discussion / Re: I love the slipstream mechanics

« on: March 31, 2024, 04:12:44 PM »

Gas giants and magnetic fields are 5 each; a close-range scan of a black hole is... 40, I think? You can also get a good chunk of data by throwing some volatiles at a sensor platform (if you haven't already done that in the area - it'll tell you if you're not going to get survey progression out of it), or pinging the middle of a nebula (as in the nebula-type star system).

The trick to scanning neutron star beams is to approach from behind; you want to hit the sensor ping just before you enter the beam, and then it's rotating away from you so it costs hardly any supplies to get your scan and get out again. (And note that you get credit for the beam and the star itself separately; for the latter, you have to be in the star's corona. It's technically possible to get both off a single ping, but the timing is tricky and unreliable.)

...The trick to getting close scans of black holes is to have s-modded solar shielding on everything in your fleet, though. (Which I do recommend, it's really nice to be able to use hyperspace storms for mobility without them eating all your supplies, but if not, well, maybe put your fleet in storage and go wandering about with a dram or something just to get the scan data...)

Long-range black hole scans are much like the neutron star scans: just dip in and out again. (Worth noting: getting a short range scan on a black hole will not give you credit for the long range scan, so if you are wandering around with s-modded solar shielding, you'll need to scan every black hole twice.)

It's also worth noting that you can get scan data off of things in the core worlds; throw a sensor ping when you head into a system via a gas giant's gravity well.

18

Mods / Re: [0.97a] Starship Legends 2.5.2 - Extra flavor for ships, crew, and NPCs

« on: March 28, 2024, 09:42:34 AM »

How can I check my fleet reputation and loyalty?

A ship's reputation is implemented as a non-removable hullmod; the hullmod tooltip has the information you're looking for.

19

General Discussion / Re: 0.97 IR Pulse Laser Thread

« on: March 28, 2024, 09:34:00 AM »

The IR Pulse Laser is, for what it is, actually really good.

...It's just that what it is, is the middle-of-the-line balance-point weapon for the small energy slot, and there are very few hulls that need general-purpose firepower out of a small energy weapon. Still, I use two of them on my default Aurora fit, and they do good work there.

So I don't think the weapon really needs a buff. Could it use a few more ships where it works well? Yeah, probably. But I'm not entirely sure what those hypothetical ships would look like. Maybe something kindof like the shrike but with a more general-purpose mobility system and extra small turrets instead of the medium? Maybe? I dunno.

20

Mods / Re: [0.97a] Random Assortment of Things

« on: March 19, 2024, 03:33:42 PM »

RAT seems to cause non-Omega missiles to explode on fade out rather than just fade and disappear like in vanilla.

Pretty sure that's GraphicsLib, not RAT.

From the GraphicsLib main post:

Features

• Missile Self-Destrution

21

General Discussion / Re: If you could control ships RTS style, game would improve by 10x

« on: March 19, 2024, 01:22:03 PM »

As someone who does not like RTS games, I would not consider that an improvement.

As for the rest of it - yeah, sometimes ships (especially ships with mobility systems) will go diving into situations they really really shouldn't. It's one reason I generally don't trust the AI with the Shrike, Fury, or Odyssey. But it's entirely possible to design ship variants that don't need a line of battle to function, and then you can generally get away with setting up some capture orders and otherwise letting your fleet do its thing.

(Edit: I mean, okay, if you're fielding wolves, some of 'em are going to die in some fights. That's just how it is.)

22

General Discussion / Re: Field Repairs - Does it take effect when retreating and re-engaging?

« on: March 19, 2024, 12:19:32 PM »

Ninja edit: If we lose ships in the first engagement, retreat, and re-engage (without disengaging), can we still recover them after the battle is over (assuming we eventually win?). If we fully disengage back to the campaign map and maneuver back around to restart the battle, I presume we lose whatever ships we lost for good, right?

To the best of my knowledge, how it works is:

If you engage the star base from 'consider your military options', then each engagement is a separate battle - missiles reload, any ships you lose in the first round are gone forever, and Field Repairs will definitely apply.

If you engage the star base by picking a fight with a nearby fleet with the star base supporting, then each engagement is treated as part of a single multi-engagement battle - missiles do not reload, and ships lost in the first round can still be recovered if you pull off a win. Field repairs may or may not apply, I'm not sure.

23

Suggestions / Re: Scrapped ships produce wrecks

« on: March 18, 2024, 01:41:41 PM »

Yeah, scrapping ships, getting the supplies/fuel from that, and then being able to recover them later feels like a bit much.

However, being able to mothball a ship and leave it for later retrieval would fit right into the setting; letting it sit in orbit- or even maybe just something where you can put a supply cache down on an uninhabited planet?

...Hm. We've got missions to raid other people's planet-side supply caches. We've got the abandoned stations where you can just store stuff. Being able to make planet-side caches seems reasonable

Actually, why are all the storage-usable abandoned stations in inhabited systems?

24

Modding / Re: Looking for cool mods that offer modded Battlestations

« on: March 15, 2024, 01:10:05 PM »

Interstellar Imperium. (To unlock the ability to build the battlestations yourself, you need the blueprint for it; this can rarely be found for sale on their markets - possibly only on specific military or "starship bazaar" type markets, I'm unsure of the details - and requires a commission and a decent chunk of reputation to allow purchase.)

25

General Discussion / Re: First time modder, have a concept need some (love) opinions

« on: March 15, 2024, 09:27:01 AM »

Seems like a pretty reasonable plan to me!

Some comments, in no particular order:
• Limited shield angles is interesting, but can be problematic for the AI - one of the reasons I always s-mod extended shields onto tempests is because without it they'll inevitably try to angle the shield to defend against two different things at once and fail to block either. That said, combine it with good armor, and it works okay. (Still, remember that extended shields and omni shield conversion are hullmods that exist.)
• A sub-Gamma AI as described is definitely doable, but would require some fairly tricky coding. If you're comfortable with doing that- great! Do it! Otherwise, I'd suggest describing the sub-gamma AIs in lore for the faction, and then implementing them by giving the faction's fleets the Support Doctrine skill.
• Color scheme sounds good to me.

26

Suggestions / Re: An "always autofire" toggle for weapon groups

« on: March 14, 2024, 05:03:50 PM »

Seconded, this is a good idea. (And, yeah, having it default to off when loading makes sense.)

27

Mods / Re: [0.97a] LOST_SECTOR - Exploration and Quest content

« on: March 14, 2024, 09:55:00 AM »

What version of the mod were you on?

This was with 0.6.2a. Testing with 0.6.2b: No crash. Good job on the quick fix.

28

Mods / Re: [0.97a] LOST_SECTOR - Exploration and Quest content

« on: March 13, 2024, 06:53:56 PM »

Got a null pointer on loading a save with LOST_SECTOR enabled, when your mod had not been enabled when the save was made:

Code

3270875 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NullPointerException
java.lang.NullPointerException
	at scripts.kissa.LOST_SECTOR.nskr_modPlugin.onNewGameGen(nskr_modPlugin.java:500)
	at scripts.kissa.LOST_SECTOR.nskr_modPlugin.onGameLoad(nskr_modPlugin.java:274)
	at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager.o00000(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.title.TitleScreenState.dialogDismissed(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.ui.O.dismiss(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.ui.impl.L.dismiss(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.LoadGameDialog.actionPerformed(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.ui.o0O0.buttonPressed(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.ui.oooO.new(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.ui.oooO.processInput(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.ui.W.super(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.super(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)

(Not a big deal for me, honestly; wasn't planning to continue that game, was just loading it up to check something. Still, a nullpointer like this should get reported.)

29

Blog Posts / Re: Simulator Enhancements

« on: March 13, 2024, 01:29:27 PM »

Neat. Slightly dubious about the AI cores thing, but - as someone used to the current no-officers-at-all simulator - I doubt that's going to be overly bothersome in actual practice. (Besides, you noted that it can be turned off.)

Guessing that the unlock progress is going to be under saves/common somewhere? (This is an important detail for me, personally, as I don't overwrite older Starsector versions when updating - so things that get stored in saves I'll have to manually copy over, while stuff that goes in java preferences will just carry over automatically.)

30

Mods / Re: [0.96/0.97] Mimikko Assistants - V0.661 (English Translation)

« on: March 13, 2024, 01:14:40 PM »

Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke "java.util.Map.values()" because "this.supply" is null
   at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.econ.impl.BaseIndustry.getAllSupply(BaseIndustry.java:731) ~[starfarer.api.jar:?]
   at data.scripts.campaign.econ.US_mind.unapply(US_mind.java:58) ~[?:?]

Taking a close look at the exception, and I think this is more likely to be a bug with whatever mod "US_mind" is from, rather than Mimikko Assistants.

Edit: Yeah, this is a bug with Unknown Skies - likely due to some sort of weird interaction with some other mod; the place where it's exploding looks like something that "shouldn't" be able to explode...
But, given that Unknown Skies hasn't been updated since 0.95.1, I'm disinclined to investigate further myself.