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Messages - Aereto

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241
Modding / Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« on: May 19, 2014, 08:42:31 AM »
Well, felt a bit inspired by seeing abunch of spaceships, and so ended up doing some work on SHI's sole supercapital, the Archipelago class mobile shipyard.

Spoiler

And yes, this is likely going to be the actual size of the vessel.  In battle, which the ship isn't really intended for, she tends to be used as a super-carrier; her real defense however, is avoiding combat as much as possible.
[close]

And so the Arms race starts. ;)
I'll try to keep out of the arms race while I tinker with BF Ship Maker and GIMP for sprites... I just might be able to make use of its different design style.
Don't encourage him, everybody.
Too late.

242
Suggestions / Re: Feature Removal - Ship Explosion Screen White Out
« on: May 18, 2014, 09:27:42 PM »
Also, am I right in thinking the effect is somewhat framerate dependent? Higher fps -> effect is less jarring.
That might explain why some people are more sensitive to it than others.
It is multiple things at once that kill the framerate and make it worse. The frigate version is good in my book but the other ships are too much and DRASTICALLY cut my FR and make the explosion last 2 or 3 times longer and, especially in a large battle, it really hinders you and makes things worse and unfun. I would LOVE to see the ability to adjust/ remove this!

I always assumed the white-out was just a placeholder until real explosions would be implemented.
Same here and I hope I am right.
As I play the game at the monitor's most minimum visible screen brightness in bright or no lighting, whiteouts are quite disorienting to players, never to AIs. I have to admit, it's harsh to the eyes in a lightless setting. As I piloted the 4-blaster Afflictor in my LP recordings, I don't recall squinting reflexively when making a Buffalo MkII pop from my salvo. I had my eyes alert for battlefield changes.

243
Modding / Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« on: May 18, 2014, 09:15:33 PM »
Spoiler
Well, it's not solidly decided upon, but she might end up with a ship system that allows her to launch very large numbers of various Shadowyards fighters or restore the logistics points of all deployed fighter wings or something like that.  She would also almost certainly end up using the scripts devised by Dark Revenant to allow her to repair and resupply an entire fleet after battle depending on if enough supplies are available.  When the option becomes available in campaign she'll also be able to construct starbases and outposts of various descriptions; ideally she'll also be able to turn enough raw material/supplies into a ship if a blueprint is available.  She is essentially an extraordinary logistics support ship.

She may also serve a bit of a plot purpose when the campaign is more fully fleshed out.

Short version, she's this:
Spoiler

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Just looking at how the ship might resemble actually had me almost drooling on my shirt... almost.  :D

Addendum: "Extraordinary logistics support ship?" The way you described it would be classified as a Mobile Construction Vehicle/Ship (Command and Conquer), complete with its full complement of a portable dock large enough for a capital.

244
Modding / Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« on: May 17, 2014, 02:53:33 PM »
Trying my hand at the BF Ship Maker out of the parts and got this, resized to fit the Frigate size.

Spoiler
[close]
Nohman-class Modular Frigate:
Spoiler
  • Designed with adaptability in mind, planning 4 universal and 2 missile mounts, with high hull integrity and flux dissipation at the expense of mediocre armor and poor flux capacity. Set at 60 OP
  • Fast for a bulky ship, and quick to repair because of its... parts
[close]

245
General Discussion / Re: Java
« on: May 14, 2014, 08:56:42 AM »
found jre7 file not jre 64bit, putting that in instead just crashed it.
I have just transitioned to use 64-bit Java, and I traced my steps to help you out...

Open vmparams with notepad and followed replace instructions

copied the entire contents within the jre7 without copying the jre7 folder itself

placed/pasted them inside the jre folder of Starsector, and chose to 'copy and replace' all files while merging all folders.

So far, it didn't crash on me... yet.

This one is on vanilla, though, so...

246
General Discussion / Re: What's YOUR flagship? Modded or Vanilla
« on: May 12, 2014, 10:14:11 AM »
Spoiler
I play the game vanilla.  No mods.

I use an Aurora class Cruiser, that is always my go-to ship from start to finish.  I don't bother taking other ships with me, its just that one ship vs everything I run into.

Currently around level 45.  I currently outfit the ship with the following.
Augmented Engines, Integrated Targeting Unit, Front Shield Emitter, Hardened Shields, Advanced Optics, Expanded Magazines.
3 Heavy Burst Lasers
5 Antimatter Blasters
4 Swarmer SRM Launchers
1 Salamander SRM Pod

Its a pretty fast ship, not quite as fast as the speedy frigates but can keep up with most things.  The antimatter blasters and heavy shielding enables me to eat just about any big ships, while the heavy burst and launchers work well for fighters or that extra punch to quickly take down most other annoying ships.

Basically I concentrate on my movement and positioning and only manually target the missile weapons, I let the games AI handle the lasers and blasters.

I like playing with just 1 ship through the game.  The Cruisers seem to fit this roll best because they do not require any support ships to operate and can fight many battles sequentially without worrying too much about combat readiness depletion.

The other nice thing about this setup is it only keeps getting better as you level up your captain.  I hope it remains a viable playstyle in the later versions of the game.  I am not a big fan of micromanagement, and playing with just one ship makes things a lot more fun for me, instead of having to manage a whole fleet.
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A combat/technology build benefits most from this tactic, that, and one-vs-many piloting experience. Not sure why, but I feel like getting helm of that Aurora and try that out on a Pirate Armada.

247
You can. Thinking about, though, I actually prefer FleetMemberAPI.needsMoreDakka().
I need this function in my life. It's well worth a breaking change.
I second that motion. There's one of those days you need a bigger/more guns than the other captain.

248
General Discussion / Re: Holy Crap! Supplies are so expensive! o.O
« on: May 08, 2014, 01:37:22 PM »
Selling my elites?! HERESY.
Those elites needed retirement, and I get a piece of that retirement funds if I give them early retirement.  ;) Otherwise, I just leave them to the abandoned base to keep watch of the lower-ranking crewmen.

249
Suggestions / Re: why is it that in starsector Losing != FUN!
« on: May 08, 2014, 01:16:53 PM »
Spoiler
Here are my thoughts:

1.  There is no reason to use disposable fleets in Vanilla, because there is no mechanic to replace them without losing large amounts of time, even if we leave cost out of the equation.  

Taking losses means losing time, and not in a fun way; when we're going to have to "defend an Outpost", if we lose, we're basically hosed; there being no way to replace the losses means that even if we have a million credits (as I've had, every time I've played Vanilla since the Supplies change, within three hours) there's no speedy way to spend it and recoup the real losses in specific weapons and ships.  I think it's very problematic that I have money I can't spend, ever, in a game like this.

Uomoz's solution is intriguing in that regard, but I think relative cost matters, too; if it's cheaper / faster / more efficient to build big fleets that I know will take some losses vs. tanky super-fleets that don't but cannot afford a catastrophic loss... I'm going to do the former.

In Vacuum, I largely did away with the delay; if there's a ship you want, you just need to know what Faction makes it and you can obtain another one, pronto, assuming you're on good terms with the Faction.  This, and having plenty of money by midgame onwards, if one plays smart, makes it possible to largely ignore this and take losses willy-nilly if it seems like a reasonably-fun thing.

So I don't mind taking losses or losing a battle- but in Vanilla, I really mind that I've lost the last five hours of my life and it's indeterminate how long it will take to replace those losses.  It's not like taking losses in a RTS, where either that means I just lost the game or I'll shrug and order up another 100 Peewees or Marines; given the open-world nature of the game, it's mainly about time loss, and time loss isn't fun.

Coupled with the "slow movement after battles" and other factors... this factor leads, very naturally, to extremely conservative play.  If you don't take losses, you don't have to travel to Askonia and hope that the ship you need, given your DPs, to fill a specific role, will exist.  This is similar to Mount and Blade, where all of the serious players who wanted to conquer Calradia gravitated towards armies of the most-OP troops for sieges and avoided open-field battles like the plague.  Losses there took serious time to replace as well, due to the need to re-level them up to the point where they were useful, and it encouraged a conservative attitude.  

I think it's even worse in SS, though, because there is no sure way to replace a loss, especially of a rare ship type.  If you lost an Astral, you may have to spend hours getting one again, unless you're farming Tri-Tach just to get one.  That's not much fun.

Given that "Askonia" as a concept is going away, this may or may not get worse, depending, to a large extent, on what replaces it.  If we can start placing orders for Autofacs to construct fleet replacements to replace losses, then the sting of loss is considerably less, so long as it wasn't a major strategic disaster; if you've managed to save that hapless Independent base from the scurvy Pirates of the Long Reach then that Hammerhead with custom gear you lost can be re-ordered and all is well- you've lost money, but not much time.

However, if things remain largely like they are, in terms of access to ships, or become even worse, in terms of time-investment per ship constructed, the opposite will happen; each battle is risk, risk might mean defeat, if not in detail then in irreplaceable time, and the tendency to only pick the sure thing unless there is absolutely no other choice won't work.

In terms of creating situations where there is absolutely no choice, there are mechanics problems atm.  Basically, fleet movements are pretty fast, and there is no warning given to the player that a given location is a target; if that's going to become a Thing, then players need to have good warning, or it won't be much fun.  Camping your Newbie Outpost and intercepting threats will be thrilling for about an hour, but after that, you're basically cutting yourself off from further adventures and expansion.  At a certain point, either your little empire's somewhat self-defending vs. anything that's not a huge threat, or you're stuck.  

In Vacuum, I made this work by making it quite difficult for the AI fleets to capture / destroy bases, and prevented them from wiping each other out, since that largely just helps the players; this kept things pretty simple, and players don't  have to spend much time on forced defense.  I'll try adding the occasional battle that players cannot avoid into the next build to see how that feels, though; it might be fun.  

I thought that another fun idea would be to let the player take control of battles between their forces and that of the enemy, if they wished, becoming directly involved in the outcome and assuming a more managerial role.


2.  Ship and weapon balance and relative costs matter a lot.  

There is no reason to use anything smaller than Cruisers unless you're trying to solo a fleet, Megas-style.  

Frigates and Destroyers don't have a point in big engagement, if handled by the AI; the difference in real capability vs. cost makes the bigger ships overwhelmingly more cost-efficient.  This has a lot to do with the DP costs of ships; if an Onslaught costs 50 DP to deploy, I'm going to think twice about using it vs. a scad of Destroyers who cost 5 apiece.  

The DP system doesn't have quite enough granularity (imo) in that regard; deploying a Wing vs. a Destroyer is usually a no-brainer (the Wing, unless it utterly sucks, because it's usually a lot more DPS in total and it's immortal).  I've thought about playing with that in Vacuum, using a different range of DP values and splitting the ships much more widely based on how powerful they actually are... the issue there is largely one of making sure the AI can deploy more forces than the player, which isn't a big deal, and adjusting the DPs so that the gulf between lots of cheap ships and a few powerhouses is enough that the cheap-ship fleet is tempting.  

I know there are Vanilla players who play with big fleets, but I agree wholeheartedly with Megas's analysis that it isn't efficient; it's cool and it's pretty, but would a serious player trying to be efficient use it right now?  No.  

Moreover... until it's not attractive to solo-kill fleets vs. using big disposable fleets, it's going to be the solution for practically all serious play.  I think I've got Vacuum just about cured of that problem, finally, but it took quite a bit of rebal to make it happen.  Vanilla's current balance remains at a point where I'd say that the frigate-fleet-of-doom approach is most efficient, followed by the Multi-Medusa Horde, and that is kind of worrying, because once again, the emphasis is on players flying solo, no losses, extremely conservative play.

In addition, big fleets run into some technical issues with the engine; viewing the Fleet screen when there are lots of ships is quite expensive computationally, to the point of lagging when large numbers of ships are present, largely because of engines rendering and other things like that, so far as I can determine.  

One solution to that would be to render the ships with gear and all that to a FBO when the UI opens and then just render that result; it'd look exactly the same but be lightning-fast.  There are other issues there of a UI nature, though; if really big fleets are the norm for high-end fleets going the cheap-DP route, then tools like being able to sort the ships becomes important, amongst other things.  And there is the obvious tension between DPs and the total cost in Supplies as well.
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I have been playing Vanilla for quite some time, that I think I can see your point. The probability of a ship I intend to purchase is at the luck of the draw. One of the save files, which has a 10 Leadership/Technology build, had more Paragon ships stored than Onslaughts. And then there's the DP part of things.

Due to ship count, I find myself facing down the Hegemony System Defense fleet with 90 DP. With that in mind, I can deploy 3 Onslaughts of the same variants, plus 1 Afflictor as the assassin flagship refitted with 4 antimatters and hardened subsystems to last the engagement. I noticed that I have to pay attention to the positions of my capitals to ensure that they can survive the ordeal. Each time any one of them blew it, I go back to the previous save once I figured out what went wrong (mostly bad judgment call). With the same build, I faced the fleet with a carrier fleet, Astral as the carrier carrying xyphos, gladius, and dagger wings and 2 Afflictor frigates of the same variety as flagships of the same previous task. I had to ensure that the crew count exceeds the skeleton crew minimum to avoid putting CR at risk in case of second engagement. A crowd of daggers by themselves cannot stand up to an Onslaught due to flaks, thus learning that having the blasters shoot the shields on purpose would overload and leave it open to a fatal dose of reapers. Again, the DP is 90, but the fighter/bombers can handle losses unlike any other ship class, no longer spending credits to buy new ship units, provided that at least one carrier survives the ordeal, just supplies.

At my other save, a Combat/Technology build, a close Paragon pair with two separate varieties between offense and defense can take on the defense fleet if careful. I stopped using smaller ship classes altogether when recovering losses is spotty due to said probability of purchasing the same ship class lost... unless I use that smaller ship as the flagship to pilot. My personal skills can't top the AI on the shield timing, but the attack part I can do better.

In short, learning from losses is fun, but recovering losses is not so fun. To me, at least.

250
General Discussion / Re: Holy Crap! Supplies are so expensive! o.O
« on: May 08, 2014, 12:26:05 PM »
I've found that I like supplies being expensive. It makes every decision carry more weight, and mobbing around with your whole fleet can get expensive quickly, especially on long hyperspace journeys. It actually makes sense now to restructure for fleet depending on what you're doing, to minimize upkeep expense.
And those supplies double as contingency banks if you hoard them and store them in the abandoned station... if the looting mechanics are considered and assuming it's in vanilla game. Mods can alter that planning if it affects supply drop/cost.

251
General Discussion / Re: a.i. aggresiveness?
« on: May 04, 2014, 11:56:24 AM »
I tried giving specific attack orders it did not work. used to work great in earlier patches but not now.

I can only assume that I may know what you mean. As I place Intercept orders on any enemy unit, the ships assigned to the task engage a different enemy that is escorting it or engaging the assigned ships. The AI apparently takes priority on ships that fire or are about to fire upon them, thus distracting them from what they are supposed to be doing. The Set as Target on the enemy ship may not help the situation, but I think of it as hit/miss kind of choice. I suppose you're not going to space the captain who decided to deal with the immediate threats than the target... right?

One workaround this, as far as I tried out, is to have a frigate or destroyer as a flagship and pilot it as a battlefield assassin to take out that one ship you sorely need to take out amidst its entourage of other ships... or one ship that is attempting to flee while others cover its escape.

252
Suggestions / Re: Unlockable Codex Entries
« on: May 03, 2014, 11:51:10 PM »
Well at the end of the day, even if it is not a good fit for vanilla starsector (though I am not convinced  ;) ) I would still like it to be a moddable option. Because myself and I feel many other modders would have a very good use for it.

Oh, definitely. I'm opposed to it being in vanilla Starsector, but I still agree that there is no drawback to allowing this as a modding possibility. Then it'd be contextually advantageous or disadvantageous depending on the mod's nature.
I also find this to be a proper compromise, though how to implement it while keeping the other mods compatible would be another story.

253
Lore, Fan Media & Fiction / Re: Video of the basics
« on: May 03, 2014, 11:46:37 PM »
If you're still keeping tabs on this thread, I may as well show you this video I made. However, the Let's Play I made for this one runs under a play style that may not be suitable for you, not to mention the settings set to receive full damage rather than half.

This one runs under the Leadership/Technology skill growth that emphasizes surviving the engagements... while playing the armchair admiral and command ships in engagements rather than piloting the flagship yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk8QBAQN1a-u03_oQHlxk6HPzoPoTa9ge

Additional notes: At this current version, the tooltips will guide you the bare minimum of things. Still, doesn't hurt to know how things go. The video might help you find the play style that suits you, even if it takes an hour long.

254
General Discussion / Re: Capital flagship suggestions
« on: May 03, 2014, 11:30:46 PM »
When I play Onslaught as Combat/Technology, I go almost total offense.  I load up on Storm Needlers, Heavy Maulers, and Annihiliators for offense; and Vulcans and three dual Flak Cannons for defense.  Hullmods are Expanded Magazines, ITU and anything related to speed.  (If I have fewer OP, I use Hellbores and Heavy Needlers instead, but the AI does better with Storm Needlers and Heavy Maulers.)  In the Onslaught's case, the best defense is to kill the enemy before it can get into range and shoot back.
For Onslaught uses, I find them useful in numbers. As a result, I use them with Leadership/Technology players. As I explained before, the mod emphasis is armor and survivability, ensuring that every weapon fires without being disabled. That said, all small ballistics are armed with vulcans to deal with waves of bombers and rockets. Single flaks are at the front center to deal with the ones that vulcans could not reach, dual flaks are at back center to deal with anything else behind. Hypervelocity Drivers at the four medium corners to shove hard flux on shielded ships or EMP the unshielded. The hellbores are at the sides to deliver a decisive punch to those that wander into its direction while keeping flux levels at ease. The autocannon at the center will do what the heavy mauler at the front can't in terms of shielded ships, and its damage and spread helps to deal with fast ships between the thermal pulse cannons. For missiles, Pilums are used due to range and persistence to chase the target, along with enough ammo to last the entire engagement.

A pair of them can deal with a pirate armada or plunder fleet if commanded properly. Expanded magazines does help to ensure they don't run out of ammo, and place as much spare OP to vents, since they barely rely on shields and the attrition is too much for capacitors (that job belongs to the Paragon and its Fortress Shield system). Auxiliary Thrusters help get the few seconds needed to turn its 300-degree death arc to its intended target.

255
General Discussion / Re: Capital flagship suggestions
« on: May 03, 2014, 02:20:58 PM »
Re-phrasing Samuel L Jackson here, but it has to be the Onslaught: the very best there is. When you absolutely, positively, got to kill every mother ***-er in the room; accept no substitutes.
As I used the Onslaught, there is that one important point to add on to...

Better give them hull mods that improve armor, and command them with a 10 Technology player skill to squeeze out every bit of OP and armor bonuses. That keeps even high-explosive weapons and bombers at bay and rely less on shields to bring death to all ships in a 300-degree arc during a shot-for-shot cross-counter. It's Achilles's Heel is disabling its weapons unless all weapon, engine, and EMP protections are reinforced.

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