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766

Suggestions / Re: Cruiser Sized Fuel Tanker

« on: July 30, 2019, 09:47:34 AM »

Instead of a swimming pool full of water, it is a swimming pool full of antimatter!

Fairly safe!

767

Suggestions / Re: Wouldn't it be nice if....

« on: July 30, 2019, 09:32:14 AM »

Oh can others add there own ideas?

Please do!

Added a slight chance for organics on toxic worlds, sounds like a good idea - would occasionally give more of a reason to colonize one.

Thank you.
For those paying attention, with this it should now be possible to colonise Penelope's Star and have access to all resources should the mercurial procgen decide to bless you so.

Fleet Expansion
We're currently locked at 30 ships. From the start of the game to the end you can have 30, doesn't matter how big or what for. 30.
It would be really nice if this limit were not static, and it grew with the player as they progress through the game.

I would like to see something that is based not on any specific skill choice but rather on the overall progression of the player, so regardless of the choices the player makes they will always improve this 'ability'. This could take us up to the current limit.
Once the player puts down a colony and starts building heavy industry, they can then invest money/resources into slowly expanding this limit up to some defined point.
This would represent the expanding industrial/logistics base and it's growing ability to support a military.

768

General Discussion / Re: How do you play the early game?

« on: July 29, 2019, 09:50:46 AM »

First thing I do when starting a new game is to see if there's any system bounties I can claim in my starting system (or nearby). There usually is.
Depending on what kind of start I picked, I may not be able to fight pirates on my own. In that case I tend to pick a patrol fleet to hang around and join any fights it gets into.

This is also a good time to expand my fleet with useful ships recovered from battle, or just found.
I also make an effort to salavage every wreck and debris field I can. Not only can you cover some or all of your supply costs, it's also a good source of weapons which neutral markets lack.
Recovering Shepherds is one of the highlights of this stage. Sheps rule early game.

Once the bounty has ended, I make sure my fleet is in order and equipped as far as my ability allows.
Then I use the planet list to look for any worlds in the core with ruins, and visit them in whatever order feels most convenient. The salvage from ruins will frequently yield useful things to keep, and various things to sell.
Blueprints are learned as I find them, if I want them. Unwanteds and duplicates are then sold to the pirates to expand my loot selection.

Once all the ruins in the core have been cleared, I will take a few transport missions for the extra money. This also gives me the opportunity to look over many markets for interesting ships etc.
All the time I'm doing this, I'm still jumping on any wrecks and fields to salvage.
I will repeat this until I feel like it's time to do something else. Nothing really set, just when I've 'had enough'.

Now I move on to named bounties. I'll pick one which is fairly close and complete it, then use that as a 'jumping off' point to explore the surrounding area. Once my cargo is full or fuel/crew is low I will head back to the core and sell off whatever I don't want to keep, and see if there's any way I can expand my fleet. Repeat for as long as 'feels' right.
Slowly I will replace my ships with larger ones to allow me to fight larger fleets and haul more loot.
All the while I'm doing this, I am looking for interesting systems which might be suitable for building a colony in.
At first I only bother surveying worlds if they have ruins on them, but eventually I just roll through system after system surveying everything.

At this stage I can keep my fleet out exploring almost indefinitely, as recovered supplies and fuel can cover your useage with the right preparation. The only real limits are crew loss, and cargo space/fleet limit.
If I find somewhere I want to build, I shift my focus to that and then re-start exploring once adequate defences are in position and carry on from there.
If I explore the whole sector and have not found anywhere I would consider suitable for building, I just re-start.

769

Suggestions / Wouldn't it be nice if....

« on: July 28, 2019, 01:15:57 PM »

Hydroponic Farming Industry

Already exists in-game. Just as a market condition (not sure if this is even used anymore).
(please excuse the random image from the internet squashed into the right size.)

Allows food production on worlds without land suitable for farming.
Produces: Food equivalent to farmland_poor (-1).
Requires: Machinery, Organics.
Upkeep: 4

Procgen for Toxic worlds
Add chance for organics to appear on cat_toxic and toxic_cold worlds, like Salamanca (Yma).
It's all carbon compounds, very probably hydrocarbons if it's being used for plastics like the description says. And considering Titan, it isn't really outlandish to find carbon-rich materials in that environment.
I'd really like more of a reason to use these worlds, but they're almost always entirely ignorable.

Some form of Bookmarks
I'd really like to be able to mark a system as somewhere I want to go back and visit at a later date.
Even if it's just a simple icon dropdown to remind me of why a place is interesting. Because I keep forgetting about things I want to go back to.


Fleet counter
Just a simple number display on the fleet page, which shows how many ship slots are currently free and available for use.
The act of counting "5...10...15...20...25... okay, 3 slots left" has long since outlived it's novelty.

Station Naming
This could do with a bit of variety, because everywhere being named 'Station' looks a bit dull and samey.
Suggest a list which can be drawn from. Maybe something like:

Code

%s Station
%s Orbiter
%s Relay
%s High
%s Depot
%s Citadel
%s Dock
Fort %s
Fortress %s

770

Suggestions / Re: Cruiser Sized Fuel Tanker

« on: July 28, 2019, 03:18:21 AM »

Let's just smash stuff together and see if anything fits:

A Colossus engine block, with 2x Pheaton tank assemblies mounted side-by-side on the front of it.
Basically unarmed, except for a couple of 'afterthought' mounts on the tank structure.

A Falcon engine block with tanks replacing the 'wings'.
The rear small weapon mounts remain. But everything else is gone, and would only be after the fact bolt-ons on whatever structure can support them.

An Apogee spine, with tank assemblies mounted one on either side so the only weapon mounts left from the Apo are the two rear mediums and the central small hardpoint.

A Mora with all it's bays stripped out and replaced with tanks, and all the port-side structure replaced with yet more tanks.
All it's starboard-side weapons remain intact, while it's only port-side weapon to remain is the single small mount just forward of the engine.

A Heron with it's bays and 'wings' removed and replaced with tanks.
The rear small mounts remain. As do the medium and the forward-most small.

A plain old Starliner conversion.

771

Suggestions / Re: D-mod Disparity

« on: July 27, 2019, 08:42:10 AM »

As a mostly 'junk' player, I probably have some non-standard priorities:

Spoiler

Increased Maintenance
On it's own, with no other considerations. This is a horrible thing for a ship to have.
With all the various skills etc. to mitigate it, it's essentially an almost free cost saving with no combat downsides.
Early game - do not want.
Otherwise - not too concerned.

Erratic Fuel Injector
Similar to above. But slightly less attractive as fuel is both harder to come by and used more quickly than supplies.
Prefer ships without. But will consider it if the ship fills a need I have.
No combat downsides, but harder to live with than IM.

Degraded Engines
On a frigate or destroyer - don't care.
On a cruiser or capital - don't want. (The lowered speed and turn rate is especially horrible for cruisers and capitals.)
On anything with a native burn of 7 or less - scrap.

Glitched Sensors
Don't care.

Phase Coil Instability
Don't care.

Faulty Power Grid
Not nice, but I can live with it.

Compromised Storage
Don't like this. It undermines the entire purpose of having a transport ship. And cargo space is very precious when salvaging on the rim.

Compromised Armour
Structural Damage
It's not going to stop me using a ship, but it will likely end up getting swapped for another ship without when possible.

Compromised Hull
Don't care.

Unreliable Subsystems
Depends.
On a non-combat ship or something that isn't going to be in the direct battle line - don't care.
On anything else - don't want.
A very unwelcome black mark for a flagship.
An absolute dealbreaker if Safety Overrides is involved.

Malfunctioning Comms
Do not want. I'll use it if I must, but I usually scrap on sight.

Defective Manufactory
Don't care.

Damaged Flight Deck
Don't care.

[close]

772

General Discussion / Re: Missile cooldown rahter than ammo.

« on: July 20, 2019, 06:26:13 AM »

I've played around with several variations of regenerating missiles since 0.6, and it really doesn't hurt balance as much as people seem to have convinced themselves it does.

The single biggest advantage of having regen. missiles is that it is no longer possible to 'game' the game and get the AI to waste it's missiles before you properly commit to an attack. It always has missiles so there is always that pressure, which completely removes this behaviour.
That you also eliminate the 'disappointment' of missing, and the 'too valuable to use' and 'wasted OP' problems are just nice secondary effects.

If you require an in-game rationalisation for this:

Spoiler

Missiles get reloaded (to some degree) after every battle, so you can say that missiles come from supplies.
Either they're packed in neat little crates whole, or as feedstock for a shipboard fabricator.
Whichever. They're then manually loaded by the crew as needed, with larger missiles being almost as above one-at-a-time. And smaller ones being fed into a drum or magazine which then feeds the launcher.

Can't see it being vastly different from submarines, except the seals and overlaps being the opposite way round (higher pressure inside instead of outside).

[close]

The thing I would be really tempted to do if I was in a position to implement regen. missiles into this game, would be to give every missile it's own re-load rate.
And then have a modifier for every ship with a missile weapon, which reduces the re-load rate as CR drops. And like fighters, when it hits 0 everything stops.

773

General Discussion / Re: You can’t play the game in a legitimate way? (in-game legitim, not game-piracy)

« on: July 20, 2019, 05:42:08 AM »

This means no pirating and more importantly: I don’t buy any goods, ships or weapons from the black market/from pirates.

don’t join any of the factions

P. much how I play by default.

Early game I will do system bounties and transport missions, and any ships that interest me I can salvage in the meantime to bulk out my fleet. Sheps are good here.
Weapons at this stage are about evenly split between salvage and bought from markets.
This continues until I find the efficiency overhaul and surveying equipment mods in whichever markets I'm visiting. And then my fleet gets overhauled and set up for exploring.

Tbh, you can make a fairly decent amount of cash just by doing transport missions, and nothing else.
It's not super interesting for the most part, but it's quick and fairly risk-free.
The only exception I would make is transporting fuel. I generally don't bother doing this as it almost always requires I buy extra ships just to fit the amounts involved. Which is not really useful when I'm broke, and a hoop I don't care enough to jump through when I'm not.

Basically just picking a direction around the core systems, surveying anything that has a reasonable cost and sucking up any wrecks and debris fields for as far as you feel comfortable going.
If you find any survey missions going in your direction these can be picked up (something I admittedly don't bother with when I probably should).
Doing this will almost always give you a few useful ships from salvage which will allow you to expand your fleet further. Pheaton and Colossus with intact engines are amongst the best possible finds here.
Learn any blueprints you recover (that you want) and save the rest, and keep a stock of all the various weapons you find. Maybe a half-dozen of each, and pick up more as you use them to equip your ships.
If you stumble on any named bounties you can handle, those can give you a nice boost.
When your cargo gets full and/or fuel gets low, head back to the core and sell off whatever you don't want.
(I have some kind of magpie complex where I refuse to sell survey data or forges to anyone, you might not be so..... Constrained.)

The cheeky bit is selling all your 'left over' blueprints to a pirate black market, as noted above.
This gives you three benefits:

• Firstly, you get a decent chunk of money for selling blueprints at all. And the lack of tariffs exaggerates this.
• The pirates will then start producing items which you can then salvage from thier wrecks, thus greatly expanding the quality of recovered  loot.
• It is very likely that you will also get paid for doing this by way of a bounty of some kind.

At this stage, almost all my weapons and equipment come from salvage.

Then just keep on doing this until you can roll over all but the biggest bounty fleets, scan any planet for almost zero cost, and haul multiple thousands of resources back to the core. Continually upgrading your fleet as you go.
Named bounties are a good income. Up to the point where they become unreasonably difficult.
Pirate base bounties are excellent as they not only give you cash for killing them, but give you cash for dropping off your unwanted blueprints before you do so.
Pather base bounties are also good, but usually a much tougher fight. And frequently not just one fight either.
All of these also make good 'jumping off' points to further your exploration of the sector, by acting as a remote resupply stop with all that delicious salvage.

At this stage your fleet is essentially a mobile nation, and almost self-sufficient for supplies and fuel taken from salvage. With your only real limiting factors being crew and cargo space.
Eventually, you'll find somewhere that ticks all the right boxes for you to settle down and you can start building.

774

General Discussion / Re: More dedicated missile ships

« on: July 18, 2019, 12:56:22 PM »

Pirate Falcon. Pirate Falcon. Pirate Falcon.

Behold! The correctest man on the forum right now.

Falcon (P), 4x Pilum, any other weapons, converted hangar + interceptor.
Basically an untouchable missile fountain with a cautious or timid guy in charge.

I guess you could use a Gryphon, technically, if you wanted to...

You could, but why would you? Gryphon is not as good at burying things in Pilums.
Which is by far the most important measure of missile-worthiness.

I'd love to see a Buffalo II variant that's just a bare keel with however many many medium missile mounts is considered just barely less than indecent, and literally nothing else.
Or an Atlas II with all the guns stripped off and just a row of broadside/angled medium missiles down each flank.

775

Bug Reports & Support / Re: Alpha core when installed in tech mining problem

« on: July 15, 2019, 10:39:47 AM »

I had a save in a convenient place and tested it.

just that you can install an alpha core and it does nothing

It's this.

Spoiler

[close]

So, nothing to worry about.
Might be worth adding a little fluff on the infocard just mentioning that since this building doesn't produce or require any exportable produce, maybe putting a core here isn't nescessarily the most fruitful use of such a resource.

776

Suggestions / Re: Warship Balance

« on: July 14, 2019, 11:23:29 AM »

I would also welcome the omni shield it used to have when the game was Starfarer.  It takes some practice to get used to it, but omni shield is really nice on Wolf.

Omni shields on ships that need to be flown using turn-to-pointer can often be a huge hassle even when you are familiar with the behaviour.
Not really ideal on what is essentially a starter ship.

Giving the Wolf a wider shield arc would be helpful. Along with the abovementioned flux stats.

777

General Discussion / Re: Remove Industry slot for commerce?

« on: July 14, 2019, 11:00:58 AM »

I think I remember seeing someone else had done it

Guilty.

First, make a copy of "industries.csv" so you have a way to revert if needed.
Open the original csv.
Find the entry for commerce, and change "industry, urban" to "structure, urban".

If you're using a spreadsheet this is cell I15.
If you're using notepad+ this is near the start of line 17.
If you're using notepad (or np+), ctrl-F for commerce and look for the 3 instances. The bit you need to change is almost immediately after the first 2, just a bit past where it says "90, 90".

778

Blog Posts / Re: Skills and Story Points

« on: July 11, 2019, 09:19:19 AM »

story points are “do something cool” points. They let the player do things that would be overpowered or game-breaking if the player could just do them whenever, or even at a regular resource cost.

Can I use story points to unlock more skills?

779

General Discussion / Re: Vayra surfaces briefly from the depths to comment on every Starsector ship

« on: July 10, 2019, 11:41:18 AM »

Hot takes on hot takes.

Wasp - idk i never play with Wasps. probably good

Wasp is cool. They're a cheapo self-reparing PD screen, that also leaves tiny mines all over the place.
Their main benefit is not using any crew, so they make an excellent choice for auxilliary/converted carriers where you almost certainly won't have the room for recovery shuttles.
Also good for swarms as losses don't really matter. IF you can find enough LPCs.

Trident - idk if anyone uses these but they're pretty good. fill their niche of ultra-survivable bomber well.

They are quite good. But on the flipside, they are really hard to use because they are just so expensive and difficult to justify having to strip out other things in order to fit them.
They can only really be used by capital carriers without giving up too much, and even then you might only be able to use one wing per carrier.

Vigilance - Entirely outclassed in its niche.

Its niche is uncatchable and annoying medium missile spammer. What else is doing this well enough that the Vigilance is useless?
I like these things, even though they really don't handle past the early/mid game all that well.
Wouldn't be opposed to having something like ECCM built-in. But wouldn't say its useless without.

crig - it's a crig. does anyone ever actually buy these?

Buy; no. Salvage; yes.
They're useful if you're leaning heavily into scavenging or doing long-range missions and running your fleet mostly/entirely off salvage.
Also useful if you want a recovery bonus but also want more fleet slots than using Sheps.
Otherwise they're just ornamental.
They're not in a bad place tbh. Just situational.

Mule - Mules are so good.

Yes. They really are.

feels weird that the Pirate version is strictly better than the stock one

Not as true as it used to be.
ALL Mules can now carry medium missiles since the main mount got changed to composite, which closed that gap well enough.
On the other hand, Pirate Mules are red and therefore intrinsically better.

Venture - ventures are nice. I feel like the Mining Drone wing is just window dressing, but that's more a Mining Drone problem than it is a Venture problem.

Venture was way better, and actually occaisionally attractive when the fighter bay could be used for whatever you wanted.
Even if it got converted hangar as a built-in so you can't really use bombers, that would make it a bit more tempting imo.

780

General Discussion / Re: Thematic games

« on: July 10, 2019, 10:48:21 AM »

Missile barge focus

Let me sing you the song of my people....

You can do a missile fleet with vanilla pretty well, especially if you build it around the Pilum.
Ship & Weapon pack also has some ships which can fill this role quite nicely.

One of the perks of using the Pilum is that you have a lot of OP 'left over' when fitting your ships, so you can multi-class them into aux. carriers, ECM boats, survey ships, heavy haulers etc. And in the case of some ships, you can do all of these simultaneously.
The only prerequisite for doing this really, is patience. Early on it can take a while to get enough launchers to create meaningful pressure. And regardless, Pila are not exactly the most spritely and dynamic things.
Just treat them like beams: The more you have, the more effective each one becomes.