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« on: March 07, 2015, 03:08:29 PM »
Economy:
The economy feels much better. Things actually have differences in prices for a lot of goods, and trading is more than just abusing trade disruptions. (and/or abusing the save context bug). However, it still seems like high stability ports are a 'sell anything here' position. Medicaments should probably get sold to lower stability worlds, since they probably lack the medical supplies they would need, but instead they are best sold to high stability planets. Food is sold roughly for the same price everywhere, whether it's a high or low stability world. Metals are worth a lot more now, which makes combat pay a little better.
Missile Changes:
The 122mm Rocket System seems super strong now. I already thought it was strong before these changes, and now it's even stronger. While it's 6 OP, its 2400 HE damage on a 12 second cooldown is amazing for a small slot. 12000 DPM if you can hit everything. The 300mm Rocket System by comparison is 3200 HE damage, 16000 DPM at 10 OP and a Large Missile slot. The 220mm Rocket System is almost the same as the 300mm Rocket System, it has the same damage per volley and same reload. The only difference seems to be that the 220mm Rocket System fires twice as many rockets at half the damage. Is there a good reason to use a Large Missile slot for a 300mm Rocket System?
On a Small Missile slot, it seems that the Micro-missile Pod is better than every other small missile system (excepting the 122mm rockets). It's only 2 OP, has 800 HE damage worth of rockets, and reloads over time. The Strela-6 by comparison, has just 4 missiles, each of which do 100 damage, the same as a Micro-missile. I don't know about the tracking on each of them, but the Micro-missile Pod beats the Strela-6 in capacity and still has the ability to reload.
I've been flying a Germany class Battlecarrier with 4x122mm Rockets on the front and 8xMicro-missile Pods, as well as 1xBarracuda-PRX, 4xParticle Beams, 4x50mm Autocannons, 4x42mm Flak Cannons, and 2x60lb Dual Siege Cannons. The Particle Beams to eat away at a ship's shields, combined with the 122mm Rockets/Dual Siege Cannons can make short work of just about everything. The only reasonable counter I can see is heavy Blastguns/Bofors/Flak, since anything less than very heavy dedicated area of effect point defense will just get overloaded.
Requisition System:
Danbridge should probably have the requisition system, as it's the ISA capital, and usually has the greatest selection of ships.
I really like the system, since it allows me to pick up most fighters.
Escape bug:
If you mean that the escape key no longer closes the planet's dialogue, that's been an issue since before this update. I think it may be part of the Starsector hotfix, since it stopped working when I updated my Starsector to RC2. Otherwise, none of the other menus have a problem with the escape key.
On another note, fighter balance:
Can something be done about normalizing the fighter deployment (supply) cost? Most ISA fighters are very cheap to deploy, specifically the A110 and F171 wings are under 3 supplies per deployment and quite effective. Most fighter wings cost between 9 and 20 supplies to deploy. UIN fighters take at least 9 supplies to deploy, although they are fairly powerful.
The FFS fighters have massive deployment costs unlike all the other FFS ships. Regulator Wings are 7.2, and Keepers are 20! A Justice destroyer has a 2.4 supply cost per deployment, by comparison. Even a Themis Carrier is only 4.5 supplies per deployment.
Claw Wings (Black Widow fighters) are the only fighters to leave a dead fighter on the field when destroyed. All other fighters just explode into nothing.
The best fighters in the game, in my opinion, are the HE rocket fighters (A110, AC300, Harpoon, SU-252) since they all have the potential to cripple a significantly larger ship. The other fighters tend to have a large problem with AFM missiles or beam weapons, and don't get to do a lot of damage given their relatively short range, unless there is an overwhelming number of them.
Other:
Marauders still salvage hand weapons, luxury goods, and recreational drugs.