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511

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.7.1a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: January 08, 2016, 11:17:19 PM »

Enforcers have 80 shield cost -  so they only have 320 dissipation while their shield is up.  Also, their max flux usage is highly misleading owing to so much of it being tied up in its Assault Chainguns.

Or you could just fire your HEF-boosted Autopulse Laser, overload it in 3 seconds even if it doesn't fire, then punch right through its armor with two HEF-boosted Pulse Lances. Or do 600 Hard Flux DPS with the two Light Needlers you can put on the front ballistic mounts, then move in with the Autopulse. I really don't know why you chose a Sunder, it's probably the worst thing to mount Graviton Beams on. Its energy weapons benefit from being bursty to take full advantage of the HEF, and it has access to Light Needlers which have 800 range, do hard flux, and go in a small ballistic slot.

Light Needlers are great, but there's a pretty significant range and accuracy difference between them and Graviton beams.  You also arn't prevented from using both of them at the same time so ?.

I went ahead and scrimmaged an Assault Sunder (autopulse/pulse/sabot/needler) vs a similar Sunder with autopulse/graviton/sabot/vulcan. The second Sunder (on Autopilot) won 4/5 fights; though for some reason it was using its Sabots more than the Assault Sunder. So I took off the Sabots (without adding more vents etc.), and the second Sunder still won 2/3 fights.  Although the real reason for its victory seemed to be higher flux reserves owing to less OP spent on Needlers and less flux spent on offense; this gave it just enough shield flux to withstand an autopulse barrage.  The Pulse Lasers were completely useless for the Assault Sunder.

Note: The only Technology effect in play was +10% hull armor, which I judged to make no difference to the outcome of any of the fights.

Point is, Graviton beams are support weapons. They are pure Gravy and highly defensive, letting you control fights with long range, high accuracy and great sustain.

I took that into account in my revised edit, which I made before you posted. I also calculated for only firing the Arbalests, and not firing at all.

You're not prevented from using them at the same time, but Light Needlers cover your shield-stripping needs very well indeed. Graviton Beams are both redundant and still not very good, so you might as well use the slot for something else, preferably something that's good vs armor like Phase Lances.

The default Assault Variant uses IR Pulse Lasers. Please tell me you actually swapped those out for medium-sized Pulse Lasers and didn't just use the default Assault Variant. Oh wait, you can't, the simulator doesn't let you. The AI also doesn't even bother moving in slightly closer to use Phase Lances if you give it some. The AI does not know how to fly or equip a Sunder. The Assault Sunder is particularly terrible; it has Sabots and Light Needlers, wasting its missile slots on more kinetic when what it really needs is some high explosive.

Additionally, Sunders are not designed to be fighting other Sunders 1v1. That's not what they're for. They're glass cannons, strike craft designed to hit hard targets that are busy shooting at other stuff, and are countered by anything that's able to get on their flank and shoot them. Trying to measure a Sunders effectiveness by whether it's able to blow up a different Sunder 1v1 is missing the point of the ship.

512

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.7.1a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: January 08, 2016, 08:58:49 PM »

They're very good at shield pressure against an enemy actually using their weapons, which is why they're a support weapon - they don't get the job done by themselves. That's okay though since you have flux to spare when using them.

Sunder - 2x Graviton beams - 400 DPS vs shields, (600 using ability.)

Against a Balanced-variant Enforcer, that works out to 480 DPS versus 320 dissipation. Even without causing hard flux, it's enough to overwhelm the shields just by themselves.  Now, obviously, an Enforcer captain can just drop their shields; but that leaves them up to the Autopulse laser or Tachyon lance or missile mounts or w/e.

Balanced-Variant Enforcers actually have 400 Flux dissipation, so you're not off to a good start. They've got 1390 FPS in weapons+shields and 6800 flux capacity, so they'll naturally max out on flux in 6.9 seconds if they're within 450 range and firing everything, 35.8 seconds if they're within 700 range and firing only their Arbalests. 480 additional FPS changes those numbers to 4.6 seconds and 10.1 seconds respectively. If you're actually trying to use the range of the Graviton Beam and they're not firing, it'll take you 85 seconds to max out their flux.

Or you could just fire your HEF-boosted Autopulse Laser, overload it in 3 seconds even if it doesn't fire, then punch right through its armor with two HEF-boosted Pulse Lances. Or do 600 Hard Flux DPS with the two Light Needlers you can put on the front ballistic mounts, then move in with the Autopulse. I really don't know why you chose a Sunder, it's probably the worst thing to mount Graviton Beams on. Its energy weapons benefit from being bursty to take full advantage of the HEF, and it has access to Light Needlers which have 800 range, do hard flux, and go in a small ballistic slot.

Edit: Keep getting the numbers wrong, math is hard and it's late where I am. Should be correct now.

513

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.7.1a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: January 08, 2016, 07:51:12 PM »

I agree that Graviton Beams being kinetic-type is a broken kneecap on top of a spinal cord injury.

why? the whole point is that they are long range support weapons, and kinetic is an ideal damage type for support.

it's also unique for energy weapons; though i guess isn't as important as it used to be, since regular weapons don't use ammo anymore.

Beams don't do hard flux damage to shields, making them very bad vs shields. Graviton Beams do kinetic damage which, combined with beams being considered to do half their DPS for the armor damage reduction calculation, makes them completely worthless vs armor. What are they even supposed to be fired at? They're only good for bullying (D) ships with terrible flux stats.

514

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.7.1a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: January 08, 2016, 03:59:20 PM »

All end-game loadouts work well because you're overpowered. The question is how well a given endgame loadout works compared to other endgame loadouts, and a ship built around PRAZMA or Autopulse shreds things a lot better than a ship built around Tac Lances or HILs.

I agree that Graviton Beams being kinetic-type is a broken kneecap on top of a spinal cord injury.

A particular weapon being dependent on a hull-mod isn't a good thing for the game; the hullmod just becomes an OP tax for using the weapon, and Advanced Optics is even more of an OP tax than you'd think because it needs to be paired with Advanced Turret Gyros.

515

Mods / Re: [0.7.1a] Starsector+ 3.1.2

« on: January 08, 2016, 03:07:34 PM »

The Phase Lance in SSP does less damage than in vanilla. Is this intended, and if so, how can I change it back?

Edit: From searching the changelog, the only change made to the Phase Lance is a range buff from 600 to 650. Phase Lances still have 600 range; was this not implemented?

Edit 2 Phase Boogaloo: If I open up the weapondata.csv files, and copy-paste the Phase Lance line from the vanilla file to the SSP file, the burst damage goes up from about 1000 to about 1150, but it's still not as damaging as the vanilla version, which does 1250.

516

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.7.1a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: January 08, 2016, 02:56:53 PM »

Vulcan Cannons do 500 DPS. Even after the 1/4 modifier vs shields and armor, that's 125 DPS for 20 FPS, which has to be the most flux-efficient weapon in the game. Its only downfall is the 250 range, but missiles and fighters like to get real close anyway. Vulcans are far more effective at protecting the targeted ship than any beam-based PD.

Beams that aren't Tactical Lasers are underpowered, and Tactical Lasers aren't particularly amazing either. Not dealing hard flux is crippling, even with their high range. Graviton Beams are kind of a joke, being only slightly more effective vs shields than 2 Tactical Lasers and less effective vs armor and hull. Their only good point is that they're flux efficient, but they do so little that their flux efficiency is wasted. They're only good on Close Support Wolves, and only then because the Wolf has bad flux stats, and CS Wolves are only really good against other Frigates anyway. I would honestly rather leave the weapon slot empty than use a Graviton Beam on anything other than a Wolf, they're wasted OP. High Intensity Lasers are even more of a joke; it's just 3 Tactical Lasers that can't turn as fast while firing. Tachyon Lances are terrible now that the EMP-Arc bug has been fixed. It's just a Phase Lance with more range and 50% higher DPS that costs 3 times as much OP. A good starting change would be to double or triple the damage of Graviton Beams, High Intensity Lasers, and Tachyon Lances, see how that effects the game, and work from there.

Phase Lances are half-decent. They're sort of like Harpoons, in that they're best used on ships that are about to overload, but they need to be supported by other weapons that deal hard flux damage. The issue is, they take up a medium slot and high-tech ships don't have the medium slots to spend on dedicated finisher weaponry. I'd suggest either making them a small weapon and reducing the refire rate from 10 to 6.5 shots a minute, making them a high OP small weapon with a specialized purpose sort of like the Antimatter Blaster and Light Needler, or leaving them a medium weapon and increasing their refire rate to 15 shots per minute, making them more able to bust through shields on their own.

517

General Discussion / Re: How does the Field Repairs 5 perk work?

« on: January 07, 2016, 12:10:12 AM »

Cool, thanks.

518

General Discussion / How does the Field Repairs 5 perk work?

« on: January 06, 2016, 09:21:51 PM »

The perk in question, Reconstruction, is "+30% chance to repair disabled friendly ships after battle" but does this multiply an existing percentage chance or add to it? e.g. if the base chance to repair a disabled friendly ship is 10%, does Reconstruction add 30 to make 40%, or multiply 10% by 1.3 to get 13%? Both would be technically accurate to the description, but one is much more useful than the other.

519

Suggestions / Re: Deploying into In-Progress Battles

« on: January 04, 2016, 06:22:41 PM »

When you join a large fleet battle, there are times when your allies clog the area where you would jump into. Normally this is not a big deal as they'll move out within a few seconds - the problem is when the allied admiral AI (or whichever system handles who participates in a in-progress battle) deploys ships with very low CR, or even 0% CR ships. At this point, it is almost guarenteed that the jump area will have ships that cannot do literally anything useful, and when you deploy, you'll go flying at max burn right into their malfunctioning engines.

In a couple instances, I have taken some fairly nasty frontal armor damage forcibly moving the toothless hulks simply so I could participate in the battle. I haven't had any friendly fire incidents occur directly because of this, but I can imagine cases where something squishy, such as a frigate, gets run over by a player's capital ship and dies as a result. To try and solve this, I'd like to suggest two things:

I've had that happen to me, but only once. The allied commander had deployed an Onslaught and the Tempest I deployed burn-drived straight into its engines and blew up, causing the Onslaught to suffer a burnout and get stuck there, preventing me from immediately deploying more ships. A very rare situation, but I'm glad it's been fixed.

520

General Discussion / Re: Feedback after grinding endgame in 0.7.1.

« on: January 04, 2016, 10:57:17 AM »

I've found 2 Hyperions on Tri-Tach black markets, one on Ogma and one on Port Tse. I guess I'm just lucky.

521

Mods / Re: [0.7.1a] Starsector+ 3.1.2

« on: January 03, 2016, 10:31:44 AM »

Zenith technically has the same OP-bonus as the Eagle, but you're right in that it's lower than the Aurora.  I'll raise its OP by 10 so its OP bonus equals the Aurora's.

Awesome, that should go a long way.

The large slots make the Zenith better than the Aurora at sustainably killing other cruisers, smaller capitals, and particularly tough destroyers, the Aurora is better at killing lighter destroyers, frigates, and fighters.

I don't find this to be the case right now.

Since the only sustained-fire hard flux large energy weapon is the PRAZMA CANON and you can't reliably fire that on anything except a Paragon (and even then only the one without 10/10) large energy slots on cruisers are not very valuable - mediums are much stronger. Autopulses are only good for flux-pressure against cruisers and caps, they don't really work as main weapons.

Together with HEF pushing flux efficiency on the Aurora, 2 blasters on one ends up with higher effective dps and better damage/flux compared to a 2 blaster/2 autopulse zenith, and the zenith has worse flux and takes more damage from being so wide.

I think maybe the Zenith would be more interesting if it had even worse flux dissipation, but deeper flux capacity, pushing the 'get in there and blast its face' aspect further.

Well, I'm not using it much right now since I got a Stheno from R.A.V.E.N.

I don't use Heavy Blasters. They're just too hard on the flux; more likely to overload me than the enemy, honestly. But Autopulse lasers, well, even after you run out of stored charges it's still better than a Pulse Laser. Same DPS, longer range, higher per-shot damage, and uses less flux per second. So that's 2 Pulse Lasers and 2 Better-Than-Pulse-Lasers vs 2 Pulse Lasers that do 50% extra damage only some of the time. And since you're not always going to be within range to fire, you'll be getting bursts of 400% extra damage out of those two Better-Than-Pulse-Lasers, which more than makes up for any boost the HEF might have given the Aurora. The Aurora can, of course, make up for this in the short term with missiles, but missiles aren't sustainable in the long term.

522

Mods / Re: [0.7.1a] Starsector+ 3.1.2

« on: January 02, 2016, 05:15:14 PM »

Allrighty so I'm doing a Tri-Tach game and ... at what point does the Zenith become better at any given role vs. the Aurora?

Granted I don't have Ordnance Expertise 10, but I do have Tech 10 and the two OP skills at 10, and really the only thing at which its marginally better is at being a HiL platform.

I understand that its an expensive ego-toy to be flown by the player, but its gotta give you something for that expense. Slow, sluggish, bad flux, low op, high crew count, bad damage, awkward missile placements, exposed weapons ... high armour ain't enough to make up for that.

The Zenith is the front half of a Paragon but much more mobile. I disagree that it's sluggish; it's slower than the Aurora when the Maneuvering Jets aren't active, but faster and more maneuverable when they are. And Maneuvering Jets has a very short cooldown, so you should spam it. The large slots make the Zenith better than the Aurora at sustainably killing other cruisers, smaller capitals, and particularly tough destroyers, the Aurora is better at killing lighter destroyers, frigates, and fighters. I just gave the Zenith 2 Autopulse lasers, 2 Ion cannons, 2 Pulse lasers, and then run around the battlefield murdering the big stuff while the Aurora and 60 Wasps kill the chaff. I wouldn't mind it getting a bit buffed, but it does have a place. Missile slots are Harpoon Pods and a Reaper torp in the nose, back small energies are regular PD lasers. I don't feel that Burst PD is worth it.

It costs too much to deploy, though. It's about equivalent to the Aurora, it shouldn't cost more than the Aurora to deploy.

Edit: With all the OP skills, the Zenith has 208 op. The Aurora has 195. The issue is the Zentih has a much lower flux capacity, which means it needs to spend more op in capacitors than the Aurora. This is kind of an issue with all the high-armor high-tech ships. They're slow and have lowered flux stats compared to more mobile high-tech ships, which can avoid taking more hard flux anyway because they're more mobile.

523

Mods / Re: [0.7.1a] Starsector+ 3.1.2

« on: January 01, 2016, 04:21:25 PM »

A direct upscale of the pulse laser, as the pulse laser is to the IR pulse laser, would be an amazing large energy weapon. Just double the damage, flux cost, and OP cost, add 100 range and make the projectile purple or something.

524

General Discussion / Re: Might have missed it but is the faction hostilities thing changing?

« on: January 01, 2016, 01:50:41 PM »

still could be adjusted so your standing mirrors the standing of your 'parent' state in case of war however.

which is probably what will end up being put in.

I've been playing with Starsector+ for a while, which does exactly that, and I really don't like that idea. Since the reputation adjustment is immediate, you can go from being in friendly territory to being instantly surrounded by 5 patrol fleets of enemies with no warning. It's easily a lose-your-entire-fleet situation if you don't have an incredibly overpowered lategame fleet. It's kind of required for starsector+ because it's meant to be used with a billion different faction mods and you're going to be doing nothing but scrambling around getting people *** off at you if they didn't automatically become hostile, but it's a necessary evil, not a necessary good.

Also, it makes it impossible to just ignore wars against single factions, like the Independent, to continue getting their bounties. You get so much rep from the commission that losing 5 points every month or so really doesn't matter, I'd rather have more bounties and planets to land on.

525

General Discussion / Re: Phase Mechanics Discussion

« on: December 31, 2015, 02:38:59 PM »

That phase ship video (https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/681927546519318529) is beautiful. If the AI is consistently capable of that, I'd let them use phase ships.