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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Messages - woodsmoke

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1
"Oh hey, would you look at that: 'breach hull, all die!' Even had it underlined!"

Should have figured it was operator error. Thanks sir.

2
Had to drop shields and eat essentially a full barrage of pilums to avoid overloading, after which all of my weapons went permanently dark (as evidenced by the first picture contrasting my own ship with one of my officer's) and none would autofire for the duration of the battle. I got the green text saying the weapons were back online, the little square indicating autofiring is active is lit up and, if I swap between them all while paused the weapons all light up as they should (per second picture). I can manually fire all the affected weapon groups but as soon as I switch away from them the weapons go dark again and cease firing (picture 3).

I've run into this before but never so early in a battle as to make it a serious problem so I never bothered to document and report it.

This is one of the reasons I'm a bad beta tester.

3
General Discussion / Re: Seed ...finder? Mapper?
« on: September 10, 2023, 10:50:28 AM »
That sounds like way more effort than it's worth, particularly given I don't remember much more about that seed than what I described above and it having at least two terran planets... somewhere in the larger sector. I thought I'd seen missions offered for three of them in different systems but I can't be confident I wasn't counting one twice, given the length of time between the missions offered.

I tried an undelete utility and didn't find anything beyond the currently active game. It's entirely possible I was using it wrong and/or looking in the wrong place for deleted saves but, at this point, I'm comfortable accepting that save is simply lost. Which is unfortunate but I've been flummoxed by my own clumsiness before; life will go on as it always does.

At any rate, thanks for humoring me. Now I can start exaggerating the Legend of the Lost Seed. Four terran planets! Ten! A hundred! Ultrarich rare ore on every rocky world! Rivers of resources just lying there, waiting for the PC to pick them up and put them to work! The makings of a New Domain! All lost... all lost...




4
General Discussion / Re: Seed ...finder? Mapper?
« on: September 09, 2023, 08:45:30 PM »
Butts. This happened sufficiently long ago I suspect the file having been deleted is all but certain, particularly given my starting and deleting dozens of new games afterward.

5
General Discussion / Seed ...finder? Mapper?
« on: September 09, 2023, 07:46:53 PM »
I started a game a while back with a vanilla seed I really liked. I don't remember details but I wanted to restart the run for some reason or other and, because I'm an idiot, after copying the seed and deleting the save file I went to the character map to get a special character for my character's name. One which didn't have an alt code. So I copied it to the clipboard then immediately realized what I'd just done and commenced the self-kicking.

I've generated what I should probably consider an embarrassing number of new games since then, hoping to find that particular seed again. A fool's errand, to be sure, but as I'm obviously a fool...

Suffice to say I haven't had any luck, so I thought I'd ask here if there's any sort of seed mapper for the game I might use to find the one I'm looking for. I don't suppose anyone's put together a program or perhaps a website that might help me in my witless endeavor?

Or, hell, I'll describe what I remember of the seed (not much, but should be enough for identification purposes) and hope I'm far more fortunate than I've any right to be and one of you actually has it on hand in one of your games. More or less immediately north of the Core was the Rotanna constellation. One of the stars therein was Gream, which I believe was a red giant. Possibly a dwarf. East of that (so east-northeast-ish of the Core) was Telephassa as a yellow star. I don't recall whether it was part of the Rotanna constellation. East of the core Sawal and Diyu (or was it Dawal and Siyu?) comprised a binary star system sat all by its lonesome, not part of any constellation. I don't rightly remember anymore than that but I expect that should be enough to determine whether it's the seed for which I'm looking.

I'm keenly aware of the probability I'm being irrational about this; the whole bloody point of the random seed generation is to have fun exploring a whole new Persean Sector. If, as I strongly suspect will be the case, it turns out I've no recourse but to continue banging my head against the wall of near-infinite new game creation or simply admit defeat at my own stupid hands, I'll make peace with the latter and move on. But I figure it can't hurt to ask here first.

6
General Discussion / Re: Pure(ish) Luddic run
« on: July 20, 2023, 09:09:28 PM »
It kinda' depends on what I'm piloting. The bigger the hull, the more engaged I tend to be with giving orders (on account of I don't really have the speed to play hunter-killer on the battlefield). Right now I'm pretty hands off, mostly focused on hunting down enemy threats in my eradicator, but I've enough other big ships (that being other cruisers and carriers) I tend to put together some semblance of a battle line at the beginning of a combat and periodically check the tactical screen to make sure nothing's going horribly awry.

I do intend to eventually move up to an invictus, which I suspect will be about as order-heavy as I'll get short of making my flagship a carrier. Happy to hear any recommendations you have to that effect, anyway.

7
General Discussion / Re: Pure(ish) Luddic run
« on: July 18, 2023, 09:01:31 PM »
IMO lowtech ships do best when you keep it simple, keep the missile burst/finisher approach rather than make it complicated, and go for long range so your ships can focus fire and can fire on the enemy without needing to armor tank in return. Converted hangar is also great when you have surplus OP.

Yeah, on further testing I think I'm going to stick with mixing salamanders and pilums on my carriers and keeping warship missile slots stocked with finishers. Maybe I'm just using them wrong (or not spamming them enough) or maybe they work better with midline/high tech hulls/fleets, but support warheads like that never seem to work as well for me as they do for the AI. Better to focus on maximizing fundamentals.

8
General Discussion / Re: Pure(ish) Luddic run
« on: July 17, 2023, 09:17:06 PM »
Venture is a joke

It's not a top-of-the-line warship but it's tanky as hell and seems to act as a pretty solid anvil to the hammer of my eradicators. Even with the pretty subpar loadouts I've been using up to now I've won a lot of fights I really shouldn't have building my fleet around the anchor of a couple ventures built for defense and support.

According to luddic_church.faction here are your weapon options in-faction. (snip)

That's a lot more in-depth than I generally get with my theorycrafting but damned good information all the same. Thank you sir!

Low tech frigates in general are a lost cause beyond early game especially without elite ballistic weapons.

When you say luddic run, does that include luddic path ships? The venture mkII has the speed you need to charge in and then they can face tank damage.

Right. I'll probably just clear the frigates out of my fleet once I have bigger ships with which to replace them, then.

I toyed with picking up some Pather ships early on but decided I want to stick with just Church hulls this time 'round. I'll embrace my inner space terrorist in a future run.

If you look at luddic church fleets you'll see they used converted hangars on just about everything

Good to know that's still part of faction doctrine for them. I know it was before the last update but wasn't sure if the new ships had changed that. Time to pick up those fighter/carrier leadership skills I've been debating.

I realize it's not exactly in vogue right now and that it's more of a Luddic Path than a Luddic Church build, but Safety Overrides will solve a lot of mobility issues for the Eradicator
I'm not generally a huge fan of SO builds. I don't like the range and PPT reductions and, frankly, I just don't generally play aggressively enough to make that work for me. Which isn't to say they can't be damned effective, just not my style.

Quote from: Aeson
Another potential option for solving mobility issues is to load up your missile slots with Salamanders. It's probably not ideal since it's a lot of burst damage to give up and the small Salamanders are fairly expensive in OP as small missiles go (then again, they also don't benefit from Missile Autoloader or Expanded Missile Racks, and small Salamanders will usually be cheaper than other small missiles plus either of those hull mods), but on the other hand an Eradicator probably doesn't really need additional burst damage while punching down even if it is only armed with mortars and autocannons and you probably don't need to use every missile slot on every Eradicator for Salamanders to gain a mobility advantage.

That may well be worth looking into. I generally have a fair few salamanders in play already as that's what I load my ventures with (as noted above, I build 'em for defense and support anchorage), so I've been building my eradicators for ballistic damage + missile finishers once the enemy ship is overloaded. Whole point o' posting this thread was to get ideas and shake things up, though.

Thanks for the feedback, folks. Hopefully I can use it to good effect.

9
General Discussion / Pure(ish) Luddic run
« on: July 16, 2023, 10:39:30 PM »
As per the title, I'm playing a campaign in which I'm trying to stick more or less exclusively to Luddic ships and weapons. The former isn't proving particularly difficult; eradicator + venture seems to make for a pretty effective hammer + anvil fleet, to the point I struggle to figure out where manticores fit in and I've all but given up on frigates, which is certainly a change from the wolfpack fleet I ran in my last game. I haven't gotten to play with the retribution or invictus yet but I'm very much looking forward to both.

What I need help with is weapons and loadouts. Weapon selection for LC seems really limited; near as I can tell their offensive kinetic weaponry (beyond the stuff available on open markets) effectively begins and ends with autocannons, which is... not ideal in a sector where railguns, needlers and HVDs exist. Explosives ain't much better; missile selection seems decent enough but, again, no heavy mauler or light/heavy assault gun (and probably other goodies I'm forgetting). I've been making do with heavy mortars but I know anything more threatening than a pirate junker fleet is going to eat me for breakfast with the loadouts I have.

The thought has occurred I'm just playing them wrong. Given the weapon selection available it kinda' seems like they're built for an aggressive, overwhelming force style of combat: come in hard with kinetics, overload target, launch missiles and call it a day. Except, at least in the case of eradicator (non P, obviously) and venture, they really don't have the mobility to make that happen against most ships.

So yeah. Please to share your best builds for LC ships, perhaps keeping to LC weaponry where reasonable but I'm not strictly married to that idea.

10
General Discussion / Re: Carriers hoarding interceptors
« on: December 08, 2022, 05:27:01 PM »
tl;dr - If you want to use fighters, use a lot of them. Do not try to min-max the skill thresholds, just add more fighters.

This is half of my problem with fighters. Generally speaking, they're not really a major concern... until they are. And the line between the two is essentially a simple question of "does the enemy fleet have enough of them?"

I didn't run with fighters at all for the first while I was playing with this character because I hadn't played since 0.7.2a and I remembered being able to essentially ignore them. This led to numerous instances of my Hammerhead being set upon by a single broadsword wing who fluxed me out, I overloaded and enemy warships finished me off. I didn't even realize what was happening the first time or two, I just knew I was suddenly and inexplicably incapacitated then dead.

I tried to find ways to deal with enemy fighters without adding carriers to my fleet and came up with absolute bupkis. As I said above, PD on smaller hulls is only moderately effective against enemy fighters, particularly the more heavily armored low-tech and midline fighters used by pirates and Pathers, so I ultimately had to just throw in the towel and get fighters of my own. Which is the other half of my problem with fighters: they're not optional, at least if you're running a wolfpack fleet without larger hulls. If the enemy has fighters you have to have fighters to counter them, otherwise they'll just swarm over your ships, overloading and disabling everything while their warships pound you to space dust.

The fact I'm spending a not-insignificant percentage of my DP every battle (and supplies afterward) on comparatively expensive carriers I don't actually want in my fleet just so I can engage the enemy directly without flux-maxing bull[stuff] pixies swarming in to screw up my day is... not fun. I've learned to deal with it for the most part but, again, if I had the option to simply remove fighters from the game I'd probably do so, never look back and be happier for it.

11
General Discussion / Re: Carriers hoarding interceptors
« on: December 07, 2022, 09:26:21 PM »
If you want similar anti-fighter/defensive performance, I highly recommend 2 wings Wasp + 1 wing Gladii: much faster replacement time, similar top speed, has kinetic damage, flares, and lays down mines.

I may have to look into that. I'm not terribly bothered about the kinetic damage - as stated, the only reason I even have fighters in my fleet is to counter enemy fighters and outfitting my herons with sparks seemed like the most simple, straightforward means of doing so.

I hesitate to say the game is worse off for the inclusion of fighters, as I can see the appeal, but the way they've been implemented is simply maddening to me. They're generally not powerful enough to be a force unto themselves but I can't simply ignore them lest they create an opening in my defenses for enemy warships to exploit. Point defense on smaller hulls (frigates and destroyers, mostly) is often only moderately effective against them, having been originally designed to counter enemy missiles, and the fact they ignore collision altogether is, frankly, stupid. If there were an option to simply remove them from the game I'd have to think really hard to come up with a reason why I shouldn't always play with that particular box checked.

12
General Discussion / Re: Carriers hoarding interceptors
« on: December 07, 2022, 12:20:07 AM »
I think I may have figured out the problem, at least in my case. I tried the battle again, keeping my fleet moving 'round the map this time to avoid being backed into a corner. I was doing pretty well for a while but, sure enough, my herons simply stopped deploying fighters again. Mousing over 'em I saw they'd gotten down to 30% replacement rate, at which point they seem to simply sit on their available fighters unless explicitly ordered to engage an enemy target. Looks like I'm just going to have to burn away as soon as I jump through the gate and take the pirate fleets out piecemeal. Which is frustrating. I know I could win that battle if my carriers would just keep doing the thing for which I explicitly have them in my fleet.

I suppose that's part of the larger problem with carriers right now - I know they were nerfed pretty hard in 0.95 due to carriers themselves being adjusted and the way the skill system shook out skewing things even more against 'em but, until now, I haven't really run up against that. I've read fighters are all but useless against a properly outfitted capital (or even cruiser) but they remain the bane of my existence in smaller hulls.

13
General Discussion / Carriers hoarding interceptors
« on: December 06, 2022, 10:35:58 PM »
This may be an edge case but it was frustrating enough I'd like to understand why it happened if it's "working as intended."

I'm running a relatively small wolfpack fleet; medusa flagship, 2 each hammerheads and enforcers, a sniper/suppression sunder, tempest and two lashers - all with aggressive officers. I also have two herons, each with three spark wings, for the explicit purpose of countering enemy fighters. Had just jumped into the fringe of a system with pirate activity and set about taking on the four fleets present. I was obviously heavily outnumbered but, between loadouts, officer skills and S mods I should have been able to take them without too much difficulty - I've won similar fights several times in the past. This time, however, once the enemy fleets had my own backed up against the edge of the map, allowing me to concentrate my firepower to full effect, my carriers simply hung out behind the warships, hoarding their interceptors rather than deploying them against enemy fighters, leading to my warships being overloaded and destroyed.

As I said, I've fought and won battles like this several times in the past and have never seen my carriers just sit uselessly in the back lines, refusing to deploy their interceptors while the rest of my fleet gets overwhelmed. I can't fathom what the hell went wrong this time. Is it something to do with the default behavior for non-officer ships? The fact we had our backs to the wall? I'd swear I've been in that kind of situation before and my carriers/fighters never derped out like that. Has anyone else encountered something like this before? Possibly a bug?

14
Suggestions / Re: [Expeditions] Show 'em the door
« on: November 30, 2022, 03:31:02 PM »
Right. Relative strengths should factor into the situation just like they do in any other combat encounter. I'd say it should roughly parallel default enemy reaction to your fleet:

 * Pursuing your fleet - You ain't chasing anyone out of anywhere

 * Maintaining contact and willing to fight - Make a show of strength, disable a few of the enemy's ships (or especially their flagship) and you'll find them much more cooperative

 * Avoiding contact but willing to fight - Can probably be persuaded to leave without too much difficulty

 * Avoiding contact and attempting to disengage - The enemy crew are basically praying you'll just shout at them to get off your lawn

All of this assumes, of course, the player is in-system. If the expedition shows up while you're off in Parts Unknown surveying planets or something it should just auto-resolve as it does already.

15
Suggestions / Re: Quality of Life and Game Balance Improvments
« on: November 29, 2022, 05:24:15 PM »
Fix this immediately.

*stands to attention*

Yes, sir! Right away, sir!

*waits a moment for Captain Jerkoff to leave the room, settles back into chair and resumes reading magazine*

_________________
I agree with your first point. Might agree with the others. We'll never know 'cause I stopped reading as soon as Captain Jerkoff showed up.

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