Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

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

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Messages - Kaucukovnik

Pages: 1 [2] 3
16
Modding / Superfreighters
« on: November 29, 2016, 03:38:27 AM »
With multiple mods installed, capital-sized freighters feel rather underwhelming. The only reason to use them appears to be the arbitrary 25 ship limit. Their maint&fuel/capacity ratio is inferior to smaller freighter ships, capacity hullmods give pitiful bonus considering their base capacity and OP costs and your entire fleet's speed goes down. If you want to keep your speed up, you can get some tugs, which renders the "fewer ships" point moot.

Furthermore, many big cargo ships also want to be somewhat combat-capable, which is then being offset by turning their maintenance cost and/or fuel consumption up to eleven. This would work a lot better if you couldn't just exclude parts of your fleet from battle most of the time and always had to think about their defenses.

I have noticed this tendency in several mods. Blackrock's Eschaton  carries much less than Atlas, has more than twice the maint cost and consumes just as much fuel. Same for the Imperial Barrus class, at least that one is a bit faster.
On the other hand ASP's Gigantophis is a beast, 750 cargo + flight decks and enough OP for okay weapons, you can have over 2000 cargo plus 6 flight decks for less than Atlas' fuel consumption. Dassault-Mikoyan cargo ships  are very efficient, especially as dedicated haulers with capacity hullmods.

If large freighters are less efficient, why would anyone even construct them? Is the fleet size limit an in-universe phenomena that affects space logistics?

17
B-b-b-but...

... although that is irritating and unfun... until I get that ship
:P

I'm ceasing my attempts to spare anyone unfun gaming time. May the RNG gods be favorable to you.

18
I don't like the altered loadscreen either. I don't want to sound mean, but there are mods of both higher quality and larger scope and they don't hijack the initial screen of the game. In my eyes this gives TuP a bit of bad attitude if you know what I mean. Easy to get rid of, but still.

I definitely do enjoy the added ship variety and I would already miss some of them.

19
I consider save-scumming via reloading a previously saved game from a menu within the game a perfectly legitimate strategy, and not cheating.

There is only you and your computer, and the PC doesn't care the least bit. And whether you savescum or summon the ship via console, you are not playing the way you were meant to be in either case, you are playing the way you want to.
Quote
...unfun...
Or are you?  ;)

I personally prefer to edit the config file for 50% boarding chance and just fire away.

20
Suggestions / Re: Companion App
« on: November 26, 2016, 02:22:04 PM »
Or better yet, support for 2 screens. That would be glorious. Also probably moddable into an app.

21
Modding / Re: Biomechanoids (WIP)
« on: November 26, 2016, 08:58:25 AM »
Quote
Lilith is taken already as a name in the Modiverse by a Mayorate frigate.
Damn you, Mayorate! That's what I get for not playing you, eh? :)
I planned to check on that, but didn't really expect any of the names to be taken.

Anyways, great ideas, guys! Couldn't wait to try some. Here is the progress:


Reworked Lilith and re-christened to Narcissus (thanks, King Alfonzo!) The bridge simply didn't work and trying to connect it to the figure was getting way too perverted, so I just placed it on the right buttcheek. This solution also adds some asymmetry and one more weapon mount. I think the vanilla energy hardpoint on the "head" actually fits in this case.
The greebles on Cocytus' stomach-bulb need some more work. Same for Baphomet's lower legs.

I'm also trying a bit of color. That goes with the problem of faction colors, everything is already taken. Some colors even multiple times! :) Seriously, I can hardly tell apart Diable and Metelson, unless I see the colors next to each other.

22
Blog Posts / Re: Cartography
« on: November 26, 2016, 05:18:49 AM »
1. Right-click for menu
2. Left click for default action
Okay, I guess.

Quote
3. Shift click for other likely action
4. Control click for special action
5. Alt click available for player customization (or mod customization)
Now that's a mess. It may be very efficient once you learn it, but there is no way to intuitively tell what function key is going to initiate which action. Add a new major feature to the game and half your keyboard shortcuts will be either obsolete or make no sense.
For example Nexerelin adds planetary invasions. Now wouldn't the best default action for hostile planets be "invade"? Therefore you are either stuck with sub-optimal controls, or you have to move the vanilla default to an alternative and pretty much shuffle the rest along with it.

Menu with default choice right under the cursor sounds way more elegant.


And I bet the constellation age is more on the galactic scale, like what types of planets different kinds of stars usually have. That could in turn affect Domain presence, which would be based on conditions for human colonization in the past.

23
Could the AI handle a ship with the majority of firepower being missiles directed backwards + engine boost?
The idea is to get past enemy ships and hit behind their shields (provided they don't have a 360 shield already on). Is there a way to trick the AI to charge further than it intended to accomplish this? Would that make it overly suicidal? Could missiles with good tracking help the AI use the ship in semi-regular fashion at least?

24
Modding / Re: Biomechanoids (WIP)
« on: November 24, 2016, 02:56:36 PM »
Thanks for the responses, guys, especially Helmut. Observations noted.

The Lilith rear bridge looks out of place.
The thing is, I see nowhere else to place it without breaking the ship's shape. And this way the captain has at least a good view of the ship's curvatures, I imagine many would want it exactly this way. :)

Quote
I'm not that much a fan of the Despair, same issue as the Lilith, very few mounts for a ship of its size.
It's intended to have a built-in weapon down the middle, and it's still missing engine thrusters.

25
Modding / Biomechanoids (WIP)
« on: November 24, 2016, 01:52:39 AM »
Decided to stop spamming the spriting thread and make my own, since this seems to be actually going somewhere.

Biomechanoids so far:

Despair destroyer, Lilith phase cruiser, Baphomet command cruiser, Cocytus battle carrier
No edge cleanup yet for the latest ones, so black background is better for now.

I'm not sure about the edited tachyon lance on Lilith and I will eventually make custom weapon mounts for these ships, as was suggested.
For now I'm putting those aside to continue making more and will come back with a bit more fresh eyes and hopefully also comments from you guys.

26
Modding / Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« on: November 21, 2016, 03:00:19 AM »
The skull has very convincing metallic shine. Looking forward to sport this face in game.

27
Modding / Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« on: November 20, 2016, 04:19:18 AM »
I'm so glad to see words like "creepy" and "disturbing" used for description. And yeah, I've gone through all Giger art I have before touching a single pixel. Actually, the destroyer is basically stolen:
Spoiler
[close]

Current state of Baphomet:


I'll keep the "naked ass" appearance, I think it makes him all the more disturbing.

Here is a potential ship system:
Spoiler

Doubles large turret's rate of fire while keeping flux cost, disables all other weapons and flight decks. (is that possible?)
[close]

Edit: By the way, have you seen Giger's paintings/airbrushes in person? They appear three-dimensional, with layers of alien glyphs going under surfaces that usually appear solid on reproductions. I have never noticed this much difference when seeing the real thing vs reproduction.

28
General Discussion / Re: Fighter Rework and Missiles.
« on: November 20, 2016, 02:31:21 AM »
I generally hate invincibility frames in games, but they could work for fighter evasive maneuvers. Easily explained by dodging along the Z axis.

29
That's my only nitpick when it comes to user interface.

And maybe a little wider scrolbar?

30
General Discussion / Shields - how to overwhelm them?
« on: November 20, 2016, 01:55:25 AM »
In a pinch the AI is very good at soaking every kind of damage the most efficient way, and it always seems to have that bit of flux breathing space left to flicker its shield on for every single hit of my intended armor and hull killers.
Then I back off to the edge of my weapon range, and the AI suddenly turns its shield off, taking several massive hits before turning it on again. This especially happens in 1v1 simulations, which tends to make them kinda useless.
I particularly like reactions to asteroids. "CRASH - Oh an asteroid, shields on! Path clear, shields off....CRACK - Goddammit, another asteroid, shields on..."
On the other hand, I love how AI ships protect each other by throwing their shielded selves in the line of fire for a moment. Sometimes a tiny frigate sacrifices itself in vain, but most of the time it works and it gives the fleet operations so much more life.

To the point: dedicated anti-armor and especially anti-hull weapons pale next to shield killers. If a ship is already taking hull damage, it is doomed most of the time anyway. Armor and hull are finite resources, if you are consistently able to nibble at enemy armor and they aren't capable of that, you are winning. Dedicated armor-destructors may make this faster, but also less reliable. And if you are just scratching their armor, chances are that weaker anti-shield weaponry will make those scratches even less likely. And if you are already destroying them, do you really need that happening faster?
Missiles are completely hopeless, as they face PDs in addition to shields, and surrounding hostile ships can help your target with that as well. Bombers can deal some serious damage if they happen to hit an unshielded side, and that is entirely up to them right now.

The best way seem to be sustained fire to spread damage evenly over time, so that the target simply has to take your payload exactly as you composed it without picking what to block with shields and what is better soaked by armor. Burst fire ballistic weapons are okay too, as they are able to clear the last bits of shielding for themselves.

I do like the fact that the AI can use the mechanics well, but it renders a minority of weapons superior and far easier to use regardless of circumstances. "I'll just point my tachyon lance(s) at it until it explodes."

Pages: 1 [2] 3