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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 - Eji1700

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151
General Discussion / Re: The Conquest and the Gryphon
« on: August 12, 2019, 02:13:58 PM »
A well kitted gryphon in player hands can alpha strike a capital or two and then just leave the field while you switch to flying another ship.  It's VERY powerful.
Gryphon costs too much to be a player-only glass sword.  Afflictor can do it for only 8 DP and less fuel.  I guess Gryphon as a glass sword is okay if player has that but neither Afflictor nor enough Reapers.
It is more than cheap enough as something that can alpha strike capitals.  Just because the afflictor is nuts doesn't mean that the gryphon isn't good.  It's a reliably safe way to nuke down any capital ship that you want or if in AI hands to have it sit behind a flux hull and nuke whatever it fluxes out.

152
General Discussion / Re: The Conquest and the Gryphon
« on: August 12, 2019, 09:50:19 AM »
A well kitted gryphon in player hands can alpha strike a capital or two and then just leave the field while you switch to flying another ship.  It's VERY powerful.

The same loadout will do ok in AI hands as a backline finisher that'll unload harpoons into whatever valid target.  It's basically just sabots on the front, harpoon pods, and then either the mirv or the shield pressure in your large missile.

153
General Discussion / Re: Bounty Balance?
« on: July 18, 2019, 09:45:37 AM »
Fights with the old small ship spam in 0.9a went faster than current Atlas 2 (and other capital) spam.
I think this is the real problem.  Its just spam.  I know you've got to generate these fleets dynamically but maybe the methods can be tweaked to hopefully come up with something challenging that doesn't just feel like 10 Atlas II's

154
General Discussion / Re: Bounty Balance?
« on: July 16, 2019, 02:20:03 PM »
Anything less than "moar capitals" is kind of a walkover, though.  The equivalent FP in Frigates just gets... eaten... by even mid-game fleets.

I agree that the payouts seem a little low, though; too little reward for too much risk, on a lot of the high-end bounties, especially the "deserters", where they're flying stuff that isn't knackered junk.

Cruisers and destroyers can be a threat in the right comps/numbers, and at least don't feel like they take forever to fight.  Even if you can kill large capital fleets is usually by just throwing something equally absurd at it, and it takes forever.

155
General Discussion / Re: Bounty Balance?
« on: July 15, 2019, 11:03:57 AM »
Bounty payouts in general seem off. 

The early ones are fine, but 250k for 4 astrals and supporting fleet is absurd.  At the point you can take that fleet out profitably you no longer need money.  It doesn't help that the "moar capitals" approach feels a little lackluster and repetitive.

156
I think that some of these problems (less OP, more OP, less logistics, more logistics) can be solved by adjusting how ships are seen/acquired.

There's this inherent issue in that every fleet by mid game is made up of a mixture of roulette and if you chose a commission or not.  There's ships you WILL see (hammerhead) and then ships you almost never see (dusa) and I think there should be a lot more elegance to that system besides "are they stocked up/can my colony just make these"

This would allow the drover to exist as is (which it still probably shouldn't, but for the sake of argument) but be behind another gate of sorts.  You must have a commission to get a drover (and maybe a specific fleets commission rather than having it be a standard ship of the line) or you can spend a story point/hope to salvage one.

157
Suggestions / Re: Warship Balance
« on: July 09, 2019, 03:49:12 PM »
So, the question's come up repeatedly on the latest blog post of "Which ships need more ordnance points?"

I'm not going to try to answer that; instead, I present here a list of vanilla supposedly-war-worthy ships I won't (or don't like to) use.

Frigates
  • Brawler: Nope.  Just, nope.  This isn't a case of ordnance points; this is a case of it being an expendable weapons platform and I don't do expendable in my own fleet.  Special mention goes to the Tri-Tachyon variant that, if it installs max vents and safety overrides, still can't support a pair of pulse lasers.  The TT variant desperately needs an increase in flux dissipation and capacity, but otherwise these work well as things to fight; I don't think the base Brawler needs changes - even if I'm never going to use one myself.
You should use them more, they're ok.  I think they could still use some love (the TT variant is sad) but you're being overly harsh.  They fill and allright role as is.

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  • Cerberus & Hound: Slightly better as extreme-range sniper platforms than the Brawler, but the lack of shields is just too much of a drawback - and installing a shield generator via hull mod actually makes them more fragile.  Suggested fix: the makeshift shield generator needs to come with either a much better efficiency - something like .6 flux per damage - or a significant improvement to flux capacity and dissipation.
  • Gremlin: Also nope.  Same reason as the Brawler: it's an expendable weapons platform and nope.
Gremlin is a great ship in human hands early game.  Take it out on a fleet that can flux things for your and you get to do some really nice alpha's then retreat it out and switch to your flagship. Dunno how the AI handles it, I should test, but seriously underrating it.

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  • Hermes & Mercury: I'm not actually sure if these are even supposed to be combat-viable?  There was an era when I actually used them on occasion, but these days the niche of ultra-light harasser is much better filled with a Kite.
  • Hyperion: In the old days, this was my favorite frigate.  Then it got a teleporter that the AI can't use very well, and then it got utterly insane deployment and maintenance costs and it's just not worth it anymore.  I don't know how to fix the teleporter AI, but here are two suggestions: One, make it so that teleporting doesn't drop shields; that will cut down a lot on AI hyperions dying from just porting themselves into gunfire.  And two, give the system regenerating charges or a more significant cooldown and make the AI a bit less free with teleports; it should use them for long-distance travel (at regen rate rather than spamming), one teleport to get into attack position, and to retreat.  And even with that, I'd love to see something like a Pirate Hyperion that just loses the teleporter entirely in exchange for a bit lower maintenance cost and less of its CR eaten up on each deployment.
I feel like the hyperion is mostly fine given its niche role as "super frigate".  I just wish there was one for each tech level or team, but as a teleporting alpha striker it's insane, and yes suicidal in AI hands.

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  • Lasher: These used to make good early-game SO boats - but if you go through the tutorial or take either accelerated start option, you're already past the point where I used them.  I'm not sure that there's anything exactly wrong with the Lasher per se?  But I don't find them fun to fly, nor do I find them to be particularly survivable as escorts, so I just... don't bother with them anymore.
  • Scarab: I want to like the Scarab.  It's a really neat ship!  It's just... not a good ship.  Could use a bit more flux dissipation, a bit more ordnance points, and built-in PD lasers in those useless side turret mounts that any sane player will leave empty.
  • Vigilance: In Ye Olde Days of Corvus, this was actually my favorite of the options for starting frigate.  It has not aged well.  Would benefit a lot from even a little bit more flux dissipation to support that medium energy slot... but the real problem with the Vigilance is that its ship system only really works well with salamanders, and putting salamanders on a Vigilance relegates it to a support role instead of a kill-things role.  My advice here: Drop harpoon pods back down to two missiles per salvo & give the Vigilance expanded missile racks as a free built-in hull mod.
  • Wayfarer: Not really sure what's a good solution here; the Wayfarer isn't terrible... but frigate-sized cargo ships in general are a bad deal, and if you want combat ability you're better off with a Lasher.

Agree with the rest of this for the most part.  Overall i think there's just a general issue of frigates being unimpressive even if you focus them.  Hopefully some of the new skills help that but it wouldn't hurt to have a better niche for some of these.

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Destroyers
  • Condor: This thing used to be the standard for destroyer carriers.  Then the Drover showed up, and it's just better.  I don't actually think giving the Condor significantly improved combat stats is a good idea (though I'd suggest that, like the Vigilance, it should get expanded missile racks built in).  However, you know what would make me consider putting a Condor or two into my fleet?  If it had semi-decent logistical stats.  I mean, seriously, it's a converted freighter - why does it have less cargo space than the dedicated warship Drover?  Buff the Condor up to 140 cargo capacity and 80 fuel capacity, and it'll have a decent role as that thing you use when you want some fighters and are willing to trade off the Drover's system for a better logistics train and maybe some LRMs.  (And, while we're at it, drop the Drover down to 40 cargo capacity.)
I see condors as the poor mans carrier and it's mostly ok with that.  If you want to crack pirate bases loading 3+ of these up with LRMS and pirahana's is a pretty cheap and effective way to handle things, but I do think that "bringing the right fleet for the job" style play needs to be more encouraged if that's the intent.

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  • Enforcer: These are probably okay?  I just don't like them.  If I happen to luck into an XIV Enforcer early, I'll use it, but that's about it.
  • Gemini: Okay, here is a ship that really, truly, just needs more ordnance points.  It has 55.  I'd like to see it with around 80 - enough to afford high quality weapons with enough points left over to get up to a decent flux dissipation and a good lot of capacitors or defensive hull mods.
  • Medusa: Another old favorite that's fallen by the wayside.  I'm not even really sure when or why or how that happened; it's not like the Medusa has gotten any worse... I guess it's just that its competition got better?  +10 or +20 ordnance points might make a difference here, pushing it into "you can fit everything you want and then a little bit extra" territory?  Or it might not, I'm really not sure.
  • Shrike: These work pretty well as opposition, but for player use they run into the same problem as the Brawler or the Gremlin: Shrikes just go pop.  Interestingly, there is in one of the mods a variant on the Shrike that I actually like: the Underworld's Cabal Shrike - though I do think a more balanced version would have the Cabal variant's stats, but with the pirate variant's weapon slot layout.

I'll just add that I think the shrike really should be more fun to pilot.  It's the sort of ship that you'd think would shine in player hands, but it often feels like more of a struggle than it should be, maybe in part because of it's struggle with weapons loadout mixed with flankers feeling weak when enemy AI is smart enough to group up properly.

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Cruiser
  • Gryphon: The only vanilla cruiser I just plain won't field (though the (non-pirate) Falcon comes close), the Gryphon just... well... does not measure up.  If I really want a large missile slot on the field, I'd rather use an Apogee; way more durability, more room for ECCM, expanded missile racks pushing it up to just as much ammo as the Gryphon starts with, and - as a nice bonus - good out-of-battle logistical stats.
    I'm not sure what the right fix here is, but I'd suggest looking into radical options.  Something like, oh, replace the ship system with fortress shield, and then give it a built-in hull mod that causes missile ammunition to slowly replenish over time (but only while CR is ticking down).  Or make it double as an EW platform, with ECM and Nav Relay built in alongside ECCM and Expanded Missile Racks.  Or introduce a Pather variant that gets a free Safety Overrides installation.  Or, I dunno, something.  Much like the Scarab, the Gryphon is a ship I want to like, but that just doesn't measure up in actual play.

I can't disagree more about this.  The gryphon is borderline broken in player hands and still a great missile support ship in AI, especially if paired with a fleet that deals good flu.  There's plenty of ways to kit it out and i'd almost never prefer and apogee for the roles i'm using them for.  Two totally different ships.

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Capitals
  • Astral: When even the default variants tend to leave weapon mounts empty, you know the ship needs more ordnance points.  It also needs Fighter Recall to be limited by charges rather than flux - the best Astral variants I've found tend to leave even more of its weapon slots empty in favor of maxing out flux vents and adding capacitors so it can just spam Recall as its main attack mode.
  • Atlas Mk II & Prometheus Mk II: I haven't actually tried either of these yet.  They could be okay?  I just don't know.  I do feel like the Atlas Mk II should have more than 200 cargo capacity left over, though - as with the Condor, that's less space than dedicated warships.  Maybe five or six hundred would feel right.
  • Onslaught: Yep.  That's right.  I don't use the Onslaught.  Well, I mean, okay, if I happen to find one floating along as a derelict and it's the only capital ship I have, then I'll put something together.  But that's about it.  There are a lot of things that annoy me about the Onslaught, from the way its flux dissipation level that cannot possibly keep up with its guns, to its awkward turret arcs that frequently cause the side-mounted large ballistics to fire at a frontal target they can't actually quite swivel far enough to hit... But the thing I most dislike about it is the sheer difference in capability between an Onslaught that has 4x annihilator rocket pod (and hasn't run out of ammo yet) and literally any other variant.  Maybe it would be better if the annihilator pod had a smaller ammo count - maybe 10? - and used chunk reload mechanics to do a full restore (20 ammo in a chunk so you get full ammo even with expanded missile racks) every 20 seconds?  Or something like that?  Maybe it would be better if the rockets had just a little bit of guidance, and spread out a bit more instead of coming in a solid stream that ends up blocking incoming attacks?  Maybe... I dunno.  I just know I don't like it.

Disagree again on the Onslaught.  I've made plenty of variants that are great at just boosting in and chewing up anything that isn't fast enough to run away, or just sitting there and soaking damage relying on the builtins + some mild support to keep pressure up.  I think it's a great hull.

158
Blog Posts / Re: Skills and Story Points
« on: July 08, 2019, 09:51:54 PM »
Re: Loadout Design.

It was mandatory because it was so good, but in general ships do not need an increase in OP. With the 10% there are few to no hard choices in ship design: just put in all the best things and call it a day (and for most ships, you can indeed fit the best of everything, enough flux, and the needed hullmods). Fewer OP lowers total power level, but increases the design space for ships because there are more viable tradeoffs. I think lowering the total power level is neutral - these things go up and down - but increasing the design space is very valuable.

Some ships are exceptions to this and need more OP, but I think those are special cases rather than general, and they could even be balanced in other ways if there are other reasons to keep OP the same. For the Shrike and Wolf for example, increasing the base flux stats would be a better choice than increasing OP, in my opinion.

Re: the blog post
Cool! Reminds me of the skill choices for XCOM soldiers, but it aims to avoid the pitfall of one skill being much superior to the other.

I disagree, I think it will reduce build variety. There are lots of weapon layouts that require a lot support from hull mods and vents/capacitors to be viable. Less OP means these loadouts will be worse so 'fun' loadouts that use the more eccentric guns will go away/ be less competitive with the more efficient loadouts. Most ships feel like they get enough to feel complete, but I can't think of any ship except maybe the paragon where I actually put everything I want on without concern. Most ships have to drop stuff that I want to fit other things that I want. Some ships (like the shrike) can barely fit the basics with +10% op. I very frequently leave mounts empty to get extra OP, or drop hull mods for extra vents, or downgrade weapons for an extra hullmod, which indicates to me that many ships are a bit tight on OP even with +10% op. I think ships on +10% OP felt like they were in a good place in general with some exceptions either way.

I mean, isn't this why you can now get two free hull mods?  That seems potentially WAY better than 10% OP.

159
Blog Posts / Re: Skills and Story Points
« on: July 08, 2019, 06:12:03 PM »
One possible problem with relying on "Story Points" to power-up ships is it makes losing them in combat painful.  If you really want to keep the ship, that means some form of guaranteed recovery (like Reinforced Bulkheads), and even if you do keep it, it will take (D) mods.  If player does not want to pay huge restoration costs, that means much reloading in a difficult fight much like pre-0.8 games.

Hmm - one thought is to make losing ships with perma-mods give you bonus XP. Sort of like how losing ships used to do, but this time not something you'd really want to do on purpose.



I'd like to throw out there that maybe this is a good time to reassess the ship and weapon economy?

My understanding is that ships and weapons sell for near dirt cheap because otherwise it'd be too easy to have players play in an unfun manner where they farm ships and weapons, but-

1. This just leads to players often with an obnoxiously large weapon stockpile and rapid fire clicking through the ship recovery screen 9/10 times. 

2. There was a similar rule for trade if I recall, but that system has been reworked to be more intuitive (it makes sense that trading can make you money) and enjoyable (it's not something that's super easy to break and it has some depth).

I really feel that it'd make a lot more sense if weapons beyond the standard affair were much less likely to salvage (due to being more complicated devices) along with enemy ships in general rarely being salvageable (they aren't yours, you don't know the small tweaks their crew made, so it's harder to salvage, irregardless of if it's a common or advanced ship).

Normal players can get most of their Weaponry/Ships through the usual method-  Shops for basics, black market/commissions/exploration/colonies for exotics

Players that want to specialize in salvage can dedicate skills, hull mods, ships (salvage gantry anyone?), and maybe even items (marines?  "Engineers?") to the process. 

With ships being more rare to come by, they can serve as more serious rewards, and the recovery screen is now potentially interesting since even if you don't want a pirate carrier, it can help cover the supply cost of the battle.

It could also mean that dumping your weaponry for cash is a viable solution to short term income problems, or even another way to cover the cost of a battle, rather than just "flat supplies".  Hell maybe even a "focus on supplies, or recovery more weaponry" option at the salvage screen.  Either way it should help stop the hoarders armory that develops fast and eventually winds up just sitting on the colony (and I still think a "store all weapons" button would be useful either way).

160
Blog Posts / Re: Skills and Story Points
« on: July 08, 2019, 01:41:15 PM »
As someone who's always giving the venture/mule and other "almost but not quite combat" ships a shot, what does the skill that makes civ ships better do? 

The venture I can work with, even though it's a cruiser that's really more akin to a 1.5 destroyer just because of the alpha it can put out with its missiles.  The rest though really struggle simply due to a lack of hardpoints to stick weapons on.  You can mass them and get pretty creative, but at the end of the day a mule really struggles to pull any meaningful weight

161
Blog Posts / Re: Skills and Story Points
« on: July 08, 2019, 12:53:35 PM »
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some mechanics like the inverse scaling of skill bonuses with the number of ships that are cool but feel a bit counterintuitive
More to the point... won't that be forcing players into yet-another pigeonhole? 

Honestly, the last thing this game needs is more caps that make play even more about threading the Skill needle some specific way and playing some specific way.
That was my initial reaction but i'm not sure it'll work that way in practice.

Lets do something simple like "first 5 carriers get 100% damage on their wings".

So if you have 5, you get 500% extra damage, which is 100% per ship.

if you have 10 you get 750% extra damage, which is 75% per ship.

It's still absolutely worth getting if you want to go all carriers but it also doesn't force you to go all carriers, since at 5 you'd be capped at your most efficient point, and can then decide if you want to keep focusing or then put a frigate fleet on the sides to back them up.

It'll depend on lot on the numbers ,but I don't think the core idea is shot.

162
Blog Posts / Re: Skills and Story Points
« on: July 08, 2019, 11:32:06 AM »
Really like the changes, and more importantly, the logic behind them.  While no doubt there may still be some tweaking I think the reasoning going into all this should lead to a more interesting experience. 

Story points as a resource to allow limited interaction in a bunch of different things is especially nice and should help lower some of the min maxy stuff you sometimes have to do (lets play hunt down the cautions/aggressive officer!)

I REALLY like the idea of perm hull mods, as one of the things that this game has been missing in my eyes is the EV feel of "this is MY ship" and that should help with it.  Giving me a reason to care about the a specific ship or hull, which i'm hoping combined with the ability to focus more on frigates at least allows us to make some of the "missing" ship roles (like having a very powerful frigate/destroyer for some of the tech classes).

163
General Discussion / Re: Feedback #1
« on: June 20, 2019, 12:19:56 PM »
This is why you'd have "old storms" be rare and obvious (and yes probably toned down to some extent).   Not just randomly mixed in and looking identical.  It gives skills another level of ways to deal with storms and is something you'd actively want to avoid.

It's really not that different from a black hole and would add variety to traveling which is hardly a bad thing.

164
General Discussion / Re: Feedback #1
« on: June 19, 2019, 02:50:33 PM »
There is something like that already. If you hit just one bad cloud, you get one hit. Get stuck in a sea of thunder and now your fleet takes several hits, before it gets out of that situation.
But it's not something you mitigate, control, or make any decision on.  Hell you can't always tell if your'e going to eat one hit or 5 even in cases where you think "meh this won't bounce me into anything else"

The current system doesn't really promote any interaction.  Either you negate it through skills/mods, accept it because you're willing to take the loss, or avoid it. There's a lot more that can be done.

Hell bring back the old storms as well as the new storms and give them a visual difference (make the old ones much more rare), would already at least put a little more thought into how you approach it (i'm willing with skills to tank a new storm since it just bounces me, but an old storm is a nightmare to be stuck in even if it's not eating all my supplies)

165
General Discussion / Re: Colony Expeditions are Unfair and Unfun
« on: June 18, 2019, 03:33:06 PM »
I can attest to this - I was making a fuel run and saw a big pirate fleet about to attack a Hegemony station. Took it out for the supplies and to protect this convenient fuel depot, got a cool 85k as a bonus from the system bounty.

Its not a huge amount of money, and a lot less than what I could make from a named bounty of the same size, but I didn't have to do any travel for it at all, which was a big time and supply saver.
I feel one of the odd issues with all this, although it makes sense, is you've really got to annihilate the fleet or else repair costs can eat into you hard.  You still get some rep i guess and it's fun to fight pirate fleets, but I was farming bounties early and barely breaking even just because I couldn't quite slaughter them.

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