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61

General Discussion / Re: Low Tech ship non viablility

« on: May 18, 2020, 08:42:50 PM »

Well, a lot of the low-tech stuff tends to be "meant to be pretty bad", but that's not the design philosophy of low-tech, that's just many of the "intentionally bad" ships happening to be low-tech. E.G. the Hound, Cerberus, Buffalo Mk.II, and the Condor, are all low-grade ships, so if they generally don't work out - especially past the early game! - that's to be expected. They're supposed to underperform, for various reasons.

Really, in those size classes, the only "proper" combat ships that are supposed to be up to par are the Lasher and the Enforcer, so I wouldn't lean too heavily on the other ships when trying to analyze things.

(That said, I know what you mean in general; it's largely I think a question of progression. I'd generally agree that the early game flies by too fast right now. The skill revamp should help here, too - not specifically by extending the early game, but by encouraging smaller ships/fleets in several ways...)

(Edit: the Condor's not too bad, really, btw. The Drover is just an enormous outlier, so, I don't think it's a great point of reference. It badly needs the nerf bat, and has had an appointment with it.)

See i'm a little sad to see the buffalo on that list.  One of my most memorable moments of feeling like I was getting "good" at the game was when I was using those to really punch way above my weight.  It took some clever fleet/character design, and still was hard to manage due to all the other reasons i mentioned, but it's a good feeling to feel like you're mastering the games mechanics vs just "buying the good ship".

Granted it's not like I have any complaints with the balance in the grand scheme.  This game still avoids many common land mines that other devs just faceplant into and ruin games with, so more just food for thought i guess.

Don't miss his point that it is as easy to acquire mil-grade ships as it is the meh ships.

Had the game up so I popped into Mairaath and lo and behold a pristine Afflictor and a pristine Centurion on the black market. Open market has a 2 d-mod Wolf, not bad.

Pop over to Port Tse: 2 pristine Shrikes, pristine Drover, 1 d-mod Wolf, and a 3 d-mod Omen.

Between the same markets there are 6 Shepherds, 3 Mules, 2 Condors, 1 Colossus III, 1 Buffalo2, 1 Hound, 1 Cerberus, 1 Lasher, 1 Gremlin, and 1 Wayfarer.

Discounting the Shepherds and Wolves, that's 6 ships that can last you the whole game vs. 12 ships you will ditch sooner or later, assuming you use them at all.


Maybe black market ships should have a quality penalty.

What I think I want is for it to be harder to acquire mil-grade ships, but less of a lottery to get the rare ones. Popped through several TT markets - several Drovers and Afflictors, zero Medusas or Tempests.

Yeah i'm a big believer in making things special through specific scarcity.  Not rng loot things but like "yeah X planet is where you find Y ship, but only if you've done A thing, can do B, or will risk C".

Just toning down ship availability in a few ways might do a lot to make planets/systems themselves more memorable (i know the names of like 2), and make acquiring specific hulls more of a moment (and help the salvage game).

62

General Discussion / Re: Low Tech ship non viablility

« on: May 18, 2020, 06:44:15 PM »

Some relevant changes from the (as yet non-public) patch notes for the next release:

Hammerhead:
   Rear turrets no longer capable of facing directly to the front
   Fixed slight alignment issue for left medium hardpoint, this is Very Important
Enforcer:
   Increased armor to 900 (was: 750)
   Increased hull to 6000 (was: 5000)
   Reduced shield flux/damage to 1 (was: 1.2)   

(And a moderate Assault Chaingun nerf, which in itself is an indirect Hammerhead nerf...)

Very glad to see this.

I don't know about you, but in my eyes the hammerhead is pretty close to being right on the mark for what it should be.  It's a ship that i'm never sad to have, has quite a few viable builds, and it does whatever job you're putting it to well, as long as it's one it was designed to do.  I'm glad to see you aren't kneecapping it and instead just focusing on the Chaingun build being too good, which does seem to mostly deal with the weapon itself.

So with that said, i've tried a couple of mostly low tech runs and I have a few spots that i've found trouble with:

1. It feels like the "point" of low tech is "easy to acquire/amass/field/upkeep" compared to the others. 

In theory. 

There's a lot of reasons to point to this (especially flavor) but the simple problem is that this just isn't a balance factor in practice. I've talked about it before, but acquiring a brand new/near brand new midline is trivially easy compared to any low tech ship, and it seems to hurt their niche a ton.  Why would i field condors when I can get drovers?  Sure i've found uses for them, but the "advantage" just doesn't feel like it.

I'm generally annoyed with how easy it is to get a paragon and upkeep given how insanely performant it is, but at least getting a fleet of them is going to probably take you into the end game, but really if you're running condor's at any point past the start it's probably because like me you're trying to do something in theme.

2. Trash units aren't worth it by design.

So while i might have condor woes, at least i can break them out, load them up with pirhanas + LRMs, and go pirate station hunting.  It's a nice little niche that I could use drovers for, but at least it's something they can do well, being the in game equivalent of a trebuchet.

In comparison, i've just stopped getting the hound and cerberus.  Maybe there's a way to make them work, but I'm pretty sure it's just not worth the effort.  Ironically low tech ships take a hell of a lot more care/effort to get off the ground, and not just because of the AI.

The way the game handles salvage/supplies/restoration/dmods really really hurts the idea of junker/low tech fleets in general.  While you might think that you can take 15 cheap and pristine cerberus and keep them running easier than 5 omens(or whatever high tech) you're basically wrong.  The cerb's will die over and over, getting worse and worse (while already starting off worse), and the cost to repair them is insane when you consider that. 

As is my constant torch, i'm really hoping there's some rework to hull salvaging and the economy that stems from it, because to me it's by far the biggest factor in making low tech just not worth it (and god willing i ever get some actual vacation i'm thinking a nice hobby programming practice project might just be modding it myself so i can put up or shut up on all of this)

3. There is no "value" trading.

Consider Mount and Blade(any of them), which has something of a similar problem.  If i managed to take my 30 dirty peasants and wipe out an army of 150 elite troops thanks to my brilliant tactics and unabashed difficulty dropping, I've done something cool.  But why?  The resources that limit me from having my own army of 150+ elite troops are basically a joke once you learn what you're doing, and they're not going to take as much effort to use, nor die as easily.  The only real use-case for that kind of skill is when you're in the early game and might get jumped by a larger army (which is often again because of a lack of skill as you should just make your army faster than larger ones). 

The one major payoff though is the ability to take an hold castles (in theory, depending on the game) with fewer troops and  troop losses, which since getting more troops and training them is the only real resource by mid game, is nice.

There is basically 0 equivalent in star sector.  Managing to line up and outfit a buffalo 2 squad to take out a cruiser is SO much more satisfying that watching a paragon autopilot through an army, and yet there's really no reward or encouragement for it.  Maybe that example is extreme, but if you throw in operation costs and the like (and time spent outfitting bufflo 4404 from your replacement pool), it's just so so much easier to run high tech/midline stuff instead, and it's a shame because some of the most interesting gameplay is had with optimizing the less powerful hulls.

63

General Discussion / Re: Is Transverse Jump Too Good?

« on: May 14, 2020, 09:13:28 AM »

It's S+ on the whole "make my life more convenient so I can play more starsector" side, and probably a solid A otherwise.

It doesn't enable too much gameplay wise, but being able to dip out of a hostile sector (either from ships or stars) is very nice, and the skills on the path to get it are super helpful.  As for time savings though it's hard to beat, which is its own problem.

64

Suggestions / Re: Players starting their own R&D

« on: April 29, 2020, 09:13:27 PM »

With the caveat of "gameplay>realism/lore", the lore does makes clear that though the Sector uses Domain tech, for the most part, no one understands how it works and it might as well be magitec. Reverse-engineering it really isn't in the cards anymore.

Again, we're going into 4x territory if Research leads to Diplomacy which leads to Dynamic Factions, etc. and I just don't think the game is going that direction.

I mean it takes a single line like "and so because we don't really get this we'll be flipping switches, turning knobs, and throwing levers until we understand it better so it's going to be a few weeks before they don't come out upside down or hot pink.

65

Suggestions / Re: Players starting their own R&D

« on: April 29, 2020, 10:44:08 AM »

I think your proposed version is too detailed/granular for what star sector is going for, but I would like to see something between "i have a colony and access to nothing special" to "i found a blueprint kit and now have literally everything".  I will almost always get my colony off the ground at the point i have 2/3rds of the possible blueprints.  There's never any "well i guess my fleet's relying on ventures for now" because i've already got everything else by then. Further if I for some reason could only use them, the only way to find more is to go raid/explore.

Having another avenue to unlock/use weapon/ship blueprints might help the end game loop, which is currently

1. Explore to find things
2. Throw money at a colony until it can build things
3. Throw money at building it.

66

General Discussion / Re: The new high tech light cruiser - Fury

« on: April 29, 2020, 10:39:49 AM »

I've only glanced the 8 pages but having a larger flanker seems fitting for High tech.  I still struggle with shrike loadouts but i'm eager to test this out, even if it is just more OP and a med slot.

67

General Discussion / Re: Some advice please for a newb.

« on: April 24, 2020, 10:47:34 AM »

So I picked up Starsector and am loving it but am having a rough time of it and was wondering if you folks could help me out.

I've started with each configuration of starter ship and have gotten the furthest with the Wolf / Shepherd.

The skills I've been going for in the more successful campaigns are Fleet Logistics 2, Navigation 2, Recovery Operations 3, Field Repairs 3.

I've been using the monthly stipend to get rid of D rated mod ships for regular ships.  I've got some idea on which missions I just shouldn't take as well as being able to pause / evade etc. and to not go over any of my supplies / cap.  Whenever there's a system-wide pirate bounty I jump in with the faction to get in on the fight for low risk fights.  I've done some surveying though it seems to be a very poor money maker.  I'm not really sure how to progress as the monthly stipend I'm starting with fades away. 

Sometimes I buy a ship and try it out and it essentially kills the run, or I take a mission like the shielded box AI core and it kills the run, or the time I spent all my money to get a colony up and running with 1002 crew members to find out the crew all go live on the planet.  That's not a big deal because I don't mind learning through failure, but every time my bailout check goes away I basically death spiral to an unrecoverable game state.  I'm bad at making money I guess, the only time I seem to make a buck safely is when i'm pirate hunting in faction space (seems rare & the pirates don't spawn a whole lot) or get a lucky spawn of a named pirate nearby to offset the cost of supplies.

Any advice on how to make some credits in the early game? What sort of fleet composition should I try to have?  I've been getting rid of the tanker/freighter ships for combat ships so I keep a 9/18 burn level which is probably the only reason I started getting past 6months and started getting to the end of the stipend.  Any help is appreciated, it took me a while to 'get gud' at other difficult games, though there's a different sort of complexity here in Starsector than things like Rimworld, Kenshi and Darksouls.  Have a good day!

1. It's generally worth keeping one of the smaller tankers around (the starting one is usually fine until you scale up).  Likewise a smaller cargo ship doesn't hurt.  Burn speed is important but there are ships that can keep up and not hinder you too much.

2. Surveying is a tertiary money maker.  The idea sort of being you'll go do missions on the edge of the sector, and since you're there with a ton of supplies, why not survey some planets?  The level 1/2 data isn't worth much but 4/5 data can net a nice return.

3. Factor supplies into your costs.  Try to always have a decent stockpile of them (100-200 for early game, you'll scale that as your fleet grows).  Also always full fuel.

4. USE THE BLACK MARKET.  To pile onto the "things that aren't intuitive" list, the supposed penalties for black market usage are basically non existent, especially in the early game.  Get your supplies/fuel there at the very least and save yourself some tariffs.

5. You might want to try one of the faster start options.  This starts you off higher level and with better ships.  The game is still interesting, as it imo just saves you the time of scrapping up the credits to get one, but I understand if that's not your thing.

6. Get a destroyer asap (buy one, have about 30 to 60k extra to kit it out).  In general ships strength scales with hull size, especially as a beginner so doodling around in frigates is a great way to get nuked because they have a small threshold between "doing what they do best" and "space dust".  The hammerhead/sunder is easy to find just about anywhere and their "Default" loadouts aren't awful starting places.

7. Related to that, the "oh i get it" moment for me on combat and ship design was the default hammerhead.  2 railguns set to auto fire, 2 motars/chain guns on manual, harpoons on another weapon group.  You coast up staying just in railgun range building up enemy flux.  Once it gets high you hit F, and dump your motars into their hull.  I usually follow up with the harpoons right then on the logic that you should really just use your missiles to get threats off the field asap.  Once i understood exactly how you're supposed to be skirmishing my ability to take fights went way up.

68

General Discussion / Re: favorite flagship for each stage of the game?

« on: April 21, 2020, 09:58:59 AM »

Early- Venture

Mid- Mora

Late- Legion/Mora

The venture is basically awful but I like it.  When i get sick of dealing with having to try I swap to the Mora which I love as it's decently affordable and can fill either front line or carrier duties.  The legion does both at once, but I just don't like the largest ships sometimes.

69

General Discussion / Re: Loadouts for new midline heavy cruiser (Alex's Twitter)

« on: April 21, 2020, 09:56:28 AM »

I'm a little sad it's not low tech because I feel that roster needs fleshing out the most, but it does look cool and dear god those mounts.

70

General Discussion / Re: Which ship do you think is the ugliest?

« on: April 20, 2020, 12:17:07 PM »

Interesting to me all the drover hate. I always liked it because it vaguely reminded me of this guy-

https://db4sgowjqfwig.cloudfront.net/campaigns/159927/assets/718173/flurrymain_by_jaythurman-d9eusgp.png?1490814762

71

Suggestions / Re: Keyword search is urgently needed when cargo space have hundreds of weapon types

« on: April 19, 2020, 08:23:05 AM »

I know i might be in the minority in this,  but i'd just kinda like it to be less likely this is a thing.  Maybe through mechanics changes.

You wind up with these uber hoarder inventories because you never quite know where/when you'll be able to get X or Y weapon, and you don't want to fly around looking for them.  This only changes in the late game once you've got a colony and can just build the weapons you want.  That combined with them dropping like candy, a non existent cost to store them (as long as your use the terraforming platform or get a colony), and worthless sell values means there's 0 reason to ever do anything else.

It seems that there should be less weapon drops, more cost to storing them, more value to selling them, and then an easier time acquiring them through normal means (money).  Perhaps as you gain rep with a faction you get access to some of their printers or whatever the lore reason is, and they let you on demand "build" things of certain tiers.  If you *** them off it all goes away.  You can still build up hoards for when that happens, but with higher storage costs or more limited space that'd be less likely, and now you don't have inventory screens that I want to run SQL against before throwing into a visualizer.

72

Blog Posts / Re: GIF Roundup

« on: April 18, 2020, 08:27:59 PM »

The game doesn't need more weapons / ships or fancy effects ...

Speaking personally, I pretty much disagree. 

There's a ton of unfilled niche's in vanilla ships/weapons that really only feel complete with some modding, and something that people don't appreciate is that making things for finished systems is much easier than brand new mechanics.  I have no idea if that's the case for this game and I don't just want a constant conga line of ships and weapons every so often, but spending time focusing on adding a couple of weapons and hulls to round out the roster really doesn't strike me as a waste (even though this is clearly more end game material)

73

Suggestions / Re: Small HE Ballistic idea

« on: April 18, 2020, 11:27:40 AM »

Shotgun style weapons are inherently awful in HE. You need per-projectile damage and that's the opposite of a shotgun. Kinetic shotguns work better (and the inherent downside of shorter overloads can be balanced out by the rest of the stats).

I'm aware of this, but it's still basically an equation and I think there could be a sweet spot to make it work.  I've had some free time as of late anyways so maybe i'll mock some stuff up and just test.

74

Suggestions / Re: Small HE Ballistic idea

« on: April 18, 2020, 12:10:02 AM »

So just throwing it out there, but i was somewhat surprised vanilla didn't have a "shotgun" style ballistic weapon.

I know there's flack but i'm more talking an armor/hull cracker that is only effective in very short ranges (not sure how far the projectile would travel, but "Ideal" should be around 200), as weapon spread/falloff makes it less effective fast.

It could double as "in a pinch" anti fighter vs un-shielded fighters thanks to the damage + spread and possibly have a significant cd as well. It's obviously sharing space with every other small alpha strike weapon, most notably the AM blaster, but the hilariously short range for optimal damage would hopefully give some teeth to small ballistic frigates in the late game while promoting different builds and playstyles (up to a point anyways.  It obviously still loves the phase then nuke strategies)

Point being this would help round out the small HE role and could have some outrageously powerful alphas if made hard enough to use, but not feel like it was stepping on the toes of the motar/LAG, which are more consistent damage.

75

General Discussion / Re: Economy is still weird

« on: April 15, 2020, 12:00:56 PM »

3. Before the hypermap updates, being a trader was bad, but possible, now it is not possible anymore either, because shortages or oversupply is extremely rare because of how the trading mechanic now works, often you press F1 on a random commodity, the lowest buy price, and highest sell price, is almost the same, always, everywhere.

I finished a vanilla run recently and never had this issue, and made quite a bit of easy money trading.  I do think there's some econ issues, but this wasn't one I saw.