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61

General Discussion / Re: New official battleship. What are those weapons?

« on: March 06, 2022, 10:31:30 PM »

I doubt it will struggle against wolfpacks. Locusts chew frigates, and the new hydra mirv looks handcrafted to humiliate small ships without 360 shields. The autofits will have to be intentionally bad for it to not feel opressive. I guess double hydra double dragonfire counts as intentionally bad.

I really hope the Dragonfire, Hydra, and other DEM missiles aren't just casually slotted onto ships you can regularly face in the PL or other factions. Having to deal with what are effectively Reapers but infinitely more difficult to shoot down on a regular basis would be exhausting. I just hope that loadout was created to showcase some of the new stuff Alex has in the pipeline, rather than be the standard.

Oh, also, Alex just recently stated that the Pegasus comes with Fast Missile Racks. And it's got 4 large missile slots. Do with that knowledge what you will.

62

General Discussion / Re: New official battleship. What are those weapons?

« on: March 05, 2022, 06:20:45 PM »

The two large missiles facing forward appear to be the Dragonfire DEM, the big angry red beam of doom that mimics a Reaper torpedo's damage.

The two facing rearward appear to be the Hydra MDEM, a MIRV-style missile that splits to attack the target from multiple angles with short-lived laser missiles.

63

Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Interstellar Imperium 2.5.2

« on: February 25, 2022, 10:14:11 PM »

I am playing with this interesting mod. The big draw for me was the "missions" it talks about in the description. I am commissioned by the Imperium, and have max reputation with them. How can I start the Imperium campaign? How do I start these missions?

These are non-campaign missions. You access them by going to Missions in the main menu.

64

Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Captain's Log 0.1.6 - Note-taking and Reminders

« on: February 25, 2022, 05:37:19 PM »

When I was visiting a planet, without any survey, the Unexplored Ruins notified and recorded an Unexplored Ruins of the said planet. This appears to be a bug. Thanks.

You don't need to survey a planet in order to see if it has ruins - and if you're experienced enough, you can tell the level of the ruins as well. Planets with ruins have debris in orbit depending on the level of the ruins, it's quite easy to see even from across the system.

65

Suggestions / Re: Rescue Mission Bar Event and other mission ideas

« on: February 21, 2022, 05:14:33 PM »

The "hot passenger" suggestion already exists as a repeatable Galatia Academy mission from Sebastian - you get a passenger and there's a chance you'll get accosted along the way to dropping them off.

And, to a certain extent, the "distress call" suggestion also exists as a repeatable Galatia Academy mission - you load up a group of Galatia Academy academicians and head off to a location, with... varying results.

66

General Discussion / Re: where to find admintistrators?

« on: February 21, 2022, 01:58:36 AM »

Go to a colony and open up the comms screen. There's a chance you'll be able to find a Freelance Administrator for hire (similar to officers). If you don't want to go colony hopping, the Stelnet mod adds the option to search for them.

Or you can slap an Alpha Core in.

67

Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Iron Shell 1.11

« on: February 20, 2022, 08:38:12 PM »

I wouldn't use Modern Carriers as a basis to balance content from a different mod.

68

Suggestions / Re: Support Fighters - Engage Order

« on: February 04, 2022, 09:28:07 PM »

Don't support fighters (if they have engagement range) still go and defend targeted friendly ships on engage?

Yes, they do. However, they follow the same rules as when escorting a friendly ship as when loitering around the carrier - stand out front, move back when the enemy approaches, move to the front if venting/overloaded. I.e. act as PD and not much else.

But the functionality I'm suggesting is for when the carrier has an enemy ship selected as the target when set to engage. Currently, nothing really changes - it would be nice if the support fighters behaved as if the carrier was venting/overloaded, so they stood out front tanking shots when set to engage. That behavior also would also extend to escorting friendly ships.

69

Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Modern Carriers 1.8.0a "RTB"

« on: February 04, 2022, 09:13:22 PM »

Fighter auto landing has been implemented!
Fighter on regroup and low enough health now lands like a bomber and relaunch at full health.

This QOL item is practically worth a separate mod by itself!

70

Suggestions / Support Fighters - Engage Order

« on: February 04, 2022, 04:38:47 PM »

Support fighter AI is moderately complex compared to most other fighter types. When enemy ships are not near by, support fighters will hang out near the front of the carrier to extend their range and shoot down the occasional fighter or missile the wanders by. Once enemy ships start getting closer, they'll slowly move back behind the carrier to protect themselves. If the carrier vents or overloads, support fighters will immediately move between the carrier and the enemy ship for the duration to attract fire and tank shots for the carrier. However, support fighters do not obey Engage orders.

What if they did? Have support fighters follow the vent/overload behavior when you set them to Engage. That way, you have finer control over what they do, and opens up more tactical considerations, for example sending forward your support fighters and sacrificing them to gain an advantage in the flux battle - something that regular fighters can't accomplish due to their behavior of circling the target and getting shot at by PD rather than attracting attention from the enemy's main guns.

71

Bug Reports & Support (modded) / [0.95.1a-RC6] Burst Beam Targeting AI

« on: February 01, 2022, 06:34:46 PM »

When "beamFireOnlyOnFullCharge" is set to true and the beam is a burst rather than continuous, the AI seems to have difficulty landing the shot due to indecisiveness in target choice. This issue gets compounded when the beam has ammo.

When multiple targets are present, the base Tachyon Lance will have no issues picking a target and shooting it. However, if you add back in "beamFireOnlyOnFullCharge", the weapons will often times pick a target, start charging, then midway through the charge decide to shoot something else and change direction, resulting in a completely whiffed shot between two ships. If ammo is added in onto the Tachyon Lance, the AI becomes extremely conservative in picking shots, resulting in the AI second-guessing it's target choice and dragging the charging beam off target before it fully charges and fires far more often. Adding any of the CONSERVE weapon tags will also exasperate the issue further.

Secondary to this, the AI doesn't appear factor in it's own ship turning when firing weapons with slow turn rates, which means beams will get dragged off target if the ship makes a sudden maneuver as the beams charge. Furthermore, beam weapons have their turning disabled on chargedown, resulting in weapons with longer chargedown times (such as the Tachyon Lance) suffer a considerable loss in DPS (and other secondary effects like EMP and arcing) if the ship makes even small turn at the end of a burst.

While this issue is present in vanilla, I've posted it here in modded since it's particularly debilitating with something I'm working on now. No AI hints were added to the weapon other than SYSTEM. I've added a video for reference - the first shot has both beam weapons completely whiff the target even though the ship wasn't turning at the time. The AI's indecisiveness in picking a target is obvious after, as you can see both beam weapons going back and forth between the Dominators in spite of having ammo, before it finally settles on one and fires a beam that lands. The third shot is whiffed due to the ship turning.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/824910699415207937/938260214208135208/targeting_Trim.mp4

72

Modding / Re: Some fancy ships ;)

« on: January 12, 2022, 03:19:10 PM »

Oh my, I remember Ironclads from way back in the day. Nice to see you back, Okim!

73

General Discussion / Re: Why HE vs Armor, and Kinetic vs Shields?

« on: December 30, 2021, 01:41:59 AM »

It's more HEAT rather than HE. The Hephaestus Assault Gun also mentions "shaped charge shells", which is another term for HEAT ammunition. Also, HE is easier to say (and explain) than HEAT for people who aren't acquainted with the term.

So, if you look at tank armor vs ammunition, HEAT was the first one that started to really defeat armor. The M1 Bazooka, Panzerschreck, Panzerfaust all fired HEAT ammunition vs tanks. It was HEAT ammunition that caused a design shift in some tanks during the Cold War, where armor was almost entirely dispensed with in favor of firepower and maneuverability (see: Leopard 1). Once composite armors became widespread though, HEAT became generally less effective vs. tanks, but not any less devastating towards less well-armored targets.

Also, pretty much every missile fired today intended for anti-tank purposes uses a HEAT warhead. Missiles being missiles, they can be much larger in diameter (means better HEAT capabilities due to how the physics and mechanics work) and need a thinner case (doesn't need to survive the crushing G-force of being fired out of a barrel at the speed or sound or faster), and cannot achieve the velocity as a cannon, hence are much more suited for HEAT than kinetic penetrators.

I suppose it's worth mentioning that torpedoes tend to be nothing but gigantic bundles of high-explosive at the end of a tube containing some of the best guidance software available. No fancy HEAT, just HE. Underwater conditions tend to do that, what with buoyancy and lower velocities meaning you can make ridiculously large weapons. These things are designed to break a ship in twain through sheer force alone. One hole made using a HEAT warhead, however deep or however much damage it created, won't sink a ship. But, blowing a great big hole in the side with the force of 1000 pounds of high-explosive will. The physics wouldn't translate quite as well to space due to the lack of a medium (water vs. a vacuum), but there's no accounting for brute force through bigger torpedoes. As the saying goes, if brute force isn't working, you're not using enough.

74

General Discussion / Re: Tips for Slipstream exits?

« on: December 19, 2021, 03:21:44 PM »

You can also find a place where the slipstream narrows and just fly through it regularly - you'll only get dragged a little ways when you pass through the center. No Emergency Burn necessary!

75

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: December 14, 2021, 03:10:56 PM »

New link! Should work now - and it really is pretty. Beautiful backdrop - and to think us crazies on the Discord thought the background was for a planet killer.