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Author Topic: welp GG  (Read 6507 times)

Xaiier

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welp GG
« on: December 02, 2015, 08:59:10 PM »

Barely scraping by on <5k credits after repeatedly dying and losing what few moderately not crap ships and little money I was able to scrape together...

Do some missions that pay so poor they hardly pay for my supplies to get there...

Finally find a decent payout mission that I can afford to purchase the necessary items...

Get ganked by pirates on the way there...

Die...

Respawn in potato...

Attempt to run and finish mission...

Followed across system by pirates, while patrols derp around not being helpful...

Pirates catch up as I get to jump point...

Enter battle...

Realize potato can't even fight these weak (D) pirates...

Get overloaded by missile spam because no PD...

Get one-shotted by a pair of missiles...

Die...

Respawn in Lasher :D

Trash some scrub pirates...

Try to run to complete mission...cash is now >2k

Somehow boost through entire map without running into anyone or hitting any storms...

See friendly Tri-Tach fleet...

Go to press transponder so they don't get mad at me...

Fat finger the keys...

End up pressing go dark, lose all speed and get engaged by Tri-Tach fleet...

Spaz and fat finger the keys again, somehow getting into an engagement...

Run away, never fire, never even see them...

Retreat...

Oh well the rep loss wasn't too bad, at least they don't hate me...

Foolishly activate transponder...

They discover who I am...

"YOUR RECENT ACTS OF AGGRESSION..." -70 rep...

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU...

Tri-Tach and Hegemony hate me...

Everyone else borderline hates me...

Mission runs out of time...

Deep in enemy territory...

Low on supplies and fuel...

Book it for nearest neutral system...

Run out of fuel and supplies on the way...

Take heavy CR hits...

Make it to safety...

1267 credits...

Can't afford supplies to even fix my ship into fighting condition...

Can't afford to do any missions...

Can't afford fuel to go anywhere else...

...

I think I'll be deleting this save now...


This is as much of a rant as it is a commentary on how brutal the early game is, as well as how certain mechanics are extremely frustrating or even nonsensical and unfair.
P.S. release 0.7.1a already  :-[
« Last Edit: December 02, 2015, 09:13:34 PM by Xaiier »
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Sabaton

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Re: welp GG
« Reply #1 on: December 03, 2015, 01:54:45 AM »

scub a dub dub GG GIT GUD NOOB!

LERN TO 360 NO SCOPE WITH A FRIGATE THEN ATTEMPT MISSIONS!


But really, early game ganks are brutal. I've found success in phase frigates.

Add some good alpha strike weapons (ex:antimatter blasters), something to pick off fighters and punish venting targets from range (ex:tactical laser) and some missiles/torpedoes and you will be able to take down combat frigates easily.

Also augmented engines with tech skill in flux and OP will help you with being able to disengage when most needed and not run out of flux too fast.
The rest is about finding the hullmods that suit you and practice your reactions.

Ganks don't mean much in a proper phase frigate. 
   
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Schwartz

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Re: welp GG
« Reply #2 on: December 03, 2015, 02:28:55 AM »

Also there's really no excuse for fat-fingering important decisions. Yeah it happens. But you can't blame the game for that curveball.

Question to the people who know.. if he hadn't activated the transponder after that Tri-Tach fight and instead snuck away, would the 'act of aggression' rep have stuck with him even if he'd come back, say, two weeks later with his transponder on and a different ship?
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Auraknight

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Re: welp GG
« Reply #3 on: December 03, 2015, 04:21:16 AM »

he coulda flown outta all TT fleet's ranges, and turned transponders on, then burndrived back to them and asked them how the weather was.
Also there's really no excuse for fat-fingering important decisions. Yeah it happens. But you can't blame the game for that curveball.

Question to the people who know.. if he hadn't activated the transponder after that Tri-Tach fight and instead snuck away, would the 'act of aggression' rep have stuck with him even if he'd come back, say, two weeks later with his transponder on and a different ship?
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Xaiier

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Re: welp GG
« Reply #4 on: December 03, 2015, 07:20:13 AM »

There's a number of specific issues I've identified, each of which is somewhat related:

1. The low sensor range of a smaller ship means you often have very little time to react to situations, no matter how careful you are. I constantly find myself caught into something and by the time I even realize what's going on it's too late to do anything about it. Riding the pause button shouldn't be a requirement to be able to react appropriately. This is frustrating in itself, but it also plays into another issue...

2. While my fat-fingering is entirely my fault, the only reason I ended up in battle with them is because the shortcut key to engage also happens to be one of the keys that toggles fleet status. Because of how abrupt engagements are, you can go to press something and end up accidentally declaring war. That needs to change.

3. There are insufficient "Are you sure you want to do stupid thing?" checks. It should warn you if you are about to do something that will hit you with a massive rep penalty. Along with this, there needs to be some method of displaying info to you about your current situation. I shouldn't have to fly up to a planet to find out that my recent activity in the area has everyone on edge.

4. The mechanics of transponders are very odd. If I drop into a system and promptly turn my transponder on the patrols will all rush over to bother me. Do they not understand that running with transponder on in unfriendly space isn't a wise move? There should be a leniency time where patrols are suspicious but don't come bother you if you turn on your transponder. What's more, cooperation with them ("Hey sorry guys my b, here you can scan me to see that I'm not doing anything sketchy") results in significant rep loss, while turning around and running away (even though they totally know who you are) has no effect on your rep. That just doesn't make any sense.

5. The "fly across the map and retreat" game is really dull. A single ship should get a bonus to its speed in calculations of whether you can just harmlessly disengage or not. Gaining a percentage of base speed would neatly balance this so it wouldn't be abusable with larger/slower ships.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2015, 07:25:06 AM by Xaiier »
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CrashToDesktop

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Re: welp GG
« Reply #5 on: December 03, 2015, 07:44:57 AM »

1. Run with your transponder off when there's no Hegemony, Sindrian, or Luddic Church fleets near - you won't get ambushed nearly as much.  The Tri-Tachyon don't care as much, but O *think* if you're near a spaceport with a military market, they'll start getting itchy.  Play at normal speed as well, don't hold Space all the time like we used to. :P

2. Never happens to me.  Also, you shouldn't declare war by accident because there's a built-in system that requires two key presses to confirm attacking a fleet you aren't hostile to.  Also, you shouldn't be engaged by fleet you aren't hostile to unless you're running blindly into systems with your transponder off - not the smartest thing.  Furthermore, turning on your transponder or Going Dark isn't going to help if they're on your ass that closely - you loose speed and become less visible, but you don't become completely invisible, so they'll just follow your previous movement vector and run right into you.

3. What stupid things?  There's a lot of stupid things you can do - like selling 100K worth of Harvested Organs to the black market and not covering it up.  You can find out what your status about black market activity is by hovering over the Black Market tab.  It's mostly intuitive and common sense.  Besides, this concept is mostly based on perspective - you'll learn a lot more as you play.

4. Yea, you've got to turn on your transponder before you drop into a system.  I'd like there to be a leniency of 1 or 2 seconds before the fleet start hunting your ass. :P

5. The speed boost is meant to be more significant on larger ships.  +50 speed on a frigate isn't too important, while +50 speed on a Cruiser with 30 speed normally is massive.

Hopefully I helped?
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Xaiier

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Re: welp GG
« Reply #6 on: December 03, 2015, 08:17:13 AM »

1&2. I was in hyperspace between systems. I hit a nebula and suddenly they were on top of me. Because of the abruptness of the encounter, my key flailing ended up with me getting into a fight I obviously didn't want to be in. I shouldn't have to fight the game interface just to have it do what I'd like it to, having shortcuts on a menu that instantly pops up while you may be toggling things and moving around is just bad design.

3. The issue is either the lack thereof or poor conveyance of necessary information. If what I'm about to do will permanently make an entire (friendly) faction my sworn enemy there should be a bit of a heads up. I shouldn't have to learn via trial & error (and the ruining of a save).

5. That's not what I mean. I mean that from the fleet interaction screen, where you can say engage, or try to disengage, etc, that a single ship be given a bonus to being able to disengage, such that it doesn't force you to waste your time retreating from an enemy that most likely won't be able to catch you anyways.
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CrashToDesktop

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Re: welp GG
« Reply #7 on: December 03, 2015, 10:06:28 AM »

1&2 - It's not THAT sudden where things just pop up right in front of you - there's still plenty of time to avoid it and Emergency Burn.  And according to your anecdote, you're pressing keys and mispressing them in a twitchy spaz.  Two things - I suggest you rebind the keys, and then I suggest you run without speeding time up.  Also, look for the unidentified contacts (shown as grey triangles on the edge of your sensor ranges) - be wary about them.  Furthermore, when you're in a Hyperspace storm, you gain a massive sensor profile increase and loose a lot of your own sensor strength, in addition to losing a lot of speed.  Also, were you running your transponder on?  That increases your sensor profile by a flat 1000 as well (about half a box in the campaign map).  By the way, each box is 2000 units on the campaign map - which you can find by hovering over the various UI elements.

By the way, you can find out all about these sensor strength and profile changes when you're inside the terrain and hover over the UI bit for it at the bottom of the screen.  Furthermore, the little rings you see on the screen that pass through you every now and then should be self-explanatory (I figured it out very quickly without any help) - those are the ranges at which you'll be detected by fleets around you.

3. It's not so much trial and error - do what you would do in real life not to *** other people off.  Don't go attacking their fleets while they know who you are.  Don't go attacking fleets when you've turned your transponder off 5 seconds ago - they still know who you are, like you would infer in real life.  The only thing that needs some slight explanation is the faction investigations - which you can find out more about by going through the threads here on the forum.  It's being removed in the next version to test it, though - so no worries for newbies.

5. The retreat mechanism is based on burn speed, not combat speed.  So if you've got 9 map speed and the enemy has 10, they can force you to make a retreat.  The combat speed is a separate number - you might have a burn 9 frigate fleet, but all your frigates might move at 300.  The opposite can be true - you could have a burn 12 frigate fleet, but you ships move as quick as molasses in combat.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2015, 10:14:01 AM by The Soldier »
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Xaiier

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Re: welp GG
« Reply #8 on: December 03, 2015, 11:37:32 AM »

3. In real life, a combatant who promptly surrendered wouldn't be mercilessly slaughtered anyways. Perhaps situations like this should use a similar system to how the ally battles work, where it factors in damage and things to determine what your actual intentions were.

5. I know that. What I'm saying is that burn speed should get a bonus (maybe depending on your combat speed) for the purposes of comparison if you are flying solo. If you don't have a fleet, and thus no AI's to shepherd, and if your combat speed is at least that of your enemies, and you don't actually want to engage them, then you should be able to just hit "run away" and skip the whole combat scenario. All that usually happens is that you float across the battlefield and never even see the enemies, and it's boring. That's all I'm saying.
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SafariJohn

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Re: welp GG
« Reply #9 on: December 03, 2015, 11:39:51 AM »

Alex is changing it so if they can't catch you they just harry instead. That should solve most of your annoyances with being pursued.
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Kzanu

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Re: welp GG
« Reply #10 on: December 03, 2015, 11:52:27 AM »

Ok...just a few tips from a an unskilled player.  Get the wolf frigate and try this setup (enhaced engines, tactical lazors in small slots, small harpoons, and in med energy try either pulse laser, grav beam, or the special weapon (the one you are most skilled with)) and:

1. kite from range (the engine hull mod is for this) (wolf has better shields than pirate frigs and if you borderline kite then at their firing range, they will fire, building flux up)
2. when you overload/flux a ship use : 1-2 phase to close in and deliver a small alpha strike (2-3 blaster hits, 2-3 sec of pulse, 1-2 harpoons, depends on ship) taking out the frigate, then turn and phase out (should have 2 phase charges)

This way you can take the fighters out fast (tac lazors are for that), then focus/kite frigs. You should be able to take out groups of 4-5 frigs  in this way. Just dont phase into 5 of them.
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Vinyl Dash

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Re: welp GG
« Reply #11 on: December 03, 2015, 12:05:28 PM »

Ok...just a few tips from a an unskilled player.  Get the wolf frigate and try this setup (enhaced engines, tactical lazors in small slots, small harpoons, and in med energy try either pulse laser, grav beam, or the special weapon (the one you are most skilled with)) and:

1. kite from range (the engine hull mod is for this) (wolf has better shields than pirate frigs and if you borderline kite then at their firing range, they will fire, building flux up)
2. when you overload/flux a ship use : 1-2 phase to close in and deliver a small alpha strike (2-3 blaster hits, 2-3 sec of pulse, 1-2 harpoons, depends on ship) taking out the frigate, then turn and phase out (should have 2 phase charges)

This way you can take the fighters out fast (tac lazors are for that), then focus/kite frigs. You should be able to take out groups of 4-5 frigs  in this way. Just dont phase into 5 of them.

Enhanced Engine isn't really something you can get in the early game. Unstable Injector is a fine replacement, but without any type of PD, salamanders are going to be rough to deal with for a new player, and the engine taking bonus damage can lead to some disasters.

I like a similar setup, but keeping the back two pd lasers, and using the forward small energy mount for either a tactical laser or an ion cannon.
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Kzanu

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Re: welp GG
« Reply #12 on: December 03, 2015, 12:12:59 PM »

Phase and turn and take the salamanders with the shields. the Wolf is made with the hase ability in mind. Use it. Abuse it.
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Vinyl Dash

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Re: welp GG
« Reply #13 on: December 03, 2015, 01:10:38 PM »

I'm not saying the wolf struggles with salamanders, I'm saying a new player with a ship without PD struggles with salamanders, and unstable Injector compounds that. As you get more experienced, you learn you can just back away ever so slightly from salamanders and they'll miss you, then come back around for a second shot and hit your front shields, all without even needing to interrupt firing at your target. Salamanders are a non-issue to a good player in non-sluggish ship.

I wouldn't recommend that setup to a new player.
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Kzanu

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Re: welp GG
« Reply #14 on: December 03, 2015, 01:48:57 PM »

Like all things in life, you cannot get good without practice. This setup kinda works, and I'm very bad at micro. Try it a few times with patience and it will reward you.
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