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

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Author Topic: Exploration & Salvage  (Read 49830 times)

Cycerin

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Re: Exploration & Salvage
« Reply #60 on: July 19, 2016, 01:29:31 PM »

Right now, the low-end pirate ships are designed so that each variant is different to play against, with different strengths and weaknesses, but stuff that's meant to be (mostly) overcome tactically. I think that turned out pretty well, especially if one looks at pirates as sort of an introduction to tougher fights. Changing small pirate fleets to be specialized would largely throw this out.

You need to gain situational awareness to fight them successfully, can't let the Wolf-D's sneak up on you. Their variants are perfectly designed to screw over inexperienced players, but since they are so cheesy, they don't do much else. Which is good imo. Each ship is pretty wonk on its own but dangerous if you let them work together against you. The only thing pirate fleets need is unique Buffalo IIs with their own annoying all-in loadouts.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2016, 01:32:10 PM by Cycerin »
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Alex

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Re: Exploration & Salvage
« Reply #61 on: July 19, 2016, 01:59:54 PM »

Maybe I have always been a chat-bot?

*shudder*

It was just that the new features; of themselves; don't appear particularly complicated additions (at face value, at least). They don't really add much content or change the game too much when taken individually and treated simply.

Like the debris field; big deal it's just a different way to get to the salvage screen.
Automated drones; big deal it's just another poxy new entry-level enemy.
Procedural systems; whatever we got mods to do that.
&c.

But in each point - there is something in addition to just being simple new toys ... in that they are implemented sufficiently cleverly and carefully that you can almost feel the self-reinforcing, reverberant nature of all the new things bouncing off each other AND the current iteration of the game as we know it.

There's kind of a feeling about it ... It just makes me feel like it's all going to 'work'.

Ah, thank you for elaborating. That's very cool - the idea of making individual mechanics super simple, but making them interact with other stuff feels like it's really been clicking lately. It's just really neat to hear that this comes across.

You know what, I haven't. I read  'The Algebraist' (awesome) pretty much immediately after David's literary blog-post; but then that just got me sucked in to finishing off all the Culture stuff after remembering how much I enjoyed Banks. It'll go next on the list though, cos why not?

Hope you enjoy it!


The only thing pirate fleets need is unique Buffalo IIs with their own annoying all-in loadouts.

Genetic re-sequencing to go along with the conservation efforts? Hmm.
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Weltall

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Re: Exploration & Salvage
« Reply #62 on: July 19, 2016, 02:27:30 PM »

I wonder if there could be a way to actually "acquire" auto defense bots/ships but for example have a skill that would a or more points only for that, making it both useless and useful, depending the play style. Not so much as using it in battle, which would not be that bad, but I guess it could be complicated, but as an event. As in you try to survey a planet and an event talks about bots. Either you shoot them, making their force smaller to fight or try to hack them, in hopes to get them on your side, but failing makes this much worse.

As for getting ancient ships and weapons, I think the best would be to make it as hard as possible. Meaning to have to both have to find a old almost non functional one and to be able to repair it, it would need to look for it's blueprint. I would say both should be totally random, but if the universe is too large, it might make it more frustrating than fun. Maybe something like a mission started by an event for getting the Ancient Ceremonial Onslaught and pointing you towards where the blueprint could be >.>

(Sorry I really liked the idea of something that could be really powerful and hard to get XD)

Also maybe debris would attract salvagers (Independent) and Pirates. At least the ones that are large and can spell "profitssss". Obviously I do not mean non stop, but more like random and rarely, just to give a feeling that in this galaxy you are not the only one that would salvage from them when they appear.
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Tartiflette

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Re: Exploration & Salvage
« Reply #63 on: July 19, 2016, 11:08:32 PM »

In other tweeter news, this.

But look closely:



I see two other new ships in addition to the "Domain era automated defenses" that was shown in the blog post...

I suppose it's not really surprising considering the need for variety though.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2016, 11:11:33 PM by Tartiflette »
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Gothars

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Re: Exploration & Salvage
« Reply #64 on: July 20, 2016, 03:04:12 AM »

Whaaat, you just about doubled combat performance, Alex? Ok then...


I wonder if this has any implications for game mechanics, like a higher standard amount of deployment points or even new combat scenarios...


The new hulls all look like drones to me, don't really wan' to see them yet, actually.
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borgrel

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Re: Exploration & Salvage
« Reply #65 on: July 20, 2016, 03:06:14 AM »

Yeah, I hear what you're saying here. Counterpoint: by the time you've got multiple ships and can afford to have some of them be specialized (meaning, you're sacrificing total fleet strength!), you're probably not very interested in fighting small pirates. It might still happen, but is it a case worth building for?

How about giving each ship a bunch (less than 30% of total?) of 'rotatable hardpoints' where u can place up to 3 weapons in the same hardpoint (config 1, config 2 and config 3) (you have to purchase all the weapons and they are all on the ship even if only 30% of then are usable in each battle, so there is greater risk involved if its lost) and when u deploy the ship you chose which config it uses (config 1: point defence, config 2: missile boat, config 3: EMP for eg. - however the player has labelled them)

this allows for ship flexibility and limitted countering without needing to have a fleet 3x bigger?
maybe even allow players to choose the AI script attached to each config when they label it?
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Weltall

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Re: Exploration & Salvage
« Reply #66 on: July 20, 2016, 03:10:12 AM »

In other tweeter news, this.

But look closely:

Spoiler
[close]

I see two other new ships in addition to the "Domain era automated defenses" that was shown in the blog post...

I suppose it's not really surprising considering the need for variety though.

Thanks Tartiflette =) Dat Not-a-centurion!

It is so nice to see you can get them on your side. Makes me wonder how though. Not that I want to know, since I like surprises, but makes me wonder.

I do wonder how they will act when on our side. Like, will they accept orders? Maybe they should be just fully automated, but have a hullmod that will waste their points, so we can control them. Also, since they will not have a pilot, maybe hullmods to insert different kind of personalities in them, or default personality, for people that do not want to waste points.

It makes me want to dive in again. Can't resist!
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Gothars

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Re: Exploration & Salvage
« Reply #67 on: July 20, 2016, 03:22:44 AM »

Yeah, I hear what you're saying here. Counterpoint: by the time you've got multiple ships and can afford to have some of them be specialized (meaning, you're sacrificing total fleet strength!), you're probably not very interested in fighting small pirates. It might still happen, but is it a case worth building for?

Ah, but the whole point of the exercise is to motivate the player to have a diverse fleet, which should not "sacrifice total fleet strength". Ideally, the differently specialized ships complement each other (and the generalists) in a fleet context, having no negative or even a small positive (when they can each single out the opponent they were designed for) impact on overall fleet performance. While, and this is the central point, having a great impact on combat diversity and thus making the battles more fun to play and watch.




It is so nice to see you can get them on your side. Makes me wonder how though. Not that I want to know, since I like surprises, but makes me wonder.

I think this is just an engine test, I wouldn't draw conclusions from that about drone behavior.
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Weltall

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Re: Exploration & Salvage
« Reply #68 on: July 20, 2016, 04:29:09 AM »

I think this is just an engine test, I wouldn't draw conclusions from that about drone behavior.

I always hold a small basket, when I see many cherries.. not sure that makes sense in English. Well even if it will be impossible to get them, I will be fine. Spacefarers are dreamers! ...well at least I am.
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Megas

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Re: Exploration & Salvage
« Reply #69 on: July 20, 2016, 05:47:38 AM »

I do not want "motivation" to have a diverse fleet.  Currently, I am motivated to have a small fighting fleet plus lots of vacancies for boarding.  When I chain-battle, I need to have thousands of cargo space to loot stuff (I need three Atlases and three tugs) and several empty slots for ships I capture (boarding is fun).

I miss being able to bring a fleet of forty ships and smashing endgame fleets in a big free-for-all.  With only eleven fighting ships at most (and some specialized for pursuit), there is no way I can fight epic fleet vs. fleet battles efficiently.  That leaves god-of-war (solo/chain-flagship) vs. 40+ ship enemy fleet.
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Alex

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Re: Exploration & Salvage
« Reply #70 on: July 20, 2016, 08:22:37 AM »

(Sorry I really liked the idea of something that could be really powerful and hard to get XD)

Yeah, I've been a fan of that ever since artifacts in the original TES:Arena.

Also maybe debris would attract salvagers (Independent) and Pirates. At least the ones that are large and can spell "profitssss". Obviously I do not mean non stop, but more like random and rarely, just to give a feeling that in this galaxy you are not the only one that would salvage from them when they appear.

Been thinking about that too; nothing concrete to say though.


In other tweeter news, this.

But look closely:
Spoiler


I see two other new ships in addition to the "Domain era automated defenses" that was shown in the blog post...

I suppose it's not really surprising considering the need for variety though.
[close]

Whoa, I've really got to keep on my toes.


Whaaat, you just about doubled combat performance, Alex? Ok then...

I prefer to think of it as releasing previously untapped performance reserves.

Sort of like having "sleep(100 - versionNumber)" built into the code somewhere. Performance increase on every release!


I wonder if this has any implications for game mechanics, like a higher standard amount of deployment points or even new combat scenarios...

I don't think so. This is more about making the high end of the battle size workable on more computers, and being able to do some fancier things in smaller battles. That many ships deployed actually isn't very fun - it's too crowded for the kind of maneuvering that the game is really about.


How about giving each ship a bunch (less than 30% of total?) of 'rotatable hardpoints' where u can place up to 3 weapons in the same hardpoint (config 1, config 2 and config 3) (you have to purchase all the weapons and they are all on the ship even if only 30% of then are usable in each battle, so there is greater risk involved if its lost) and when u deploy the ship you chose which config it uses (config 1: point defence, config 2: missile boat, config 3: EMP for eg. - however the player has labelled them)

this allows for ship flexibility and limitted countering without needing to have a fleet 3x bigger?
maybe even allow players to choose the AI script attached to each config when they label it?

I think this kind of thing might work in a game that was really focused on refitting to counter a specific threat - hard counters etc - but Starsector very much isn't that. It just seems too complicated for something of marginal benefit, you know?


Yeah, I hear what you're saying here. Counterpoint: by the time you've got multiple ships and can afford to have some of them be specialized (meaning, you're sacrificing total fleet strength!), you're probably not very interested in fighting small pirates. It might still happen, but is it a case worth building for?

Ah, but the whole point of the exercise is to motivate the player to have a diverse fleet, which should not "sacrifice total fleet strength". Ideally, the differently specialized ships complement each other (and the generalists) in a fleet context, having no negative or even a small positive (when they can each single out the opponent they were designed for) impact on overall fleet performance. While, and this is the central point, having a great impact on combat diversity and thus making the battles more fun to play and watch.

Hmm. Counterpoint! If the specialized variants work in a general fleet context, then it's not necessary to provide specialized opponents for them to be useful.

Come to think of it, I had a lot of fun one playthrough with a 2nd ship being a Vigilance with a cautious officer, unstable injectors, an Ion Beam, and a Salamander Pod. That's a totally specialized support ship and it was super effective early game - best case scenario it disables things all the time, worst case it's a distraction. I'm pretty sure I've seen people talk about using Kites in a similar fashion. Specialized PD ships seem like they could be quite useful as well, as long as there's a priority target that needs guarding. It's probably just not *necessary*, in part due to max skills being good enough to just wipe the floor with anything on your own.


It is so nice to see you can get them on your side. Makes me wonder how though. Not that I want to know, since I like surprises, but makes me wonder.

I think this is just an engine test, I wouldn't draw conclusions from that about drone behavior.

Yeah, this is just "run simulator with max battle size, and deploy the most possible frigates on both sides".


I miss being able to bring a fleet of forty ships and smashing endgame fleets in a big free-for-all.  With only eleven fighting ships at most (and some specialized for pursuit), there is no way I can fight epic fleet vs. fleet battles efficiently.  That leaves god-of-war (solo/chain-flagship) vs. 40+ ship enemy fleet.

Just want to say that bringing back bigger battles on the high end is something I'd really like to see, myself. Skills are part of it, but other stuff I'm not quite ready to talk about factors in as well.
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Cyan Leader

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Re: Exploration & Salvage
« Reply #71 on: July 20, 2016, 12:51:22 PM »

I welcome this performance increase. One of the reasons I tend to drop the game in the late game is because battles start dipping a lot in FPS, especially when using mods that have a lot of ships with dozens of missile ports, so many thanks for that Alex.

I'd still love to see other ways this could be taken advantage of, like 3 way battles and such. But alas, I trust in your design decisions for exploration surprises, I'll be more than happy with that.
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Bastion.Systems

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Re: Exploration & Salvage
« Reply #72 on: July 21, 2016, 02:53:22 AM »

I really appreciated the feature in Total War games that big battles leave behind a map marker with some details about the battle, makes the game feel more alive and let's you remember your earlier exploits.

Also a question on the subject of performance, could the time acceleration on the map made faster, even if it makes it more jerky and/or crashy, my desktop has a watercooled i5 with a rather nice overclock but the time acceleration has the same factor on my *** laptop, I am pretty sure it could be somehow made to go faster.
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Gothars

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Re: Exploration & Salvage
« Reply #73 on: July 21, 2016, 01:06:36 PM »

Quote from: Alex' Blogpost
What makes exploration fun?
On a basic level, exploration is about finding stuff and being rewarded for it in some way. Mechanically, this tells us two things: 1) we need lots of variety, so that the player isn’t finding exactly the same things over and over again, (i.e. a large part of this is content, even if it’s combined procedurally to get more mileage) and 2) there have to be rewards.
Then you’ve got the second-to-second gameplay of exploring new star systems. A lot of that is going to involve flying around; there’s no avoiding that.

I think one point that could be added here is "anticipation". From what I understand exploration is mostly about flying around and occasionally stumbling about something interesting (the post is a bit vague here). If true, I think that misses the opportunity of having a treasure hunt, where part of the fun comes from the rewards, some might come from the travel through terrain - but a big part comes from finding and following hints and knowing that you're getting closer to something!

Imagine searching through an abandoned station, and finding pre-collapse logs with the last known position and course of an overdue freighter, extrapolating the course data to an asteroid field, and then scavenging that field to discover the wreck and its cargo. Or hearing a rumor about this crazy pirate who again and again ventures into the unknown to come back with a broken ship. So you secretly follow him out of sensor range to find him fighting the drones of a ancient colony ship. Will you ally with him or take all for your self?
Doesn't that sound more fun then just arbitrarily criss-crossing a star system and randomly stumbling over treasure?




Hmm. Counterpoint! If the specialized variants work in a general fleet context, then it's not necessary to provide specialized opponents for them to be useful.

Come to think of it, I had a lot of fun one playthrough with a 2nd ship being a Vigilance with a cautious officer, unstable injectors, an Ion Beam, and a Salamander Pod. That's a totally specialized support ship and it was super effective early game - best case scenario it disables things all the time, worst case it's a distraction. I'm pretty sure I've seen people talk about using Kites in a similar fashion. Specialized PD ships seem like they could be quite useful as well, as long as there's a priority target that needs guarding. It's probably just not *necessary*, in part due to max skills being good enough to just wipe the floor with anything on your own.

Well, I think specialist ships take more consideration and looking after in combat. E.G. you have to make sure that a missile ship doesn't waste its ammunition against a PD-heavy target, and that a fast light kiter doesn't tangle with a beam ship. So, if the game provides no good reason to have specialists, it's easier to just go with all-round ships only.

But yeah, maybe the situation will already be much improved just by cutting down the raw late-game power of your fleet. In early game specialist ships seem far more useful.

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Alex

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Re: Exploration & Salvage
« Reply #74 on: July 21, 2016, 01:36:11 PM »

Also a question on the subject of performance, could the time acceleration on the map made faster, even if it makes it more jerky and/or crashy, my desktop has a watercooled i5 with a rather nice overclock but the time acceleration has the same factor on my *** laptop, I am pretty sure it could be somehow made to go faster.

Hmm. I don't like the idea of the game working differently depending on the performance of the computer, once certain baseline requirements are met. The only thing I could *maybe* see doing here is adding a settings.json value for the time multiplier; going to give that a bit of thought.



I think one point that could be added here is "anticipation". From what I understand exploration is mostly about flying around and occasionally stumbling about something interesting (the post is a bit vague here). If true, I think that misses the opportunity of having a treasure hunt, where part of the fun comes from the rewards, some might come from the travel through terrain - but a big part comes from finding and following hints and knowing that you're getting closer to something!

Imagine searching through an abandoned station, and finding pre-collapse logs with the last known position and course of an overdue freighter, extrapolating the course data to an asteroid field, and then scavenging that field to discover the wreck and its cargo. Or hearing a rumor about this crazy pirate who again and again ventures into the unknown to come back with a broken ship. So you secretly follow him out of sensor range to find him fighting the drones of a ancient colony ship. Will you ally with him or take all for your self?
Doesn't that sound more fun then just arbitrarily criss-crossing a star system and randomly stumbling over treasure?

Yeah, this is... part of the stuff I didn't want to talk about due to potential ruining etc. Also due to it not being all done, but, yes, "breadcurmbs" for things are something I'm looking at very closely. Spoiler for an example that's in right now:

Spoiler
You might find a probe with partially readable memory banks, indicating that, say, there are ultrarich ore deposts on a toxic world orbiting a red star nearby. The general idea is that more common things you find might point you towards more rare things, but, again, not implemented so will have to see to what extent this will actually work out. It's not exactly easy to nail down, either content or design-wise.
[close]
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