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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: Starsector 0.8a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 639139 times)

Mysterhay

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #105 on: December 07, 2016, 12:05:07 PM »

Hey Alex,

What about adding an option to observe ongoing fights without necessarily joining in? Could help the galaxy feel more alive and I don't imagine it would need *too* much adjustment behind the scenes.

Would also be a nice way to see the ships in action from time to time without worrying about your own losses.

Just a random thought! Really looking forward to 0.8 :)
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Gothars

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #106 on: December 07, 2016, 12:29:04 PM »

I actually like the idea of travel costs being high so that just going somewhere is a risk or at least an investement, but of course the rewards have to be balanced accordingly as well.

I was thinking, maybe it would be nice to have a good chunk of missions/bounties which take place locally, as opposed to sector-wide ones. Then you'd have the chance to accumulate wealth and ressources in preparation for far jouneys, which could be really expensive and relatively rare and special events.

"Locally" could mean the current system, or the current constellations, depending on what that means. What defines a constellation?


What about adding an option to observe ongoing fights without necessarily joining in? Could help the galaxy feel more alive and I don't imagine it would need *too* much adjustment behind the scenes.

Would also be a nice way to see the ships in action from time to time without worrying about your own losses.

I guess you could just deploy a shuttle or something and park it in a corner to observe a fight AI vs AI.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #107 on: December 07, 2016, 12:42:37 PM »

There are sub-optimal, then there are stuff so bad that you do not want to use it unless you literally have no other option.  Arbalest is cheap and sub-optimal, but not useless.  My ships sometimes use Arbalest as a railgun substitute when OP is scarce.  Thumper is the only weapon that is so bad that it is useless for the player (but it is great for lowering difficulty of enemy ships that use it instead of better weapons).  Mining Laser and Mortar are so underpowered as to be almost useless, but at least they are extremely cheap, and you get what you pay for.  Thumper, I get better results installing Vulcan in a medium ballistic mount, due to ease-of-use and saving OP for more stuff.  If OP is not a problem, then dual flak is a much better combo PD/finisher fragmentation weapon.  The only other weapons close to uselessness is LR PD laser (higher OP cost than PD laser; higher flux cost than Tac Laser, when some ships already have trouble dealing with Tac Laser costs) and Proximity Charge Launcher (too hard to use, costs more OP than other medium missiles, but not as effective).  Even those two have some use.

Re: Heavy Mortar.
Quote from: Alex
700 range, 110 damage for 90 flux, 2 shots per second average (in 2-shot bursts), 7 OP, and the same anemic shot speed as the light mortar (500).
Seems like the only reason to take this over LAG is shot range, which is a big deal admittedly.  Matching range with Arbalest (and Railgun) means they probably compliment each other, good for Enforcer and Hammerhead.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #108 on: December 07, 2016, 01:06:48 PM »

What about adding an option to observe ongoing fights without necessarily joining in? Could help the galaxy feel more alive and I don't imagine it would need *too* much adjustment behind the scenes.

Would also be a nice way to see the ships in action from time to time without worrying about your own losses.

Just a random thought! Really looking forward to 0.8 :)

That's pretty neat! A bit too gratuitous, probably, but still neat.

Plus combat really works a lot better when one of the ships and sides is player-controlled; it's really built with that in mind. You'd likely see some odd behavior from the AI etc if this isn't the case.


I was thinking, maybe it would be nice to have a good chunk of missions/bounties which take place locally, as opposed to sector-wide ones. Then you'd have the chance to accumulate wealth and ressources in preparation for far jouneys, which could be really expensive and relatively rare and special events.

"Locally" could mean the current system, or the current constellations, depending on what that means. What defines a constellation?

I guess it depends on what you mean by "locally" - the core worlds are in the middle of the Sector, so a lot of stuff will naturally be local to that relatively small area. I'd like expeditions outside that to really have more of an expedition feel, but I guess we'll have to see how it pans out. It's hard to talk about it without enough playtesting, of which there hasn't been much here. Need to get more exploration content in, some more REDACTED stuff, and then really take if for a spin, see how everything feels, and adjust accordingly.


Seems like the only reason to take this over LAG is shot range, which is a big deal admittedly.  Matching range with Arbalest (and Railgun) means they probably compliment each other, good for Enforcer and Hammerhead.

it's got 220 dps (vs 160) and almost triple the per-shot damage, as well as considerably better flux efficiency, so it seems a pretty clear winner unless you want to shoot down fighters (in which case flak) or OPs are very tight. And then there's the range, as you say.
« Last Edit: December 07, 2016, 01:15:34 PM by Alex »
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HELMUT

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #109 on: December 07, 2016, 01:11:16 PM »

Quote from: Alex
700 range, 110 damage for 90 flux, 2 shots per second average (in 2-shot bursts), 7 OP, and the same anemic shot speed as the light mortar (500).
Seems like the only reason to take this over LAG is shot range, which is a big deal admittedly.  Matching range with Arbalest (and Railgun) means they probably compliment each other, good for Enforcer and Hammerhead.

Much higher damage per shot as well (110 vs 40), which is pretty big deal for HE weapons. But yeah, this is going to be an Arbalest bis. On the bright side it won't have to compete with a HE-Railgun like its kinetic sibling to find its niche.

Edit : Goddangit you ninja!
« Last Edit: December 07, 2016, 01:12:51 PM by HELMUT »
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #110 on: December 07, 2016, 01:12:18 PM »

110 damage per shot, not DPS?  I thought you meant 110 DPS, but if it is 200+ DPS, well then, yes, Heavy Mortar is better.  At least there is a halfway option between LAG and Heavy Mauler.
« Last Edit: December 07, 2016, 01:13:58 PM by Megas »
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SeinTa

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #111 on: December 07, 2016, 03:14:54 PM »

Maybe I missed it and just can't find it, but how will Sector Age affect the game?
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #112 on: December 07, 2016, 03:20:02 PM »

Maybe I missed it and just can't find it, but how will Sector Age affect the game?
It controls the colors of the stars and the types of planets and terrain IIRC
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Voyager I

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #113 on: December 07, 2016, 09:57:21 PM »

All hail the arrival of the long-awaited Generic HE Medium Ballistic!

Because they can't all be Heavy Maulers.
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Cycerin

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #114 on: December 08, 2016, 04:32:31 AM »

Yeah I'm really glad to see the arrival of the Heavy Mortar. And the new Thumper is more interesting.

I also think it's good that range and speed has turned into more of a dichotomy - coupled with the ability to make your fleet zero in on targets reliably, perhaps this will finally open up for fleets of close-range striky killers not being flat out worse than a fleet of bricks with range.

It would actually be fun to have a worse, but cheaper ITU available for cap ship purposes, as a modspec drop. "Mark I Targeting Module" or whatever. I think the modspec system is a good opportunity to open up for niche, fine-grained ship customization options. Hell, you could even go full Diablo and procedurally generate hullmods that drop from mysterious REDACTED targets or whatever.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #115 on: December 08, 2016, 05:06:51 AM »

It would actually be fun to have a worse, but cheaper ITU available for cap ship purposes, as a modspec drop. "Mark I Targeting Module" or whatever. I think the modspec system is a good opportunity to open up for niche, fine-grained ship customization options. Hell, you could even go full Diablo and procedurally generate hullmods that drop from mysterious REDACTED targets or whatever.
Hopefully, not one that yields one or two god-tier options that everyone would cheat and dupe for if Starsector was online multiplayer and the rest crap.  Diablo-style item generation is great if you want players to be hooked and focus mostly on items and min-maxing.
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Cycerin

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #116 on: December 08, 2016, 05:35:47 AM »

Yeah, which is why the idea is niche sidegrade options for more customization.
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Cyan Leader

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #117 on: December 08, 2016, 07:33:00 AM »

If the venting nerf was added because players were abusing it wouldn't it be better to nerf the spam rather than to nerf venting itself?

Something simple like if you vent once it's business as usual, but if you vent within a certain period of the last vent (10/15 seconds?) you'll get the penalty. You can even stack that up if you want to really punish players for being reckless with it.
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Cycerin

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #118 on: December 08, 2016, 01:04:20 PM »

I wonder if the range penalty for unstable injector maybe should scale a bit with size class? When I think about it, it seems like it will be a nerf to frigates that want to use energy weapons and still go fast. It shouldn't be a no-brainer but flat 25% seems more punishing for frigates than it needs to be.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #119 on: December 08, 2016, 01:29:47 PM »

If the venting nerf was added because players were abusing it wouldn't it be better to nerf the spam rather than to nerf venting itself?

Something simple like if you vent once it's business as usual, but if you vent within a certain period of the last vent (10/15 seconds?) you'll get the penalty. You can even stack that up if you want to really punish players for being reckless with it.

It's not much of a nerf to venting unless one is venting at very low flux, but then that's the point. I get what you're saying, and did think about other ways to do this, but this way seems simplest. The nice thing is no extra UI required - you just see the reload bars stop moving for a few seconds, and it makes sense. Something like "X seconds since last vent" would require more UI, and adding extra UI elements for this definitely seems like too much.


I wonder if the range penalty for unstable injector maybe should scale a bit with size class? When I think about it, it seems like it will be a nerf to frigates that want to use energy weapons and still go fast. It shouldn't be a no-brainer but flat 25% seems more punishing for frigates than it needs to be.

Hmm - going to playtest that some and see. It needs to be enough that it's not an obvious choice for a kiting setup, which 25% feels pretty good for - doable with beams, unlikely with anything else. But, again, definitely need to playtest and see what low-range stuff feels like when it's down by 25%.
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