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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 639106 times)

cjuicy

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #300 on: March 23, 2017, 09:12:24 PM »

Alex, are you secretly really kinky or something because this release is such a ***-tease I'm getting blue-balled.
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JohnDoe

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #301 on: March 23, 2017, 09:26:16 PM »

Added "enableUIStaticNoise" setting to data/config/settings.json to disable UI static noise overlay
Thank you!
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #302 on: March 23, 2017, 09:30:40 PM »

Have ship market prices been adjusted at all? Like say the Onslaught being made more expensive?

Yes specifically re: Onslaught. Haven't messed with the prices much aside from that.

Wasn't there gonna be a new defensive-type destroyer or does the Drover somehow fill that slot in? Simply not enough time to squeeze that into this patch?

Not sure what you mean, nothing comes to mind.

No tweaks to the Hephaestus Assault Gun, eh? You thinking it's in a pretty okay spot with the nerfs to Hellbore and Mjolnir?

Nope! I think it might be in a decent place, but as always we'll see. As you point out, these changes help clarify its niche.

Finally, are you gonna commish a new trailer? Seems like this patch would deserve one... :o

No, though yeah it kinda does. Mostly just not enough time to squeeze that in as well.



EDIT: Are cargo pods created by just dragging the item you want in them with some supplies into the discard section?

Yep. It's been renamed "Eject", btw.


Interesting, Did you find that missiles felt a bit less powerful with the removal of +1 missile ammo? or was this just in response to +75% not being very useful on many launcher ammo counts?

More just experimenting with stuff - doubling the ammo for some specific missiles is neat, and hopefully with the changes to missile skills and the increase in cost for missile racks, hopefully it won't be overpowered.

*grabs by the color, shaking and screaming* tell me you left my atropos kite viable! Tell me!

Probably? It's probably better, really - more OP, sure, but also more Atropos..es? Atropi? Atropen?

Can the AI also use this? If so, doesn't it become mandatory for the player to also have Transverse Jump, so they can chase targets that do it?  And does the AI spam the Neutrino detector? If so, does that basically kill the stealth/smuggling playstyle?

Both are player-only abilities. So is Sustained Burn, actually, at least for the moment.

[Edit] And before I forget, tons of stuff looks amazing! I'm looking forward to having a carrier fleet of doom again!

Thank you!

@cjusa: 511 man, 511.


Added "enableUIStaticNoise" setting to data/config/settings.json to disable UI static noise overlay
Thank you!

:)
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Gourdman

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #303 on: March 23, 2017, 09:37:16 PM »

Really excited for this release, Alex.  Gonna be able to put all the mods down and enjoy the game for a good while like you intended.  Keep it up and don't worry about that release date!
Make it good, and keep giving us tantalizing and uninformative details.  Mmm.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #304 on: March 23, 2017, 09:41:44 PM »

Thanks for your support! Also, welcome to the forum, at least in a non-lurking capacity :)
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Swizzlewizzle

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #305 on: March 23, 2017, 09:48:47 PM »

Alex, RE: performance...

I'm assuming (and correct me if i'm wrong), that the primary bottleneck in running larger fleet battles and maintaining a decent FPS is on the CPU side, seeing as how - at least from what i've read - the engine SS is based on is single-threaded. I've noticed that, especially missile simulation and pathfinding/collision, has the potential to cause the SIM to crawl, even with just a few hundred on screen.

Is this potentially a bottleneck that will be chipped away at before release? I mean, i'm assuming that the engine *can* technically put processes on different threads (and probably does have some AI stuff on separate threads?).... just seems a shame that we have all of these high tech 12+ core CPUs but end up bottlenecked the same as a 2 core CPU in a format where we should be able to simulate hundreds of ships fighting each other.

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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #306 on: March 23, 2017, 10:04:24 PM »

Unfortunately, it's really not that simple. First of all, it seems to me to be closer to 50/50 between cpu and graphics card in terms of performance bottlenecks.

Second, changing the engine code to be able to support this is extremely non-trivial. It's the sort of undertaking that could sink a project - code complexity goes through the roof, debugging becomes many times more difficult, and performance gains may not even materialize.

Some things are naturally well-suited for being multi-threaded. For example, music playback happens on another thread - it just does its thing, and the main thread doesn't need to worry about it. Other things, less so - threads have to wait for each other to get to the same place, sync up, share data, etc. So even if you have say two threads doing work instead of one, chances are you're not getting anywhere near double the performance.

Finally, it's the sort of performance optimization that's not actually very useful because it doesn't do much for the worst case, which I think is what really matters. Sure, a monster PC will (potentially, if all the other problems didn't exist) reach dizzying heights - but it was already running the game fine, while a PC that was struggling won't be helped much at all. Spending time on optimizations that primarily affect the high-end doesn't seem very worthwhile.
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David

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #307 on: March 23, 2017, 10:41:48 PM »

Also, for David, about how long does it take you to finalize a frigate sized hull, a capital sized? About 3-5 hours of total work? I'd imagine you've gotten super proficient at busting out ships at this point!

Uhhhh, hmm. It kinda depends. Sometimes it goes faster, sometimes slower. Your estimate is not far off, though a big capital (or god help me, a station) takes rather longer, of course. Also depends a bit on how much I copypasta my own stuff from old ships. Also depends on how generally unique the ship is. And if I'm doing a set of visually related ships all in one go they'll go faster as I'm deep into the style, though this isn't usually the case.

Fighters, of course, are almost instant to draw. The real issue with them tends to be thinking up a design. And yeah, frigates are quick, but it's becoming more and more important that they become distinct from everything that's already been done, so I have to put a bit more thought into them.

(I do actually track numbers for time worked on ships vs. other stuff, but it's just a monthly total and not actually broken down per-ship, so I don't have a cool statistic for you.)
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PCCL

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #308 on: March 23, 2017, 11:35:39 PM »

Both are player-only abilities. So is Sustained Burn, actually, at least for the moment.


this worries me, especially if we're gonna be flying around the sector under SB and seeing everyone else in normal burn drive
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #309 on: March 23, 2017, 11:43:51 PM »

Both are player-only abilities. So is Sustained Burn, actually, at least for the moment.


this worries me, especially if we're gonna be flying around the sector under SB and seeing everyone else in normal burn drive
I think it is to prevent ganks from the AI like with E burn now. And also to prevent bounties from just "NOPE"ing out
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CrashToDesktop

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #310 on: March 23, 2017, 11:50:26 PM »

I think it is to prevent ganks from the AI like with E burn now. And also to prevent bounties from just "NOPE"ing out
There's a time delay as well as a fleet slowdown before the +10 Burn buff takes place, so you can't just NOPE out of any situation with Sustained Burn.
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Jonlissla

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #311 on: March 24, 2017, 12:07:06 AM »

Who needs a brothel when you can visit this thread for a good time.

Changelog looks fantastic. Really, really looking forward it.
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Surge

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #312 on: March 24, 2017, 12:19:50 AM »

Christ Alex, I had to stop reading halfway through before the hype killed me. I can't wait to get my hands on this patch.
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Embolism

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #313 on: March 24, 2017, 12:21:41 AM »

Am I the only person who feels carrier distribution between tech levels is backwards? Low-tech now has 3. Midline has 2. High-tech has 1. This is of course discounting not-real-carriers like Gemini and Odyssey.

On the other hand, 6 out of 14 strike craft are high-tech, and it is also the only tech level that fields shielded strike craft.

Yes, the Astral is the pinnacle of carrier design, but high-tech has nothing for fleets smaller than an armada; whereas both low-tech and midline have carriers for most fleet sizes. Unless there are smaller high-tech carriers still under wraps?

Now that fighters can only be fielded with carriers, it would be a damn shame if smaller high-tech fleets either can't field strike craft or must use lower tech carriers (granted the Heron fulfills high-tech's mobility doctrine pretty well, here's hoping the Drover does too).
« Last Edit: March 24, 2017, 12:29:22 AM by Embolism »
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SeinTa

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Re: Starsector 0.8a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #314 on: March 24, 2017, 12:54:58 AM »

Quote
Added "Distress Call" player ability; may result in friendly fleet arriving with some fuel or supplies

I had a good chuckle, got the feeling there might be pirates answering it as well?
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