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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: Ship Recovery  (Read 97695 times)

nomadic_leader

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Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #75 on: January 22, 2017, 05:16:09 AM »

"Picking up a lot of radiation. They’re operating without core containment. That’s… That’s suicide."

How cool will it be to just play as a pirate and amass a rabble of really horrible expendable D ships to terrorize everyone with?

The only thing missing, so that I'd never have to land at all, is the ability to recover enemy crew from the captured ships, and use them as your own crew.

I have a vague memory that Fractalsoftworks has scruples about putting slavery in the game, but you must ask yourselves: what is happening to the crew of disabled vessels otherwise? They are just getting spaced, or all killed during the combat. Isn't it kinder to enslave them? Also I like to think it is a liberation. I mean, the sindrian diktat is not a nice place and freeing all their guys from the engine room to become pirates is better for them.
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Johnny Cocas

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Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #76 on: January 22, 2017, 07:27:12 AM »

"Picking up a lot of radiation. They’re operating without core containment. That’s… That’s suicide."

How cool will it be to just play as a pirate and amass a rabble of really horrible expendable D ships to terrorize everyone with?

The only thing missing, so that I'd never have to land at all, is the ability to recover enemy crew from the captured ships, and use them as your own crew.

I have a vague memory that Fractalsoftworks has scruples about putting slavery in the game, but you must ask yourselves: what is happening to the crew of disabled vessels otherwise? They are just getting spaced, or all killed during the combat. Isn't it kinder to enslave them? Also I like to think it is a liberation. I mean, the sindrian diktat is not a nice place and freeing all their guys from the engine room to become pirates is better for them.

That would actually be a cool idea.
Instead of killing everybody when capturing a ship perhaps there was a chance for the enemy to surrender when their numbers were getting low so you'd end up with some prisoners that eventually could be recruited to your own crew, specially if they were pirates (highest bidder right? :P), just like you can do in M&B Warband.
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ArkAngel

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Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #77 on: January 22, 2017, 08:21:59 AM »

I poved the blog post, I think the new industry playstyle will be my favorite. Just have to wait for outposts!

I aam in agreeance with others, I think getting a new type of crew, "prisoners" which can be turned over to a faction or ransomed, would be a neat thing. You could egen offer them a place on your own ship.
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SafariJohn

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Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #78 on: January 22, 2017, 08:38:27 AM »

If that were a thing, I think it would be more elegant just to offer some crew at the same time as when you pick up prisoners. No mucking about with prisoner-to-crew conversions.
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FooF

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Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #79 on: January 22, 2017, 08:46:03 AM »

We're now debating the moral and ethical issues for slavery/indentured servitude in a video game so that we can justify getting cheap(er) crew. Ha!  ;)

When it comes to this Industry-style of play, it feels like it has a "momentum" to it: like you're fleet begins to snowball every time you engage. However, if I'm recovering a fair number of ships after battle, am I still going to have to return to port to refit these ships without taking huge penalties to CR? Repairing hull damage is one thing but adding hullmods or weapons in deep space has some pretty hefty costs attached. Is there anything that mitigates this? I guess the same could be said if you gain access to hullmods while out exploring and there isn't a port to be found.

Or is the intended style of play still pretty reliant on making routine trips to port?
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Johnny Cocas

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Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #80 on: January 22, 2017, 09:01:27 AM »

It could be somewhat "logical" to have a system similar to this for prisoners:

- When caught some (very little) prisoners could volunteer to be crew;
- Some (pirates) could easily be invited if paid the right amount of money (their pirates after all...);
- Some (depending on nation, perhaps) would strongly refuse turning into crew and could only be used as prisoners that could later be ransomed directly to the enemy or sold to the other factions for a relation boost and some credits (similar to how they work with nexerelin);
- Some prisoners might even try to take a ship on their own and/or escape, but this would be trickier to implement :P

Just my two cents on this idea :D What do you think?
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nomadic_leader

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Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #81 on: January 22, 2017, 09:18:05 AM »

The game is about mass murder anyway, harvesting organs from people in cryosleep, callous corporations, and working for dictatorships with planetwide gulags.

This is why I'm sorry Alex took out crew types. There could be a 'prisoner' crew type that gives worse CR than other crew, and wouldn't level up like the other crew. But you could sell for more because of ransom. joaonunes' idea of having variables in the faction file modify how many prisoners and/or crew you salvage after battle is also interesting.  It would differentiate the factions more. Right now they kind of feel like chinese checkers (same, but different colours).

(Also I got some freakish, inexplicable endorphin thing from leveling up crew, i'll miss it).

Historical precedent:
Spoiler
This is actually what happened in the 18th century in the Med with the barbary corsairs and medieval/renaissance galleys in general. It was a godawful job even if you weren't a prisoner,  though many galleys were crewed by prisoners. They setup their whole lives as prisoners sometimes for many years if nobody ransomed them. Others actually did promote and become trusted officials in the North African courts.
[close]

But since the game design seems to be focused on not making itty bitty micromanagement too much of a thing (if this blog post is an indication), it would also be ok if you got a chance to get some normal crew while salvaging. (a leadership skill or marines could increase this). I recall this being in old versions of starsector, but maybe i imagined it then.

As for refitting in deep space, i thought having construction/salvage rigs in your fleet were supposed to reduce the cost of doing that?
« Last Edit: January 22, 2017, 09:24:17 AM by nomadic_leader »
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nomadic_leader

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Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #82 on: January 22, 2017, 09:34:05 AM »

ugh wait a minute. if there's a skill that lets you always recover a ship if it has an officer, does this mean that officers still won't be able to die?

That's very disappointing, since they should die. Some of us want a challenge, not pokemon. Sometimes having to lose/sacrifice something you prize makes a game more meaningful and fun.  It doesn't make any sense at all from an in-universe standpoint either.
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Alex

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Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #83 on: January 22, 2017, 09:38:22 AM »

Repairing hull damage is one thing but adding hullmods or weapons in deep space has some pretty hefty costs attached. Is there anything that mitigates this?access to hullmods while out exploring and there isn't a port to be found.

There is, actually - the way it works now is any additive changes to a loadout do not reduce CR. So if you're spending free OP on a recently recovered ship, that's not going to impact whatever starting CR it got from Field Repairs, for example. If you don't have Field Repairs, it wouldn't be much of an issue anyway, since CR would already be 0.
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Gothars

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Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #84 on: January 22, 2017, 09:58:53 AM »

I suggested something like this a few days ago:

Ha - if things were to go that way, might as well have the crew be available as part of salvage. But I don't know if I want to go there, a bit too grim, isn't it.


I don't really see the need to draw a line there, I feel the game is quite a bit more grim at other places already. The game just needs to acknowledge that working prisoners/slaves are a morally ..."ambiguous" thing. For a faction that sees itself as virtuous they should be a illegal "commodity".



BTW, two typos in the Recovery Operations text:

Quote
Base chance to for disbaled ships to be recovrable

I also feel the explanation is a bit roundabout, with first making a general statement and then contradicting it immediately ("Base chance for disabled ships to be recoverable is 25%, or 50% for your ships."). Since ships from allied fleets are not recoverable it is also incorrect.

Why not just say: "If disabled, the base chance to be recoverable is 25% for enemy ships, and 50% for your ships. Weapons have a 25% base chance to be recoverable from enemy ships, 50% from your ships."
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Alex

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Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #85 on: January 22, 2017, 10:21:48 AM »

I don't really see the need to draw a line there, I feel the game is quite a bit more grim at other places already. The game just needs to acknowledge that working prisoners/slaves are a morally ..."ambiguous" thing. For a faction that sees itself as virtuous they should be a illegal "commodity".

There's being grim in backstory/text, and then there's tying that sort of stuff directly to mechanics. I'm less comfortable with the latter.

(Yeah, sure, you're also shooting lots of people, but you're shooting "ships" and the people are kind of swept under the rug. If you bring that front and center, it gets weird.)

Anyway, I'm certainly not opposed to mechanical things being grim or unpleasant. What I'm sure I don't want is for "run around enslaving people" to be part of a core playstyle. You'd have to really handle it well and make a game be about that. It's not something you just want to throw in casually.

Other stuff could work here, though. Some crew just shows up in the salvage screen? Sure, why not. You get a message from an escape pod and X crew offer to join? That works too. (... and then they steal one of your ships and run off. If you can't trust desperate crew you 've picked up from an escape pod after you've shot their ship out from under them, then who can you trust?)


BTW, two typos in the Recovery Operations text:

Quote
Base chance to for disbaled ships to be recovrable

I also feel the explanation is a bit roundabout, with first making a general statement and then contradicting it immediately ("Base chance for disabled ships to be recoverable is 25%, or 50% for your ships."). Since ships from allied fleets are not recoverable it is also incorrect.

Why not just say: "If disabled, the base chance to be recoverable is 25% for enemy ships, and 50% for your ships. Weapons have a 25% base chance to be recoverable from enemy ships, 50% from your ships."

Thanks! Updated to mostly match your suggestion, it was indeed pretty awkward.
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nomadic_leader

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Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #86 on: January 22, 2017, 10:46:38 AM »

It's not something you just want to throw in casually.

Why? The game isn't about teaching morality or educating the youth. It's about space dystopia. Throwing it in casually totally fits with the rest of the game.

It's about mass murder, and cute ship graphics can't hide it. Starsector encourages the player to be totally immoral and minimizes any political differences between factions. It urges players to plunder and destroy for rich rewards. Unlike many other games of this style (escape velocity, etc) there is no story, plots, or quests in which you can fight for discrete political goals or ideals. The average starsector player acts like a 7 year old playing GTA crowbarring pedestrians for hours on end. Combat is even encouraged as a primary playstyle, with peaceful activities only intended as side gigs.

Like when you sell 2000 tonnes of illegal drugs and destabilize a planet to cause a famine. (A lot of them probably resort to prostitution just to get a bite to eat, you know.)

Given the context of starsector, it is entirely adequate make slaves illegal for some factions as a way of highlighting the immorality. Include a running tally of crew and slave losses/kills etc as a witness to the players misdeeds.

But as you say, maybe the way of handling it that most fits the true spirit of starsector is this:
Just show crew in the salvage screen with no explanation.

Let the more optimistic imagine them as grateful volunteers.

Let the more pessimistic imagine them as something else.

There should still be a skill about increasing the number of crew you "rescue" during salvage though. :)
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jRivers

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Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #87 on: January 22, 2017, 10:51:38 AM »

I don't really see the need to draw a line there, I feel the game is quite a bit more grim at other places already. The game just needs to acknowledge that working prisoners/slaves are a morally ..."ambiguous" thing. For a faction that sees itself as virtuous they should be a illegal "commodity".

There's being grim in backstory/text, and then there's tying that sort of stuff directly to mechanics. I'm less comfortable with the latter.

(Yeah, sure, you're also shooting lots of people, but you're shooting "ships" and the people are kind of swept under the rug. If you bring that front and center, it gets weird.)

Anyway, I'm certainly not opposed to mechanical things being grim or unpleasant. What I'm sure I don't want is for "run around enslaving people" to be part of a core playstyle. You'd have to really handle it well and make a game be about that. It's not something you just want to throw in casually.

Other stuff could work here, though. Some crew just shows up in the salvage screen? Sure, why not. You get a message from an escape pod and X crew offer to join? That works too. (... and then they steal one of your ships and run off. If you can't trust desperate crew you 've picked up from an escape pod after you've shot their ship out from under them, then who can you trust?)


BTW, two typos in the Recovery Operations text:

Quote
Base chance to for disbaled ships to be recovrable

I also feel the explanation is a bit roundabout, with first making a general statement and then contradicting it immediately ("Base chance for disabled ships to be recoverable is 25%, or 50% for your ships."). Since ships from allied fleets are not recoverable it is also incorrect.

Why not just say: "If disabled, the base chance to be recoverable is 25% for enemy ships, and 50% for your ships. Weapons have a 25% base chance to be recoverable from enemy ships, 50% from your ships."

Thanks! Updated to mostly match your suggestion, it was indeed pretty awkward.

I disagree, slavery and forced labour has been a part of the human experience as long as our species is old. It still happens today in the tens of millions, its just going on in the islamic part of the world.
In the west its essentially illegal commodity even though we dont really have a philosophical argument against it enforced on many levels of society. (Think certain forms of taxation, prison labour, propagandizing populace etc etc)

I do agree it shouldn't be done as a cheap throw in but that applies to most anything, it should be done with some thought put into it, essentially it needs to work but not so good that it becomes a near necessity.
Heavy faction relations penalty for example would be a rather strong penalty against neutrals doing that.
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SafariJohn

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Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #88 on: January 22, 2017, 11:32:05 AM »

Trying to get slavery or the like added to Starsector is, deservedly IMO, a waste of energy.
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Alex

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Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #89 on: January 22, 2017, 11:59:36 AM »

Why? The game isn't about teaching morality or educating the youth. It's about space dystopia. Throwing it in casually totally fits with the rest of the game.

Because it's a serious and painful topic that should get more consideration than that, and because I'd like to make a game I can play without cringing.


(That said, there's some suuuper dark mechanical stuff that might make it in, but it wouldn't be systemic.)


Let the more optimistic imagine them as grateful volunteers.

Let the more pessimistic imagine them as something else.

Yeah, in general that's good - the more ways one can imagine something playing out, the better.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2017, 12:02:46 PM by Alex »
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