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Author Topic: [0.8.1a] The Silent Armada (DISCONTINUED) v0.14 - Patching Things Up!  (Read 100654 times)

Calodine

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Re: [0.8a] The Silent Armada (Demo) v0.9
« Reply #75 on: April 25, 2017, 05:44:42 PM »

Yup, the original setup had grounded armour AND resistant flux coils :P
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AxleMC131

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Re: [0.8a] The Silent Armada (Demo) v0.9
« Reply #76 on: April 25, 2017, 05:51:27 PM »

Yup, the original setup had grounded armour AND resistant flux coils :P

Haha, yep the Grounded Hull is the TSA version of RFC for defence against EMP damage.
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Calodine

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Re: [0.8a] The Silent Armada (Demo) v0.9
« Reply #77 on: April 25, 2017, 05:56:54 PM »

I forgot to mention it but I actually really like grounded armour - sensor stuff doesn't get touched by that much, and reduced sensor profile is great if you just wanna roll with 3-4 ships.
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AxleMC131

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Re: [0.8a] The Silent Armada (Demo) v0.9
« Reply #78 on: April 25, 2017, 06:28:39 PM »

Glad you like it. It actually originated from another (discontinued) mod concept, and was sort of adopted by TSA. Ended up fitting really quite well.
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PyroFuzz

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Re: [0.8a] The Silent Armada (Demo) v0.9
« Reply #79 on: April 26, 2017, 03:31:15 PM »

You should make a frigate sized armored plane.
Kinda like a Boeing Flying Fortress
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AxleMC131

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Re: [0.8a] The Silent Armada (Demo) v0.9
« Reply #80 on: April 26, 2017, 03:46:20 PM »

You should make a frigate sized armored plane.
Kinda like a Boeing Flying Fortress

I have considered it...  8)



(This is a sprite from my old private testing mod and not something you're likely to directly see in TSA, but it provides inspiration)
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AxleMC131

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Re: [0.8a] The Silent Armada (Demo) v0.9
« Reply #81 on: April 26, 2017, 06:39:23 PM »

A little teaser!

For those not in the Discord chat, I've been trying to show some love to the Thunderbolt EW Destroyer. Sadly this has involved the removal of the Supercharger Flux Sink, but I'm quite sure you'll appreciate its replacement...!

Spoiler

Flux Submunitions: Draws flux from the ship's capacitors and converts it directly into swarms of hardlight submunitions. While the submunitions do not target or distract missiles, they will track enemy ships and fighters, saturate point defence and deal energy and EMP damage upon impact. Holds several rapid-use charges that reload over time.



[close]

Spoiler

The Gatekeeper has also adopted this fancy setup!



[close]

SoonTM
« Last Edit: April 26, 2017, 06:48:58 PM by AxleMC131 »
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AxleMC131

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Re: [0.8a] The Silent Armada (Demo) v0.10
« Reply #82 on: April 28, 2017, 09:37:40 PM »

Update: Version D 0.10 (Demo content expansion #4)

You can look forward to some new piloting experiences in this update! The Thunderbolt has finally received some much needed attention, and is now unique and capable in combat while feeling far less clunky than it did before. Not only that, the Reliant and Challenger have had system changes, and we also welcome a new missile ship, the speedy and menacing Triumph-class Hunter Destroyer.

Spoiler

[close]

Check the OP for more details.

Please remember that I want to hear suggestions for balancing TSA ships' and weapons' stats against stock equipment! All recommendations welcome!
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Anysy

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Re: [0.8a] The Silent Armada (Demo) v0.10
« Reply #83 on: April 28, 2017, 09:52:32 PM »

Ive been really enjoying your sidewiders as my heavy fighter of choice.. They seem to be a great talon 2.0. I feel like I would still use them even if their op cost was closer to 15.. Im not super sure how to discuss fighter balancing though, because like I said they are a talon replacement.. and talons are 0 op. Im really just not sure how to compare them, particularly, talon's main downside .. is sorta lack of kinetic damage? Then again, a talon's vulcan is 125 dps against shields, which is really not actually bad. I feel like sidewinders are probably closer to broadswords in kinetic power, but the extra missiles for explosive and anti-fighter are really strong. One thing I did notice, between 3k engagement range and just generally being slow, they arent the best at long range force projection, but I think this is a fine counterpoint to their general all purpose-ness.

The encounter feels like a solid bomber as well, but I think their lack of speed makes flight decks interact weirdly. Im not sure, but I think when a bomber has expended its payload, it counts as dead for the purposes of active flight decks, including draining fighter recovery rate, so the slightly long amount of time it takes the encounter wing to return home has my fighter rate down a couple points. With that said, im pretty sure both the encounters and sidewinders are impossible to actually kill - Small size makes big guns just not hit them, and small damage is shrugged off due to armor and hull repair system,(+flare things) so at least my flight decks arent strained to recover fighters as often. (i did lose a couple of them to large [redacted] fleets, but generally heavy beam PD weapons arent common)

Unfortunately I cant say ive gotten a chance to find any of the other guns in my campaign, ive been looking for the missiles and just not seeing them :(
Ill try to find some gatekeepers to fit into my bays, I am interested to try out those flux flares
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AxleMC131

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Re: [0.8a] The Silent Armada (Demo) v0.10
« Reply #84 on: April 28, 2017, 10:01:18 PM »

Nice to see you back @Lancefighter. :) And thanks for the feedback!

The Sidewinders are probably my favourite fighter in this mod too. They're supposed to have a role closer to that of the Khopesh Rocket Bomber, but as a fire support/assault vessel rather than a straight bomber - a role they achieve thanks to a combination of kinetic rockets, HE short range missiles and the decoy flares. I don't want to raise their OP because they're not massively nimble, compared to alternatives, but if they seem too powerful I might raise their purchase cost.

The Encounters are decent. They seem far more willing to actually launch torpedoes at stuff in 0.8, which I'm very glad about. ;) Speed on the other hand... Hmm. I wasn't aware the game treated empty bombers as "dead" - the whole point of returning bombers is to be re-armed in a very short time, compared to being killed and rebuilt from scratch. Either way, I didn't know it caused the game to lower replacement rate. I'll need to check that out myself.

As for the Gatekeeper, you'll be hard pressed to find one of those, since they're designed as a built-in fighter (like the stock Borer Drones and Terminator Drone) and won't appear in markets. Tempting to change that, but for now the Gatekeeper is only found on the Explorer and the shiny new Triumph.

Weapons definitely spawn, that's a given, but high-tech ones tend to be less common. Give your markets a few months and they should start to stock higher-tier weapons - I've found a pair of Charons one the black market at Jangala before, and they're Tech Level 3! But yes, that mostly comes down to luck, and the fact that you can't get TSA weapons as drops from killing ships.
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Forgery

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Re: [0.8a] The Silent Armada (Demo) v0.10
« Reply #85 on: April 28, 2017, 11:01:00 PM »

I'd like to say that i'm really enjoying the TSA ships, but I keep on running across an issue (I'll admit it, it may be a personal issue) while playing with the ships.

While in the heat of battle I often take brutal hits to exposed armor and hull when I thought the 'Phoenix' Composite Hull was turned on. Turns out the composite hull was off, I just didn't realize it because the TSA ship's color scheme is very similar to the composite hull (they're both red). This makes it difficult for me to tell if the composite hull is on or not at a glance.

Now I don't know how this issue could be solved for the TSA ships, but I can reference another mod that has a similar design to their shield system while their's is a bit more obvious when it's on.
Spoiler
[close]


I got those pictures from Dark.Revenant's Knight Templar mod post.
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Anysy

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Re: [0.8a] The Silent Armada (Demo) v0.10
« Reply #86 on: April 28, 2017, 11:05:59 PM »

ah damn i was hoping that wasnt the case, Im a big fan of that sprite.

And uhh they would probably do better in the klopesh role if they fired groups of kirbs instead of pairs at a time. But yeah, I see what youre saying. Right now just having the swarmer on top of a reasonably good main gun, with some added survivability makes them an excellent anti-frigate platform, not unlike a beefier talon.

Im honestly torn between the encounters and the klopesh for my bomber of choice - my second carrier has a pair of klopesh that launch some absolutely devastating barrages, but when my pair of encounters land both of their torps, its pretty pretty too.. I would swap to daggers I think it is, but Im not a huge fan of their look. Encounters are nice and spaceplane looking, and Im a fan of that.

The flight deck thing I think is common to all bombers - Id hvae to play around more, but notice that your fighter bays will light up like they are doing something long before the first bomber makes its way back home. Itll start instantly after the bomber goes dark on the ui. It looks like, generally, my carrier (with skills, no flight deck hullmod yet), will launch one encounter right as the first one lands, and then launch a second one quickly after (total three on the field, one returning, two fresh). Its a bit wonky to actually see happen, since you need to have a bit of extra fighter recovery speed and also be a good range away from your target, but thats what it looks like is happening. Its probably a vanilla 'bug'/feature, but I dont think its as obvious since I think all vanilla bombers are faster due to zero flux boost.

As a silly experiment tomorrow.. I wonder if you gave bombers a single shot long range weapon, like a mirv or a pilum, if it would launch, instantly fire its load, then try to land again (and get instantly relaunched).... I was actually wondering how good longbows are at shooting their load in close range, maybe I should find a set of those

And related to that, I wonder if you set the replacement time to fairly low(0 or 1s), if it would replace bombers as they fire their load instead of when they return home, to confirm what I think is happening.

Anyway yes just slightly off topic
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AxleMC131

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Re: [0.8a] The Silent Armada (Demo) v0.10
« Reply #87 on: April 28, 2017, 11:21:01 PM »

Haha, off-topic stuff is fine, it's great to experiment! Not sure about some of the fighter suggestions (I don't know how you can change "replacement time" - it's not a fighter-specific stat). I can say however that fighters now have an "attack range" (or something) stat which I think is the distance they will actually open fire on a target. Most stock fighters tend to be around 300-500 units IIRC.
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AxleMC131

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Re: [0.8a] The Silent Armada (Demo) v0.10
« Reply #88 on: April 28, 2017, 11:23:01 PM »

While in the heat of battle I often take brutal hits to exposed armor and hull when I thought the 'Phoenix' Composite Hull was turned on. Turns out the composite hull was off, I just didn't realize it because the TSA ship's color scheme is very similar to the composite hull (they're both red). This makes it difficult for me to tell if the composite hull is on or not at a glance.

Now I don't know how this issue could be solved for the TSA ships, but I can reference another mod that has a similar design to their shield system while their's is a bit more obvious when it's on.
Spoiler
[close]


Hi @Forgery, thanks for the feedback. Yeah, the Phoenix Hull is fairly similar a colour to the rest of the sprite, and might need a change, but it's usually not too big an issue. Don't forget that there's also the status bar on the left of the screen that pops up with information when it's active. Either way, it's not a hard problem to fix - I could make the outline white or something - it's just that you're the first to mention it. Still, a valid point.

Also, the Knights Templar mod was in fact one of my inspiration mods for TSA. ;)
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Anysy

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Re: [0.8a] The Silent Armada (Demo) v0.10
« Reply #89 on: April 28, 2017, 11:31:33 PM »

Wait, base replacement time isnt a moddable stat?  that seems.. odd. Im not at my pc now, but I thought that wouldve been a like.. Somewhat important balancing stat for fighters
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