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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: Is it me? or am I always sucking down supplies and fuel?  (Read 17318 times)

Megas

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Re: Is it me? or am I always sucking down supplies and fuel?
« Reply #15 on: November 24, 2017, 06:29:10 AM »

The command ship is rarely indicative of the fleet. A single falcon with 15 frigates is easy for my cruisers to beat. But A single Falcon and 15 high tech destroyers/carriers? A completely different fight.
I remember the time I tried to fight a 100-150K (forgot exact value) bounty with command ship being either Falcon or Mora.  Then, when I got there, it also had an Eagle, maybe a Dominator, plus more destroyers and frigates than my entire fleet.  It was unbeatable.  The other bounties at the time were no weaker that that one.

As for current level-scaling.  Ten and under goes very fast, especially if player does tutorial.

Even without level scaling, if player just wants to fight bounties, it is still possible to fall behind, especially if player does not play perfectly.

Anyway that's not the point, what I'm trying to say is stack missions and surveying.  They're not sustainable in the endgame, but they'll provide enough cash to get you into whatever set of destroyers, carriers, and cruisers floats your boat, then you can start trying for cores from yellow and orange redactoids which are sustainable.
Surveying is only an option if I have Surveying to begin with, except for the rare planet that can be surveyed unskilled.  I refuse to take Surveying in its current form due to being a crutch skill.  Same thing with Salvaging now that Fighter Doctrine 2 has the golden Converted Hangar hullmod.

Sure, I do exploration missions if I need to.  I just take a Wolf and a Dram for minimal upkeep, and do missions, while running from everything, until I get enough money... but that is not fun.  I want to fight, fight, FIGHT!  In 0.8, I could just fight bounties and I was happy; and even then, there was a moment during midgame when I nearly could not keep up (though I was still learning about gameplay changes).
« Last Edit: November 24, 2017, 06:56:27 AM by Megas »
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zaimoni

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Re: Is it me? or am I always sucking down supplies and fuel?
« Reply #16 on: November 24, 2017, 07:22:33 AM »

A quick note here: bounties don't even scale with level until you're above level 10, and at that point it's still quite low. To me it feels like that effect is being more than a bit overestimated.
If you shoot yourself in the foot by skipping the tutorial, then you get that breathing room.

Clvl 10 happens immediately if you take up either the Galatia or Corvus anti-pirate bounties after the tutorial.
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Megas

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Re: Is it me? or am I always sucking down supplies and fuel?
« Reply #17 on: November 24, 2017, 07:54:59 AM »

A quick note here: bounties don't even scale with level until you're above level 10, and at that point it's still quite low. To me it feels like that effect is being more than a bit overestimated.
If you shoot yourself in the foot by skipping the tutorial, then you get that breathing room.

Clvl 10 happens immediately if you take up either the Galatia or Corvus anti-pirate bounties after the tutorial.
Even if player skips tutorial, he will get to level 10 soon enough after fighting a few bounties, stray pirates/Pathers, and/or Lumen and Glimmer duos while exploring.

P.S.  I do not like to skip tutorial because I can get a Heavy Blaster and/or a Railgun or two - rare and powerful weapons that are hard to come by pre-endgame, not to mention the free clunkers.  Weapons rare enough that I am tempted to start-scum for them if they do not spawn.
« Last Edit: November 24, 2017, 08:01:00 AM by Megas »
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Alex

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Re: Is it me? or am I always sucking down supplies and fuel?
« Reply #18 on: November 24, 2017, 10:03:55 AM »

Alright, let's look at the numbers:

The "bounty level" goes from 0 to 10, and goes up after doing a certain number of bounties - 2 each for the first 3 levels, 3 each for the next 4, and then 4, 5, and 6.

If the level is below 3, then all the bounties consist of low-grade pirate ships. At level 3 and beyond, you start to see the much-tougher "deserter" bounties.

The effective bounty level is the higher of the bounty level and a level based formula, which is:
(playerLevel - 10) / 3

This is rounded down. So, below level 13, it has no effect. At level 13, it's equivalent to you having done two bounties (but, note, since it picks the maximum it doesn't actually *stack* with you doing bounties). At level 16, 4. At level 19 is when you'd get to bounty level 3 and start seeing deserter bounties show up some of the time.

In addition, when posting new bounties, it'll always add a level 0 one if one isn't already posted, and one 2-4 bounty levels above the current bounty level, if one isn't already posted.

Maybe I'm wrong here, but it feels like up to level 19, anything you face should be quite beatable with either a combination of clunkers or a few decent ships - what you'd get from the profits of doing a few system bounties. Beyond that, the deserters, admittedly, can be pretty tough.

(I mean, I've played through a bounty hunting focused start a number of times, and it never stood out as being a problem, so that's a bit odd. I don't think my piloting skills are that good, which is why my inclination is to suspect something being confusing/misleading etc. E.G. trying to tackle the outlier high-level bounty without being ready for it will not end well.)

It does feel like this formula might be a tad aggressive, regardless. Let me tone it down to "(player level - 20) / 4)", so that the maximum bounty level you get from it is 5, at level 40.
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orost

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Re: Is it me? or am I always sucking down supplies and fuel?
« Reply #19 on: November 24, 2017, 10:19:28 AM »

If I may suggest something - while the game does tell you a lot about a bounty, enough to know if it's scary or not, that information is not particularly obvious and can be easily missed if one doesn't already know where to look. The description is tucked away in a corner and doesn't look important, and the keywords that mark a death-fleet - "convicted of desertion", "large fleet" and "exceptionally capable" - can be easily mistaken for meaningless flavor text.

Perhaps reorganizing the interface a bit to emphasize the important information and make an out-of-depth bounty more obvious would help avoid confusion.
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Alex

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Re: Is it me? or am I always sucking down supplies and fuel?
« Reply #20 on: November 24, 2017, 11:01:36 AM »

Yeah, that's a very fair point.
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Is it me? or am I always sucking down supplies and fuel?
« Reply #21 on: November 24, 2017, 03:04:03 PM »

Yeah, that's a very fair point.
Just highlighting those key words with two or three colors would help I think. Like green for easy or "below" your level IE pirates, red for hard or above your level IE deserters.
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Andrius227

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Re: Is it me? or am I always sucking down supplies and fuel?
« Reply #22 on: December 07, 2017, 02:23:24 PM »

Same problem here... I'm literally spending millions of credits for supplies and fuel alone. And my fleet is not even that big, just 3 cruisers, 4 destroyers, 4 frigates and a few cargo / fuel haulers.

I literally cheated and gave myself 10 million credits, and im already down to 6 million (after 1 day playtime irl)... And thats not even the biggest problem. The main problem is that stations/shops just dont have enough for sale. I buy out all supplies and fuel and i still need more...
« Last Edit: December 07, 2017, 02:25:46 PM by Andrius227 »
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Is it me? or am I always sucking down supplies and fuel?
« Reply #23 on: December 07, 2017, 05:57:41 PM »

Same problem here... I'm literally spending millions of credits for supplies and fuel alone. And my fleet is not even that big, just 3 cruisers, 4 destroyers, 4 frigates and a few cargo / fuel haulers.

I literally cheated and gave myself 10 million credits, and im already down to 6 million (after 1 day playtime irl)... And thats not even the biggest problem. The main problem is that stations/shops just dont have enough for sale. I buy out all supplies and fuel and i still need more...
Are you getting them from just random places or are you getting them from places like Sindria for fuel and Chrozowatchacallit (size 8 Heg market) for supplies
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AxleMC131

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Re: Is it me? or am I always sucking down supplies and fuel?
« Reply #24 on: December 07, 2017, 08:30:57 PM »

* Chicomoztoc  ;)
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cjuicy

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Re: Is it me? or am I always sucking down supplies and fuel?
« Reply #25 on: December 07, 2017, 08:59:03 PM »

I just refer to it as Chorizo and call it a day.
(P.S.: Sindria is my favorite planet for a reason. Sindrians will pay for planet scans with their arms, legs, internal organs AND firstborn children. Not to mention the cheap fuel that flows like a tanker's dream)
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Ryncage

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Re: Is it me? or am I always sucking down supplies and fuel?
« Reply #26 on: December 07, 2017, 09:00:29 PM »

Its been a long time since i played strictly without mods, and i'm always going into the salvage perks so i cant say if it's related.

I never found myself losing money due to supply and fuel demands, even in the very late game. Having been around since the starfarer days myself, i can say it's only gotten easier to maintain a massive fleet.
However, there are a lot of ways to dig a ditch for yourself that you cant get out of in the late game. people have already gone into those.

It mostly boils down to fighting fleets equal or larger in size, and taking advantage of the salvage mechanic to make up for the rest. I find myself making enemies out of half of the sector for the express purpose of killing fleets for supplies. You can always make more than you lose if you pick your cards right.

The biggest killer for my massive fleets is me being lazy and clipping through a hyperspace storm that bleeds me for a couple hundred more supplies than i expected.
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Histidine

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Re: Is it me? or am I always sucking down supplies and fuel?
« Reply #27 on: December 08, 2017, 03:50:29 AM »

Same problem here... I'm literally spending millions of credits for supplies and fuel alone. And my fleet is not even that big, just 3 cruisers, 4 destroyers, 4 frigates and a few cargo / fuel haulers.

I literally cheated and gave myself 10 million credits, and im already down to 6 million (after 1 day playtime irl)...
Assuming zero gross income, no supplies from salvage, supplies sold at 250/unit (a huge overestimate in most cases), and 75% of that 4mn credit spending goes into supplies and the rest into fuel...
We're talking about 12,000 supplies consumed. That's 240 Paragon deployments.
Where are all those supplies going?

(like srsly, being down 4mn net credits after an IRL day is the sort of expense I associate with splurging on capitals at the Prism Freeport)
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Thaago

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Re: Is it me? or am I always sucking down supplies and fuel?
« Reply #28 on: December 08, 2017, 07:44:04 AM »

I'm usually good for supplies as long as I don't lose track of my frigates in long fights - frigates can suck out a lot of supplies if you let them run out their endurance. If you let an SO Lasher run until malfunctions it needs something like 20 supplies instead of 4! (1 supply for every 2.5% CR lost due to operation time. Wolves are more forgiving because their deployment is 20%, so they need 1 supply for every 4% CR drain. Its a quirky thing that having a high CR cost per deployment makes it more difficult to chain battle, but you can stay in an individual battle longer with less penalty).
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Jay2Jay

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Re: Is it me? or am I always sucking down supplies and fuel?
« Reply #29 on: December 09, 2017, 12:59:30 PM »

I've found that since the addition of all the extra star systems, the neutering of enemy spawns, removal of salvaging credits, removal of a constant bounty for pirate ships, and the addition of the transponder system that I just can't play the game like I want to anymore.

Nowadays, either you go after bounties and missions or you just don't make any money whatsoever. You have a chance, if you plan everything exceedingly well, of making profit by going on salvaging missions without a mission, but the time investment is ludicrous and if you're wrong about how much profit you can make from the mission, distances involved, or supplies needed, then you basically lose everything.

My problem is Starsector has been balanced around the tastes of the veterans who plan everything for maximum possible profit. So sure, if you spend hours meticulously planing out or memorizing ship stats and outfits or save scum then the game because really easy, but people like me that like to take risks and fly by the seat of our pants can't play this game the way we want.

I want to make it clear, however, that I don't expect the devs to bow down to my whims and cater to me, and I'm not admonishing the devs for going down this path. If this is how they want to make their game, then I encourage them to keep going, but it will close off a rather broad section of potential players (aka buying customers) and cut into the profits and therefore lifetime of the game.

That being said all games have to end development sometime, you just have to decide what your care about more, making the game you want to make, or making the game that people will buy and play.
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