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[Linnis]

Hello Starsectorizens and Starsectorpuppers.

Since progression can easily be reversed when the player fleet dies doing anything from scanning or bounty hunting. Perhaps there could be a way to gain progression and knowledge without risking everything in one fleet, but not include boring aspects as "grinding" easy bounties etc.

One idea is to have the player accept mission as a combat support. Once accepted from a market or a rendezvous point reached, a fleet is spawned and is headed into another fleet that spawned somewhere else. Reward is paid if the target fleet is dead or friendly fleet survive, this way it can easily become an protect or destroy mission with a few tweaks. The reward amount and difficulty could be dependent on fleet size difference, etc etc.

A system like this could have new players easily head out, fight in awesome big battles without worrying about losing ships and progress, witness how ships engage each other and basically quickly gain in-game battle knowledge for when they set out to build their own fleets.

Also experienced players could take on riskier missions by doing stuff like sacrificing themselves luring target fleet through a corona or in combat trying to assassinate crucial ships.

[Arkar1234]

Well the smart thing to do to not lose all your progress in one botched mission is to keep spare ships in storage and head out with the appropriate amount of ships... but yeah...

Escort missions would be swell too.

It might even be worth tying into Nexerellin's Invasion system and gain rewards/recognition for defending invasion fleets of your faction. Much like how you gain rewards when defending against pirate raids or templar crusades.

[mehgamer]

Cool idea.

To anyone else reading this, please remember the simulator is your friend.

[Megas]

Well the smart thing to do to not lose all your progress in one botched mission is to keep spare ships in storage and head out with the appropriate amount of ships... but yeah...

That is practically late midgame or later.  Before then, player usually needs his entire fleet.

[Dark.Revenant]

While the player still has 2-3 ships, the game is young enough that simply restarting with 1 ship isn't that big of a penalty.

When the player has 20+ ships, the player has resources to mitigate risk.

The problem is the early-mid zone where the player is starting to build up resources, 5-10 ships in the fleet, where a big loss basically ends a 5-hour run.  The nature of combat in this game is such that there is a fine line between basically being fine and a complete fleet-wipe, which doesn't serve this zone well.  I can only really see two ways to make it work better while still involving interesting combat, and that's to either spread the risk along a larger battle or to change the core fleet mechanics to encourage soft defeat.

[intrinsic_parity]

I can only really see two ways to make it work better while still involving interesting combat, and that's to either spread the risk along a larger battle or to change the core fleet mechanics to encourage soft defeat.

Adding other ways of making money/resources (trading, delivery missions, exploration, outposts) that allow the player to build up enough resources in low risk way to mitigate higher risk combat would be helpful I think. I don't mind combat being high risk, as long as it is al so high reward, and there are other low risk low reward options.

I think that outposts will also make 'soft loses' more realistic, since it may be worth losing half a fleet to keep your income protected. Your fleet will no longer be the main measure of your success so hopefully losing a fleet won't always be a major setback in the same way.

[Shrugger]

Would be nice if outposts would also allow us to actually help maintain our dream fleets, so that if I take my rare gucci ship out of the hangar and get it shot up, I might have some way of rebuilding it...but no idea how to balance that. Reverse engineering ships may be too OP...

[zaimoni]

Easy way to find out: Omnifactory mod.

[TaLaR]

Or just don't Ironman. I don't think Ironman works well for games with play-through longer than a few hours anyway. Just forces you to play boring/cautios instead of on the edge (which is ok to do with normal saves).

[Linnis]

... spread the risk along a larger battle or to change the core fleet mechanics to encourage soft defeat.

Soft /  hard defeat discussion aside, what I wanted to address is new players learning how to build a working fleet. While progression for ingame wise could really be fixed with how Alex's local market mechanic work. If it constantly offered player ships to use, it could easily for player investment be in bases and high grade weapons and ships. We will have to see for that

[Megas]

Many of my ships are clunkers and open market weapons.  Quality weapons tend to be harder to replace than ships.

Or just don't Ironman. I don't think Ironman works well for games with play-through longer than a few hours anyway. Just forces you to play boring/cautios instead of on the edge (which is ok to do with normal saves).

Boring and cautious is the norm in classic Roguelikes, at least for Angband and Nethack, if you want to win.  I do not play Ironman here because I do not have time to afford losing hours of progress if I guess wrong and bite off more than I can chew.  Too many fights until late game feel like numerous double-or-nothing bets, and if I lose once, I lose just about everything.

[Thaago]

Many of my ships are clunkers and open market weapons.  Quality weapons tend to be harder to replace than ships.

Or just don't Ironman. I don't think Ironman works well for games with play-through longer than a few hours anyway. Just forces you to play boring/cautios instead of on the edge (which is ok to do with normal saves).

Boring and cautious is the norm in classic Roguelikes, at least for Angband and Nethack, if you want to win.  I do not play Ironman here because I do not have time to afford losing hours of progress if I guess wrong and bite off more than I can chew.  Too many fights until late game feel like numerous double-or-nothing bets, and if I lose once, I lose just about everything.

I'm significantly more cautious when fighting higher tech ships not because they are more powerful, but because its harder to get your fleet to escape if things go to hell. My latest Iron Man game just had a fleet wipe, save for a wolf and hammerhead. I have a beat up Paragon in dock and a couple hundred K stored up, but urrrgggg.

[intrinsic_parity]

The constant supply of d-ships from battle is actually probably contributing to supply management issues. It's very easy to take a bunch of new ships 'for free' and not realize that the true cost in supplies and fuel is not affordable.

[Megas]

If anything, D-ships with minor D-mods are great for chain-battling because repairs are cheaper.  If player lacks commission, then access to useful ships bigger than frigates at markets is very limited, and recovering derelicts is the easiest way to get ships.  Wished getting good weapons was similarly easy.

For me, recovering from deployment eats far more supplies than traveling.  D-mod ships are usually great for slashing that cost.  Even when I can afford to restore a few ships, I often leave them broken because they are cheap to use.

[intrinsic_parity]

I agree that D-mod ships are much better than pristine ships in terms of supply consumption. My point, however, was that it is easy to salvage multiple new ships after a battle without realizing how much it will cost to repair and maintain those ships. You could easily lose a campaign in the early game by picking up a d-cruiser or a couple destroyers causing you to run out of supplies or fuel.