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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: Skill Changes, Part 1  (Read 29134 times)

Alex

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #225 on: July 14, 2021, 08:34:59 AM »

Given the flattening of the combat tree, you could still pick up 2 combat tree skills (like whatever Shield Modulation became + Target Analysis), grab Energy Weapon Mastery and Gunnery Implants as of your 8 picks in technology, and then 2 Industry personal skills on the way to Hull Restoration.  Depending on what the industry personal skills are like, that might be a solid set of 6 skills to pilot the Radiant with, along with the +10% CR from 2 s-mods in Hull Restoration.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but without the Alpha core, the a 2 s-mod Radiant (you're at 100 points of automated ships or less) should be sitting at 70-100+100+10=80% base CR.  You could even pick up 2 alpha core 5 DP Redacted frigates for escort duty and still be hitting that CR.

 On the other hand, if one of the Industry personal skills is a ballistic buff, then maybe not so much, as you're then got 5 applicable skills. Still, it's the equivalent of an a standard officer.

That sounds pretty solid! And both Industry personal skills would be handy on a Radiant - perhaps not optimal, but definitely useful.

Out of the four aptitudes which one got changed the most?

I'd say Leadership, probably - it went from effectively not having any top-tier skills to having two, and had a few changes in the lower skills, besides.

How often do bounty fleets get DP-reducing skills on their admirals? In other words, is it another "you have to take this just to break even" skill, like the +2 officers one?

Right now, not very often. But I'm not sure that take makes sense - for one, if they got one of those, that'd be instead of some other commander-level skill.

... The system looks extremely ad-hoc and inelegant now. ...

Hmm, that's interesting - I mean, "elegant" is going to be subjective to a large degree, but still. The 0.95a system has a lot of uniformity and symmetry, but so does something like brutalist architecture, and not too many people would call *that* elegant. (Though I'm sure some would...) To me, the new system is much more elegant - it takes away unnecessary restrictions and flows naturally instead of being so rigid. So I really couldn't disagree more, but, again, subjective!
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #226 on: July 14, 2021, 08:59:56 AM »

That sounds pretty solid! And both Industry personal skills would be handy on a Radiant - perhaps not optimal, but definitely useful.
And what would they do? We know the name of one but no details on effects of either.
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Alex

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #227 on: July 14, 2021, 09:08:04 AM »

There'll be some detail on those in Part 2 :)
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Vanshilar

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #228 on: July 14, 2021, 09:33:38 AM »

Progression seems more confusing than before and doesn't fix forcing the player to take skills just to access other skills.

Uh that's the whole point and is by design. More powerful skills are gated behind requirements so that players don't just pick the most powerful skills and end up with overpowered builds. That way the game can offer powerful skills without them being game-breaking. Rather than saying "okay weaker skills cost 1 point, more powerful skills cost 5 points" for example (where the first 4 points really do provide zero benefit), the gate is that you have to spend points on other skills first, so you still get some benefit from those skill points.

It's not as if Starsector is the first game to do this, I mean in Starcraft you can't just build carriers or battlecruisers from the start, you also have to work through a progression. That's why it's a "skill tree".

Edit: For example, looking at the Quality Captains mod, the player can just take Special Modifications and Automated Ships together right away, without any prerequisites. That eliminates the need to choose between improving the power of every ship (Spec Mod) or getting a powerful ship (Auto Ships) -- the player gets to have both. You can also take Systems Expertise and Missile Specialization together, meaning (in my case) Doom with antimatter missile spam. So it removes the need for the player to make those hard choices and tradeoffs, leading to overpowered fleets. Hard to see how that's balanced, IMO.
« Last Edit: July 14, 2021, 09:58:39 AM by Vanshilar »
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Deshara

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #229 on: July 14, 2021, 09:59:42 AM »

Progression seems more confusing than before and doesn't fix forcing the player to take skills just to access other skills.

Uh that's the whole point and is by design. More powerful skills are gated behind requirements so that players don't just pick the most powerful skills and end up with overpowered builds.

plus its a fix to the problem of players pigeon-holing themselves. If the game doesnt let you get access to a range upgrade for every gun on your ship until after you've picked one of two skills that either upgrades your fleet's ability to outrun enemies or upgrades your fleet's ability to hide & sneak past enemies, then the campaign can be designed around players having either one of those two abilities. You can have a mission that requires the player to either kite an enemy fleet away from an objective then outrun them back to the objective, or requires the player to kite the enemy fleet away from the objective then sneak back to it while they look for you -- which you may note is actually a story mission in the game
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Sutopia

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #230 on: July 14, 2021, 10:07:59 AM »

There'll be some detail on those in Part 2 :)
Will part 2 be covering all the new skills / skills that have changes?
When will part 2 publish?
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Alex

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #231 on: July 14, 2021, 10:12:29 AM »

Will part 2 be covering all the new skills / skills that have changes?
When will part 2 publish?

It won't cover *everything* - I think that'd probably be a bit too dry. But it'll cover the things I think are more interesting, and (without looking at the draft) at least one of those two new industry skills is.

And, pretty soon!
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Madbadger2

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #232 on: July 15, 2021, 09:30:44 PM »

Ah, good point/something to be aware of. <looks at Bulk Transport> (I actually kind of want to replace that one with something more interesting; right now it's definitely a bench-warmer.)

Finally registered a forum account after a year playing this game to reply to this: Bulk Transport is definitely not a bench-warmer for my playstyle; It's either the 2nd (after Navigation) or the 1st skill (if I'm playing the turtorial) I take. It's good at the start, it's good in midgame, and it's good in the endgame (the high cap on the personnel capacity helps with the marines needed for raids against high end targets.)  It opens up new possibilities for play (an early tanker can be skipped if you have exploration ships, you can afford more crew losses, it really takes the sting out of the crew capacity/minimum crew D-mods, and the +1 burn for civ ships means militarization or Augmented Drive fields is not necessarily mandatory for most of them to keep up with fleet speed. I could go on for a while 8-))

If you wanted to nerf/change it because you thought it was *too good*, I'd understand. But please don't get rid of it because you think it's a bench-warmer 8-)

Thank you for making a great game with loads of replayability.
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Deshara

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #233 on: July 15, 2021, 11:32:57 PM »

idk if i ever commented on it but +1 to bulk transport. It's a must-have for me
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Yunru

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #234 on: July 16, 2021, 03:32:33 AM »

I always rushed straight from storage space to fuel recovered, to free fleet healing after battle: They're just too tasty not to.

Alex

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #235 on: July 16, 2021, 08:20:37 AM »

Duly noted! I appreciate the feedback.
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Megas

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #236 on: July 16, 2021, 08:31:01 AM »

I like Bulk Transport to handle loot bombs (extra loot from the other skill is no good if I do not have the capacity) and especially +1 burn to civilian ships that removes the need to put Militarized Subsystems solely for more burn, and possibly hogging DP pool from other skills because they may count as military for skill purposes.

While I would trade it for another combat skill if given the choice, I do not mind taking Bulk Transport as a prereq for higher Industry skills.
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Wyvern

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #237 on: July 16, 2021, 08:36:39 AM »

Agreed. Bulk Transport's implementation could use some improvement - the way its effects are displayed to the player is not ideal* - but the actual effect is surprisingly meaningful and useful.

*I made a suggestion thread on this a while back, though it didn't garner much attention.
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Wyvern is 100% correct about the math.

Madbadger2

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #238 on: July 16, 2021, 11:48:57 AM »

Agreed. Bulk Transport's implementation could use some improvement - the way its effects are displayed to the player is not ideal* - but the actual effect is surprisingly meaningful and useful.

*I made a suggestion thread on this a while back, though it didn't garner much attention.

Oh yeah, very much this. Wyvern's description works  8-)
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Brainwright

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #239 on: July 17, 2021, 11:47:03 AM »

First off, hi and welcome to the forum :)

Second, that sounds more like an exploit than a style of play! And I'm fairly sure you only get the "limited engagement" recovery if you win the engagement; it's a mechanic meant to prevent an exploit where you'd deploy a frigate, retreat, and have the enemy ships suffer the full CR cost for deploying.

Yo!  Thanks!

And yeah, it would be an exploit the way things currently are, but there's a good argument for tweeking things so it works.

As it is, there's no benefit for being cheap and less capable.  You do spend less supplies deploying, but you die more, too, which eliminates the bonus and adds crew loss to the cost as well.  So the reduced supply expenditure is pointless : you can't draw the battle out to punish the opponent on endurance.  Longer peak operating time doesn't work, that just punishes the player.  Worse yet, the missile dependent hulls don't benefit from having all combat in one, long apocalyptic battle.  You may as well beef up the stats and make all the ships more or less in line based on capability.

However, we can make it work.  From what I see, you can just count a clean disengage as denying the AI from getting a limited engagement.  This gives the player a chance at building a cheap, low-tech fleet with a small wing of dedicated assault craft to engage a superior fleet and try to pick away at it until the less robust high-tech fleets begin suffering from CR degradation.  Missileboats also get to reload between fights, so it's an all around bonus to low-tech fleets.

The disparities in the tech levels have always bothered me, as I rather like the low-tech ships in general.  However, giving them more tech to accommodate just feels like making low-tech into midline or high tech.  We can actually shift the tuning over to logistics and keep the ships themselves exactly as they are.

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