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Author Topic: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22  (Read 722469 times)

Morrokain

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Ran into an issue. Tried to start a game. Got 3 shipping orders to another system, took them. Got to the stations, the person requesting them wasn't there. Maybe he went out for a smoke break?

Hyperion doesn't seem to have delicate machinery hullmod. Not sure why.

What stations were they? Did you ping the map from the mission log and did those planets/stations flash?

Edit** Trying to get a sense of where the potential bug would be. I'm seeing if these planets are in any way modified by my code, as a start. Or if its specific to stations, etc.
« Last Edit: April 13, 2018, 08:28:09 PM by Morrokain »
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Ranakastrasz

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Weapon shipments, 3x 10 each. From Jangala in the Corvus system to Sphinx and Tigra City in the Samarra System. Sphinx shipment worked fine. Tigra gave me the route (autopilot to the dock) but once I docked, couldn't complete as the person wasn't there. Quartermaster had a different name. Also, no yellow excelmation point indicating it.

Spelling might be wrong, XD
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I think is easy for Simba and Mufasa sing the Circle of Life when they're on the top of the food chain, I bet the zebras hate that song.

Cigarettes are a lot like hamsters. Perfectly harmless, until you put one in your mouth and light it on fire

Morrokain

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Weapon shipments, 3x 10 each. From Jangala in the Corvus system to Sphinx and Tigra City in the Samarra System. Sphinx shipment worked fine. Tigra gave me the route (autopilot to the dock) but once I docked, couldn't complete as the person wasn't there. Quartermaster had a different name. Also, no yellow excelmation point indicating it.

Spelling might be wrong, XD

Hmm. That is strange. It might be a vanilla bug.

As far as I know, I haven't done anything that modifies that mission class, and the only planet that is modified in any way in that scenario is Jangala's commander from the tutorial ending. It shouldn't affect anything regarding other NPCs or missions.

If you could see the NPC, and there was a yellow exclamation point, but the dialogue to drop the ship was replaced with a generic greeting, that would be a Rules.csv issue. But not being there at all? Strange.

Let me know if it keeps happening. I'll look into it, but I'm honestly not sure where to start.
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Morrokain

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Hyperion doesn't seem to have delicate machinery hullmod. Not sure why.

Fixed.
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Morrokain

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New update available by morning. A couple notes on a couple requested features.

I decided against implementing Delicate Machinery across all hi-tech hulls, for now, and instead have hopefully corrected the loot and balance issues in the Hybrasil system of the campaign layer. If this is not enough, I will investigate further.

I have also decided not to consolidate faction hullmods of the Hegemony, because they are actually purposefully kept separate to accommodate both the Heg Auxiliary buff and the XIV Legion buff, which are different in what stats they give, but the balancing effect remains the same, if that makes sense.

As usual, squeezed in a little new content as well.  :)

Here are the notes:

Current Patch Changes: Update v1.2.1d 4/15/2018
Spoiler

Content Additions
  • Two new frigates, the Neophyte and Exile, have been added to the Archean Order fleets in order to better diversify their tactics and ships from the Adamantine Consortium.
  • Added new skins\variants for the Condor-class Light Carrier and Scarab-class Drone Carrier found in Adamantine Consortium dreadlord fleets.

Balance Changes
  • Reduced upcharge, increased recharge of Iridium Cannon. -This will allow Hellcats to combat interceptors a little better. Before they could almost never effectively target them. They are still inaccurate at it, just less so.
  • Replaced one of the Drover-class Light PD Carrier's Hydra Gunship wings with a Hercules Gunship wing to give it a fair amount of assault potential for an insiginifcant loss in overall PD strength.
  • Increased Peak Operating Time of Megalith and Tyrant.
  • All Interceptors/Fighters/Bombers/Gunships of the same tech level will have the same combat range. (Should solve AI issues with carriers and allow for more diverse fighter-type combinations).

Bug Fixes
  • Fixed min crew requirements of Hydra, Renegade, Liberator, Cyclops and Hellcat fighter-craft.
  • Fixed OP of Hegemony, Pirate and Luddic Church Condor skins. Variants adjusted accordingly.
  • Atlas now correctly read as a capital ship, so Converted Hangar hullmod will add 2 fighter bays, as intended.
  • Corrected Askonia Gate orbit to match nearby entities' orbit speed (now they shouldn't collide in the late campaign).
  • Corrected late-game campaign issues with Archean Order and Tri-Tachyon in Hybrasil. Archean Order strongholds are much, much farther away from the system's star. (There should be less hi-tech debris and the markets should hopefully be a little more stable.)
  • Hyperion-class frigate now has Delicate Machinery hullmod built-in.
  • Slight re-work of Wolf (Arc) skin sprite.
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Morrokain

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I now have permission for Nex features.  :)

I'm going to start implementing those fairly soon, but moving this weekend so work won't start immediately.
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Ranakastrasz

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    Sorry I've been away for a while. I didn't want you to think I had forgotten about this.



Reduced upcharge, increased recharge of Iridium Cannon. -This will allow Hellcats to combat interceptors a little better. Before they could almost never effectively target them. They are still inaccurate at it, just less so.[/li][/list]
Upcharge is the spool-up time, how long between deciding and firing, and actually firing. So less delay and fires faster?
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Replaced one of the Drover-class Light PD Carrier's Hydra Gunship wings with a Hercules Gunship wing to give it a fair amount of assault potential for an insiginifcant loss in overall PD strength.
Increased Peak Operating Time of Megalith and Tyrant.
No comment
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All Interceptors/Fighters/Bombers/Gunships of the same tech level will have the same combat range. (Should solve AI issues with carriers and allow for more diverse fighter-type combinations).
Good. AI issues always a pain, at least if they are on your side.
Now we just need them to send fighter escorts to the correct person....
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Fixed min crew requirements of Hydra, Renegade, Liberator, Cyclops and Hellcat fighter-craft.
Fixed OP of Hegemony, Pirate and Luddic Church Condor skins. Variants adjusted accordingly.
Difference skins had different Stats too? I mean, quality might say different stats, but did not expect that.
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Atlas now correctly read as a capital ship, so Converted Hangar hullmod will add 2 fighter bays, as intended.
Heh. Oops
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Corrected Askonia Gate orbit to match nearby entities' orbit speed (now they shouldn't collide in the late campaign).
Don't worry Warp gates are all equipped with phase shift drive coil thingies, so they can go through planets with no ill effects XD
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Corrected late-game campaign issues with Archean Order and Tri-Tachyon in Hybrasil. Archean Order strongholds are much, much farther away from the system's star. (There should be less hi-tech debris and the markets should hopefully be a little more stable.)
Heh. In those systems, there is only war.
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Hyperion-class frigate now has Delicate Machinery hullmod built-in.
Heh. I would note that Hyperions have an above average chance to be vaporized due to their low health already.
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Slight re-work of Wolf (Arc) skin sprite.
No comment
Patch is up.

Phew, that was a lot of work to re-update the manual and document the dialogue mechanics. :) It took way longer than expected.
I guess I will review and add more complaintsFeedback to it. After I play some more anyway.
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This is a pretty big balance pass, as well, and the update version is a little misleading as there is actually quite a bit of new and revised content for such a tiny update in the version id lol.

I also spent a good amount of time refactoring older scripts and improving existing features. I'm especially excited for bribery to be more fleshed out. The faction specific responses haven't been implemented yet, but I wan't to make sure the "base case" is working as intended before going down that rabbit hole.


Improved Bribery mechanic: Now also allows for bribery upfront- greatly increases the chances of a successful ceasefire negotiation.

      - Can include several increments of bribes(with varying levels of cultural implications per faction) to increases chances of success- the highest bribe almost guarantees success with certain factions.
      - Should the player choose not to bribe upfront and the negotations fail, the player will have a second opportunity to bribe the enemy commander at a higher cost.

Hmm. Can't say much yet. I don't bribe as a matter of course, only when I am certain it is better than trying to fight.
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Improved Cease-Fire mechanic: Now can successfully negotiate a ceasefire with Vengeful rep Pirates (was guaranteed to fail before) and new bribery mechanics allow for more controllable, consistent results for the player, should they really want to avoid a battle.
2 new missions featuring the Hyperion-class Experimental Frigate as a flagship.
Added 3 new starting options for new factions- now consolidated with the former two additions under "Advanced Start".
Consolidated "Normal Start" options (containing the basic start options and separating the destroyer-sized starts more clearly).
New skin and variants for Archean Order's Wolf-class frigate.

Good. Although I would far prefer my idea of the Rep system, that is a good stopgap. The whole, Vengeful requires you to be an existential threat to the faction, and/or become well known for breaking your word (They surrender, you accept, get loot, and then you kill them anyway)
New missions? YAY

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Peak Performance mechanic implemented back into all vessels. Timers greatly increased for all but phase ships, and ships with High Maintenance from their experimental nature, such as the Sunder, Hyperion etc.
Do those ships also have the new higher timers, which are cut by the hullmod? If not, adding/removing that hullmod later would require extra work.
Also, Yay!
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Safety Overrides' Peak Performance reduction now greatly limits prolonged combat performance as a downside to balance out its benefits. OP to install reduced by 33% as a result. This will also make Pathers less annoying to fight in prolonged engagements where the player doesn't happen to have any pursuit or interdiction vessels.
Good. Is the range modifier adjusted in any way from vanilla?

What is Pather anyway? Obviously slang for something.
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Reduced Flux per Salvo of Trebuchet LRM by 33%, missile speed reduced by ~20% (This should make the missile less of an issue when massed and allow it to be more easily added to load-outs. It was also too powerful/useful for its tier and in comparison to the advanced Hunter LRM).
Awesome. Those two missiles were too similar imo, this gives a less powerful and more useable LRM.
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Nova Cannon damage increased by 25% to compensate for loss of EMP component. It should now properly take its place as a top tier PD option with a secondary assault role.
No comment, not Familiar enough with said weapon. Still, a PD/Assault hybrid is cool.
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Added the Refit Time effect of Damaged Flightdeck to Civgrade Hullmod.
Cool. I will have to note the effect that has on those civilian carriers that were treated as dedicated carriers/Freighters. Can't recall which ones those are atm, but yea.
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Op Cost of Operations Center hullmod reduced by 33%.
Yay. More Command points... In most cases.
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Converted Hangar hullmod now increases the number flight decks on existing carriers by +1/+1/+2 on destroyers/cruisers/capitals in addition to its normal effects. This hullmod can now also be installed on existing carriers.
Nice. Does it stack with expanded flight decks?
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Significant buffs to Hyperion: now has medium universal hardpoints at each wing. Increased cost and supplies to maintain/deploy. Variants adjusted accordinly.
Such a legendary ship, now with more customization... And upkeep.
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Reduced flux use of Phase Teleporter by 15% and increased its range significantly.
Which one was Phase teleporter again?
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Decreased Tyrant-class Battleship's turn rate by 60%. It was too inaccurate with beams otherwise.
Huh. What if you had given it built in turret Gyros instead :P
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Liberator Heavy Fighter has had one of its Icer Guns removed, and Limited Range Finders hullmod is now built-in.
As a fighter hullmod, I have no idea what that does. Sounds like a double nerf, but I can't be certain.
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Ion Torpedo projectile hitpoints reduced by 40%.
Don't Ion torpedos work through shields (direct impact, either way dumps flux into the buffer?)
If so, yea, I approve. Otherwise unsure.
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Changed starting variant load-out for Medusa.
Can't say much, aside from Medusa no longer being the Wolf II from vanilla I recall, and this doesn't change that
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Redistributed success rates for some dialogue features- now that bribery is a more mainsteam feature.
No details, only vague understanding of mechanic, so no comment.
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Minor tweaks to deployment costs across all ships (couple exceptions of "minor", like Scarab, that were pseudo bugs), Fleet Points in ships and across skins now properly correlates to deployment cost for calculations in some scripts.
Fixes are always good.
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Fixed description for civilian Star-Liner to include its built-in, yet poorly operating fighter bay.
But we can still go for joyrides, right?
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Correctly implemented extra damage to weapons/engines from fighters- normalized this stat to 50% extra damage in order to reduce combat layer complexity. Removed EMP component from all small PD weapons.
Good. Although, wasn't that EMP on small PD weapons mainly to overload fighters? Not complaining, but yea.
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Updated and corrected Tactics Manual to reflect changes since release. Also greatly expanded the manual, including non-technical documentation of dialogue features and mechanics as well as tips for tactics against certain factions for new players.
Will be around to complainReview when I get the time.
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Fixed bug with Adamantine Consortium Comm-Relay encounter not taking priority over Tribute requests.
Huh. So you refuse Tribute AND are trying to hack their Comm-Relay. I guess they ought to just try and kill you?
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Added story text to "The Great Restructuring" mission.
Fluff! Yay!
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Corrected a few scripts that had incorrect IDs for the Tri-Tachyon corporation.
What kind of scripts? Code scripts, Dialog Scripts, or what?
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Bribe calculation in Cease Fire requests now stems from enemy fleet strength, as intended, rather than player fleet strength.
Wait, so was it looking at ratio between your fleet and your fleet, instead of their fleet and your fleet?
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Corrected fleet strength calculations in Cease-Fire and Commodity request features. It was too punishing when severely outnumbered (almost never happened).
Refactored code of several scripts to run more efficiently and have less redundancy.
Well, If you are seriously outnumbered, attempting to Surrender (with a bribe) should be an option, but just a cease fire (to conserve resources on both sides) should be reasonable.
As for requesting stuff, well, Allies should be more willing if you are weak, enemies if you are strong. Maybe.
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Next up, planning on looking into Nex-like feature implementation, if possible.
Cool. I still think Reputation system is more important :P
« Last Edit: June 12, 2018, 02:11:19 PM by Ranakastrasz »
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I think is easy for Simba and Mufasa sing the Circle of Life when they're on the top of the food chain, I bet the zebras hate that song.

Cigarettes are a lot like hamsters. Perfectly harmless, until you put one in your mouth and light it on fire

Ranakastrasz

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I figured out the mod that caused the missions issue. Naturally, it was the one I wrote.

I have no idea WHY it does that however, I don't think I overwrote anything I shouldn't have.

Edit: Went and did a Notepad++ Dif, and commented out every line I didn't change, and the problem went away. So I clearly overwrote SOMETHING.

[attachment deleted by admin]
« Last Edit: June 13, 2018, 06:22:12 AM by Ranakastrasz »
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I think is easy for Simba and Mufasa sing the Circle of Life when they're on the top of the food chain, I bet the zebras hate that song.

Cigarettes are a lot like hamsters. Perfectly harmless, until you put one in your mouth and light it on fire

Morrokain

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Hey thanks for the feedback! :) Rest assured I am responding but that's a lot to go through so it may take a day or two to get to everything.

Edit: I do want to respond to this, first, though.
Sorry I've been away for a while. I didn't want you to think I had forgotten about this.

Oh no worries I too take breaks from things I play but thanks I always appreciate it!  :D

I have been slacking a little on development after the move, but still working on things slowly.  I will probably pick up speed again soon once things at work settle a bit.
« Last Edit: June 13, 2018, 09:20:36 PM by Morrokain »
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Ranakastrasz

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Hey thanks for the feedback! :) Rest assured I am responding but that's a lot to go through so it may take a day or two to get to everything.

Edit: I do want to respond to this, first, though.
Sorry I've been away for a while. I didn't want you to think I had forgotten about this.

Oh no worries I too take breaks from things I play but thanks I always appreciate it!  :D

I have been slacking a little on development after the move, but still working on things slowly.  I will probably pick up speed again soon once things at work settle a bit.
No problem. I've been busy, College and Internship, so, like, less free time.
Take your time, no hurry, Real life is real and hence somehow more important, etc.
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I think is easy for Simba and Mufasa sing the Circle of Life when they're on the top of the food chain, I bet the zebras hate that song.

Cigarettes are a lot like hamsters. Perfectly harmless, until you put one in your mouth and light it on fire

Ranakastrasz

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Overall comparison between vanilla and this total conversion. Things that are different, and things that are very different

The conversion has four main focuses.

Increasing importance and usability of Fighters and Missiles (and point defense in reaction)
Overhauling Flux mechanics.
Exaggerating differences between weapon types and Ship Types.
Reduced effect of kiting and "Outlasting"

Spoiler
Code
Fighters are smaller, faster, more numerous, and far more dangerous. They still get hard-countered without too much difficulty, but have a dramatic effect.
The majority of ships have fighters of some kind, And fighters have a drastically increased role in the combat meta.

Missiles are something of a combination of Strike and Support weapons (Below) and have limited ammo capacity and use non-trivial amounts of flux. The ammo regenerates over time.


Basic scheme with vanilla examples.

Point Defense - Short range, anti-fighter/Missile. Low damage, often fragmentation. Uses no flux.
-Machine gun, Burst Laser, Flak, Guardian PD laser.
-Deals with Fighters and missiles, and can somewhat damage frigates/stripped armor
Assault - Shorter ranged, common weapon type. Uses no flux.
-Assault gun, Autocannon, Pulse Laser.
-Short range guns, goes with SO and UI well. Large versions often have a flux cost, but generally you can fire freely. Makes fast and High DPS ships.

Strike - Shorter range, stronger weapon with heavy alpha strike. Significant flux cost, limited ammo. The kind of thing that tears through shield or armor in a single shot. Some missiles use this as a subtype.
-Antimatter Blaster, Phase Lance, Plasma Cannon. Rocket Pods, Harpoon(Ish), Reaper, Hammer.
-Assasin/Duelist ships. Focuses on large alpha strikes. Should it fail, massive flux costs can be lethal, so often requires assault ships to assist. Horrific vs smaller scale ships.

Support - Longer range, Normal damage, uses significant flux. Often has limited ammo. Allows engagement from out of normal range, but costs flux (and costs speed boost) as a result. Not good on it's own, but can interdict or support other ships from a distance. Missiles tend to be of this type.
-Needler, Mauler, Hypervelocity Driver, Tachyon Lance, Pilum, Mirv, Locust, Sqall.
-Artillery/Missile ships. Uses large amounts of flux to get high range. Damage is subpar, but supports other ships from a longer distance.

Many weapons and ships have changed loadouts, and some even have different roles.
Medusa is now a high-tech carrier, instead of a teleporter, and the Hound lost it's medium weapon slot for point defence drones.

Weapons as well. Many weapons have been bumped up an extra size. Harpoons are considered medium or large, and Heavy mauler is large. A lot of new small weapons were added (or are left as is, like the machine gun) Some weapons changed roles (Swarmer missile is more anti-frigate than anti-fighter, and the Locust/Hornet/Stinger family takes it's place) Salamander is a medium missile, with a smaller Bolo missile replacing it.
As such, read descriptions before buying.

As a consequence, Many ships will have far lower tier weapons, (but more of them) and as ships get larger, they will be decidedly scarier. (Especially because of the range advantage with size)

Most ships have fighter wings. Frigates have them a bit more often, destroyers often have at least one. Cruisers almost always have at least 2 wings, and Capitals have at least 4.
Some are hardcoded(DRM broke civilization, so it isn't too surprising), so you can't swap PD drones out for bombers, but many more let you customize.


Flux mechanics are quite different from normal.
Hard and soft flux are less distinguished in general.
Shield upkeep is massive, 70-90% of default flux. As such, simply raising shields will cut flux disipation by a massive amount.
Strike and support weapons, especially missiles, use large chunks of flux up instantly, or at least per volly, ranging from trivial 50 to 5k flux instantly.
So, make sure that you have enough flux to cover the cost of firing AND enough vents to maintain constant fire. If you don't have much give, expect shields to not help you much.
As such, in addition to flux vents, capacity is extremely important, just to let you fire powerful weapons.
Magazines and Missile racks give a +50% to capacity, which corresponds to a 50% increase in instant flux used. (But not sustained, since it doesn't effect regeneration)


Zero-flux bonus is a 5% bonus, so ships with shields up or only using PD/Assault weapons will always get a significant boost to speed. Correspondingly, Support and strike ships will suffer in speed, in exchange for their alpha-strike/Range advantage. As such, Assassins and Sniper/Kite builds will be more difficult or impractical (At least without support)


So, you can make an assassin (Strike, Speed, but fragile and may strain flux. Or use torpedos, which recharge very slowly but use no flux)
Assault Brawler (Assault focus, maybe with a but of strike/support) which is fast, short range, and has plenty of flux for shields.
Assault/Striker (Unloads strike, but sticks around, relying on armor and assault weapons to win, or uses assault weapons and then strike to overload the target.)
Support (Long ranged weapons/Missiles. Flux heavy, so will need to be covered with fighters/Assault ships to protect it) Is likely to spend most of it's flux on periodic vollies, and it's speed and shield suffers as a result.
Carrier - Many ships of many types count as carriers, although their OP budget can suffer.
PD - Carriers lots of PD weapons to ward off fighters, and/or plenty of intercepters/PD drones. Surprisingly useful, given that just covering most angles with 1-2 PD guns tends to be insufficient. Intercepter missiles are especially effective.
Can seriously wreck swarms of fighters or the heavier, but still agile fighters.


Outlasting ships by just kiting them until their CR runs out is far less practical.
Assault ships tend to be fast but short lived, so it doesn't take long, but they will catch any ship that tries to kite, or fail rather quickly.
Support/Long ranged ships tend to suffer from a lack of zero-flux, so cannot run effectively. Both speed boosting mods (Injector and SO) cut range drastically, so they can't really use them.
Fighters are faster than you, and love to damage your weapons and Engines (Built in EMP) so fleets will generally have intercepters/Interdictors around. (Forcing you to take at least 5% shield damage or breaking your engines)
As such, avoiding combat is much harder. Even the Tempest itself will have trouble.
[close]
« Last Edit: June 21, 2018, 10:24:00 AM by Ranakastrasz »
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I think is easy for Simba and Mufasa sing the Circle of Life when they're on the top of the food chain, I bet the zebras hate that song.

Cigarettes are a lot like hamsters. Perfectly harmless, until you put one in your mouth and light it on fire

Morrokain

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Upcharge is the spool-up time, how long between deciding and firing, and actually firing. So less delay and fires faster?
Yes, the spool-up time was long enough that by the time the weapon would actually fire its first shot the targeted interceptor had moved out of the firing arc and so the AI stops charging the weapon until a new  target is found... and rinse and repeat. It made it rare to even see them fire in some cases. Its much more visually accurate from a fighter dogfight perspective now, and the heavy fighters can at least somewhat combat interceptors without being able to hit an interceptor with a full salvo of their weapon.

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Now we just need them to send fighter escorts to the correct person....
I think I saw somewhere that has been suggested and fixed for the next update? Not 100% sure.

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Difference skins had different Stats too? I mean, quality might say different stats, but did not expect that.
Yup! At least 70% or more of the skins come with stat modifiers. Faction skins, especially, tune the ship towards that faction's doctrine, weapons, built-in hullmods and ship systems.

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Don't worry Warp gates are all equipped with phase shift drive coil thingies, so they can go through planets with no ill effects XD
This issue was you couldn't click on the base when it was encompassed by the planet, so you couldn't dock there for a time. It also looked quite messy. :P

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Heh. In those systems, there is only war.
*Sad face* Well, more extreme measures may have to be taken and a script to remove cruisers and up from wrecks may be necessary. I thought distance mattered more. Oh well.

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Heh. I would note that Hyperions have an above average chance to be vaporized due to their low health already.
Cruiser sized shields though! If you don't have major flux using weapons slotted it can take a serious beating when its shields are up.

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Good. Although I would far prefer my idea of the Rep system, that is a good stopgap. The whole, Vengeful requires you to be an existential threat to the faction, and/or become well known for breaking your word (They surrender, you accept, get loot, and then you kill them anyway)
I would actually like to redo the rep system at some point, but it may already be happening in the next update since so much is changing on the campaign layer with faction colonies and blueprints. Since there are other equally cool and pressing things to do, such as Nex features, Tutorial (there is some really cool stuff there being backlogged by a single encounter not working as intended), more customize-able officers through mercenary recruitment centers, and talking to your officers on the campaign level for advice on engagements and nearby points of interest, I am taking a "wait and see" stance for now. I feel the same way about the current dialogue system implementing escorts from friendly factions and assaults on strongholds. Why take the time to build that when I will likely get a working (and probably better designed :D ) version of it when .9 comes out? If not, well, then I'll tackle that with the likely new API I'll have access to at that point.

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New missions? YAY
:)

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Do those ships also have the new higher timers, which are cut by the hullmod? If not, adding/removing that hullmod later would require extra work.
Also, Yay!
I think they were boosted, but I can't remember to be honest. I know at the time I had a certain balance in mind. You should never be able to always outlast CR in one of those ships compared to one with normal timers. I think I was factoring in skill boosts and hullmod boosts to that stat, so phase ship timers are probably pretty low, and ships like the Sunder and Hyperion. If not, those ships would be pretty broken since they can either move around unhindered due to speed, or attack from a seriously long range.

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Good. Is the range modifier adjusted in any way from vanilla?

What is Pather anyway? Obviously slang for something.
I think its either 400 or 600 (plus 25% original weapon range, so weapons like the trebuchet actually still have a bit of range to them)

Ha, "Pather" is slang for Luddic Path. I think I saw it used in a blog post somewhere once upon a time. David maybe? You know I'm not sure at this point, I've been following this game for so long... maybe I made that up?? :P

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Nice. Does it stack with expanded flight decks?
I don't see that hullmod. I know I renamed the original hullmod this is based on, so maybe that is what you are thinking of?

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Such a legendary ship, now with more customization... And upkeep.
It's pretty darn fun to fly now, imo. :D

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Which one was Phase teleporter again?
The ship system the Hyperion uses. Long range teleport.

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Huh. What if you had given it built in turret Gyros instead :P
It's accelleration was pretty high considering you also have phase acceleration and the time warp ship system to increase. It kind of needed it, and the AI is much scarier with that ship now. Much, much, scarier.

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As a fighter hullmod, I have no idea what that does. Sounds like a double nerf, but I can't be certain.
It is, and it was needed. Massing them was way too optimal against almost everything. Having the ability to keep many ships at high flux from long range is a big deal.


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Don't Ion torpedos work through shields (direct impact, either way dumps flux into the buffer?)
If so, yea, I approve. Otherwise unsure.
They do equal damage to all defense types, but they don't penetrate shields. I nerfed their hit points because massing Renegade fighter-bombers could kill almost anything regardless of point defense. They feel adequately strong now.

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No details, only vague understanding of mechanic, so no comment.
Essentially, I reworked NPCs to ask for bribes less often, and only when a player has not offered a bribe themselves. I also made it harder to negotiate a cease-fire without a bribe, but the bribe tiers give a lot of customization to how much you are willing to invest to end hostilities and avoid a fight. It's not fully fleshed out yet, but there is also some political ramifications to certain bribes for certain factions, but I'm not telling there... ;)

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But we can still go for joyrides, right?
Always!

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Good. Although, wasn't that EMP on small PD weapons mainly to overload fighters? Not complaining, but yea.
It was so fighters would do more damage to weapon and engine hardpoints. It had the side effect of making PD better against fighters, but that was unintended and actually caused me to have to build in the anti-emp hullmod in a few cases of the higher-tech fighters and bombers that don't have shields.

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Huh. So you refuse Tribute AND are trying to hack their Comm-Relay. I guess they ought to just try and kill you?
Have you tried it? I believe that is likely how that would end, haha. They are far less forgiving than any other faction.

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Fluff! Yay!
:) more of that in the future for sure!

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What kind of scripts? Code scripts, Dialog Scripts, or what?
Code scripts. Technical explanation: some of my nested loops in certain calculations were redundant and could be reduced to a single loop higher up in the script. It causes the script to run and load a bit faster. Probably not noticeable for most, but optimization is always good.

*As a side note for those technically inclined, my code in this mod is purposefully not isolated in classes so that players new to coding can find everything that's manipulated in a single script. I find it amusing that when I started out it was easier to read "bad" code. I could more clearly see how the data was manipulated downstream in the code's workflow since it was contained in a single file and not passed into new classes all the time. I obviously won't go too crazy with that for readability, but for those that were wondering that's the reason.

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Wait, so was it looking at ratio between your fleet and your fleet, instead of their fleet and your fleet?
No, but your own fleet size played too large a role in how much of a bribe was required, rather than how many enemies you would theoretically be paying off. This just feels more intuitive.

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Well, If you are seriously outnumbered, attempting to Surrender (with a bribe) should be an option, but just a cease fire (to conserve resources on both sides) should be reasonable.
As for requesting stuff, well, Allies should be more willing if you are weak, enemies if you are strong. Maybe.
Try it out. I think you will find bribing while outnumbered is possible if you are willing to pay a large amount to do so. Cease-fires without a bribe would be pretty rare unless dealing with a nice faction and a generous commander. As for requesting things, its actually pretty complicated. Allies typically are more willing to help in general, but there are a lot of variables. Commanders who are more aggressive are less likely, and not every faction treats fleet strength the same way. Warlike factions are swayed by strength far more (almost 4 times more influenced if I remember) and greedy factions will often agree only if you pay an exorbitant amount for the goods. There are definitely many patterns and trends to discover in how different cultures will react to things, but I wouldn't expect or rely on the same result in the same circumstance each time. Its meant to be as unpredictable as real people would be.

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Cool. I still think Reputation system is more important :P
Noted. :)  See above explanation for why I am not tackling that just yet.
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Ranakastrasz

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Yes, the spool-up time was long enough that by the time the weapon would actually fire its first shot the targeted interceptor had moved out of the firing arc and so the AI stops charging the weapon until a new  target is found... and rinse and repeat. It made it rare to even see them fire in some cases. Its much more visually accurate from a fighter dogfight perspective now, and the heavy fighters can at least somewhat combat interceptors without being able to hit an interceptor with a full salvo of their weapon.
Ah, the whole, Open fire, they are out of range, then the projectile is released. Yea, that ruins accuracy. Do guns track while spooling up? And do their turn speed slow down when spooling up? Either way, I can see the issue.
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I think I saw somewhere that has been suggested and fixed for the next update? Not 100% sure.
Hmm. In the command screen, there isn't a distinction between telling the carrier to escort and fighters to escort. Mainly because fighters are missiles now. Or something.
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Yup! At least 70% or more of the skins come with stat modifiers. Faction skins, especially, tune the ship towards that faction's doctrine, weapons, built-in hullmods and ship systems.
Like Pirates, which always fight. Is it possible to make that a hullmod you can remove?
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This issue was you couldn't click on the base when it was encompassed by the planet, so you couldn't dock there for a time. It also looked quite messy. :P
Ah, selection box issues. Yep. I remember that from Warcraft III.
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*Sad face* Well, more extreme measures may have to be taken and a script to remove cruisers and up from wrecks may be necessary. I thought distance mattered more. Oh well.
Haven't seen a full on battle there yet, although I AM trying to provoke one.
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Cruiser sized shields though! If you don't have major flux using weapons slotted it can take a serious beating when its shields are up.
I meant that if you break through the shields, the Hyperion doesn't have much health behind it, so it highly likely to be overkilled enough it would just disinitigate into fragments instead of being potentially recoverable.
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I would actually like to redo the rep system at some point, but it may already be happening in the next update since so much is changing on the campaign layer with faction colonies and blueprints. Since there are other equally cool and pressing things to do, such as Nex features, Tutorial (there is some really cool stuff there being backlogged by a single encounter not working as intended), more customize-able officers through mercenary recruitment centers, and talking to your officers on the campaign level for advice on engagements and nearby points of interest, I am taking a "wait and see" stance for now. I feel the same way about the current dialogue system implementing escorts from friendly factions and assaults on strongholds. Why take the time to build that when I will likely get a working (and probably better designed :D ) version of it when .9 comes out? If not, well, then I'll tackle that with the likely new API I'll have access to at that point.
True that. Wait and see, given we have upcoming patch notes.
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I think they were boosted, but I can't remember to be honest. I know at the time I had a certain balance in mind. You should never be able to always outlast CR in one of those ships compared to one with normal timers. I think I was factoring in skill boosts and hullmod boosts to that stat, so phase ship timers are probably pretty low, and ships like the Sunder and Hyperion. If not, those ships would be pretty broken since they can either move around unhindered due to speed, or attack from a seriously long range.
Eh, not a huge deal either way. Will report if any actual issues are visible.
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I think its either 400 or 600 (plus 25% original weapon range, so weapons like the trebuchet actually still have a bit of range to them)

Ha, "Pather" is slang for Luddic Path. I think I saw it used in a blog post somewhere once upon a time. David maybe? You know I'm not sure at this point, I've been following this game for so long... maybe I made that up?? :P
Ah. Right. Makes sense. Using that from now on.
I saw the code for it at one point. I think it is 450, but was asking if the equation or mechanic was changed or not.
And missiles don't really get effected, aside from autofire range.
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I don't see that hullmod. I know I renamed the original hullmod this is based on, so maybe that is what you are thinking of?
There are two hullmods in vanilla. One that gives better flight deck stats (faster rearming and respawning) and one that adds flight decks to ships without them.
I actually can't recall exactly what you did with them.
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It's pretty darn fun to fly now, imo. :D
Oh yes. Its so clearly a hero's customized super-frigate that you might expect from an RPG. But it still hates fighters, and isn't THAT durable.
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The ship system the Hyperion uses. Long range teleport.
Theres Phase teleporter, whatever the wolf has in vanilla, whatever it has in this TC, (Phase skimmer and something else) and possibly a few others. I can never get them straight.

Shame the Hyperion has a teleport cooldown lol. But, well, it does make it about as fast as a fighter instead of way faster, so yea.
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It's accelleration was pretty high considering you also have phase acceleration and the time warp ship system to increase. It kind of needed it, and the AI is much scarier with that ship now. Much, much, scarier.
Yep. Just pointing out that Gyros also could resolve that problem. Faster turret turning speed and all.
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It is, and it was needed. Massing them was way too optimal against almost everything. Having the ability to keep many ships at high flux from long range is a big deal.
Uhm, I was asking what it does. What all the fighter hullmods do while I'm at it, since you can't exactly view them ingame.... Should be part of the codex imo.
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They do equal damage to all defense types, but they don't penetrate shields. I nerfed their hit points because massing Renegade fighter-bombers could kill almost anything regardless of point defense. They feel adequately strong now.
Energy damage missiles eh? Huh. Might have been a different mod that had Ion torpedos that on impact added flux to the target directly.
That... Is a scary thought.
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Essentially, I reworked NPCs to ask for bribes less often, and only when a player has not offered a bribe themselves. I also made it harder to negotiate a cease-fire without a bribe, but the bribe tiers give a lot of customization to how much you are willing to invest to end hostilities and avoid a fight. It's not fully fleshed out yet, but there is also some political ramifications to certain bribes for certain factions, but I'm not telling there... ;)
Yep. I haven't had to mess with bribes for a bit, but the flexability might well help.
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Always!
XD
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It was so fighters would do more damage to weapon and engine hardpoints. It had the side effect of making PD better against fighters, but that was unintended and actually caused me to have to build in the anti-emp hullmod in a few cases of the higher-tech fighters and bombers that don't have shields.
Yea. I suppose that makes sense.
Do fighter weapons still deal EMP, and as such the EMP resist hullmod effects it? If not, how does it work again?
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Have you tried it? I believe that is likely how that would end, haha. They are far less forgiving than any other faction.
Naw. Com relays are basically useless atm. Sure, it tells you the prices, sometimes, but you can't find planets with resources you need for a mission, or anything useful.. Maybe with the intel revamp they will be useful though.
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:) more of that in the future for sure!

Code scripts. Technical explanation: some of my nested loops in certain calculations were redundant and could be reduced to a single loop higher up in the script. It causes the script to run and load a bit faster. Probably not noticeable for most, but optimization is always good.

*As a side note for those technically inclined, my code in this mod is purposefully not isolated in classes so that players new to coding can find everything that's manipulated in a single script. I find it amusing that when I started out it was easier to read "bad" code. I could more clearly see how the data was manipulated downstream in the code's workflow since it was contained in a single file and not passed into new classes all the time. I obviously won't go too crazy with that for readability, but for those that were wondering that's the reason.
Am a programmer, and I prefer being able to trace where the code goes. Usually you can goto the definition of a function easily, but notepad++ or w.e. can't do that. I guess if I was serious about Starsector modding, I might try to setup a proper environment.
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No, but your own fleet size played too large a role in how much of a bribe was required, rather than how many enemies you would theoretically be paying off. This just feels more intuitive.
Ah. So the larger your fleet, the more of a bribe it cost, when it really ought to be kinda the opposite. to an extent. Maybe.
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Try it out. I think you will find bribing while outnumbered is possible if you are willing to pay a large amount to do so. Cease-fires without a bribe would be pretty rare unless dealing with a nice faction and a generous commander. As for requesting things, its actually pretty complicated. Allies typically are more willing to help in general, but there are a lot of variables. Commanders who are more aggressive are less likely, and not every faction treats fleet strength the same way. Warlike factions are swayed by strength far more (almost 4 times more influenced if I remember) and greedy factions will often agree only if you pay an exorbitant amount for the goods. There are definitely many patterns and trends to discover in how different cultures will react to things, but I wouldn't expect or rely on the same result in the same circumstance each time. Its meant to be as unpredictable as real people would be.
I haven't been caught in a bad spot in my current game, but I will certainly attempt it if needed.
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Noted. :)  See above explanation for why I am not tackling that just yet.
Indeed.
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I might have mangled the quote a bit.
« Last Edit: June 17, 2018, 02:12:56 PM by Ranakastrasz »
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I think is easy for Simba and Mufasa sing the Circle of Life when they're on the top of the food chain, I bet the zebras hate that song.

Cigarettes are a lot like hamsters. Perfectly harmless, until you put one in your mouth and light it on fire

Garsad

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Awesome mod! I can't sleep -_-
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MesoTroniK

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At first this mod was not flagged as a totalConversion in the mod_info file, then some folks commented on it and then it was flagged as such.

But now it appears the latest version is again not flagged as a TC when it really should be.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2018, 05:32:57 PM by MesoTroniK »
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