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[Alex]

The main limitation for these things is ship AI. For mines, a combination of "the station can't run away" and "mines map fairly well to missiles, which the AI knows about" make it work.

One thing I'd love to add is huge asteroids. It feels possible to repurpose some AI behaviors to handle them decently, and they're not explicitly deadly, so there wouldn't be the same "run away forever" concerns. Still, not sure if I'll end up having time for that at any point. I would love to have that in-game, though - provided it worked out well, anyway.

(A directional star corona with shadows from asteroids is right out, though, I'm afraid, as cool as that sounds. It checks all the boxes you don't want checked.)

[Tartiflette]

Big asteroids floating around, that you can drill through with mining weapons to fire on the enemy ships hiding on the other side. Mmmmmh... 

(I mean, gotta use that fancy ship breaking feature for something)

[Wyvern]

Hey, so, just looked at the low-tech mine gif ( https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/979414612696330240 ), and it occurs to me - those strobing flashes right before it explodes could be painful to look at for some people (apparently including me, at least when I've already got a headache from something else).  Maybe another setting like the one to disable the ship explosion flash?  (It's possible that this is also an artifact of the gif not having a great framerate, too...)

Hm... How could we do the signalling well with less of a strobe effect?  Probably want to keep the initial flash on triggering; maybe after that the mine glows, starting out with a wide-spread, diffuse glow, and gradually contracting and becoming more intense, with the final explosion when the glow narrows down to a single point?

[Alex]

That's super zoomed in, so I wouldn't imagine it would have the same effect at a more normal zoom. In fact, it's zoomed in more than the game allows, because twitter decided to scale it up. And there's a hitch in the animation due to the gif's framerate.

Something like this is more representative, and in reality it's likely to be more zoomed out than that:
https://gfycat.com/AmpleSomeAdamsstaghornedbeetle

Still some hitches that aren't there in the real one, though. Does that feel any different/better?

(In terms of alternatives, it has to be visible when in your peripheral vision, so it seems like some relatively fast movement is required...)

[SCC]

Strobing effect is pretty painful when that up close, but in actual combat I think it won't be bad. I hoped one of the mines would have "gradually more lights on the sides of the mine flashing" or "circular flashes going faster".

[Wyvern]

Still some hitches that aren't there in the real one, though. Does that feel any different/better?

That does, yes.

[Megas]

The one thing annoying about the flux bar is the hard flux indicator almost blends perfectly with the rest of the bar, and did not notice it for a while, especially while learning the difference between hard flux and soft flux (and when and a little after I thought only kinetics of any kind put hard flux on shields and nothing else, not non-beams).

Yep - that's what the combat tutorial is for.

I played the tutorial before I played campaign (which was only Corvus at the time, and no character skills), and still missed some things, like the difference between hard flux and soft flux.  (I got the very basics like damage types; use kinetics on shields and HE on armor.)  I do not remember if the tutorial was as polished during the Starfarer days, or if it has updated since then.

Regardless, that hard flux bar is still a bit too subtle, even though I know full well what it means, which is meaningless if it cannot be seen - it is somewhat difficult to see that hard flux bar.  Maybe a slightly brighter shade for the hard flux bar so it stands out a bit more, but not too much.

[Sullivan890]

Eight years man, let's finish this game...

[Inventor Raccoon]

Eight years man, let's finish this game...

I would rather Alex take his time and make an amazing game rather than rush through and end up with features that aren't properly fleshed out and constant thoughts of "this could have been more".

[Alex]

Let's not get off-topic here.

[SafariJohn]

Had a simple idea: Why not give the Shade the Interdictor Array system? Maybe not a perfect match, but it would work better than the EMP system it has.

[TaLaR]

Had a simple idea: Why not give the Shade the Interdictor Array system? Maybe not a perfect match, but it would work better than the EMP system it has.

EMP has at least it's uses as anti-fighter/anti-missile (so you don't need PD on a Shade). Or just to kill off weaker ships while AM blaster are on cooldown. Does not combo that well with phasing though.
Interdictor Array would make Shade just an annoying debuff-bot. Do not want.

[SafariJohn]

I have been using a Shade lately since I don't have an Afflictor, so I can say with certainty that it is a perfectly capable assassin. Giving it Interdictor Array would not change that.

Regarding PD, I've done just fine without any. TBH when I use the EMP system it is usually for kicks rather than because it is useful.

On a related note, I hope the Omen will be more common in 0.9. The few times I've had one I never felt it would be useful enough to risk losing it.

[ANGRYABOUTELVES]

The EMP system is amazing and I will not tolerate anyone insulting it. It combos with the mobility aspect of phasing; you phase behind something that doesn't have shields over its engines, and hit F to instantly flame them out and disable most of their weapons. Not only that, it does 100 energy damage per arc on top of the EMP damage, so the Shade can outright kill other frigates with the EMP emitter alone.

[TaLaR]

The EMP system is amazing and I will not tolerate anyone insulting it. It combos with the mobility aspect of phasing; you phase behind something that doesn't have shields over its engines, and hit F to instantly flame them out and disable most of their weapons. Not only that, it does 100 energy damage per arc on top of the EMP damage, so the Shade can outright kill other frigates with the EMP emitter alone.

You could use same phase cloak to unload up to 3 AM blasters (4 for Afflictor with character skills) into any kind of ship, bypassing it's shield entirely (including omni). Compared to that, using EMP is at best a recreational activity while you wait for blasters to recharge.