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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: Phase Ship Time Boost  (Read 4759 times)

Thaago

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Phase Ship Time Boost
« on: April 22, 2018, 10:19:50 AM »

At present, I find piloting phase ships boring because everything is moving so slowly. You don't have the 0 flux bonus to speed, and the enemy might as well not be moving. With the Harbinger, I'll enter phase, let it drift and then just go watch the main map unpaused for a while, perhaps issuing some orders. Its a lot of waiting.

Could we have it that the time boost is split down the middle, so thing go by quicker? As in, the Phase ship is moving at 3x speed according to "base speed", but the action is only slowed by 2x.

When piloting other ships, nothing changes wrt phase ships, but when piloting a phase ship, time on board the ship speeds up a bit to compensate.

Did that make sense to anyone? Thoughts?
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Megas

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Re: Phase Ship Time Boost
« Reply #1 on: April 22, 2018, 10:31:05 AM »

I already play the entire game at 2f, and if not for Afflictor and game fidelity, I probably would have raised game speed to 3f.  Starsector gameplay is excruciatingly slow compared to other games.

I would love it if time shift sped up the playership instead of slowing down the world, but I know others here oppose that.

I would not mind autopilot or fast-forward toggle key ala Transcendence (x5 speed) or Endless Sky (x3 speed) to speed up the world.
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Thaago

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Re: Phase Ship Time Boost
« Reply #2 on: April 22, 2018, 10:33:50 AM »

I don't mind normal gameplay, but with phase ships I will actually tab over to check headlines/code progress while unpaused because nothing is happening and its going to take 30 seconds to get in position.
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TaLaR

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Re: Phase Ship Time Boost
« Reply #3 on: April 22, 2018, 10:40:03 AM »

I find time dilation fine where it is. Losing precise control while phased would make phase ships mostly useless (that is player-piloted performance will degrade to same baseline AI demonstrates).

Afflictor+UI has 190 speed skill-less. That's still way faster than most other ships, no need to make it actually control like 570.
« Last Edit: April 22, 2018, 10:41:37 AM by TaLaR »
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Alex

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Re: Phase Ship Time Boost
« Reply #4 on: April 22, 2018, 11:03:20 AM »

Gave this a quick try, and it feels surprisingly bad. Even just speeding it up by 50% (.5 perceived-outside-time-mult instead of .33) makes using phase ships pretty rough. The fine control is just so nice to have.

Hmm. Tried this: doubling the perceived time rate when there are no enemies of any sort within 3000 units. Feels like it does the job, but also could feel a bit off if all of a sudden you go slow when an off-screen enemy brushes by that range. Plus it doesn't convey what's going on to the player, so this could be quite confusing. Not sure this is a net positive.

The main case when you're flying around phased while nothing is going on *is* traveling from one part of the fight to another, right? Seems like mostly it'd be ok to travel in normal-space, unless it's really time critical. Another solution here could be to make peak time tick down while you're phased, regardless, to make this behavior less useful.
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Megas

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Re: Phase Ship Time Boost
« Reply #5 on: April 22, 2018, 11:20:13 AM »

Quote
Hmm. Tried this: doubling the perceived time rate when there are no enemies of any sort within 3000 units. Feels like it does the job, but also could feel a bit off if all of a sudden you go slow when an off-screen enemy brushes by that range. Plus it doesn't convey what's going on to the player, so this could be quite confusing. Not sure this is a net positive.
I would not want that kind of unreliability.  Having a run button that doubles or triples the speed of the world when player is bored and could activate would be more useful.

Quote
The main case when you're flying around phased while nothing is going on *is* traveling from one part of the fight to another, right?
Combat is generally time-critical, especially when capturing objectives (phase is like poor-man's teleport) or chasing down survivors.

Quote
I find time dilation fine where it is. Losing precise control while phased would make phase ships mostly useless (that is player-piloted performance will degrade to same baseline AI demonstrates).
I do not think triple speed necessarily loses fine control, if the game world is set to 1f or less.  (I generally prefer 3f more often than 2f.)  That said, it could be too twitchy for some.

P.S.  It does not seem fair if cloak always drains CR but having shields on does not.
« Last Edit: April 22, 2018, 11:25:28 AM by Megas »
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Thaago

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Re: Phase Ship Time Boost
« Reply #6 on: April 22, 2018, 11:40:11 AM »

Gave this a quick try, and it feels surprisingly bad. Even just speeding it up by 50% (.5 perceived-outside-time-mult instead of .33) makes using phase ships pretty rough. The fine control is just so nice to have.

Hmm. Tried this: doubling the perceived time rate when there are no enemies of any sort within 3000 units. Feels like it does the job, but also could feel a bit off if all of a sudden you go slow when an off-screen enemy brushes by that range. Plus it doesn't convey what's going on to the player, so this could be quite confusing. Not sure this is a net positive.

The main case when you're flying around phased while nothing is going on *is* traveling from one part of the fight to another, right? Seems like mostly it'd be ok to travel in normal-space, unless it's really time critical. Another solution here could be to make peak time tick down while you're phased, regardless, to make this behavior less useful.

Thanks for giving it a try, pity it doesn't work well. Traveling is half the main case, but the other is looping around big ships like Onslaughts in a Harbinger or even Afflictor. It just takes a long time and its not like anything can hurt you.
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xenoargh

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Re: Phase Ship Time Boost
« Reply #7 on: April 22, 2018, 04:33:50 PM »

How about have the ratio alter rapidly as you approach things, with some sound effect to tell us what's going on?

1.  Traveling, nobody within 2000 SUs, time dilation is 5X or more; you're basically teleporting.

2.  Enemies within 2000 rapidly goes from "wow, I'm fast" to "wow, they're slow" depending on how far away they are, with maximum slowdown achieved at 750-ish, with time / sound dilation.   

Then there'd be a roughly 3-second timeout so that we can't switch modes quickly due to changes; i.e., kiting into 1900 range will result in slowdown for the next 3 seconds, even if you kite out.

3.  I'd not include Fighters in the slowdown effect, unless they're actively targeting your ship, just to keep things feeling right and not have constant reversion to slow-mo.
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TaLaR

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Re: Phase Ship Time Boost
« Reply #8 on: April 22, 2018, 04:57:12 PM »

Maybe just have manual speed-up button? Phase ships aren't the worst case in 'taking ton of time to get to enemies' anyway - that's Paragon.
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Death_Silence_66

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Re: Phase Ship Time Boost
« Reply #9 on: April 23, 2018, 03:31:08 AM »

Maybe just have manual speed-up button? Phase ships aren't the worst case in 'taking ton of time to get to enemies' anyway - that's Paragon.
I second this. A few speed controls would be lovely, something like .5, 1, 2, 3.
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Wyvern

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Re: Phase Ship Time Boost
« Reply #10 on: April 23, 2018, 09:56:39 AM »

I'd be inclined to just enable the zero-flux speed boost (or make a new 'phase drive' speed boost that does the same thing) in phase space, and then maybe adjust time dilation down a little bit.
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c plus one

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Re: Phase Ship Time Boost
« Reply #11 on: April 23, 2018, 04:21:59 PM »

Maybe just have manual speed-up button? Phase ships aren't the worst case in 'taking ton of time to get to enemies' anyway - that's Paragon.
I second this. A few speed controls would be lovely, something like .5, 1, 2, 3.

I am in favour of this particular in-game speed-throttle implementation. Please add an "x4" to the above buttons, too.
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Schwartz

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Re: Phase Ship Time Boost
« Reply #12 on: April 24, 2018, 06:58:07 AM »

Nope, against all speed tweak knobs for the player. Leave the game at the speed it was meant to be played.

There's always the option of staying in regular space and having the flux speed boost active. Or using speed & agility hullmods. Phase ships are already the fastest ships in the game. ALL other ships have to 'drive in manual' until they engage. What's this change for, exactly, but to shave a second or two off the approach?

Splitting the difference and making the world a little slower while making phase space a little faster is acceptable. It might make phase ships a little less precise to control, though.

(Still think 2x time is plenty and 3x has been overkill from the start..)
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Megas

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Re: Phase Ship Time Boost
« Reply #13 on: April 24, 2018, 09:51:02 AM »

Nope, against all speed tweak knobs for the player. Leave the game at the speed it was meant to be played.
In that case, I would quit Starsector because the game at normal speed is horrifically slow.  Fastest ships in the game at normal speed are still too slow.

The only reason I sometimes play Starsector is the option of speeding up the world to double or triple speed, but it would be nice if there is a way to speed it up without digging into a buried, semi-hidden folder for a json file.  Plus, it kind of stinks editing it, because I am so tempted to change much more than world speed, like giving my character all of the skills so I do not need to play buffer nonsense.

P.S.  Combined with AI cowardly enough that stalling and running out of peak performance is a major problem, even game at double speed gets a bit slow-paced at times.
« Last Edit: April 24, 2018, 10:00:13 AM by Megas »
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Solinarius

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Re: Phase Ship Time Boost
« Reply #14 on: April 24, 2018, 10:22:01 AM »

It's a lot to ask for, but could phase time dilation just be a menu setting? Some people don't like or want training wheels. Some people do. When it comes to player advantages, nothing aggravates me more than some kind of slow-motion gimmick.
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