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Author Topic: Matching skills with NPC fleet commander... takes dedication.  (Read 16544 times)

Megas

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Re: Matching skills with NPC fleet commander... takes dedication.
« Reply #45 on: September 10, 2018, 06:27:23 AM »

@ Goumindong: Uplifting a single ship that can punch above an unskilled but otherwise equal ship by a class or two is not enough.  I tried it, and it does not affect strategic play enough.  A skilled ship may kill a few more ships or die a bit slower, but the end result is generally the same as an unskilled character.  This is unlike pre-0.8 where your single ship can destroy fleets.  You cannot do that anymore (except maybe with quad lance Paragon, but still nowhere near pre-0.8 performance) even if you dump all points into combat.  The enemy AI of 0.8 is still a bunch of dirty stinking cowards, and many ships have difficulty overcoming that on their own, with or without skills.

Actually, putting a few points into Electronic Warfare 1 and Loadout Design 3 is more effective than putting everything that is a pilot-only skill.  Maybe Fleet Logistics 3 is important too for the max CR boost to last a little longer before CR times out in an overwhelming fight.  (In the campaign, some fleets can have Fleet Logistics 3, and you want that so they do not outlast you!)

If an unskilled clunker fleet can outperform a flagship that puts (nearly) everything into personal power, why burn my points there instead of elsewhere that can boost either my fleet power or exploration options.  Before 0.8, you could either solo everything (slow), or you match or mob the enemy with your fleet (fast).  Today, player usually needs a fleet for the best results.


But that was not the point of my OP.  I want to be able to spend as many points into Combat stuff as a max level NPC, and enough fleetwide stuff to match NPC fleet commander, without giving up everything else.  So far, player needs to spend everything into skills max level NPC fleet commander can use (and three dead aptitudes to access the skills) to match him.  Do all of these capable commanders have no other non-combat skills on the side (like Industry stuff they cannot possibly use due to their main job as a policeman)?  If you want to get Loadout Design 3 (NPCs do not use that, but you are a fool not to get it), other fleetwide stuff, or any exploration stuff, you need to sack another skill to get it, and pilot-only skills are the most expendable to sacrifice, partially because they are generally weak, and partially because officers use them.  Especially if the choice is one level in a pilot-only skill for you, or one more in Officer Management.
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Thaago

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Re: Matching skills with NPC fleet commander... takes dedication.
« Reply #46 on: September 10, 2018, 10:55:11 AM »

@ Goumindong: Uplifting a single ship that can punch above an unskilled but otherwise equal ship by a class or two is not enough.  I tried it, and it does not affect strategic play enough.  A skilled ship may kill a few more ships or die a bit slower, but the end result is generally the same as an unskilled character.  This is unlike pre-0.8 where your single ship can destroy fleets.  You cannot do that anymore (except maybe with quad lance Paragon, but still nowhere near pre-0.8 performance) even if you dump all points into combat.  The enemy AI of 0.8 is still a bunch of dirty stinking cowards, and many ships have difficulty overcoming that on their own, with or without skills.

Actually, putting a few points into Electronic Warfare 1 and Loadout Design 3 is more effective than putting everything that is a pilot-only skill.  Maybe Fleet Logistics 3 is important too for the max CR boost to last a little longer before CR times out in an overwhelming fight.  (In the campaign, some fleets can have Fleet Logistics 3, and you want that so they do not outlast you!)

If an unskilled clunker fleet can outperform a flagship that puts (nearly) everything into personal power, why burn my points there instead of elsewhere that can boost either my fleet power or exploration options.  Before 0.8, you could either solo everything (slow), or you match or mob the enemy with your fleet (fast).  Today, player usually needs a fleet for the best results.


But that was not the point of my OP.  I want to be able to spend as many points into Combat stuff as a max level NPC, and enough fleetwide stuff to match NPC fleet commander, without giving up everything else.  So far, player needs to spend everything into skills max level NPC fleet commander can use (and three dead aptitudes to access the skills) to match him.  Do all of these capable commanders have no other non-combat skills on the side (like Industry stuff they cannot possibly use due to their main job as a policeman)?  If you want to get Loadout Design 3 (NPCs do not use that, but you are a fool not to get it), other fleetwide stuff, or any exploration stuff, you need to sack another skill to get it, and pilot-only skills are the most expendable to sacrifice, partially because they are generally weak, and partially because officers use them.  Especially if the choice is one level in a pilot-only skill for you, or one more in Officer Management.

I agree with the premise because it feels bad as a player; I think there should be a dual track system for experience.

However, I strongly disagree when you say the combat skills do not effect strategic gameplay, or are ineffective.
  • Bounties become easy, even if you deliberately advance the progressions as fast as possible and take the largest fleets every time.
  • Supply costs are much lower, making every fight profitable even without bounties (randomly being attacked by pirates is a nice fuel, supply, and credit boost).
  • Fuel costs are much lower - even with my endgame (vanilla) fleet that can take on the remnant station or any bounty I wanted, I only need 2 drams to get to the rim. Until I got an Onslaught (fuel hog) one dram was fine even for far targets. I get more fuel from killing the bounty than I spent getting out to it, without any salvage skills.
  • Enemy frigates that try to run are easily caught, as your weapons do more damage and you move much faster (+50 speed if using well designed long ranged guns).
  • Bad situations that threaten the player ship, like missile spam from a dying ship, overloads from a player mistake, or getting surrounded, are no longer deadly. This is especially helpful in the early game, where a mistake with an unskilled ship can prove fatal. Making multiple serious errors in a fight might still lead to death, but making multiple errors is a much lower probability event than making 1 error.

I just don't see how you can say that a skilled and unskilled ship lead to the same result - its like we are playing different games. I recently did a player boosting run, not taking a single point in leadership or industry, to see how it was to play. It felt awkward to only have 4 officers and not have +15% CR, but it was my easiest playthrough yet. Money and supplies were streaming in, piloting was more fun, and I consistently stayed ahead of the level vs bounty difficulty curve.
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Cyan Leader

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Re: Matching skills with NPC fleet commander... takes dedication.
« Reply #47 on: September 10, 2018, 11:04:40 AM »

I'm curious, where will you spend your points now that the cap has been raised to 50? Assuming the skills are the same.
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Megas

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Re: Matching skills with NPC fleet commander... takes dedication.
« Reply #48 on: September 10, 2018, 11:36:54 AM »

@ Thaago: What I meant about skilled and unskilled (flagship) being much the same is if I try to solo enemies, my (individual flagship) performance is not much better than unskilled.  Sure, I live a bit longer, and kill a bit more, but it seems like all I need to do to get that performance is bring few more cheap or easily replaceable clunkers.  In fleet context where you can have a bunch a guys with Combat skills, it probably make more difference.  What hurts more is the AI.  The enemy cowers much.  Having all of this extra personal combat power means little if the enemy ship can still hover beyond my attack range until enough of its friends can surround and overwhelm my ship.  (I do take Helmsmanship and Evasive Maneuvers 1, so my flagship has enhanced mobility.)  This is not the old skill days when Onslaught can be surrounded and still kill everyone without taking hull damage due to sheer power.

I guess buying cheap fuel from Sindria kind of helps the big fleet of clunkers.  I do not even get Navigation at all even though the fuel discount at 2 would be very handy.

[EDIT]  I probably should try another game to see what you mean Thaago, but do not feel motivated to do so partly because 0.9 release seems close, and, for now, I have less time available for gaming than before.

@ Cyan Leader:  I do not know yet.  I do know that since Helmsmanship 3 will be gutted for carriers, I may not have anymore incentive to get Combat 3.  I probably will get Combat 2 for Helmsmanship 2 and few other combat skills I like to get.  I probably will get Surveying 1 so I can colonize some planets.  If Decivilized will add to hazard rating, I will need Surveying if I find a choice Terran planet with ruins or lots of resources (because they tend to have Decivilized), or if I need to survey a faction planet after I sat bomb it to the ground before I can take it over.

Also, since we will need to pay salaries, having a smaller overhead may be more of an advantage than today.
« Last Edit: September 10, 2018, 11:46:12 AM by Megas »
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Goumindong

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Re: Matching skills with NPC fleet commander... takes dedication.
« Reply #49 on: September 11, 2018, 02:26:55 AM »

The difference between a skilled and unskilled flag ship, especially an SO high tech murder machine, is night and day. I can’t quite solo lategame bounties with an aurora but that is only because I get lazy and don’t get enough backing fleets to modify the enemies maximum command points down and so end up having them all onscreen at once
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Megas

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Re: Matching skills with NPC fleet commander... takes dedication.
« Reply #50 on: September 11, 2018, 07:29:49 AM »

Assuming skill difference between skilled and unskilled meant all pilot-only skills, not a mix of pilot-only and fleetwide, I cannot agree with that for most ships, especially if some critical perks like Loadout Design 3 are passed over in favor of more pilot-only skills.  The only flagships I see helped much are carriers, and the enabling perk, Helmsmanship 3, will not work for them anymore in 0.9.  For nearly everyone else, the difference seems more like noon and afternoon.  Night and day would be closer to pre-0.8 performance.  I do not deny skills help, just not enough to be worth it over more powerful skills like those that boost the whole fleet, including your ship. 

Maybe SO Aurora is one of the lucky ships that is helped much, like carriers are.  Other warships I have tried with all pilot-only skills, such as Eagle or other Mario/Jack ships merely punch above their weight by one (or maybe two at best) class, not solo fleets like a death machine as in pre-0.8.  This means smaller ship fighting unskilled enemy capital is still either a challenging or difficult fight, not a speed bump.

P.S.  Back in early 0.7 era, when Aurora had large missile mount, it was powerful enough with max skills to nearly solo the simulator.  Nearly because Paragon (even without Advanced Targeting Core) was nearly unbeatable for Aurora.  Aurora could kill everyone else, except Paragon with only a minute or so left before CR decays to malfunction level.  Dominator was barely powerful enough to solo the simulator.
« Last Edit: September 11, 2018, 07:48:19 AM by Megas »
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TaLaR

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Re: Matching skills with NPC fleet commander... takes dedication.
« Reply #51 on: September 11, 2018, 07:45:06 AM »

The difference between a skilled and unskilled flag ship, especially an SO high tech murder machine, is night and day. I can’t quite solo lategame bounties with an aurora but that is only because I get lazy and don’t get enough backing fleets to modify the enemies maximum command points down and so end up having them all onscreen at once

Is it really solo if you have to bring huge fleet (rather than just few chain-flagships + cargo/tankers)? You are still paying full fuel and over-time supply costs.
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lethargie

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Re: Matching skills with NPC fleet commander... takes dedication.
« Reply #52 on: September 11, 2018, 07:46:47 AM »

hum, hello? I started the game a couple of weeks ago and I have been putting off contributing on the forum since i didn't know where to start.
I have been playing pretty intensely, with mods and without them. Killed several [REDACTED] big base and other stuff added by mod. About 6 or 7 full play-through I'd say. I love the game.

I just wanted to say that the ability system is really not bad for combat. The only Abilities I never skip is loadout design 3, the one that make sustained burn have +5 and electronic warfare 1. I like combat abilities more than fleet abilities because while theoretically my captain should be as good as me, in practice they never do what I would with the ship I give them. I don't like fighter though, so while i did a full fighter play with all abilities I find skipping on all related skill not to be a big loss. (A couple fighter is usefull, but I don't find them really good unless all my fleet is carrier, and even then I don't feel its much stronger than dedicated combat ship)

With a dedicated combat loadout, I can take the onslaught and pretty much take the brunt of everything the enemy throw at me while my fleet clean the side. Without those my armor is way too flimsy and I cant do much. You really have to be flying capitals to get the best bang for your buck. I even flew a shield bypass Onslaught to kill a battle-station once. It actually worked pretty well. My fleet is usually cruiser and capital heavy, so having only 4 or 6 captain seems fine. In fact only one point in leadership is usually what i do, for the 2 more captain and the free +10% speed. Helmsmanship 3 is really useful on capitals as you can shoot long range gun while keeping the speed bonus.

Mod do help a lot the feeling of dedicated combat, more guns and more ship gives more occasions to shine.

It does feel miserable to take surveying and salvaging skills, the fun is in battle, not making money. And by the end of a game, these skills feel like dead-weight.

I did increase the max lvl for me, mostly so I could have some QoL goal while playing longer.


Anyway, that was my first post so w/e but I think the skills are really not bad even if improvement could be made.

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Megas

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Re: Matching skills with NPC fleet commander... takes dedication.
« Reply #53 on: September 11, 2018, 07:54:50 AM »

@ lethargie: If you increase max level, you have more skill points and you can probably afford a few skills on the side beyond the skills a max level NPC is expected to have.  Loadout Design 3 is huge, powerful enough to sack one or two pilot-only skills.  Many ships are OP hungry and need Loadout Design 3 to afford more than a basic, no-frills loadout (and few ships cannot even afford that).

It appears you play with other mods.  There is no shield bypass mod in the standard game, although that would be nice for the likes of Onslaught, especially if it increases speed (since Makeshift Shield lowers speed now).

For 0.9, Alex posted he raised the cap to 50, no doubt due to additional skills for colony management.  At least this mostly offsets the dead aptitude problem.

Is it really solo if you have to bring huge fleet (rather than just few chain-flagships + cargo/tankers)? You are still paying full fuel and over-time supply costs.
Depends what he brought a fleet for.  In 0.7.2, I brought a fleet as a toolbox and had officers as bench warmers.  I will not deploy Paragon against a fleet that my Eagle or Medusa could solo.  Paragon was to solo greater-than-simulator sized battles.

That said, I agree bringing a fleet of 1UPs to chain-flagship is not really soloing.
« Last Edit: September 11, 2018, 08:02:28 AM by Megas »
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lethargie

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Re: Matching skills with NPC fleet commander... takes dedication.
« Reply #54 on: September 11, 2018, 08:26:40 AM »

I might have badly explained myself, I did both modless and mod play-throught and all observation are made with the 40 skillcap.

I do increase the skillcap now, mostly because it give me something to do once I maxed. I also observed that mod improves the experience somewhat.

But honestly, a full modless combat invested playthrough (no fighter) is superfun and I never thought to myself "i should have taken some other fleetwide boost". That was my second playthrough actually

The only exception being loadout design 3 (for obvious reason), the sustained burn speed +5 (otherwise i find my fleet unbearably slow) and electronic warfare 1.

Shield bypass come from SWP, it remove shield and improve flux dissipation by about 300 on the onslaught
« Last Edit: September 11, 2018, 08:28:42 AM by lethargie »
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Goumindong

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Re: Matching skills with NPC fleet commander... takes dedication.
« Reply #55 on: September 11, 2018, 03:53:47 PM »

The difference between a skilled and unskilled flag ship, especially an SO high tech murder machine, is night and day. I can’t quite solo lategame bounties with an aurora but that is only because I get lazy and don’t get enough backing fleets to modify the enemies maximum command points down and so end up having them all onscreen at once

Is it really solo if you have to bring huge fleet (rather than just few chain-flagships + cargo/tankers)? You are still paying full fuel and over-time supply costs.

I mean... maybe not technically but i still have 4 officers base and i don't see why you "must" be solo if you have a primarily combat skill focus.
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TaLaR

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Re: Matching skills with NPC fleet commander... takes dedication.
« Reply #56 on: September 11, 2018, 09:15:50 PM »

The difference between a skilled and unskilled flag ship, especially an SO high tech murder machine, is night and day. I can’t quite solo lategame bounties with an aurora but that is only because I get lazy and don’t get enough backing fleets to modify the enemies maximum command points down and so end up having them all onscreen at once

Is it really solo if you have to bring huge fleet (rather than just few chain-flagships + cargo/tankers)? You are still paying full fuel and over-time supply costs.

I mean... maybe not technically but i still have 4 officers base and i don't see why you "must" be solo if you have a primarily combat skill focus.

There doesn't seem to be much point to not deploying these officers, since you are paying most maintenance costs anyway (which must be quite high to skew deployment point distribution in your favor).
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Goumindong

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Re: Matching skills with NPC fleet commander... takes dedication.
« Reply #57 on: September 12, 2018, 05:46:58 AM »

Yeah, my point was that just because I primarily went with combat skills doesn’t mean I have to avoid using the rest of my fleet.

I am trying something different this time as well. A mix of combat, tech (mainly because I don’t need all the points and OP/tracking is nice) and industry. My officers may get nice ships but the rest of the fleet is going to be clunkers on top of the “deployment reduction applies to maintenance” skill. That allows me to have a huge backing fleet without paying huge backing fleet maintenance. (Also looking to pick up ships with high DP/fuel ratios)

I have been mainly salvaging and am now lvl 20 (I can’t deal with many bounties but this is mainly a factor of not having any heavy blasters drop and I haven’t found an Eagle to make things work either. Had to take a tri-tach commission to have a chance at getting HBs, a single Medusa sporting phase lances does not cut it for taking down Mora based bounties).

So as soon as I am friendly I can spend my 1.3 Million credit warchest. (Goes up fast when you only spend 12 supplies per deployment)
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TaLaR

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Re: Matching skills with NPC fleet commander... takes dedication.
« Reply #58 on: September 12, 2018, 07:00:28 AM »

rest of the fleet is going to be clunkers on top of the “deployment reduction applies to maintenance” skill. That allows me to have a huge backing fleet without paying huge backing fleet maintenance. (Also looking to pick up ships with high DP/fuel ratios)

Interesting approach, but wouldn't pristine ships work not any worse here? If I understand correctly deployment cost reduction also reduces their contribution to battlesize distribution. Either way you pay for example 10 supplies/month for 10 supplies worth of DP. And there is no fuel cost reduction for clunkers, so DP/fuel-wise you are actually inefficient.
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Thaago

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Re: Matching skills with NPC fleet commander... takes dedication.
« Reply #59 on: September 12, 2018, 10:45:41 AM »

@lethargie

I agree completely - a combat based gunship playthrough really fun, easy, and gives you a fleet capable of tackling any challenge in the game without large problems.
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