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Author Topic: Bounty spike?  (Read 15683 times)

Megas

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Re: Bounty spike?
« Reply #15 on: December 10, 2018, 10:54:15 AM »

That is the thing.  If you do not take some combat skills, then the difficulty from the spikes can be overwhelming.  It used to be possible to win combat without skills before scaling bounties (they used to only scale when you won much, and downgraded when you wiped).  Enemies gradually built up, and if you could win without taking heavy losses, you can adjust as bounties gradually got harder.  Some thought the pace was too slow, but it is forgiving of mistakes.  Today, it may be too hard to win unless you ultra-specialize (or at least focus hard on combat first) because you will fight enemies with significantly bigger fleets and superior quality before you can build up your fleet.  Well, at least not without triple Reaper Harbinger cheese (which requires some practice since Quantum Disruptor gives a tiny opening).

Similarly, it is too easy to get expeditions immediately after building your colony.  All you need to do is build Tech Mining on big enough ruins or let your colony grow big enough, and out come the endgame fleets from major faction.  Now, I do not build colonies until endgame.
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StarGibbon

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Re: Bounty spike?
« Reply #16 on: December 10, 2018, 11:12:25 AM »

That is the thing.  If you do not take some combat skills, then the difficulty from the spikes can be overwhelming. 



We're going in circles. Yes, you must make choices in order to be able to do certain, **completely optional**  missions easily. High ticket bounties are not required to succeed in the game. More accessible combat opportunities are plentiful, as are opportunities to make money.

I'm actually arguing on *behalf* of the value of the combat skill spec, which has been steadily losing value.  I'm heavily specialized for salvage and industry, receive a lot of in game perks for doing so, and can still comfortably take out mid range bounties and starbases, even with a bloated fleet. If heavily speccing for combat offered no meaningful rewards in terms of the broader campaign, then why would anyone bother with it? What am I giving up in exchange for getting better/more loot, a much more easily maintainable fleet, the ability to ignore storms, and profitably do trade and procurement missions?

If there are no tradeoffs, choices become meaningless. If skill choices become meaningless, then a branching skill system is pointless. If one easily excels at every possible opportunity in the game, replay loses value.
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SCC

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Re: Bounty spike?
« Reply #17 on: December 10, 2018, 11:27:07 AM »

I can tell you that I'm running a completely combat-focused character at the moment and bounties are still an issue. The difficulty spike is sudden and pretty high and pirate base bounties are potentially harder than named bounties, especially if you don't have many destroyers/carriers yet. It doesn't help I often lose ships when fighting bounties, which requires me to buy more supplies and crew every time, and perhaps more importantly they get worse with every fight. If I didn't store every weapon I come across, I wouldn't have enough weapons to outfit new ships decently.

StarGibbon

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Re: Bounty spike?
« Reply #18 on: December 10, 2018, 11:57:12 AM »

I can tell you that I'm running a completely combat-focused character at the moment and bounties are still an issue. The difficulty spike is sudden and pretty high and pirate base bounties are potentially harder than named bounties, especially if you don't have many destroyers/carriers yet.

You mean, pirate bases are difficult without the ships you generally need to defeat them? Yes, I imagine that would be the case.  I admit there's room in the game for players to underestimate the difficulty of a starbase, since those missions start showing up very early in the game before the player has the kind of fleet needed to destroy them. Until then 50k bounties and exploration missions are perfectly profitable with an efficient fleet.

Ive not encountered a single pirate base that wasn't possible to destroy with fighter spam and cruisers, and theyre trivial once you get capitals. LP bases are much more difficult. Carriers are easy to obtain (condor, mora, and heron are all frequently salvaged). Cruisers are trivial if you go the colony route, which you can do very early, and are easily sustainable *IF* you're aware of what not to do, which is a pretty big if at the moment. Without making use of colonies, then you're stuck with the same choices you've always had in the game--side with a faction to get easy access to quality warships in exchange for poor relations with others, or look for opportunities to pluck a good one from a vulnerable fleet, or just go exploring.  I found two Legions just floating in space this game.

Choices. Choices are good. I'm not arguing theres no room for tuning, but I think the expectation to struggle with certain activities without specialization, or without certain fleet capability milestones is completely reasonable. I think the most difficult bounties can't be expected to overcome without colony support. I think the tension is coming from being used to do everything in the game easily without making difficult choices that the game is now making more significant, and can probably be expected to become more significant as the economics are brought under control.

« Last Edit: December 10, 2018, 12:05:00 PM by StarGibbon »
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SCC

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Re: Bounty spike?
« Reply #19 on: December 10, 2018, 12:16:49 PM »

Until then 50k bounties and exploration missions are perfectly profitable with an efficient fleet.
These 50k bounties run dry already, it's only 150k do-or-die now. There's this mandatory one every other month, but that's still little. Besides, no other way of playing has such a barrier that you outright have to do something else until you get more resources.

Megas

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Re: Bounty spike?
« Reply #20 on: December 10, 2018, 01:33:22 PM »

We're going in circles. Yes, you must make choices in order to be able to do certain, **completely optional**  missions easily. High ticket bounties are not required to succeed in the game. More accessible combat opportunities are plentiful, as are opportunities to make money.
and...
Combat, mission or otherwise, is the only viable way to make EXP in the game. A player specializing more in salvage or trade has to find opportunities for it other than bounty missions, which as you say, they may find difficult.
do not mix.

If combat is the only viable way to get XP, then you must fight to get XP.

But if combat spikes up too fast, then how can you progress when you hit a brick wall because the enemy is too powerful (because they upgrade faster than you can)?

Combat tree (or anything combat in other trees) should be optional, not required to deal with the difficulty spike.  And this assumes player is a seasoned Starsector player who knows what to do.  Imagine if a newer player tries it, then fails because he failed to stumble on the one true way to play.  For example, after my first 0.9 game, I do not touch colony skills or even exploration skills until I can beat an endgame fleet, then build up colony as quickly as possible.  Combat skills (in any of the four aptitudes) are a must early to deal with the spike.

The way I see it, bounty progression was not broken until later 0.8 added scaling, and now bounties spike up too early.  0.9 might have changed things a little (bounties may not scale quite as quickly, but still too fast if you do not know what to do).

The tutorial battle may be hard enough.  If player cannot deal with that, how can he deal with the difficulty spike that makes those tutorial fights look easy?

P.S.  Once you build a colony, you will be forced into combat one way or another if you want to keep it.  Even if your colony is small enough to avoid expeditions (yeah, good luck keeping it small without annoying workarounds), you can still get pirate activity.  If you want to build your own ships and weapons, you will deal with Pathers.  Of course, this has nothing to do with bounties, but the fleets you need to fight to defend your colony are usually endgame strong, and you will struggle if you build colony too early.
« Last Edit: December 10, 2018, 01:47:49 PM by Megas »
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TaLaR

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Re: Bounty spike?
« Reply #21 on: December 10, 2018, 09:04:37 PM »

You can progress by smuggling, it's ridiculously profitable in 0.9 .  Combat is optional.
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Alex

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Re: Bounty spike?
« Reply #22 on: December 10, 2018, 09:08:40 PM »

Just a quick note: I'm going to slow down the (relatively minor, but still) time-based component of bounty level, and will also see about moving the "deserter" type bounties - which are a lot tougher - up a couple of bounty tiers. As is, they probably show up too quickly.
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StarGibbon

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Re: Bounty spike?
« Reply #23 on: December 11, 2018, 10:22:12 AM »



If combat is the only viable way to get XP, then you must fight to get XP.



Yes, but as I stated earlier, Bounties =/= combat. Combat is a component of exploration missions, and system bounties, or just defending yourself during exploration.  Looting a profitable Domain sector is going to require fighting off some [Redacted] fleets, even if they arent directly tied to the missions reward. And pirates are ubiquitous. Money is easy to come by doing all sorts of activities in the game.

Combat is *not* optional to any practical extent for leveling up. Bounties are.
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StarGibbon

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Re: Bounty spike?
« Reply #24 on: December 11, 2018, 10:27:02 AM »

Just a quick note: I'm going to slow down the (relatively minor, but still) time-based component of bounty level, and will also see about moving the "deserter" type bounties - which are a lot tougher - up a couple of bounty tiers. As is, they probably show up too quickly.

I'd also note that the pirate *base* bounties also probably start popping earlier than a player probably has the ships necessary to beat them. Unlike a bounty where you can actually *see* the ships you'll be facing and know that's out of your reach, if you've never fought a starbase before it's likely to be an unpleasant learning experience.
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Wyvern

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Re: Bounty spike?
« Reply #25 on: December 11, 2018, 10:36:58 AM »

Just a quick note: I'm going to slow down the (relatively minor, but still) time-based component of bounty level, and will also see about moving the "deserter" type bounties - which are a lot tougher - up a couple of bounty tiers. As is, they probably show up too quickly.

I'd also note that the pirate *base* bounties also probably start popping earlier than a player probably has the ships necessary to beat them. Unlike a bounty where you can actually *see* the ships you'll be facing and know that's out of your reach, if you've never fought a starbase before it's likely to be an unpleasant learning experience.
This varies -enormously- with the completion level of the base.  Early starbase bounties, against a base that has only one segment online, are easily completable with just the ships you get from either of the advanced start options.  (Well, okay, if you go with the explorer start, you need to actually run through the tutorial to have a full weapons set for your Apogee.  But still.)

A bounty against a fully operational starbase - even just the tier one types, nevermind the tier two types that the pathers always have - is much, much more dangerous.
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Wyvern is 100% correct about the math.

StarGibbon

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Re: Bounty spike?
« Reply #26 on: December 11, 2018, 10:45:19 AM »

Just a quick note: I'm going to slow down the (relatively minor, but still) time-based component of bounty level, and will also see about moving the "deserter" type bounties - which are a lot tougher - up a couple of bounty tiers. As is, they probably show up too quickly.

I'd also note that the pirate *base* bounties also probably start popping earlier than a player probably has the ships necessary to beat them. Unlike a bounty where you can actually *see* the ships you'll be facing and know that's out of your reach, if you've never fought a starbase before it's likely to be an unpleasant learning experience.
This varies -enormously- with the completion level of the base.  Early starbase bounties, against a base that has only one segment online, are easily completable with just the ships you get from either of the advanced start options.  (Well, okay, if you go with the explorer start, you need to actually run through the tutorial to have a full weapons set for your Apogee.  But still.)

A bounty against a fully operational starbase - even just the tier one types, nevermind the tier two types that the pathers always have - is much, much more dangerous.

I don't deny that it varies, but this assumes the easy mode start I usually avoid (getting a crusier, even an apogee, at the start trivializes the early game), which is buried three options down and likely to be skipped by a player that doesnt know the difference.  I can also only speak to my own ability--I would have struggled to defeat any base with the frigates and busted up destroyers I had at the point they started popping. So it's likely other players might too.

On the other hand, once you have some cruisers and carriers, pirate bases are mostly trivial, while LP bases remain quite challenging--and fun!
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Megas

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Re: Bounty spike?
« Reply #27 on: December 11, 2018, 10:55:51 AM »

Yes, money can be made without combat.  Thing about exploration is you do not need to fight there.  Just go there with a Dram (and maybe a few Shepherds and Mudskipper if you need crew and cargo too), get your money, and come back for another.  If you get caught, reload game and try again.  (If it is Domain ships, just leave and avoid combat.)  Or just get commission and wait a year for some free money that way.  The only activities that require fighting are bounties and colony defense.  So, in a way, bounties are combat for practical purposes (because there is no need to fight otherwise), until your income is so high that you do not care, but that occurs around endgame.

Still, it is no fun when most bounties scale faster than you can, and that used to not be the case several versions ago.  I would not mind few bounties that are too strong, but it is a problem when most if not all of the easy bounties disappear and only the overpowered bounties are left.  Also, having no weak bounties (when you are still in the early game with frigates and destroyers) is like, what happened to all of the wimps?

As for bases, until you find it, there is no telling if the base is a single section low-tech or midline that is easy to kill, a high-tech base the refuses to die thanks to fortress shield, an orbital station (or worse, battlestation) with all segments and no blind spots, or any station next to a black hole where all ships lose peak performance very quickly, and you must have either Solar Shielding or Hardened Subsystems to have barely enough time to kill it.  (Thankfully, Alex should fix the black hole base problem.)  Then there are the fleets that might camp at the base and just will not leave fast enough (meaning you fight those too with the base).
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StarGibbon

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Re: Bounty spike?
« Reply #28 on: December 11, 2018, 11:25:01 AM »

Yes, money can be made without combat.  Thing about exploration is you do not need to fight there.  Just go there with a Dram (and maybe a few Shepherds and Mudskipper if you need crew and cargo too), get your money, and come back for another.  If you get caught, reload game and try again.  (If it is Domain ships, just leave and avoid combat.)  Or just get commission and wait a year for some free money that way.  The only activities that require fighting are bounties and colony defense.  So, in a way, bounties are combat for practical purposes (because there is no need to fight otherwise), until your income is so high that you do not care, but that occurs around endgame.


1) Some stations are guarded and require combat to access the loot.

2) Not everyone save scums, so "reloading" is always conditional strategy.

"Not needing" to engage in combat during exploration activities has nothing to do with the point that combat is available during them, and far more approachable than high tier bounty combat. The only point is that high level bounties are not required to engage in combat, or make money and progress in the game.  I'd argue that exploration is far more necessary if youre going to make use of the colony system.
« Last Edit: December 11, 2018, 11:27:42 AM by StarGibbon »
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Torch

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Re: Bounty spike?
« Reply #29 on: December 11, 2018, 11:44:25 AM »

The main issue with bounties not scaling slowly enough, as said by someone else (I think in this thread), is that you have to stop doing bounties to get strong enough to keep doing them. If you still have mostly frigates and maybe 2 destroyers, and the weakest bounty available that won't be a cakewalk for you (the full d-mod frigate bounties) is comprised of an Astral, 2 cruisers and a bunch of filler, you're pretty much forced to do something else before you have any chance of continuing to be a successful bounty hunter. There should always be bounties available that the player's fleet is capable of completing, otherwise why show super-bounties at all until the player at least has a cruiser?
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