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Author Topic: Stop pipsqueaks from halting the player due to inactive transponder.  (Read 9539 times)

Wapno

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Was considering posting this in a bugs section, but really, it's more like a serious oversight rather than a bug. This does not appear to get any attention between updates and is still a large problem.

Whenever I'm... say, "operating in legal grey area" in core worlds, for example to raid one of the main factions, I'm instantly stopped dead in my tracks by little fast pickets who demand that I turn my transponder on.

This happens no matter how ridiculously overwhelming my fleet is compared to the pipsqueaks. I may be sporting 10 capital ships and more while a squad of 1 destroyer and 3 frigates will still stand in front of me and attack me, which is completely absurd. The fight is boring and cannot be autoresolved, and still, knowing Starsector's broken AI, my genius fleet can still manage to somehow lose a ship to such powerless opponent, which is quite a feat, but it happens.

As if this nonsense wasn't irritating enough, every time I refuse to turn the transponder on and then I blast the patrol into oblivion, I bleed off reputation. This can be particularly aggravating if several of these patrols are in the area, as next ones seem completely brainless and take no conclusions from witnessing their pals before them being torn to shreds by hulking behemoth of my fleet.

My proposition: Whenever you get confronted by a patrol, but the latter is vastly overpowered by your fleet, a following should happen:

"You refuse to turn the transponder on and cut the comm link.

The opposing fleet hastly retreats. Your sensors officer reports detecing a hyperwave transmission coming out of the escaping fleet. Being encrypted, the signal is unintelligible, but its pattern matches that of a request for aid."


Afterwards, the patrol will turn hostile and maintain contact with your fleet. The encounter will also trigger patrols from the area to converge on your current location ("looking for your fleet" status).
« Last Edit: December 02, 2018, 09:59:32 AM by Wapno »
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Megas

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Re: Stop pipsqueaks from halting the player due to inactive transponder.
« Reply #1 on: December 02, 2018, 09:26:39 AM »

What is more annoying is the rep loss.  I probably lose at least as much rep if not more from the confrontation before the fight (dinged for being pulled over, then dinged again for refusing to activate transponder).  I just want them to run or die already so I can proceed and either raid for blueprints or rock their world.
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TaLaR

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Re: Stop pipsqueaks from halting the player due to inactive transponder.
« Reply #2 on: December 02, 2018, 09:41:06 AM »

AI metagaming by boring/annoying player into giving up sensor profile advantage and enabling transponder, is not a direction in which I'd like starsector AI to evolve.
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marianojoey

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Re: Stop pipsqueaks from halting the player due to inactive transponder.
« Reply #3 on: December 03, 2018, 05:04:06 AM »

Why not simply approach with the TP on and when you are close, you just turn it off for the attack? As far as I noticed from engaging pirate colonies for delivery missions and whatever, as long as you turn off your TP just a couple of clicks away from the colonie, they don't notice it's you, their sworn enemy and hunter of kin, killer of yadah yadah... you get the idea. :D

I know Pirates are dumb, so that's why this probably works on them, but I wouldn't give too much credit to those Heg officials anyway. :D

By the way, I agree with your point being they just squashing themselves against a manly wall of awesomeness that's about to crush their feeble colony and probably killing a lot of their kin to be a bit annoying. They really should just call for backup and die all together, instead of in waves...

No, wait, scratch that... Maybe they have the right idea. I mean, you have to fight them, and for any measle damage they can do to you, they still cost you CR and resources, so they are slowly wearing you down before you reach their colony and are just hoping their defenses and backup arrive before you can do some real damage. No, I'm sure now, they might be onto something. It's not like they were so dumb after all...

Anyway, I'm more of a pacifist, so I don't go around murdering faction colonies willy nilly. Just wanted to give my insight, for whatever it's worth. :)

Cheers
« Last Edit: December 03, 2018, 05:13:29 AM by marianojoey »
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Wapno

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Re: Stop pipsqueaks from halting the player due to inactive transponder.
« Reply #4 on: December 04, 2018, 12:36:19 PM »

Why not simply approach with the TP on and when you are close, you just turn it off for the attack? As far as I noticed from engaging pirate colonies for delivery missions and whatever, as long as you turn off your TP just a couple of clicks away from the colonie, they don't notice it's you, their sworn enemy and hunter of kin, killer of yadah yadah... you get the idea. :D

I know Pirates are dumb, so that's why this probably works on them, but I wouldn't give too much credit to those Heg officials anyway. :D

By the way, I agree with your point being they just squashing themselves against a manly wall of awesomeness that's about to crush their feeble colony and probably killing a lot of their kin to be a bit annoying. They really should just call for backup and die all together, instead of in waves...

No, wait, scratch that... Maybe they have the right idea. I mean, you have to fight them, and for any measle damage they can do to you, they still cost you CR and resources, so they are slowly wearing you down before you reach their colony and are just hoping their defenses and backup arrive before you can do some real damage. No, I'm sure now, they might be onto something. It's not like they were so dumb after all...

Anyway, I'm more of a pacifist, so I don't go around murdering faction colonies willy nilly. Just wanted to give my insight, for whatever it's worth. :)

Cheers

I want to raid the colony, not bomb it. Hence, I cannot approach the colony with TP on, because I will still be recognized and the faction will turn hostile instantly after the first battle with a patrol, which might not necessarily be what I want.

That's why I must have TP off at all times on the approach to my raid target.

And I really don't buy into the idea of those patrols engaging in suicidal fights with me on purpose. If I'm not mistaken, this is the only scenario in the game, aside from Domain derelict defenses, where a tiny fleet will attack you when being vastly outnumbered.

Besides, try this - get a really big war fleet and fly to a system of a faction which is already hostile to you. Have the transponder off before you enter.

If a patrol finds you and starts pursuing you, one of two things will happen:
 -If you keep the transponder off, they will confront you about the transponder, attack you and have no qualms about engaging in a suicide fight with you.
 -If you turn your transponder on as the patrol approaches you, they will instantly turn tail and run away.

This proves that this whole predicament is an oversight and the behavior of the patrols cannot be reasonably explained in-universe.
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Vind

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Re: Stop pipsqueaks from halting the player due to inactive transponder.
« Reply #5 on: December 04, 2018, 08:28:40 PM »

Game must spawn 1-3 detachments to attack player upon detection. After all how do they know you are not some maniacal pirate king who want to bombard the planet just for fun. Better to scrap stealth raids altogether - the idea of huge fleet hiding in low orbit is questionable. If you want to raid - get ready for war.
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marianojoey

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Re: Stop pipsqueaks from halting the player due to inactive transponder.
« Reply #6 on: December 04, 2018, 08:33:06 PM »

Game must spawn 1-3 detachments to attack player upon detection. After all how do they know you are not some maniacal pirate king who want to bombard the planet just for fun. Better to scrap stealth raids altogether - the idea of huge fleet hiding in low orbit is questionable. If you want to raid - get ready for war.

Agree. If you want to raid, then accept the hit to your rep. Don't go around "playing" pirate. Be a pirate and deal with it. :)
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zaimoni

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Re: Stop pipsqueaks from halting the player due to inactive transponder.
« Reply #7 on: December 05, 2018, 02:42:04 AM »

I want to raid the colony, not bomb it. Hence, I cannot approach the colony with TP on, because I will still be recognized and the faction will turn hostile instantly after the first battle with a patrol, which might not necessarily be what I want.
This feels like a defect in the reputation representation.

"Ideally" (taking a simulationist view rather than a "what works" view), what would happen in the no-TP case is the faction won't turn immediately hostile, but the faction ships within the entire system will turn hostile against your current fleet.
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nomadic_leader

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Re: Stop pipsqueaks from halting the player due to inactive transponder.
« Reply #8 on: December 05, 2018, 05:25:35 AM »

They keep going up to you because they're in the military and it's their job to do so.

Actually fighting you though, once you refuse to turn it on? Yea, that's dumb if you're vastly more powerful. As is not fleeing once you turn it on and recognize as a hostile entity.

I don't think its fair to complain about the rep loss however. You're doing something illegal. Always being able to run with your transponder off is incredibly powerful as well. If you don't want rep loss, run dark, don't fly along common routes.
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Wapno

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Re: Stop pipsqueaks from halting the player due to inactive transponder.
« Reply #9 on: December 05, 2018, 04:44:47 PM »

Game must spawn 1-3 detachments to attack player upon detection. After all how do they know you are not some maniacal pirate king who want to bombard the planet just for fun. Better to scrap stealth raids altogether - the idea of huge fleet hiding in low orbit is questionable. If you want to raid - get ready for war.

Agree. If you want to raid, then accept the hit to your rep. Don't go around "playing" pirate. Be a pirate and deal with it. :)

I disagree. As an analogy, here, if this were "real life-esque" setting, I'm trying to rob a bank - not bomb an ever living hell out of quarter of a city. I pop in, grab the goodies, pop out, before any authorities show up. Done well, the worst I should be expecting is an investigation that ultimately fails to find the culprit. What I should NOT be expecting is the whole nation instantly knowing who I am, declaring war on me, carpet bombing my apartment etc.

In Starsector universe I imagine it's perfectly possible for a fleet to park safely away from the planet's surface, send dropships to sneak up on the colony's defenses, hit the least defended spots and steal valuables from some warehouses, then disappear before anyone knows who that was. It's not like there's any registration plates on the ships or nametags on necks of the marines. It's a whole different story when I'm deliberately introducing myself by having a transponder on, or pirating too many times - small rep hits accumulating over time reflect a rising amount of witnesses whom authorities of the faction slowly begin listening to and believing that, in fact, it was me behind all this piracy.

They keep going up to you because they're in the military and it's their job to do so.

Actually fighting you though, once you refuse to turn it on? Yea, that's dumb if you're vastly more powerful. As is not fleeing once you turn it on and recognize as a hostile entity.
If you're hostile with the faction, you get stopped and agree to turn on TP, they do actually flee.
Screenshot:
Spoiler
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In any case, I have absolutely no problem in them going after me and stopping me, even if they're small fleets. It's reasonable. What I DO have a problem with is that they go Leeroy Jenkins at me and suicide against my super-fleet. Being in military does not justify such unreasonable behavior, unless maybe it's Luddic Path - they're fanatic extremists after all.

I don't think its fair to complain about the rep loss however. You're doing something illegal. Always being able to run with your transponder off is incredibly powerful as well. If you don't want rep loss, run dark, don't fly along common routes.
The problem with this is that you get this rep loss several times during one operation - if there are multiple patrols, they will go up to you one after another and each time you refuse to turn on your TP you get a double rep penalty (once for being stopped, once for refusal).

This rapidly builds up and in the end you lose more reputation from arguing about the transponder with the patrols than actually attacking the planet, which is absurd. You could actively fight the faction and murder its main battle fleets for a while and you probably wouldn't accumulate more reputation loss with that.
« Last Edit: December 06, 2018, 12:27:46 AM by Wapno »
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TrashMan

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Re: Stop pipsqueaks from halting the player due to inactive transponder.
« Reply #10 on: December 06, 2018, 01:39:50 AM »

In Starsector universe I imagine it's perfectly possible for a fleet to park safely away from the planet's surface, send dropships to sneak up on the colony's defenses, hit the least defended spots and steal valuables from some warehouses, then disappear before anyone knows who that was.

Maybe you're imagining wrong?
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Wapno

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Re: Stop pipsqueaks from halting the player due to inactive transponder.
« Reply #11 on: December 06, 2018, 02:20:18 AM »

In Starsector universe I imagine it's perfectly possible for a fleet to park safely away from the planet's surface, send dropships to sneak up on the colony's defenses, hit the least defended spots and steal valuables from some warehouses, then disappear before anyone knows who that was.

Maybe you're imagining wrong?

Maybe not? :)

What is your point even?
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Cosmitz

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Re: Stop pipsqueaks from halting the player due to inactive transponder.
« Reply #12 on: December 06, 2018, 03:07:46 AM »

I know the game can calculate some sort of 'combat' rating versus 'whole-fleet-plus-cargoship' rating, so realistically you should only be intercepted by fleets with similar combat rating to ask to turn on your transponder. That would limit it to semi-static 'defence' fleets when you have a large fleet, and that's entirely fine, and it's also entirely fine that only smaller fleets would get intercepted by pickets, since smuggling, if it were to happen, does happen on a smaller scale, and also using more 'fringe' points and etc. Thus the pickets patrolling.

But yeah, even so, were you to get asked to turn on your transponder by a fleet that would reasonably retreat in a combat situation, and were you to deny, they should just 'maintain' and ask for backup.
« Last Edit: December 06, 2018, 03:09:21 AM by Cosmitz »
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nomadic_leader

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Re: Stop pipsqueaks from halting the player due to inactive transponder.
« Reply #13 on: December 06, 2018, 05:21:21 AM »

In Starsector universe I imagine it's perfectly possible for a fleet to park safely away from the planet's surface, send dropships to sneak up on the colony's defenses, hit the least defended spots and steal valuables from some warehouses, then disappear before anyone knows who that was.

Maybe you're imagining wrong?

Maybe not? :)

What is your point even?

There is no stealth in space, they could match against a database of engine emission signatures, etc etc. The game is already pretty liberal with stealth.

Also it is very rare that people get away with robbing banks unless it's in some place like Mogadishu.
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Megas

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Re: Stop pipsqueaks from halting the player due to inactive transponder.
« Reply #14 on: December 06, 2018, 05:39:48 AM »

If stealth raids are gone, then good blueprints need to be MUCH more common.  My main endgame activity is raiding other factions' heavy industries until I complete my blueprint collection to produce whatever I want.  I am tired of exploration giving me duplicate pirate and Ludd packs that I will never use (and occasionally duplicates of good blueprints like yet another Cobra wing or capital that I already know).
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