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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: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 351458 times)

Hiruma Kai

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (In-Dev) Patch Notes
« Reply #90 on: February 05, 2019, 08:12:16 AM »

I don't think Radiant is impossible to kill with a Conquest or an Onslaught, nor do I think it's unfairly overpowered. It provides a good challenge and your fleet is much more important than what capital ship you use.
Capital ships it everything in this game.

You can take 3-4 Paragons, and blow-up everything what you can found in sector, even if you need to blow-up 5 Remnant Ordo with 10 Radiants. But 5 Onslaught can`t do this anymore. They can do it 0.8 before Radiant appear in game.

Yep i can take 5 Onslaught/Conquests and blow-up max sized defenders fleet of Red Planet. But it everything what can do this capitals. 3 Paragons can do much more.

When Radiant appear in game it just killed sense to use all other ships except Paragon-class. 

I dunno, I've engaged a pair of Radiant fleets before having Paragons.  Onslaughts, Conquests, Legions, some other carriers and Apogees worked.  Its kinda fun tanking a Radiant with a human piloted (with at least Defense 2, 3 helps a little as well, also +10% OP skill) SO Apogee.  5 tachyon lances don't do much to it, as it gets rid of the flux in 2 seconds.  Speed of ~105+50 0-flux boost means it can control range somewhat, even against teleportation.  And worst case they're pretty disposable with the High tech blueprint, although they tend to survive if you choose to chain deploy at low CR.  Certainly won't kill it, but you just need to keep some of them away from the rest of your fleet while your capitals finish crushing their cruisers and then engage with numerical advantage.

I've also used similar setups to tank beam spam Paragons.  In a run through with only finding the High tech blueprint set, you learn to adapt. Fear the Apogee fleet. :)
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pairedeciseaux

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (In-Dev) Patch Notes
« Reply #91 on: February 05, 2019, 12:33:31 PM »

Although this is not (yet) in the patch notes, I guess it's coming with 0.9.1:

https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/1092842982234042369

This kind of ambient sound work is indeed great for player immersion! A much welcome addition.

This reminds me of a related issue I noticed while playing 0.9.0, and I don't remember whether it was already that way in 0.8.1: the deafening silence in some structures such as the abandoned platform orbiting Asharu in Corvus. Maybe it makes sense for empty structures to have no music in order to convey some sense of .. uh .. emptiness  :D  but I'd much prefer to have some kind of music, such as the "outside" music still playing at a lower volume in the background or something else.

I don't want to oversell the idea, but IMO :
- not breaking the music flow could translate into better immersion
- the situation in this abandoned platform is especially annoying for player that establish their initial base here right after playing the tutorial, you spend a sizeable amount of time with no music in that base, until you get a colony up and running

Reading the patch notes...
Quote
Music:
* Added MusicPlayerPlugin interface; implementation specified via "musicPlugin" in settings.json
* Can create arbitrary number of campaign music states for different locations/conditions/etc
* Method that picks music set for combat gets passed in a CombatEngineAPI
* Can specify a $musicSetId for star systems, markets, and entities to override default plugin behavior
... I guess one could create a mod for this  ;D , but still think it would be better to have this in the base game.
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xor0

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (In-Dev) Patch Notes
« Reply #92 on: February 06, 2019, 07:21:41 AM »

In my current game I tried to create a challenge, going ironman and making a colony in the first year, no pirate trading. Ironman is great, needs attention all the time and occasional rebuilding from a single frigate after being gangbanged. Building a colony slowly does work, no growth incentives.

However, apart from the military and required industries (spaceport etc) I only have heavy industry and IT WORKS FINE. Every resource is brought to the colony for free, now I found a nanoforge and upgraded the patrols I am getting close to the unassailable base again. It just doesn't seem right that you can win by making a single top tier industry, not having to bother with any of the others. Is 0.9.1a going to fix this? I didn't see the answer looking through the patch notes.

To me it seems like this is because the economy is not real, just a hack. I understand that it's been redone half a dozen times and there are constraints on processing time etc, but as someone who worked making complex simulations for many years, I learned that the basics must be robust and coherent, based in something real, otherwise you keep having problems down the line, necessitating more and more hacks, which start stumbling over each other. If ships actually cost resources (with arbitrary scaling to keep the AIs viable) everything would fall together - all those resources and industries are actually needed, providing a motivation for trade and war. You could even get rid of credits (with a marked-up resource trading house) and have transplutonics (or whatever) as the standard for buying ships.

There are a few other issues I found (eg free stuff lying around seems too common, needs to be behind more "fight" walls) but they are all balance issues. The economy isn't.

This game is already better than many AAA space titles, but it could become one of the all-time classics.

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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (In-Dev) Patch Notes
« Reply #93 on: February 06, 2019, 10:23:54 AM »

However, apart from the military and required industries (spaceport etc) I only have heavy industry and IT WORKS FINE. Every resource is brought to the colony for free, now I found a nanoforge and upgraded the patrols I am getting close to the unassailable base again. It just doesn't seem right that you can win by making a single top tier industry, not having to bother with any of the others. Is 0.9.1a going to fix this? I didn't see the answer looking through the patch notes.

Hmm - so I don't think that's a definition of "winning" that really makes sense long-term. If you can establish a reasonably secure heavy industry base like this, that seems... fine? Ultimately it's still being supplied from the outside and is subject to disruptions from that, especially as it grows bigger. Looking a bit into the future - credits would ideally be a key resource in projecting power, so just having a well-defended system like this would be a step, not an end-goal. And, the amount of credits something like this generates (as well as fleets, and everything else, really) is a point of balance.

For 0.9.1a specifically, what you've done would take longer and produce less income, so it'll probably feel better just due to that. But since there's ultimately no endgame at this point, well...

Finally, it's not technically free, you're paying upkeep for Heavy Industry, and in 0.9.1a, the colony's upkeep will be reduced based on how much of its demand is met in-faction.

To me it seems like this is because the economy is not real, just a hack.

Hard disagree! It's just a higher level of abstraction that I think works best for all the various things it needs to do, and it's quite clean. I get that you're not in agreement as far as the level of abstraction goes, but that's another point entirely. (And, as you're aware, I've tried various less abstracted versions several times.)
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xor0

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (In-Dev) Patch Notes
« Reply #94 on: February 06, 2019, 11:04:14 AM »

OK, thanks for the reply. If you get to the point where nothing is a threat and you can kill everything, have infinite money, its as close to winning as anything I've seen. But yes, the real point (enjoyment) seems to be getting to this point (in ironman), and the game should be adjusted so that there are no easy shortcuts.

You're right my colony is kind of brittle, relying on the outside, but if I can keep it til the space station is maxed (one more upgrade) before it gets bigger and attracts faction fleets (currently only size 4, growing slowly) then I can add the money-making industries at leisure, cos it will be invincible to attack (already maxed patrols).

Reducing upkeep based on in-faction production seems like a good hack, though :)

I get that you're not interested in a resource-based economy, any chance that could be modded-in in the future?
« Last Edit: February 06, 2019, 11:06:05 AM by xor0 »
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (In-Dev) Patch Notes
« Reply #95 on: February 06, 2019, 11:16:56 AM »

OK, thanks for the reply. If you get to the point where nothing is a threat and you can kill everything, have infinite money, its as close to winning as anything I've seen. But yes, the real point (enjoyment) seems to be getting to this point (in ironman), and the game should be adjusted so that there are no easy shortcuts.

Yeah, that's fair. The "infinite money" should be quite a bit lower btw (due to some core worlds having skilled admins and more of the market share).

You're right my colony is kind of brittle, relying on the outside, but if I can keep it til the space station is maxed (one more upgrade) before it gets bigger and attracts faction fleets (currently only size 4, growing slowly) then I can add the money-making industries at leisure, cos it will be invincible to attack (already maxed patrols).

Those industries will also be limited in number based on colony size, per the patch notes - hopefully helping keep the income in check for longer.

Reducing upkeep based on in-faction production seems like a good hack, though :)

I see what you did here :)

I get that you're not interested in a resource-based economy, any chance that could be modded-in in the future?

It could be, though it'd have to be done carefully to play nice with the UI, and a lot of existing game systems (such as, say, fleet spawning, some missions, etc) tie into the economy, so it'd be a huge undertaking.
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Blothorn

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (In-Dev) Patch Notes
« Reply #96 on: February 06, 2019, 05:06:07 PM »

The one aspect of the economy that really challenges my suspension of disbelief is earning revenue on total production - upkeep, rather than net production--it seems weird that if I have a refinery and a mine producing just enough to feed the mine that I still get the same profit from ore exports that I would if I did not have the refinery. Reduced upkeep for in-faction sourcing provides an incentive for vertical integration but makes that even more implausible because the player explicitly double-profits from intermediate good production.

I would consider calculating the player factions' net imports/exports of each good and adding expenses/income based on those (probably incentivizing vertical integration with a spread between import/export prices)--it seems a lot more intuitive, although it could make it too hard to make a financially-viable colony at first.
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Cyan Leader

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (In-Dev) Patch Notes
« Reply #97 on: February 06, 2019, 10:00:21 PM »

Will .9 mods be compatible with the new version (besides balance changes)?
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Hazard

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (In-Dev) Patch Notes
« Reply #98 on: February 07, 2019, 12:22:49 AM »

Alex, did you manage to put in a fix for the Coordinated Maneuvers/Electronic Warfare bug?
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (In-Dev) Patch Notes
« Reply #99 on: February 07, 2019, 09:54:33 AM »

The one aspect of the economy that really challenges my suspension of disbelief is earning revenue on total production - upkeep, rather than net production--it seems weird that if I have a refinery and a mine producing just enough to feed the mine that I still get the same profit from ore exports that I would if I did not have the refinery. Reduced upkeep for in-faction sourcing provides an incentive for vertical integration but makes that even more implausible because the player explicitly double-profits from intermediate good production.

I would consider calculating the player factions' net imports/exports of each good and adding expenses/income based on those (probably incentivizing vertical integration with a spread between import/export prices)--it seems a lot more intuitive, although it could make it too hard to make a financially-viable colony at first.

I mean, I get what you're saying, but "not caring about that" is specifically what makes the economy work. Trying to figure out some sort of "net" production etc would not work out because it doesn't make sense as a concept given how the rest of it works - so it'd either mean reworking the entire thing, or it'd be hacky and probably exploitable in weird ways.


Will .9 mods be compatible with the new version (besides balance changes)?

Should be, unless I have to break something between now and the release. Trying to avoid that, of course.

Alex, did you manage to put in a fix for the Coordinated Maneuvers/Electronic Warfare bug?

It's on my list of things to look at.
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Thaago

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (In-Dev) Patch Notes
« Reply #100 on: February 07, 2019, 11:46:28 AM »

The one aspect of the economy that really challenges my suspension of disbelief is earning revenue on total production - upkeep, rather than net production--it seems weird that if I have a refinery and a mine producing just enough to feed the mine that I still get the same profit from ore exports that I would if I did not have the refinery. Reduced upkeep for in-faction sourcing provides an incentive for vertical integration but makes that even more implausible because the player explicitly double-profits from intermediate good production.

I would consider calculating the player factions' net imports/exports of each good and adding expenses/income based on those (probably incentivizing vertical integration with a spread between import/export prices)--it seems a lot more intuitive, although it could make it too hard to make a financially-viable colony at first.

TLDR; Starsector's abstract treatment of supply/demand is in many ways more realistic than economy simulators that count units of production.


The weird thing about the economy is that, while it is heavily abstracted, in this manner it is a lot more life like than most 'economy' simulator type games. The idea that industry has some fixed output production level that it makes at all times is at odds with how real world industry works. A rigid supply base operating at 100% capacity is efficient, but very bad.

As an example, take mining or factory output. In almost all cases, the amount being output is the amount that the mine or factory can secure a buyer for, up to a maximum set by the infrastructure present. When demand is especially high workers are called in to work overtime (or more are hired), the plant is run 24 hours a day, etc. But when demand is lower, the opposite happens. When demand is consistently high, the company may invest in infrastructure to increase their maximum possible output, but this carries a large risk as if demand lowers again than the money is 'wasted'.

The demand for components in one industry is almost never static, but goes through upswings and downswings. And if your suppliers are running at flat out 100% capacity, then they cannot expand production in short order to fulfill unexpected needs. So in practice, suppliers will have some amount of excess capacity in a good functioning system. Not only that, but in order to secure themselves against unexpected crises in the supply chain, consuming companies will spread their contracts around to different suppliers (and also if you have multiple competing suppliers, they will offer you lower prices). Those suppliers of course lose some money on excess capacity so will take outside contracts if they can find them.

This comes back around to the SS setting: say you have a heavy industry requiring 4 metals. This is saying that it needs suppliers that can operate at 10^4 scale, whatever that may be. Those suppliers though aren't going to be giving 100% of their output to the industry though - they will have excess capacity to deal with spikes in demand, and when those spikes aren't present they will export to others, if they can get buyers (accessibility).

Here's an example from recent real world: Apple tried to move the domestic assembly of one of their computers from China to Texas a decade or so back. They ran into a problem when they suddenly needed an order of 16000 custom made screws - the local machine shop companies in Texas could not fill a sudden order of that size, so Apple's operations were disrupted until they could secure a supply. This is an example where the local supply size could usually fulfill demand of the company, but was not of sufficient scale to fulfill a spike. In SS terms, this would be a industry requiring say 4 units of something, but only having a supply of 3: it still has output, just limited by problems. Meanwhile, the machine shops in Texas were still exporting goods to others, despite not being able to fill that large spike order - in SS, the 3 output mining or whatever is still making money.
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Hazard

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (In-Dev) Patch Notes
« Reply #101 on: February 07, 2019, 12:07:22 PM »

It's on my list of things to look at.

Ah, sorry, I didn't notice you had already replied in that thread. Good to hear.
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Gothars

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (In-Dev) Patch Notes
« Reply #102 on: February 07, 2019, 05:25:40 PM »

@ Thaago: Thanks for the interesting perspective, that was a good read!
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The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

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Thaago

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (In-Dev) Patch Notes
« Reply #103 on: February 07, 2019, 08:22:35 PM »

@ Thaago: Thanks for the interesting perspective, that was a good read!

^_^

Glad it was enjoyable!
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Cyan Leader

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (In-Dev) Patch Notes
« Reply #104 on: February 08, 2019, 01:42:44 AM »

  • Music will no longer switch to another track when passing near a star system, actually entering it is required

Ah, that reminds me, I've had a small beef with the game for a while now. It really bothers me that when exploring derelicts or planets, the music stops. This is specially noticeable when running custom music, while exploring the songs will constantly stop and resume. I understand when vising markets that have their own music but I really don't know why this is the case for places that have no music at all such as most unexplored landmarks.
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