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Author Topic: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 351666 times)

Baqar79

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #690 on: May 27, 2019, 11:45:50 PM »

According to the wiki it seems to be able produce medium patrol fleets once at size 5:
https://starsector.fandom.com/wiki/Patrol_HQ

While I've mentioned patrols, is this the correct size equivalence given Patrol HQ or Military Base?:
Light Patrols = Pickets
Medium Patrols = Patrols
Heavy Patrols = Detachment
« Last Edit: May 27, 2019, 11:47:56 PM by Baqar79 »
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Vind

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #691 on: May 28, 2019, 12:35:16 AM »

Patrol HQ is no longer scales according to release notes:
Patrol HQ:

    Does not count as an "industry" and its upkeep does not depend on colony size
    Fixed patrols at 2 small, does not change with colony size

In short - it is useless most of the time as even smallest of pirate fleets can give it a run until you build industry. Once pirates actually start to destabilize system with base newly spawned bigger fleets (not raid) can easily destroy pickets. So im not sure which role Patrol HQ play short of recapturing inner system installations. It cant protect convoys even in time of "peace" and sure cant do anything then pirate base spawns bigger patrols before raiders arrival.
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #692 on: May 28, 2019, 01:32:20 AM »

Patrol HQ is no longer scales according to release notes:
Patrol HQ:

    Does not count as an "industry" and its upkeep does not depend on colony size
    Fixed patrols at 2 small, does not change with colony size

In short - it is useless most of the time as even smallest of pirate fleets can give it a run until you build industry. Once pirates actually start to destabilize system with base newly spawned bigger fleets (not raid) can easily destroy pickets. So im not sure which role Patrol HQ play short of recapturing inner system installations. It cant protect convoys even in time of "peace" and sure cant do anything then pirate base spawns bigger patrols before raiders arrival.
Yeah, to me it seems like it might as well not be in the game at all. If it still scaled up to the size 5 limit, I think it wouldn't be too OP. But as it is now, you might as well not even get it unless you are planning on actually upgrading it to a REAL thing
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Baqar79

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #693 on: May 28, 2019, 01:50:11 AM »

Thanks @Vind for the correction there.

Is it known how many OP points are allocated for each tier of patrol?
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #694 on: May 28, 2019, 05:41:21 AM »

Patrol HQ is no longer scales according to release notes:
Patrol HQ:

    Does not count as an "industry" and its upkeep does not depend on colony size
    Fixed patrols at 2 small, does not change with colony size

In short - it is useless most of the time as even smallest of pirate fleets can give it a run until you build industry. Once pirates actually start to destabilize system with base newly spawned bigger fleets (not raid) can easily destroy pickets. So im not sure which role Patrol HQ play short of recapturing inner system installations. It cant protect convoys even in time of "peace" and sure cant do anything then pirate base spawns bigger patrols before raiders arrival.
This is why I wrote Military Base is an Industry tax.  You need it to defend your colonies from neverending invasions from everyone.  Core worlds do not get invaded nearly as much as the player (and they still get raided when pirates get uppity because defenses in many systems stink!)

While core worlds need to defend only against pirates, player needs to fight a full-scale war against enemies too cowardly to declare war.  Said enemies then expect player to play space cop and constantly destroy outlaw bases that pop-up as soon as they are destroyed.

P.S.  In case of player starting his first colony, an orbital station seems sufficient to repel early pirate raids.  Patrol HQ is necessary to recapture relays stolen by pirates (or maybe Remnants if you colonize a yellow beacon system).  Only when orbital station (or its upgrades) alone is not enough do you need military bases.
« Last Edit: May 28, 2019, 06:15:32 AM by Megas »
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #695 on: May 28, 2019, 08:20:26 AM »

Patrol HQ is basically there to contend for/control infrastructure such as comm relays etc. Combat-wise, it doesn't do much. I could see upgrading it a bit; will keep an eye on that.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #696 on: May 28, 2019, 12:24:24 PM »

After getting fed up with 3v3 and multi-round combats with the default map size of 300, I upgraded map size back to 500 and, with my less-than-ideal endgame fleet, it feels better against those huge fleets with multiple capitals.  Still run out of peak performance for normal cruisers often, though, but the fights end faster than if I used 300 map size.  Fast enough that they are beatable in a single round instead of two or three.

I think I will stick with size 500, despite slowdown against some fleet compositions.  300 is too small with the current sizes of endgame enemies with multiple capitals, unless player wants to fight a series of duels like in Star Control.
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Zhentar

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #697 on: May 28, 2019, 07:11:58 PM »

One thing that I think would make small patrols work better (for both the player and the AI) would be reacting to large fleets near stations by clinging to the station rather than running for the hills; it would feel more "right"/realistic, and put their meager combat strength to some good use, helping to prevent raids/protect important assets.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #698 on: May 28, 2019, 08:58:34 PM »

That's a good point, made a note to take a look.
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #699 on: May 28, 2019, 09:39:45 PM »

And addition to that: Allow them to roam within the support range of the station so that they can use the station as backup while also extending the fleet circle of the station in a sense
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Shoat

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #700 on: May 29, 2019, 06:27:53 AM »

And addition to that: Allow them to roam within the support range of the station so that they can use the station as backup while also extending the fleet circle of the station in a sense

An addition to that addition: AI fleets that are allied to each other should, in general, consider that sticking to each other provides higher safety than just emergency boosting and scattering in multiple directions to escape.
So if AI fleets learn to stay in an allied station's support range for safety, they could use the same code for other situations so that we get some clumps of small fleets if they get threatened (and when the threat has passed they disperse again), or we could get a small fleet hiding behind some third party big fleet that is also their enemies enemy (something that we human players often do).

Maybe patrol fleets would be too strong if they bee-swarmed things properly... though that opens the possibility of making that kind of behavior an unlockable game mechanic (local system military commander positions to put officers or administrators or a new type of npc character into, or maybe having a fleet hq on one colony will make patrol fleets in the entire sector smart and bee-like, or maybe that behavior depends on the level and skills of the commander of each fleet).



On an entirely different note (player faction fleet composition):
I have noticed in my current campaign (stacking most of the mods I could find that are already updated for 0.9.1) I have noticed that my fleets will outright ignore my prioritized ships/weapons/fighters a lot of the time and just use something else entirely instead. And this isn't "just" the issue with the preview being inaccurate, the actual fleets themselves are also only made half of the stuff I want and half of some other equipment.
I made sure to checkmark at least one piece of equipment from each type (small/mid/large, ballistic/energy/missile weapons, frigate/destroyer/cruiser/capital, carrier/phase/warship, fighter/bomber/interceptor, etc.) and yet the fleets still very often use different stuff.
Seeing how with many mods running there is a plethora of blueprints of many vastly different visual thematics that I have learned, my fleets are now resembling something similar to what a "just hit level 60" clownsuit character back in my wow days looked like, despite me having marked lots of stuff of a unifying theme as preferred.

So, maybe the "prefer" checkmark we can set needs to be more powerful, or maybe there needs to be some way to give my faction a blacklist of blueprints that they shouldn't use at all, because deciding not to learn blueprints is a little bit of a janky solution (it still wouldn't prevent them from using stuff from the starting-set of blueprints, it wouldn't stop the undesired blueprints from showing up ove rand over again, and I can't even do that because I am completely muscle-memory'd to just immediately spam-click and learn all blueprints as soon as I acquire them).
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #701 on: May 29, 2019, 06:43:10 AM »

There really needs to be a blacklist option.

I am now forced to learn blueprints so that raids give me blueprints I do not have, instead of duplicates of blueprints I do not want to learn.
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Vind

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #702 on: May 29, 2019, 07:08:33 AM »

After choosing some preferred ships my colony fleets now use exactly selected types if fleet got points for them. One cool thing - choosing gemini as preferred made all trade convoys employ them instead of buffalo,colossus and other freighter types.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #703 on: May 29, 2019, 09:03:13 AM »

On an entirely different note (player faction fleet composition):
I have noticed in my current campaign (stacking most of the mods I could find that are already updated for 0.9.1) I have noticed that my fleets will outright ignore my prioritized ships/weapons/fighters a lot of the time and just use something else entirely instead. And this isn't "just" the issue with the preview being inaccurate, the actual fleets themselves are also only made half of the stuff I want and half of some other equipment.
I made sure to checkmark at least one piece of equipment from each type (small/mid/large, ballistic/energy/missile weapons, frigate/destroyer/cruiser/capital, carrier/phase/warship, fighter/bomber/interceptor, etc.) and yet the fleets still very often use different stuff.
Seeing how with many mods running there is a plethora of blueprints of many vastly different visual thematics that I have learned, my fleets are now resembling something similar to what a "just hit level 60" clownsuit character back in my wow days looked like, despite me having marked lots of stuff of a unifying theme as preferred.

So, maybe the "prefer" checkmark we can set needs to be more powerful, or maybe there needs to be some way to give my faction a blacklist of blueprints that they shouldn't use at all, because deciding not to learn blueprints is a little bit of a janky solution (it still wouldn't prevent them from using stuff from the starting-set of blueprints, it wouldn't stop the undesired blueprints from showing up ove rand over again, and I can't even do that because I am completely muscle-memory'd to just immediately spam-click and learn all blueprints as soon as I acquire them).

Hmm - it would help to see some examples of what you're seeing, since you should be able to use the priority system to something like 99% control what you get. (The only case being the odd ship where there aren't enough fleet points left for anything on your priority list.)

For weapons/fighters, this is a bit trickier.

1) You'd need to do more than cover small/medium/large in each size. For example, if the game is looking to pick a torpedo, a long range weapon, a PD weapon, etc, it'll prefer one of that type over another type that you have prioritized that only matches the slot - so you'd need to pick a wider range of weapons.

2) You'd also you'd need to pick some lower-tier weapons (which is more difficult since IIRC the weapon "tier" is not displayed anywhere. Basically, if you only prioritize Plasma Cannons, the game's not going to put Plasma Cannons in every single large energy slot; higher-quality weapons are not always "available" for a given ship fit, so you need to have some lower-tier options selected as well or it'll fall back to "everything" when the better stuff isn't available.

Stations are an exception here, iirc, with everything being available regardless of tier - so in effect they adhere to priorities more easily/strictly. But overall, for weapons, you probably need to have a wider range of things prioritized than you might think.


For ships, it's harder to say, but again it's probably not having some types of things checked - such as, say, a carrier, a phase ship, a tanker, a freighter, a crew transport ship. To my knowledge, this should work and let you select what ships you want to see, with the exception of the aforementioned "not enough points left so it picks something cheaper", which should happen fairly infrequently.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #704 on: May 29, 2019, 09:37:53 AM »

It would also be nice if there were different priority settings for ships and stations.  For ships, I probably want plasma cannons on most ships, but for stations, I want tachyon lances.  Similarly, I probably want low OP, flux efficient heavy ballistics on ships, but Mjolnirs or Gauss on the station.
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