Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Pages: 1 [2]

Author Topic: Post-game 0.9.1a re-cap feedback  (Read 3890 times)

Lucky33

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 894
    • View Profile
Re: Post-game 0.9.1a re-cap feedback
« Reply #15 on: June 11, 2019, 08:37:31 AM »

Quote
Battle map size was initially 300, then raised to 500 by endgame after I got fed up with 3v3 endurance battles and frequent peak performance time outs by endgame with multi-capital fights one after another.  Even map size 500 did not completely mitigate the issue.

I didnt get it. What are 3v3 endurance battles a thing? And why battlesize 500 should fix them? More hp per map, more time to remove them, player ship less usefull and overall better chances to hit CR limit.
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12118
    • View Profile
Re: Post-game 0.9.1a re-cap feedback
« Reply #16 on: June 11, 2019, 09:23:47 AM »

At map size 300, I could deploy Conquest, Astral, and Doom; no other ships due to lack of DP.  If I replace Conquest with Paragon, even Doom would not fit if I only had 120 DP.  The enemy probably has some small ships, but once they are gone, the big ships come out (and they have more big ships than little ships) and it is roughly three of my ships against three of theirs if they are all capitals.  Often, it is a bit more since they use more cruisers than capitals.  I deploy capitals (at first) because of firepower and peak performance.

At map size 500, I can fit five ships, give or take one.  So can the enemy.  With more ships on the field at once, more ships take damage at the same time and fights end faster.  At smaller map sizes, you fight few ships at the same time and additional ships stream in to replace the fallen.  Think SuperMelee from Star Control 2 or Endurance Matches from some of the Mortal Kombat games.  It takes longer fighting that way, and peak performance is a bigger problem.

Being unable to deploy many ships at once is why Officer Management is not that great if you cannot deploy even five ships due to map size, provided fights end before peak performance time out.  With optimized combat capitals, maybe it is possible to wrap fights up fight, but that does not always happen.
Logged

Lucky33

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 894
    • View Profile
Re: Post-game 0.9.1a re-cap feedback
« Reply #17 on: June 11, 2019, 11:37:55 AM »

You have only two frontline ships. Its clear that they constantly are at risk of being flanked and you have to play passively and employ your map-border-hugging tactic. Try Onslaught (PC), Conquest and two Moras. They have phenomenal shock power and battlefield presence. Speed of removing enemy's first 180 DP wave is amazing. Next time you know you can already send in your reinforcements. No fancy tactics needed. The only obvious exception are phase fleets.

Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12118
    • View Profile
Re: Post-game 0.9.1a re-cap feedback
« Reply #18 on: June 11, 2019, 12:07:00 PM »

@ Lucky: The main reason for hugging the wall is to retreat ships immediately when peak performance runs out, so they can fight another round.  Deathballing is handy against phase fleets, and I fight those from time to time.  The other problem is if I cannot solo fights, then I want a fleet battle, which I cannot have if map size is small enough to practically force near solo fights.

If those Moras (or other slow ships) ran out of peak performance, and I cannot get them off the field quickly enough, they are good as dead.
Logged

Dostya

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 90
    • View Profile
Re: Post-game 0.9.1a re-cap feedback
« Reply #19 on: June 11, 2019, 12:58:26 PM »

One of the first things I do after a vanilla run at battle size 500 is to notch it up to 1500. I get some significant slowdown especially when large numbers of strike craft hit the field, but personally I think the tradeoff is worth it. I do think that either vanilla's maximum battle size should be higher or DP average should come down because I don't want to bring along a large fleet I basically can't use.
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12118
    • View Profile
Re: Post-game 0.9.1a re-cap feedback
« Reply #20 on: June 11, 2019, 01:03:02 PM »

Before I forget, some comments on the new ships and some tweaks, plus commentary after I retired the game.

Atlas 2:  It certainly fits the pirates.  As for using it myself, it is a pain to use with low OP and mounts as awkward as an Apogee.  It is beefy enough (compared to cruisers) that I could use one if it is the very first capital I find, but it would probably get replaced as soon as I find a real capital like Conquest.

Prometheus 2:  While sub-par compared to proper warships of its size, it is better than Atlas 2, and this one is not too bad for player use.  It is sort of a weird low-tech blend between Odyssey and a Blackrock ship.  One of my favorite loadouts is two Heavy Autocannons and two Tachyon Lances.  The sort of loadout I could only do with Karkinos from Blackrock.  Like Odyssey, fighters tend to be escorts, namely Xyphos or Mining Pods.

Needlers:  With better flux efficiency, Heavy Needler is great.  High DPS, good efficiency, good all-around stats.  Only drawback is 15 OP cost, but the cost is often worth it (I sometimes prefer two Heavy Needlers over three Heavy Autocannons).  Despite better flux efficiency than before, I still do not see the point of Light Needler if Railgun is an option.  Light Needler is only marginally more efficient than Railgun, but costs 2 more OP for nearly identical performance.  Given a choice between Light Needler and Railgun, I find myself picking Railgun every time.  Light Needler only gets used if I have the needlers but not railgun.

More comments about my last game:  Game practically ended by 216.  A new faction named Star One (in honor of the Space Metal album), with four prosperous size 7 colonies, self-sufficient aside from drugs and organs, but no problem, right?  ("There is no pain and much to gain, but then the drug destroys their brain!")

During that one fork when I played with alpha cores, it took five in-game years (from 216 to 221) with max growth to grow the colonies from size 7 to size 8.  I was only inspected twice by Hegemony during those five in-game years.  With Pathers bugged as they are, there is absolutely no reason not to abuse alpha cores and build up as many colonies as you find alpha cores.  If I did that and totally forsook Industry and Planetary Operations, I would have had enough skill points to get all of the combat skills I wanted and maybe max Officer Management.  Getting colony skills mostly for babysitting mitigation seems very sub-optimal, but only because there is no effective punishment for abusing alpha cores.

My last fieet composition was the following:  1 Paragon, 1 Astral, 1 Conquest, 1 Doom, 2 Eagle (XIV), 2 Falcon (XIV), 2 Heron, 2 Mora, 3 Apogee, 1 Harbinger, 3 Afflictor, 1 Tempest, 1 Prometheus, 1 Colossus, 1 Shepherd, and 4 Ox.

Paragon was flagship.  Officers in Astral, Doom, and the two Eagles.

Paragon, Astral, and Doom were my A-team, and Conquest was backup.  Eagles and Falcons were long-range suppressors.  Herons did carrier stuff.  The Mora were half combat carrier, half survey ships.  Apogee were brought mostly for surveying and hauling, but they were pressed to fight at times.  The smaller phase ships were piloted by me when it was time for cheese kills (AM blaster Harbinger against small ships, Reaper Afflictor against big things).  Tempest was for the rare times I wanted to kill fleeing civilians in a pursuit personally.
Logged

Lucky33

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 894
    • View Profile
Re: Post-game 0.9.1a re-cap feedback
« Reply #21 on: June 11, 2019, 01:29:47 PM »

@ Lucky: The main reason for hugging the wall is to retreat ships immediately when peak performance runs out, so they can fight another round.  Deathballing is handy against phase fleets, and I fight those from time to time.  The other problem is if I cannot solo fights, then I want a fleet battle, which I cannot have if map size is small enough to practically force near solo fights.

If those Moras (or other slow ships) ran out of peak performance, and I cannot get them off the field quickly enough, they are good as dead.

Im using them w. Combat Endurance officer but w/o Hardened Subsystems. Against 300+ K bounty fleet w. decent AA they will start to lose CR but will haver around 50% left in the end. And it will be near opposite wall anyway.
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12118
    • View Profile
Re: Post-game 0.9.1a re-cap feedback
« Reply #22 on: June 12, 2019, 06:32:04 AM »

Another note:  During the five in-game years playing with cores and growing colonies from size 7 to 8, I noticed a new colony I built (with alpha cores) grew from 3 to 6 in the same time period, although I did everything to accelerate its growth as quickly as possible with Megaport, Free Port, and max Growth Incentives.

I do not want to think how long it takes to grow a colony from 8 to 9, or 9 to 10.  I bet player willing to grow his colony to 10 can easily reach level 60+ if he played that long.
Logged

Hrothgar

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 327
    • View Profile
Re: Post-game 0.9.1a re-cap feedback
« Reply #23 on: June 12, 2019, 07:01:21 AM »

It may depend also on food stock. Like , there is planet i think in one of Blackrock space which have -1 to population growth from special cave network, which in return give 100% planet danger level. There may be + and - on some planets. I guess habitable planets are better in growth than lifeless rocks.
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12118
    • View Profile
Re: Post-game 0.9.1a re-cap feedback
« Reply #24 on: June 12, 2019, 07:12:12 AM »

The new colony was on a barren world, with hazard from 150% to 200% (do not remember exact value).  Higher hazard gives some penalty to growth, which is minor enough to be offset by Megaport.  Meanwhile, Free Port and Growth Incentives together give +50.

Non-habitable just means you do not get -25% hazard bonus (from Habitable), population gains organics demand, and the colony will not gain Pollution (+25% hazard to offset Habitable) if bombed.

Assuming no other conditions, the difference between Habitable and none is 25% hazard, which translates to 2 growth points.  Of course, non-habitables tend to have a bunch of other deadly conditions that raise hazard even more, while most habitables do not (have as many).
« Last Edit: June 12, 2019, 07:14:28 AM by Megas »
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12118
    • View Profile
Re: Post-game 0.9.1a re-cap feedback
« Reply #25 on: June 14, 2019, 06:50:15 AM »

Remembered one more thing I struggled to remember...  Blueprints and priority!

Getting blueprints from raids is not hard at all, much easier than last release.  However, with raids yielding common blueprints that I would not get if I found the pack from salvage and learned them, I had incentive to learn all of the blueprints, including those I did not want to learn in previous games.  I think I made enough sense out of priority that I can block out all the undesirable ships from my fleets.  A bit of an inconvenience trying to remember how priority really works and hand-pick all of the acceptable ships to use, and not get clown ships like most faction-specific ships or the ultra-slow Atlas or Prometheus in my fleets.  As for weapons and fighters, optimal battlestation loadout takes priority over patrol configuration.  I care more on what my battlestation uses if I fight in my system instead of my patrols that I almost never see in battle.

Blacklist feature would be really convenient, such that I probably spend less time working around the quirks of the priority system which are not all that apparent.  Current priority mechanics are awkward and clunky, but they work.  Could be better.

Being able to grudgingly work with the priority system, I now learn all blueprints as found.
Logged
Pages: 1 [2]