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Author Topic: Skills and Story Points  (Read 91086 times)

TaLaR

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #300 on: August 24, 2019, 12:02:35 AM »

I see.
... Are fleets going to be much smaller in next release or just fleet-wide skills much less important? This seems to be quite a low value at battle-size 500. I mean my deployment capacity needs to be 200 dp at minimum, and preferably somewhat more.
Standard 200 battle-size may reduce my single time deployment needs, but then I'd need to prepare for multi round combat, given size of late bounties or expedition fleets, which also means extra ships.
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Nemestrinus

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #301 on: August 24, 2019, 01:24:05 AM »

So when do you plan to release this awesome update? A month estimate at least would be good, so I that I know not to stress about it looking every few days to see if its been uploaded ;D .
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #302 on: August 24, 2019, 10:04:02 AM »

What is a combat ship? Any ship which doesnt get automatically included in a Civilian Rally Point order?

Speaking of skill booster hullmods, here's a scenario. A ten hangar fleet constituted by one Astral, one Mora and one Condor. If player add a booster hullmod the Astral, Carrier Group will give maximum bonus as if there's only five hangars while adding the hull mod to the Condor or Drover will give less than maximum bonus as if there's more than six hangars.

How well would this arrangement work? While it still leads to hullmod spamming, it doesn't lead to spamming specialized booster ships. Additionally, it makes the player choose between skill booster hullmod against weapons/LPC's/vents/hullmods.
« Last Edit: August 24, 2019, 10:08:11 AM by SonnaBanana »
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Alex

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #303 on: August 24, 2019, 10:21:37 AM »

... Are fleets going to be much smaller in next release or just fleet-wide skills much less important? This seems to be quite a low value at battle-size 500. I mean my deployment capacity needs to be 200 dp at minimum, and preferably somewhat more.

Standard 200 battle-size may reduce my single time deployment needs, but then I'd need to prepare for multi round combat, given size of late bounties or expedition fleets, which also means extra ships.

Bit of both, really. Still some fine-tuning to do, but a right now a top-end Hegemony fleet would have something like 3-4 capital ships in it. So it's leaning more on officers to increase power than it is on raw ship size.

You also don't *have* to stick to 100 DP total for Crew Training - it's really a choice between running more lean and efficient, and having more overall muscle. Skills have varying DP thresholds, btw, i.e. it's not all set to 100, though right now 100 is the highest. Again, though, some fine-tuning to be done so I wouldn't say with certainty this is the final value.


So when do you plan to release this awesome update? A month estimate at least would be good, so I that I know not to stress about it looking every few days to see if its been uploaded ;D .

Ahh, I'm sorry, the release schedule operates strictly on a "soon(tm)" and "when it's ready" schedule :)

(That said, there's a bunch to do, both feature and content-wise, so I wouldn't worry about it just now.)


What constitutes a combat ship? Any ship which is not included in a Civilian Rally Point order?

Pretty much, but ... that reminds me, there's a couple of loose ends I need to tie up here.

Speaking of skill booster hullmods, here's a scenario. A ten hangar fleet constituted by one Astral, one Mora and one Condor. If player add a booster hullmod the Astral, Carrier Group will give maximum bonus as if there's only five hangars while adding the hull mod to the Condor or Drover will give less than maximum bonus as if there's more than six hangars.

How well would this arrangement work? While it still leads to hullmod spamming, it doesn't lead to spamming specialized booster ships. Additionally, it makes the player choose between skill booster hullmod against weapons/LPC's/vents/hullmods.

Hmm - would this hypothetical hullmod also stop the effect from applying to the ship it's installed on? If it did, that could be potentially workable, though I'm not sure it's *necessary*. Also, not sure how it would be presented to the player just as far as the nature of the hullmod.
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #304 on: August 24, 2019, 10:25:25 AM »

would this hypothetical hullmod also stop the effect from applying to the ship it's installed on? If it did, that could be potentially workable, though I'm not sure it's *necessary*. Also, not sure how it would be presented to the player just as far as the nature of the hullmod.
I'm thinking of two kinds of hullmods - exclusion type (no effect, no OP cost) and emphasis type (effect and has OP cost). Of course, neither type of hullmod would make the applied ships' hangers counts towards the maximum.
« Last Edit: August 25, 2019, 01:56:51 AM by SonnaBanana »
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Megas

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #305 on: August 25, 2019, 09:20:26 AM »

Thought about High Scatter Amplifer, the hard flux beam hullmod, and the range penalty lately.  I guess the added range from Advanced Optics gets reduced too, for +100 range if ranged is halved.  With so much OP spent on hullmods, what do we get?

For small beams like Tactical Laser, we pay so much OP to emulate a Light Mortar.  They may be more accurate, but they probably will lose flux war once something with Light Autocannons decides to shoot back.

Most beam PD will have too short range to be useful (much like in early releases), possibly making burst PD the only useful option.

For graviton beam, we emulate Light Autocannon with Railgun accuracy.  Lots of OP spent for that.

For phase beam, we have ridiculously short range.  Might as well grab a different ship that can mount Assault Chaingun instead.

Ion Beam with much shorter range might be too underpowered as a shield breaker to be practical.

Paladin PD with its high DPS looks like it might have some use... if it was not so horribly inefficient.  (Four will overload unskilled Paragon very quickly.)

High Intensity Laser is an anti-armor HE weapon.  Using it as anti-shield is not a good idea.  (It is okay to fire at shields as a threat, but it does not need hard flux for that use.)

Hard flux Tachyon Lance could be a short-ranged unblockable weapon.  Still less range than autopulse or plasma.

The thing that seems annoying is player may be expected to spend so much OP on multiple hullmods for something functional but sub-optimal or impractical, much like Shield Conversion: Omni and Extended Shields in previous releases (when omni shield hullmod cost the most OP, had greater arc penalty, and cut Extended Shield down from +60 to +30).

Maybe High Scatter Amplifer could have a smaller range penalty (less than 50%), but made mutually exclusive with Advanced Optics (both cannot be used together), to get a similar result without so much OP spent?
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Killgarth

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #306 on: August 25, 2019, 12:43:09 PM »

Im really loving the idea of getting perk points based on story completion, sounds kickass.
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Sarissofoi

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #307 on: August 26, 2019, 07:22:29 AM »

Also small suggestion(maybe fix request) for Alex.

Is it possible to make procurement missions done for market with supply shortages affect said market?
I noticed that it don't affect shortages at all and you can dump plenty of goods on procurment contracts and situation do no change.

Sarcolemma

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #308 on: August 28, 2019, 01:15:49 PM »

Recently bought the game and have been loving it so far. Thanks for the work you guys have been putting in! I like the direction this skill update would take the game in general.

I love the idea of story points and all the cool things you can do with them. It would definitely give a good constant sense of progression. However, I would suggest restricting it to actions which don't involve immersion breaking behavior or if they do, have some in game explanation of the outcome. Like if you use a point to force a disengagement have the dialogue reference some brilliant maneuver you orchestrated or how you super charisma's the enemy commander to let you go. One option could have spending a point in a situation like that present the player with options that have that fixed disengagement outcome but also have other interesting side affects like if you tricked the commander he would find out later and then come gunning for you again for revenge. That might be a bit complicated but could be cool.

Though, I am concerned that 15 levels will feel restricting despite the addition of the story points. I could be completely wrong as it isn't implemented of course but I'd feel more confident with more levels/options. I know it is important to balance the number of choices with the amount they affect the available mechanics of the game and that each choice should feel important and meaningful. I just get fearful when a see the word "streamline" or "simplify" when it comes to skill trees in games. I've always enjoyed more choice even if is a bit less impactful because the greater number of opportunities to make those skill choices usually leads to a greater sense of game progression for me.

I'm really excited for the permanent hull mod part of it too. It was already suggested but I think it's a good idea to have an OP limit for the insertable mods so the beefy ones aren't always the optimal choice. I like scooting around with a small number of powerful ships so I think the permanent modding will be tons of fun. Would it be possible to expand that system to also include activate-able abilities? I'm not sure if you'd need a new set of options to choose from or if you could have choices from abilities that already exist in game but I think it would be pretty dope to have options to make my ships even more unique/specialized.
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Alex

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #309 on: August 28, 2019, 02:10:39 PM »

Recently bought the game and have been loving it so far. Thanks for the work you guys have been putting in! I like the direction this skill update would take the game in general.

Glat to hear you've been enjoying it! Welcome to the forum :)

However, I would suggest restricting it to actions which don't involve immersion breaking behavior or if they do, have some in game explanation of the outcome. Like if you use a point to force a disengagement have the dialogue reference some brilliant maneuver you orchestrated or how you super charisma's the enemy commander to let you go.

Yeah, that's pretty much how it's handled.

Though, I am concerned that 15 levels will feel restricting despite the addition of the story points. I could be completely wrong as it isn't implemented of course but I'd feel more confident with more levels/options. I know it is important to balance the number of choices with the amount they affect the available mechanics of the game and that each choice should feel important and meaningful. I just get fearful when a see the word "streamline" or "simplify" when it comes to skill trees in games. I've always enjoyed more choice even if is a bit less impactful because the greater number of opportunities to make those skill choices usually leads to a greater sense of game progression for me.

The main change there is having 3 levels per skill vs having the same combined effect unlocked for 1 point. I mean, I hear you as far as it not being that many levels, but overall XP/time-wise it'll be in a similar ballpark to three times the level in the current/old system. We'll see, I guess!

Would it be possible to expand that system to also include activate-able abilities? I'm not sure if you'd need a new set of options to choose from or if you could have choices from abilities that already exist in game but I think it would be pretty dope to have options to make my ships even more unique/specialized.

I've thought about that a bit. Something like that would have to be extremely restricted, as certain systems would be far too powerful on other ships. And in some cases, the data files for the ships have to support the system, i.e. the extra engine nozzles on the Eagle/Falcon that activate when Maneuvering Jets are on, that sort of thing. I guess one might have a set of "general-purpose" ship systems that could be swapped in, but... it just seems really difficult to avoid combinations that would be clear-best and extremely overpowered. Could still be a fun thing to try at some point, though.
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Megas

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #310 on: August 28, 2019, 02:43:17 PM »

Would it be possible to expand that system to also include activate-able abilities? I'm not sure if you'd need a new set of options to choose from or if you could have choices from abilities that already exist in game but I think it would be pretty dope to have options to make my ships even more unique/specialized.

I've thought about that a bit. Something like that would have to be extremely restricted, as certain systems would be far too powerful on other ships. And in some cases, the data files for the ships have to support the system, i.e. the extra engine nozzles on the Eagle/Falcon that activate when Maneuvering Jets are on, that sort of thing. I guess one might have a set of "general-purpose" ship systems that could be swapped in, but... it just seems really difficult to avoid combinations that would be clear-best and extremely overpowered. Could still be a fun thing to try at some point, though.
First release Missile Autoforge Gryphon had!  It was highly self-destructive (CR Burn instead of one charge), but insanely powerful if you knew what you did.  (Of course, Onslaught/Paragon could solo anything without such tricks when skills were that strong at the time.)
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Davido

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #311 on: August 29, 2019, 10:27:05 PM »

Yes, give me that AI ships.  ;D ;D ;D
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #312 on: August 29, 2019, 11:40:47 PM »

Are officers with access to Leadership, Technology and Industry skills (not administrators) planned?
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SCC

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #313 on: August 29, 2019, 11:44:10 PM »

Currently there are several skills in Leadership and Technology tech trees that affect only the piloted ship. In the AI core skill selection screen you can see some technology and industry tree skills. If you mean non-ship-specific skills, the answer is presumably that it not coming ever.

Alex

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #314 on: August 30, 2019, 07:42:33 AM »

Just very briefly, officers giving fleetwide skills is troublesome because it heavily disincentivizes the player from getting those skills themselves. It could be worked around! (Say, a different set of bonuses.) But that gets more complicated; it's not something I'm looking at diving into; wouldn't say "never" but yeah, it's unlikely.
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