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Author Topic: Skills and Story Points  (Read 91082 times)

SonnaBanana

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #345 on: September 05, 2019, 09:34:44 PM »

In addition, consider that "AI Core drop rate and availability now ties into <everything story points can do> as a balancing factor" is... probably not good, let's say. That kind of balance dependency seems like it's just asking for trouble.
Players can spend story points to gain AI cores from battles against [REDACTED]?
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Alex

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #346 on: September 05, 2019, 09:44:46 PM »

Huh? What I mean is that if you could use cores to get story points, then the availability of cores would impact everything you can do with story points.
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #347 on: September 06, 2019, 10:21:33 AM »

How well would making the effects of some skills increase with player level work? It doesn't have to increase on single every level, could be on even or odd levels, only after Level 5, at 10 and 15 only etc.....

As for some story point use ideas....
*Use at bars or comm relays and get intel you can't normally find?
*During raids, spend to increase marine performance/reduce losses/more loot. Maybe options to spend more than one point?
*Clear suspicion from black market trading? Reduce tariffs for one day?
*Reduce sensor profile for a week? Reduce CR loss and hull damage from space hazards for one week?
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Megas

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #348 on: September 06, 2019, 10:34:29 AM »

Player can grind about one alpha core out of every two full Ordos fleets.  (Some drop two, some drop none, often they drop one.)  Does not include lower-grade cores, which they drop more of.  Player will have lots of cores after grinding Remnants in red systems for a while.

Of course, anyone who can kill Ordos easily will probably grind up enough XP from combat alone to earn more story points soon enough.  Trading cores for story points seems like overkill, unless it only works with alpha cores.  (In which case, I want to save alphas to colonize the whole sector!)
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Someone

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #349 on: September 06, 2019, 11:50:21 AM »

Hello Alex

It is probaly too early to ask for any numbers but how high are the CR limites for the automatic Ships. And are those CR limites reduced by the amount of ordnance/maintance or by the ship class in general? Also is it possible to increase the CR limites by any way (maybe a communication center/central processor unit on a colony [of course totaly harmless])?

Of course i dont intend to fight a
Spoiler
third ai war.
[close]

with friendly regards,
someone who doesnt has omega
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Alex

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #350 on: September 06, 2019, 12:14:50 PM »

How well would making the effects of some skills increase with player level work? It doesn't have to increase on single every level, could be on even or odd levels, only after Level 5, at 10 and 15 only etc.....

As for some story point use ideas....
*Use at bars or comm relays and get intel you can't normally find?
*During raids, spend to increase marine performance/reduce losses/more loot. Maybe options to spend more than one point?
*Clear suspicion from black market trading? Reduce tariffs for one day?
*Reduce sensor profile for a week? Reduce CR loss and hull damage from space hazards for one week?

Hmm. I've actually got an item to look at a raid option using SP, yeah - that could be fun.


Hello Alex

Hi - welcome to the forum!

It is probaly too early to ask for any numbers but how high are the CR limites for the automatic Ships. And are those CR limites reduced by the amount of ordnance/maintance or by the ship class in general? Also is it possible to increase the CR limites by any way (maybe a communication center/central processor unit on a colony [of course totaly harmless])?

Of course i dont intend to fight a
Spoiler
third ai war.
[close]

with friendly regards,
someone who doesnt has omega

The basic idea for the Automated Ships skill is the maximum CR of the automated ships in your fleet is based on the strength of the automated ships in your fleet. The way it's currently tuned is that a REDACTED battleship will be pretty strained - IIRC it maxes at around 50 CR for one? CR can be increased by officer (or in this case, AI core skills) and there's a fleetwide skill that boosts it, as well. Putting an AI core on it increases the strength, though, so the maximum CR drops, so that part of it ends up being a bit of a wash.

Basically, a REDACTED battleship is not generally going to be at peak power - still good, but there's some incentive to use smaller REDACTED ships instead, since you'd be able to get them to higher readiness.
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SCC

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #351 on: September 06, 2019, 12:22:51 PM »

The basic idea for the Automated Ships skill is the maximum CR of the automated ships in your fleet is based on the strength of the automated ships in your fleet. The way it's currently tuned is that a REDACTED battleship will be pretty strained - IIRC it maxes at around 50 CR for one? CR can be increased by officer (or in this case, AI core skills) and there's a fleetwide skill that boosts it, as well. Putting an AI core on it increases the strength, though, so the maximum CR drops, so that part of it ends up being a bit of a wash.

Basically, a REDACTED battleship is not generally going to be at peak power - still good, but there's some incentive to use smaller REDACTED ships instead, since you'd be able to get them to higher readiness.
This feels counter intuitive, sort of like gamma cores reducing demand worked — you put on a rare thing on a ship/industry to make it better, but it looks worse off, even if it increases its total power (or, in the case of gamma core, just reduces a bit how much the global market value that colony adds due to its demand).
I also think that people will look for ships that, at their baseline, have the most advantage over human ships, like Scintilla or Radiant.

Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #352 on: September 06, 2019, 12:33:24 PM »

I don't think that's actually true, at least nowhere near to the same extent.

Fleetwide skills available on officers = it's an actual mistake to get them on your character (barring, as mentioned, significant changes in working around this).

Combat skills available on officers = it's a choice what to invest in, since your personal piloting have a huge impact, and regardless, it's an additional ship-with-skills.
Alex, have you ever thought of splitting the flagship skills from the fleet and logistics skills, with separate skill points for each? That way you wouldn't have players feeling like they are being pushed into being a cheerleader for their fleet while the AI gets all the fun buffs and toys
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SafariJohn

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #353 on: September 06, 2019, 01:35:28 PM »

Unless I am wildly off-base, that has been suggested many times, Midnight.
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Alex

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #354 on: September 06, 2019, 01:43:08 PM »

This feels counter intuitive, sort of like gamma cores reducing demand worked — you put on a rare thing on a ship/industry to make it better, but it looks worse off, even if it increases its total power (or, in the case of gamma core, just reduces a bit how much the global market value that colony adds due to its demand).
I also think that people will look for ships that, at their baseline, have the most advantage over human ships, like Scintilla or Radiant.

Hmm - I mean, I'm sure it'll be a bit confusing in some cases, but the UI is there to explain all the stuff, and I think the mechanics make sense. I.E. there are reasons to use weaker ships and possibly weaker AI cores.

Alex, have you ever thought of splitting the flagship skills from the fleet and logistics skills, with separate skill points for each? That way you wouldn't have players feeling like they are being pushed into being a cheerleader for their fleet while the AI gets all the fun buffs and toys

Yeah - I'm just not into the idea. It feels like it's removing too many choices from the player - like, no matter what, it'd just be a precisely forced mix of "piloted ship" and "other" skills. Sure, there's some room for choice within that, but to me it doesn't feel like enough. It feels like if a player wants to roleplay a character that's not a crack pilot, they should be able to do that.

Also, I think that feeling of being pushed into not getting combat skills is... I get that it's a thing, but I don't think it's actually as much of a thing as some people feel that it is. Although, in fairness, how it *feels* is a major component.
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Wyvern

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #355 on: September 06, 2019, 01:55:48 PM »

how it *feels* is a major component.
This.  Very much this.

It feels like if a player wants to roleplay a character that's not a crack pilot, they should be able to do that.
Which is why my version of this idea has always been the "Flag Officer", where the player simply doesn't get combat skills, but can instead assign a regular officer to their flagship and get access to combat skills that way.

Which, yes, kinda kills the roleplay option of "I'm an elite ship captain, not a fleet commander" - but that's been dead since we got out of Corvus and found that, in the larger sector, you -have- to have a fleet to get anywhere.  I had a lot of fun back in the Corvus days running around with an Odyssey, a single medusa escort, and five wings of wasps - but that sort of fleet is simply not viable anymore.
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Goumindong

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #356 on: September 07, 2019, 02:02:48 AM »

But then, not letting officers have fleet-wide bonus skills disincentivizes the player from the entire Combat skills tree. Maybe let officers have fleetwide skills but say, only one or two per officer?

I almost always have a good selection of combat skills on my character when i play
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Goumindong

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #357 on: September 07, 2019, 03:08:14 AM »

Which, yes, kinda kills the roleplay option of "I'm an elite ship captain, not a fleet commander" - but that's been dead since we got out of Corvus and found that, in the larger sector, you -have- to have a fleet to get anywhere.  I had a lot of fun back in the Corvus days running around with an Odyssey, a single medusa escort, and five wings of wasps - but that sort of fleet is simply not viable anymore.



Fuel Range on a single Odyssey with the fuel skill. You can go pretty far with a single ship if its the right ship
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Wyvern

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #358 on: September 07, 2019, 08:28:14 AM »

Fuel Range on a single Odyssey with the fuel skill. You can go pretty far with a single ship if its the right ship
Lol.  Nice joke there; of course I didn't mean that in terms of literal range.  :-P
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Goumindong

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #359 on: September 07, 2019, 12:54:03 PM »

Fuel Range on a single Odyssey with the fuel skill. You can go pretty far with a single ship if its the right ship
Lol.  Nice joke there; of course I didn't mean that in terms of literal range.  :-P

I can solo most of the base game in that odyssey (bit difficult to do big ordos though)
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