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Author Topic: Venture, why?  (Read 20121 times)

DatonKallandor

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Re: Venture, why?
« Reply #45 on: September 01, 2019, 04:18:58 AM »

Venture used to be amazing, but the change to built-in mining drone wings without any compensation just crippled it. Add to that a maintenance cost that is quite frankly too high compared to what else you can get for the same price, it's just not worth it.

If the hangar were universal instead of built-in, and if the civilian-militarizied skill in the upcoming rework is big enough, Ventures might get good again, but as long as it's limited to crappy drones at 15 maintenance it ain't gonna happen.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2019, 04:21:34 AM by DatonKallandor »
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Tackywheat1

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Re: Venture, why?
« Reply #46 on: September 01, 2019, 05:21:11 AM »

Why the Venture exists is a very good question at this point. It should be justified in Lore or mechanics in some way.
It is. It exists as a fallback option for any faction without access to heavy industry, so they have at least one ship capable of being an anchor in thier fleets.
Venture is supposed to be the poverty option for cruisers, in the same way Buffalo II is for destroyers, and Condor is for carriers. And the same way that all of them are fodder for the player to beat on in the early game.

As to why you'd want to build it over other ships, you probably wouldn't unless it was the only thing of it's size you had access to. Eg; running a heavy industry without any extra blueprints, something that happens only if you build a colony right at the start of the game, and do zero exploring.

The Venture is actually a civillian ship. You need to waste DP on Militarized Subsystems or else you get ganked by pirate patrols due to 7 burn (without Military systems) and high sensor profile.

Plus without it you get huge costs due to it being a civillian hull.
You can run from almost anything with burn 7 ships. I regularly build fleets around Colossi because they're the biggest thing capable of burn 7 without having to spend dock slots (which I want for other things), and have had no issues running when needed.
Burn 7 is not an issue for the Venture, unless you're obsessing about the highest possible speeds. In which case most cruisers will not be suitable for you either. This is quite an unfair standard to hold against one ship.

CivGrade doesn't increase costs in any way. Unless you're counting the increase from the military conversion, which again is unfair as it's not a requirement.

Most cruisers have burn 8....
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Locklave

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Re: Venture, why?
« Reply #47 on: September 01, 2019, 07:42:42 AM »

You can run from almost anything with burn 7 ships. I regularly build fleets around Colossi because they're the biggest thing capable of burn 7 without having to spend dock slots (which I want for other things), and have had no issues running when needed.
Burn 7 is not an issue for the Venture, unless you're obsessing about the highest possible speeds. In which case most cruisers will not be suitable for you either. This is quite an unfair standard to hold against one ship.

CivGrade doesn't increase costs in any way. Unless you're counting the increase from the military conversion, which again is unfair as it's not a requirement.

Their are several major logistical issues with low burn speeds that shouldn't be glossed over as "obsessed with speed".

- Your escape window if a fleet got close via asteroids/debris field/nebula/magnetic field/ect is tiny and nearly every pirate fleet has an equal or higher base burn. This forces more use of emergency burns to escape, wasting more fuel and supplies from CR loss.

- Low burn speed also wastes tons of supplies by costing you days of travel time.

- You can't catch pirates or bounties easily or at all, costing you more supplies, forcing more emergency burns, costing more supplies from CR loss, costing more fuel.

- Missions have timers and you might not be able to get that extra mission done if given the chance, costing you cash.

- Everything takes longer to do, so in addition to not being able to do extra mission in an area because of time restraints you are also spending more time getting every mission done. Costing you cash/supplies.

- Crew costs cash every month, you get less done in the same time frame inflating your costs. 14 burn vs 20 burn is 30% more crew costs to get the same thing done, works the same for supplies.

Everything about 7 burn base is logistically terrible, 8 is acceptable with the +1 burn skill. 9 total burn, meaning 18 travel speed.

12 max speed is... who would even play like this?
14 max speed is terrible
16 max speed is is bad but tolerable
18 max speed is decent
20 max speed is optimal

Venture needs at minimum militarization for 8, plus the skill to be decent (I assume everyone gets the +1 burn speed skill, it's the best QoL skill in the game). I put up with 8 burn only until a get cash or skills to fix it.

It's not about being obsessed with speed, it's not wanting to throw away time/fuel/supplies and cash while pretending nothing is being lost. No mod you can add to your ships is gonna make up for the loss in cash.

Less speed = greater costs/risk & less profit

edit:

"you can run from almost anything with burn 7 ship." And those not included in the "almost anything" cost you at least half your fleet if you are lucky.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2019, 07:50:55 AM by Locklave »
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Megas

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Re: Venture, why?
« Reply #48 on: September 01, 2019, 08:42:33 AM »

Quote
12 max speed is... who would even play like this?
14 max speed is terrible
16 max speed is is bad but tolerable
18 max speed is decent
20 max speed is optimal
This is why I put Augmented Engines at everything with burn less than 8, even if it hurts battleships.  Well, I could bring more tugs, but that hurts more, especially without Navigation.  (Six tugs for burn 7 ships and no Navigation is too much fuel and fleet slots consumed.)  Even burn 9 ships (or burn 8 ship with Navigation 3) need two tugs to reach 20.  Before I get capitals and tugs, I have put Augmented Engines on even burn 8 ships like cruisers.

Most importantly, less than 20 burn means more time spent babysitting worlds (mine or core), or traveling to babysit, than doing fun stuff.  Even with burn 20, I still spend an unacceptably high amount of time babysitting or traveling to babysit.

Also, if player wants to sneak in a system, he really needs burn 20 to evade patrols.  Patrols seem to have at least burn 18 when they charge at your fleet.

Navigation 3 is the biggest time saver.  It hurts to spend three points to get the extra burn and Transverse Jump, but I finally gave in after so long.  I consider that skill up there with Electronic Warfare 1 and Loadout Design 3 in terms of must-have, even if Navigation has no direct combat use.
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Locklave

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Re: Venture, why?
« Reply #49 on: September 01, 2019, 09:02:31 AM »

Quote
12 max speed is... who would even play like this?
14 max speed is terrible
16 max speed is is bad but tolerable
18 max speed is decent
20 max speed is optimal
This is why I put Augmented Engines at everything with burn less than 8, even if it hurts battleships.  Well, I could bring more tugs, but that hurts more, especially without Navigation.  (Six tugs for burn 7 ships and no Navigation is too much fuel and fleet slots consumed.)  Even burn 9 ships (or burn 8 ship with Navigation 3) need two tugs to reach 20.  Before I get capitals and tugs, I have put Augmented Engines on even burn 8 ships like cruisers.

Most importantly, less than 20 burn means more time spent babysitting worlds (mine or core), or traveling to babysit, than doing fun stuff.  Even with burn 20, I still spend an unacceptably high amount of time babysitting or traveling to babysit.

Also, if player wants to sneak in a system, he really needs burn 20 to evade patrols.  Patrols seem to have at least burn 18 when they charge at your fleet.

Navigation 3 is the biggest time saver.  It hurts to spend three points to get the extra burn and Transverse Jump, but I finally gave in after so long.  I consider that skill up there with Electronic Warfare 1 and Loadout Design 3 in terms of must-have, even if Navigation has no direct combat use.

I completely agree with your reasoning and solid examples of where it improves QoL as well as logistics for the player. Burn speed effects how viable a ship is and if you can justify taking it with you.

It also makes me think about the Stealth runs I do in high threat systems and how much of a difference 10 burn vs 7 or even 8. 10 means you can more safely dodge those random patrol movements, grab what you want and burn outta there if you got seen. 7 speed would be death or spending 10 times as long waiting for bigger openings, same with your example of avoiding patrols.

Venture at very least needs Militarization and at best needs Augmented drive, it's required. Honestly you could replace it with a Mule and not deal with all the downsides and combat issues. Slap a Survey system on a faster cruiser (that likely cost equal cash to buy, cheaper to maintain and fights far better...).
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Megas

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Re: Venture, why?
« Reply #50 on: September 01, 2019, 10:07:09 AM »

I forget to mention that the few times I bring a pure phase fleet to raid blueprints (at Sindria or Culann), I think I put Augmented Engines on Doom just to keep burn 20, and that hurts it combat ability.  Bringing tugs is not an option for a pure phase fleet since the point of a phase fleet as minimum profile, and tugs are as unsubtle as you can get.

Sometimes, tugs are too undesirable as a fix for burn speed.

I wish there was an equivalent of Militarized Subsystems for non-civilian ships, that is simply +1 burn for less OP cost than Augmented Engines.  (+2 is sometimes too much, but I take it because it is the only option.)
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Serenitis

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Re: Venture, why?
« Reply #51 on: September 01, 2019, 12:58:40 PM »

This looks like fun.

Spoiler
Their are several major logistical issues with low burn speeds that shouldn't be glossed over as "obsessed with speed".

- Your escape window if a fleet got close via asteroids/debris field/nebula/magnetic field/ect is tiny and nearly every pirate fleet has an equal or higher base burn. This forces more use of emergency burns to escape, wasting more fuel and supplies from CR loss.
Never seen this myself. I've always been able to scoot away with sustained burn @14 whenever I want. Sure there's times when you didn't see something and end up running into a huge wall of red.
But you did make sure you have a decent combat fleet to go with all those lovely burn 7 Colossi and Ventures. Didn't you?

Quote
- Low burn speed also wastes tons of supplies by costing you days of travel time.
When you're flying through the edges of the sector stripping everything that isn't nailed down and ripping up whatever is, supplies are functionally limitless. And time doesn't really matter.
The only real concerns you have are cargo space, and crew.

Quote
- You can't catch pirates or bounties easily or at all, costing you more supplies, forcing more emergency burns, costing more supplies from CR loss, costing more fuel.
Stop chasing small bounties and pick on someone your own size (or bigger) then.
I've never had a problem catching bounties because they all head right for me.

Quote
- Missions have timers and you might not be able to get that extra mission done if given the chance, costing you cash.
I honestly don't bother with missions past the early game. I've got more interesting things to do.

Quote
- Everything takes longer to do, so in addition to not being able to do extra mission in an area because of time restraints you are also spending more time getting every mission done. Costing you cash/supplies.
Quote
- Crew costs cash every month, you get less done in the same time frame inflating your costs. 14 burn vs 20 burn is 30% more crew costs to get the same thing done, works the same for supplies.
I generally don't care about missions, that's not what I'm going out to the fringe to do so it's not something I consider all that relevant. And neither cash nor supplies are limited resources.
So long as you enjoy what you do, it's never a waste. So time spent doing it is not a concern.
[close]
We could save some effort next time and just say we play in very different ways.

Spoiler
Most importantly, less than 20 burn means more time spent babysitting worlds (mine or core), or traveling to babysit, than doing fun stuff.  Even with burn 20, I still spend an unacceptably high amount of time babysitting or traveling to babysit.
One of the benefits of trawling the sector is that you sweep up all the pirate and pather bases. And when they resapwn they make convenient jumping off points once you turn them in to debris. They also frequently have large bounties on them.
I've played several runs though 0.9 now and have not once seen a core world decivilise.

Quote
Also, if player wants to sneak in a system, he really needs burn 20 to evade patrols.  Patrols seem to have at least burn 18 when they charge at your fleet.
Yeah. Never really cared about doing this. Just about the only sneaking I do is in red beacon systems, and that kind of requires cargo space to take advantage of all the 'free' supplies and fuel floating about in those charming pale blue containers.
[close]

Venture is fine as is. It could do with it's proper fighter bay back, but it's not an 'essential' change.
Don't agree that it needs all the speed frippery, but then again I'm obviously not a majority here.
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Megas

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Re: Venture, why?
« Reply #52 on: September 01, 2019, 01:06:41 PM »

Quote
I've played several runs though 0.9 now and have not once seen a core world decivilise.
In one game, I ignored Pirate bases for at least a year and Asharu decivilized.  Ever since that incident, I have been paranoid over pirate raids against core worlds.
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Serenitis

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Re: Venture, why?
« Reply #53 on: September 01, 2019, 01:21:23 PM »

So, instead of killing them all you decended into paranoia?
I bet if you killed them all you'd feel lots better. And the best bit is, they always come back so you can kill them all again.
It's like therapy. Only with more blood and debris. That you also save the sector is just a convenient happenstance.

I wonder how well a fleet of Ventures could smack the Pirate PiƱata....
Might have to look at that tomorrow.
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Locklave

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Re: Venture, why?
« Reply #54 on: September 01, 2019, 01:27:53 PM »

/snip

I'm talking about actual mechanics.

Seriously, your reply talks past the point of everything.

- Talking about getting ambushed like I'd be fine if I had better ships... L2P Basically? Weak.

- Stop going after small bounties. No, I'll collect that easy cash if it's near me. You can't do it because your fleet is slow.

- You never run out of supplies on the edges of the sector because RNG decided to bless you always. You can and do run out, bad luck happens the systems are RNG and wasting supplies isn't limited to "the edge" you are using them like that the entire game, including early game.

- You don't bother with missions... With such a slow fleet this isn't a shock. Oh and you said you don't do missions but you never have problems catching bounties... On the missions you don't take. Right?

Us playing different is unrelated to the topic and doesn't change how game mechanics work. If you want to play with 14 speed fleets, go for it, more power to you. But don't come on the forums pretending like there is no downside to that choice.

You said "This looks like fun", did you put me in my place yet? I'm not feeling it.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2019, 01:32:11 PM by Locklave »
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Megas

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Re: Venture, why?
« Reply #55 on: September 01, 2019, 01:32:24 PM »

So, instead of killing them all you decended into paranoia?
By that, I mean instead of ignoring them and doing things I want to do at my pace (like I did in the game where Asharu decivilized), I spend excessive babysitting time hunting and killing them again and again instead of doing fun things like exploring, just to prevent bad things happening to all worlds - mine or core.

Pirates cannot be killed permanently.  They also respawn very quickly.  There is a reason why they have been called a zombie horde.  All the player can do is play whack-a-mole with Pirates.  I even tried killing all core worlds to stop the babysitting once and for all, but all that did when I succeeded was have constant pirate activity on my colonies.  Kill a pirate base, one of my colonies gets pirate activity back a day later because a quota base respawned immediately.  Better if other factions get the pirate activity, even if I need to put up with expeditions.
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Locklave

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Re: Venture, why?
« Reply #56 on: September 01, 2019, 01:50:50 PM »

So, instead of killing them all you decended into paranoia?
By that, I mean instead of ignoring them and doing things I want to do at my pace (like I did in the game where Asharu decivilized), I spend excessive babysitting time hunting and killing them again and again instead of doing fun things like exploring, just to prevent bad things happening to all worlds - mine or core.

Pirates cannot be killed permanently.  They also respawn very quickly.  There is a reason why they have been called a zombie horde.  All the player can do is play whack-a-mole with Pirates.  I even tried killing all core worlds to stop the babysitting once and for all, but all that did when I succeeded was have constant pirate activity on my colonies.  Kill a pirate base, one of my colonies gets pirate activity back a day later because a quota base respawned immediately.  Better if other factions get the pirate activity, even if I need to put up with expeditions.

Pirate cause decivilization like like mad about 15+ year (if not dealt with) in and the more it happens the more the cascade because they lack the number of targets they used to have. I've seen it happen in the last 3 plays I've had. Usually neutral planets are the first to fall.

edit:

Not sure if you've ever climbed the mountain that is making allies of the pirates (I'd highly recommend it) but you really get to see the damage they do unchecked.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2019, 01:58:19 PM by Locklave »
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Plantissue

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Re: Venture, why?
« Reply #57 on: September 01, 2019, 04:23:15 PM »

Quote
12 max speed is... who would even play like this?
14 max speed is terrible
16 max speed is is bad but tolerable
18 max speed is decent
20 max speed is optimal
This is why I put Augmented Engines at everything with burn less than 8, even if it hurts battleships.  Well, I could bring more tugs, but that hurts more, especially without Navigation.  (Six tugs for burn 7 ships and no Navigation is too much fuel and fleet slots consumed.)  Even burn 9 ships (or burn 8 ship with Navigation 3) need two tugs to reach 20.  Before I get capitals and tugs, I have put Augmented Engines on even burn 8 ships like cruisers.

Most importantly, less than 20 burn means more time spent babysitting worlds (mine or core), or traveling to babysit, than doing fun stuff.  Even with burn 20, I still spend an unacceptably high amount of time babysitting or traveling to babysit.

Also, if player wants to sneak in a system, he really needs burn 20 to evade patrols.  Patrols seem to have at least burn 18 when they charge at your fleet.

Navigation 3 is the biggest time saver.  It hurts to spend three points to get the extra burn and Transverse Jump, but I finally gave in after so long.  I consider that skill up there with Electronic Warfare 1 and Loadout Design 3 in terms of must-have, even if Navigation has no direct combat use.

Tugs aren't that bad. They use up 5 Fuel per light year. So 3 of them is an Onslaught. If you are weakening enough capitals and cruisers that is an equivalent to the power of an Onslaught, you might as well get 3 Ox tugs instead, and when fighting, you will be less likely to lose any one ship. Or make that 2 Ox tugs for the power of a Paragon. i don't see the point of weakening your fleet so much when getting Ox tugs would simply make your fleet better.


Anyways, depending on the stage of the game, I try to have at least enough burn speed to outrun small frigate pirate/pather fleets, till I have a powerful enough fleet, then I care to have at least enough burn speed to outrun destroyer based pirate fleets and faction patrol till i have a powerful enough fleet, andso and so forth till enough burn speed to outrun expedition fleets. Then I give up and just try to have burn 20 to explore the universe without wasting time as much as possible.

Anyways, I have no problem with the existance of the Venture. The Venture exists for the same reason things like mudskipper II and Collossus III exists. So that pirates can throw them at you and you can collect bounty on them easier. They are weak for their hullsize, so the bounty amount is relatively inflated. But to be honest 15 DP not too high for what they can do.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2019, 04:24:47 PM by Plantissue »
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Megas

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Re: Venture, why?
« Reply #58 on: September 01, 2019, 04:32:46 PM »

@ Plantissue:  Early in the game, tugs' fuel use is a big deal since player use smaller ships.  Late game is less of a problem, although eating fleet slots can be annoying if player still recovers enemy ships, or player wants to bring more combat ships instead.

Two is not too bad.  Four is kind of onerous.  Six is too much to dedicate for tugs.

Quote
i don't see the point of weakening your fleet so much when getting Ox tugs would simply make your fleet better.
More tugs instead of more backup combat ships I can swap into?  I rather have more combat ships if I can support them, especially if I plan to chain battle.
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Plantissue

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Re: Venture, why?
« Reply #59 on: September 01, 2019, 04:45:32 PM »

It's better to not need back up in the first place than to have available ships which are also weaker because of Augmented Drive Field.

You don't need more than 2 tugs anyways to replace Augmented Drive Field.
2 OX tugs gives +2 burn and 10 fuel per light year
Augmented Drive Field Hullmod gives +2 burn, and however much fuel in extra ships in replace the weaker ships.

Why compare 4-6 tugs to Augmented Field Drive? It's like comparing a Paragon to an Atlas.
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