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

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Author Topic: Difficulty Scaling  (Read 10643 times)

Czyrek

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Difficulty Scaling
« on: September 16, 2019, 01:35:48 PM »

I was wondering how difficulty scaling was determined, at the start of the game most enemies I fight are a few frigates, mostly shuttles and small freighters, maybe one or two combat frigates. But then I start getting bounties for things with cruisers and battleships and so far I have not really seen the end of how far things scale.

What I wanted to now is, how is this determined? Is it a variable of time played? Player wealth? Fleet size? I keep adding to my fleet, but it seems the enemy does this just the same, and I always feel one step behind. I get one cruiser, the bounty has 3, I get a battleship the enemy has 4 capitals. Am I just "behind" in the time scaled progression? or are these fleets spawned off my own fleets strength (or my income per month?). Any idea on this would help, as I cherish the little ship battles and would like for that section of the game to last longer than massive engagements with 40+ ships.

I was also wondering if perhaps I could also turn down fleet size across the board (for me and the AI) it would be neat to be forced to work within something like 100-150 deployment points and only 10ish ships.
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SCC

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Re: Difficulty Scaling
« Reply #1 on: September 16, 2019, 01:58:32 PM »

It scales off two things: how many bounties you complete, and slightly off the time. Even then, I'd say that current bounty hunting progression is not easy, if bounty hunting is the only thing you do. I'd advise you to do some exploration or trading, until you get enough resources to handle the stronger bounties.

Sundog

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Re: Difficulty Scaling
« Reply #2 on: September 16, 2019, 02:04:24 PM »

@SCC: *shakes fist*

@Czyrek:
The size of bounty fleets scales with the number of bounty missions you've completed and, to a much lesser degree, the in-game time that has passed since the start of the game. This means you can do other activities to get caught up, like smuggling or system bounties (which do not scale).

I was also wondering if perhaps I could also turn down fleet size across the board (for me and the AI) it would be neat to be forced to work within something like 100-150 deployment points and only 10ish ships.
It might wonkify fleet generation a bit, but you can change these settings in \starsector-core\data\config\settings.json:
   "maxShipsInFleet":30,
   "maxShipsInAIFleet":30,

intrinsic_parity

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Re: Difficulty Scaling
« Reply #3 on: September 16, 2019, 02:39:11 PM »

@SCC: *shakes fist*

@Czyrek:
The size of bounty fleets scales with the number of bounty missions you've completed and, to a much lesser degree, the in-game time that has passed since the start of the game. This means you can do other activities to get caught up, like smuggling or system bounties (which do not scale).

I was also wondering if perhaps I could also turn down fleet size across the board (for me and the AI) it would be neat to be forced to work within something like 100-150 deployment points and only 10ish ships.
It might wonkify fleet generation a bit, but you can change these settings in \starsector-core\data\config\settings.json:
   "maxShipsInFleet":30,
   "maxShipsInAIFleet":30,
It's possible that reducing the number of ships in the fleet will result in even more capital ships. I think the fleet generator is trying to create fleets of a particular strength, so it will resort using stronger ships if it has less slots. I say this because I noticed that increasing the fleet cap seemed to reduce the number of capital ships and increase the number of smaller ships (I made a thread about it a few weeks ago).
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Daynen

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Re: Difficulty Scaling
« Reply #4 on: September 16, 2019, 03:04:16 PM »

Can't confirm this myself, but I believe selling things to factions can also buff them by making their colonies more prosperous.  I THINK they can learn to use whatever blueprints you sell them but that could be just my imagination.
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Wyvern

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Re: Difficulty Scaling
« Reply #5 on: September 16, 2019, 03:10:16 PM »

To my knowledge, that's just the pirates - any blueprints you sell on the black market (that the pirates don't already know) will vanish, and a few months later the pirates will start using those ships/weapons.

Personally, I like gifting them the Luddic Path blueprints.
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Wyvern is 100% correct about the math.

Tackywheat1

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Re: Difficulty Scaling
« Reply #6 on: September 16, 2019, 03:16:59 PM »

To my knowledge, that's just the pirates - any blueprints you sell on the black market (that the pirates don't already know) will vanish, and a few months later the pirates will start using those ships/weapons.

Personally, I like gifting them the Luddic Path blueprints.

I always give them one Paragon blueprint endgame
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Czyrek

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Re: Difficulty Scaling
« Reply #7 on: September 17, 2019, 08:53:14 AM »

It scales off two things: how many bounties you complete, and slightly off the time. Even then, I'd say that current bounty hunting progression is not easy, if bounty hunting is the only thing you do. I'd advise you to do some exploration or trading, until you get enough resources to handle the stronger bounties.

I do lots of exploring/surveying and have no problem making money :) and once my colonies are up money is shortly a non issues, I just am a bit frustrated that I'm having to build up my fleet too quickly for my liking. It also has the slight annoying side effect that I have to visit several stations (or my own colony) to resupply such a massive fleet. (as 3-400 supplies barely scratches how fast I go through supplies)
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Yunru

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Re: Difficulty Scaling
« Reply #8 on: September 17, 2019, 09:02:30 AM »

It scales off two things: how many bounties you complete, and slightly off the time. Even then, I'd say that current bounty hunting progression is not easy, if bounty hunting is the only thing you do. I'd advise you to do some exploration or trading, until you get enough resources to handle the stronger bounties.

I do lots of exploring/surveying and have no problem making money :) and once my colonies are up money is shortly a non issues, I just am a bit frustrated that I'm having to build up my fleet too quickly for my liking. It also has the slight annoying side effect that I have to visit several stations (or my own colony) to resupply such a massive fleet. (as 3-400 supplies barely scratches how fast I go through supplies)
Tech-mine everywhere. Each one will send at least some supplies a month, and combined with a waystation it should help.

Daynen

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Re: Difficulty Scaling
« Reply #9 on: September 19, 2019, 06:41:33 PM »

creating a "commerce" industry is also a good way to resupply since you can buy from your own colonies at a great price if they're already producing what you buy.  Taking from your stockpiles works but you're always paying base market price at the end of the month.
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sotanaht

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Re: Difficulty Scaling
« Reply #10 on: September 19, 2019, 06:58:52 PM »

creating a "commerce" industry is also a good way to resupply since you can buy from your own colonies at a great price if they're already producing what you buy.  Taking from your stockpiles works but you're always paying base market price at the end of the month.
Commerce takes a 30% tariff.  I think that taking from stockpiles always costs exactly base cost with no modifier for production/demand, and no tariff.  It's really hard to justify Commerce as an industry unless you are just really lazy and have craploads of stuff stored in your colony you want to sell.

I think commerce should earn profit based on accessibility from trading with random fleets.  That would make it a worthwhile industry and provide an alternative way to make money compared to the current economy system that relies on other factions.
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Yunru

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Re: Difficulty Scaling
« Reply #11 on: September 19, 2019, 08:53:56 PM »

It's really hard to justify Commerce as an industry unless you are just really lazy and have craploads of stuff stored in your colony you want to sell.
I use commerce for while I don't have a nanoforge to recoup some of the expense of buying ships until I get ones with no D-mods.

shandou

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Re: Difficulty Scaling
« Reply #12 on: March 30, 2020, 12:05:49 AM »

Sorry for necroing up this post, but I really wanted to chip in here. Relatively new player here (hi everyone), purchased the game a few months ago. I love it! Hands down the most complete space game there is (blowing the X series out of the water if you ask me).
My only problem with the game is scaling. I hate it with a passion, dynamic scaling is one of the reasons I always use cheats in Skyrim and Fallout 4, because it was stupid that simple raiders ran around in high level armor and could take a huge amount of beating. Breaks the immersion.
Unfortunately immersion was broken in Starsector once I realized all bounties contained 4+ capital ships, with 10+ cruisers, and high danger systems fielding ~4-6 fleets with 2 battleships each. It's not about difficulty, I appreciate challenge but I feel this is a bit silly.

Once I started the campaign I thought that all ships before the Legion and the Astral are just tools to get money until I can afford one of the big carriers (I love piloting capital ships in games). It turned out playing with frigates is huge fun! The best part of the campaign was when I had my "wolfpack" Wolf-Tempest fleet. Then the game scaled, and I was forced to scale too.
My point is that this game is mostly about roleplaying and you can't really roleplay a rugged captain with their trusty ol' fleet of 5 wolves picking off smaller bounties. At least not for long.
I think scaling should be distance-based for REDACTED (the farther from core worlds, the stronger the fleets - with a healthy random distribution). Bounties should scale around player fleet strength with normal distribution (few very difficult and very easy bounties, most around your strength). It makes sense that you only look for bounties that your fleet has a chance of taking on, but you can still take extreme risk if you want to. I think this way people can still roleplay, and those who want challenge can still get it. Plus challenge is also a relative term. Beating 3 cruisers + escort with a few frigates is as much of a challenge as beating 4 full-strength ordos at once with 3 paragons.
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Mondaymonkey

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Re: Difficulty Scaling
« Reply #13 on: March 30, 2020, 12:59:48 AM »

You mentioned X series. I don't know why, but remembered X3.

It have built-in scaling system, but not all players noticed it's existence, as it smooth. It does not lean on player level or any other constant-progressive value. All the missions, including plot, rely on combat and trading ranks. If player choose missions far above his current rank, or doing actions (like destroying enemies or making significant profits by trading) his rank is growing FAST, giving more challenges. Once player starts to accept missions below average related to current rank or unable to do progressive-difficulty actions, his ranks will grow slowly or even deteriorate. So, if something happens, like you loose your main flagship and unable to make bounties you used to do before, - just wait and do something else - soon rank will degrade till you can match.

That system is great, as player always get exact difficulty it wants to play. If you want easy-relaxing game - just do not choose missions harder, than you want, stay where you are. If you need a challenge - go on, beat unbeatable and next challenge will be harder! Game will generate something insanely-hard for hardcore psychos, if you are.

That is suggestion.
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Alex

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Re: Difficulty Scaling
« Reply #14 on: March 30, 2020, 10:32:48 AM »

I'll say, that system definitely bears thinking on - thank you for mentioning it! Hmm. The more I think about this, the more I like it - maybe not as a general across-the-board thing, but for personal bounties.

@shandou:
Hi, and welcome to the forum! Just FYI, the bounties grow based on the number of them you've completed. The high-end fleets are pretty top-heavy right now, and regardless of anything else, you can expect to see that toned down in the next release. In general, I hear you as far as the scale you're talking about being a lot of fun, and several changes in the next release should help to extend it. (Heck, there's even a "Wolfpack Tactics" skill!) That's not to say capitals would become obsolete, but, just, moving things towards more of a happy medium with, hopefully, more viable options all-around.
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