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

Author Topic: My thoughts on combat  (Read 1686 times)

tbkn

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My thoughts on combat
« on: January 12, 2020, 02:18:27 PM »

Hi, new player here.

On one hand, I like that the combat has a lot of options. But on the other hand, it's sometimes way way way too slow. If you're fighting against fast ships they can dog your entire fleet for several very boring minutes, which could ruin an otherwise good time with the game.

I would strongly recommend finding a way to prevent this from happening. It's a big hindrance to the fun of the game.
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Thaago

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Re: My thoughts on combat
« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2020, 02:26:05 PM »

Hi, welcome to the forum!

At present CR degredation stops endless kiting, but it can still last for a few minutes, and I agree with you that it can be boring. At present the answer is: have some fast ships of your own or a carrier with interceptors. A Condor with 2 Talons is a pretty cheap way of taking out small frigates, and one can be salvaged during the tutorial. With your own fast ships/interceptors denying the enemy their 50 speed bonus, your destroyers should be able to catch up. Another possible solution is to mount a good number of Harpoon missiles with ECCM (and possibly the missile skill): when the enemy tries to poke you and takes a bit of flux damage itself, launch off a bunch of harpoons - with luck you will overwhelm their PD and pop them. On the Apogee, Locusts can do the same thing, though large missile slots are rare.

It would be nice if in future if there were a bit more logic in making the AI retreat when its down to the kiting, can't win stage, just to save the player time and avoid exactly what you are saying.
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Flashmek

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Re: My thoughts on combat
« Reply #2 on: January 12, 2020, 02:26:18 PM »

Hi there the cap lock key when pressed will speed up the game ( not sure if this is in vanilla i do have mods running think one of them is speed up ) also i use a skola with speed increasing mods for this very reason or carriers with fighters to chase it down.

Hope this helps.

Flash
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Thaago

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Re: My thoughts on combat
« Reply #3 on: January 12, 2020, 02:28:06 PM »

Hi there the cap lock key when pressed will speed up the game ( not sure if this is in vanilla i do have mods running think one of them is speed up ) also i use a skola with speed increasing mods for this very reason or carriers with fighters to chase it down.

Hope this helps.

Flash

Both these things are indeed from mods - the Speed Up mod I think does the caps lock? Cant be quite nice, I use it now whenever I fly phase ships.
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Cyber Von Cyberus

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Re: My thoughts on combat
« Reply #4 on: January 13, 2020, 06:51:06 AM »

Personally I use the 'nuke' command from the console command mod if I end up with an enemy frigate that keeps on stalling.
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Megas

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Re: My thoughts on combat
« Reply #5 on: January 13, 2020, 07:26:15 AM »

Starsector is a slow paced game, too slow for comfort.  I go to settings.json and crank speed to 2f to double speed.  Even that is no faster (or still slower) than normal speed of other games.  I would crank the time shift to 3f, but game may lose fidelity when it is higher than 2f.  I wished global time shift were in actual game settings than in a config file buried somewhere, not to mention it is too easy to cheat by playing with other settings in that same file.

Enemies tend to cower much too.  Too much backpedaling.  It would be interesting to see if ships were limited to classic arcade controls of rotating and thrusting only.  No backpedaling or FPS-style strafing.
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Plantissue

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Re: My thoughts on combat
« Reply #6 on: January 13, 2020, 07:31:39 AM »

Just curious Megas, is there another type of strafing that you can refer to that is different to "FPS-style strafing"?

RTS-style strafing perhaps? Racing game style strafing? Card game strafing?
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SCC

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Re: My thoughts on combat
« Reply #7 on: January 13, 2020, 09:12:44 AM »

There are different options and just tiring the enemy out is one of them, but I personally prefer carriers with interceptors or thunders. Interceptors will kill small fish, while Thunders will slow it down and maybe kill it. Other fighters are typically too slow to catch up.