Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

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

Pages: 1 ... 4 5 [6] 7 8 ... 57

Author Topic: Starfarer 0.53a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 368082 times)

CrashToDesktop

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3876
  • Quartermaster
    • View Profile
Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #75 on: June 12, 2012, 03:30:51 PM »

I think the shields have a larger hit box (like the top of a thick circle magnet instead of a rubber band, so to speak) then they seem, so you would still take collision damage.
Logged
Quote from: Trylobot
I am officially an epoch.
Quote from: Thaago
Note: please sacrifice your goats responsibly, look up the proper pronunciation of Alex's name. We wouldn't want some other project receiving mystic power.

Cerevox

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 63
    • View Profile
Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #76 on: June 12, 2012, 03:45:15 PM »

I know the shields are quite thick. Its just, some cap ships rely on their shields and have almost no armor. If you had a small frigate that just had a couple small missile hard points on the front you might be able to fit those launchers in the gap between shield and hull, and if those hard points are single shot reapers you might be able to cripple the cap ship. The frigate won't survive, that's almost a given, but if you could trade a 7k frigate for a paragon, would you?

I can't offhand think of any vanilla frigates you could do this with(lasher's missles are set too far back, vigilance only has one) but there are a couple modded frigates that should be able to pull this off if the teleporter really can land them inside that gap. Or if you could do destroyers, then a hammerhead can fit both 2 reapers and 2 medium ballistic mounts into that gap. It should be able to do some serious damage before the shield kills it. Assuming the cap ship has more flux than the hammerhead has hp, since it would be a straight trade for damage on shield to flux of cap ship for damage to the hammerhead.
Logged

Wyvern

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3786
    • View Profile
Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #77 on: June 12, 2012, 03:48:52 PM »

The shield covers the entire wedge of space from ship center to perimeter.  In fact, letting something get closer than that and then turning on your shields will tend to do horrific amounts of damage to the target; this is not a tactic many ships can use, but it will shred most things in very short order if you can pull it off.  The exception is fighters, who get to fly over shields without collision issues.

...Now, imagine a squadron of fighters equipped with phase skimmers...
Logged
Wyvern is 100% correct about the math.

Cerevox

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 63
    • View Profile
Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #78 on: June 12, 2012, 04:07:43 PM »

Ahhh, I always assumed there was a gap in there since the actual shield graphics show a small gap near the center, and that bombers are able to launch bombs on the ship itself and have them strike the hull and not the shields.

Bombers with phase skimmers, doing their whole run inside the bounds of the ship itself. Wow.
Logged

ClosetGoth

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 202
  • Permanently TTRPG-brained
    • View Profile
Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #79 on: June 12, 2012, 05:11:26 PM »

This made me consider what would happen if you did just that, but with some modded EMP bombs. The bombers, with their tendency to stray from the center of the ship, would end up knocking out basically every weapon - even the hard-to-reach ones at the ship's center, that are often 360-degree weapons.
Logged
Starfaring since the very beginning of 2012

evil713

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 114
    • View Profile
Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #80 on: June 12, 2012, 05:18:18 PM »


Also: the pattern that the drones deploy in can be modded - in particular, you can have them deploy in a fixed position, or set up multiple orbits around the ship. I suspect that with a bit of creativity, the could be used to create hulls that transform into a somewhat different shape :) You can also make it alter ship stats in any way you want while drones are deployed (as the Apogee's Sensor Drones do).


HA, i just thought of a series i read "Kris Longknife". with drones you could deploy armor to cover the ship. it's T-1000 Morphin Time!

edit: and dont give the hound a flare launcher, that thing is hard enought to hit with missles it dosent need the help.
« Last Edit: June 12, 2012, 05:21:47 PM by evil713 »
Logged

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23986
    • View Profile
Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #81 on: June 12, 2012, 05:42:15 PM »

How shall I put it... it's not a good ship, and it's not supposed to be. When character skills and such come in, you might be able to make something presentable out of it, and it could make a reasonable short-term stop on your way to something better. With how the campaign works *now*, with the lack of character skills and the ease of acquiring better ships, it's simply never going to be all that useful.

If you do have abilities/skills/perks/something that enhanches it, won't these buffs be for all or for specific ship sizes? Right now I'm speculating since these things have not yet been implemented yet, but shouldn't that make every other ship even more attractive compared to the Buffalo?

Some ships are just flat out worse than others, and this is ok.

Absolutely, when it is justified in cost. Talon squadrons are among the weakest ships in the game, but they're brutally cheap and expandable. I completely understand that not every ship is supposed to tackle a Paragon 1vs1, but every ship has a role of some sorts. The Buffalo has nothing really redeemable about it, it's like a flying kinder egg just waiting to be smashed apart and eaten by the player... and its toy being sold to a trader.

My point is, it lacks a role, it lacks a purpose. If it does have a role or purpose and if that is to either be sold at stations or used as target practice, there are perhaps better ways of doing it. Why not let it retain some of its cargospace or fuel capacity, make it a more heavily armed transport instead?

I don't think my point quite came across. What I was saying is that a low-end destroyer (of which this is an extreme case) will not be useful in the campaign as it stands now, due to how easy it is to acquire a better one. How much of a limiting factor availability ends up being remains to be be seen, but as it stands, to make the Buffalo Mk2 an appealing choice to the player, it would have to be balanced against better ships in terms of what it brings - whether it's in combat or non-combat capacity. It would then stop being a bad ship - but it's supposed to be - so, it makes no sense to do this now.

It's meant to be the kind of thing you use because you couldn't get anything better at the time - but now, that's never the case. So, I'll revisit it (and lots of other things) when the campaign is further along. Giving it somewhat better campaign-level stats might not be a bad idea, though.
Logged

Reshy

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1100
  • White
    • View Profile
Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #82 on: June 12, 2012, 07:04:16 PM »

    • Bombing runs and fighters firing at a ship while directly on top of it will no longer hit the bounds, but rather other points inside the hull
    [/li][/list]


    So bombers are supposed to drop their bomb payload within the ship's boundaries?



    Also some more suggestions:

    AI changes for dealing with different missile variants:

    Swarmers are to be considered VERY LOW priority for taking on the shield and dodging for frigate and larger ships.  This prevents shields from trying to block a missile while they should be blocking/dodging the Onslaught firing helborne cannons at it.

    Annihilator missiles are to be considered projectiles rather than missiles for all intents and purposes.

    Missiles that carry an explosive payload are much higher priority to blocking than Fragmentation or Kinetic Missiles.

    Change AI behavior for a special 'Mining' behavior for using bomb bays and phase charges.



    Make the Phase charge cost lower OP and make it a SMALL missile weapon.

    VASTLY increase the health on and add armor to:  Cluster Bombs, Standard Bombs, Frag Bombs, and Phase Charges.  They're far too easily countered by flak guns.

    Make the AI that's being told to capture points to keep close and not to pursue enemies until it's captured and to block the loss of a point when set to defend.

    Make the AI drop and quickly-raise it's shield if it cannot rotate it fast enough to block a blow (Only of it's OMNI) and there's no other high-threat weapons firing at it.
    Logged

    CrashToDesktop

    • Admiral
    • *****
    • Posts: 3876
    • Quartermaster
      • View Profile
    Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
    « Reply #83 on: June 12, 2012, 07:08:52 PM »

    Well, isn't that what Flak is for?  Personally, I think energy weapons are suited for anti-fighter while flak excels with anti-missile/bomb threats.
    Logged
    Quote from: Trylobot
    I am officially an epoch.
    Quote from: Thaago
    Note: please sacrifice your goats responsibly, look up the proper pronunciation of Alex's name. We wouldn't want some other project receiving mystic power.

    Cerevox

    • Lieutenant
    • **
    • Posts: 63
      • View Profile
    Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
    « Reply #84 on: June 12, 2012, 09:30:07 PM »

    Flak is so great against bombs because they tend to come in clustered and slow which allows flak to take out large groups of them at once. Burst PD is near useless against any real volume of missiles/bombs, but is great at taking out fighters(and salamanders when they are doing their circling motion to get to the rear, flak can't hit them in that phase for anything.)

    Smarter PD weapons would be nice though. They should know that hitting a single missile with all 8 burst PD lasers is overkill. OR perhaps a hull add-on that allows your PD to self coordinate? Having PD call and eliminate targets to maximize efficiency would be amazing, instead of having your burst PD spam itself out on an annihilator barrage while your flak wastes its time on heavy fighters that take near no damage from it. Would also be nice if the PD could tell if it had multiple dual flak cannons or just a single burst PD, to decide if it really wants to spend the effort on clearing out a huge wave of annihilator rockets or just catch them on a shield.

    Assuming PD drones don't just obliterate all incoming missiles anyway.

    Also, I don't think bombers are supposed to be trying to unload inside a ship's bounds, but if they find themselves inside the bounds they will often drop a couple of bombs. Try a quick paragon Vs mass bombers, don't shoot down any bombers and watch what they do at the end of their run.
    Logged

    WarStalkeR

    • Captain
    • ****
    • Posts: 343
    • Per Aspera Ad Astra!
      • View Profile
    Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
    « Reply #85 on: June 12, 2012, 11:18:59 PM »

    What about cloaking and scanning the cloaked ships?
    What about writing custom AI?
    What about drive or engines inhibition to make ship unmovable?
    What about weapon jamming and improved weapon targeting?
    What about adding all these new modules through hull mods?
    Logged

    "Happiness for everybody, freely, and let no one to leave unhappy!" (c) Strugatsky Brothers
    Independent Defense Force is here! And they already in Sector Xplo.

    Mattk50

    • Captain
    • ****
    • Posts: 420
      • View Profile
    Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
    « Reply #86 on: June 13, 2012, 12:46:42 AM »

    It would then stop being a bad ship - but it's supposed to be - so, it makes no sense to do this now.

    It's meant to be the kind of thing you use because you couldn't get anything better at the time - but now, that's never the case. So, I'll revisit it (and lots of other things) when the campaign is further along. Giving it somewhat better campaign-level stats might not be a bad idea, though.

    i think the issue is just that its so expensive for being so bad. Why would pirates buy it at its current price? being an all around bad ship even in the campaign is a role thats cool to exist but then the price should really reflect it or it wouldn't even exist in the world at all.
    Logged

    PCCL

    • Admiral
    • *****
    • Posts: 2016
    • still gunnyfreak
      • View Profile
    Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
    « Reply #87 on: June 13, 2012, 01:06:15 AM »

    I agree it could at least be cheaper....
    Logged
    mmm.... tartiflette

    Talkie Toaster

    • Captain
    • ****
    • Posts: 256
      • View Profile
    Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
    « Reply #88 on: June 13, 2012, 06:12:36 AM »

    i think the issue is just that its so expensive for being so bad. Why would pirates buy it at its current price? being an all around bad ship even in the campaign is a role thats cool to exist but then the price should really reflect it or it wouldn't even exist in the world at all.
    But the pirates don't buy it. The point of the Buffalo Mk 2 is it's a crude refit of the Mk 1 transport, the pirates capture Mk 1s from traders and turn them into things that roughly approximate a combat ship. It's certainly better than a Buffalo Mk 1 in a fight, and even with how bad it is a Mk 2 + Lasher is a better fleet than just a single Lasher. If anything, the price should reflect the demand from traders for the hulls to convert back into Mk 1s.
    Logged

    Reshy

    • Admiral
    • *****
    • Posts: 1100
    • White
      • View Profile
    Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
    « Reply #89 on: June 13, 2012, 07:01:47 AM »

    Buffalo is mainly for firesupport, the only problem I see with it is that it's armor is too low for lacking a shield and that it has a lot of small missile slots which are quickly expended and wasted.
    Logged
    Pages: 1 ... 4 5 [6] 7 8 ... 57