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Author Topic: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 34) (TC Mod)  (Read 418519 times)

Debido

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #570 on: February 27, 2014, 05:12:30 PM »

Boarding transporter? You mean you're going to be able to 'teleport' type thing marines directly onboard another ship? That would be interesting. Or are you planning on having a dedicated ship that launches the boarding ships?

I think the boarding aspect of your mod is a real game changer, I haven't played much more Vacuum since my last stream so I haven't even tried out the stations yet at the 200,000 credit mark.

I think the previous time I played Vacuum and bought a station, another faction attacked it and successfully took it over. I immediately tried to take it back but I was massacred by my own station(s) :p

I'll look at doing another stream tomorrow with the latest build, any advice you have on showing the various aspects of Vacuum would be appreciated :D
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xenoargh

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #571 on: February 27, 2014, 05:42:53 PM »

Quote
Boarding transporter? You mean you're going to be able to 'teleport' type thing marines directly onboard another ship?
Yup, Star Trek style "transporters"; low range, high Flux, only works on Hulks, but has an excellent chance of capturing the Hulk per second.  Building this kind of thing pretty much means that any ship you want to be able to board stuff can do so by giving up a weapon slot.

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Or are you planning on having a dedicated ship that launches the boarding ships?
That's technically possible (again) now that the stuff that broke the Swift Launcher is un-broken again.

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I'll look at doing another stream tomorrow with the latest build, any advice you have on showing the various aspects of Vacuum would be appreciated
Cool; I learned a lot from reviewing that, just in terms of how people play it out, heh. 

Is there a way to save the stream so that the link's still good later?  I'd love a permanent link to some footage so that folks can see that if they want to know what the mod feels like and all that; I had your link up but now it leads to nowhere, lol.

In terms of "advice"... hrmm...

Things to show:  fight all the factions you can.  There's so much stuff, especially once you're past the early bits and are doing Blueprint runs and fighting serious fleets.  I don't think the Glaug are too evil until you're facing Assault Fleets, especially not vs. buffed stuff.

Use the weird stuff.  Freeze rays, Repulsor Beams (which are quite handy), Neutron weapons, Plasma weapons, the Proximity Charge Launcher, the SABOT cannons, the Ion Cannons, Spore Cannons, etc., etc.  There is a lot of weird weaponry in the mod and it'd be pretty cool to see what somebody else does with it.  I mean, it's pretty boring when I know that the Spore Cannons pair up nicely with Plasma because of damage stacking and all that. 

I noticed last time that you were doing a run with the ships pretty much stock, which was interesting, because I never use a ship stock, ever, except when testing whether the ship's functional and a reasonable opponent... and it was nice to see that they still worked reasonably well with some player buffs.

Things to avoid:

Fighter balance atm is terrible, even worse than I feared, lol. 

For example, the poor Pirates just fall to pieces if you go fighter-heavy... it's kind of funny, but not really.  I've fixed some of it; for example, Hegemony has a genuine shot at staying in a Heg / Tritach matchup in Random Battle now, if it uses its fighters well; they're no longer a joke that way (that said, they still don't really have any answer to massed Odysseys).  But the Pirates are still really weak in that department and the Punk Junkers are still a one-trick pony and the Glaug are now roughly balanced, kind of, but I'm not happy with what I had to do to them, so I'm not releasing yet.

I doubt I'll have the fighter rebal done before then, but I'll try to get more of it done tonight. 
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Debido

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #572 on: February 27, 2014, 06:00:08 PM »

I believe there is an option on Twitch TV that gives the option to archive each stream. I think to make it a bit more accessible I might break the stream up into several sections relating to different factions if I have the time.

I think how I play depends on what I have available, and what I'm targeting early game. In later game I go for heavier ships such as the dark eagle as it is AWESOME when fully kitted out, though that was back in release 13 and I haven't tested it out since then.

I remember earlier on with one of the first releases I played I was given a small fighter to begin with, and it was very strong and fast with excellent regen. I really liked that type of gameplay where I'm a little solo fighter/frigate class ship strafing in and around and taking out much bigger ships by avoid their fire.

Eventually that ship was destroyed and I resorted to larger cruisers and capital ships as inevitably I found you need to fight capitals with capitals. This type of gameplay is still fun, but you're less avoiding incoming fire, and more being a shield/weapon manager and making sure no one section of armour takes too much damage.

That said with 2 black eagles I took out an entire Exigency assault fleet (very slowly) and that was fun, it was a complete cluster duck with all of the incoming MX missiles.

One reason I run with plenty of stock in the playthrough was because I wanted to focus on the gameplay, and there was usually decent variety of weapons on the ships. If I wanted to spend time tweaking my ships up for optimum damage etc. I could have, and it wouldn't make sense unless I was giving voice over narration.

I'll be happy to show off the various weird weapons, I'm not sure if I can use the LazyWizard console with Vacuum but if I can I'll use it to add the various weapons and variants for demonstration purposes.


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xenoargh

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #573 on: February 27, 2014, 06:32:11 PM »

Yeah, capitals pretty much require a Cruiser+ level of firepower; it's one of the primary differences between the mod and Vanilla, where you just need to not die and you'll eventually beat a capital ship, even in a frigate. 

That said, I think there are a few frigates that could still kill some of the capital ships- the Chiron can do it, eventually, and the Swordfish 2 can do it, with a bit of luck and patience.  Heck, a Lasher or Vigilance can still do it, if you use nukes and are really careful.  That said, it's definitely in the category of "really fricking hard", which, imo at least, it should be.
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Debido

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #574 on: February 27, 2014, 06:44:33 PM »

Yeah I remember trying to use a black eagle vs that Aztech pirate ship in the simulator...that was ludicrous, I was massacred so quickly due to it's damage output and nukes/torpedoes.

You're right though in gameplay that larger and more expensive ships should be better. If larger ships could be routinely defeated by smaller/cheaper ones, they would have no point in existing. I mean in the real world analogy large battleships don't exist for pretty much that exact reason, but I don't care - I want my battleships damn it.

That said piloting a battleship is not as...challenging or as fun in SS, but not as un-fun as M2 battles in X3:AP. Not sure if you've played X3 but pretty much you just sit there and occasionally tell the turrets to prioritise a target, and hope that your shield lasts longer than the other guys'.
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Nazaxprime

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #575 on: February 28, 2014, 01:04:45 AM »

Awesome. TC is my favorite. Keep up the good work. [Reserved]
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Taishar

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #576 on: February 28, 2014, 10:54:00 AM »

I cant put this mod down.....Finally made it to level 40 and its just ludicrous the amount of depth you can create with the various factions fleet options.  I have to say boarding and capture chance makes this my favorite.  Brings back fond memories of Sid Meiers Pirates...Keep it up!
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canshow

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #577 on: March 02, 2014, 06:01:44 PM »

Sometimes on station takeovers, the enemy ships un-disable themselves 2-3 seconds after being disabled. I'm not sure if this is intentional or not, but it is very annoying and wastes a lot of time.
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Bobakanoosh

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #578 on: March 03, 2014, 07:06:51 PM »

My machine is packing an i7 Intel with 2.30 GHz, and the random battle mission is unplayably slow. Is this normal? Not really complaining, just wondering.
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xenoargh

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #579 on: March 03, 2014, 10:19:02 PM »

Firstly, if you're not running the very latest version, make sure to update; I sped things up considerably last week.

If it makes you feel any better, the Random Battles can test even the brawniest PC.  I test / run this on a pretty old quad-core Athlon that runs 3Ghz per core, and it's not at 60FPS on my hardware when we reach insane levels of bullet-hell madness, but it's still quite playable.

Anyhow, the next release will feature some further smallish speedups, but I'm guessing you're just kind of on the edge in terms of CPU; luckily, there are hardly any situations that insane in the main game, other than Station battles (and then, only if you bring a huge fleet to the party).  Bear in mind that Random Battle is more-or-less for testing worst-case scenario stuff, performance-wise.
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Bobakanoosh

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #580 on: March 04, 2014, 04:27:05 PM »

I downloaded the mod via the main link up top last night.

but the thing is, I've fought through deployed fleets similar to this through other mods at points in time in the past and my FPS doesnt go below 45. In this case, my FPS drops to around 15 as soon as the ships even enter the arena. by the time shots are fired, it just grinds to a literal unplayable speed. That's the part that doesn't make sense to me. I'm running this on 8 cores @ 2.30 GHz, so I believe that my CPU is a bit past on the edge. the weakest link in my machine is my GPU, but I think that this type of game is more reliant on RAM and the CPU (correct me if I'm wrong). I just don't know if it's because the mod is simply unleashing ungodly amounts of processes, or I have something set the wrong way.

I haven't done the RAM modification yet (I'm just curious to see how the error occurs), but that's only pertaining to save files, right?

-EDIT-  Also, ships don't appear in navigation mode, you just see the engine contrails, and when you hover your cursor over any given fleet, the only thing visible within the box are crew rank chevrons. Not sure if this has been mentioned before. I just skimmed the 39 pages.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2014, 04:45:08 PM by Bobakanoosh »
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Draginea

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #581 on: March 04, 2014, 05:38:47 PM »

With this mod the game needs about 4 gigs of ram. The fleets not showing is a caused by a feature that allows the game to save ram by randomly generating fleets when you encounter them insead of storing them.
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Bobakanoosh

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #582 on: March 04, 2014, 06:44:29 PM »

I have 16 GB. would I have to change the asset in vmparams? I've tried changing the values to 4096m, but the game stops launching. same goes for any value above 1900.

-EDIT- also, I'd like to have clarification if this mod needs any other mods activated (Lazylib, etc.).

thank you.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2014, 06:49:29 PM by Bobakanoosh »
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xenoargh

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #583 on: March 04, 2014, 08:10:24 PM »

Quote
I'm running this on 8 cores @ 2.30 GHz, so I believe that my CPU is a bit past on the edge.
SS only uses one core during gameplay, so while your total (theoretical) speed if all 8 cores are running is somewhat faster... in reality, my core's 30% faster. 

GPU is usually a non-issue with the game, period; sound cards and things like bus speeds can matter a bit, though; the mod sometimes demands a heck of a lot of sound playthrough compared to Vanilla.  One thing you can test out, just to see if it matters, is turning off sound and seeing what that does to your framerates.

It's not a RAM issue, for sure.  The mod doesn't need 4 GB for battles, and is usually < 1 GB at all times nowadays; I'm playing it and testing it on a machine with only 2GB and it's fine.

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-EDIT- also, I'd like to have clarification if this mod needs any other mods activated (Lazylib, etc.).
No, and in fact, that could possibly cause serious issues.  LazyLib is built in and is kept up to date.

Anyhow, I'll post the latest when it's done; I'm having a really busy week IRL but I'll try to get it out soon.  I'm not sure how much it'll help, though; I saw small speed changes vs. the latest builds, but nothing earth-shattering over here.
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Bobakanoosh

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #584 on: March 04, 2014, 10:11:02 PM »

only one core? OUCH! well, that might explain my troubles then. the sound proposition is interesting. I'll try that out.

good to know with the RAM.

no additional utilities needed. good to know on that too. I've been running the mod without anything else activated, although I did try it with Lazylib on, in which nothing really appeared to have changed.

thanks for your responses, and I appreciate your hard work! I'm definitely a big battle kinda person. It ain't no space opera unless there's a ton of ships flying around.

-EDIT-  I completely forgot to bring this up, but I am still experiencing the invisible ship problem. I've reinstalled both the mod and SS to no avail. Any ideas?
« Last Edit: March 05, 2014, 01:32:18 PM by Bobakanoosh »
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