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Author Topic: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 34) (TC Mod)  (Read 418506 times)

xenoargh

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #630 on: March 30, 2014, 05:12:32 PM »

Enemy fleets now have leveled Admirals.  Prepare yourselves, lol.
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dmaiski

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #631 on: March 31, 2014, 02:36:30 PM »

Xeno i was going to sugest you could make a single run array that stores ship ID, and the weapons it has mounted in its slots for the purposes of capture (so ships captured keep their weapon/variant conficuration when capped)... but im still thinking of the best way to do this

a String[][][] array could probably fo it storing:

[ship.getFleetMemberId()][ship.getAllWeapons() -> WeaponID][weapon slot for previous]


but its untested and would require some work

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xenoargh

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #632 on: March 31, 2014, 04:02:05 PM »

Yeah, that's tricky.  Probably there's a way to do it in the same order and just wind back through the weapon slots, IDK.

Tested with the leveled Admirals... such fun; it definitely makes late-game a lot more challenging.  The fighter changes are the biggest part, though; against most of the Factions, you simply cannot expect to win if you don't take down the enemy carriers early, and vice-versa for the AI, although it's less affected by this change. 

I've been playing a Pirate who decided to support the Glaug from early midgame onwards; I've been flying the new-and-improved Catcher (which is a seriously fun cruiser now) with support from about 6 wings of various fighters, a couple of Phaetons as my carriers, and lately a Black Eagle and an Onslaught I captured and upgraded.  With this fleet, I can expect to take down Attack Fleets without serious losses, but this fleet cannot take down an Assault Fleet, at least not Hegemony.  I think it might be able to do Exigency and the Pirate Kings and Punk Junkers, but I suspect that Glaug slaughters it and Tri-Tachyon as well.

With the changes made to Armor Regeneration on a pretty close to maxed-out character (I have all the good Tech tree stuff done and most of Combat), I never feel invulnerable and I never feel like I can just auto-pilot and forget about my ship.  I think that means it's working pretty well. 

However, it still seems to have the edge over Neutronium Plating, simply due to the lack of ablation vs. small stuff in late game.  It doesn't matter so much vs. big things; there, the resistance difference matters more.  So I'm thinking maybe I'll add on more Armor for Neutronium Plating so that the ablation takes a bit longer and see how that feels.

Anyhow, I need to fix my Drone AI before I can release; it still has some serious issues that are irking me.  Otherwise, it's getting close to being where I want it to go; there are still rough edges but it's definitely better.
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CopperCoyote

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Vacuum is hard
« Reply #633 on: March 31, 2014, 10:57:50 PM »

I gave Vacuum another go (the last time was sometime last year and it was much different). Combat is very hard now. The key to victory has eluded my grasp. Like completely. In simulators i rarely win against equal or larger sized ships. Even then it's pretty touch and go. In actual combat I've won one fight. That's after save scumming too. So i knew if it'd be a close fight or not. I think whoever has the most ships wins? Not really positive though because if you have too many more they flee, and it's harder to focus fire (or micro if you prefer) all on one ship.

I've eaten all but a quarter of the asteroids in Corvus, and a worrying thought has struck: Do asteroids respawn? If not i'm concerned i'm going to be in a bit of trouble pretty soon because i've only got two systems (my computer is old and puny). Another mining related thing i've noticed: don't carry any credits when you do. When you flee rock pirates you lose 1/5(?) your creds but none of your cargo so after a certain point losing money is pointless because all your assets are tied up in rocks. Also is there a resource besides germanium? I liked how you had lots of flavors of elements to get in starcontrol 2. It made prioritizing your path extra critical on dangerous planets. I liked it.

Overall i think the quality of the mod is quite good. There are a couple little descriptor errors like the sabot cannon saying it does kinetic but actually does HE now, and little things like that. The biggest problem i have is getting repeatedly demolished in combat. I've finally saved up enough and bought a pelican so maybe i'll be able to fight the remaining asteroid pirates. I don't think i'm going to get past the  medium part of this mod though because terrible computer and all that.

If anyone has suggestions for not blowing up repeatedly i'm all ears. So far my best fleet has been a bunch of bubbled frigates with both engine mods all focusing on one ships at a time (using interCept and selecting all the ships (including mine) to target it). I chose the pirates because i like having a huge choice of ships tech to chose from. The only have the cargoship/oilrig and one frigate at a time though. So it was tedious to save up enough germanium to buy that cargo/rig.
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xenoargh

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #634 on: April 01, 2014, 12:45:09 AM »

1.  The difficulty at the start is being addressed in the next build, along with a bunch of things to make the midgame/lategame harder (the difficulty ramp still goes the wrong way in the build you're playing, and gets easier fast).

2.  Asteroids do not respawn, but you can go to another System and harvest there.  Or, once you have a fleet that can do it, you can do raids for Blueprints on formerly-inhabited worlds; this can net you a bunch of cash and good captures.

3.  Capturing ships during battles can really help long-term income growth.  Not all Factions get Boarding Shuttles, though, so it's easier to join the Pirate Kings / Punk Junkers right now.  In the future, this dynamic will change, as I'm introducing some new mechanics that will allow all ships to capture hulks.

4.  The quality is improving, but it's an irregular thing; I kind of take a two-steps-forward-one-back approach, where I introduce radical, game-breaking stuff then fix the balance.  The version you're playing has an easy exploit- Armor regeneration is easily abused.   Try it out and enjoy the easy play; it really helps bigger ships stay viable.

5.  There are always errors in descriptions, due to changes that I forget to update the text for.  I'll correct the SABOT description asap.

6.  Due to the fairly radical stuff I did with RAM / CPU use, I think that unless your computer's really really weak, it should be able to handle 4 Systems without any real issues.  Multiple Systems don't really use much RAM or CPU now; this is going to get even better in the future.

7.  In terms of "not blowing up"...

A.  You've discovered that you can't go broke running away.  So why not just run away every time you meet an Asteroid fleet, up until the point you think you can handle one?  Totally legit, and it works.

B.  The Pirates are quite potent in that version if using Regenerating Armor and a couple of buffed-up Ventures with Shield Removal; if you can get the cash together, this makes them pretty much immune to all low-level fleets up through midgame.  

For really early play vs. asteroid fleets, 2-3 Lashers with appropriate front weapons (a pair of Phase Beams and Energy Pump is great, coupled with zero-flux stuff like Light ACs) and buffs can rip through most Asteroid fleets, including the Glaug and Exigency, if played well.

A little later on the income curve, a player-piloted Enforcer with a pair of Melters and speed mods is a very powerful ship, having great speed, armor and plenty of punch.  Melters are enormously-powerful short-ranged beams on fixed mounts; they're quite capable of taking out most Destroyers in the game in 1-2 passes.  However, be aware that Cruisers will generally kill you if you try to get that close, unless they're distracted.

In terms of Frigates, the Lasher remains a very potent choice, because of its plethora of weapons to choose from.  

But the main thing about going with the Pirates is that they can start with Boarding Shuttles and a single Dachshund (basically a flying box that has a single Flight Deck)- this is a "weird" choice and a little hard to play at first, but with some practice and another Frigate as support, it's quite powerful against Asteroid encounters, so long as you're not fighting Glaug or Exigency.  If you meet either, run; they can both counter an early Pirate fleet.  But once you reach the point where you have a couple of Ventures with, say, Energy Pump armed with a couple of Medium Lasers and a Guardian, you're going to crush most opponents pretty easily through most of midgame.

Lategame in the build you're playing mainly just consists of building the most OP uber-ship possible and backing it up with a bunch of fighters or other capships.  There are ships (the Black Eagle and Conquest being perennial favorites, but there are others) that can pretty much lay waste to whole fleets if buffed correctly.

The build I'm working on makes the tactics of all of this quite a bit harder; I want lategame to require a combined-arms approach and keep the player really busy.

Anyhow, I hear you on the hard start; I don't find it all that hard, personally, but that's because I know all the ins and outs, obviously.  I already have an EZ-Start mode built for the next build of the mod that should give people a much easier initial ride.  Midgame / lategame is getting considerably harder, though, so that the ramp's no longer so lopsided.

[EDIT]I got the Drone AI fixed up.  Now I "just" need to get the Repair Drone working so that the Repair Ships are an official Thing.

That, and there is now a new beam weapon- the Dual Mining Laser.  Why?  I finally differentiated the Mining Laser, is why. 

It's a medium-length pulse, no ammo, reasonable cycle time, higher damage, good tradeoff on PD.  Beams are back to being great for PD again, after some issues with them got resolved; it seemed like a good time to revisit their balance overall.

The Dual version sports 800 range (lower than a LMG or the PD Beamer, but higher than a Tac Laser, basically) and two beams that meet at max range, which produces an interesting effect (if using HEF, the beams cross, which looks rad).  It's worth the 8 OPs; the range alone makes it a better weapon than a Tac Laser and the DPS is great.

Also, the Glaug have a new toy, called the Devourer.  It's the primary armament of the Catcher, finally giving it enough punch to be fun, but there's a mountable version available.  It's a 50-OP gun; it penetrates shields, damaging anything along its path, with a random chance of being removed from play every time it does damage. 

It one-shots most small stuff, like all of the super-heavy guns.  It is fierce when it gets a lot of hits, but it's a bit of a dice-roll- it has much slower reloads than the Heavy Plasma Cannon and if it only gets one hit, it does far less damage for lots more flux (like 3000 per shot... ouch).  But if it gets, say, 10 hits... can you say, "glowing path of molten metal where an Onslaught used to be"?
[/EDIT]
« Last Edit: April 01, 2014, 03:13:42 AM by xenoargh »
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dmaiski

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #635 on: April 01, 2014, 05:43:49 AM »

@Coyote

its a good idea to have fairly substantial fighter fleets in vacum since fighters are cheap and have 100+ chasis each per battle (imo a great thing) and you can use them to buffer direct attack to your own ships

also the AI is fairly competent, so try and stay with your fleets main attack group, it can make fights alot easier if you focus on killing ships wich are already under fire by your fleet rather then 1:1 fights
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xenoargh

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #636 on: April 01, 2014, 12:50:22 PM »

Devourer in action, the Dual Mining Laser :)

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Peter1x9

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #637 on: April 01, 2014, 01:01:34 PM »

1.  The difficulty at the start is being addressed in the next build, along with a bunch of things to make the midgame/lategame harder (the difficulty ramp still goes the wrong way in the build you're playing, and gets easier fast).

7.  In terms of "not blowing up"...

A.  You've discovered that you can't go broke running away.  So why not just run away every time you meet an Asteroid fleet, up until the point you think you can handle one?  Totally legit, and it works.

 I want lategame to require a combined-arms approach and keep the player really busy.

Anyhow, I hear you on the hard start; I don't find it all that hard, personally, but that's because I know all the ins and outs, obviously.  I already have an EZ-Start mode built for the next build of the mod that should give people a much easier initial ride.  Midgame / lategame is getting considerably harder, though, so that the ramp's no longer so lopsided.

I'll definitely be giving this another try when you release the next build.   :)
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xenoargh

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #638 on: April 01, 2014, 08:36:21 PM »

Hey, great, glad to see people give it a go.  I love the "a year ago" comments; the mod's practically a different thing now. 

Can't wait for this to be ready-enough for everybody; I think this version's going to be a lot of fun :)
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Kazzthal

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #639 on: April 03, 2014, 12:35:26 AM »

Can't wait for the next release of this :)

By far my favorite mod for this game !
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xenoargh

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #640 on: April 05, 2014, 01:57:16 AM »

The Indies are finally getting a second capship.  Not quite done with this yet, but it'll probably get finished up tomorrow.  Just about done with the other major stuff, although the Transporter Ray still needs some work, but I'm getting closer to a release candidate :)

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Debido

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #641 on: April 05, 2014, 02:07:26 AM »

Holy flaming truck Xeno, that capital shop looks like it's going to be awesome  :o . I guess no more demolishing poor little indie fleets. It's what, about 700 pixels across? That is vast.
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xenoargh

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #642 on: April 05, 2014, 03:09:31 AM »

Technically it's 750, but it's not at final trim size yet, so maybe 700-ish or thereabouts, about the same size as an Acanthus.

I don't have a specific role for it yet, but I'm thinking that it might be a strike carrier, but with a different take on defense; maybe a System that insta-splashes enemy fighters and missiles in a big radius and shorts Frigates out for a little bit.

Something that would make it really hard to rush with little stuff and quite hard to nuke, and enough firepower that if you go carrier and don't bring any high-end capships, you're going to get spanked, basically- the Indies are more-or-less a rush faction, and this might help them increase the pressure they can bring to bear.  Considering what's going on with fighter balance, that might just be genuinely useful, both for the Indies and for players who want to fly one.
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MesoTroniK

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #643 on: April 05, 2014, 03:37:10 AM »

quite hard to nuke

Nukes are fun :)

Spoiler
[close]

Sorry for the minor derail Xeno, but it will be done soon™

Debido

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Re: Vacuum - Build a Stellar Empire. (0.62a ALPHA build 16) (TC Mod)
« Reply #644 on: April 05, 2014, 07:57:42 AM »

@Mesotronik: That. Looks. Glorious.
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