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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: (ded) Obsidian Void (ASC: B5) (DOM: D2) - 0.6.2a  (Read 299595 times)

Vandala

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 2.1 Released)
« Reply #150 on: May 10, 2012, 08:16:43 PM »

I've bin thinking. Without shields, the only way you have left for evading damage is simply to not get hit. Easier said then done when ships move so slowly (I've not tried your updated version). But you could make dodging possible without upping the speed of ships, and that's by lowering the speed of bullets. Although then we are basically back at vanilla, just slower. So not a great idea I reckon.

Uomoz

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 2.1 Released)
« Reply #151 on: May 10, 2012, 11:43:24 PM »

I think that taking the hits in the places that are still protected by armor is a fun and riskier way to use the player skills to mitigate damage (as opposed to absorbing on shields and dodge bullets, both a little less ""hardcore"" and in my pov less engaging).

About the fog of war: there ain't no support fire weapons in Ascendency, and the sensors in HW have a huge radius compared to SF FoW. It could be a good idea to remove it alltoghrether.
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Kalinin

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 2.1 Released)
« Reply #152 on: May 11, 2012, 12:16:31 AM »

Before I get into any (constructive, hopefully) criticisms, I have to say that I absolutely love the entire atmosphere and feel of the mod. The lack of shields changes things radically, and makes for an overall more interesting experience, I think. It's incredibly balanced from what I've seen (minus C.Six's apparent dominance in all auto-resolved and fought battles, and other details such as PD or damage types) The art, the sound, all is great.

(Note: I've only really seen things from the perspective of Coalition ships, and I apologize if there is a lack of coherence or any rambling in this post :P)

Now that all the fluffery is out of the way, I do have some thoughts. One is an utter lack of effective PD weapons. I have better success with integrated point defense AI on weapons designed to tackle other ships than in using actual weapons designated for PD, though this may just be because of the sheer amount of fire as opposed to accuracy. Still, without shielding, this leads to a missile-based force having a significant advantage. The problem is non-beam PD is entirely unable to track missiles that aren't headed in a perpendicular angle. They just don't seem to lead the target, even with elite crew.

Coalition anti-strike craft weapons appear to use fragmentation damage and has proven to be utterly ineffective. The fast-attack frigate, for example, comes with a default 4 rapid fire weapons (and 1 useless PD) that do around 10 damage per burst to armor, if all shots hit. These frigates cost around 3200 I believe, default weapons included, yet they can't even kill *any* fighter craft 1v1, which cost about 1500 max. I suppose the complaint here is really the fragmentation damage - I'd wager a simple switch to energy damage would increase their usefulness by a ton.

I frequently lose frigates and fighters, and have come very close to losing a destroyer or even my cruiser once or twice, all in even terms. I think that is awesome as usually Starfarer has defaulted to laughably easy or not-so-laughably hard. As it stands, every battle requires my attention. There is a problem here though - the stations seem to be running out of ships. Eventually it looks as though I won't be able to replace my losses. I imagine that, when there are economic alternatives for progression (outposts), it'd be possible to construct your own ships and losing a few ships and dozens of crew isn't as horrible as it is now.

Speed. After frigates, almost all ships speed suddenly drops down to capital-sized movement. In fact, just about everything but fighters and frigates are in that neighborhood, rarely above 70 or 80. It feels wrong, for the size of the ships. Let's ignore the lack of friction as a limiting factor, for the sake of gameplay!

I'd like to see the minor factions fleshed out - more ships, more weapons, etc. Especially the C.Six as they are apparently the player faction but have what, four ships total? The coalition also seem to have zero flight decks across their entire fleet. Second to that I would like to see the player as not being forced to join C.Six at start, or have a pre-defined character. This is a sandbox game, don't take away from that. I understand there is a story and lore and that's a big part of the mod, and I appreciate that, but I suppose this is a matter of preference.
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Psiyon

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 2.1 Released)
« Reply #153 on: May 11, 2012, 05:41:02 AM »

Before I get into any (constructive, hopefully) criticisms, I have to say that I absolutely love the entire atmosphere and feel of the mod. The lack of shields changes things radically, and makes for an overall more interesting experience, I think. It's incredibly balanced from what I've seen (minus C.Six's apparent dominance in all auto-resolved and fought battles, and other details such as PD or damage types) The art, the sound, all is great.
Thanks for the compliments :) (And csix is dominant because they serve to protect the player in the early stages, or give them a hellish enemy if the player betrays them.)

(Note: I've only really seen things from the perspective of Coalition ships, and I apologize if there is a lack of coherence or any rambling in this post :P)

Now that all the fluffery is out of the way, I do have some thoughts. One is an utter lack of effective PD weapons. I have better success with integrated point defense AI on weapons designed to tackle other ships than in using actual weapons designated for PD, though this may just be because of the sheer amount of fire as opposed to accuracy. Still, without shielding, this leads to a missile-based force having a significant advantage. The problem is non-beam PD is entirely unable to track missiles that aren't headed in a perpendicular angle. They just don't seem to lead the target, even with elite crew.
Yeah, this is true to an extent. My goal was to make PD weapons somewhere in between good and bad--good enough to deflect some missiles, but not good enough to deflect them all. I agree that they could use a lot more tweaking.

Coalition anti-strike craft weapons appear to use fragmentation damage and has proven to be utterly ineffective. The fast-attack frigate, for example, comes with a default 4 rapid fire weapons (and 1 useless PD) that do around 10 damage per burst to armor, if all shots hit. These frigates cost around 3200 I believe, default weapons included, yet they can't even kill *any* fighter craft 1v1, which cost about 1500 max. I suppose the complaint here is really the fragmentation damage - I'd wager a simple switch to energy damage would increase their usefulness by a ton.
This is kind of a tricky issue here. They were set to energy damage for a while, but the ship was perhaps more effective against frigates than it was fighters. Still, I'll take a look at it--maybe increasing its damage while still keeping it fragmentation will work.


I frequently lose frigates and fighters, and have come very close to losing a destroyer or even my cruiser once or twice, all in even terms. I think that is awesome as usually Starfarer has defaulted to laughably easy or not-so-laughably hard. As it stands, every battle requires my attention.
Well, at least the primary vision for the mod is working right, I suppose :P

There is a problem here though - the stations seem to be running out of ships. Eventually it looks as though I won't be able to replace my losses. I imagine that, when there are economic alternatives for progression (outposts), it'd be possible to construct your own ships and losing a few ships and dozens of crew isn't as horrible as it is now.
Unfortunately I've been so busy the past two or so weeks that I haven't truly had the time to make a lengthly playthrough of the mod. Stations should restock ships though, but maybe they aren't restocking fast enough in this case. I'll have a look at the issue this weekend.

Speed. After frigates, almost all ships speed suddenly drops down to capital-sized movement. In fact, just about everything but fighters and frigates are in that neighborhood, rarely above 70 or 80. It feels wrong, for the size of the ships. Let's ignore the lack of friction as a limiting factor, for the sake of gameplay!
Eh. I'll toy around with widening the speed gap between ships and see what happens.

I'd like to see the minor factions fleshed out - more ships, more weapons, etc. Especially the C.Six as they are apparently the player faction but have what, four ships total? The coalition also seem to have zero flight decks across their entire fleet.
They'll definitely be getting more ships in the next update. And the Coalition's carrier is also their cruiser, so only their larger fleets have flight decks. This is mainly because the Coalition isn't very reliant on strikecraft, and instead have more power in larger ships.


Second to that I would like to see the player as not being forced to join C.Six at start, or have a pre-defined character. This is a sandbox game, don't take away from that. I understand there is a story and lore and that's a big part of the mod, and I appreciate that, but I suppose this is a matter of preference.
Truthfully, I made the player take part in Tysia's story because I think it adds something important--a purpose to the campaign. Currently in Starfarer, your character is of no consequence. You're just some random dude/chick flying around a solar system shooting at pirates for reasons that the player is forced to make up. I wanted the player to feel like they were actually someone in Ascendency.

In the future, pending on how Starfarer develops, I'll probably add in new characters with their own stories that you can choose to play as. Or, I might just go back to the way Starfarer does it by default. I really can't say for certain at the moment.

Thanks a bunch for the feedback, Kalinin, it certainly helped :)


@Vandala: Lowering bullet speeds by a bit might be a good idea. I'll toy around with it over the weekend and see if I like it.


And about the fog of war... eh. I don't really have any strong opinion about this one. I guess I can try removing it, and see how I like it.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2012, 05:43:40 AM by Psiyon »
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rada660

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 2.1 Released)
« Reply #154 on: May 11, 2012, 07:59:37 AM »


Coalition anti-strike craft weapons appear to use fragmentation damage and has proven to be utterly ineffective. The fast-attack frigate, for example, comes with a default 4 rapid fire weapons (and 1 useless PD) that do around 10 damage per burst to armor, if all shots hit. These frigates cost around 3200 I believe, default weapons included, yet they can't even kill *any* fighter craft 1v1, which cost about 1500 max. I suppose the complaint here is really the fragmentation damage - I'd wager a simple switch to energy damage would increase their usefulness by a ton.
This is kind of a tricky issue here. They were set to energy damage for a while, but the ship was perhaps more effective against frigates than it was fighters. Still, I'll take a look at it--maybe increasing its damage while still keeping it fragmentation will work.

you always could keep the same dmg but make it kinetic, still not great VS armor, but already better than the fragmentation, and on bright side they would still help in taking down shielded target
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Kalinin

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 2.1 Released)
« Reply #155 on: May 12, 2012, 06:18:03 AM »

No problem. I see a lot of potential here and I can't wait to see how things go.

Does the cruiser have a flight deck? For some reason I remember thinking mine didn't.
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Psiyon

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 2.1 Released)
« Reply #156 on: May 14, 2012, 06:01:46 PM »

Ceni Six will be getting two new ships in the next update:

Onari-class Assault Corvette:



A well-rounded corvette that excels at taking down fighters, and frigates. It's equipped with two AMRMs, and two Light Kinetic Ion Cannons.


Ikara-class Light Frigate:



What this frigate lacks in firepower, it makes up for in speed. Its default variant is best used against strikecraft.





Some other misc changes so far:

-csix's F-84 wings are upped to a count of 3, and increased in effectiveness a bit because they sucked
-A general increase in speeds of all ships, especially frigates
-A slight reduction of projectile speeds. Things are a tad easier to dodge.
« Last Edit: May 14, 2012, 06:03:44 PM by Psiyon »
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IIE16 Yoshi

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 2.1 Released)
« Reply #157 on: May 15, 2012, 11:29:05 AM »

Mod crashes upon reaching the menu screen....Do I need to dig out that starfarer.log file from wherever it hides?
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Psiyon

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 2.1 Released)
« Reply #158 on: May 15, 2012, 12:10:51 PM »

Mod crashes upon reaching the menu screen....Do I need to dig out that starfarer.log file from wherever it hides?
Yes, that would certainly be helpful. It's in your Fractal Softworks/Starfarer/Starfarer-core folder.

Also, could you tell me what operating system you're on?
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IIE16 Yoshi

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 2.1 Released)
« Reply #159 on: May 15, 2012, 12:54:15 PM »

Hm, strange. After downloading the mod, trying it, and crashing...then getting the version with no music and crashing with that too, I tried again with the normal version and it worked fine and I'm now having eargasms at all the custom SFX.

 ???
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Psiyon

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 2.1 Released)
« Reply #160 on: May 15, 2012, 01:08:18 PM »

Hm, strange. After downloading the mod, trying it, and crashing...then getting the version with no music and crashing with that too, I tried again with the normal version and it worked fine and I'm now having eargasms at all the custom SFX.

 ???
Strange. But I have had Starfarer crash every now and again at the loading screen (vanilla and known-to-work mods alike). It just quits to the desktop, and there's no error box or anything. I'm guessing that describes the crash that you had?
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rada660

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 2.1 Released)
« Reply #161 on: May 15, 2012, 01:11:34 PM »

yea happen to me once in a while but to me was not a direct crash no log itself, no warning message the game decided to simply close lol, stopping to load lol
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Psiyon

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 2.1 Released)
« Reply #162 on: May 16, 2012, 05:43:24 PM »

The KTA gets a carrier:


Kartuaa-class Fleet Carrier






The Kartuaa sports two launch bays and a plethora of small energy slots, making it an excellent carrier/point defense platform that supports strikecraft and larger vessels alike. As far as carriers go, this is the best you'll get aside from the Coalition's Kaeomdus-class.
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Psiyon

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 2.1 Released)
« Reply #163 on: May 18, 2012, 09:26:31 PM »

Progress on the KTA continues...


Kadentja-class Interceptor:





While structurally weak, their light hyperon beams have the ability to really screw up enemy strikecraft.


Relpanaan-class Bomber Corvette:





A corvette based on the Talpanaan's hull; the Relpanaan serves as the go-to unit for inflicting incredible damage on cruisers. Their guided torpedo launchers, however, leave little room for any other meaningful weapon systems, meaning the path to the target should be cleared before ordering a strike.


The KTA still needs one more frigate and corvette, and the same goes for Okouth, making a total of four more ships to complete before I start preparing to release Alpha 3.
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Psiyon

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 2.1 Released)
« Reply #164 on: May 20, 2012, 09:28:06 AM »

Welp, I took a few hours and hammered out all the hull mods:




There are still a few in there from vanilla starfarer, but the majority are new. The "Elite" hull mods generally provide large benefits across several ship systems. For example, the Elite Microprocessors mod increases maneuverability, weapon ranges, turn rates, and repair times. The "Reroute" mods are free--this is because there is an equal tradeoff involved. If you want to shunt extra power to your ballistic weapons, you can expect to take a significant hit to engine speed and maneuverability. Similarly, if you want to shunt extra power to your engines, expect to take a hit to weapon damage, range, and turn rates.


The KTA's assault frigate, the Sikiraa, is also ingame:


Its default variant is comparable to the Scug and Niathus frigates of the other two major factions.



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