Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Morrokain]

Hey its been a while since I wrote anything on here but 0.6 brings so much to the table I had to give some feedback!

Overall, I love the state of the game and the new depth that 0.6 brings to Starsector. I have noticed, however, many people complaining about the difficulty associated with supply cost, fleet management, early game combat, and CR recovery.

The most obvious suggestion would be to lower supply costs or reduce the amount of supplies consumed. With the exception of fighters, I want to put my .02 in and advise against this as I feel it is a knee jerk reaction to frustration because the only way to get credits right now is combat and combat lowers CR and usually comes with high costs for repairs. Once industry comes in I think it will smooth over a lot of these issues.

I feel that the new logistics management is great because it forces you to make some tough choices on what you spend your credits on and increases the time it takes to build a large solid fleet. I think this is great! Before I would never even think much about weapons before I got a cruiser since enough cash came in from battles to make larger ships pretty accessible early on. Now I find myself going:

 "Hmm maybe instead of another frigate I should make that Dual Autocannon on the forward turret slot of my Lasher a Railgun to give myself a bit of a combat edge. It costs under a 1000 credits so I will certainly have enough to resupply if this next engagement goes poorly."

And it is a tad bit scary to wander too far from your home station. I have a good story here that I will put into spoilers for the sake of relevancy. Skip to keep just the suggestion aspect of it but it serves as a concrete example to prove my point.

Spoiler

The first time I went exploring in hyperspace I made a poor choice on which wormhole I came through into the Askonia system. I ended up stranded at that planet far to the bottom of the map. Blind (nothing showed up on the map other than that planet. Bug? Or intended?) and running dangerously low on supplies, I had no choice but to engage the wandering Midtech Patrol I had been following hoping it would lead me to a station. "Sorry guys, nothing against you but my crew needs your supplies badly." I thought as I engaged.

The problem: they had a cruiser in this patrol. With only 2 heavily modified lashers (remember that railgun?) a Heavy Machine Gun toting Hound with engine boosters and auxillary thrusters, and a couple talon wings supported by my LR missile Condor, I took on the fleet in desperation.

It seemed to go well at first. A well placed Reaper in my right side missile port overwhelmed the Brawler class who dared engage me alone within 10 seconds of the battle commencing. I had sent my other lasher and hound to double team the mere support lasher escorting the cruiser and it fell soon after the brawler as the railgun and heavy machine gun overwhelmed its shields right as the pilums from my condor smacked into its starboard. The two economy mortars (hey railguns are high on OP) on my other lashers hardpoints finished the job. My talons were keeping the two Gladius wings occupied and I noticed their Gemini engaging my Condor at point blank range. A harpoon and an accelerated ammo feeders worth of assault guns to is engines took it out before it even knew what happened. "I might be able to do this!" I thought.

Then we took on the Eagle. Man medium beams hurt now. Within 10 seconds of engaging the Eagle I knew it was futile. My own ship was out of missiles and at 50% hull. The other lasher's armor looked like swish cheese from its forward guns and my hound was running on an engine duck-taped to its port side at a mere 2% hull. We hadn't even dented its armor. Full retreat!

Somehow every ship escaped. Even the carrier since it was too far removed for the eagle to catch up to it. Phew I thought! That was until I realized I couldn't send out salvage teams to gather the supplies that were tantalizingly floating in space because an eagle was still guarding their remains. All for naught.

So completely out of supplies now and with only 2 ships combat capable I tried to find a station. Long story short an accidental explosion taking out one of the 2 combat ships and a marauding pirate fleet seeing easy prey sent my crew to the slave ships. Reload.

[close]

So I failed. I took a gamble and lost because I didn't store enough supplies to last a while when exploring and as a result I had to take on a much bigger fleet than I normally would have. And lost.

BUT IT WAS FUN!

I think that's key here. The added tension of supply management and the very real possibility of being lost or stranded gives consequences to your decisions that weren't really present in the game before now. So I feel these should stay.

However, the big issue with this difficulty now is two-fold:

1) I can't seem to find affordable freighters early on to allow me to stockpile supplies for long trips or exploration. (maybe I'm missing something)

2) Right now you must go into combat about once every 10-11 days to maintain income enough to buy supplies. If you just happen to be unlucky with spawns so that no applicable fleets are within your reach.. even in your home sector you are pretty much screwed and there is not much you can do about it. (again maybe I'm missing a mechanic here. mothball maybe haven't tried that yet.)

So certainly #1 is an issue. #2 could just be a fluke but that was my impression.

So aside from implementing things like industry I would suggest a couple things to help this dilema.

1) Clearly provide an indicator in the map section that denotes "well traveled or known" space zones and "you might not have enough supplies for this" space zones. That way players know what they are getting into. "Fringe" for example was a good indicator for me to not use that wormhole that was already in use.

2) More farmable/variable fleets. An example would be more independent traders loaded with supplies and medium to light on defense. This would give options (also with consequences such as angering authorities or getting a bounty placed on you for mercs) besides "Oh god where's a buffalo pirate fleet I've only got 5 days left!"

Great update!! 

[CrashToDesktop]

Buffalo Mk. Is are pretty good freighters - good amount of cargo space, and you don't have to deploy them all the time if you can avoid bad situations.  Early game solved, at least, if you can grab one in one of the stations, which shouldn't be too difficult.  After that, the Tarsus pretty much rules all other freighters - epic armor, speed, cargo space, and BURN DRIVE.

[Alex]

Just wanted to say thank you for sharing your impressions! Glad they're overall positive, though there's definitely a lot of details left to work out

As far as #1, Hounds make surprisingly capable freighters. Once you have a little more money, a Mule is great too, for its combination of decent firepower and great cargo capacity. But, exploration-wise, there's just not that much to discover yet, is there? Since it's all about combat right now, being forced into it seems more or less ok.

#2 is a really good point. It's incredibly non-obvious that you should be hunting Buffalo (heh) as a new player, and that's pretty much the difference between an easy start and repeatedly respawning in a shuttle.

[xenoargh]

Hounds ftw.

Seriously... if you have 5 Hounds in a fleet you will not have serious issues holding enough Supplies and loot. 

Throw in a tanker for Fuel, you're done.  As a bonus... short of a major fleet action (i.e., SDF) you're going to be able to kill whatever you meet and take their stuff, pretty much guaranteed.

It's by far the most optimal strat for anything short of solo-capship runs (and frankly, it's more fun, imo).

[Morrokain]

the Tarsus pretty much rules all other freighters - epic armor, speed, cargo space, and BURN DRIVE.

Burn Drive on a freighter? Crazy. Haha thanks for the advice I will have to try that.

Just wanted to say thank you for sharing your impressions!

My pleasure! It still amazes me how much time I have sunk into this game and it hasn't even launched yet 

But, exploration-wise, there's just not that much to discover yet, is there?

Correct there. But when you consider the star trek book I read as a young teenager that completely got me hooked on planet/space exploration type games then you realize that even when I see a far off planet in the distance I go to see what type/biosphere it is... yeah I'm that guy  .

Insert Quote
Hounds ftw.

Seriously... if you have 5 Hounds in a fleet you will not have serious issues holding enough Supplies and loot.

Throw in a tanker for Fuel, you're done.  As a bonus... short of a major fleet action (i.e., SDF) you're going to be able to kill whatever you meet and take their stuff, pretty much guaranteed.

It's by far the most optimal strat for anything short of solo-capship runs (and frankly, it's more fun, imo).

Thanks for the advice! Though if what you say is true that presents its own problem lol. I really hope there is not an optimal ship/strat to the game in the end. Part of the fun for me is having a diverse fleet or multiple equally viable strategies to employ. I also was never one to settle for the standard "single player game so any strategy is technically viable" argument either. If not using ship X means I'm at a serious disadvantage because its THAT good compared to other ships, I feel like an idiot for not using it and it lessens the fun. That being said obviously its impossible to completely balance everything so of course small imbalances are ok.

In the mod I'm working on, among other things, I'm bringing energy ships down a notch and boosting midtech. Imo there is a serious difference there that makes it really hard to justify picking up a Conquest for any reason.