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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: [0.95a] The Mayorate v1.1.0 (2021-11-25)  (Read 319983 times)

kazi

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Re: [0.6.2a] The Mayorate v0.7.1 (updated 3/9/14)
« Reply #180 on: October 11, 2014, 05:24:21 PM »

Hey, just would like to say thanks for the detailed feedback. It's really gratifying to see that I've finally managed to nerf things to a state where the Mayorate can be considered "underwhelming" at times. It looks like Dark and I nerfed things WAYYY too hard and I may need to buff things back up again.

A few comments about your criticism:
-Del Azarchel - going to completely disagree with you on this one. The built in gun is 1k kinetic damage per shot, and the missile launchers are fabulous if you kit the smaller ones out with the same type of missile and put MIRVS or nukes in the large slots.
-The Mayorate shield generators comment - I've sorta been planning to redo all of the Mayorate ships with a faction-specific shield generator. As currently balanced, you need to drop shields if you really want to dish out the pain. Armor is slightly above average across the board so you can generally take the return fire while you crumple their shields. Upkeep is twice as high as it should be as a cheap way of forcing everyone to use stabilized shields (otherwise equipping it would let you shield tank too well).
-Graser PD - might have nerfed this slightly too hard. Used to be on par with LR PD lasers.
-Graser - also may have nerfed this too hard. Used to punch through shields rather well.
-Tornado AM and battery- Good point, used to be much better before the AI changes (used to be able to wipe a few frigates at a time  ::)), I could probably increase the ammo to 5 and 10-15 respectively.
-Laserheads - does more damage than piliums and crunches shields of multiple ships nicely. I'll see about decreasing the blast range to handle FF better, although the better MIRV behavior in the next update might also give me an FF-free laserhead as well.
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CopperCoyote

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Re: [0.6.2a] The Mayorate v0.7.1 (updated 3/9/14)
« Reply #181 on: October 11, 2014, 11:37:12 PM »

Carefully examining things is part of the fun for me, and Mayorate is one of the mods that's caught my eye. Balance is an iterative thing. I wouldn't worry about overshooting a little. Going full Mayorate is still a decent choice. None of the combat ships are as vulnerable as a buffalo2.

My concerns about the Del Azarchel's spinal weapon are because its damage is spread over 3 shots. Even with expanded mags i have ammo issues when fighting other cruisers. My suggestion for more damage was so it'd be more strike-y in nature; allowing for the same low ammo count to get more done. It has a low-ish ROF so it's hard to use it as a primary shield breaker. If its ammo was doubled for example it'd then become a very good support weapon. Like the offspring of a heavy AC and HVD in a large mount.

My concerns with the missiles is based on my human limitations, and the fact that we're limited to 5 weapon groups. So unless i'm ok with having PD and non-PD turrets on the same autofire (which i'm not) i have to double up the missiles in one of the groups. Once we can no longer switch weapons while paused i'll feel even more compelled to under-gun the medium mount so it has the same firing characteristics as the small ones. Sometimes i use pilums in the larges so it meshes with the medium (and i have room for costlier turrets). The high complexity of the missiles and the DA's FMR is probably the biggest limiting factor on it's strength. Those two things don't pair well.

If the graser PD was 5 op you could think of it as a 16% increase in power. It'd be a good sidegrade for the PD laser for ships that want to trade some missile PD ability for slightly better antifighter capability. Like the front three mounts of the aurora would be a great place for them. I'd also use 3 on the lilith because fighters ruin it's day so often.

Vanilla beam weapons are a little lackluster at the moment (which is too bad because they're neat). As it is right now the graser is a side grade for the HIL. You trade range and flux efficiency for being better at destroying armor. It's a great weapon on a sunder because the loss in range in destroyer scales doesn't matter and it's great for ships with more shield stamina like an apogee because it just adds to its power. If you make the cost of using Mayorate shields something other than high shield upkeep it'll probably be good on Mayorate ships too. The HIL is better on Mayorate ships because it allows for the shields to be off more frequently thanks to its greater range.

I imagine part of the reason i'm so hard on the laserhead is because the first time i used them i had bought 2 safir-bs and loaded them up with them. In the next fight they were shooting at the same ship i was attacking and all of the dang things blew up over my ship overloading my shield and i took a ton of hull damage from the enemy. I'm aware they have a huge hypothetical damage, but in practice they blow too far away from most ships to do decent damage. Further exacerbating the problem i have to micro manage the heck out of them by not even choosing to deploy them till we're well into the fight with the enemy and telling them to engage the furthest enemy in the pile and hope that we kill all of them before my flimsy fire support ships get there. I have no way of saying "stay here and shoot at that" so the AI derps it up and fires them at the nearest enemy thereby endangering my ships too. If they had smaller explosion radii and burst much closer to the enemy they could be great all the time. They would be more vulnerable to PD weapons, but that'd be totally worth it in my opinion.

Before i switched mods and started a new game i played a little with the capital in the simulator. Those 3 large mounts are nuts. It's like someone looked at a sunder and thought "that's pretty good, but i need  a lot more every thing" So they made a BC that looks at things and they melt. I can't personally kill a paragon or onslaught but could kill a conquest and sometimes a mimir with it (those things are so trixy). It seems pretty good if particularly vulnerable to swarms of smaller ships.
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kazi

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Re: [0.6.2a] The Mayorate v0.7.1 (updated 3/9/14)
« Reply #182 on: October 12, 2014, 12:31:37 AM »

So the lilith sucks against fighters, eh? (ancient video, in it's first incarnation, the belial used to have prox fused ordnance and a massive projectile ownership bug) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIu_gqjwu8M&index=1&list=UUX-t0gKrkPNLuVdirBhdMkw

But yeah, I'll see what I can do to address your comments. I'm actually considering halving the number of laserhead shots and directing them ALL towards your ship's current target. I know, right? Ouch.

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Tartiflette

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Re: [0.6.2a] The Mayorate v0.7.1 (updated 3/9/14)
« Reply #183 on: October 12, 2014, 12:34:12 AM »

I'm actually considering halving the number of laserhead shots and directing them ALL towards your ship's current target. I know, right? Ouch.
Hmmmm, if only we could make a true laserhead that shoot beams...... *daydreaming*
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kazi

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Re: [0.6.2a] The Mayorate v0.7.1 (updated 3/9/14)
« Reply #184 on: October 12, 2014, 12:47:15 AM »

Yeah, not going to lie. I would kill for that hahah... just need to figure out how to spawn beams (of a certain duration) now....
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TartarusMkII

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Re: [0.6.2a] The Mayorate v0.7.1 (updated 3/9/14)
« Reply #185 on: October 12, 2014, 12:48:21 AM »

I suggest this not knowing any of the technicalities of what's possible, so bear with me.

What if you designed a missile warhead and smoke trail to look like a photon dart with a laser 'trail'- when the laserhead explodes, a bunch of these bending lasers can then burst forth and zero in on a target?
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MesoTroniK

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Re: [0.6.2a] The Mayorate v0.7.1 (updated 3/9/14)
« Reply #186 on: October 12, 2014, 01:03:35 AM »

Yeah, not going to lie. I would kill for that hahah... just need to figure out how to spawn beams (of a certain duration) now....

We will never be able to spawn beams :(

But, you could do some trickery to get the same effect. Using shaders, or the EMP Arc anamorphic flare method to create the visuals and then script the damage in its entirety ;)

Tartiflette

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Re: [0.6.2a] The Mayorate v0.7.1 (updated 3/9/14)
« Reply #187 on: October 12, 2014, 01:06:34 AM »

Spawning beams ex nihilo is not possible and never will (Alex's words). The closest achievable is spawning long bullets with long glow in BALLISTIC_AS_BEAM collision class and very high speed. The cheatty complicated way would be to spawn an invisible drone equipped with a beam, force it to fire immediately and then removing it.
The first few pages of the Misc modding questions thread are about this problem.

[edit] nija'ed but posting anyway ^^
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MesoTroniK

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Re: [0.6.2a] The Mayorate v0.7.1 (updated 3/9/14)
« Reply #188 on: October 12, 2014, 01:08:57 AM »

The drone method is a bad idea, it will mess with the AI and create unforeseen consequences that will never be solved.

CopperCoyote

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Re: [0.6.2a] The Mayorate v0.7.1 (updated 3/9/14)
« Reply #189 on: October 12, 2014, 10:07:32 AM »

A shotgun laserhead would be nuts. It'd also be great for shooting frigates with fire support ships. The biggest downside would be the laid-back way laserheads tend to turn. It'd have some of the accuracy issues of the current iteration of the sabot srm. That issue mostly only pops up when their target dies en route and they have to re-orient to another.

I think part of the issue with liliths vs fighters is how timid the AI is about active venting. Another way to think about liliths vs fighters is to compare how often they die to fighters in comparison to other frigates. They're pretty far down the continuum, but still ahead of the medium tech vigilance and brawler. And like the vigilance and brawler they're better on the killing bigger ships continuum. It seems like a fair trade off.
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kazi

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Re: [0.6.2a] The Mayorate v0.7.1 (updated 3/9/14)
« Reply #190 on: October 14, 2014, 12:22:56 AM »

Yeah, I'd probably have to nerf the things hard. But it'd be awesome and would stop everyone complaining about missile friendly fire haha...

Some recent art updates for those who don't watch the spriting thread. Still quite WIP... missing a couple mounts and all of its details besides shading.



And some very rough portraits:
Spoiler
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« Last Edit: October 18, 2014, 01:28:57 PM by kazi »
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kazi

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Re: [0.6.2a] The Mayorate v0.7.1 (updated 3/9/14)
« Reply #191 on: October 18, 2014, 09:41:48 PM »

Okay, threw together a spriting tutorial for those who wanted one. Note: sprite in that tutorial is probably not 100% complete, but meh, close enough...

http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8292.0
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kazi

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Re: [0.6.2a] The Mayorate v0.7.1 (updated 3/9/14)
« Reply #192 on: October 21, 2014, 01:35:37 AM »

Hokay, so pretty much everything's broken with this new update. Which actually gives me a bit of an opportunity to change things up, etc., that kind of thing... one thing that kind of amuses me is how I'm going to have to rewrite a lot of the lore, as it's EXTREMELY similar to the new Hegemony description. Oh well....  ::)

Anyhow, I've done a lot of playing of the new update (well as much as one could expect from the day of release), going to start and see if I can restore raw compatibility ASAP. We'll have to see how it goes, but restoring raw compatibility and adding in new 0.65 features might actually be done in separate updates.
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Aklyon

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Re: [0.6.2a] The Mayorate v0.7.1 (updated 3/9/14)
« Reply #193 on: October 21, 2014, 10:03:08 AM »

Hokay, so pretty much everything's broken with this new update. Which actually gives me a bit of an opportunity to change things up, etc., that kind of thing... one thing that kind of amuses me is how I'm going to have to rewrite a lot of the lore, as it's EXTREMELY similar to the new Hegemony description. Oh well....  ::)
Can't say I was expecting that. So does that mean the hegemony are now part of the 'solution' instead of the 'problem'? ;)

As far as raw compatibility/new features being separate updates, while it'd involve more downloads I wouldn't mind there, I like flying the mayorate ships.
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kazi

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Re: [0.6.2a] The Mayorate v0.7.1 (updated 3/9/14)
« Reply #194 on: October 22, 2014, 02:43:33 PM »

Hokay, so pretty much everything's broken with this new update. Which actually gives me a bit of an opportunity to change things up, etc., that kind of thing... one thing that kind of amuses me is how I'm going to have to rewrite a lot of the lore, as it's EXTREMELY similar to the new Hegemony description. Oh well....  ::)
Can't say I was expecting that. So does that mean the hegemony are now part of the 'solution' instead of the 'problem'? ;)

As far as raw compatibility/new features being separate updates, while it'd involve more downloads I wouldn't mind there, I like flying the mayorate ships.

I know, right? I used to think the Hegemony was just an entrenched bureaucracy, with no pressing goals besides its continued existence. Nevertheless, even if I have to completely rewrite all of my own stuff, I think the new changes are a very positive development. The Starsector universe actually has quite an interesting backstory to it now.

Speaking of which, I'm going to be completely rewriting the lore for the Mayorate (since the new Hegemony virtually replaces it). The relationships with other factions will stay very much the same, although the Luddic Church likely will replace the Hegemony as the primary antagonists. Things are about to go in a much more dark and sinister direction.

I'll leave you with this tidbit for now: rather than a kingdom of pseudo-zealots bent on restoring the Domain (through force of arms and whatnot), think reckless foray into the next steps of human evolution, artificial intelligence, and a society based upon the technological enslavement of minds. They'll be much less expansionist, but make everyone else in the sector very, very uneasy about what's going on within Mayorate borders.
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