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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: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 257882 times)

Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #75 on: June 15, 2014, 08:13:56 AM »

Just your emphasis on emphasizing the "probably" and "somehow" is what led to the question.

Ah, gotcha. When I say something like that, it pretty much means "right now, I'm thinking of this in terms of trying to make it work, seeing how that goes, and making changes as necessary for the stated approach to fit the design goals". That is, the important part is tying ship/weapon production to the economy in an interesting way. Making weapons/ships work with the supply/demand structure in some way seems like a good way to go about that, but it might not turn out to be. I think it will, though. I just don't want to commit to specifics, you know? The larger design goals are what's more important, and you can get there in different ways, and might have to, since so many things need to fit together.

As for research, wasn't it one of the original features that was outlined when the game was still named Starfarer? I'm talking about 3 years ago or so.

Hmm. Now that you mention it, I remember thinking about it. I don't remember talking about it, though! Not something I'd ever want to call a feature, since it was so speculative at the time, and even at that point it was (iirc) clear that it was an awkward fit in some ways.

I'm not up to date with the lore, but research seems like it would be right at home with factions and industry: expending resources to unlock better guns / tech / etc which leads to corporate espionage, piracy, economic changes and warfare. Aside from factions and industry, research was the feature I was looking forward to most which makes me a bit sad if it was never concept to begin with.

Those things sound like fun. I think we're back to the same idea - design goals vs implementation paths. What you've outlined doesn't have to come from traditional research. Right now, I'm thinking about it in terms of gaining access to new blueprints/denying access to blueprints/etc. Doesn't mean that's exactly how it'll end up, but hopefully you see what I mean re: goal vs path.

Yeah, at least in Ivalyo's lore research is pretty much treasure hunting:

Research has a different meaning than the word as it is known to us today. Research, the one done by Tri-Tachyon and others, is a process that involves a couple of things. First, techmining, or retrieving Domain artifacts to locate blueprints or working components. Second, analysis deconstruction and\or integration. Lastly, potential blueprints extraction. That last step is extremely rare though.

Research to me is more like "research", i.e. a euphemism for tech mining.  It's not something you would do passively and wait on a progress bar for.

Right. Still thinking about it in those terms, but, as an example: we've had to change up how some aspects of production work in order for the economy to work out. There's the idea of "light industry", i.e. something that can be done without an autofactory, and includes basic stuff like making furniture, and more involved things like, say, plastics and such. It's also somewhat hazy how much of heavy industry requires blueprints/autofacs - some certainly does, but some (such as, say, refining metals or making basic components) does not.

(Anyway - I guess this is just a general reminder not to treat the lore as set in stone. Not that you were.)

Hope it stays that way, it fits the setting perfectly and sounds as if it could be a ton of fun. In that scenario I would imagine a top researcher to be some kind of space Indiana Jones :)

What I like about that conceptually is the opportunity for the player to be an active participant.
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Pax_Empyrean

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #76 on: June 15, 2014, 08:20:44 AM »

I wrote a big thing on designing a game economy, but put it in the suggestions forum so as not to ambush this thread with a giant wall of text that's basically just speculation and theory. Hopefully there is something in there you like: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8070.0
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xXTallmanXx

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #77 on: June 20, 2014, 04:32:50 PM »

Can't wait to play it! ;D
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Msahn

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #78 on: June 22, 2014, 10:33:35 AM »

Wow, that's a big updated right there, can't wait to get my hands on it =]
As always hats to you Sir Alex !!!
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joe130794

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #79 on: July 04, 2014, 07:22:45 AM »

is there any idea when the update will be available and will current mods work with it or will they need updating.
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Voyager I

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #80 on: July 04, 2014, 08:54:42 AM »

All your mods breaking is about the only thing we know for sure right now.
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Gothars

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #81 on: July 04, 2014, 04:22:13 PM »

Yeah, mods will need an update. Other than that, we don't know.

I'll close the thread until that changes. :)
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #82 on: September 24, 2014, 05:30:31 PM »

Updated.
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Hopelessnoob

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #83 on: September 24, 2014, 05:49:15 PM »

Fleet AI will now consider enemy fleet presence around a jump point when deciding which ones to use

Does this mean we can see whats on the other side of a jump point? Can't tell you how many times I've ran into a templar fleet in starsector + after jumping through a point
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Decer304

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #84 on: September 24, 2014, 05:49:55 PM »

This update makes the patch look better and better. cant wait to play. look like it'll be worth the wait
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #85 on: September 24, 2014, 05:54:31 PM »

Does this mean we can see whats on the other side of a jump point? Can't tell you how many times I've ran into a templar fleet in starsector + after jumping through a point

No, it just looks at what's on its side of it.

This update makes the patch look better and better. cant wait to play. look like it'll be worth the wait

:)
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Hopelessnoob

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #86 on: September 24, 2014, 06:00:52 PM »

What does the internal comms mean? Do we have more conversation options?

How many other ships have a pirate version? are they entirely different hulls or can we swap out weapon mounts on ships now?
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Cycerin

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #87 on: September 24, 2014, 06:03:25 PM »

Wow, wow, wow. This is amazing. Ship skins!

Did Annihilators really need a buff? They're already almost brokenly good. The rest is very interesting. Does the AI changes mean a swarm of Lashers toting Harpoons will now reliably murderize your overloaded ship instead of just spectating?

E: Also, I sort of disagree with the decision to turn Swarmer damage into HE. Doesn't it both contradict the stated purpose of frag damage, already rare within the game, and sort of make Swarmers less interesting, given they used to be safe to ignore while you had armor, but deceptively deadly if you didn't?
« Last Edit: September 24, 2014, 06:05:55 PM by Cycerin »
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Sundog

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #88 on: September 24, 2014, 06:15:27 PM »

Ship skins. Awesome. Was not expecting that  :)

void reportFleetDewspawned(CampaignFleetAPI fleet, FleetDespawnReason reason, Object param);
Typo? Or strange new feature?

Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #89 on: September 24, 2014, 06:27:26 PM »

What does the internal comms mean? Do we have more conversation options?

Just more news channels to get intel on. They're fairly sparse at the moment, so this isn't a big deal.

How many other ships have a pirate version? are they entirely different hulls or can we swap out weapon mounts on ships now?


... some. Entirely different ships as far as the game is concerned, except they can share variants if they're compatible.


Wow, wow, wow. This is amazing. Ship skins!

I knew you'd zero in on that :)

Did Annihilators really need a buff? They're already almost brokenly good. The rest is very interesting. Does the AI changes mean a swarm of Lashers toting Harpoons will now reliably murderize your overloaded ship instead of just spectating?

The pod version seems rather insane right now, yeah. Might look at it again. One benefit of the higher speed, though, is that the AI can hit with them much more reliably now. A lot of the changes had that in mind, actually (with the other goal being "fun to use"). In particular, the AI is deadly with Reapers, too. There's still time to dodge on reaction if you're aware of it, but it's no longer a joke to see that mounted on an enemy ship. If you don't move or counter it in some other way, chances are it's hitting.

And yeah, anything armed with Harpoons will absolutely murder you if you overload or even come close to it. They're also aware of conserving ammo if other ships have fired missiles, so won't generally waste everything trying to kill a single ship.


E: Also, I sort of disagree with the decision to turn Swarmer damage into HE. Doesn't it both contradict the stated purpose of frag damage, already rare within the game, and sort of make Swarmers less interesting, given they used to be safe to ignore while you had armor, but deceptively deadly if you didn't?

Well - the issue is that some fighters have half-decent armor. Flak is essentially anti-missile, but Swarmers? I wanted to up the number of missiles fired, but lowering the damage would make them horrible vs fighters, which is a large part of their role. Really, their main role is "vs small things", which smaller amounts of HE damage accomplishes nicely. They should go from being a very niche weapon to something more universally useful. I mean, how many loadouts can afford to have 1) a shield-breaker, 2) an armor-breaker, and 3) Swarmers? I guess you can put them on as a support weapon for when other ships have broken the armor, but that demands a level of cooperation between ships that seems a tad unrealistic.

Frag damage is pretty much "need reliable damage vs missiles that isn't OP vs everything else". Initially that mission statement included fighters, but they ended up with decent armor. Maybe they shouldn't; that could be worth a closer look. (The Thumper is a bit of an odd case, where "bad vs everything" actually becomes "ok vs everything" due to its great other stats.)


Ship skins. Awesome. Was not expecting that  :)

void reportFleetDewspawned(CampaignFleetAPI fleet, FleetDespawnReason reason, Object param);
Typo? Or strange new feature?

Ooops, fixed. Thank you :)
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