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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: [0.95.1a] Scy V1.66rc3 (2023/03/19)  (Read 1097517 times)

Tartiflette

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The Manticore MIRV torpedo was way too powerful: 2 x 8 x 300 High Explosive damage by heatseekers missiles? That stuff was really broken! So I reworked it a bit, with a new smoother animation and a pair of torpedoes that only drop small low yield bombs in a carpet pattern. Enjoy your undiscriminating fleet bombardment:
Spoiler
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Tartiflette

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So I heard DatonKallandor is bashing Scy in the little fenced garden that is now the SomethingAweful forum, but refuses to post his complains here where it they can be discussed. Lets pass on the petty attitude that is to dismiss someone's work while preventing the author to reply: This is internet, everything's fair game I suppose. However, since a friend sent me his posts, that doesn't prevent me to reply to him here and try to get something positive out of his rant:

Quote from: DatonKallandor
Note that SCY is ludicrously overpowered - it's pretty much the perfect example of artist mod. Incredibly pretty and well crafted with a *** ton of unique weapon and ship effects (both visual and gameplay), but the balance is just hilarious. If you play Nexerelin and you start SCY you've basically won immediately.

Quote from: DatonKallandor
Ludicrous burn speeds (pretty much everything they've got is at least one category faster than it's class, sometimes more) and incredibly powerful weapons say hello (massive kinetic spike damage from almost tachyon lance range that also teleports the target in front of your guns after they overload, is just one example).

Quote from: DatonKallandor
It's not a grievance, it's just a warning to someone considering picking up SCY for a Nexerelin game. The burn speed alone will make SCY kick everyone's ass on the strategic layer because their fleets will simply out-run and/or catch up to everyone else.

As expected, I disagree with most of your points. While usually you aren't "wrong" beyond mixing facts and personal opinion, this time you are pushing it.

   In Nexerelin, I never ever saw Scy win a game, or even become a big player. They get driven out early game pretty often actually. On the other hand, whatever faction I took, vanilla or not, I won. I think you can see the common denominator there.

   Scy isn't faster than Vanilla... Or more precisely it is faster than a barebone vanilla ships, but those can compensate with engines hullmods. Hulmods that Scy ships can't mount, making them the equivalent to a fleet with unstable injectors or augmented engines on all ships. Besides some ships aren't faster than their vanilla counterparts, namely the armored ones. And since those can't mount engines mods either, big fleets are actually slower than average! Same goes for combat speed; do I need to mention that since they have a single engine, they are even more susceptible to flameouts? So the result is: small Scy fleets are marginally faster than their vanilla counterparts, and big ones are the same speed or slower if they got a Nemean Lion capital-ship in tow, the slowest ship in the game including mods. Sure having pre-boosted engines will help the early game a lot, but soon you'll find that you have to either only grind small fleets or invest in slow and expensive ships.

   Weapons have higher average damage per shot than vanilla on average, that's true. However almost every single one of them have at least a vanilla equivalent that does more damage, for less flux and better range. The exception being the weapons that are far too removed from vanilla to compare adequately, some built-in ones and maybe the small HeMor. Sure I made a lot of fancy visuals effects, and that makes them look and feel strong. Stronger than they actually are because cold hard numbers put them just below the best vanilla ones. Also they have lower than average range, witch cancel most of the ships speed advantage, plus horrible OP cost and flux stat. But maybe you didn't realized that the weapons tooltip display the flux for sustained fire and not maximum dps? Here's the rule of thumb I used compared to the best weapons vanilla offers: 50-80% range, 50-80% speed, 150-200% damage, 50-75% rate of fire, 150-200% flux, 125-150% OP cost. Sure the 200% damage do wonders and is just compensated by the other worse stats, but Scyan ships also have exactly half the weapon mounts of vanilla ships, plus/minus one.

   Now there is the Siren teleporter gun problem that I can agree with. Of course it has less than half the Tachyon Lance range, half the damage to shields (and not even hard flux), deals exactly 0 damage to hulls, is ammo starved and is the main weapon of an expensive cruiser that has only 4 other small turrets... Still it can be powerful in fleet battles and quite frustrating to oppose. But surprise, I already tackled this problem on my end. Now the teleporter shells are loaded only if a ships system is activated, with a long cooldown and limited to 5 charges with 50s regen. (and as a system it can't get buffed by extended magazines)

So sure there are still some rough spots, equipments that are a bit too good, but calling the whole mod "ludicrously overpowered" is defamatory at best. I don't pretend Scy is underpowered either though. It used to be (voluntary) quite weak and I slowly worked them up to what I believe is a pretty good spot around mid-tech.

And yes, this is a attempt to flush you out of your Armchair Specialist salon into the real world to discuss your issues because even if I disagree, it do double-check all my numbers each time, witch can't be a bad thing.

[EDIT] I stand corrected, there was one ship that was 1 burn faster than it's vanilla equivalent with Augmented Engines: the Xanthus sub-capital freighter. An augmented Atlas has 1500 cargo with burn 4, a Xanthus is burn 5 for 1200 cargo. A tiny bit too good then, it's now burn 4.
« Last Edit: April 22, 2015, 12:33:34 AM by Tartiflette »
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Histidine

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It could be because one gets SS+ bonuses and the other doesn't, but ExigencyCorp in my current Nexerelin game is tearing up equal or superior Scy fleets in autoresolve.
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Dark.Revenant

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FYI: autoresolve essentially doesn't care about level bonuses.
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cpmartins

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Caring what people on SA think. The literal shithole of the internet.
It was good about 6 years ago. Now? Well, let's just say my 10bux have been going unused since back then.

BTW I don't find Scy unbalanced. It does what it does well and I like it very much, bot aesthetically and balance-wise.
The only fleets I have trouble assessing strength in a fully modded SS+ game are Blackrock ones with their "surprise buttsecks" battleships. Still love it to death though, especially when I'm the one doing it >:)
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Sabaton

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 You do understand the fact that that idiot just made a bunch of nonsense about your mod to present to his other private club friends and maybe get a thumbs up or whatever the hell they have.?
 This behaviour is just like all the people that have fraudulently taken down you tube videos on account of copyright infringements that weren't actually there.
 They never come out of their hole because they know they're wrong and will only talk smack as long as they're safe from consequence. I'm sure this deuche will post a reply on his stupid forum where only his buddies can see it like the coward he is.

« Last Edit: April 16, 2015, 12:20:48 AM by Sabaton »
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Tartiflette

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In this case he might come: he is present on this forum too. Apparently, he just insist on talking about vanilla here, and only discuss mods on SA (witch frankly don't make any sense). Besides, even if he doesn't reply here, other players present on both places might see this and have all the elements to make their own opinion about Scy instead of just reading "Dis is OP trash, nerf it!".

But more to the mod: 0.9 is nearly there, probably this week. I just want to finish this damn lore update and all the descriptions modifications that comes with it. Yeah I know, most people don't care much about that part but I do, and if even 1% of the other players care too then it's worth it. I already uploaded pdf on the OP that is about the 3 Hegemony-side missions against Scy.

If anyone has some issue or complain about Scy, now's the time to share it!
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Sabaton

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 I care about the lore, the in game codex is my best friend.

 
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Alex

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(Let's please not bash other people or forums. I don't want to have to start handing out official warnings, and this is extremely close to warranting it. "idiots", "sh*thole", etc, plus tearing someone down where they may not see it doesn't exactly afford one the moral high ground when tearing them down for essentially the same perceived offense.)
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xenoargh

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Where's the Like button? 

Totally agree with Alex- be nice to the people who make the cool toys, and represent us as the generally-nice people we actually are around here, guys :)
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Please check out my SS projects :)
Xeno's Mod Pack

Unreal_One

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Scy isn't faster than Vanilla... Or more precisely it is faster than a barebone vanilla ships, but those can compensate with engines hullmods. Hulmods that Scy ships can't mount, making them the equivalent to a fleet with unstable injectors or augmented engines on all ships. Besides some ships aren't faster than their vanilla counterparts, namely the armored ones. And since those can't mount engines mods either, big fleets are actually slower than average! Same goes for combat speed; do I need to mention that since they have a single engine, they are even more susceptible to flameouts? So the result is: small Scy fleets are marginally faster than their vanilla counterparts, and big ones are the same speed or slower if they got a Nemean Lion capital-ship in tow, the slowest ship in the game including mods. Sure having pre-boosted engines will help the early game a lot, but soon you'll find that you have to either only grind small fleets or invest in slow and expensive ships.

But that argument is true about AI fleets, in which case, Scy will almost universally be faster. The AI will rarely have Aug Engines installed on all their slowest ships, while a Scy fleet can't really help but do so.
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Tartiflette

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As I said, this is only true for the small fleets, the bigger ones will have slow ships that on the contrary make them just as fast or even slower than vanilla AI fleets. And since Scy need a significant advantage to win a battle (especially in AI vs AI), only those fleets will be a menace so I don't think it's game-breaking. It's more an advantage for fleeing and never be caught in a fight they don't want rather than an offensive edge. From all my testing I can say they are difficult to completely obliterate as they flee, but not very hard to repel when they attack.
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Cathair

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Edit: You know what, ignore me, Alex already said everything that really needed saying.

Starsector's modding community is generally one of the better ones out there, would be great if people could keep things in perspective so that it could stay that way.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2015, 10:35:25 PM by Cathair »
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Tartiflette

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Re: [0.65.2a] Scy V0.90 Unleashed update (23/04/2015)
« Reply #463 on: April 23, 2015, 12:23:15 AM »




Require Debido's TwigLib.
Require LazyWizzard's LazyLib.
Compatible with LazyWizzard's Version Checker.
Compatible with Histidine's Nexerelin.
Play nicely with other mods including Dark.Revenant's Starsector+

This update will break 0.89 saves but not 0.9_DEV2 and later saves.

It took some time to wrap it but Scy 0.9 is finally here! If you didn't tried any DEV version, you'll discover the Stymphalian Bird elite frigate, the Heavy Minigun medium weapon, the Prism Freeport high-end marker, find valuable Intelligence Chips and experience a smoother, more polished mod overall. You can check the changelog as long as my arm to the bottom. I also finished a huge Lore overhaul. You can read it by downloading these two fancy illustrated PDF, or check the jpeg versions in the OP. Finally I set my mind on the use of "Scy" and "Scyan" in the descriptions: it's Scyan for all uses as adjective with the sole exception of "Scy Nation". Sorry for the changes all over the place these past DEV, any other case left would be a typo.
Spoiler




[close]

You should know that this is the final content update: As of now, the mod feels pretty complete to me and can stand on it's own next to any other or vanilla. That doesn't mean I'll stop working on Scy (after all, it's still version 0.9 for a reason), but there probably wont be any large update like this one in the future except for game compatibility. Instead I'll focus more on the final balancing rough spots, or improve the ship-systems AI, that kind of things. I might also resume my little talks with Dark.Revenant about a potential SS+ integration someday. In the meantime, have fun!

Changelog
Spoiler
Code
v0.9
23/04/2015

 - Added the Heavy Minigun: bigger cousin of the Light Minigun: unsuitable to point defense, but okay at pressuring shield and murderous against ships' hull once their armor gives in.

 - Added Stymphalian Bird frigate: Next generation frigate of immense power but extreme rarity.
        Specifically designed to take on Capital ships, fares much worse against fighters and other frigates.
        (You can imagine the damned offspring of an Hyperion and a Nevermore).

 - Added Dual Laser Torpedo rack for 6 OP (reduced single Laser Torpedo to 3 OP from 4).

 - Nexerelin compatibility.

 - Intel Chip commodity. Very valuable and only dropped by some specific Scy fleets.

 - Spy fleets. Well, those fleets.

 - Scy is now suspicious with most factions instead of inhospitable.

 - Reworked Acheron system, with a pirate hideout and a special independent station that can sell military grade hulls from any faction at a huge mark up price.

 - New backgrounds for both Acheron and Tartarus.


BALANCE

 - Nerfed the Megeara:
        Teleporter, three charges instead of two, but recharge delay raised from 10 to 30 seconds,
        Phase, upkeep raised to 7.5% flux per second from 5%,
 - Baliuses FP reduced from 7 to 5.
 - Significantly buffed the Telchine miner ship hull and armor.
 - Buffed Telchine's Deconstruction beam to reduce the target's HP 1% per second: same speed for a capital ship or a fighter. Still useless against shielded targets.
 - The siren now only deploy two drones at once.
 - Slasher beam flux usage reduced to 313 FPS from 645 (near 1:1 ratio), also has a new hit visual effect.
 - Burst Repeater Beam reverted to Vibrating beam but now fire continuously, with a much better flux efficiency and range.
        It's now a potent support weapon against frigates and destroyers, but not efficient against fighters.
 - Corrected Medium and Large HeMor flux requirement.
 - Slightly reduced the Focus Beam flux requirement.
 - Vastly buffed the Medusa frigate's EMP Nova ship system:
        In addition to overloading every ships in a 1500 SU radius, the EMP also disable some weapons and engines, causing flameouts and confusion in the enemy fleet...
        And your own allies too if you didn't took care to hold them back!
 - Interceptor fighters flak now fire continuously.
 - All Atfi wings received short range missiles instead of coasting missiles.
 - All prices have been adjusted to be in line with vanilla:
Frigates and destroyers are slightly more expensive,
Cruisers are less expensive,
Weapons are far cheaper.
 - Reduced the OP cost of small missile weapons across the board.
 - slightly nerfed the Coasting missiles health and speed toward Harpoons values (250 speed instead of 300, 175hp instead of 250).
 - Slightly buffed the rockets health from 50 hp to 75 hp, reduced the acceleration from 250 su.s-2 to 100.
 - Increased rocket damage from 100 to 200 High Explosive damage.
 - Severely reduced the OP cost for mounting EMP sweeper missile from 15 to 10.
 - Increased Laser Torpedo Launcher's ammo from 10 to 15 missiles, decreased the reloading delay from 10s to 6s.
 - Reduced the OP cost for mounting Heavy Modular Swarmers from 26 to 20.
 - Singularity Torpedo Launcher's ammo raised from 8 to 15 missiles, OP cost reduced from 30 to 25.
 - Small flak DPS raised from 67 to 100, OP cost reduced from 8 to 6.
 - Small KAcc and HEMor OP cost reduced from 8 to 6.
 - Medium KAcc OP cost raised from 12 to 13.
 - Changed the Khalkotauroi's main weapon from a burst beam to a normal beam,
 - Changed the damage type to Energy, was High Explosive for the base 200dps and Energy for the bonus 600 dps from the Accelerators pods.
 - Raised the base damage without accelerators from 200 to 400 dps, reduced it's flux produced from 2000 to 400 flux/s but the accelerators now also produce flux.
 - Reduced the Khalkotauroi flux capacity from 30000 to 20000.
 - The Siren Teleporter gun now need to be "loaded" via a ship system in order to teleport it's target.
        The system has 5 ammo and a very slow regen
        If not loaded, the main gun act as an anti shield EMP weapon that deals no damage to hulls. 5 ammo with decent regen.
 - Nerfed drones speed and accelerations.
 - Converted the Centaurs haulers' hardpoint from medium ballistic to medium universal.
 - Reduced the OP available of most ships, due to the OP cost reduction of most weapon. On average, -10 to -20.
 - Light minigun now has a short charge-up, that makes it slightly less potent as a point defense as the rotation is dampened.
 - Reduced dps from 250 to 200 frag, reduced flux produced from 200 to 100, raised "splinters" dps to 50 Energy from 5 High Explosive plus 20 Kinetic.
 - Changed the Singularity torpedo pulling calculation, now based on ship class instead of hull mass to avoid issue with other mods' balance.
 - Increased it's yield when hitting shields, nerfed the effect for objects away from the epicenter.
 - Reworked Manticore's Mirv torpedo: it now drop small bombs instead of spawning 8 heat-seekers missiles.
 - Reduced the Manticore's Phase Torpedo regen rate from 3s to 5s.
 - Assault Shield ship-system is now time limited but much more efficient to avoid AI spamming.
 - Adjusted range values for all Manticores built-in missiles launchers.
 - Slightly reduced some frigates hull values,
 - Slightly reduced some destroyers/cruiser flux capacity.
 - Nerfed the EMP Sweeper missiles when attacking multiple enemies:
        It can only deal EMP damage to a single target at once instead of all targets in range.
        Still deals the same total EMP damage when dealing with a single target.

BUGFIXES/IMPROVEMENTS

 - Improved feedback on the effect of various hullmods and ship-systems, smoothed some effects on activation and deactivation.
 - Improved placement logic for the random position of Acheron.
 - Removed the bandits fleets that pursued you if you got to Acheron without fuel (no longer relevant since you can buy fuel at the new stations).
 - Some offseted hard-point sprites have been corrected.
 - The Siren main gun now properly affect Twig ships.
 - Hacking Commlink now properly affect Twig ships.
 - Singularity Torpedoes now properly affect Twig ships.
 - Miner ship's drone's GravGuns now properly affect Twig ships.
 - Anti-missiles now target nearby fighters if there aren't any missiles to intercept.
 - Built-in hull-mods no longer clutter the list.
 - Improved AI for the Precision Gear ship-system: it no longer activate when retreating or when the targets a way out of range even with the system active.
 - The Talos shield now unfold at normal speed when not using the Stasis Shield ship-system. Behavior improved and the shield can be affected by other weapons/ship systems (like some ICE weapons).
 - Added SS+ "Drive Shunt" to the list of incompatible engines hullmods.
 - Improved the Manticore's Phase Missile launcher animation.
 - Extensive modifications and optimization of the Khalkotauroi's main weapon's animation due to the switch to a standard beam.
 - Extensive modifications and optimization of the siren's main weapon's animation to prevent it from playing in full when the ship is overloaded mid-chargeup/don't have enough flux room once charged.
 - Corrected a bug with the Singularity's damage that made the AI ignore it.
 - Corrected the Keto's main gun appearing "on" in refit.
 - Optimized blinkers, with more variations between them.
 - Optimized Medusa's lightnings deco, randomized the animation.
 - Optimized many weapons animations.
 - All animated muzzles are now independent from their weapon and no longer create artifacts from damage decals.
 - New fancy animation script for the miniguns, they spin up and down smoothly, are no longer animated while venting, and stop where they should instead of alway going back to the first frame.
 - Scy ships now take incoming missiles into account when deciding if they should vent. They should also try to get farther away from Cruisers and Capital-ships before venting.
 - Pierce Railgun subtle redesign.
 - Custom missile AIs are now properly affected by ECCM, up to three times more precise with it (namely: Heavy Modular Swarmer missiles, Lasers Torpedoes, Coasting Missiles, Manticore MIRV Torpedoes).
 - Improved weapons tooltip descriptions to be more helpful.
 - Adjusted all variants "quality factor" for fleet more coherent with their market stability.
 - Corrected the descriptions according to the modified Lore.
 - Added new interaction image and dialogue to all Scyan stations and planets.
 - New missile AI for the rockets, they should hit smaller moving targets much more reliably, especially with ECCM.

 - General cleanup of unused scripts and non matching names. Lot of "under-the-hood" improvements and some preparations for future SS+ integration.
[close]
« Last Edit: April 23, 2015, 02:00:54 AM by Tartiflette »
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ValkyriaL

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Re: [0.65.2a] Scy V0.90 Unleashed update (23/04/2015)
« Reply #464 on: April 23, 2015, 10:17:05 AM »

Really nice update, sad to hear that you only have polishing left, id love some more ships, (why wouldn't i?) but considering the quality they have already, i doubt 1.0 is far away. :-*
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