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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 0.65.2a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 325208 times)

Velox

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #180 on: December 08, 2014, 12:55:26 PM »

@Velox: First off, hi!

Re: why not - mostly feel reasons.

I get what you're saying about ammo giving feel; definitely still thinking about yours and a couple of other comments about this in this thread.

About the other stuff - autofactory on ships and all - would you mind moving it out to another thread? It gets unmanageable to discuss too many things in the same thread; and this one is really for comments on the patch notes and not radical suggestions :)

Thanks for your patience, I'm feeling more than a little sheepish for being so noisy.  I'll trim it out of the post and maybe stick it somewhere else, sorry for the derailment!

On the ACTUAL topic:

Personally, I won't miss the energy weapon flux thing - the times when it has an effect are the times when I'm busy enough not to notice.  It probably does help pull me out of the fire when things are going south, but if my weapons are unreliably better it's not something that's obvious.  I've mostly been playing with smaller ships so I don't know what it's like at the capital level, though.

Beams have definitely been underwhelming, save for tactical lasers because of their anti-fighter awesomeness.  I'd probably be a little more inclined to use them if they reached further, but with the soft-flux thing it seems like any range increase over shield-breaking weapons is kind of wasted.

I hate Salamanders.  It's difficult to get full shield coverage for smaller ships and I don't really know how to use a movable shield to intercept them without no longer being able to aim turreted weapons, and since they circle non-beam PD can't hit them, and beam PD can't kill them.  I guess I put everything on autofire, and switch to a weapon I don't care about?  Losing your engines with lower shield coverage really often means drifting right into the middle of everything and going poof, so what I'd expect from this is a very much higher mortality rate for frigates.

The MIRV regeneration seems like a fair counter to carries "regenerating" fighters. 

I don't typically try to solo everything because fleet battles are cool and more satisfying when all your little guys do their thing and the team wins; I think my battles rarely go on long enough for the new timers to play much role, but we'll see!

Thanks again for letting us know what's coming down the pike, sounds interesting.
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Draken

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #181 on: December 08, 2014, 06:11:54 PM »

(Just a real quick note here, to reemphasize that most missiles have limited ammo. Only a few specific missiles have unlimited ammo, where it makes sense given their role.)

I know i've already mentioned this but this is one of the things that really bothers me about the changes, as it is very unintuitive and carves out a weird exception in the combat mechanics.  If I had not read these patch notes I would have assumed that this was a bug much more readily than thinking it was intended as it does not match any of the existing mechanics and is limited to such a specific subset of weapons that it would be incredibly hard to figure out. 
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Unfolder

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #182 on: December 08, 2014, 08:34:17 PM »

I support the elimination of ammo, it's "cool" from a mechanical standpoint, but from a game play standpoint not so much other than "oh crap I just ran out of ammo didn't I, ugh, better retreat!"

Also very cool to see regenerating missiles, it makes sense, given that the crew is probably running them in from storage (or machines are fabricating them on the fly!). Would be neat for it to stop below a certain CR. Also my carriers will no longer float around uselessly once they've expanded their 30 Pilum.

The overall weapon changes, not sure! Will have to see. I'm really going to miss the Flux charge, I fly an energy fleet (when possible, lol grr) and seeing the weapons heat up and fire is just really cool. I don't know about a balance standpoint, it just seems really cool honestly and a well thought out mechanism, and I'm sorry to see it go just for novelty sake. Unlike other posters I definitely DO notice a difference, especially when it starts maxing out, tactical lasers mounted on your Wolf can literally melt low tech frigates with +50% power boost.  Maybe Beam weapons keep their flux boost. It would actually make sense given their new longer ranges, the beams crystals become superheated or something. Given that they don't do tremendous damage, they might allow to keep flux charge without too much imbalancing. 

I would also agree that although it's good for game play it's sort of sad to have ballistics lose some of their distinctiveness with no ammo limit. Maybe certain guns have a tendency to malfunction when they fire for ridiculously long times, I'm thinking the needlers and vulcans, though I guess needlers have a built in burst size that limits their overheating (not sure)

Maybe to make ballistic more interesting a third fire mode can be introduced just for them (alternating, linked, overheat) which is basically the guns fire at higher velocity but at lower accuracy and a chance to temporarily malfunction (jam).  The jam chance is reduced by CR, but is always possible. I know you can say (ballistic does damage to shields, high ex to armor, they're distinct) but there's distinct tactically and distinct personality, which is why I also think you should keep flux boost to at least some energy, it's cool :)
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Talkie Toaster

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #183 on: December 09, 2014, 02:43:37 AM »

Er, I just feel I should say: I like the changes to beams, CR & ammo and think the reasoning behind it is pretty great.

W.r.t. a simpler way of handling CR tickdown without needing an array of exceptions and such... if it's to stop enemies baiting out CR by dripfeeding weak ships into the battlefield perhaps the old mechanic of "Take all the points and the opponents can't deploy" could come back into play? Or something like "If the enemy has ships in your deployment zone, you can't deploy more" (or perhaps "You can't deploy any smaller ships"). If you start a fight by committing a handful of frigates that you skirt around the edge of their cruisers, they can just park their fleet in your deployment zone and wait for you to time out and have to flee, handing them the match.

If you let them deploy equally-sized ships when their DZ is threatened, then they're punished for being driven to this by having their reinforcements burn in, shields down, and take a pummelling. This also stops the problem of frigates skirting around the fight to block off enemy reinforcements- if that is a problem, rather than an interesting new tactic. Equally it clashes with your goals to move the combat away from the edges of the map whilst a hard block supports those goals by preventing deployment when combat at the edges is likely.

I've mocked up an example below:
Deployment Zone open

Deployment Zone blocked

It's something that's quite easy to visually communicate, and the concept of a deployment zone is fairly intuitive and "Keep enemy ships out of your deployment zone if you want reinforcements" is a lot easier to communicate than the sets of circumstances in which you do and don't have to worry about CR.
I don't mean to pester, but did you have any thoughts on this Alex? Given there's so much discussion going on about CR tickdown edge cases it seems like sidestepping the need for them might be useful.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #184 on: December 09, 2014, 06:13:32 AM »

I have used and relied flux supercharge bonus for beam only ships.  Since they cannot cause hard flux damage, and they are flux efficient enough to control their flux level (and even want hard flux to prevent built-up flux from dissipating), they want the extra damage to help overcome shields and kill enemies faster.

It would help if it was very clear that beams do not cause hard flux damage.  Having the information tucked away in tip-of-the-day or deep in the tutorial is not very helpful.
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isaacssv552

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #185 on: December 09, 2014, 12:14:15 PM »

I like many of the changes but am strongly opposed to a complete removal of ballistic ammo. Regenerating ammo for some missiles is a great idea and should be applied to ballistic weapons as well. Regenerating ammo combined with both ammo and missile magazine hullmods giving +100% like in the ironclads mod would be better solution. I am also opposed to CR timers for all non-capships. The ideas from the 8819.30 are much better in my opinion, especially the CR penalty for transferring command.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #186 on: December 09, 2014, 12:23:35 PM »

@Talkie Toaster: Oh yeah! Did see and read it when you posted it, just didn't get around to replying and then kind of forgot to. Apologies - like you said, there's a lot of stuff flying around, and I can't quite keep up with everything.

It's interesting, and the idea of sidestepping some of the issues is a good one; ultimately that's probably what it'll take.

Specifically about what you're suggesting: I think that might, once again, make combat about preventing enemy reinforcements, and make the battle to take place around the enemy deployment zone near their side of the map.

If it was a little different - say, a "deployment beacon" nav buoy objective a little ways into the map, for each side... hmm. That'd make the fight stay away from edges, which is good, but beating an AI fleet could still turn on cheesing the deployment point in some way. You might say, make the AI defend it well, but that ties down a lot of forces and would make it susceptible to being defeated in detail. Plus, these would have to be present in any size battles, and currently smaller battles don't have objectives.

Still, it's an interesting idea, and I appreciate you putting it out there - it's definitely another angle for thinking about the problem, and that's a good thing.
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Talkie Toaster

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #187 on: December 09, 2014, 03:35:09 PM »

@Talkie Toaster: Oh yeah! Did see and read it when you posted it, just didn't get around to replying and then kind of forgot to. Apologies - like you said, there's a lot of stuff flying around, and I can't quite keep up with everything.

It's interesting, and the idea of sidestepping some of the issues is a good one; ultimately that's probably what it'll take.

Specifically about what you're suggesting: I think that might, once again, make combat about preventing enemy reinforcements, and make the battle to take place around the enemy deployment zone near their side of the map.

If it was a little different - say, a "deployment beacon" nav buoy objective a little ways into the map, for each side... hmm. That'd make the fight stay away from edges, which is good, but beating an AI fleet could still turn on cheesing the deployment point in some way. You might say, make the AI defend it well, but that ties down a lot of forces and would make it susceptible to being defeated in detail. Plus, these would have to be present in any size battles, and currently smaller battles don't have objectives.

Still, it's an interesting idea, and I appreciate you putting it out there - it's definitely another angle for thinking about the problem, and that's a good thing.
The other thought I had shortly after posting it (and meant to edit in) was that perhaps you need to claim at least 1 objective to be able to deploy. Then just add a single objective in the middle for all small battles. If you wanted to make it a bit more specific, you could make it only Comm Relays. That'd tie into the whole 'EW' stuff that's been discussed in other threads to an extent; unless you can deploy a comm relay in an optimal location, you can't call out for reinforcements. Or just that it's unsafe to burn into an active firefight without a Comm Relay feeding you co-ordinates. It'd also make it easier to lock the enemy out in large (4+ objective) maps, where otherwise you could easily backcap 1 out of the 4-5 points with a frigate even if the enemies were dominating. It'd also make Comm Relays more valuable; I tend not to micromanage my ships, so Comm Relays are my lowest priority objective.

It'd help drag combat towards the objectives, particularly in small maps. Adding a single objective to small maps might not be too much of a problem? If it's only the one and it has all the weight of allowing/disallowing reinforcements, it'll really encourage players to centre around there (which would probably help the AI as well, which can fragment a bit in small battles). If neither side has any reserves, the relay could be neglected; so players would have a progression of '1-2 ships/side (no objective)' -> '3-5 ships/side (1 objective)' -> ships & objectives scale up from there.

It might make combat a bit more about preventing reinforcements than before, but I think with the CR cost for deployment and the CR tickdown, it seems like giving underdeployment a more punitive punishment might be a good thing.

Anyway, thanks for listening and for talking about this stuff! The very open development process is one of the best things about Starsector.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #188 on: December 09, 2014, 05:00:50 PM »

Quote
If it was a little different - say, a "deployment beacon" nav buoy objective a little ways into the map, for each side... hmm. That'd make the fight stay away from edges, which is good, but beating an AI fleet could still turn on cheesing the deployment point in some way.
Before 0.6, my strategy to lock out defense fleets was take two Hyperion, capture as many points as possible, then bring in the rest of my fleet to help smash the trickle of ships.  By the end of the battle, it got so bad that my whole fleet destroy ships before they fully appear on-screen.  The biggest threat to my ships was my own ships shooting each other trying to get at incoming enemy ships.

If we get this so-called deployment beacon, I will definitely abuse Hyperion to lock out the other side.

EDIT:  One thing I like about 0.6+ releases is how objectives have been downplayed compared to before.  Even then, I still prefer no objectives, and willing to keep my fleet small to squelch them until I get enough Logistics to play with big fleets.  A fun mini-game for me is how can I make the most powerful fleet without exceeding 40 DP.
« Last Edit: December 09, 2014, 05:15:45 PM by Megas »
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StarSchulz

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #189 on: December 09, 2014, 06:09:00 PM »

What if we kept how Ballistic weapons have ammo, but when they run out they have something like a 30 second reload, at the cost of supplies and or CR?

( sorry if this was said already I'm in a game of something else ATM and had the idea )

i dunno i just don't quite like the idea of completely doing away with ammo on ballistic weapons like that


« Last Edit: December 09, 2014, 10:17:21 PM by StarSchulz »
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Linnis

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #190 on: December 09, 2014, 09:01:43 PM »

EDIT:  One thing I like about 0.6+ releases is how objectives have been downplayed compared to before.  Even then, I still prefer no objectives, and willing to keep my fleet small to squelch them until I get enough Logistics to play with big fleets.  A fun mini-game for me is how can I make the most powerful fleet without exceeding 40 DP.

Objectives do seem more like an annoyance then anything else, is there a better way to get ships to to just not clump ball everytime all the time?
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Intaka

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #191 on: December 10, 2014, 03:24:43 AM »

High Flux damage bonuses were only useful to players, good riddance.

Regenerating missiles on a slow timer make complete sense to me. The player ability to bait the AI out of missiles was tedious, but felt required. Also, the game allowing my ship can carry 10,000 tons of metal but only 6 missiles has always been fairly immersion breaking to me. Maybe have 6 LOADED at once, but there's only 6 on the entire ship? Ludicrous.

I believe that the majority of these posts are people who are just concerned and feeling protective about the feel of ballistic vs beam weapons. They're different. It's cool.

We all know that weapons are critically differentiated by damage type, damage per second, range, flux efficiency, and damage per shot. No one picks a particular laser because it's blue. Everything else beyond those critical statistics is really just graphics and sound files. Clearly, it would be good if the aural and visual feedback continued to convey some sense of differentiation about what a weapon was good at doing, but after working on the game for so many years, I have faith you've got a handle on that aspect of it by now. We can probably pull back from DEFCON 2 about the loss of needler ammo.

I'm sure that in the next 6-9 months until the patch goes live you'll have everything balanced right as rain.
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Tartiflette

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #192 on: December 10, 2014, 04:26:49 AM »

Also, the game allowing my ship can carry 10,000 tons of metal but only 6 missiles has always been fairly immersion breaking to me. Maybe have 6 LOADED at once, but there's only 6 on the entire ship? Ludicrous.

Technically, it was not the case: you never had to buy missiles did you? The only thing missiles launchers needed was some time between battles to get reloaded with the missiles present in the form of supplies ^^
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orost

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #193 on: December 10, 2014, 07:49:02 AM »

I'm going to miss the flux bonus. There were certainly situations where it was very relevant and central to my tactics. A few days ago I spent a long while seeing how far I could push a single Wolf, and I learned that my best option was to take advantage of the damage boost by riding the edge of flux overload. It was extremely rewarding and fun to be able to take such a risk and to pull it off successfuly. After this change, the risk-reward tradeoff is gone and there is no reason for me to do anything else than vent completely after every strike and tank with the shield instead of dodging. Boring.


I strongly dislike taking features out because they aren't applicable to most situations. Even if three out of four players never care, it's still there to provide more choice and enhance the experience for those that choose to take advantage of it. Even if flux boost is only relevant to a handful ships played in a specific way, it makes these ships more unique, interesting and worth playing.

Matter of opinion: where you see streamlining and removal of clutter, I see flattening the game and removal of nuance.

The exact same argument could be made for ballistic ammo.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #194 on: December 10, 2014, 08:09:03 AM »

There is one advantage of flux supercharge removal:  Less information clutter at the left side of the screen.

I will not mind the supercharge removal, but it hurts beams more than non-beams, which needed the help most.  I will see if the extra range (for non-heavy beams) and lower OP costs will make up for that.  I hope tachyon lance becomes cheaper to mount (and auto-center on enemy removed), if it remains unchanged otherwise.
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