Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Pages: 1 ... 20 21 [22] 23 24 ... 54

Author Topic: Starsector 0.65.2a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 325213 times)

Velox

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 72
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #315 on: January 06, 2015, 10:01:47 PM »


Honestly, I'd be perfectly happy for the next few months if the crash-to-desktop bug related to saved variants were fixed and that was the only change.  I'd just managed to capture a Conquest.  :(
Logged

Voyager I

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 353
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #316 on: January 10, 2015, 11:03:44 AM »

Ballistics are more flux-efficient, but low-tech ships have way worse flux stats and more weapon mounts to spend flux on.

Turn off your shields unless you're about to take a big hit of HE damage or are fighting at noncommittal ranges.  Your shields have terrible efficiency and using them to absorb damage in a brawl will quickly leave you capped out and unable to return fire.  Instead, let your thick armor do its job and turn all that into hard flux for whatever poor bastard is trying to go toe-to-toe with you.


I am also kind of amazed by how much blowback there has been about the ammunition changes given that the mechanic was almost entirely cosmetic aside from making like three weapons sorta bad (since they were never meant to have limited ammo as a balancing mechanic) and messing with Mega's gimmicky challenge runs.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2015, 11:07:07 AM by Voyager I »
Logged

BillyRueben

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1406
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #317 on: January 10, 2015, 01:33:17 PM »

I am also kind of amazed by how much blowback there has been about the ammunition changes given that the mechanic was almost entirely cosmetic aside from making like three weapons sorta bad (since they were never meant to have limited ammo as a balancing mechanic) and messing with Mega's gimmicky challenge runs.

It's a nothing change. Had it not been on the patch notes, I'd wager half of the people playing wouldn't even had noticed.
Logged

pigreko

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 138
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #318 on: January 10, 2015, 01:54:29 PM »

late response, yet I want to leave my feedback so here I am.

Beams needed a little bit of love, and I see some was given. In the comments I read about the idea of defining a proper beam-damage type, which I would love to see since they really works in a unique way without being a proper kind of weapon.

CR, it is a mechanic I currently hate cause it is pushing a kind of conservative yet surreal way of playing via exploiting the other fleet Cr. Just that. I wish for it to be something to consider yet not to be abused, like fuel and supplies.
To be honest I was thinking about the mechanic of deployment and reinforce as a less and less interesting one. I mean, I would love to have to defend my cargo ship from a pirate raid, yet I can just deploy my flag ship and play safe...

Infinite ammunition. I understand that the staying power will be determined by the CR and not the ammo, and it is sensible for a capital ship to have an auto factory for bullets (it should cost supplies or other materials) so the mechanic is outdated... but then, just make a subsystem to give ballistic weapons infinite ammo, so that even a destroyer may have it and most capital ships receive it by default, yet frigates probably don't... and maybe even reduce the ammo of some weapon to give the system more value. I mean, the running out of ammo is a "cool" situation to be in, or better, it is cool to have to manage ammo.

Well the same could be said about missiles, just make a little system to add this auto-factory. After all this is also part of the flavour of this verse.



Love.
Logged

Shoat

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 262
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #319 on: January 10, 2015, 03:28:17 PM »

I am also kind of amazed by how much blowback there has been about the ammunition changes given that the mechanic was almost entirely cosmetic aside from making like three weapons sorta bad (since they were never meant to have limited ammo as a balancing mechanic) and messing with Mega's gimmicky challenge runs.

It's a nothing change. Had it not been on the patch notes, I'd wager half of the people playing wouldn't even had noticed.

The most important thing here is that alex leaves options. Yes, ammo is for the most part flavor (just like the flux damage bonus), but that is actually a decently important part of the game.

We can argue about it all we want, in the end all that counts is that those who like ammo can turn it on in the weapon_data.csv of their mod (or their starfarer-core) so that "no ammo" is the new default, but not the only thing that's mechanically possible.



In my opinion the optional solution (though probably too much work to implement) would be to replace fixed ammo by actual reloading mechanics which are more realistic for ballistic weapons than the current "single bullet at a time even while the gun is shooting" option (a ballistic gun has a magazine size X and when it's empty that gun is disabled for Y seconds while being reloaded, lower combat readiness slows the reloading process or makes it randomly interrupt and restart), thus leaving ballistic weapons feeling like low-tech but still removing the "you're completely out" situation.
Flux damage bonus was something I liked, but it's understandable to remove it from vanilla due to it making balance slightly difficult (I do want it to be available as a mod option, though, I hate when options just get removed completely forever).
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12117
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #320 on: January 10, 2015, 04:09:15 PM »

The only change I am concerned about is beams, specifically the loss of damage.  I am not sure if the range and OP cost changes will offset that.

Quote
Beams are not main weapons, they are always support, if your killing something with beams that means you can kill it way faster with something way smaller using ballistics.
This was not immediately obvious when I first played Starsector.  Back then, I thought graviton beam was an excellent shield killer weapon because of kinetic damage.  What a fool I was.  Eventually, I discovered the best shield-killer weapon for the likes of a Wolf is the heavy blaster.  Beams really should get their own damage type, so people not familiar with everything will not mistake that beams are simply more efficient and prettier pulse lasers like I did.

The best status condition to inflict on the enemy is death, not paralysis or insert other standard status effect.  The best support weapons are those that kill the enemy as quickly as possible.

Quote
Turn off your shields unless you're about to take a big hit of HE damage or are fighting at noncommittal ranges.  Your shields have terrible efficiency and using them to absorb damage in a brawl will quickly leave you capped out and unable to return fire.  Instead, let your thick armor do its job and turn all that into hard flux for whatever poor bastard is trying to go toe-to-toe with you.
Frigates and/or most high-tech ships are too squishy to take hits.  Some ships can tank well, but not all.  Also, without Damage Control 10, taking hits even on hardy ships like Dominator will take its toll in big, long fights with one flagship vs. enemy armada.
Logged

phantomime

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 5
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #321 on: January 11, 2015, 05:07:22 PM »

Ballistics are more flux-efficient, but low-tech ships have way worse flux stats and more weapon mounts to spend flux on.

I think my issue is that I disagree with the tier system and would rather see useful diversity across all ships rather than being REQUIRED to hover over Tri-Tachyon's Achman(?) Station like a vulture waiting for the juicy OP stuff to pop up.
And yes, this is after grinding with a wolf or whatever to the point where you have the relations needed to access them.

-this means that the heavy 'challenge' aspect of the game currently, IMO, is in surviving/abusing food trade to the point where you can get a decent combat ship, then you grind crappy pirates, save enough to do a few BULK food trades, get your first 100-200k, pick up an Aurora (cause you have been grinding Tri-Tachyon space and the things are only uncommon, as opposed to sadistically rare like that frigate that can actually teleport as opposed to Phase Skim (the name is lost on me, but in 48lv worth of game play I have never once seen one for sale anywhere, in anycase, once you have the Aurora in hand, its time to solo fleets; cyclone reaper launcher, 4 small reapers, i dont even care what you use for your energy hard points, dont autofire them all unless they are beams or PD, missile specialization 10, augmented thrusters, front shield generator, and shield hardening for kicks.. its time to kill everything this game can throw at you.)

The only change I am concerned about is beams, specifically the loss of damage.  I am not sure if the range and OP cost changes will offset that.

Quote
Beams are not main weapons, they are always support, if your killing something with beams that means you can kill it way faster with something way smaller using ballistics.
This was not immediately obvious when I first played Starsector.  Back then, I thought graviton beam was an excellent shield killer weapon because of kinetic damage.  What a fool I was.  Eventually, I discovered the best shield-killer weapon for the likes of a Wolf is the heavy blaster.  Beams really should get their own damage type, so people not familiar with everything will not mistake that beams are simply more efficient and prettier pulse lasers like I did.

I get that the Tactical Laser is a support weapon. Beams in general occupy a position in the weapon 'tree' of being the most Efficient weapons in the game, making them excellent secondary weapons. I agree with this. Blasters are amazing. all of them. Hands down. Early game, good luck getting more than the starting blaster, for me, finding even mining ones were hard early on. god help you if your starting blaster wolf goes a'splodin. It doesnt make sense to penalize a weapon that had a fairly risky quirk (energy damage based on flux level - honestly, so long as this scaled almost exactly with your % flux level, say maxing at +100% damage at 99% flux load, its fine, hell, evening making it so that it could only reach +50% damage at 99% flux load would be fine), especially when the better weapons are all fairly subject to availability <- and OMG does that ever apply to Ballistics.

WTF mortars? if you have a build that makes GOOD use of those PLEASE pm Me.



Quote
The best status condition to inflict on the enemy is death, not paralysis or insert other standard status effect.  The best support weapons are those that kill the enemy as quickly as possible.

Quote
Turn off your shields unless you're about to take a big hit of HE damage or are fighting at noncommittal ranges.  Your shields have terrible efficiency and using them to absorb damage in a brawl will quickly leave you capped out and unable to return fire.  Instead, let your thick armor do its job and turn all that into hard flux for whatever poor bastard is trying to go toe-to-toe with you.
Frigates and/or most high-tech ships are too squishy to take hits.  Some ships can tank well, but not all.  Also, without Damage Control 10, taking hits even on hardy ships like Dominator will take its toll in big, long fights with one flagship vs. enemy armada.


early game you dont always have the firepower, range, speed to get a straight up kill in a fight. thus the place for the Phase beam and EMP in general. the Aurora is the best ship I know that can do what you mention here, simply because it has an alpha strike of over 14000damage. (I use Atropse(?)x4 torps, with reapers, it is substantially more.)

Turning off your shields... yaa.... early ships, HAVE armor, its true.. vs beams this isnt a big issue, except... the enforcer and dominator unfortunately have no room for flux to even fire all of their guns fairly consistently with the shields down. they run flux heavy such that using their shields sparingly, still means, when they are up and you take a big, say a reaper, hit, its gg. sure you arent DEAD. Yet. but torp bombers being ***, and you being overloaded, that usually changes quick.

The Doom is a great example of an Armor tanker.. but again, its a high-tier beast, with an AMAZING non-shield shield that the AI will abuse until it literally overloads itself. This is actually the ONLY fleet in the game I have found that gives me no end of grief - the mostly Cloaker fleet. it REQUIRES constant focus on 1 ship and or everyone grouping up in a ball so that Burst PD can kill. (no this isnt a fast fight, and their fleet can apply more dps than you can simply because it phases out 99.9% of it and actually has decent armor despite being very high-tier.)
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12117
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #322 on: January 11, 2015, 07:51:36 PM »

Quote
Early game, good luck getting more than the starting blaster, for me, finding even mining ones were hard early on. god help you if your starting blaster wolf goes a'splodin.
That applies to all weapons not on the open market (and open market has no energy weapon other than mining laser), since they need welcoming or better to access (barring lucky black market finds).  By the time I get high enough relations with one faction to access weapons, it is midgame already.

If my Wolf explodes early in the game, it is time for me to rage quit and reload.

Before 0.65, mortar used to be viable early game weapon when player can buy a Lasher after one fight, and Wolf and Lasher had omni shields.  Now, in 0.65, by the time the player can buy a Lasher, he probably has better.  Plus, there is the suicide exploit to get a Lasher with assault guns and machine guns (and Salamanders) for the price of a damaged shuttle.

Quote
early game you dont always have the firepower, range, speed to get a straight up kill in a fight. thus the place for the Phase beam and EMP in general. the Aurora is the best ship I know that can do what you mention here, simply because it has an alpha strike of over 14000damage. (I use Atropse(?)x4 torps, with reapers, it is substantially more.)
Even in early game, I still want high offense for faster kills because of peak performance.  Unskilled Wolf with heavy blaster can probably handle two frigates before peak performance times out.  As it gets more skills, it can take on more and more.

Reapers are great, but only for the player flagship with Missile Specialization 10, and only few ships can carry enough to last the whole fight.  AI is conservative with Reapers.

For fast kills, I mean high DPS assault weapons instead of low DPS, efficient weapons that any ship can use.  For example, blasters or pulse lasers instead of beams.

Phase beam is worthless, less range and efficiency than graviton beam, and its EMP damage is insignificantly low.  All continuous beam weapons seem equally effective at disabling stuff once the armor is gone.

If I want to EMP things, I use flux-hungry ion cannons or (if using Paragon) tachyon lances, or bring a Shade to help out.

I cannot think of any ships aside from pure beam (or PD weapon) ships that can fire all of their weapons continuously for too long before flux gets too high.
Logged

TJJ

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1905
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #323 on: January 11, 2015, 10:57:41 PM »


WTF mortars? if you have a build that makes GOOD use of those PLEASE pm me

Prior to the Vulcan buff, Mortars were viable in the onslaught's small mounts, as a short range, OP inexpensive, flux efficient dps spike for burn drive ramming.

Sadly now defunct, as vulcans are more flux efficient, higher dps spike, and useful as point defence,
Logged

Linnis

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1009
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #324 on: January 12, 2015, 12:51:07 AM »

Mortars are not something you "plan" to put on a ship. With high technology, I always have a few throw away ships in my fleet.

Lashers with hardened shield, extended shield, Heavy armor and +hull mods, with max vent and atlest 10 capacitors, have just enough op to mount a few mortars and few other random machine gun dual or single (what slot you put those in can be random as well, who cares)... They will live long and soak alot of damage, and distract for a long time. The mortars allows them to fight back vs fighters wings, with ease, and when they use accelerated ammo (they always always do) two mortars is almost the same dps as a heavy mauler.
Logged

Histidine

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 4661
    • View Profile
    • GitHub profile
Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #325 on: January 12, 2015, 04:07:55 AM »

Hmm, it occurs to me that the reasoning for the regenerating/unlimited ammo on Salamander/Pilum/Hurricane applies to the Annihilator as well. Should that have regenerating ammo, too? (Or has the idea already been scrapped behind the scenes?)
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12117
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #326 on: January 12, 2015, 07:05:15 AM »

Annihilators feel like a flux-free assault gun.  I doubt they would regenerate.  Swarmers are much like homing Annihilators, and Alex wrote that Swarmers will not regenerate.

Annihilators and Swarmers are like the [M] and [H] missiles in Raiden (arcade shmup).  Powerful direct-fire missiles vs. weak nimble homing missiles.
Logged

Baleur

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 24
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #327 on: January 17, 2015, 09:23:33 PM »

Am i blind?  Where do i download this release? Im sure i checked this very thread yesterday and there was a download link?
Logged

FlashFrozen

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 988
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #328 on: January 17, 2015, 09:50:37 PM »

It's not out, Just check the title

 Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes


When the real patch does come along Alex usually ninjas the title  to be like:
 
 Starsector 0.65.1a (Released) Patch Notes

So just sit back a bit and it'll be out, whenever :)
Logged

Baleur

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 24
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #329 on: January 18, 2015, 12:27:43 AM »

Oh, i figured because some mods are compatible with it, that ... No, surely you could download the beta of the patch? I vividly remember seeing that as a forum post somewhere! I must be losing my mind  :D

Edit: OH! I confused 0.6.2a as 0.65.2a
What a nub. No wonder said 6.2a mods didnt work.
Logged
Pages: 1 ... 20 21 [22] 23 24 ... 54