And only a tiny fraction of the sector is now present in-game.
I wouldn't say that. The original target for the number of "core" worlds was somewhere around 20. As far as the number of star systems total, it's gone in a bit of a different direction - there's much more detail to individual star systems, which I think will work out better than having a ton of less-detailed systems. I'd say in terms of Sector area, we're something like 25% of the way there (though that's very much subject to change). As far as the number of markets, it's probably about halfway or thereabouts.
Why the nerf to the Atlas its already incredibly squishy did it get buffed in some other way?
Re: Atlas losing flight deck: I thought Atlas had zilch for mounts because of flight deck. Prometheus, the big fuel tanker, can equip enough weapons to defend itself from enemy frigates. The Atlas cannot. Also, Prometheus has drones to add to its firepower, but Atlas just has worthless flares.
It would be nice if the Atlas can be buffed some other way, like upgrading it small mounts to mediums or replacing the system with something more useful.
The Atlas just isn't a combat ship, and the flight deck doesn't make a lot of sense. I think I originally added it back in the missions-only days, when the Atlas's cargo capacity had no use? Either way, a flight deck on a dedicated superfreighter doesn't feel right right now. For the Prometheus, its armament and ship system reflects the volatility of its cargo.
Would be cool if that was an alternative/complementary way of resolving a "faction ties" investigation. "What, you think I like them Hegemony bastards just because I worked with them? Watch me!" **** gun*
You can do that, actually
Can you discover a commander's personality when you speak with them, or just via observation of their behavior? Also, I assume the fleet commander takes part in battle as a combat officer?
Can't at the moment, and yes, they do take part in battle.
What about asteroids? They seem like the less "hyperspacy" of the two.
...a special hyperspace terrain feature would be awesome at some point. Imagine suddenly opening rifts, or a maelstrom, or wormholes leading to the other side of the battle map
Doesn't come up because there aren't any in hyperspace, but they'd show up on the battlefield if they were. It might be nice to have something special, yeah - just want to make sure it's a good fit. Don't want something super gimmicky or that confuses the AI, since combat in deep hyperspace is going to be fairly common.
Augmented Engines vs Emergency BurnIt works similarly for both sensor strength/range sensor profile, so let me just talk about strength/range. Each of your fleet's ships contrubtes to a total fleet sensor strength. This is where the penalty for Augmented Engines takes effect - an Onslaught with it would only contribute 2 points of sensor strength instead of 4.
The combined strength is then used to generate a sensor
range, which is how far away you can detect another fleet. The range depends on the sensor profile of the other fleet. The important point here is that the range is not linear in terms of strength, but is rather a logarithmic function. So halving the sensor strength is only going to reduce the effective range by a much smaller fraction.
Emergency Burn, unlike Augmented Engines, applies to the sensor range. So that 50% sensor range penalty really does halve the range at which you'll detect stuff while EB is on.
So, in real terms, putting AE on an Onslaught isn't going to make a world of difference, especially not if it's part of a larger fleet.
Something I thought of: If faction ties only check for major factions, and Pirates do not count as major faction, and if becoming friendly with one major faction makes the rest of the majors hate you, then it seems eventually, it may be a good idea to become friendly with pirates too, if only to gain access to military market and be able to buy rare weapons, once player graduates from killing pirates to killing the N-1 majors. Trading with pirates should not be a problem in systems where the only other factions there are enemies.
P.S. Another benefit of friendly pirates is another place to repair your fleet. That is better than buying rare weapons at Umbra.
The thing about pirates is while they don't care if you're friendly with somebody else, others *do* care that you're friendly with pirates. Except for independents.