Two, Salvage Rigs only affect the various commodities found during salvage – such as fuel and supplies – and not the more rare items.Was that stated somewhere in the game? I can't remember. I always assumed it affects both commodities as well as hullmods and weapons. Bloody hell. I learned the other day that salvage rigs work only in specific circumstances and now my (false) understanding of salvaging has been completely undone.
While we're at it are there any plans to give more of a purpose to salvage rigs outside of what basically equates to a salvage skill bonus? I like the fleet composition is a thing tactically, but it's really really shallow strategically. You basically have your fuel/cargo passive modifier ships (now with marines) and your battle ships, and that's basically it.
QuoteTwo, Salvage Rigs only affect the various commodities found during salvage – such as fuel and supplies – and not the more rare items.Was that stated somewhere in the game? I can't remember. I always assumed it affects both commodities as well as hullmods and weapons. Bloody hell. I learned the other day that salvage rigs work only in specific circumstances and now my (false) understanding of salvaging has been completely undone.
One of the things i liked as an idea was that the more you salvaged the more time it took on the campaign map. (So a burn drive restriction and a speed penalty after salvaging). Salvage rigs could reduce the duration of the penalty which would make it easier to salvage out from under enemies. Something a combat captain might not really care about (because getting attacked is more loot) but a specialist salvager (especially one looking to nick some "owned" salvage without anyone noticing) might enjoy.
Does that etcetera on things affected by salvage rigs include scuttling ships?
Support ships are worthless to the point of not existing tactically unless they're one of the few combat variants ( Gemini comes to mind), and there's really not much thought to how much space they take up in your fleet either, so the only other consideration comes with a few of the hull mods that provide fleet bonuses. For example I was hoping we'd see a hull mod that lets you turn a salvage rig into a mobile refitting bay, lowering the supply cost of refitting when not at a planet (maybe only for smaller size ships). Just something to make me give more thought to the support/logistics half of my fleet composition besides numbers.
@Eji1700: I've wanted for some time to go through and (via mod) rebalance ships so that (aside from special cases like the rare pre-collapse Kite), every freighter is an at least vaguely-passable combat freighter, and the actual combat freighter designed ships (mule, apogee, wayfarer, etc.) are only marginally sub-optimal compared to straight-up combat ships.
At least no debris field means I do not need to spam Salvage three or four times to get everything worth taking. When I salvage, all I care about are the rare or special items that I cannot buy.
Looks good! I think having the bonus to the rare items being clear makes the choice much more impactful. I'm not sure if I would bring salvage rigs along at all, though stations do tend to give a lot of fuel/supplies, so it could keep the exploration trip going a long time... definitely something to think about.
How does scarcity vs repeat items factor into this? I get that there are a finite number of rare items in the game, but it doesn't actually benefit me to find 2 ITU's for example. I guess for everything thats not a hullmod, such as weapons and colony items, it would still be a long term benefit to have more of them.
If they find a high-difficulty derelict and feel like they need to come back for it later, that’s also a problem, since coming back to a system that’s most likely been cleared of any dangers is often going to be a chore.
Alright - I'd suggest explicitly calling that out in the tooltip, though, as otherwise it seems reasonable to conflate "salvaging a derelict" with "deliberately scrapping a ship". In particular, consider a case I ran into once: A derelict Prometheus, far out in the fringe. My options are salvage it, incorporate it into my fleet, or leave it alone. Presumably if I salvage it, the salvage rigs come into play. But hey, free Prometheus - who'd turn that down? Especially since derelict tankers tend to come with lots of fuel.Does that etcetera on things affected by salvage rigs include scuttling ships?
No - again, seems situational and not necessarily good. There's no much room for scuttling to be both not completely awful and still worse than selling the ship; any boosts to its output are trouble.
Interesting... looking forward to that blog post, then!Support ships are worthless to the point of not existing tactically unless they're one of the few combat variants ( Gemini comes to mind), and there's really not much thought to how much space they take up in your fleet either, so the only other consideration comes with a few of the hull mods that provide fleet bonuses. For example I was hoping we'd see a hull mod that lets you turn a salvage rig into a mobile refitting bay, lowering the supply cost of refitting when not at a planet (maybe only for smaller size ships). Just something to make me give more thought to the support/logistics half of my fleet composition besides numbers.@Eji1700: I've wanted for some time to go through and (via mod) rebalance ships so that (aside from special cases like the rare pre-collapse Kite), every freighter is an at least vaguely-passable combat freighter, and the actual combat freighter designed ships (mule, apogee, wayfarer, etc.) are only marginally sub-optimal compared to straight-up combat ships.
Funny; I'd made some other changes that factor in here, but I don't want to talk about them because that's possibly another blog post :)
In addition, the Mule got a significant buff, and the Hound/Cerberus got a bit of one, too. Wasn't thinking about the Wayfarer; that might be worth another look too.
Also, what else is a "rare item"? Weapons? LPCs? Hullmods?
Maybe it would make more sense to equip systems with two (or more) tiers of challenges, the harder of which would not be accessible/visible/present until a certain development level is reached. For example, only past a certain level a *redacted* station takes notice of you, or pirates build an outpost in the system, or scavengers moved in to claim the debris. Then salvaging only a part of common and rare ressources first, and coming back for the rest later, would provide new challenges. Maybe not everytime, but often enough.
Alright - I'd suggest explicitly calling that out in the tooltip, though, as otherwise it seems reasonable to conflate "salvaging a derelict" with "deliberately scrapping a ship". In particular, consider a case I ran into once: A derelict Prometheus, far out in the fringe. My options are salvage it, incorporate it into my fleet, or leave it alone. Presumably if I salvage it, the salvage rigs come into play. But hey, free Prometheus - who'd turn that down? Especially since derelict tankers tend to come with lots of fuel.
...Turns out this one didn't. I incorporated it into my fleet, and then had to immediately turn around and scrap it because there was no way I could get it back to civilization. At which point the salvage rigs... don't come into play?
And that whole situation just... doesn't quite feel right, somehow. Either I should have been able to tell that the ship's tanks were empty before I recovered it, or recovering and then immediately scrapping it should yield the same resources as scrapping it from the get-go.
I've wanted for some time to go through and (via mod) rebalance ships so that (aside from special cases like the rare pre-collapse Kite), every freighter is an at least vaguely-passable combat freighter, and the actual combat freighter designed ships (mule, apogee, wayfarer, etc.) are only marginally sub-optimal compared to straight-up combat ships.
All that is to say, I kind of see what you're saying, but it seems like a fringe enough case that, if we're being honest, I'm not sure is worth worrying about.
For example I was hoping we'd see a hull mod that lets you turn a salvage rig into a mobile refitting bay, lowering the supply cost of refitting when not at a planet (maybe only for smaller size ships).
Perhaps derelict tankers should get a line for when they don't have extra fuel?
For example I was hoping we'd see a hull mod that lets you turn a salvage rig into a mobile refitting bay, lowering the supply cost of refitting when not at a planet (maybe only for smaller size ships).
This please!
It would add the ability to respond to specific types of fleets by changing ship loadouts before combat. I can see myself investing in a salvage rig(or whatever) early game so that I can change my wolf missile slots to reapers if I am fighting a pirate fleet with a destroyer, salamanders for distracting a few ships to overcome 2-1 odds, or even harpoons to get rid of that one ship that I am very worried about. :o
Not to mention in the late game having a "siege" fleet loadout for taking on a [REDACTED] rather than flying back to base to outfitting your entire fleet and flying back later(or eating the cr/supply penalty, which never occurred to me until now...)
I love how you fix things like this even though nobody would have consciously noticed it being slightly un-fun. This is the reason why Starsector(formerly Starfarer) is my all time favorite game!
...I sure am glad I was messing around with modding FTL one day and came across only Starsector(formerly Starfarer) ship sprites, otherwise I would have never found this hidden gem.
This does away, essentially, with the binary nature of salvaging (you either have the salvage rating or not) and skills boost success rate rather than ability to salvage at all. As an aside, I would hope surveying is getting roughly the same treatment (i.e. you can survey everything at the start but skills reduce the materiel cost to the point where it isn't prohibitively expensive early.)
In the screenshot, you've got a 184% recovery effectiveness value listed. Does that mean I can expect to get 84% more fuel/supplies/standard commodities in this scenario over "standard?" That seems...impressive but then again I don't know what was under the hood in the current implementation.
(Thank you for the freighter list and your thoughts, too!)I'm happy that Goumindong and Wyvern touched the subject of combat freighters, because that's something I'd really like to see changed (I have faint memory of complaining about this before, but I presume nothing came of it - otherwise I'd certainly remember it). Namely, combat freighters suck for three reasons.
skill-point-regret
So...2018 release? ;D
One of the things I love about StarSector's development progress is that Alex has consistently refused to give time estimates of any kind. Much as I'd love to have an idea of when to expect a new release, I am entirely too well aware that devs' estimated release dates have a bad habit of being taken as hard and fast, almost contractual, deadlines. The instant one of those "deadlines" gets missed, the formerly adoring fans waiting eagerly for release are up in arms screaming "BUT YOU PROMISED!!" I'd much rather Alex didn't make any estimates that he might later feel bound by, so that he could feel free to turn out a new release when he feels it is ready.So...2018 release? ;D
I’m kind of curious about this as well.
Even though I wouldn’t want Alex to rush things or leave out intended content, a vague estiimate would be nice.
One of the things I love about StarSector's development progress is that Alex has consistently refused to give time estimates of any kind. Much as I'd love to have an idea of when to expect a new release, I am entirely too well aware that devs' estimated release dates have a bad habit of being taken as hard and fast, almost contractual, deadlines. The instant one of those "deadlines" gets missed, the formerly adoring fans waiting eagerly for release are up in arms screaming "BUT YOU PROMISED!!" I'd much rather Alex didn't make any estimates that he might later feel bound by, so that he could feel free to turn out a new release when he feels it is ready.So...2018 release? ;D
I’m kind of curious about this as well.
Even though I wouldn’t want Alex to rush things or leave out intended content, a vague estiimate would be nice.
No - again, seems situational and not necessarily good. There's no much room for scuttling to be both not completely awful and still worse than selling the ship; any boosts to its output are trouble.
I appreciate that you're trying to streamline the core gameplay, but this fiddling keeps bringing my thoughts back to one major thought - why are attribute points still around? The vanilla game has only so many skill points in total, encouraging specialization, but attribute caps function to turn that specialization into archetype. If we take the Tech category as a given, that's a total of three distinct character builds (tech + x, y z) without dropping a full skill. Is it really ideal that my combat pilots should never pick salvaging or any other industry?Technology and Leadership is required for every character that wants to be the best. If you want to pilot a carrier, then Combat is mandatory for Helmsmanship 3 alone. At least six points will be dedicated to aptitudes, but it will more likely be nine or more.
In many cases, that's a correct assessment. But not all cases - for example, early game, my choice tends to be "Do I buy a regular freighter or a combat freighter?" - and going for the latter option, while less efficient at hauling stuff, still provides a significant boost to both stuff-hauling and combat capability. Second, defensive-focused AI ships are -good-; the purpose of deploying such allies is to keep a portion of the enemy fleet tied up so you can defeat them in detail, and if your mule never actually gets kills itself, that's just fine. Your third point is reasonable enough, but strongly mitigated by the strongly-defensive nature of the actually-good combat freighters. If you deploy a mule or an apogee and it gets killed, you were fighting something you shouldn't have been fighting. (Edit: Or you made some sort of tactical error that let the enemy defeat you in detail instead of the other way around.)(Thank you for the freighter list and your thoughts, too!)I'm happy that Goumindong and Wyvern touched the subject of combat freighters, because that's something I'd really like to see changed (I have faint memory of complaining about this before, but I presume nothing came of it - otherwise I'd certainly remember it). Namely, combat freighters suck for three reasons.
One, they're spreadsheet ships that can't compete with dedicated ships on the grounds of efficiency. I'd rather have a freighter and a combat ship instead of two combat freighters.
A little detail that really bothers me:That's because it's not balanced by class - it's balanced for the individual ships that carry it.
Salvage Gantry hull mod is still unbalanced between class.
Regarding the combat freighters, I agree up to a point, I mean they still need to be less optimal than a true combat ship, so some being mixed bags of under-performance and disappointment makes a degree of sense....The problem with that is as someone else posted, is it is better to have one dedicated hauler and one dedicated combat ship, than two hybrids. Early game, this is not a problem because the frigates with most capacity are hybrids or at least do not have Civilian Hull that blocks Safety Override. This does not persist through heavier ship classes. Later on, the player will have a strong enough fleet that support ships never need to be deployed.
So, salvaging. What's the long-term benefits? Do I get something out of it that I could not ultimately get through some other means, or is it just a non-combat way of jump-starting early/mid game development?
I'm due a mid-life crisis soon, I expect I'll get this in real life :)
Wait, selling is supposed to be better than scuttling? I thought the idea was that if you don't want a ship you scuttle it for resources because boarding it would be an immediate money loss that only turns a profit if you actually get use out of the ship?
A little detail that really bothers me:
Salvage Gantry hull mod is still unbalanced between class. The salvage rig (25% bonus) looks too good in comparison with other classes. Too small difference for a cruiser class (30%) and definitely too much difference with frigate class (10%) especially if there is a diminishing return when spamming ships. The case is probably worse for capital, as the bonus will be clearly shot down by the huge amount of fuel and supply needed. According to you screenshot, with 2 rigs + 1 shepherd I will have the same bonus than a capital with salvage gantry.
Good changes.
Are there any planned changes in how post-battle salvage works?
At the moment it is quite a grinding minigame. In my case it looks like this:
Salvage, Save game, Wait for cooldown, Salvage, Save game, Wait for cooldown, Salvage, etc.
and repeat this until you get net loss from two consecutive salvage operations,
after which I load the save from after last profitable operation and play from here.
Have to take into account two consecutive salvage operations because sometimes you get a small loss in one,
but in next one you don't lose any machinery at all so it turns into a profit.
I am sure it could be make less grindy.
Nice changes, seems like a reasonable streamlining.
I was thinking on the salvage Gantry, it would be interesting if the ships would have dual function both in salvage and in field repairs, in the latter case perhaps giving the fleet an efficiency on supplies for repair or maybe repair times? Honestly, I am sorta surprised we don't have a military Yardship, that is to say a moving repair yard. given the distances involved you'd think the factions would have dedicated support ships .
Thanks for the blog post. Always enjoy reading them.
Good to hear this! And, yeah, it'd be a fair chunk of work to rebalance everything - and more work for you than it would be for me, since I wouldn't even consider making changes to available weapon mounts; I don't want to kitbash up new ship graphics, so I'd end up doing a bunch of stat changes (including hi-tech quality shields to allow ships like the Tarsus to use its few small ballistic mounts on, say, railguns instead of vulcans), and a lot of fighter bays (ranging from single built-in wings, to built-in Converted Hangar hull-mods, to adding a completely open third fighter wing to the Venture...). Well. Okay, I'll admit, I am still tempted by the notion of upgrading the Atlas' three medium ballistic slots to large ballistic slots, but I can probably get away without changing the sprite for that...I've wanted for some time to go through and (via mod) rebalance ships so that (aside from special cases like the rare pre-collapse Kite), every freighter is an at least vaguely-passable combat freighter, and the actual combat freighter designed ships (mule, apogee, wayfarer, etc.) are only marginally sub-optimal compared to straight-up combat ships.
You know, I really like this idea. It'd be a bit of work - more than I want to try for 0.9 - but I'll definitely keep it in mind. And it aligns very nicely with some of the changes already made.
(Thank you for the freighter list and your thoughts, too!)
At the moment? Yes! At least assuming that by "profitable" you mean "has a chance to give me rare weapons or the occasional super-rare extra chance at recovering a ship I want". I don't do Carabus' save-and-reload thing, but I do currently salvage debris two or three times if there was anything in the opposing force that I want - railguns, needlers, XIV hulls or Auroras or Tempests... and if that salvaging doesn't break even on supplies, I don't really care.Good changes.
Are there any planned changes in how post-battle salvage works?
At the moment it is quite a grinding minigame. In my case it looks like this:
Salvage, Save game, Wait for cooldown, Salvage, Save game, Wait for cooldown, Salvage, etc.
and repeat this until you get net loss from two consecutive salvage operations,
after which I load the save from after last profitable operation and play from here.
Have to take into account two consecutive salvage operations because sometimes you get a small loss in one,
but in next one you don't lose any machinery at all so it turns into a profit.
I am sure it could be make less grindy.
Is it actually profitable to do more than once with a large fleet, considering the wait time and the supplies that drains? In any case, I'll keep an eye on it!
@Eji1700: I've wanted for some time to go through and (via mod) rebalance ships so that (aside from special cases like the rare pre-collapse Kite), every freighter is an at least vaguely-passable combat freighter, and the actual combat freighter designed ships (mule, apogee, wayfarer, etc.) are only marginally sub-optimal compared to straight-up combat ships.
I was thinking about that exact thing. What that does, though, is make surveying a skill you'd never take, since the benefit becomes entirely cost-based, so the further you get into a playthrough, the more skill-point-regret would set in. I could see merging surveying and salvaging into one skill to get around that - in fact that's probably the direction I want to take it - but that's getting into skill-revamp territory, which is its own thing.
Hmm - anything that mitigates supply/repair costs is a potential problem, since those costs are there for a reason, so it's just something to approach carefully. If it just becomes another "lug this around to reduce costs" ship, then that's not very interesting, right?
I'm fairly sure I covered it in the blogpost, but, right: access to more ship/weapon/fighter blueprints and other colony-influencing items.You did say as much, calling it, IIRC, the main way to acquire them, but without stating whether there were others avenues to these things.
Nice changes, seems like a reasonable streamlining.
I was thinking on the salvage Gantry, it would be interesting if the ships would have dual function both in salvage and in field repairs, in the latter case perhaps giving the fleet an efficiency on supplies for repair or maybe repair times? Honestly, I am sorta surprised we don't have a military Yardship, that is to say a moving repair yard. given the distances involved you'd think the factions would have dedicated support ships .
Hmm - anything that mitigates supply/repair costs is a potential problem, since those costs are there for a reason, so it's just something to approach carefully. If it just becomes another "lug this around to reduce costs" ship, then that's not very interesting, right? And if it's just repair times, it's probably not worth it. But if it let you do something qualitative, it could be interesting.
I think that's getting into game-y territory. I don't want combat performance to be arbitrarily changed because I can't control which cargo is where and if I can control it, it becomes its own tedium every time I take on cargo. I get the realism angle but I don't think I'd like the implementation.
Nice changes, seems like a reasonable streamlining.
I was thinking on the salvage Gantry, it would be interesting if the ships would have dual function both in salvage and in field repairs, in the latter case perhaps giving the fleet an efficiency on supplies for repair or maybe repair times? Honestly, I am sorta surprised we don't have a military Yardship, that is to say a moving repair yard. given the distances involved you'd think the factions would have dedicated support ships .
Hmm - anything that mitigates supply/repair costs is a potential problem, since those costs are there for a reason, so it's just something to approach carefully. If it just becomes another "lug this around to reduce costs" ship, then that's not very interesting, right? And if it's just repair times, it's probably not worth it. But if it let you do something qualitative, it could be interesting.
Alex your logic is sound. Looking forward to your next blogpost.
At the moment? Yes! At least assuming that by "profitable" you mean "has a chance to give me rare weapons or the occasional super-rare extra chance at recovering a ship I want". I don't do Carabus' save-and-reload thing, but I do currently salvage debris two or three times if there was anything in the opposing force that I want - railguns, needlers, XIV hulls or Auroras or Tempests... and if that salvaging doesn't break even on supplies, I don't really care.
Not to derail too much but surveying is a precursor to colony development so if you wanted to turn surveying into a cost-based mechanic, you could lump it in with some colony perk (which has whole-game ramifications). Heck, you might take the skill initially for the survey bonus but continue to invest because of the colony component.
How about unlocking campaign abilities if you have a certain ship in your fleet? Something like "increase the repair speed of the ships in the fleet but can't move" skill, which would be more than just a number change, thus making it more interesting. I also like the idea of adding charges for those abilities, so you can't abuse them too much between shore leaves.<and other similar kind of stuff>
Heck, that gives me a thought, why cant we salvage ruins on planets?
Finally, ships with mining/salvage drones, do they reduce casualties from salvaging accidents? if not, they should, I'd use them over a person in a risky operation any time, could give players a reason to keep a Shepard in their fleet for the bonus.
Although this replay may not be directly related to this topic, now I'm wondering what kind of skill system does 0.9 have?Alex has mentioned that there won't be a skill revamp until later. We MIGHT get a level cap boost but this is not confirmed as far as I know
Is there a planning blog post for it?
As the skill amount increases, are we still getting capped at 42 points max in vanilla?
Have the "piloted ship" perks separated from the campaign skill tree?
As I see there are a number of industrial skills getting introduced or revamped, I fell tech tree is offering quite too few in variety.
Also, industrial skills are almost guaranteed to be fleet-wise perks, gaining this tree ridiculous advantage over other skill trees.
I'm feeling everyone is gonna rush for full industrial style or semi-industry, few will pick the hard road w/o industry perks.
As you mentioned elsewhere, the aptitude and level cap were meant to make players make decisions between play styles, but now I'm only seeing industrial play style getting kind of OP.
I think this sort of stuff has to come from a place of identifying a specific thing that happens in the campaign - and happens *often* - and then adding something that either interacts with that or (if it's a problem) fixes it.
Why not have it so that difficult salvages can be attempted by a novice, and he'll chip away some of the value therein without destroying the salvage object? So that he can come back later to "get through those difficult bulkheads" or "take apart that volatile reactor" when he has more skill? Essentially turning salvage objects into things that can be taken apart in one, two or three stages depending on their difficulty and the skill of the player.
A ship-ability I can use when caught in a hyperspace storm would be nice. Maybe something that outright dispels the storm. Or wait, a ship that can capture the storm and use its energy to create antimatter-fuel! That would change the gameplay from avoiding to chasing storms! Awesome.Old Sustained Burn. Made storms much less aggravating. You passed through quickly and it ate a bunch of supplies just for clipping it. Now, I just reload the game and try again if I cannot escape the storm quickly enough. Emergency Burn is useless due to taking too much time transitioning from SB to EB, not to mention you wait too long before SB becomes usable after EB wears off.
Alex has mentioned that there won't be a skill revamp until later. We MIGHT get a level cap boost but this is not confirmed as far as I know
A ship-ability I can use when caught in a hyperspace storm would be nice. Maybe something that outright dispels the storm. Or wait, a ship that can capture the storm and use its energy to create antimatter-fuel! That would change the gameplay from avoiding to chasing storms! Awesome.
I did increase the level cap to 50 for the time being, btw.Nice, for a temporary quick fix.
Speaking of storms, I'd changed how they work. Instead of being a constant CR drain for all ships, there's a chance to hit a single ship with a "storm strike" every couple of seconds. The strike does damage to CR, armor, and hull, and larger fleets attract stronger strikes.
there's a chance to hit a single ship with a "storm strike" every couple of seconds. The strike does damage to CR, armor, and hull, and larger fleets attract stronger strikes.Does it mean you only get 1 ship hit at a time max or you're getting every ship rolling the chance of getting hit in every storm strike check?
Alex, regarding storms, one Issue I have is often I get caught skirting the edge during sustained burn and get the full effect, could we get more varying intensities of storm and/or decrease the storms effects further away from the center of the storm?
also, if we're talking space weather, what about more visible storm fronts?
(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/1/1b/Nexus2371.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100516231112&path-prefix=en)(yes that's the ribbon from star trek generations)
If you decide to go with the random ship being struck/buffeted/whatever in a storm, what about an individual commanders skill to avoid such strikes/turbulence?
Does it mean you only get 1 ship hit at a time max or you're getting every ship rolling the chance of getting hit in every storm strike check?
The strike does damage to CR, armor, and hull, and larger fleets attract stronger strikes. Overall, this means that:
Alex has mentioned that there won't be a skill revamp until later. We MIGHT get a level cap boost but this is not confirmed as far as I know
I did increase the level cap to 50 for the time being, btw.A ship-ability I can use when caught in a hyperspace storm would be nice. Maybe something that outright dispels the storm. Or wait, a ship that can capture the storm and use its energy to create antimatter-fuel! That would change the gameplay from avoiding to chasing storms! Awesome.
Hah! That's... almost awesome enough to want to add as a one-off in some way. Like, "spend X days in a row in a storm to finish some kind of storm-analysis mission", say. Then you'd have to find a large enough moving storm to be able to do it.
Speaking of storms, I'd changed how they work. Instead of being a constant CR drain for all ships, there's a chance to hit a single ship with a "storm strike" every couple of seconds. The strike does damage to CR, armor, and hull, and larger fleets attract stronger strikes. Overall, this means that:
1) Supplies/day consumption doesn't shoot up nearly as much, since it's not affecting all of your fleet
2) The overall supply consumption is considerably less, due to the specific numbers involved
3) It occasionally creates some tactical considerations, i.e. a ship you usually depend on is temporarily crippled, without being ruinously expensive
Also removed the sensor profile penalty when caught in one, just to clean it up a bit.
Anything that encourages salvage as a method to build up your fleet is great.Does that also make restore costs even more expensive?
I've been routinely playing with huge multipliers on ship cost (Like 5x).
And it feels very much like you have to build or fleet up piecemeal. It actually gives you a reason to use those 3-4 Dmod wolfs and such. The one issue is if you don't put points into D mod reducing skills it takes forever to actually buy a decent ship.
Still it makes the game alot more interesting in my opinion. In vanilla if I can find a wolf or tempest and scrap together 15k-30k...it's pretty much easy street from there. (Just pick your battles as you build up)
Does that also make restore costs even more expensive?
Restoring a ship to spec at a dockyard by removing its D-Mods uses money, not supplies.QuoteDoes that also make restore costs even more expensive?
Not that I can tell, since those take supplies.
ooh! If the storm strike were a straight % of max CR lost, rather than a flat redux, it'd punish high-tech, late-game fleets more than rugged/cheap early game fleets
Alex, had a shower thought this morning, ship construction will consume ship hulls/parts/whatever right? Can these parts be salvaged from wrecks?
Oh and one random thought, if I had two eagle cruisers, with non matching D mods, could I splice the two together to make one whole ship with a bunch of left over scrap and ship components?
Hah! That's... almost awesome enough to want to add as a one-off in some way. Like, "spend X days in a row in a storm to finish some kind of storm-analysis mission", say. Then you'd have to find a large enough moving storm to be able to do it.:thumbsup.jpeg:
Speaking of storms, I'd changed how they work. Instead of being a constant CR drain for all ships, there's a chance to hit a single ship with a "storm strike" every couple of seconds. The strike does damage to CR, armor, and hull, and larger fleets attract stronger strikes. Overall, this means that:
1) Supplies/day consumption doesn't shoot up nearly as much, since it's not affecting all of your fleet
2) The overall supply consumption is considerably less, due to the specific numbers involved
3) It occasionally creates some tactical considerations, i.e. a ship you usually depend on is temporarily crippled, without being ruinously expensive
Also removed the sensor profile penalty when caught in one, just to clean it up a bit.
Alex, had a shower thought this morning, ship construction will consume ship hulls/parts/whatever right? Can these parts be salvaged from wrecks?
It totally doesn't. It just costs credits and requires Heavy Industry; the details are left to your subordinates to work out. "Credits" are the general, high-level, "I'm not getting personally involved with this, you work it out" resource.
You know, if you're changing things in hyperspace, how about a different kind of "storm" that helps you travel faster and cheaper? Say, you could traverse it at 25 speed and without fuel costs.
I think it would just be great to have something positive to look out for during long travels, and since the hyperspace tidal wave idea didn't come through, this could be an easy replacement (/placeholder?).
Buuut Heavy Industry will increase demand of metals, which can be found during salvaging, right? Don't know if you can inject them in significant amounts into your industry, though. Waaah, I can't wait for this to not be so damn theoretical anymore ;D
You know, if you're changing things in hyperspace, how about a different kind of "storm" that helps you travel faster and cheaper? Say, you could traverse it at 25 speed and without fuel costs.
I think it would just be great to have something positive to look out for during long travels, and since the hyperspace tidal wave idea didn't come through, this could be an easy replacement (/placeholder?).
Hmm - makes me almost want to do this to existing storms. Wonder if it'd be weird to have a slowdown in normal deep hyper terrain and a speedup in storms, though. But, yeah, that could be quite fun. Storm-riding! Especially if you could then put on a bunch of solar shielding to minimize the impact.Buuut Heavy Industry will increase demand of metals, which can be found during salvaging, right? Don't know if you can inject them in significant amounts into your industry, though. Waaah, I can't wait for this to not be so damn theoretical anymore ;D
Right, that's true! I guess I'm just assuming that supply lines of this nature wouldn't be too difficult to establish, but I'm not quite sure about that.
Normally after combat you are offered all ships that fulfill certain requirements for salvage. However the number of ships you are offered on the salvage screen only goes up to the fleet limit. So if you have 28 ships in the fleet, 2 ships will be picked at random (I assume) from all the salvageable ships.This is why that one perk that increases chance of enemy hull recovery is useless, because after you have a big enough fleet, you have more than enough enemy wrecks left after a fight to fill or exceed the fleet cap.
In my latest campaign I ended up at max level without any decent ships - the best hulls I had were two Eagles. In order to beat any of the bounty fleets (difficulty of which I think is based on your level) I basically had to bring everything I had, 28-29 ships.That was much like my first 0.8 playthrough, although that release had no level scaling. I really dislike level scaling in the later 0.8 releases because the enemy upgrades faster than you can.
Solid points all around. It's sort of been on my TODO list for a while (offer all ships, limit number of picks to X) but just haven't been able to get to it. Thank you for sharing your experience; I wasn't thinking of this as an issue that would come up all that much.Nice that it will be addressed. When I went bounty hunting, I brought no more than twenty ships just so I have room to grab enemy hulls. Hulls exceeding the limit happens all of the time at endgame.
Solid points all around. It's sort of been on my TODO list for a while (offer all ships, limit number of picks to X) but just haven't been able to get to it. Thank you for sharing your experience; I wasn't thinking of this as an issue that would come up all that much.
(Welcome to the forum, btw!)
That was much like my first 0.8 playthrough, although that release had no level scaling. I really dislike level scaling in the later 0.8 releases because the enemy upgrades faster than you can.
I see I am not the only one who has problems with the scaling (in principle, not with the rate). I'm going to start a topic about this in General discussion in order not to clutter this thread.Alex has toned it down for the 0.9, so whatever problems we have in 0.8 will not last.
(... it's also fairly minor to begin with; I think much of it has to do with running into a higher-level bounty (of which there's usually one posted, and it brings in more credits) and feeling like it has to do with scaling when it doesn't ...)That is hard to swallow when all of the bounties have the same elevated difficulty and reward (which is useless when they are too strong). The only logical explanation is level scaling upgraded every bounty.
But then you get stuck with boring ass weak bounties that barely pay(... it's also fairly minor to begin with; I think much of it has to do with running into a higher-level bounty (of which there's usually one posted, and it brings in more credits) and feeling like it has to do with scaling when it doesn't ...)That is hard to swallow when all of the bounties have the same elevated difficulty and reward (which is useless when they are too strong). The only logical explanation is level scaling upgraded every bounty.
It sucks when all of the bounties that will pay are very easy and the optimal strategy is to shelve half the fleet.It hurts more when I need to shelve my whole fleet except a Dram and my starter Wolf (for contact missions) because all of the bounties are too powerful.