Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: Cyan Leader on April 20, 2017, 11:57:43 PM

Title: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Cyan Leader on April 20, 2017, 11:57:43 PM
This will be short from me for now but I'll be adding as it goes, some bug reports will be in here.

- The new function of holding the mouse click to select to set the destination or to see the details of the location gets in the way more often than not. Maybe it's muscle memory of having played the game for hundreds of hours already but I have clicked on system details many times without wanting to by just normally clicking on locations desiring to set a destination. I wonder if others have similar feelings or if it is a pet peeve, but if possible I'd desire neutral clicks and held clicks to result in different things.

- The forcing autosaving in the tutorial can be confusing. It should either save automatically or strongly indicate for newer players that they have to press it in order to advance. The tutorial is very well made though, and besides a description string error I noticed when accessing the black market of the miners it ran flawlessly. I don't like the forced idea though, especially on future releases when most here will have no need for it. I also suggest to change the "Tutorial" button in the main menu to "Extra tutorials".

- Early game balance is perfect so far. More on this later but for the first time in years I'm doing missions because of the UI changes makes them so much more accessible.

- A certain weapon that dropped from a certain spoilery enemy had an odd missing description, which was strange since there is a vanilla one just like it.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Maelstrom on April 21, 2017, 12:14:21 AM
also a bug i found was going too far out on triple monitor surround will *** up the ui while in hyperspace.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: grinningsphinx on April 21, 2017, 07:53:05 AM
The Load game and now my save is corrupted thing is still here....

Seriously...this release is disappointing.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Thaago on April 21, 2017, 08:19:38 AM
The Load game and now my save is corrupted thing is still here....

Seriously...this release is disappointing.

Its fixed in the patch, which usually comes out 1 or 2 days after release. Report bugs, chill out, and in a couple days we will have the usual rock solid version.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Blips on April 21, 2017, 08:39:46 AM
This isn't the bug forum. And in case people have forgotten, the game is in alpha. If you don't want bugs, wait for version 1.0.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: DatonKallandor on April 21, 2017, 09:01:41 AM
Well the salvage mechanics are great, the tutorial system is cool.

But the category skills having no benefit really sucks. Spending skill points and getting nothing for them feels really bad, and this is a solved problem. Aptitudes having effects was a good solution that didn't need to be removed.

Also there's still some of those "it sucks doing thing X without having maxed out skill Y" bonuses still in industry that were supposed to be explicitly avoided, especially all the +10% salvage bonuses.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: harperrb on April 21, 2017, 09:52:01 AM
I really enjoyed the tutorial - though parts are a bit unclear in its first iteration - especially the "save game to progress".

- I wished the "quick save - F5" notification flashed or strobed, to make it clear that it is a requirement to progress in the tutorial. Or it should auto-pause the game and force you to after traveling a certain distance.
- the overall gameplay is developing into what I imagined/hoped it would become five/six years ago when i bought it. very much enjoying the minutae and complexity of managing a fleet and supplies.
- the new graphics updates are great. i love the new scale of the systems.
- there should be a warning of sorts when approaching known friendly ships while your sensor are off - I often forget i'm headed toward hegemony after hunting pirates and i'm dark.
- I wish I could go from Intel screen to the system map with one click.  And if you can, please tell me how. [edit: well easier than i thought - just hit TAB button]
- i'm confused how the weapon filter works with the ship refit - can't tell what clicks are filtering what weapons *edit ' okay, figured this out well enough. I think i was confused initally because types I did have but were the wrong size were auto'filtered out of the list, so I wasnºt seeing weapons when i expected them
- buying black market goods seems very easy without clear repercussions in ship refit screen. Weapons are there that I want. Its not clear what it means to buy them, and theyre available as default.
- a bit more of a transition at the salvaging screen - that is a slight pause, maybe a splash screen. would give a little more weight to the procedure.

edit: added:
- there should be a system map for supply use and distance (or at least time to destination, using waypoints) - like the interstellar map with fuel. I'm often not sure how far i can get my supplies, if it takes 1 day, 2 or an hour to get across to different locations.

Overall, i'm super happy with this release. its great.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on April 21, 2017, 10:03:01 AM
The hotfix has updated the tutorial and now it flashes the "save" instructions and also has bigger font
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: borgrel on April 21, 2017, 10:18:59 AM
as cyan says ........... i dont like the new menu either

the tut is good.

the missing hyperspace clouds is distressing and quite frankly, untenable. u cant plot a path between clouds because the only view u can see the clouds on doesnt show u enough to know anything.

the new planet based intel screen should link to said planets market (only after uve visitted it if u like and maybe only to the market info screen that shows demand and use)

everything else, damn fine.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dri on April 21, 2017, 10:34:15 AM
Pretty sure the clouds show on the map...you just have to turn off "Starscape" yeah?
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on April 21, 2017, 10:42:55 AM
Two issues I have with .8:
The loss of the ability to set a (non planed) course on the Tab Map in the campaign
The loss of "right click to drop held stack" in the inventory menu
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dri on April 21, 2017, 10:46:49 AM
I mean why would you not want a planned course? You can press "A" to resume it after you've made changes to course for whatever reason or just press "S" to cancel it. Plus it gives you extra info like days/fuel needed to reach it.

The one thing I wish is that Lay in Course was the top choice and not Show Info. Did the hotfix swap those?
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Alex on April 21, 2017, 10:48:55 AM
The loss of "right click to drop held stack" in the inventory menu

(Oops, that's a bug. Noted.)
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dri on April 21, 2017, 10:56:22 AM
The new Khopesh rocket bombers are great—they really do a number on anything bigger than a frigate! Well, they'd smash a frigate too if they actually manage to nail one with a salvo.

Fighters and their carriers seem much more viable now and are quite effective!
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on April 21, 2017, 11:23:41 AM
I mean why would you not want a planned course? You can press "A" to resume it after you've made changes to course for whatever reason or just press "S" to cancel it. Plus it gives you extra info like days/fuel needed to reach it.

The one thing I wish is that Lay in Course was the top choice and not Show Info. Did the hotfix swap those?
I meant that you can't set a course in the TAB map without laying in a course. ANd many times I do this to dodge around a star or solar flares
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: DatonKallandor on April 21, 2017, 11:58:43 AM
Also I really wish Sustained Burn didn't toggle itself off all the time. Especially for sensor pings.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on April 21, 2017, 12:23:31 PM
Also I really wish Sustained Burn didn't toggle itself off all the time. Especially for sensor pings.
Yes...
Also, I LOVE traverse jump ability. Although the nascent ump points I feel need to be different from what they are...
Edit: Energy weapons and shield hull mods needs to be more common. Along with hull mods dropping more in general. I think out of about 500 ships I've killed, I've gotten like 2 mods to drop.
And TT needs more markets. I love how they get ZERO new markets...
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: grinningsphinx on April 21, 2017, 12:54:34 PM
This isn't the bug forum. And in case people have forgotten, the game is in alpha. If you don't want bugs, wait for version 1.0.

Title of the post is .8 feedback...go troll somewhere else, preferably off a high bridge.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Talkie Toaster on April 21, 2017, 01:14:09 PM
Domain Drones can be really unfun to fight. At first it was fun, and a nice inversion of the usual playstyle (many players ships vs a few elite enemies) but they're just so maneuverable that you can't force a fight. I'm currently running an Industry fleet, so lots of trash boats, and I've spent most of my battles against them trying to pin them up against the walls of space (which seems odd) and get a few hits in before they flee. Lumens in particular just take some hits on shield and phase-skimmer away. I can try baiting them in by lowering shields but they respond too fast to take much advantage of it. The only things I've found that can chase them down and get their flux up so far are fighters, and there you're very dependent on whether or not your fighters arrive in a proper blob or string themselves out.

Battles basically seem to come down to chasing them around in circles with Destroyers until their CR runs low or they make a mistake and phase skim the wrong way.

Also: Not sure if this is a bug, but I got directed to scan a derelict 'in the heart' of a system- there was a derelict space station there, right in the star's corona, but I didn't get the option to scan it. I found one other derelict out by a jump point but it wasn't my target either. Save is here: https://www.mediafire.com/?4c2z7nxaao24u9o
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dri on April 21, 2017, 01:21:14 PM
I don't think the ones that can phase skim are Domain Drones but rather part of the REDACTED.

But yeah, they are very speedy and I too have spent multiple battles chasing after the ones that are basically Wolf 2.0
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: DatonKallandor on April 21, 2017, 01:31:23 PM
I must have lucked out somehow, because the Lumens I fought just insta-died to swarms of pilums, salamanders, fighters and assorted D-grade garbage I fished out of derelict fields.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Talkie Toaster on April 21, 2017, 01:33:58 PM
I must have lucked out somehow, because the Lumens I fought just insta-died to swarms of pilums, salamanders, fighters and assorted D-grade garbage I fished out of derelict fields.
That's sort of the problem- if they make a mistake, they die instantly. If they don't... they can be outnumbered 6:1, chased by 3 fighter wings, and run everyone out of CR. This is only at low level with a frigate/destroyer fleet so when you can concentrate firepower it might not be an issue, but I'm going for cheap (20-30k) scan bounties on the assumption they're the lowest level and my fleet just gets the runaround.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Gothars on April 21, 2017, 01:39:52 PM
This isn't the bug forum. And in case people have forgotten, the game is in alpha. If you don't want bugs, wait for version 1.0.

Title of the post is .8 feedback...go troll somewhere else, preferably off a high bridge.

That kind of language is not acceptable. You'll get a PM.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Darloth on April 21, 2017, 03:02:51 PM
Another vote that having the Aptitude categories grant nothing on level up really sucks.

It feels like my level is completely dead, if I want to maintain the build I'm aiming for.  They don't need to be BIG bonuses, but please, give us something!
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: DatonKallandor on April 21, 2017, 05:41:47 PM
Yeah they don't need to be build defining like the +% OP were, but if I had to come up with something nice but not mandatory quickly I'd say:

% damage (say 5% steps) piloted ship for Combat; (the least universally useful, to go with the least universally useful tree)
% damage reduction (5% steps? 3,3% steps?) for fleet - since that's something that every leadership user, fleet and self-piloted carrier, can use for Leadership
% fuel use and/or % sensor range (3,3% for max of 10%) for Technology (because everyone likes cheaper travel and more sensors)
% reduced CR recovery cost (3,3 or 5?) for Industry (because cheaper CR recovery is kind of the missing ingredient for a pure Industry playstyle and every playstyle will appreciate it)
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: PCCL on April 21, 2017, 06:05:26 PM
Another vote that having the Aptitude categories grant nothing on level up really sucks.

It feels like my level is completely dead, if I want to maintain the build I'm aiming for.  They don't need to be BIG bonuses, but please, give us something!

eh, count me as a vote against. I don't think there's a point to having aptitude give bonuses and stacking small bonuses make things harder to calculate at times
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on April 21, 2017, 06:06:54 PM
Another vote that having the Aptitude categories grant nothing on level up really sucks.

It feels like my level is completely dead, if I want to maintain the build I'm aiming for.  They don't need to be BIG bonuses, but please, give us something!

eh, count me as a vote against. I don't think there's a point to having aptitude give bonuses and stacking small bonuses make things harder to calculate at times
Then just make them another skill
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on April 21, 2017, 06:47:46 PM
Abolishing aptitudes would alleviate skill point tax.  Officers do not need to pay points for aptitudes.

I will take Technology 3 every game.  Must have Gunnery Implants 3 for more shot range and Power Grid Modulation 3 for faster venting and dissipation.  I will probably take the ECM skill for the +1% speed bonus, and maybe the skill that adds more max vents and +OP%.

I will take at least Combat 2 every game just for Evasive Maneuvers 1 and Helmsmanship 2 for more speed.  There are other nice combat skills, but those two are non-negotiable.  Even with all of the speed bonuses, ships still feel slow.

Industry has some very nice stuff.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Gennadios on April 21, 2017, 06:51:22 PM
The tutorial *** me off.

I got dragged into a double battle with the pirates/miners, managed to limp away with only my two starter ships after combat stress crippled my woefully underequipped salvage fleet, and I ended up locked out of the spaceport. It's pretty clear my options were to wipe or win.

F*** it, waste of my time and I'm never touching it again.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dri on April 21, 2017, 07:29:01 PM
Hah, well, the tutorial does recommend that you try to lure away one of the two fleets and fight them separately! The tutorial actually starts you out with way more credits and resources so it's defs worth doing.

Guess Alex needs to balance that for players who totally despise the tutorial...
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: TaLaR on April 21, 2017, 07:53:38 PM
Yep, tutorial can get quite difficult (and that's compared to Nexelerin with all faction mods). Played it twice to compare.

First time barely won, having to fight-retreat-fight while losing most ships and barely getting on scraps. Guess bad combination of D-mods on my ships + no access to blaster (to make wolf truly useful) + good ships on pirate side (2 hammerheads with relatively good variants using enough kinetics).

Second time easy win, enemy had no ships worth mentioning besides Venture (which was present both times).
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dri on April 21, 2017, 08:13:54 PM
Aren't the ships you salvage always the same? If so I feel like the Hammerhead you recover is the key to an easy tutorial win...mine came already equipped with 2 Rail Guns and only 1 D-mod! It may have already come with 2 Sabot racks too (or you use the free weapons in storage to equip them) in which case I simply spammed them to overload the Venture and pretty much shut it down. Then the next fight against the enemy Enforcer I basically did the same: overload it with the Sabots and then Accel Ammo feeders FTW!
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: TaLaR on April 21, 2017, 10:19:18 PM
Aren't the ships you salvage always the same?

Ships and D-mod count are the same, but which D-mods you get and what weapons they come with is random.
First time my D-mod on hammerhead was one that reduces flux efficiency. Probably the worst pick.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Thaago on April 21, 2017, 11:13:37 PM
Huh, I've done the tutorial twice now (accidentally wiped my first save when updating, but it wasn't that far in) and found it to be ok. The fighters from the Condor were key for me.

I picked Wolf + Shepard though, which is a very strong combat start.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Voyager I on April 21, 2017, 11:17:01 PM
Yeah, Buddy Kite might have been my favorite thing about 0.72 but even going for a combat start it's hard to imagine not taking the Shepherd.  The borers do just fine at the job of distracting enemies so you aren't trying to fight straight 1v3s and then it also helps you scoop up free stuff left and right.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Thaago on April 21, 2017, 11:19:37 PM
They also give a fantastic PD screen against fighters and missiles - really helps you concentrate on the killing. Usually I do have to stay close to it though, as if an enemy flanks around its drones it can die fast.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Nanao-kun on April 21, 2017, 11:22:33 PM
I actually sold the hammerhead before going to fight the miners. On the other hand, I fought the miner fleets one by one so yeah.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Vind on April 22, 2017, 12:19:53 AM
In tutorial you can get condor, with broadsword and piranha wings LPCs given by hegemony outpost it just annihilates everything.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on April 22, 2017, 05:43:10 AM
First time barely won, having to fight-retreat-fight while losing most ships and barely getting on scraps. Guess bad combination of D-mods on my ships + no access to blaster (to make wolf truly useful) + good ships on pirate side (2 hammerheads with relatively good variants using enough kinetics).
It seems the loot is random on the derelict fleet.

When I played, I found and looted the heavy blaster from the Wolf (which got put on my undamaged starter Wolf, and there was a second Salamander somewhere.  I swiped the first one from my starter Shepherd, and replaced Swarmers and Ion Cannon on my Wolf for Salamanders and third PD laser)  Between it and the Condor with two Talons, they tore stuff up.

On the other hand, Hammerhead got junk for weapons.  Had to buy two Heavy Mortars to pair up with two Light Autocannons.  It performed adequately.  Was more useful as a budget meat shield.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: DatonKallandor on April 22, 2017, 06:43:17 AM
On the other hand, Hammerhead got junk for weapons.  Had to buy two Heavy Mortars to pair up with two Light Autocannons.  It performed adequately.  Was more useful as a budget meat shield.
My Hammerhead ended up with a Heavy Mortar and a Thumper. Slap Safety Overrides on that and you've got a monster of a ship (Accelerated Feeder Thumper has ludicrous damage against hulls).
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on April 22, 2017, 06:50:46 AM
Safety Override would not be a good idea for my relatively weak fleet.  I do not remember the (D) mods, but one of them might have been Degraded Subsystems, and I used Hardened Subsystems to patch that up.  In that last miner battle, I had peak performance problems on a few ships.  Safety Override would have taken some of my ships out of the fight too soon.

The MVP award in that battle went to Condor with two Talons.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: CaptainWinky on April 22, 2017, 08:01:01 AM
I like the new weapons.  The Heavy Mortar fits in nicely between Light Assault Gun and Heavy Mauler.  The Devastator is wildly inaccurate but the explosions let you sneak some damage past enemies' shields.  Haven't used the Hammer Barrage yet but I've always been a fan of the humble Hammer so I'll find a use for it.

Also pleased to see that the Sunder(D) is available in vanilla markets because I liked the Ship and Weapon Pack version.  Safety Overrides and three Phase Lances make it a blast for pursuit and decent for regular battles.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: borgrel on April 22, 2017, 08:09:06 AM
i went with arbalest, hvy mortar, rail, dual mg, vulcan vulcan at the back aux thrust and hardened subs.
wasn't a demon but it could hold its own.

i finally have hvy needler, hvy mauler on it :P

hammer barrage is eviiiiiiiiiil, i met in on an autonomous drone, treated it like a swarm missile not a torpedo, lost half my ship to the 1 glancing blow.
good lesson.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on April 22, 2017, 09:58:40 AM
i went with arbalest, hvy mortar, rail, dual mg, vulcan vulcan at the back aux thrust and hardened subs.
wasn't a demon but it could hold its own.

i finally have hvy needler, hvy mauler on it :P

hammer barrage is eviiiiiiiiiil, i met in on an autonomous drone, treated it like a swarm missile not a torpedo, lost half my ship to the 1 glancing blow.
good lesson.
The REDACTED fleets are really aggressive with the torps. And I LOVE it! Twice I have been nailed by a Reaper in my Paragon after having vented and was waiting for my slow expanding shield (*has no Acceled shields or Front shield emitter...*)
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: deepcut on April 22, 2017, 11:47:24 AM
0.8a-RC19

I started a new game with the tutorial, flew over to the debris field and was prompted with
"Press 6 to start scavenging"
Which I pressed and.. it did nothing. After a couple of moments I noticed it would do something if the skill was placed on the hot-bar.
This only happened the first time, and starting another game I couldn't reproduce it.

After scavenging the debris I flew to to the Hegemony orbital station where a patrol intercepted me and demanded I turn on my transponder. I pressed 1 to "Turn on transponder and comply" and then tried to leave.
Only to be immediately intercepted again with the message "I told you last time to keep your transponder on", resulting in combat and my ships being destroyed.
I can't find any control for the transponder in the UI or the key bindings, and the dialog didn't turn it on for me like it suggested.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Alex on April 22, 2017, 11:50:58 AM
There's a large, blinking instruction to "press F5 to save" after you do the scavenging. You need to do that for the tutorial to continue past that point, which will include getting the transponder ability and some other stuff.

(What happened the first time around is you probably switched to another ability bar... Q and W switch between the first two ability bars.)

Edit: a thought occurs, do you have the latest hotfix? The "F5 to save" instruction isn't very prominent in the original release, and the hotfix addresses that.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on April 22, 2017, 11:56:40 AM
There's a large, blinking instruction to "press F5 to save" after you do the scavenging. You need to do that for the tutorial to continue past that point, which will include getting the transponder ability and some other stuff.

(What happened the first time around is you probably switched to another ability bar... Q and W switch between the first two ability bars.)

Edit: a thought occurs, do you have the latest hotfix? The "F5 to save" instruction isn't very prominent in the original release, and the hotfix addresses that.
He is. He is using RC 19, as stated in his post
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Alex on April 22, 2017, 11:59:31 AM
Alright.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: deepcut on April 22, 2017, 12:02:18 PM
Edit: a thought occurs, do you have the latest hotfix? The "F5 to save" instruction isn't very prominent in the original release, and the hotfix addresses that.

It's as prominent as the message about scavenging, I guess I didn't realise that those messages are tutorial prompts though.
It read like a loading screen tip informing me of something that I can do, not something that I have to do.
I hadn't done anything to warrant needing to save, so I didn't bother saving and kept flying.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Alex on April 22, 2017, 12:03:51 PM
Ah - I guess I was thinking that something that's blinking insistently would come across as a prompt rather than an ignorable instruction. But I see what you're saying. (The reason it asks you to save is there's a fight coming up...)
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dri on April 22, 2017, 12:12:08 PM
Looks like you really need to put "TUTORIAL: DO THIS THING" to stop the confusion.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: FooF on April 22, 2017, 01:00:21 PM
Skill-related:

Carrier Command vs. Fighter Doctrine. I see these two as working hand-in-hand for the player ship but it feels weird. Presumably, you'll put a point in Fighter Doctrine and if you want to double-down for yourself, you put a point in Carrier Command. However, all the hull mods are in Fighter doctrine and it affects all ships in your fleet so Carrier Command loses the competition for points more often than not.

Secondly, duplicating the bonuses feels...cheap, pardon my saying so. Only affecting the player ship is fine but the bonuses need to be different or perhaps the two skills should be mutually exclusive (but have the hull mods in both). What you're weighing is a small fleet-wide affect or a really strong player-ship affect. 25% for you and your fleet or 75%(?) for the player-ship.

Helmsmanship. Gotta agree with Megas here, 1% has no meaningful effect outside of being able to run at speed with your shields on. Capitals/high tech might be able to fire some low-grade weapons because of higher flux capacity but for anything below that, it's not much of a boon at all for a Level 3 skill. 25% was too high, no doubt, but 1% is too low. 5% would be the sweet spot, IMO. Why? I think someone investing in Helmsmanship is trying to leverage speed to get into a good fighting position but the moment you take a hit on the shield or fire a gun with the current setup, you lose any advantage you had. With a little more cushion, you can outmaneuver your opponent but if you commit to an attack you obviously have to cede the advantage. It's like having the weather gage during the Age of Sail: if you have the wind, you have a huge tactical advantage but once you close quarters, it's still up to the fighting men to win. Right now there is no appreciable difference between the speeds of two otherwise identical ships beyond one can raise their shields and the other can't.

Fleet Logistics. The Level 1 perk is one of the best one-point wonders in the game. It will save hundreds/thousands of supplies over a long game. I'm not saying it needs to be changed but it's a huge bonus for Level 1. I think Levels 1 and 2 of this skill could be swapped and I wouldn't complain. Both are meaningful and good at any point of the game but if you're starting out, knowing you and your officer buddy aren't going to lose their ship(s) is nice insurance and allows you to be a bit more reckless.



Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dri on April 22, 2017, 01:09:44 PM
The 1% also lets you fire beams (so long as you have the flux dissipation) and perhaps more importantly it lets you keep the speed boost as a carrier when you have your fighters set to engage!
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dias Flac on April 22, 2017, 02:28:28 PM

Missions

I like the new missions where you deliver a beacon, basically "go to x and do y" instead of usual trade missions that require you "acquire x and transport it to y". Honestly I wouldn't mind if there delivery missions as well but they'd basically be like beacon missions but instead of going to some derelict or drone pod you'd have to go to a space station.

My bread and butter was bounty hunting in the previous version because I never touched trading (hated having to buy stuff and do all the research to make things economical and work out) but space exploration is pretty fun and rewarding if you have a good scavenging level in ver .8.

If I could ask for more mission variety I'd say more diplomacy stuff "deliver vip guy x to location y safely" or maybe heavy industry stuff like "escort fuel tanker/cargo hauler to x system" That would be fun. The more rep you get the bigger the fuel/cargo haulers you could escort and you'd get a bigger payout for doing so.

Bugs

Bug wise I haven't seen anything game ruining  for me. Sometimes it seems my A.I. followers will go off on suicidal charges unless I explicitly tell them to group together. One thing that bothers me is when more agile A.I. followers I've told to stay close to me refuse to leave my side to chase down weaker guys when I run out of command points. I kind of wish there was level of deferment to their logic such as "Stick together unless the enemy is fleeing/weaker at which point pursue them" that's more of a nitpick with the A.I. rather than a bug though.

Also it seems like sometimes saves won't work? I think someone already touched on that somewhere else. Now I just save all the time figuring every other save may not work. Also saving still seems to  take forever.

Mechanics

Maybe it's because I'm not using capital ships yet, but it seems like the supply cost for running around has been reduced significantly which is good. Managing both supplies and fuel was a real bother for me in the previous versions. It does seem like you burn more fuel now once you're in hyper space but scavenging mitigates this loss fairly well both supply wise and fuel wise. Still I don't spend any extra time in Hyperspace that I don't have to.

Missiles seem a lot more useful now. What's strange is I don't think they've changed mechanically much but somehow I find myself putting missiles on more things than I used to whereas before I'd just not use missiles at all and fill out my venting/capacitors and such.

conclusion

I'm pretty pleased thus far. If I wasn't dabbling in so many other games I'd probably have more to say. I'm sure the modders will have some fun with this new version
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Deshara on April 22, 2017, 02:38:39 PM
I want maxios back
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Serenitis on April 22, 2017, 03:50:57 PM
...but it seems like the supply cost for running around has been reduced significantly which is good. Managing both supplies and fuel was a real bother for me in the previous versions.
I'm having the opposite experience with this.
I never had any significant issues with supplies or fuel in the previous versions (except for mod interference), but in 0.8 I'm strugging to even tread water.
Fuel is cheaper, but doesn't seem to last as long.
While supplies are more expensive and are used by surveys in addition to running your fleet.
The only real respite is the logistics skill which reduces maintenance costs.




Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Zapier on April 22, 2017, 03:59:46 PM
Looks like you really need to put "TUTORIAL: DO THIS THING" to stop the confusion.

For me it really came down to the fact that I generally play ironman, so quicksaving is something I never think to do so I certainly ignored the little blinker in favor of the popup prompts. So it's not that I didn't notice it, and just a minute into the tutorial I didn't think I really needed to save either so it's likely just my personal preference on play more than anything for why I was confused.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Deshara on April 22, 2017, 04:11:30 PM
I saw it, ignored it cuz it was a different format than the other tutorial stuff & I don't quicksave or save scum, never finished the tutorial thanks to it
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on April 22, 2017, 04:25:54 PM
I may like Fleet Logistics 2, but I doubt I will get it because I do not think I will raise Leadership past 1.  I want to, but there are not enough skill points to get Leadership goodies without sacrificing other skills I want more.

Technology 3 will be a given for all of my characters.  If Alex swaps Helmsmanship perks in an update, then Combat 3 will be a given for all my characters.  I will get all speed mods because combat overall is too slow paced for my tastes without those perks.  Got to have max speed, shot range, and dissipation at a minimum for my flagship regardless who my character is.

From what I read, I guess surveying is profitable like food runs were in 0.65, and Surveying 3 is mandatory.  I have not played enough yet, but from my brief experimentation, it seems max Surveying is pretty much required if I want to fill out the planetary pokedex.

So Leadership is the most expendable tree, unless I really want a flagship carrier, but then I prefer good-for-all and quality-of-life skills, and taking them already takes a big bite out of the 42 maximum points.

How good is Salvaging skill?  Is it required to get the best derelict ship finds (like those people found in best derelicts topic) and looting rare weapons (and fighter chips), or does it just increase the yield of insignificant commodities like supplies, metal, fuel, and other salables only useful for a quick buck?

Having to spend nine points for Surveying and Salvaging (and Industry) 3 hurts, just for crutch cash skills.  Now Safety Procedures 2 looks really good, that one skill that increases rare weapons loot at level 1 looks good, and Field Repairs 1 or 2 looks really good to take, so I will probably have some Industry.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Cik on April 22, 2017, 04:27:19 PM
>there are now black holes
>there's a very prominent event horizon
>it degrades CR when you get near it, ok cool
>go inside it
>you can actually fly back out of it
>you don't get trapped forever inside the event horizon and/or it deletes your save

MISSED OPPORTUNITY
VERY DISAPPOINTED
CHANGE POSTHASTE

otherwise it's p. gud though
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on April 22, 2017, 05:11:25 PM
>there are now black holes
>there's a very prominent event horizon
>it degrades CR when you get near it, ok cool
>go inside it
>you can actually fly back out of it
>you don't get trapped forever inside the event horizon and/or it deletes your save

MISSED OPPORTUNITY
VERY DISAPPOINTED
CHANGE POSTHASTE

otherwise it's p. gud though
You DO realize that these ships are doing FTL level speeds, right?
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Deshara on April 22, 2017, 05:36:40 PM
>there are now black holes
>there's a very prominent event horizon
>it degrades CR when you get near it, ok cool
>go inside it
>you can actually fly back out of it
>you don't get trapped forever inside the event horizon and/or it deletes your save

MISSED OPPORTUNITY
VERY DISAPPOINTED
CHANGE POSTHASTE

otherwise it's p. gud though

!!! There's already a framework for this! The way flying into a sun pushes you out harder the closer you get with your ships angling into it to try & counteract the force, do the inverse for black holes; have the ship's burn away from it with their max speed getting to 0 until they get to their event horizon (not the, their, thrust/mass is unique to each ship and the point of no return is way earlier than tthatof light, which now that I think of it is 100x the speed of 1 burn or 100 farther in than the point of no return of a 1 burn fleet), at which point they won't stop running at full to keep themselves 'afloat' until you order them to leave the hole at which they, as long as sustained burn is free, sustained burn their way out. Note; balance the pull so you can sustained burn off of your regular burn's point of no return without hitting the Event Horizon (which deletes ships).
Would make for super cool gameplay, going dark in the gravity well of the dark giant, finding your low-burn 0-point & slowly circling the giant until you're on the same side as the bounty fleet was, then sensor bursting, getting dragged deeper as your ships scan for the bounty that they spot, deeper in the well s-burning to try to avoid you, but your burst lets you see their venture freighter is holding them back; they can't maintain as deep as you could so you order a sustained burn dive. As your engines fire up the bounty sees your engine profile, and they abandon their venture. Once the last of the supplies and crew are moved off board its engines are cut out and it falls into the black, and the fleet relaxes deeper into the gravity well than you can reach just in time to avoid an interception. The freighters in their fleet mean they could wait you out, but the dram tanker in your fleet, however, spells their doom. You order your emergency burn-drives fired; the hull begins to scream as the anti-matter piles spool up. They do the same and sink even further as you approach, wait out your emergency burn and rise back up far enough to switch back to sustained burn while you do the same. But, while they tend to their damaged ships, you order a second burn and dive back in.
As your fleet pulls alongside theirs it's clear they have no fuel left; you power up ballistics-- your missiles have no antimatter drives and beam weaponry doesn't work this close to an event horizon. Your fleet picks its way through them one by one. The ones with forward facing shields go first, as they can't turn about this close to the point of no return. The ones with Omni shields hold out longer but without fuel for an emergency burn they are ultimately helpless, and one by one they are pitched into the great void
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Deshara on April 22, 2017, 05:37:51 PM
>there are now black holes
>there's a very prominent event horizon
>it degrades CR when you get near it, ok cool
>go inside it
>you can actually fly back out of it
>you don't get trapped forever inside the event horizon and/or it deletes your save

MISSED OPPORTUNITY
VERY DISAPPOINTED
CHANGE POSTHASTE

otherwise it's p. gud though
You DO realize that these ships are doing FTL level speeds, right?

No they're not, each burn level is 1% lightspeed. Nothing reaches 100 burn, so no ftl. They just use hyperspace to make their sunlight speed get them farther
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dri on April 22, 2017, 05:51:37 PM
I kinda suspect that it'll be the case but are frigates a total liability in battlestation fights? I imagine they'd just get lain waste to before they can even close in what with battlestations having super crazy long range.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Cik on April 22, 2017, 06:08:59 PM
>there are now black holes
>there's a very prominent event horizon
>it degrades CR when you get near it, ok cool
>go inside it
>you can actually fly back out of it
>you don't get trapped forever inside the event horizon and/or it deletes your save

MISSED OPPORTUNITY
VERY DISAPPOINTED
CHANGE POSTHASTE

otherwise it's p. gud though
You DO realize that these ships are doing FTL level speeds, right?

not in normalspace which is where you encounter the event horizon

also afaik it won't matter anyway for most decent sized black holes, the event horizon for you will just be closer as far as i know
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on April 22, 2017, 08:00:27 PM
I kinda suspect that it'll be the case but are frigates a total liability in battlestation fights? I imagine they'd just get lain waste to before they can even close in what with battlestations having super crazy long range.
Bricks. You want bricks and KE damage to fight them
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Thaago on April 22, 2017, 08:20:53 PM
Dunno about other stations, but Piranhas eat domain motherships alive.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: NightfallGemini on April 22, 2017, 08:54:11 PM
Stations get dunked by masses of Claws and Kopesh bombers with some cruiser backup in my experience.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Gennadios on April 22, 2017, 09:17:35 PM
After bypassing the tutorial and putting about 8 hours into the update... I realised just how little fun I'm having.

I'm level 5 and only put points into the surveying and salvaging skills so far. My thoughts:

The new skills like go dark and burn are clearly meant to babysit the fleet and sneak around the sectors, but when traveling huge distances or through the ample amount of nebulae with no real autopilot for automatic evasion, trying to avoid the massive fleets of pirates in uncharted space is a chore.

Speaking of pirates, who'se supplying these a**holes? I need to bulk my fleet freighters and tankers just to make expeditions viable. Who handle's the pirates' logistics that lets them field fleets twice my size in deep space?

It seems like the only viable way to play right now is to go oldschool, ignore all the new content, and dump all my points into combat 0.7 style. I'm a bit disappoint.

EDIT:
Also, I noticed that following bigger fleets and joining in on their battles for brownie points isn't an option either. Large AI fleets tend to clump into firing lines, and when I do engage a lone ship surrounded by multiple smaller friendlies, they seem to stay way out of firing range, and don't press the advantage when I engage.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Thaago on April 22, 2017, 09:32:12 PM
Hrrrmmm... if you're still level 5 after 8 hours, it sounds like you haven't really found anything yet? Domain probes and medium sized ships are fairly common, as are class 3 ish worlds. Class 5's are rare, but are worth a ton (and the experience from doing the survey is a level boost or two).

My experience from playing heavy survey/salvage is that I'm rolling in money within an hour and can quickly upgrade my fleet with multiple destroyers.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dias Flac on April 22, 2017, 09:54:57 PM
Basically here's how I grease my wheels.

Step one-

Use your starter 30k to get a mid sized ship after pledging to the Heg. Smack around some small time pirate groups to level a little bit. Earn a bit of scratch on the side while nabbing some nice weapons from the pirates if you're lucky. Should give you enough levels to take care of basic savaging needs + fuel economy buffs from the tech tree to make space exploration a profitable endeavor.


Step two-

Do the explore missions for the drone pods and derelict ships. These missions can be a little bit dangerous but the pay isn't bad. Guaranteed to run into unexplored planets and such along the way so make sure you level up the surveying skill asap.

As soon as I have a decent contingent of ships under my command and a properly feathered nest I'll probably do more freelance exploration and bounty hunting. From there I can bankroll whatever  I need for the most part.

One thing about step 2. You may be venturing into hazardous or uninhabited environments. This can be exceedingly bad if you're short on fuel so make sure manage it carefully in hyperspace. I'm a tightwad so I never bring fuel tankers with me. For the sake of my sanity I've began to bring fuel tanks and freighters with me. For less than 100k you can have some nice fuel and cargo haulers.

Also don't forget to sell those A.I. Cores you get from the drone thingies. Get good rep and 10k credits a pop.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on April 22, 2017, 10:19:52 PM
Also don't forget to sell those A.I. Cores you get from the drone thingies. Get good rep and 10k credits a pop.
Don't sell them to the markets. Give them to the station commanders for max profit and rep boost!
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dias Flac on April 22, 2017, 10:22:05 PM
That's what I meant by sell. HEG won't buy them in the open market anyway.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: torbes on April 23, 2017, 12:00:56 AM
couple people have mentioned feeling like they use more fuel, just wanted to point out in hyperspace you use fuel based on burn level; sustained burn is causing you to use more fuel, it's a proportionate rate, so you're using more but getting there quicker. that might be why it feels like you're using more.

also agree with speed boost at 1% flux being not great, 5-10 would be better imho.

and the leadership player carrier vs fleet carrier point, player carrier should be 50% on the buffs.

i also think faction npc should buy survey data, like cores, keep the tariff or just lower the prices by 30% across the board, but i don't enjoy hanging on to them until i get to a high stability market and selling them for less feels wasteful.

very much enjoying it!  :D
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on April 23, 2017, 12:06:23 AM
also agree with speed boost at 1% flux being not great, 5-10 would be better imho.

i also think faction npc should buy survey data, like cores, keep the tariff or just lower the prices by 30% across the board, but i don't enjoy hanging on to them until i get to a high stability market and selling them for less feels wasteful.
Agreed with both of these!
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Jonlissla on April 23, 2017, 12:18:32 AM
How good is Salvaging skill?  Is it required to get the best derelict ship finds (like those people found in best derelicts topic) and looting rare weapons (and fighter chips), or does it just increase the yield of insignificant commodities like supplies, metal, fuel, and other salables only useful for a quick buck?

I don't think it affects derelict ships much (haven't thought about it), but research/mining/habitat stations require atleast 50% or 75% and give some nice goodies when you salvage them. Research stations regularly give high-tier weapons like Storm Neelders and Plasma Cannons and several LPCs. Afterwards the station is destroyed so you can scavenge the debris field for even more stuff.

If it lets you loot better ships then it could be worth a few points.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Camael on April 23, 2017, 02:17:46 AM
First... did not read. Sorry. Too busy playing the release, 6 whooping pages already...

 - the new industry play-style is fun-tastic. Also a nice synergy with surveying equipment, just planting it on a few 4-D-mod buckets and I can survey pretty much everything for free. Huehue.
 - I think it should be more obvious which factors contribute to "salvage accidents", and what reduces them. So far I am a little puzzled. After maybe an hour of game-time the loss of a few heavy machines does not hurt so much anymore, but still...
 - You just had to do it... "nearly, almost,etc" always recoverable after combat. I see that there is a point, but this makes me reluctant to use expensively restored prize-ships with the AI again. What is almost? 95%? Hrmpf.
 - There is no skill that reduces deployment CR drain anymore. This is sorely missed. A huge fleet of Junks probably will run okay anyway, but prolonged engagements with actual, military-grade combat vessels (that the player will not have many of...) will be both expensive and hard to handle as CR runs out much more quickly than before and also the higher durability of ships in general puts a higher strain on the CR-stat due to longer engagements. I'd like to see this come back in some form... especially as actual military ships should be able to handle longer engagements with an experienced officer in command...
 - The industry tree has a bit of an issue... big fleet means little range. I'd like to see either a skill or a hullmod that reduces fuel usage in this tree. Suggestion: Skill that covers the economic aspect of salvaging/scavenging, improving sales value of scrap metal, lowers price of fuel and reduces fuel use per D-Mod (can mix it with ethanol if You don't mind damaging the engine over time, right?) and maybe lowers crew requirements somewhat (experienced scavengers etc....), also giving a fuel discount on sustained burn while incuring some penalties like higher visibility, lowered max burn or even longer change-over time. Hullmod should probably do something similar to the latter.
 - I understand that the new layout means skill trees have to be a bit more mixed up, but they are extremely jumbled and I guess new players would feel overwhelmed with having to read all that and decide...
 - the higher durability in general is something I noticed impacting the game a lot. The most fun player-ship-type (for me at least) is a glass-cannon, but this layout suffered with this balancing change. Part of the tactics is to take out dangerous enemies quickly, which can no longer be done as effectively. I know it was one of the intentions to make more play-styles viable, but this makes me sad, personally.
 - whoooo fighters!
 - whoooo fighters!... also the new carrier is one hell of an annoyance. It eats quite a bit of damage, while the fighters act as meat shield, effectively suiciding into big ordnance intended for the carrier all the time. Even more durable Hegemony fleets now... ugh...
 - whooo fighters... did I mention whoo fighters... I don't know how the bombers performed in the more recent past (fighters were kind of a no-go for so long...) but those piranhas are dangerous. The bomb-wave hits everything with enormous destructive power. Lost my flag-wolf three times to my own sneaky bombers approaching and unleashing armageddon from the same angle I used to snipe a cruisers' soft parts... I'm not even mad, just this is... whow. Going to try building a junk-bomber fleet now.
 - where can I find stations to atomize with my new bomber-swarm?
 - the game feels vastly different to me now. Good but needs getting used to. Wish there were more pirate spawns...
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: SpacePoliticianAndaZealot on April 23, 2017, 04:15:35 AM

I've only played for about 5 hours as a bounty hunter, but so far everything looks awesome! Amazing job!  :)
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Grievous69 on April 23, 2017, 04:18:07 AM
Alex already confirmed that near guaranteed chance of recovery in fact is 100%.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: TJJ on April 23, 2017, 04:29:24 AM
I suppose 'near'is to cover the eventuality that the ship gets destroyed in battle from overkill damage.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Ronald Klein on April 23, 2017, 06:15:24 AM

   I am loving everything except the complete nerfing into the ground of the combat skill line. What was previously something that granted access to a a unique playstyle (solo ship use) has been nerfed to the point of almost utter uselessness. The lack of any op boosting skills means it is impossible to build up any one ship to take on even a small fleet of enemy ships. I am aware that you're not supposed to be able to solo an entire gigantic system defense fleet but I feel like you should have to option to mostly solo the game with something like a fully kitted out Conquest which currently.

  Also I feel like removing any sort of bonus from aptitude points makes them entirely arbitrary as a barrier to prevent you from choosing individual perks from different trees.Just remove the extra 2- 3 points on startup and let me choose whatever I want rather than forcing me to waste several lvls worth of experience simply to allow me the possibility to choose something useful.

 I feel like the meta has changed too much from the previous optimal gameplay mode which was to solo fleets to something that forces fleet command. I think it's important that large fleet use is viable and encouraged but not at the expense of completely eliminating the playstyle. Combat skills and OP skills need to be reverted back to what they were before and aptitude points need to either give some sort of bonus or be eliminated entirely.

 This is an open world game where everything is structured around player choice and the freedom that comes with it so removing an entire playstyle is a step in the wrong direction in my opinion to the extent where it kind of ruins the game for me.

Also, gigantic scavenger fleets just instantly turning pirate right in front of you when you're sustained burning somewhere and then wiping out your entire fleet is complete ***.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on April 23, 2017, 06:16:45 AM
1% flux is too low even for flux-efficient guns like LMGs for destroyers.  It makes sense I cannot use flux-intensive burst weapons like Phase Lance or Plasma Cannon, but I should be able to fire a few flux-efficient pea-shooters to pick-off fleeing ships.  I get that it could be useful for beam and fighter ships, but I use neither as my flagship (partly because I have not played my game enough to have much of a choice).  Overall, current Helmsmanship 3 is not worth a skill point.  Just shield-flicker in a pinch or get more PD and save the point for something more useful.

@ Jonlissla: Thanks for the tip.  I found one such station, but having max Salvaging did not help me - I did not bring enough supplies or heavy machinery to do the job.  More high-grade weapons (including fighter LPCs) is nice, though I would probably take my luck with markets and killing fleets.  Now, if stations yield stupidly rare stuff like some hullmods I cannot get any other way, then it might be worth it (to the point of must-max like Surveying).  Seems like Surverying, Salvaging could be all-or-nothing.  If player wants to bother with it, go all the way and pay the skill point tax to do it right.

I suppose 'near'is to cover the eventuality that the ship gets destroyed in battle from overkill damage.
My thoughts exactly.  I have overkilled enemies before pre-0.8.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on April 23, 2017, 07:36:14 AM
  Also I feel like removing any sort of bonus from aptitude points makes them entirely arbitrary as a barrier to prevent you from choosing individual perks from different trees.Just remove the extra 2- 3 points on startup and let me choose whatever I want rather than forcing me to waste several lvls worth of experience simply to allow me the possibility to choose something useful.
Since we will probably get even more skills for outposts later, just remove the aptitudes (and/or raise the level cap to 50).  With so many skills, I already feel the squeeze from lack of points.  I barely have enough (or maybe not) for the bare minimum to support the playstyle I desire (hot rods that can snipe and stall, plus few QoL features).
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Deshara on April 23, 2017, 08:17:37 AM
There's too much redacted
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on April 23, 2017, 08:23:18 AM
So-called "Redacted" is getting old and overused.  At this point, Remnant is a "it was his sled" moment.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Axisoflint on April 23, 2017, 09:18:28 AM
Not posted before, but like many of us, played since before it was starsector. Just wanted to say that I'm really enjoying this update. The game has always been great fun, esp with mods, but this update just blew me away with the increase in size and content addition.

Like everything, a few rough patches, but well, there goes my playtime for the forseeable future :)
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Embolism on April 23, 2017, 09:22:55 AM
The idea of Aptitudes is to discourage dabbling in all skill groups and make you focus more in one or two. Do away with it and skill categories become meaningless. You should, IMO, feel the squeeze of points: if you don't then the system's not doing its job, and you may as well have no limits at all (which you could make an argument for, but you could also make an argument for modding yourself into godlike levels: which I'm not judging, because I do that myself frequently).

I do think Aptitudes should have at least a token bonus.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Deshara on April 23, 2017, 09:55:53 AM
If Alex really doesn't want aptitudes to give combat bonuses they could just unlock extra bonus content the way you do with surveying & salvaging.
ACTUALLY I just hit on something I think, use aptitudes to unlock in-game questlines & missions. Hegemony won't take somebody with freighting 800k units of food to their core world unless you have experience in operating a fleet, tritach won't task you with salvaging a whole [redacted] in tact unless you have the aptitude to conduct industrial work.
"What makes you qualified to bring back a hostile [redacted] in one piece?"
"I can fit 8 torpedoes on a single kite"
"NEXT!"
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Embolism on April 23, 2017, 10:05:19 AM
If Alex really doesn't want aptitudes to give combat bonuses they could just unlock extra bonus content the way you do with surveying & salvaging.
ACTUALLY I just hit on something I think, use aptitudes to unlock in-game questlines & missions. Hegemony won't take somebody with freighting 800k units of food to their core world unless you have experience in operating a fleet, tritach won't task you with salvaging a whole [redacted] in tact unless you have the aptitude to conduct industrial work.
"What makes you qualified to bring back a hostile [redacted] in one piece?"
"I can fit 8 torpedoes on a single kite"
"NEXT!"

Inb4 Speechcraft skill, governed by Leadership.

I'm only half-joking. If more missions (especially story ones like the Tutorial) make it in I can totally see negotiation (and maybe trading as either part of or something separate) skills being a thing.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Deshara on April 23, 2017, 10:30:59 AM
If Alex really doesn't want aptitudes to give combat bonuses they could just unlock extra bonus content the way you do with surveying & salvaging.
ACTUALLY I just hit on something I think, use aptitudes to unlock in-game questlines & missions. Hegemony won't take somebody with freighting 800k units of food to their core world unless you have experience in operating a fleet, tritach won't task you with salvaging a whole [redacted] in tact unless you have the aptitude to conduct industrial work.
"What makes you qualified to bring back a hostile [redacted] in one piece?"
"I can fit 8 torpedoes on a single kite"
"NEXT!"

Inb4 Speechcraft skill, governed by Leadership.

I'm only half-joking. If more missions (especially story ones like the Tutorial) make it in I can totally see negotiation (and maybe trading as either part of or something separate) skills being a thing.

I'm not even talking adding skills or anything, or even adding anything to the aptitudes, just making people not bother offering me these surveying contracts when my aptitude for industry is 0
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Ronald Klein on April 23, 2017, 10:35:13 AM

 Also the Mora is absolutely ridiculous. It nearly destroyed a fleet of mine composed of a Medusa, Enforcer, Wolf,Lasher and my Hyperion by itself with just Talons for fighters. Which by the way could keep up with my teleporting Hyperion...
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: TaLaR on April 23, 2017, 10:41:46 AM

 Also the Mora is absolutely ridiculous. It nearly destroyed a fleet of mine composed of a Medusa, Enforcer, Wolf,Lasher and my Hyperion by itself with just Talons for fighters. Which by the way could keep up with my teleporting Hyperion...

It's not just Mora, Talons are quite ridiculous too. They can easily kill high tech stuff (since shield usually doesn't cover 360 and they just swarm around target).
You need fighters of your own or extreme PD to counter.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Deshara on April 23, 2017, 10:46:26 AM
I wonder if a dedicated tactical laser pd boat is gonna be in order
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: TaLaR on April 23, 2017, 10:52:54 AM
I wonder if a dedicated tactical laser pd boat is gonna be in order

I haven't yet found PDAI modspec in 0.8 to make tac laser pd, despite getting several millions of credits and having an Onslaught.
And as far as countering fighters, one tac laser Wolf is not enough to counter Mora's 3 wings.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Deshara on April 23, 2017, 10:56:32 AM
I wonder if a dedicated tactical laser pd boat is gonna be in order

I haven't yet found PDAI modspec in 0.8 to make tac laser pd, despite getting several millions of credits and having an Onslaught.
And as far as countering fighters, one tac laser Wolf is not enough to counter Mora's 3 wings.

Well yeah, if you're looking to counter a cruiser carrier you'd need 3 frigates worth of pd, or 2 TAC wolves (with one burst lazer each) to combat them while your fleet hits the Mora. We just need to bug Alex to make pd fire over friendly ships since fighters are so much more powerful now
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on April 23, 2017, 11:34:15 AM
I wonder if a dedicated tactical laser pd boat is gonna be in order

I haven't yet found PDAI modspec in 0.8 to make tac laser pd, despite getting several millions of credits and having an Onslaught.
And as far as countering fighters, one tac laser Wolf is not enough to counter Mora's 3 wings.
Modspecs in general are rare as all hell, except for a group that just about all the stations have. Oh and the drop chance for them? ONE ****ing percent! All the others are 25%+...
And it doesn't help that TT LOST two markets while we got yet another low tech using faction that has a dozen markets...
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Deshara on April 23, 2017, 11:37:24 AM
I wonder if a dedicated tactical laser pd boat is gonna be in order

I haven't yet found PDAI modspec in 0.8 to make tac laser pd, despite getting several millions of credits and having an Onslaught.
And as far as countering fighters, one tac laser Wolf is not enough to counter Mora's 3 wings.
Modspecs in general are rare as all hell, except for a group that just about all the stations have. Oh and the drop chance for them? ONE ****ing percent! All the others are 25%+...
And it doesn't help that TT LOST two markets while we got yet another low tech using faction that has a dozen markets...

Well to be fair TT also got
Spoiler
the entirety of the procgen sector
[close]
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on April 23, 2017, 12:07:07 PM
I wonder if a dedicated tactical laser pd boat is gonna be in order

I haven't yet found PDAI modspec in 0.8 to make tac laser pd, despite getting several millions of credits and having an Onslaught.
And as far as countering fighters, one tac laser Wolf is not enough to counter Mora's 3 wings.
Modspecs in general are rare as all hell, except for a group that just about all the stations have. Oh and the drop chance for them? ONE ****ing percent! All the others are 25%+...
And it doesn't help that TT LOST two markets while we got yet another low tech using faction that has a dozen markets...

Well to be fair TT also got
Spoiler
the entirety of the procgen sector
[close]
LOLWat? The remnants have like 2% of the total sector in my game. They have NINE damn systems and their best ships, the battlestations, don't even respawn! And many times it is always like 4 different ships in their fleets. They get boring decently quick unless they have a station
Also, you can not capture Remnant ships.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: FooF on April 23, 2017, 12:11:18 PM
Just realized I'm approaching Level 40 and about 10 hours in and don't have Integrated Targeting Unit or Front Shield Generator: two of my staple hull mods from .7.  :o

Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Deshara on April 23, 2017, 12:15:18 PM
I wonder if a dedicated tactical laser pd boat is gonna be in order

I haven't yet found PDAI modspec in 0.8 to make tac laser pd, despite getting several millions of credits and having an Onslaught.
And as far as countering fighters, one tac laser Wolf is not enough to counter Mora's 3 wings.
Modspecs in general are rare as all hell, except for a group that just about all the stations have. Oh and the drop chance for them? ONE ****ing percent! All the others are 25%+...
And it doesn't help that TT LOST two markets while we got yet another low tech using faction that has a dozen markets...

Well to be fair TT also got
Spoiler
the entirety of the procgen sector
[close]
LOLWat? The remnants have like 2% of the total sector in my game. They have NINE damn systems and their best ships, the battlestations, don't even respawn! And many times it is always like 4 different ships in their fleets. They get boring decently quick unless they have a station
Also, you can not capture Remnant ships.

Do they? I've found them at every probe in every system I've hit so far
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on April 23, 2017, 01:32:36 PM
Do they? I've found them at every probe in every system I've hit so far
Probes and the Remnant are not the same...
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Thaago on April 23, 2017, 02:29:00 PM
...

Do they? I've found them at every probe in every system I've hit so far

Heh, I wish I had your luck! I've found a grand total of 2 yellow beacons and have never seen a Remnant ship outside of its system. Currently sitting on ~2 million credits, have cleared probably half the sector, and am flying around in a Legion (2x Gauss + 5x Sabot pods + Broadsword + 3x Piranha, Vulcans in the smalls) + many destroyers and frigates fleet.

Have a bunch of good hullmods - Hard Shields (very affordable) and Flux Resistant Conduits are my goto for my midline destroyers/cruisers. Haven't found ITU yet.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dri on April 23, 2017, 02:40:28 PM
Some things I've noticed:

1) Colossus really needs more OP. The Phaeton, a destroyer-sized tanker, has a fair bit more than it despite the Colossus being a cruiser! They both have 4 small ballistic slots too so it's not like the Phaeton needs more OP for having more weapons...

2) The 25% fuel reduction perk doesn't update the relevant ship info tooltip.

3) The Hammer Barrage only has 20 ammo? The Cyclone also has 20 ammo! HB only gets 5 volleys @ 6000 dmg potential VS. Cyclone's 10 volleys @ 8000 damage potential. Yes the Cyclone is 6 OP more expensive but I think the HB could at least come with 2 or so more volleys (so 28 ammo or something).

4) Could anyone please explain it like I'm 5 and tell me why you'd take Carrier Command over Fighter Doctrine? Is Fighter Doctrine the obvious first choice and you'd only take Carrier Command if you intend to pilot a carrier...? Do they stack for you if you're piloting a carrier or what?

5) If an item is forbidden to trade at the market screen, you can't pick it up to rearrange it in your inventory. Very minor issue obviously but it's annoying to those who are inventory neat freaks...like me! :D
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Thaago on April 23, 2017, 02:47:04 PM
...

4) Could anyone please explain it like I'm 5 and tell me why you'd take Carrier Command over Fighter Doctrine? Is Fighter Doctrine the obvious first choice and you'd only take Carrier Command if you intend to pilot a carrier...? Do they stack for you if you're piloting a carrier or what?
...

Yeah, pretty much. I felt like I needed both and the expanded crew decks hullmod before my flagship carrier could really operate with heavy resistance. I think they stack, but thats just from feeling.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Burlap on April 23, 2017, 02:58:40 PM
I don't really have any constructive criticism, just wanted to stop by and post that this update is awesome. Great work guys, this is really fun for me (I love exploring  ;D). Looking forward to being able to build stuff out here one day!
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Nanao-kun on April 23, 2017, 05:13:19 PM
I found a planet named Tartiflette. Coincidence? I wonder how long it's been in the planet name list.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: xenoargh on April 23, 2017, 09:27:42 PM
Tested out the new build with my kiddo this weekend.

1.  The Tutorial is great and I wish there were a lot more things like that... but:

A. The "set a course to the debris" wasn't super-clear, because it was well-off the screen.  Might want to reconsider how that is set up.
B.  The Save F5 thing isn't clear.
C.  It's totally unclear what magical thing happened to the Pirate base; wouldn't it have been better to have the player participate in a Station battle with help from the Hegemony, if they chose to clean up the Pirate elements?

2.  Exploration is both good and bad.  It's good, in the sense that there's finally a real need for Fuel.  It's bad in that risk / reward feels a bit off.  To explore the farthest areas for exploration bounties, you basically need lots of Drams and lots of Fuel; this means you're not a combat fleet.  But the rewards for it don't feel quite big enough to make it worthwhile; in the same amount of time spent, we can kill a lot of Bounties instead.

3.  Sustained Burn is great, but the corrections to Burn for the ships never got done and the AI rarely appears to use it, so there are weird things in fleet speeds and all that now.

4.  It's been more than a bit frustrating to have giant piles of Credits sitting around and nothing to spend them on that's worth buying, again.  This has been a problem for ages; having to wait for a RNG to grant me the right to spend a teeny amount of my vast fortune to buy Light Needlers or Railguns is pretty lame and just adds time to grinding, not fun.

5.  I really want the Exploration aspects of play to make the Sector behave in a more dynamic way.  It's cool to survey stuff, but when I find a great planet, I expect something interesting to happen, like a new Market.

6.  The fighter changes are great overall, but I agree with the posters who have noted that they still are too slow to actually run things down, and they tend to stay too close to their carriers when they should be chasing their carriers' targets (if given one) which makes long engagements a drag.

7.  Weapon balance and ship balance is still a major problem, in terms of fun-factor. 

A lot of it's the absurd rarity of a bunch of the weapons and ships, which isn't actually fun, because I don't have anything worth buying to improve my fleet and I've been cruising around markets for well over a game-month now.  This remains a core issue, along with the huge slant towards "everybody has junk ships" model (which is fine, I don't mind paying a huge premium to restore rare ships, but there aren't any rare ships to be found in the first place). 

Right now it feels like Pokemon Completionism, merely trying to equip Hammerheads with their correct weapons so that they're not complete fodder, for example.

The buyable Hull Modspec things are great, but I'd really prefer they were more commonly found, but much more expensive, so that buying one felt like a major purchase decision, rather than "wow, I finally found this important thing I used to level for, after a lengthy, boring search".  Of course that means they'd better be worth the investment, but that's another story.

If you want to keep rarity as a thing, then let players have a way to automatically search for a location that sells <insert thing> rather than all this boring traveling around.

8.  Weapon balance, such as it is, got badly damaged by the nerfs on range and the relative difficulty in obtaining ITU, for Frigates and Destroyers and the relative weakness of Captains.  While some of this was a relatively-welcome change, in the sense that it's harder to assemble a crew that facerolls everything they meet through pure stat superiority... when you finally get the OP guns again, it's even worse than before, frankly, because the AI fleets have no answers.

Vulcans in particular and a few others really got hosed by the changes, going back to their pre-0.6 uselessness as PD.  Heavy Machineguns remain terrible, Flak / Dual Flak is an incoherent mess, etc., etc. 

Until this stuff gets fixed, I feel like I'm playing a game where the real game is just minmaxing the good guns, which has now been made even less fun by having to hunt down rares.  I'd much rather see the weapons all get a good solid balance pass; there shouldn't be junk guns like the Light Mortar (and the new Heavy isn't great, either), etc. in a game like this; (D) variants are nerf-enough.  I'm going to go back to my spreadsheet and see if we can all arrive at some kind of consensus here.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dri on April 23, 2017, 09:31:06 PM
I found a planet named Tartiflette. Coincidence? I wonder how long it's been in the planet name list.

I wonder if that's the easter egg Alex mentioned awhile back. Tart is certainly active on the forums here and makes mods.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: CrashToDesktop on April 23, 2017, 09:36:18 PM
5.  I really want the Exploration aspects of play to make the Sector behave in a more dynamic way.  It's cool to survey stuff, but when I find a great planet, I expect something interesting to happen, like a new Market.

6.  The fighter changes are great overall, but I agree with the posters who have noted that they still are too slow to actually run things down, and they tend to stay too close to their carriers when they should be chasing their carriers' targets (if given one) which makes long engagements a drag.

This is the *very* first iteration of exploration.  Don't expect too much from it - it's already a massive change over what Starsector was last year.  And I'm sure Alex has plans for what good planets might turn into.

Fighters mercilessly chase down whatever I order them to kill.  I've chased down those damnable Wolf-class frigates with their phase skimmers easily enough with fighters this patch.  Do remember that anything with a Flight Deck has fighter options now - "Regroup" or "Engage", a toggle bound to V by default.  While "Engaged" your fighters either chase down the target you have selected or escort a ship if it's friendly.  Also builds up a small amount of flux, akin to raising shields, so you don't get your speed buff.  With "Regroup" your fighters stay near the carrier and you build no flux - useful for, well, regrouping your fighters to send out in waves or if you need to catch up to the battle.  Fighters have a range of 5000 su if I remember from a blog post, so that's more than enough range to keep up with things.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: xenoargh on April 23, 2017, 09:38:45 PM
Duly noted;  I haven't yet pushed my Drover's Captain up the skill trees to get Fighter speeds up yet.  I can see your point there.  Kind of bad that it takes that bonus to happen, though.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Thaago on April 23, 2017, 09:40:29 PM
As a note of my own: The only reason I knew about engage/withdraw was by having read the blog post months ago. And I had to look in the settings to figure out what key it was. That should probably get included in the tutorial (it does give a condor, after all).
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: CrashToDesktop on April 23, 2017, 09:43:11 PM
Duly noted;  I haven't yet pushed my Drover's Captain up the skill trees to get Fighter speeds up yet.  I can see your point there.  Kind of bad that it takes that bonus to happen, though.

Err, bonuses?  There's no bonuses involved with "Engage" or "Regroup" orders - like I said, any ship with a flight deck has that now.  Next time you get a chance to play, go into missions or find a carrier in your fleet and start the simulation.  Press "V" and your fighters will switch to "Regroup", visible just above the fighter icons in the UI.  Send out a Buffalo Mk.II as a sacrifice and watch it close in.  Your fighters won't do anything - then press "V" again they'll switch to "Engage", at which point they'll start trying to pull apart whatever target you have selected.  It's just part of carrier gameplay now, nothing special required.

As a note of my own: The only reason I knew about engage/withdraw was by having read the blog post months ago. And I had to look in the settings to figure out what key it was. That should probably get included in the tutorial (it does give a condor, after all).
Probably as part of the Combat Tutorial - that's a better-fitting place.  The campaign tutorial is more for campaign-stuff, like teaching you how to Salvage, use fleet abilities, pick up derelict ships, trade and interact with ports etc.  All the tutorials were revamped this update, so adding a carrier bit there wouldn't be out of place.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: xenoargh on April 23, 2017, 09:46:51 PM
Hmm.  That's a bit counter-intuitive; it goes against the mainly-automated grain of the main gameplay.  The main reason this comes up is that when I want fighters to engage something halfway across the map, it's frequently not happening, or they're so slow they don't get there before it's moot.  And Frigates routinely out-run Fighters in Pursuits, which just feels really wrong.

Ah well.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Thaago on April 23, 2017, 09:48:40 PM
There aren't any frigates that can outrun the Interceptors. They do have a maximum range though - 4000 units I think?
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: CrashToDesktop on April 23, 2017, 09:55:16 PM
Hmm.  That's a bit counter-intuitive; it goes against the mainly-automated grain of the main gameplay.  The main reason this comes up is that when I want fighters to engage something halfway across the map, it's frequently not happening, or they're so slow they don't get there before it's moot.  And Frigates routinely out-run Fighters in Pursuits, which just feels really wrong.

Ah well.
It's like ordering your weapons to Hold Fire - it's not really going against anything.  Also, fighters (not bombers) can and will outrun everything in the game and catch up.  More times than not I've seen a Talon wing catch up to a Wolf on the retreat with it's Phase Skimmer and kill it.  The range limitation doesn't come into effect too often, just keep your carriers close to the front - no reason not to anyway, you get more bang for your buck if they're closer because faster time to get to the frontlines and back.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: RickyRio on April 24, 2017, 12:24:47 AM
brief thoughts on the new skill tree:
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 24, 2017, 01:04:39 AM
2.  Exploration is both good and bad.  It's good, in the sense that there's finally a real need for Fuel.  It's bad in that risk / reward feels a bit off.  To explore the farthest areas for exploration bounties, you basically need lots of Drams and lots of Fuel; this means you're not a combat fleet.  But the rewards for it don't feel quite big enough to make it worthwhile; in the same amount of time spent, we can kill a lot of Bounties instead.

I've found 100% the opposite. I'm rolling in cash from exploration, currently sitting on 5mil+ trying to get my rep high enough with TT so I can buy their capital ships. AI cores and level 4 and 5 survey data easily net me 500k on every single expedition. A couple tankers and fuel are a small price to pay (definitely get bigger tankers and freighters though so they don't eat up all your fleet slots). Also REDACTED drop pretty nice loot and research stations are the best way to get high level tech. In my opinion, the game is shifting away from combat. The survey and salvage skills are just as valuable to me now because they can get me more money with less risk.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: mav on April 24, 2017, 03:51:44 AM
brief thoughts on the new skill tree:
  • 42 skill points does not feel like enough
  • The "unlock (tree) level 1,2,3" points feel terrible
  • We need a way to respec points (Possible abuses with ship OP)
  • Officer skills need to be more deterministic

I completely agree with RickyRio and would put an emphasis on the terrible feeling of skill tree unlocks. Also hiding the ability to survey planets with a specific hazard rating behind skill points doesn't feel right.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: FooF on April 24, 2017, 06:26:26 AM
Also hiding the ability to survey planets with a specific hazard rating behind skill points doesn't feel right.

Easiest fix for this, I believe, would change how you improve your Salvage/Survey rating. I believe you should get Salvage XP or Survey XP whenever you do those respective actions. The appropriate industry skills would give a multiplier to this number. Without skills, it's a grind but still possible. With skills, you'll be able to access the high-level planets and salvage much, much sooner. Something like 2x, 5x, and 10x XP. Hull mods would still be locked behind skills.

As for the Aptitude points, here's my beef: out of 42 total points, potentially 12 (29%) are doing nothing to directly improve you. I could see a few possible solutions to this:
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on April 24, 2017, 06:32:41 AM
I agree with RickyRio, except possibly skill respec.

I like to see aptitudes abolished.  More points for skills without any need to mess with XP charts or stuff.  We will need the points when outposts and their inevitable skills come.  Scratch that!  We need the points now, and even more later when more skills appear.

I distrust synergies.  They encourage one-trick ponies as seen in Diablo II.  Most characters had to over-specialize to be good at one thing instead of being bad at everything.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Hypilein on April 24, 2017, 07:00:01 AM
Just managed to get to lvl 40 first time. I'm loving the new patch. I'm especially impressed with the resource balance. Supplies and Fuel seem to be just right. However, there are a few minor things that I noticed could be improved.

1. If I find an old survey station/mining base/whatever early on and I don't have the necessary skills there is no way in the game, to note down where it was. I found two motherships early and i can't find them again. It would be nice to just add a "mark in log book" option to the contextual menus. It would tell you which system and what it is.

2. Similar to 1, if you get information about the whereabouts of something on a probe or surveyship (missed quite a few at the start, but I guess I'm responsible for reading the stuff) the information disappears after a while, so unless you act soon it will be lost. I know a year seems like long enough, but for some things I'd like to mark the information so it is saved for later.

3. Daggers and Wasps seem very expensive. For wasps, see the Talon Balance thread where all those interceptors get compared.

4. I think I could have known but I forgot that max lvl is 40. It's kind of annoying when you unlock a new tier too late and can't get its perks. Maybe a small indicator telling you that Officers are xlvl/20 and you are xlvl/40 would help.

5. Most of the fighter talents in leadership only help you when you are flying a carrier. Carriers just happen to be some of the most safe ships for the AI, so spending 12 or so points on those talents seems a bit of a waste. Maybe giving some fleetwide bonuses to fighters in leadership would be nice.

6. Love the new sensor interactions, especially when you spec for it in technology.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Gothars on April 24, 2017, 07:15:48 AM
I personally don't mind spending skill points on aptitudes, but I can see why people would dislike it.

Maybe it would feel better if it would unlock something only tangentially related to the skills it governs, for example new dialog options. Say someone with high leadership could convince patrol captains that it's not worth inspecting the fleet. Or someone with high technology could try to hack AIs while communication, someone with combat could threaten people etc.

Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on April 24, 2017, 07:26:19 AM
I agree with RickyRio, except possibly skill respec.
To be more precise, if skills could be respec'ed, what I (and I suspect many others) would do is max out Surveying and Salvaging, strip mine all the paychecks (e.g., datapads) from the dungeon, then respec those skills away and get the skills I really want.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: mav on April 24, 2017, 08:15:32 AM
Another way to "fix" aptitude points could be an entirely different kind of progression.

The following options are not meant to all be done together, but could be alternatives:

Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Deshara on April 24, 2017, 08:22:30 AM
Maybe just remove aptitudes from easy mode for people they bother?
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: CrashToDesktop on April 24, 2017, 09:16:17 AM
To be more precise, if skills could be respec'ed, what I (and I suspect many others) would do is max out Surveying and Salvaging, strip mine all the paychecks (e.g., datapads) from the dungeon, then respec those skills away and get the skills I really want.
And this is why we don't balance for or around munchkins and min-maxers.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: FooF on April 24, 2017, 09:18:24 AM
I don't want to get rid of the aptitude system. I think it's a good way to keep the player in-check early and force meaningful decisions. Honestly, I think I'm against the principle of the spending 6-12 points for "no gain" rather than for a gameplay reason. I just want more points to spend!

If we were going to add marginal/reasonable Aptitude bonuses (focus on "marginal") what would you even want? I agree with Gothars that a tangential bonus would be alright, as well.

Combat: +2% CR per level (player ship only)
Leadership: +5% Officer XP per level (fleet)
Tech: +10% Sensor range per level (fleet)
Industry: +3% Salvage per level  

Again, nothing substantial but minor boosts that add up to about a level 1 or 2 skill.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on April 24, 2017, 09:22:12 AM
Quote
And this is why we don't balance for or around munchkins and min-maxers.
In that particular case, it is relatively obvious.  Players do not need to be hardcore munchkins to exploit that.  I guess that is why (from a gaming standpoint) Alex has not bothered with skill respec.  Milk early-game skills (Surveying) then dump them after they outlive their usefulness for more useful endgame skills (anything to do with combat) via respec.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: CrashToDesktop on April 24, 2017, 09:46:32 AM
In that particular case, it is relatively obvious.  Players do not need to be hardcore munchkins to exploit that.  I guess that is why (from a gaming standpoint) Alex has not bothered with skill respec.  Milk early-game skills (Surveying) then dump them after they outlive their usefulness for more useful endgame skills (anything to do with combat) via respec.
You just don't balance around them, period.  If you do, you end up making stuff so bland and obvious that there's no point in doing anything but what the min-maxers do.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Thaago on April 24, 2017, 09:49:20 AM
In that particular case, it is relatively obvious.  Players do not need to be hardcore munchkins to exploit that.  I guess that is why (from a gaming standpoint) Alex has not bothered with skill respec.  Milk early-game skills (Surveying) then dump them after they outlive their usefulness for more useful endgame skills (anything to do with combat) via respec.
You just don't balance around them, period.  If you do, you end up making stuff so bland and obvious that there's no point in doing anything but what the min-maxers do.

I don't agree with this - min-maxers tend to find what is bland/tedious/unfun and do it, as long as it is effective. I would argue that one of the goals of game design is to eliminate anything that is bland/tedious/unfun but effective. So I say balance hard around min-maxers by seeing what they do and tweaking such that other players are not lured down the same path.

In this case, Megas pointed out the fundamental tradeoff between early game profit and late game power, and how if respeccing were allowed that game choice would no longer be there. Its not really fair of you to just dismiss what he is saying when its a really important design consideration.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 24, 2017, 10:10:48 AM
I will say that I reached lvl 40 very quickly and it kinda feels bad to not have any progression after that. A skill respec would keep the late game interesting. Maybe you continue to level up and can respec one skill for every level after lvl 40. Alternatively you could just  make it take longer to level up, but then that changes the balance of when you can get certain skills.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: SafariJohn on April 24, 2017, 10:11:06 AM
@The Soldier

V is for vent, Z is for fighter control
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on April 24, 2017, 10:24:19 AM
There are people who will gladly sacrifice enhanced endgame power for powerful or easy early game start.  In some games, it makes sense.  In permadeath game, you may not live until endgame.  In PnP RPGs, the campaign may end before endgame levels.

With respec, people can have it all.  Exploit Surveying and Salvaging to get filthy rich fast, then respec them away for more useful skills after the non-renewable resources in the dungeon are sucked dry.  It is that saying "You can have your cake and eat it too."
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: SCC on April 24, 2017, 10:26:36 AM
If industry skills allowed for more options regarding outposts (when they get added) they would translate into endgame power - just not combat, but an economic one.
Pls Alex do strategy
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Alex on April 24, 2017, 10:28:38 AM
If industry skills allowed for more options regarding outposts (when they get added) they would translate into endgame power - just not combat, but an economic one.

That's ultimately the idea, yes. I think I've said it in another thread, but the way surveying works is total placeholder, and I'm very much aware of the design issues it currently has (and which you all have picked up on). Just seemed the better option to have it in the game for the time being than remove it from the release entirely until it does do something more meaningful for you later on.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: SCC on April 24, 2017, 10:33:28 AM
Will we get to mass-produce metal domain boxes when with 3 industry and tech aptitudes?
Also, currently surveying isn't that bad, it's just the only placeholder that would work is "it gives money" and since this has to pay off... It does, heftily. I'm looking forward so much to them making planets valuable, not scans.
Hmm... Have you thought about aptitude-specific endgame paths? In general, I mean.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Alex on April 24, 2017, 10:37:05 AM
Will we get to mass-produce metal domain boxes when with 3 industry and tech aptitudes?
Also, currently surveying isn't that bad, it's just the only placeholder that would work is "it gives money" and since this has to pay off... It does, heftily. I'm looking forward so much to them making planets valuable, not scans.
Hmm... Have you thought about aptitude-specific endgame paths? In general, I mean.

Ahh, I don't really want to get into details - I've thought about this stuff, yeah (and quite a bit) but when theory meets implementation, things change, so I'd rather not delve into it. I think you can already pretty clearly see some directions that the design is taking, and extrapolate from that.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Hiruma Kai on April 24, 2017, 06:20:28 PM
I've been playing only since 0.7.2, but want to say I've been having a great time with the game.  The 0.8 update is even better, which is why I thought I'd add to the feedback.

1) I liked the new campaign tutorial a lot, it flowed naturally through the various campaign concepts and abilities.  It also made me appreciate the "Go Dark" ability more, as I had never used it to try to split two enemy fleets.  I've since used it several times when bounty fleets spawn around the same planet.  So I definitely learned something from the tutorial.

2) After making several critical mistakes with that first iron man game in 0.8 trying to go the combat fleet route (something along the lines of accidentally wasting all my built up credits and restarting a wayfarer and kite), I decided to restart (I was only level 9) and see what you get without the tutorial.  The 32,000 starting credits is great.

3) On my second attempt, I decided to see if I could simply go the neutral bounty hunting route (no commission, survive on named bounties). I simply went to Jangala and bought an Enforcer off the black market and outfit it cheaply with starting cash.  I proceeded to go pirate hunting in system and locally in hyperspace, and after destroying 3 packs of 3 ships I had enough salvage plus cash to fully load up my fuel tanks and have a decent number of supplies.  At that point I simply checked the bounties available within range (awesome map feature!) and was off with my small 3 ship fleet. 

The bounty of 40,000 plus the dropped salvage was more than enough to make a tidy profit after getting back to civilization.  At that point I just kept upgrading, blowing up bigger fleets, losing a ship here or there (usually piloted by myself - I lost two Eagles to two different Legions burn driving in on me).  However, the new salvage system and skills (Fleet logistics, looking at you) meant even rare ships were only a small pile of cash away from restoration.  I happily gave the AI rare ships.  Oddly enough, I cared more about rare weapons than I did ships (never can have enough light needlers or railguns).

Lastly, having the pirate fleets out away from civilization meant that they never got blown up by local patrols.  They were always easy to find and the distance/time display meant I never went after a fleet I couldn't reach in time.  Also the coming back to civilization and getting all the news updates at once (and a pile of cash) was a cool feeling.

4) I really like the skill rework.  I personally am fine with the unlock skills (Combat, Leadership, Technology, Industry) not providing anything other than maximum investment.  The maximum investment is the benefit - and it makes it a real decision of what skills to prioritize, and to what level you really need them.  In this run that I took to level 40, I didn't put any points in Industry, but I did put 3 points each into the others, wanting tier 3 skills in those trees.  I thought I'd miss the extra 30% OP, but a lot of the skills make it less necessary.  Electronics Warfare 3 + Gunnery Implants 3 officers is like a 35% range advantage on all ships (who needs Integrated Targeting Unit - which I didn't find until well after level 40 anyways), Coordinated Maneuvers is like half an Augmented Engine, and sustained burn and Navigation 3 means you literally don't care what your ships burn speed is, you are hitting the cap of 20.

5) I had thought I would miss the fact that most hull mods (especially the ones I had considered essential in 0.7.2) not being guaranteed.  However, I didn't really notice not having things like Integrated Targeting Unit or Augmented Engines in actual play.   I've also got some builds I didn't expect to be viable being surprisingly good.  I've got an SO Aurora which with Coordinated Manuvers (7 cruiser deployment hits 21% immediately) runs at 180 speed, and bursts up to 305 half the time - it can briefly outrun talons, and is faster than broadswords over the long haul.  The fact that Electronic Warfare is an enemy penalty means it works just fine with Safety Overrides.

6)  The restore ship feature at dock plus the fact that you can salvage a huge selection of ships after battle (or in the debris field afterwards) even without any Industry skills makes a good fleet very doable without pledging to any faction.  Back in 0.7.2 I'd have to pledge to a faction or get lucky on black markets for some ships, but now I'm rolling in capitals in storage (3 Legions, 2 Onslaughts, 2 Astrals) and I've got several rare ships (2 Scarabs, a Hyperion, an Apogee).  I never got spare fleets like that in vanilla 0.7.2.  I also felt like I earned them since I had to be able to defeat them first, rather than buying them outright.

7) Fighters and carriers are awesome now.  I really have to consider what my anti-fighter plan is with any fleet composition, and I was running with roughly 50% carriers in any fleet I deployed.  15 fighter wings (5 Broadswords, 5 Longbows, 5 Daggers) is a ton of firepower for 80 supply.  Recovery Shuttles + Fight Doctrine + Carrier Command = no crew losses.

On a min-max side note, a bit late into the play through I realized I should have been leveling only carrier officers first (I was aiming for a total of 5 out of 10), and focusing on getting all 3 fighter skills on each one.  I had been trying to level up equal numbers of both, but then a carrier pilot would get to level ~18 and not have all 3 fighter skills and then I'd ditch them start a new officer over.  I did this like 5 times before getting my final set.  Because there are fewer fighter skills, its easier to try to turn all officers into carrier officers, figure out which ones actually get all 3 skills, keep those, and then restart the non-carrier pilots who are a lot less picky, because most of the officer skills are good on some type of ship or the other.  Given the plethora of ships available, I can almost always tailor a ship to the officer (i.e. you have Evasive Action + Impact Mitigation? Have a Dominator with Heavy Armor!).

8) Biggest issue I've found is I have to base out of Sindaria really late game simply because it starts with over 100,000 fuel.  My current combat fleet configuration eats about 90 (20 burn level, 120 base -30 for -25% skill) fuel per day.  I could easily be running a fleet that burns 2 or 3 times that based on the profits I can make bounty hunting (250k to 330k per fleet, hitting 2-4 fleets per outing, for a total of 500k to 1 million per trip), but I'm not sure the fuel exists to support that non-stop anywhere but Sindaria.  For reference, my current fleet is 4 Medusa, 1 Aurora, 5 Herons, 1 Eagle, 3 Dominators, 1 Onslaught, 1 Dram.  With the -25% fuel skill, that setup covers the typical bounty spawn area with enough range to get there and back even if I salvaged zero fuel.

Thanks to Alex for a really fun game.  I'm also looking forward to what the modders do with 0.8.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Alex on April 24, 2017, 06:32:11 PM
Thank you for your feedback! (& welcome to the forum, etc etc)

Re: officers, that's something I really want to look at 0.8.1a; having to give up on a desired "carrier' officer by the time they're level 18 is a bit rough.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: NinjaPirate on April 24, 2017, 07:36:38 PM
Thank you for your feedback! (& welcome to the forum, etc etc)

Re: officers, that's something I really want to look at 0.8.1a; having to give up on a desired "carrier' officer by the time they're level 18 is a bit rough.

I'm really enjoying the new release.  I'm starting a let's play series on Star Sector.  I will have some feedback shortly.  I've got to say this game has come a long way since I started playing way back in the 0.7 days, heck I have been playing this game on and off for years.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on April 24, 2017, 07:44:19 PM
I just loitered around Valhalla like a vulture for the first time, and scooped up a Tempest drifting around, after Hegemony and Tri-Tachyon fought each other.  No Hyperion, but Tempest will do.  It has four (D) mods, but I cannot afford to restore it right now.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Kwbr on April 24, 2017, 09:00:04 PM
been loving 0.8 so far, its honestly refreshing after 0.7.2. i haven't read through the whole thread so apologies if im repeating anyone with my thoughts :P
Spoiler
i think my main criticism so far is that scavenging feels almost too powerful? it may just be how i'm playing but after only a few hours i generally have over a million credits and a decently sized fleet capable of going anywhere without having to pay any regards to how far away it is from inhabited space, etc. it seems to just be a sort of snowball effect where you start out with the lower paying scan/survey missions that're closer to home, do a few of those and you'll have enough money to outfit yourself for exponentially longer trips, not to mention with a little luck you'll likely end up salvaging a tanker or two along the way. the salvaging mechanics are probably my favorite part of the game atm, its addictive trying to find that next rare ship you can't even find in the shipyards but it feels really trivial to be successful through it.

i have mixed feelings on the new skill systems, the completionist side of me despises the fact that i can't get all skills but thats not something i'm actually opposed to, it adds a lot more strategy to that aspect of the game. the one thing i think i've seen a number of people agree on is that the aptitudes feel a bit like a sort of empty sink for skill points, especially given the new level cap. i do like that the new skill tree doesnt give you quite as much of a glaring advantage over the AI fleets, though you still kind of have that in other areas.

speaking of which, sustained burn and transverse jump are insanely powerful. the AI not having access to sustained burn makes you better than every other fleet in the game right out of the gate, given some good piloting you can evade basically any encounter you want, even without navigation 3. and on the opposite side of the coin you can chase down any fleet so long as they dont get too creative with maneuvering, which the AI isn't particularly known for. sustained burn also makes the sector generally feel... small, especially if you get nav 3. even with horrendously low burn speed ships it really doesn't matter, personally i've spent like 90% of my time in sustained burn just because its that good.
not to mention transverse jump is just a straight up get-out-of-jail-free card in-system with zero drawbacks or counters, theres absolutely nothing a fleet pursuing you can do if you have it, and it honestly just feels straight up broken. I really like the concept of it but i think it definitely needs some sort of counter the AI can use otherwise its just one of those broken skills you'll always get reminiscent of 0.7.2

regarding other skills, the entire combat skill tree feels extremely all or nothing as there's so many other fleet building skills that're almost necessary to streamline your progress that you can't afford to put anything into the combat tree. it's a bit forgivable since your officers can just get them and be effective but then it feels like a waste for you to pilot your best ships since you don't have any of the bonuses your officers might have, and it seems a bit unnecessarily punishing. doing some quick estimation on my current save i'd be able to get about 3 combat skills maxed with the skill points i have left, which at this point would be a waste with how much i've invested elsewhere out of necessity.

the extremely limited number of officers you can have doesn't feel great but honestly thats probably just left over from playing 0.7.2 with so many mods, i haven't had much experience with that skill so i'm inclined to believe it works out in this version. the moderately more intelligent officer-less ai mostly makes up for it as i don't have to worry about ships suiciding as much, it's definitely very possible to take on fleets much larger than yours without tons of officers as the ai doesn't over-commit as much as they used to.

fighters do seem a bit strong but i don't have enough experience with them to really make a solid conclusion, plus im still used to them being little more than an annoyance in 0.7.2 so its a welcome change really.

personally i find the neutrino detector to be almost completely useless, 9/10 times basically every reading on it is a false positive and i've found its considerably more effective to just use the regular old sensor burst in various positions around the system. maybe im just using it wrong but nearly every single time ive tried following any of its signals i've found absolutely nothing.

as for a few minor things, plotting a course to a star a distance away and then changing to one of the jump points once you get there causes the plotted course to immediately try to jump out as it REALLY wants to go through the star's grav well. it doesn't cause much problem its just mildly annoying if you forget to cancel the plotted course.
the tempest feels absurdly strong but thats probably just me, specifically its drone since the ion pulser seems to do considerable non-emp damage on top of the emp damage. a lot of the time you can just sit back and let the drone solo ships entirely. speaking of the tempest, toggling the drone to engage generates enough flux on the tempest to remove the 0-flux speed boost which seems a bit silly since the drone is entirely independent of the tempest itself. dunno how it is for similar ships, though i can see how it'd be a bit of a balancing mechanic.
[close]

well that was a lot longer than i thought it would be, sorry for the huge wall of text lol
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on April 25, 2017, 05:14:26 AM
I am trying to avoid putting points into Surveying.  It is such as easy money-maker, and bounties are not as profitable as they used to be, after burning fuel.  It seems systems in town are less populated before, and there are fewer faction ships, though I have not tried killing major faction fleets yet.

I do not want to put points into Surveying because I want every last skill point to go into other skills I want more.  I may put points into Salvaging so I can fully loot the rare weapons and hullmods from stations in the dungeon.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: TaLaR on April 25, 2017, 05:32:15 AM
I've got to lvl 40 and sizeable fleet without single point in industry.
Initially my bread and butter were scan derelict missions, than I transitioned to bounties.

Modspecs seem to be really rare. The only one that I got by salvage (from faction fleet), that is not commonly shop sold is ITU (at least it's the one that matters most).
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: FooF on April 25, 2017, 05:33:43 AM
I am trying to avoid putting points into Surveying.  It is such as easy money-maker, and bounties are not as profitable as they used to be, after burning fuel.  It seems systems in town are less populated before, and there are fewer faction ships, though I have not tried killing major faction fleets yet.

I do not want to put points into Surveying because I want every last skill point to go into other skills I want more.  I may put points into Salvaging so I can fully loot the rare weapons and hullmods from stations in the dungeon.

I started a game with a non-Industry mindset but lo and behold, I have level 2 Salvage and Survey because the money is so vital early game. Because the procgen part of the sector is so large now, it feels like a waste to hunt bounties and not also exploit all the derelicts and planets that you're literally brushing up against all the time.

Like I said earlier (or perhaps another thread), it would be nice if surveying and salvaging weren't completely locked behind skills. If you could get progressively better at both simply by doing them, it would be less of an all-or-none kind of thing. Skills should improve the speed of your progression rather than be the progression themselves. If that makes sense.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: The2nd on April 25, 2017, 06:06:56 AM
It seems systems in town are less populated before, and there are fewer faction ships, though I have not tried killing major faction fleets yet.

Yeah I have noticed that. I'm running a scavenger fleet and have been raiding Tri-Tachyon, especially Hybrasil, to loot rare ships. The biggest fleet I've come across were two Astrals one Aurora and the rest mostly frigates. Typical bigger fleets only contain one capital maybe a cruiser and only few destroyers and frigates.

My flagship is a triple D mod Apogee and my fleet consists of an Eagle and a Falcon with the rest being destroyers and a few Wolfs and Tempests. Most ships have D mods.

Maybe I played too much Nexerelin with giant death fleets but still it's a bit anticlimactic. I mean I have a Paragon in storage with its only DMod being structural damage that I don't feel like using because I can destroy everything with my Junk fleet anyway. 
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on April 25, 2017, 07:15:51 AM
I've got to lvl 40 and sizeable fleet without single point in industry.
Initially my bread and butter were scan derelict missions, than I transitioned to bounties.

Modspecs seem to be really rare. The only one that I got by salvage (from faction fleet), that is not commonly shop sold is ITU (at least it's the one that matters most).
Not only ITU, but also Converted Hangar (because fighters are good now).  How common are Front Shield Generator and Front Shield Emitter?  The former is mandatory to make Hound and Cerberus viable is combat, and the latter is so useful for turn some ships shields into 360 (e.g., Monitor, Centurion, Aurora, and Odyssey).
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: TaLaR on April 25, 2017, 07:39:45 AM
I've got to lvl 40 and sizeable fleet without single point in industry.
Initially my bread and butter were scan derelict missions, than I transitioned to bounties.

Modspecs seem to be really rare. The only one that I got by salvage (from faction fleet), that is not commonly shop sold is ITU (at least it's the one that matters most).
Not only ITU, but also Converted Hangar (because fighters are good now).  How common are Front Shield Generator and Front Shield Emitter?  The former is mandatory to make Hound and Cerberus viable is combat, and the latter is so useful for turn some ships shields into 360 (e.g., Monitor, Centurion, Aurora, and Odyssey).

Yep, might as well rename to Coveted Hangars :). Very rare, considering that I still don't have them after clearing several Persean League stars and Askonia of patrols (not for profit, just for fun).

As for FSG Hounds - player fleet must be ready deploy within 40% of battlesize (against superior enemy) and is limited to 10 officers max (they may have been nerfed, but they still are important). Hounds just don't enter that picture of endgame fleet (and you are unlikely to get FSG early).
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: ThreeJames on April 25, 2017, 10:29:28 AM
Hello all! I'll just jump in. First post here, but I've been playing for a few years now, on and off. (Since sometime around .60, maybe a bit before.)  Just wanted to say that I really appreciate the existence of this game, and how it's been changing steadily for the better for so long. (And it was fun when I started, too!)

I've been having a blast with .8. I think the new leveling system is great, and the whole game has much more of a sense of direction now. It's still a bit rough-feeling balance-wise - my biggest critique is that it feels too punishing to lose battles. The supplies spent on the battle, combined with one or two ship losses, can very easily bankrupt a small-to-mid-sized fleet. This is an observation made from playing on Iron Mode.

Other than that, though, I really have been enjoying the game. Thank you, Alex, for your work. I'm sure I'll still be playing for years to come.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Igncom1 on April 25, 2017, 10:45:27 AM
I know what you mean dude.

Half the time I don't really feel like I can justify the costs needed to actually leave the starting system. Why should I go somewhere dangerous if it's only going to drain the wallet?

I have made a couple expeditions into the outer sector, but frankly I haven't seen anything very profitable so far other then a few probe ships. And that before I accidentally retrofitted outside of a port and cost myself 40K credits worth of supplies! I'm slowly building my bank and supply count back up but to be honest it's a little too expensive to be taking my cruisers and capitals out of storage when I don't really have much of a reason to use them.

It's far to expensive for me to lug them out to a bounty target in the outer-sector, and even staying in the sector there is no grantee of a source of income save for hunting pirates down. With no guaranteed income I'm living on borrowed time and if I bite off more then I can chew then I could easily spiral down the bankruptcy hole.

Salvaging and fighting pirates is keeping me afloat on the cost of others death, and while I should probably go to that tri-tech/hegemony system to fight in the war, the last time I went there the place was empty. There is no guaranteed source of income so how can I justify an expensive deployment? Either I bring too much and spend a few weeks lugging a cruiser around that won't ever see battle or I bring too little and end up running from a fleet that I need my heavy's to win.

Personally? I'd love some more inner-sector missions, as the outer ones are fine if you are taking a small speedy fleet out to do all that stuff short of the bounties that are vague in their described power and the possibility of stronger probes to harvest, missions like faction operations to attack facilities and other such raids might give people like me a reason to ever bother visiting enemy held systems.

I probably should have never signed that commission, as it seems to have locked me out of half the sector with the hegemonies enemies.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Daimon on April 25, 2017, 10:57:57 AM
Congratulations for this amazing version, Alex!

Of course, I have some suggestions which came up during playing it the last two days:

- Can you make it less of a time sink? As mentioned, I played a game the last two days, as in THE LAST TWO DAYS. Basically, I did nothing else except sleeping. This might be a compliment for the game or a devasting blow against my entertainment-life balance. That sort of engagement doesn't happen normally, but I have the impression that longer fights against patrols and repetetive missons let me lose track of time. However, I am not sure if I want that fixed.

- Similar to that, I would love to have "let the second in command handle it" as option in every fight. As far as I have seen it, it's only an option if you join battles, but often some fights are so one-sided that I would just prefer to skip it all together. It would significantly reduce the time sink factor for the ones of us with limited time. Do I recall correctly that this was already an option in earlier versions?

- The codex is not exhaustive and lacks for example hull mods or perks. I realised that after someone mentioned converted hangars and I neither had any clue what they do nor a way to look it up. Although it is easy to look perks up ingame, it's missing in the codex (I wanted to look one up from windows: loading a safegame takes longer compared to the codex in the main menue). Can you add arrow key controls in the codex, i.e. down key to move to the next entry? So much simpler for lazy scolling through entries.

- Can you switch the order of the commands in the intel/map view? I used 'set course' way more often than 'get detailed info' but a simple click selects the other one.

- This might be a moonshot but I would love to see the AI implemented as a deep learning neuronal network. It would probably take dozens of Google engineers a while and a mainframe server but it would fix every problem with the current AI. Just simulate a couple of billion fights against itself, like they did with AlphaGo.

- I like the missions but have the problem that there are too few, normally. I joined the Persians and at their main planet they often only had one or two available. Can you ramp up their number, e.g. in order to always have a couple of trading routes (to more remote places preferrable) available?

- I also love the new fighters. Nothing more satisfying than seeing dozens of fighters running around. However, most bigger enemy fleets seem to focus on frigates or destroyers with only few fighters. Since a big fighter vs fighter fight might be awesome, maybe you can implement ways to do so? Most logical seems to have fighter defence forces on planets or stations (as in star wars). They can be triggered by missions (e.g. if you are under commission with a party, they offer you a raid of a base as mission) or just by attacking a station as a option when docking. This would result in a new map with a base as opponent which includes quite a lot of flight decks (maybe 5 - 15) for epic fighter fights. Finding a proper win condition might be a bit complicated: kill a huge immobile station-like entity full of flight decks, destroy mobile or stationary carriers specifically designed for planetary defence, crush a certain amount of defending fighters spawning outside the battle field while completing some other objective (destroy beacons coordinating the defense calls, hold a position, survive n waves with n = i * station size).

- I started to play as a commander and let the autopilot handle the execution. Maybe I have missed it, but how do I control fighters in non-flagship carriers? In a flagship, they seem to attack the ship I highlight even while autopiloting but an army of several carriers is a bit too uncoordinated for my taste.

- Is there a way to include a big picture leading to story driven missions? The factions at war could organize big fights between them in which the player is invited to join via missions.

- I like how weapons during refitting can be sorted by type and source. Can you add another selection layer for damage type?

- A couple of times I ended in an impossible to win situation: My main fleet crushed and no way to escape. Even after retreating it is impossible to disengage with the surviving tankers etc.. Can you include a way to either allow an actual way out or at least allow a shuttle to flee the doomed situation in order to start in the next friendly system with nothing but cash a new life?

- I found it quite hard to build up reputation in the lower regions (say +10/100 reputation) since there are so few missions but incredibly easy after joining a faction. Can you balance that a bit?

- Maybe I missed it, but how do I increase the maximum amount of deployment? The number seems to be different sometimes but often it's only possible to deploy around 80.

These are just some thoughts I had while playing. They shall not overshadow that I had heaps of fun!
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Drokkath on April 25, 2017, 01:17:52 PM
Heh, been figuring out, checking, re-checking from no-modding to modding the game and then re-modding to modding-in a few important items from my own customized mod since this morning to the game. About 16 hours or so now and in that time I've barely even played the game as I just now finished setting up my god-like pirate character with my own modded-in Dramlord-class ship (It looks like a broad and symmetrical welded together from two Dram-class ships to make my very own in-game Corvus Scavenger builder/engineering itch into a physical form of Chaos Undivided once again and it uses Timelord-like tech to hold a massive rapid-fire HellDoombore/Frell-off cannon in the hull's forward section.).

That aside, I'm rather quite glad to see that the 0.8 offers a more Star Control 2 esque travel and feel due to the feel of vastness of space now in the game, plotting courses, enter/exit hyperspace and etc. Speaking of hyperspace, I love that ability to go into hyperspace from a star system and thus shave off a lot of travel distance.

At first I felt a bit irritated about too many changes but once I started checking stuff modding-wise both in-game and out, it ain't that bad, heck so far the game feels more awesome than ever before and I love it that you can now shoot hostile(or non-hostile if playing as a pirate, yar har har!) ships into pieces of derelict ship hulks and bits.

Now it's time for me to start playing the game and show myself out of the forums.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on April 25, 2017, 01:29:21 PM
Quote
- Similar to that, I would love to have "let the second in command handle it" as option in every fight. As far as I have seen it, it's only an option if you join battles, but often some fights are so one-sided that I would just prefer to skip it all together.
I would so abuse that for power-leveling... if there was no level cap.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on April 25, 2017, 01:33:00 PM
Quote
Yep, might as well rename to Coveted Hangars . Very rare, considering that I still don't have them after clearing several Persean League stars and Askonia of patrols (not for profit, just for fun).
I just found some for sale at Tri-Tachyon military, but I needed commission and high-relations to buy it.  Also found various shield hullmods similarly locked.  I think I may go commission-less in my game.  There appears to be less things to murder in town, and I really need all the friendly ports I can get to buy supplies and fuel when returning from the dungeon.  Without Surveying and Salvaging, it has tough to build up wealth unless I can find two bounties next to each other.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Alex on April 25, 2017, 01:38:03 PM
Thanks for all the feedback, everyone! Keeping an eye on this thread, just can't respond to everything.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Argonaut on April 25, 2017, 02:11:56 PM
It's such rare thing for me to wholeheartedly enjoy a well-made, fun game nowadays! As a player, Starsector has given me its money worth many times over and priceless inspiration and fun to boot. Great job, devs, all the new additions are tons of fun!

Obligatory feedback:
-I always forget "tab" allows me to control my ship in battle every time i don't play for a while and have to google for it (either i'm blind or it's not written anywhere)
-it's not immediately clear how to improve faction standing
-Shouldn't pirates trade tariff-free? They seem pretty anarchic.
-Always too many weapons to choose from... All the time spent deciding between a machinegun and a double machinegun, or the MRM version of a missile and a the MRM version of the same missile (single) is a bit too much time subtracted from blasting away. I'd rather have a hull mod that changes missile types to a multiple version, or one that doubles a kinetic mount, or perhaps a checkbox to change the missile type in the fitting screen. It's also annoying to hoard weapon variants when the need to outfit a fleet from scratch arises.
- I got the entirety of the industry tech tree down first to play as a pure-salvager and using [D]-modded ships still seems like a waste. Every time i get a ship i really want with even a single [D] mod the "stat-pressure" forces me to sell it. Especially in the beginning, when the desire for a better ship is the highest and the [D] mods the most numerous. I'd much rather have my ship swerve at random, turn off with no warning or have a narrower firing arc than know its shields and flux are gimped forever! Because i can compensate for those flaws with skill alone, while being unable to take a full salvo from a bigger ship just makes the [D]-ridden ship i'm using worthless.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on April 25, 2017, 02:59:35 PM
For commission-less players, scavenging wrecks is probably the easiest way get rare ships (that are not common at black markets), and that level 3 perk that halves all the (D) penalties looks nice.  (I have not spent any points in skills yet; waiting to see how far I can go before I must commit.)  Disposable grunts can have the (D) ships.  I can have a few restored ships.

If I lose a pristine or restored ship, that is a game reload moment.  If I lose a (D) ship, no problem, more where they came from.  However, I need to be mindful not to put too many great weapons on them - replacing weapons can be harder than replacing ships.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Gothars on April 25, 2017, 03:05:50 PM
-I always forget "tab" allows me to control my ship in battle every time i don't play for a while and have to google for it (either i'm blind or it's not written anywhere)

It's in the fleet command tutorial. Mh, maybe the campaign tutorial should reference the other tutorials in some way...

-Shouldn't pirates trade tariff-free? They seem pretty anarchic.

I take it as a tribute to the local crime boss ;)

-Always too many weapons to choose from... All the time spent deciding between a machinegun and a double machinegun, or the MRM version of a missile and a the MRM version of the same missile (single) is a bit too much time subtracted from blasting away. I'd rather have a hull mod that changes missile types to a multiple version, or one that doubles a kinetic mount, or perhaps a checkbox to change the missile type in the fitting screen. It's also annoying to hoard weapon variants when the need to outfit a fleet from scratch arises.

You can now autofit ships, which takes all the hassle away. Just press "V" the refit menu. Works really well, too.

- I got the entirety of the industry tech tree down first to play as a pure-salvager and using [D]-modded ships still seems like a waste. Every time i get a ship i really want with even a single [D] mod the "stat-pressure" forces me to sell it. Especially in the beginning, when the desire for a better ship is the highest and the [D] mods the most numerous. I'd much rather have my ship swerve at random, turn off with no warning or have a narrower firing arc than know its shields and flux are gimped forever! Because i can compensate for those flaws with skill alone, while being unable to take a full salvo from a bigger ship just makes the [D]-ridden ship i'm using worthless.

I believe that "stat-pressure" is one you make for yourself. D-ships are really usable now, especially since they are much cheaper to deploy than normal ships. And they enable a more laid back attitude to ship losses. Try to find those with a mod that is not too relevant for it's type, for example a Sunder with compromised armor (it can't rely on armor anyway).
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Deshara on April 26, 2017, 01:13:23 PM
-Shouldn't pirates trade tariff-free? They seem pretty anarchic.

I take it as a tribute to the local crime boss ;)


Fun fact: Stable social democracies have the lowest tax rates in the world and violent dictatorships have the highest tax rates, if you count the mandatory bribes & systemic corruption as taxes (which they are). If anything, pirates should have a higher tax rate
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: MajorTheRed on April 26, 2017, 04:33:16 PM
Here is my two cents about this release, I don't know where to start but:

This is the game I was especting.

Ok now some details, I LOVE the salvage/exploration aspect of the game. It has a Rogue Trader/Fallout vibe that is really great. I'm running a scavanger who explore old system, and it feel really nice to discover debris and relics and imagine how things must have go wrong in the system, like when you discover a Vault in Fallout! The way that you're not so much limited by your skill is quite balanced : if you discover something you cannot scavenge, you can still always get intel or some loot from it by luck...

The way how ships are all usefull in specific circumstance is really great, I've never used so many tankers, mining and salvage vessel in my fleet! The way that ship special equipment scale up with size make every ship still interesting : the sheperd is not as efficient that the venture for surveying but its salvage gantry make it very all-rounder.
Usually I run a small fleet to surveys planet and discovers relics, then come back with a huge salvage fleet if there is many thing interesting.
I've even got some luck when I was able to salvage an Onslaught without D-mod!

On the negative side, I'm a little sad that planet doesn't offer many goods anymore, the "there is only war" bug is really annoying as well as the little nasty surprise you can encounter in far systems that doesn't want to die nor to flee...

Cannot tell anything about carriers for now, I will probably create another character, some kind of neutral bounty hunter, to explore the central constellation.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: ChaseBears on April 26, 2017, 04:38:35 PM
I've always found the situation with pirates confusing. Shouldn't it all be black market?

imo Pirate worlds should have no open market, but the black market gets tariffed at a low rate.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Techhead on April 26, 2017, 07:26:02 PM
Pirates have no banned goods, so the difference between Pirate Black Market and Pirate Open Market is mostly just "Do I give the Don his cut?" That and the selection of merchants willing to go against the Don to deal with you.

(Substitute 'Don' for local boss honorific.)
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Deshara on April 26, 2017, 08:13:27 PM
I've always found the situation with pirates confusing. Shouldn't it all be black market?

imo Pirate worlds should have no open market, but the black market gets tariffed at a low rate.

rival pirate gang to the primary polity. Black market in a pirate market is fueling a gang war, open market includes a cut to the ruling polity to fund their war against smaller internal factions to maintain stability
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Drokkath on April 26, 2017, 11:03:51 PM
Woah, the game got even more awesome and interesting to me. It sure has this vibe from both Star Control 2 and Frontier First Encounters (mentioning only the games I've actually played) but with more dynamic free-roam RNG of sorts added which makes flying and exploring in a 2D top-down environment so much more interesting. I basically love that the new update added more quality and an actual purpose to out-of-combat traveling that is now pretty close to the combat part of the game.

Heck, I've barely even been in combat currently as I've been flying around the map from one point to another and surveying planets and trying to discover [REDACTED] stuff in the depths of space and I'm not really even doing it to get in-game cash, I'm doing it because it pushes all of my natural space exploring urges and when I notice some grey signal, it can range from debris and whatnot to [REDACTED] stuff.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: SG on April 27, 2017, 05:53:57 AM
Long time lurker (since 0.5), first time poster.

Firstly, 0.8 is a vast improvement on the previous patch, so well done. The options for scavenging are great. Love the fact that hull mods have mostly been taken out of the skill tree. Also love the Intel screen and how this facilitates navigation to mission areas. That being said, here are some things for consideration:

1. This is a game with an incredible combat system, and yet Starsector is still doing its best to actively discourage the player in engaging in fights. Deployment costs are ludicrously high, bounty pay is insufficient considering the cost of battles and fuel, and the sale price of recovered ships is incredibly underwhelming (why does selling a salvaged capital ship net me 1-2k credits, but selling 10 handguns as a trader can net me 10k+?). I find that I spend 90% of my game doing stuff that I find rather tedious (trading, surveying) in order to fund the remaining 10% in which I can have some fun (combat). This is the major gripe I have with the game in its current state.

2. I am not sure what the thought process was behind getting rid of green and experienced crew- perhaps you can elaborate on this. I felt that the variable experience levels on my crew added a sense of progression to the game and made them feel a little more 'real'.

3. The level-up system for the player character still needs a bit of a revamp. Have you considered adopting a M&B Bannerlord system here? ie If you earn experience in trading, you get to spend points in your industry tree. Likewise, if you earn experience in combat, you get to spend points in your combat tree. If you level up your officers, you gain experience to spend in leadership. As you learn hullmods, you gain experience to spend in the science tree.

4. There should be an option to entirely reset skill points on player characters. I think most players have, at some point, gone halfway through a play-through only to realize we have dumped 3 or 4 points on a skill that we now see is pretty useless.

5. Not sure if this is intended or not, but various jump-points are placed directly over fleet-damaging stars. I often jump into a sector to find that I have landed straight on top of a sun and that I am bleeding supplies as a result.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on April 27, 2017, 06:29:27 AM
My guesses...

#1.  This is when lack of exploration skills, namely no Surveying 3, hurts.  For bounties alone, it probably is not too bad at first when they are small, but as they get bigger, it gets expensive fast (because you need a big fleet to kill their big fleet).  At that point, if you do not have Surveying, bounties are only worth it if you can kill two or more near each other.

#2.  If anything, contributes to inverted difficulty.  Your greens and standard tire too fast, and your ships are ready to fall apart after one fight.  By midgame or later, everyone is elite and is the baseline, if you played bounty hunter much of the game.

#3.  It may be annoying if done badly.  Alex mentioned something like not wanting people to do stupid things like jump up and down over a fire or some trap to level up a skill, and I agree with him.

#4.  With Surveying 3 being a huge cash cow, that would encourage experienced players who know the game to focus on planet scanner characters early to kickstart their game then dump those skills for combat skills when they no longer need the cash.

#5.  Before, you needed old Navigation 7 to jump through stars.  Now, anyone can do that.  I like that.  However, there are small purple clouds in hyperspace that require Transverse Jump ability (from Navigation 3) to use.


I am not sure if removing most hullmods from skills was a great idea.  It is too hard to obtain many of the better mods.  Drop rate from ships with the hullmods is too low, and I am not sure if some hullmods are even used by any ship (e.g., Converted Hangar).  It seems most of the best ones that are not readily available tell me "Join Tri-Tachyon or do without!"
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: kobeathris on April 27, 2017, 07:05:09 AM

#4.  With Surveying 3 being a huge cash cow, that would encourage experienced players who know the game to focus on planet scanner characters early to kickstart their game then dump those skills for combat skills when they no longer need the cash.


You could attach a cost to it that scaled based on your level. It could be fairly linear up to about level 15-20, then exponential after that.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on April 27, 2017, 07:23:19 AM
Some comments:  Last night, I tried a few decent small ships with the whole Combat tree maxed and tried them in the simulator.  Even with the skills, it is much harder to solo SIM ships than before.  Before 0.8, a well configured ship with more skills can obliterate many ships, or least punch much, MUCH higher than their weight.  Carriers dominate smaller targets (with max carrier skills instead of max Combat), and normal ships have a slightly easier time against bigger ships (if shot range is comparable).  I have the feeling that soloing fleets will not work in 0.8, and skills that work for piloted ships only generally work best on officers (if leveling them up with the skills you want on them was not so hard), and the character should focus on fleetwide and/or campaign skills.  That said, there are some piloted skills I want on my flagship despite being sub-optimal for the fleet because it feels so good, especially max Gunnery Implants, Power Grid Modulation, and Helmsmanship.  Even if soloing is possible, it may require too many skill points spent in various combat-only skills to do it and/or require specific overpowered ships (which I have not acquired yet).

It is like Endless Sky.  In that game, you may want to brawl in a hot rod of a warship because it feels good, but only the flagship can board ships to loot or capture.  Therefore, delegate the fighting to your fleet of heavy warships, but you get to loot and capture everything with your Bactrian.


You could attach a cost to it that scaled based on your level. It could be fairly linear up to about level 15-20, then exponential after that.
Would that work for early scanner characters that avoid combat (and leveling)?  I know surveying gives XP, but is it enough to level them up quickly?  If not, such characters can make a lot of money before they reach the cutoff to stop surveying and start fighting.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: SG on April 27, 2017, 07:51:39 AM
#1.  This is when lack of exploration skills, namely no Surveying 3, hurts.  For bounties alone, it probably is not too bad at first when they are small, but as they get bigger, it gets expensive fast (because you need a big fleet to kill their big fleet).  At that point, if you do not have Surveying, bounties are only worth it if you can kill two or more near each other.
...
#4.  With Surveying 3 being a huge cash cow, that would encourage experienced players who know the game to focus on planet scanner characters early to kickstart their game then dump those skills for combat skills when they no longer need the cash.

Perhaps I haven't made my criticism of this aspect of the game clear from my post: I understand that surveying is by far the most lucrative aspect of the game and that I should invest in that skill tree, do lots of surveying, and avoid what I consider to be the fun areas of the game, such as combat. But I don't want to and I doubt most players want to. A game shouldn't force you to play a certain way, which in its current state, Starsector does. A game shouldn't force you to do the boring stuff to get to the fun stuff.

I am not sure if removing most hullmods from skills was a great idea.  It is too hard to obtain many of the better mods.  Drop rate from ships with the hullmods is too low, and I am not sure if some hullmods are even used by any ship (e.g., Converted Hangar).  It seems most of the best ones that are not readily available tell me "Join Tri-Tachyon or do without!"

Moving the mods away from skills was a great idea for the same reason: all in all, the game is much less restrictive. Starsector no longer stipulates that players invest heavily in the science tree if they want to use mods. Yes, some mods are harder to attain now, but EVERY player now potentially has access to all hullmods if they play long enough, which can only be a good thing. Denying hullmods to players who didn't invest in science sucked, considering hullmods are quite an interesting and integral part of the game.

If anything, contributes to inverted difficulty.  Your greens and standard tire too fast, and your ships are ready to fall apart after one fight.  By midgame or later, everyone is elite and is the baseline, if you played bounty hunter much of the game.

The stat gain of experienced crew wouldn't need to be significant to make the late game super-easy; just enough to give a feeling to the player that their crew are developing experience.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on April 27, 2017, 08:06:37 AM
@ SG:  I agree.  I love combat.  I have not invested in Surveying yet.  In fact, I have not spent any skill points at all on my level 33 character so far.  No Surveying 3 hurts.  Had I invested in those skills, I would save myself a ton of pain and grief.  Well, maybe not, I can always load the save in devmode to give myself a ton of cash (and more), but did not.

Yes, locking hullmods behind skills only was not fun either.  There were so many useful mods in Advanced Physics skill but I did not use them because the skill itself stunk except for the hullmods for specific ships, and I usually did not get that skill.  Now, some hullmods are locked behind commission or special loot in the dungeon.  That is not fun either.  If hullmods will remain this rare, it would be nice to get some hullmods back in skills so I am not forced to join Tri-Tachyon every game if I want ITU, Converted Hangar, Advanced Optics, and various shield hullmods badly enough.  With dungeon being random generated, we cannot rely on that for missing hullmods.

As for crew, it is not so much making the game easy by the end, it is one among several reasons why early game is frustratingly hard for some people.  Also, removing crew levels saved Alex more work.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: kobeathris on April 27, 2017, 08:24:26 AM
You could attach a cost to it that scaled based on your level. It could be fairly linear up to about level 15-20, then exponential after that.
Would that work for early scanner characters that avoid combat (and leveling)?  I know surveying gives XP, but is it enough to level them up quickly?  If not, such characters can make a lot of money before they reach the cutoff to stop surveying and start fighting.

Surveying gives XP, and then selling the results gives trade XP, right? You would have to look at the formula for XP and figure out exactly where you wanted the balance point to lie. I'm sure it could be exploited some, but the goal wouldn't be to stop any exploiting at all, but to make it something that would let someone change their mind about how they want to progress, and costing enough so that if you did want to exploit it, you would have to decide if it was worth the hassle of bothering rather than just going straight into combat.

Also, as an aside, I hope in the future that Surveying isn't locked behind a skill, but works more like salvage does now, where you are just better at it with more skill. Honestly, I feel like Surveying and Salvaging would both benefit from having the "skill" requirement be available through ship mods, and the skill give a fleetwide bonus, so that taking the skills meant you needed fewer salvage rigs or surveying equipment in the fleet.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Gothars on April 27, 2017, 08:37:18 AM
@SG: welcome to the writing side of the forum!



1. This is a game with an incredible combat system, and yet Starsector is still doing its best to actively discourage the player in engaging in fights. Deployment costs are ludicrously high, bounty pay is insufficient considering the cost of battles and fuel,

This has not been my experience at all. What the game does is discouraging you from boring combat, i.e. steamrolling the enemy. If you challenge yourself to defeat a given enemy with as few of your ships as possible, you will have little problem paying for the deployment. And a way more exiting fight!
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: TJJ on April 27, 2017, 08:41:12 AM
A skill you develop through use would be most appropriate for surveying, as that'd give a level of progression to the exploitation of space. (Rather than just dropping a load of skill points into a perk and then instantly being able to survey the most financially rewarding planets)

The more i think about it, the more i feel xp progression should be broken into disciplines.
I suppose Skyrim would be an example of this.... Though not a particularly well balanced example.

It'd give greater longevity to skill progression, would encourage an exploration of every play style, and would allow for deeper skill trees and thus more rewarding high level perks.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: FooF on April 27, 2017, 09:24:47 AM
A skill you develop through use would be most appropriate for surveying, as that'd give a level of progression to the exploitation of space. (Rather than just dropping a load of skill points into a perk and then instantly being able to survey the most financially rewarding planets)

The more i think about it, the more i feel xp progression should be broken into disciplines.
I suppose Skyrim would be an example of this.... Though not a particularly well balanced example.

It'd give greater longevity to skill progression, would encourage an exploration of every play style, and would allow for deeper skill trees and thus more rewarding high level perks.

I've said it before but what makes the most sense to me is for everyone to have progression in survey and salvage (respectively, of course) but skills increase the speed of that progression. Imagine if the Salvage skill was +50/100/200% Salvage XP (and the respective hull mods). Same with Surveying and its skills. Without skills, these activities would be a slow grind to get the best stuff but compared to right now (which is all-or-none), I'd argue it would be an improvement.

What it also has the side-effect of doing is giving the player a reason to return to systems that were too advanced for them to survey/salvage for them early game. As it is, if you never invest in Industry, there is no reason to return to any of the proc-gen systems outside of wanting to fight Remnants. An in-game impetus for discovery/exploration never really materializes outside of missions.

Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: SG on April 27, 2017, 10:02:22 AM
@SG: welcome to the writing side of the forum!

What the game does is discouraging you from boring combat, i.e. steamrolling the enemy. If you challenge yourself to defeat a given enemy with as few of your ships as possible, you will have little problem paying for the deployment. And a way more exiting fight!

Thanks. Odd to finally be submitting posts.

I'm not saying that you can't turn a profit by going a purely combat route. If you manage your deployment costs, avoid most bounties, and play carefully, then sure, you can turn a small profit and after some time, build up an OK fleet. The issue is this: who in their right mind would, in the current build, decide to make 1k net profit every battle when they can make 100,000s+ surveying a couple of planets?

Is being a bounty hunter/merc viable? Yes, if supplemented with some trading. Does it have financial parity with any of the other money-making methods in the game? Absolutely not - it doesn't even come close - and that's what I take issue with. I am encouraged, financially, to survey in a way that I am not encouraged as a combat pilot.

As for 'boring' combat, I think it's nice to feel OP once in a while. Leave combat choices up to the player. If the player wants to steamroll enemies, then let them. If the player wants to fight in more even contests, then let them. Give the player freedom and choice- don't restrict them.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on April 27, 2017, 10:07:09 AM
I love steamrolling fleets.  While some like to have close battles, I like to just utterly crush the enemy as efficiently as possible.

In 0.65, player could solo fleets for maximum profit or deploy all to finish fights quickly.

In 0.8, it looks like I will need... no, highly desirable to have a big fleet with ten buff officers and plenty of carriers plus a few tanks.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: kobeathris on April 27, 2017, 10:14:43 AM
I was really starting to enjoy the Conquest in 7.2, much more so than the Paragon or the Onslaught. How is it feeling now? I haven't gotten one yet.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dri on April 27, 2017, 10:35:31 AM
If you actually put large ballistics in its...large ballistic slots it has gotten a buff due to a new built-in hullmod.

Also, since the nerf of combat speed bonuses I'd imagine the faster Conquest + its ship system is nice for those that put major emphasis on speed. I do believe it still has that gimpy shield though...
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: FooF on April 27, 2017, 10:58:17 AM
Is being a bounty hunter/merc viable? Yes, if supplemented with some trading. Does it have financial parity with any of the other money-making methods in the game? Absolutely not - it doesn't even come close - and that's what I take issue with. I am encouraged, financially, to survey in a way that I am not encouraged as a combat pilot.

One hidden perk of going the bounty hunting route is that you level up a lot faster, or at least it feels this way. Surveying/salvaging does net you XP but nothing like fighting large fleets. In my first playthrough, I went heavy salvage/survey and got to 40 but in this fleet-centered playthrough, I'm already 34 and bounties are still only 140k or so. It's taken a fraction of the time.

I've never wanted for money (I still have over 1M) though I must admit, I ran across a system with two research stations, one orbital, and a mining station and had no salvage skills. I was very tempted to invest 6 points into industry right then and there! The paydays from salvaging stations are enormous but due to investing in fleet and combat skills, I'm finding that combat is approaching .7-levels and I'm having a lot of fun having a strong fleet. Can't wait to go out and tackle Remnants soon.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Thaago on April 27, 2017, 11:23:55 AM
...

Is being a bounty hunter/merc viable? Yes, if supplemented with some trading. Does it have financial parity with any of the other money-making methods in the game? Absolutely not - it doesn't even come close - and that's what I take issue with. I am encouraged, financially, to survey in a way that I am not encouraged as a combat pilot.

...

I find that I have no need for trading, but doing some exploration missions on the side is a nice way to supplement being a merc. I do a little switching back and forth between looking at bounties, looking at at scanning missions, and plan an expedition. Usually I can find at least 2 objectives to complete along the same "corridor" of space. When I'm in the systems of interest, I do a quick look around and salvage what I can (no skills), typically enough to cover my entire supply/fuel cost for the trip. Bounties are still way too easy and as such don't pay much, but I've heard that they ramp up to be ~300k or more.

It helps that, without salvage skills, I typically made about 1.5x my supply costs in each battle - I'll gladly murder random pirates/probes/redacted's along the way both to level and resupply.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: ChaseBears on April 27, 2017, 11:34:14 AM
I've only tried the menu mission conquest; i kept getting dunked by fighters.   The default loadout doesnt have the specialized broadsides anymore, which is sad... xD
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Awe on April 27, 2017, 01:14:31 PM
Is being a bounty hunter/merc viable? Yes, if supplemented with some trading. Does it have financial parity with any of the other money-making methods in the game? Absolutely not - it doesn't even come close - and that's what I take issue with. I am encouraged, financially, to survey in a way that I am not encouraged as a combat pilot.

Im playing second playthrough without industry skills - bounty hunting still very profitable. 2-3 rewards for 200k-350k each for the price of 500-1k supplies and 3-4k of fuel - easy lategame moneys.

Just a proper use of carriers as distraction/support and flagship as main damage dealer.  ::)


So... about topic subject. ^.^

Patch is nice.

Map. I wish a merge of intel map with usual - want a some intel info like bounty locations at standart map(tab). Intel map(e) is too small, but still more frequently usable. And please, Alex, change default option at map lmb from "info" to "lay on course".

New skills. Disappointing. Most of the skills nearly useless so u can play without skills at all and didnt notice a big difference. Also almost full restriction of surveys to skills is wrong - you can easily fight with 0 in combat tree but cant survey 99% of planets without at least 2 skills at industry.

Carriers. Wohoo! I like new carrier mechanics. But Mora is really too OP - exceptional survivability with good damage capability for the only 19.99 supplies cost - best admiral choice.  :D

Restoration mechanic. Is very good. Thanks for the good way to obtain rare ships.

Hull mods. Is it possible too just remove already known mods from market instead of graying them?
Built-in mods is good too. Nice way to add some exotic to ships.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Axisoflint on April 27, 2017, 04:59:31 PM
I think one thing I'd love to see is the seperation of survey (and derelict salvage, although ships are all 0% difficulty? only affects stations etc?) from the skills and instead give modifiers to the salvage you get, or the supplies/crew required for the salvaging.

I.e, if you have 1000 men and 5000 supplies, you should be able to salvage and/or survey anything, since you can just keep throwing things at it it until you get a result - but if it's a ship, your crappy salvage people might give you an extra d-mod when they start up the engines and blow them out or something. If it's a planet, maybe your men accidentally detonate a volatiles mine(? dump? pit? whatever..) so it gets reduced in quality.

Ymmv.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Techhead on April 27, 2017, 06:42:15 PM
I think one thing I'd love to see is the seperation of survey (and derelict salvage, although ships are all 0% difficulty? only affects stations etc?) from the skills and instead give modifiers to the salvage you get, or the supplies/crew required for the salvaging.

I.e, if you have 1000 men and 5000 supplies, you should be able to salvage and/or survey anything, since you can just keep throwing things at it it until you get a result - but if it's a ship, your crappy salvage people might give you an extra d-mod when they start up the engines and blow them out or something. If it's a planet, maybe your men accidentally detonate a volatiles mine(? dump? pit? whatever..) so it gets reduced in quality.

Ymmv.
Alex talks a bunch about the design decisions about this in this blog post (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2016/06/09/planetary-surveys/). And more discussion in the corresponding blog-post-thread.

TLDR: If you would get less-than-ideal results from doing a survey with low skill, no one would do low-skill surveys and they'll just wait until they max the skill out before starting.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Axisoflint on April 27, 2017, 07:06:11 PM
I think one thing I'd love to see is the seperation of survey (and derelict salvage, although ships are all 0% difficulty? only affects stations etc?) from the skills and instead give modifiers to the salvage you get, or the supplies/crew required for the salvaging.

I.e, if you have 1000 men and 5000 supplies, you should be able to salvage and/or survey anything, since you can just keep throwing things at it it until you get a result - but if it's a ship, your crappy salvage people might give you an extra d-mod when they start up the engines and blow them out or something. If it's a planet, maybe your men accidentally detonate a volatiles mine(? dump? pit? whatever..) so it gets reduced in quality.

Ymmv.
Alex talks a bunch about the design decisions about this in this blog post (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2016/06/09/planetary-surveys/). And more discussion in the corresponding blog-post-thread.

TLDR: If you would get less-than-ideal results from doing a survey with low skill, no one would do low-skill surveys and they'll just wait until they max the skill out before starting.

To clarify two points:

1) I'm not suggesting subpar results per se, I'm saying that if you want to survey a tough planet with no skills invested, it's going to cost you a lot more men + machinery to get a good result, with a higher chance of getting a poor result. This would give people who invest heavily in combat a reason to explore a little more and would mean the people who invest in the skills would still get a better chance at higher returns and be more efficient.

2) I realise it might appear overly defensive, but I want to say that I'm not arguing with his design decisions, just presenting my opinion. I love the game regardless and I'll end up playing whether or not he makes any changes to the skills :)
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: FooF on April 28, 2017, 06:47:30 AM
1) I'm not suggesting subpar results per se, I'm saying that if you want to survey a tough planet with no skills invested, it's going to cost you a lot more men + machinery to get a good result, with a higher chance of getting a poor result. This would give people who invest heavily in combat a reason to explore a little more and would mean the people who invest in the skills would still get a better chance at higher returns and be more efficient.

The problem with this suggestion is that it effectively is no better than locking it behind a skill. Only in the end-game are you going have the ability to carry and/or risk high amounts of crew/machinery for even a moderate-risk proposition. It would be what you do when you have nothing better to do. Alternatively, you save-scum to get the result you want which is grind-y in a different sense. Though there is a distinction between impossible and "a small chance," realistically, no one is going to pull the trigger on low-chance-of-success missions except for those capable of absorbing the loss (and probably don't need the survey money anyway) or new players who don't know better.

I find it more appealing to still have all-or-none conditions rather than RNG. I don't mind having survey ratings on planets that limit a player from doing them but I would prefer being able to increase my rating level by other means than just skills. Lost in all this is that Alex has said that this is all placeholder anyway, I'm not terribly surprised that it's not quite robust as it could be nor am I holding my breath for sweeping improvements. It's a money-making/fun side-quest at this point and will probably need to wait on outposts before receiving the full treatment.

I'd love to see players start at 0% survey rating and get survey XP for each planet. The "levels" would be the various rating thresholds we have now (25%, 50%, etc.), so it would still have that all-or-none component but one addition I'd like to see is missions giving temporary +survey rating so that players on the low-end of the scale can still net some higher-rated planets. Higher-rated planets also give more survey XP so a few good missions can set you up well pretty quickly. On the other hand, the XP necessary to get into the 100-200% gets increasingly scales up so an unskilled player would ultimately reach a soft cap. With skills, you get a multiplier on survey XP so those higher rating values take much less grinding to do and you're less dependent on missions. In addition, skills net you hullmods and perks.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Bastion.Systems on April 29, 2017, 10:09:39 AM
Finally got another town leave, so here is some quick feedback:
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: PCCL on April 29, 2017, 10:21:47 AM
restoring ships are for those rare scarabs/hyperions/odysseys or whatnots that you can't find in markets. Generally you're not expected to restore a generic hull

sell prices of ships are trash for d-modded ships to prevent players from making easy money from them
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Bastion.Systems on April 29, 2017, 11:57:09 AM
Is it just  me or do every single faction end up at war with every single other faction eventually in 0.8?
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Gothars on April 29, 2017, 12:01:11 PM
Yeah, that is a reported bug.


sell prices of ships are trash for d-modded ships to prevent players from making easy money from them

It's more about not feeling obligated to tow every last one to a market.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Serenitis on April 29, 2017, 12:38:28 PM
I really wish officers would roll skills that were relevant to the ship they are flying more often.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Shendao on April 30, 2017, 01:05:13 PM
Have been playing .8 to max level (40). I did scanning missions and added planet surveying of these systems to the mix. No commission, maxed faction rating with independent.

Tutorial:
Was very confusing and I restarted the game without it. Tutorial messages and objectives need their own window.

Early game:
I lost my fleet 2-3 times due to not having enough fuel while scanning. It took me a bit to notice the fuel range (and what it means) in the map overview.
Money was surprisingly easy to acquire, I guess you wanted people to do this sort of quest instead of the bounty hunting way.
* Getting money this way is definitionem too easy, risk vs reward mismatch.

Salvaging:
(I maxed out the salvaging tree).
It annoys me that you need certain skills to salvage certain things. This should be a fleet setup thing where skills only help, but not enable.
I maxed out every skill in the salvaging tree. It allows for a new playstyle, but it costs you more interesting combat. (More interesting in terms of you missing skills that enable different combat experiences).

Fighters:
(I tested different setups and my fleet is almost exclusively carrier based).
Talons don't seem too strong in general, but they are for 0 OP. I never used them outside the simulator. They are crazy against frigates and other minor targets, but what do I care? Real threats are destroyers and every size above. That's where all the other fighters shine. Still, massing them on all carriers might cause ridiculous results because of their missiles.
Dagger bomber are not worth their cost. Never used them.
Longbow, Kopesh and Piranha are all excellent. Longbow might do too much armor / hull damage, but I'm not certain. It's just that you need to pull your shield down against them.
I love Warthog, but I'm not sure if they're the best fighters for bomber support.

Level cap:
Hate it. I stopped playing once I reached level 40. I stop playing every game once there is no longer any progression. Allow me to reset my skillset, something like NG+, but keep everything else. Increase the level cap on the next run. Something you can buy ingame, a brain update or whatever. But don't force this level cap on me. I'm not going to start another game just to re-progress or try another playstyle. I just leave.

Officers:
I love them. Have maxed the skill for 10 Officers.
They're really strong and the their personality makes quit some difference. Just why do balanced Officers in carriers try to kiss the enemy fleet? I'll only use cautious Officers next time (or use Mora's).
Also, I have not managed to get one Officer with all free carrier/fighter related skills. Very annoying.
Would like to see even more different personalities in Officers in the future. Maybe add some traits?
I also don't like the Officer cap. How about Officer cost you some money for every transaction? Or a monthly salary? The cap feels artificial and out of place.

Fuel:
Non issue once you have some tankers in your fleet. NPC fleets obviously don't have the same requirements, I dislike that. But well, fighting enemy fleets consisting of 50% supply ships would get real boring real fast, so understandable design choice.

Exploration/drones:
Fighting drones get's really boring very fast. There needs a way to bypass this.
The [redacted] faction lacks variety. I like that you get swarmed by their fleets, but it's just the same thing over and over again.
Maybe add "possessed" ships? Normal ships that have been taken and modified.

Marines:
Do I need them? Haven't seen one instance where I could use them.

Surveying:
Dislike the skill requirement. Again, like for salvaging, make skills help but not a requirement.

Skillsystem.
Never should the player spend a skill point without having a direct benefit. Whatever you add, there needs to be a reward.

Combat skill tree:
Haven't spend one point there because I wanted skills from the other trees. That let me to never really participate in combat, just in support roles. In consequence, I enjoyed combat less. Why fly one of the bigger ships myself if my officers have way better skills for that? I don't see a solution for this other then having more points in the long run.

Bounties:
They don't scale if you don't go after them, right? Once 40, I wanted to do something else. Quickly abandoned that idea because fighting these tiny fleets for low profit was neither profitable nor interesting.

Command points:
Excellent idea with recharging points.
Is there a way to group carriers so that they do attack runs together? I've seen my carriers attacking solo over and over again, while one concentrated attack would have been sufficient.

Distress calls:
I almost never went after them. Reward seems minimal. Increase reward, decrease distress call frequency?
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: CrashToDesktop on April 30, 2017, 01:31:00 PM
Just thought I'd answer these two bits:
Salvaging:
(I maxed out the salvaging tree).
It annoys me that you need certain skills to salvage certain things. This should be a fleet setup thing where skills only help, but not enable.
I maxed out every skill in the salvaging tree. It allows for a new playstyle, but it costs you more interesting combat. (More interesting in terms of you missing skills that enable different combat experiences).
and
Surveying:
Dislike the skill requirement. Again, like for salvaging, make skills help but not a requirement.

First off, you can always salvage anything you find by just blowing it up and then using the Salvage fleet ability on the ensuing Debris Field.  The loot might not be quite as good, but you still can get it.

Secondly, if you were able to survey stuff, but not as good as if you had a higher level, you just flat out wouldn't survey anything until you could survey it, because why would you bother with a worse result than when you could just wait until you leveled up your Survey skill enough to get a much better one?  Unlike Debris Fields and Derelict Ships, planets aren't going anywhere anytime soon - and Class V data is worth a whole lot.  If you get anything less, you've just lost out on a quarter million credits.

However, also do note that Alex has said Surveying in it's current state is pretty much just a placeholder.  So take that for what you will.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Shendao on April 30, 2017, 02:58:55 PM
Didn't know the first one. Starsector isn't really clear in these things.

> Secondly, if you were able to survey stuff, but not as good as if you had a higher level, you just flat out wouldn't survey anything until you could survey it, because why would you bother with a worse result than when you could just wait until you leveled up your Survey skill enough to get a much better one?

Disagree. Why not make surveying a percentage thing? You don't have enough equipment / skills? Well, you can't survey everything on the planet. Without skills, you'll need quit some surveying oriented ships, capping your potential elsewhere.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: CrashToDesktop on April 30, 2017, 03:02:58 PM
Didn't know the first one. Starsector isn't really clear in these things.
The tutorial tells you that.

Disagree. Why not make surveying a percentage thing? You don't have enough equipment / skills? Well, you can't survey everything on the planet. Without skills, you'll need quit some surveying oriented ships, capping your potential elsewhere.
With the current system, partially surveying something won't work.  Besides, why partially survey a planet and have to waste the fuel to go back there to fully survey it?  Just wait for more Survey skills.  That planet isn't going anywhere quickly.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Chaos Farseer on April 30, 2017, 03:06:44 PM
Salvaging:
(I maxed out the salvaging tree).
It annoys me that you need certain skills to salvage certain things. This should be a fleet setup thing where skills only help, but not enable.
I maxed out every skill in the salvaging tree. It allows for a new playstyle, but it costs you more interesting combat. (More interesting in terms of you missing skills that enable different combat experiences).

Level cap:
Hate it. I stopped playing once I reached level 40. I stop playing every game once there is no longer any progression. Allow me to reset my skillset, something like NG+, but keep everything else. Increase the level cap on the next run. Something you can buy ingame, a brain update or whatever. But don't force this level cap on me. I'm not going to start another game just to re-progress or try another playstyle. I just leave.
On Surveys, Alex wanted it so that you never need to scan something (successfully) more than once. However, it would be cool if certain survey ships added +5% to the maximum hazard rating you can survey, or something like that.

IIRC, you can mod the level cap somewhere in the game files.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: CrashToDesktop on April 30, 2017, 03:12:44 PM
Level cap:
Hate it. I stopped playing once I reached level 40. I stop playing every game once there is no longer any progression. Allow me to reset my skillset, something like NG+, but keep everything else. Increase the level cap on the next run. Something you can buy ingame, a brain update or whatever. But don't force this level cap on me. I'm not going to start another game just to re-progress or try another playstyle. I just leave.
I've been Level 40 for 5 cycles.  I'm in cycle 218 right now and I'm still playing my first save.  I'm fine with it. :P
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Shendao on April 30, 2017, 03:14:08 PM
Wrote that I haven't played the tutorial because it was confusing. Still valuable feedback for Alex, because things like that should be absolutely clear even without a tutorial.

Surveying, lets agree to disagree. I don't visit star systems twice, why would I? Boring. Surveying is something I do in addition to other tasks, for more benefits. But yes, percentage based surveying wouldn't work with the current system. Surveying is quit silly at the moment anyway. Why I'm the only one surveying? I'm not the only one salvaging, but absolutely no other captain / faction had the idea to survey? Not even planets within their own system? That doesn't make any sense in this universe. Selling data to only one party is also quit silly. Can't you copy data in this universe? I'm curious where Alex will take the industry play style. I'm just glad he himself has said that it's merely a placeholder.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: CrashToDesktop on April 30, 2017, 03:17:09 PM
Wrote that I haven't played the tutorial because it was confusing. Still valuable feedback for Alex, because things like that should be absolutely clear even without a tutorial.
The tutorial is there to clear things up.  If things were crystal clear, you wouldn't need a tutorial to begin with.  Starsector by nature is murky, so you *need* to play the tutorial to understand the basic mechanics or you're gonna flop hard.  Hell, I played the tutorial, and despite having been owned Starsector for more than five years now and not having actually played it in the past year (due to reasons), I still understood every step and didn't trip up on it.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Shendao on April 30, 2017, 03:22:57 PM
Level cap:
Hate it. I stopped playing once I reached level 40. I stop playing every game once there is no longer any progression. Allow me to reset my skillset, something like NG+, but keep everything else. Increase the level cap on the next run. Something you can buy ingame, a brain update or whatever. But don't force this level cap on me. I'm not going to start another game just to re-progress or try another playstyle. I just leave.
I've been Level 40 for 5 cycles.  I'm in cycle 218 right now and I'm still playing my first save.  I'm fine with it. :P

Different people like and dislike different things :)
But it's an unnecessary fun blockade for me and others who like progression. See no reason why this should stay in place. Who cares if you can max everything if you take enough time? Different progressions through the skill tree will still make for different playstyles and experiences. Games like Witcher 3 also cap skill points, but they allow you to re-skill. Really, don't have a cap or allow for reskilling. There's no benefit otherwise. But I'd argue against re-skill, because that would break game mechanics and lead to a stupid re-skill meta.

For the tutorial, again, it was absolutely confusing. I've read that I'm not the only one. Good tutorials are hard, really hard. This one would benefit from a very clear tutorial UI element. A simple box with checkboxes on the right side of the screen or something like that.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Drokkath on April 30, 2017, 09:30:33 PM
Level cap:
Hate it. I stopped playing once I reached level 40. I stop playing every game once there is no longer any progression. Allow me to reset my skillset, something like NG+, but keep everything else. Increase the level cap on the next run. Something you can buy ingame, a brain update or whatever. But don't force this level cap on me. I'm not going to start another game just to re-progress or try another playstyle. I just leave.

And that is one of the reasons why I myself use cheats in every singleplayer game so to bypass all the leveling and grinding and whatnot chores and by doing so save myself from anger and instead unleash my frustrations 10-fold on the NPC hostiles which is mandatory for me to keep my sanity, relaxation and enjoyability of a game in check.

Everyone has their own way of playstyle and it's fine by me, mine is just in a form of something opposite of ironman mode and easy mode as I prefer to literally wreck normal to hard AI/difficulty like it's a stroll through a park. The more punishing some AI factions get (looking at you Templars!) the more powerful my ships and weaponry get to unleash the sweet ecstasy of armageddon as I can't be arsed to have my adrenaline pumping for purely personal reasons.

And for the non-cheaters reading my post, just chill. I am "ruining my fun" for several reasons so go ahead (or not) and call me cheap, lazy or whatever, I'm done playing games like everyone else for about a decade now.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Deshara on May 02, 2017, 02:35:53 PM
Anyone else finding themselves greedily snatching up hullmods from markets like they were food, even if they have no use for them ever?
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Gothars on May 02, 2017, 02:49:07 PM
@Drokkath: Nobody here is criticizing your play stile. I'll just quote from the last time you went there:

I've always cheated in SP games and I always will, it's how I play my games and that's about it, anybody who thinks my choice of playing a game how I want is wrong or unfun as it is clearly fun for me for over a decade now and I prefer to avoid this "oh you shouldn't cheat" boll yotz, are we clear? Good. Because I'm having none of the anti-cheat arguments anymore as I'm too old for that dren.

Err... great?

Not sure why you feel the need to preemptively defend the way you prefer to play a singleplayer game, especially one that's still in development and offers all kinds of not-exactly-balanced mods (looking at you Knights Templar).
I'm mostly wondering because you made a somewhat similar post in that mod thread you necro'd, so maybe that's a personal issue on your part, as I have yet to see anyone in this forum trying to tell others how to play the game.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: SCC on May 02, 2017, 02:54:52 PM
Anyone else finding themselves greedily snatching up hullmods from markets like they were food, even if they have no use for them ever?
I do, in addition to hoarding every weapon I earn and every ship I deem worth salvaging. They're trophies, I swear!

@Drokkath
Calm down, nobody's attacking anybody. I similarly don't like the hard cap and tried to circumvent it, buuut I've learned that some strange thing happens at level 47 and you can't progress past it (to max out everything you need lvl 97). Cheat Console Commands come in handy now.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Deshara on May 02, 2017, 03:06:16 PM
Anyone else finding themselves greedily snatching up hullmods from markets like they were food, even if they have no use for them ever?
I do, in addition to hoarding every weapon I earn and every ship I deem worth salvaging. They're trophies, I swear!

I love that there are derelict stations you can horde this stuff in too. Thanks for thinking of us chipmunks, Alex  :D
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Alex on May 02, 2017, 03:08:38 PM
@Shendao: Thanks for your feedback! Re: the tutorial, it would help to know what you found confusing.

... buuut I've learned that some strange thing happens at level 47 and you can't progress past it

Huh - that's weird, any more details? Seems to be working on my end.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Cik on May 02, 2017, 03:12:26 PM
the tutorial has a bunch of weird failure states that probably shouldn't exist.

granted it wasn't worth forestalling the update to fix or anything, just that if you deviate from the rails at all you get into an unwinnable scenario and you cannot leave. for instance:
if you don't salvage all the ships, you must restart
if you don't loot the gamma core, it disappears forever, must restart
if you spend a little too much money you can't crew the ships, restart
if you spend a little too long you'll run out of supplies, restart

it's no big deal but it took me three tries actually because i figured the game would handle these sorts of things, and it didn't.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Satirical on May 02, 2017, 03:24:55 PM
I really liked the soft cap that we had before with the exponential exp requirements for levels, got around level 51 on my last save

Anyways IDK if you should tell the player that theres a cap at 40 or if there should be a way to reset some of your skills even though that won't really fit in the lore lol

Speaking of things that don't fit into the lore, maybe another use for AI cores could be to increase your player level or something (im sure someone has said something similar to that in this thread already)
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 02, 2017, 03:33:30 PM
I fought mostly bounties, and I hit the level cap before they ramped up to capitals (and before I got one myself).  I just fought several higher-end bounties and I have almost twice as much XP to hit the level cap.  I have not obtained enough excess wealth yet to fund an endgame fleet and enough tankers and fuel to search outer systems for Remnant battlestations.  (There is one relatively close, though).  I have not ventured beyond 20 light-years from any core world.

The level cap is nice, but it is too low and reached before I make it to endgame.  I would not mind a level 50 cap that I can have a few more skills and not just jam them all 42 into fleet and campaign only stuff.  Max Helmsmanship and other pilot-only skills is nice to have to feel fast, but it will not help me win better as long as I just point-and-click and watch fighters kill everything short of a Paragon easily, and I do not need skills to do that (although officer and fighter skills would probably make that more efficient).
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: orost on May 02, 2017, 03:35:40 PM
Right now respeccing is a bad fit for Starsector because you could invest into surveying and salvage skills, exhaust those sources of income making all the money you'll ever need, and then respec into combat skills. This will probably work differently eventually but right now it would allow you to eat your cake and have it too.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Satirical on May 02, 2017, 03:38:03 PM
Ok that makes sense and I think new players figure out really fast that they have to choose their skills wisely, but maybe telling them that they only have 40 levels right off the start is a good idea
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Thaago on May 02, 2017, 05:48:50 PM
Well it does say that in the tutorial, but its just 1 detail amid a lot of stuff so I'm guessing most people don't see it.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Techhead on May 02, 2017, 05:53:43 PM
With the split between ship-only and fleetwide skills, I could imagine respeccing ship skills, with fleet skills being locked-in.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: SCC on May 03, 2017, 01:41:16 AM
Huh - that's weird, any more details? Seems to be working on my end.
*tries with console commands, progresses to 127 level where points don't matter anymore*
DISCORD LIED TO ME
...Well, not really. I will have to check this in normal way, I've seen screenshots on discord or 4chan (can't remember where) where at 47 level you couldn't progress past it even when having more XP than needed.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: RawCode on May 03, 2017, 02:24:37 AM
level cap is moddable btw.

levels does not matter actually, making just 5 levels for player, long awaited, hard to earn and very rewarding a lot better then 999 levels that does nothing significant.

Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: SCC on May 03, 2017, 02:32:01 AM
You know, I know that it is moddable because I modded it and this whole issue was about levels past level cap.
Besides, those levels don't happen just like that, later there would a lot of work to gain even one.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Drokkath on May 03, 2017, 06:43:40 AM
Nobody here is criticizing your play stile.
-snip-

Calm down, nobody's attacking anybody. I similarly don't like the hard cap and tried to circumvent it, buuut I've learned that some strange thing happens at level 47 and you can't progress past it (to max out everything you need lvl 97). Cheat Console Commands come in handy now.

I know and no, I wasn't angry, in-fact I was calm. It may only have just seemed like I was due to putting emphasis on sentences and words with underlines and bold font purely in hopes of avoiding unnecessary arguments I've had too many times in the past and its why I added the non-cheater thing at the end of my post also in hopes of avoiding unnecessary arguments.
But since that post, Gothars. Quite a few positive changing months have gone by for me personally. Sorry about if I seemed anything other than calm, there's always too many variables and unknowns to a two dimensional communication. Thank you Gothars for taking a short time to remind me about how things in this forum are in general.

Anyhow with that out of the way and off the chest. I've been having quite a blast with .8 version both modding-wise and even more with gameplay-wise as last time I put hours upon hours to days and weeks into the default game.. well tbh actually there hasn't been a last time because this is a first for me with the game, combat has been great since I first tried and played SS and now with huge addition to out of combat part of the game is in its own new way of meaningful and interesting to me.

EDIT: And yeah with Console Commands when I buffed my character up the first time it went straight past 40 to 120 due to intentionally adding a large sum of experience points and later found out that upon closer inspection the game seems to put level cap in effect at level 40 as I was add-spamming much lower amount of experience points to figure out when the level cap kicks in.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Kaucukovnik on May 03, 2017, 07:55:56 AM
I think I hate any incarnation of skills in StarSector. The true progression is the fleet and the flagship, while the skills are more like gatekeepers to have full use of that progression. They needlessly refocus from building up your fleet to even repeatedly trashing your fleet for the sake of experience and, effectively, better future fleet. Officer skills are fine, but way too random.

I was writing a longer post, but it always descends into ranting. I'll just call v0.8 "Starsector: Carriers on a Survey". And I'll shut up for now and play some more. :)

Just one more thing: the tutorial is way too easy to botch without even knowing how. I didn't fail to notice the quicksave hint, no need to make it flash even more - it just looks like a mere tip and I didn't feel like saving when I had just started. I had to read the forums to find out what was going on. On the next try I mothballed the salvaged ships for the return trip, thus missing the free repair. Finally there was no final battle at the jump point and I just went through, looking for things to fight retroactively.
I bet it's a nice introduction when it works properly.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Aratoop on May 03, 2017, 09:54:49 AM
I've been really enjoying this update- surveying planets is really fun, and I love the interactions you get with factions like
Spoiler
http://i.imgur.com/zm4rPs0.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/zm4rPs0.jpg)
[close]
, as well as independent salvage fleets turning on you in the deep dark recesses of the sector, far from any comm beacon. The level cap does feel a little bit low- I didn't feel as though I could fully delve into some skills as much as I'd've liked (didn't help that I missed the fact that the cap was 40 in the tutorial, but I feel I would've felt the same anyhow).
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: tinsoldier on May 03, 2017, 11:41:56 AM
Right now respeccing is a bad fit for Starsector because you could invest into surveying and salvage skills, exhaust those sources of income making all the money you'll ever need, and then respec into combat skills. This will probably work differently eventually but right now it would allow you to eat your cake and have it too.

So what?  It's not a multiplayer game, I want to have my cake and eat it too.  I invested in survey/salvage skills, hit the level cap hours before I even got to endgame content and I now have two paragons, an astral, an aurora, an apogee, two dominators, *** tons of moras and other carriers, 10Million credits, 30 alpha cores blah blah blah. It bothers me that when I drive my badass paragons around I'm taking a 20-30% speed/damage/hitpoints/flux penalty over having my officers drive it. 

I should be able to salvage effectively, survey effectively and drive the best ships and be a badass doing it.  I want all of those things it and doesn't affect anyone else because it's a single player game.  I think the leveling/skill mechanic is broken in this regard. 
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: orost on May 03, 2017, 11:46:59 AM
If you can do everything in one game, then every game is the same and there is no reason to play twice.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: PCCL on May 03, 2017, 12:02:29 PM
Right now respeccing is a bad fit for Starsector because you could invest into surveying and salvage skills, exhaust those sources of income making all the money you'll ever need, and then respec into combat skills. This will probably work differently eventually but right now it would allow you to eat your cake and have it too.

So what?  It's not a multiplayer game, I want to have my cake and eat it too.  I invested in survey/salvage skills, hit the level cap hours before I even got to endgame content and I now have two paragons, an astral, an aurora, an apogee, two dominators, *** tons of moras and other carriers, 10Million credits, 30 alpha cores blah blah blah. It bothers me that when I drive my badass paragons around I'm taking a 20-30% speed/damage/hitpoints/flux penalty over having my officers drive it. 

I should be able to salvage effectively, survey effectively and drive the best ships and be a badass doing it.  I want all of those things it and doesn't affect anyone else because it's a single player game.  I think the leveling/skill mechanic is broken in this regard. 

trivially moddable:
data/config/settings:
playermaxlevel: 40 <- change to 100000
xpgainmult: 1 <- change to 1000000

enjoy your invincible godliness
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Serenitis on May 03, 2017, 12:05:51 PM
One thing I've seen bugs me.
But it's only cosmetic, and virtually no-one else will care.

Multiple star systems.
As a general rule the largest star should always be the primary, as it will outmass anything else (ignoring Neutron stars and Singularities). And in any case a Brown Dwarf should never be the primary when in the same system as any class of star.

So what?  It's not a multiplayer game, I want to have my cake and eat it too.  
I reached lv.40 before I even got a decent fleet together or started actively seeking combat and it felt a bit hollow because progression just stops. I just set the skill cap to 99 and am quite happily plodding away against a soft cap, and we'll see how far it goes before it gets dull.

I also increased the cap for officers, as thier "skill progression" is far too random and results in odd mix-and-match skillsets which mostly don't help what I want them to be doing at all.
Most irritatingly with carrier assigned officers never rolling fighter related skills. This results in frequent sackings and recruitment in the vain hope that this one will learn something useful.
If it would be possible somehow to weight officer skills by how thier current assignment is equipped, that would be great.

If you can do everything in one game, then every game is the same and there is no reason to play twice.
Disagree. The player chooses the direction of the game based on what they feel like doing.
Even with a completely static sector in previous versions which never changed from game to game this was never an issue.

Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Alex on May 03, 2017, 12:08:30 PM
(Don't set the officer cap above 29, btw. If you do: issues, including a hang.)
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: tinsoldier on May 03, 2017, 12:12:59 PM
If you can do everything in one game, then every game is the same and there is no reason to play twice.

That applies to games where by making different choices you get a different experience (e.g. WoW, Diablo 3, Fallout).  The skills in this game do not create a different experience.  I do not think it is comparable.


trivially moddable:
data/config/settings:
playermaxlevel: 40 <- change to 100000
xpgainmult: 1 <- change to 1000000

enjoy your invincible godliness

Good to know.  I still think the core game should address these issues though because I'd like to see the gameplay balanced around it instead of doing something that feels a bit cheaty (like adding 100 lives in contra cheaty) but thanks for the info!

If you can do everything in one game, then every game is the same and there is no reason to play twice.
Disagree. The player chooses the direction of the game based on what they feel like doing.
Even with a completely static sector in previous versions which never changed from game to game this was never an issue.

Truth.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: PCCL on May 03, 2017, 12:17:05 PM
Good to know.  I still think the core game should address these issues though because I'd like to see the gameplay balanced around it instead of doing something that feels a bit cheaty (like adding 100 lives in contra cheaty) but thanks for the info!

Welcome. That said though, I disagree that the core game should balance around these issues because... well... that's a matter of preference and I think it's against alex's vision for the game. Personally, my preferences are the direct opposite of yours and I'm using a "cheaty" solution. I have exp gain turned down to 0.3, tripled ship prices and pentapled ship maintenance (in fuel and supplies), among other things to slow down progress and make the game more difficult
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: tinsoldier on May 03, 2017, 12:24:24 PM
Good to know.  I still think the core game should address these issues though because I'd like to see the gameplay balanced around it instead of doing something that feels a bit cheaty (like adding 100 lives in contra cheaty) but thanks for the info!

Welcome. That said though, I disagree that the core game should balance around these issues because... well... that's a matter of preference and I think it's against alex's vision for the game. Personally, my preferences are the direct opposite of yours and I'm using a "cheaty" solution. I have exp gain turned down to 0.3, tripled ship prices and pentapled ship maintenance (in fuel and supplies), among other things to slow down progress and make the game more difficult

Honestly, making it harder doesn't sound bad to me if I could get more of the skills (eventually) or could invest in my ships/mods that better compensate for missed skills.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 03, 2017, 03:27:11 PM
I finally found my first Paragon... after prying it from the cold, dead hands of a TT deserter.  Did not get the chance to play with it in the campaign yet.

Come to think of it, I have not recovered an Odyssey yet.  Not sure how well it compares with Legion.  Legion is fun to use when I do not need to control the Astral mad bomber.

At this point, I am well into endgame.  The only new thing left to do that I have not done yet is farm Remnants for their fighters (and kill a battlestation if I want to kill the golden goose).
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: tinsoldier on May 03, 2017, 04:02:24 PM
I finally found my first Paragon... after prying it from the cold, dead hands of a TT deserter.  Did not get the chance to play with it in the campaign yet.

Come to think of it, I have not recovered an Odyssey yet.  Not sure how well it compares with Legion.  Legion is fun to use when I do not need to control the Astral mad bomber.

At this point, I am well into endgame.  The only new thing left to do that I have not done yet is farm Remnants for their fighters (and kill a battlestation if I want to kill the golden goose).

Ironically, this is a good example for the argument I was making.  For me the odyssey works really well in AI hands because without enough combat oriented skills, it's hard to make the funky layout work (700 range autopulses is no bueno on a ship of that size and layout, i'll just hop in my Paragon which only costs 5 more OP and has built-in mega range extenders).  Personally I'm super annoyed that a skill decision I made forever ago means I can't effectively use one of my favorite ships  >:(

btw, super jealous you got a Paragon without TT commission.  I went the commission route and then snuck into a Hegemony base an gave'em 20 betas to make them friends again (300% rep gain).  No big deal but I was hoping to remain unaffiliated.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on May 03, 2017, 05:14:36 PM
trivially moddable:
data/config/settings:
playermaxlevel: 40 <- change to 100000
xpgainmult: 1 <- change to 1000000

enjoy your invincible godliness

Good to know.  I still think the core game should address these issues though because I'd like to see the gameplay balanced around it instead of doing something that feels a bit cheaty (like adding 100 lives in contra cheaty) but thanks for the info!
Please don't do this as it could cause problems. Just set your level to 97? (you get two extra points at the start) and you will cap out at the same time you get your last point
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: StarGibbon on May 03, 2017, 05:42:40 PM


That applies to games where by making different choices you get a different experience (e.g. WoW, Diablo 3, Fallout).  The skills in this game do not create a different experience.  I do not think it is comparable.


I disagree. Skill choices in the game as it is can alter the playstyle in regard to what kind of combat you're seeking out (and what you try to avoid), what kind of missions you're better at, and how efficient it is to build your fleet one way or another. There is room for far more specialization, and I think the game would only benefit by providing it. Sandboxes tell stories, and stories about how youre good at everything are boring. In addition, there are upcoming features that will add more opportunity for specialization.

The only thing keeping the game from enforcing more specialization at present is how wide open the economy is, and how easy it is to make money.  If the economy tightens (as it should), it will no longer be cost efficient to build jack of all trades fleets that can do everything.

 Example: Running bounty missions is profitable if your fleet and skill selection makes your fleet efficient at combat (need to spend fewer supplies on ship deployment and repair costs, need to drag around fewer ships that dont contribute to combat effectiveness). Run a dedicated combat fleet with just enough fuel ships to get you where you need to go and back, and the skills to make that fleet effective at combat with minimal deployment, and bounty missions will always be insanely profitable.  Run a bloated fleet with a bunch of extra salvage and storage ships, skills that dont make you efficient at combat, and you can easily blow the entire mission reward with round trip travel, deployment, and maintenance costs.

The current economy trivializes ship acquisition, supply purchase, and fleet inefficiency, reducing overall game challenge.  If that ever changes, as I expect it has to to provide any kind of challenge, you will have to specialize more to get ahead.  If the game didnt provide a lot of opportunities for specialized playthroughs with different fleet compositions, I would have tired of it long ago. Otherwise the game would be just about pursuing the same superior ships over and over with each playthrough, and I would have tired of that rapidly.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: PCCL on May 03, 2017, 05:53:01 PM
trivially moddable:
data/config/settings:
playermaxlevel: 40 <- change to 100000
xpgainmult: 1 <- change to 1000000

enjoy your invincible godliness

Good to know.  I still think the core game should address these issues though because I'd like to see the gameplay balanced around it instead of doing something that feels a bit cheaty (like adding 100 lives in contra cheaty) but thanks for the info!
Please don't do this as it could cause problems. Just set your level to 97? (you get two extra points at the start) and you will cap out at the same time you get your last point

ye of little faith
http://imgur.com/a/4GY9u (http://imgur.com/a/4GY9u)

(don't mind the experience loss from the last bit, it has no real effect on gameplay and is only caused by the tutorial script)
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on May 03, 2017, 07:02:25 PM
ye of little faith
http://imgur.com/a/4GY9u (http://imgur.com/a/4GY9u)
(don't mind the experience loss from the last bit, it has no real effect on gameplay and is only caused by the tutorial script)
The issue is that it could cause issues down the line with overflow. If you want a maxed out character at the start, just download the Console Commands mod and add in some skill points instead of suggesting and doing something that could end up leading to more bugs for Alex to worry about!
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: tinsoldier on May 03, 2017, 08:03:43 PM
I disagree. Skill choices in the game as it is can alter the playstyle in regard to what kind of combat you're seeking out (and what you try to avoid), what kind of missions you're better at, and how efficient it is to build your fleet one way or another. There is room for far more specialization, and I think the game would only benefit by providing it. Sandboxes tell stories, and stories about how youre good at everything are boring. In addition, there are upcoming features that will add more opportunity for specialization.

The only thing keeping the game from enforcing more specialization at present is how wide open the economy is, and how easy it is to make money.  If the economy tightens (as it should), it will no longer be cost efficient to build jack of all trades fleets that can do everything.

 Example: Running bounty missions is profitable if your fleet and skill selection makes your fleet efficient at combat (need to spend fewer supplies on ship deployment and repair costs, need to drag around fewer ships that dont contribute to combat effectiveness). Run a dedicated combat fleet with just enough fuel ships to get you where you need to go and back, and the skills to make that fleet effective at combat with minimal deployment, and bounty missions will always be insanely profitable.  Run a bloated fleet with a bunch of extra salvage and storage ships, skills that dont make you efficient at combat, and you can easily blow the entire mission reward with round trip travel, deployment, and maintenance costs.

The current economy trivializes ship acquisition, supply purchase, and fleet inefficiency, reducing overall game challenge.  If that ever changes, as I expect it has to to provide any kind of challenge, you will have to specialize more to get ahead.  If the game didnt provide a lot of opportunities for specialized playthroughs with different fleet compositions, I would have tired of it long ago. Otherwise the game would be just about pursuing the same superior ships over and over with each playthrough, and I would have tired of that rapidly.

Some games have skill choices that alter your playstyle, this is not that game, at least not right now.  (Case in point, I'm a max industry + leadership/tech build and my fleet can demolish lvl 20 hero battlestations)

Your notion that the game will be so delicately balanced that your skill selection will determine if bounty missions are profitable or not...  Sound so unfun :-\  I really hope we don't end up there.  More power to you if you like it, but we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Besides that, your example seems a bit contradictory.  Right now, anyone and everyone can salvage most things and if you can't salvage something then you blow it up and salvage the debris instead. As such salvage ships are good for everyone.  Further more, if you follow PCCL's example and quintuple supply costs and/or follow your example of locking down the economy more (I think that's what you were implying.  Apologies in advance...), flying 4-20ly to the nearest bounty without storage and fuel ships and industry/leadership skills to reduce those costs will be harder and less efficient

Maybe what you were going for would be well served by having faction specific opportunities.  The games I think told really good stories and had good replayability involved aligning the player with different factions each play through.  Today you could go all Pirate, and that's pretty dope.  Go rob people blind.  Another play-through you could be the bounty hunter and chase down the pirates you used to play as in a previous life.  Be a TT shill or Hegemony officer another day.  Skills have nothing to do with it though.

I think the combat vs. industry dissonance will become worse once the economy is given more depth and there are outposts and all that jazz.

You had a number of other good points that deserve a thoughtful response but I'd rather go fly my Paragons around then keep writing.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Pushover on May 03, 2017, 08:40:04 PM
Does anyone else feel like smuggling has almost no penalty now? Maybe it's a function of players being unable to lower stability, but if the only punishments are a minor rep hit, and a larger one if caught through a scan (which you can totally full burn away from until the patrol loses track of you), then it seems like there is no reason not to purchase everything through the black market, and conduct trades that way.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: StarGibbon on May 03, 2017, 08:40:45 PM


Your notion that the game will be so delicately balanced that your skill selection will determine if bounty missions are profitable or not...  Sound so unfun :-\  I really hope we don't end up there.  More power to you if you like it, but we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Your notion of a game that is so untuned as to provide little incentive for player experimentation, roleplay, and specialization, and hence little replay value sounds fun to me...for about 2 hours until I get the best ships and faceroll the AI, and then never play the game again. To each their own I guess.


Besides that, your example seems a bit contradictory.  Right now, anyone and everyone can salvage most things and if you can't salvage something then you blow it up and salvage the debris instead. As such salvage ships are good for everyone.  Further more, if you follow PCCL's example and quintuple supply costs and/or follow your example of locking down the economy more (I think that's what you were implying.  Apologies in advance...), flying 4-20ly to the nearest bounty without storage and fuel ships and industry/leadership skills to reduce those costs will be harder and less efficient.  

Everyone can do everything right now because the economy is so out of control it doesnt discourage it.  Doing a bounty mission with a dedicated combat fleet and high combat spec will make it much more profitable. I dont necessarily mean combat tree spec, but spec to make yourself efficient in combat. You can currently be efficient in combat by:  1) Combat tree spec (strong player ship requiring fewer support ships), 2) Leadership focus (strong carrier fleet requiring fewer combat ships altogether), 3) Industry focus allowing you to throw large amounts of trash ships at the enemy for reduced cost.  If you try to do that bounty with an unfocused skill selection that makes you inefficient in combat, and carry around a bunch of ships that don't contribute to your combat ability to boot, you will easily blow through that mission reward in round trip travel, deployment and repair costs. But there are so many other opportunities to make stupid amounts of money , the inefficiency doesn't hurt.  It doesn't hurt to lose ships, it doesn't hurt to waste gas and supplies, and there are no difficult choices to make in ship selection because ships are cheap ( free even), bank accounts are huge, and the game throws so much cash at you you dont have to make any good decisions.




Maybe what you were going for would be well served by having faction specific opportunities.  The games I think told really good stories and had good replayability involved aligning the player with different factions each play through.  Today you could go all Pirate, and that's pretty dope.  Go rob people blind.  Another play-through you could be the bounty hunter and chase down the pirates you used to play as in a previous life.  Be a TT shill or Hegemony officer another day.  Skills have nothing to do with it though.

We agree in principle here. Yes, this is the game that I ideally want. I want the game to be essentially like a 2d version of the egosoft X games (not Rebirth, we dont talk about that one). I think that's a lot to expect from a lone independent developer, so I'd be content with something closer to Sid Meiers Pirates in space, with modding to pick up the slack.

Those games dont feature a RPG-like skill tree at all, so I wouldnt miss it if it were gone--allowing the player to define specializations for themselves, as long as economic factors made it impractical to try to do everything at once. But if there IS going to be a branching skill tree, it should actually branch the player into different playstyles, or there's no point to it.

Where we disagree, is that I think the game has the basic framework to support this already, with a bit more fine tuning.  My playthroughs are all very specific along certain themes. Trader/junker pirate/Bounty Hunter/fleet admiral, etc. The nature of the combat encounters I seek out varies in each one, as a result of the logical playstyle. Combat is a part of each playthrough, but not each playthrough is about knocking out capital ship battle fleets in bounty missions. Some are about running from patrols and going dark to avoid scavengers, or carrying just enough military power mostly in the form of combat frieghters to survive redacted encounters while salvaging huge paydays.  I really look forward to the outpost building, and opportunities to make economic playthroughs more viable.



Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: TaLaR on May 03, 2017, 09:01:52 PM
Right now, anyone and everyone can salvage most things and if you can't salvage something then you blow it up and salvage the debris instead. As such salvage ships are good for everyone.

Salvage bonus stacks only up to salvage difficulty. And you can salvage only 0% without skills. So salvage ships with bonuses are useless without specialization.
Kind of same for survey bonuses - they work, when you find 0% planet. But such planets are very rare and cheap to survey anyway.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 04, 2017, 05:51:37 AM
Ironically, this is a good example for the argument I was making.  For me the odyssey works really well in AI hands because without enough combat oriented skills, it's hard to make the funky layout work (700 range autopulses is no bueno on a ship of that size and layout, i'll just hop in my Paragon which only costs 5 more OP and has built-in mega range extenders).  Personally I'm super annoyed that a skill decision I made forever ago means I can't effectively use one of my favorite ships  >:(
Given the fighter changes, I have a feeling Odyssey may work better as a beam boat, and use its fighter bay for kinetics.  I have a feeling that one fighter bay may not be enough.  I need to find one now to see what it can do.  Odyssey is the original battlecarrier, but it appears Legion may steal all of its thunder.

With much slower speeds and AI's penchant for kiting and turtling, shot range is king in 0.8.

Quote
btw, super jealous you got a Paragon without TT commission.  I went the commission route and then snuck into a Hegemony base an gave'em 20 betas to make them friends again (300% rep gain).  No big deal but I was hoping to remain unaffiliated.
Just whack some bounties and you will get one eventually.  That is how I found most of my ships.  The independent military markets are not reliable enough, or they sometimes offer the ships I want but I cannot afford them at the time, and then they are (sometimes) gone when I have cash to spare later.

I tried my old solo Paragon configuration, and despite Advanced Targeting Core, 1400 or so is not quite enough to attack ships that want to turtle or counter an enemy Paragon.  I had better results with beams and HVD.  With that much range, ships need to approach to attack and expose themselves more often.  Since I have not found Tachyon Lances yet, I need to rely on HIL and Ion Beams for beams, and HVDs for hard flux.  I would like use dual flak in universals, but I need the kinetics to support beams.  Also, it seems missile hit points have been lowered across the board so even PD lasers can suffice, and Paragon has the best shields in the game to block stuff.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: tinsoldier on May 04, 2017, 08:27:16 AM
Your notion of a game that is so untuned as to provide little incentive for player experimentation, roleplay, and specialization, and hence little replay value sounds fun to me...for about 2 hours until I get the best ships and faceroll the AI, and then never play the game again. To each their own I guess.

No need to be snide, I bought this game 6 years ago to the day and have been playing it nonstop.  I would love to have the game be well tuned and to offer incentives, tremendous incentives, the best incentives anywhere and to have great replayability.  This is the .8 feedback thread, so I'm providing feedback on .8.  It seems to me that most of your feedback is based on a looking-forward basis, if Alex can tune the skills so it was actually worthwhile to replay the game to try out different things then great, you can have that and I'll still enjoy it.  That said, I'd rather see the replayability come via factions, storytelling and the player making choices rather than limitations that feel like penalties more than choices.  Once the economy is improved and I can build my own outposts/faction, I'd rather spend my time doing a mega playthrough on that then lots of smaller playthroughs doing niche things.  Kind of like X3 since you mention it.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Kyuss11 on May 04, 2017, 02:54:59 PM
I love 0.8 and can't wait for next year when we get 0.9,lol just messing with you Alex....Hopefully the bulk of the game is in place and the future releases won't take as long.
What I think should be adjusted for 0.8.
1. Distress Call should not be something you have to look for or find.There is already enough missions that have those requirements already.Whether a Distress Call is a ambush or some one in a real need,the coordinates should show exact locations,after all the technology with the transponders game mechanic it doesn't make sense for a ship in dire need not to be able to ping a location to get help.
2. I have found that supplies can cripple the game if you get reduced to zero and are caught in the outer systems with no way of finding civilization to buy more.Let me explain the good and bad.
  : I like the fact that supplies are a thing for that it makes sense and you might lose crew or suffer ship damage.
  : I like the fact that you can recover supplies more easily with salvage operations.
  : I like the mechanic overall for a challenge when it comes to dealing with low cr and dodging battles.
  - I don't like that if you are exploring a outer system let's say that is 20 plus days away there isn't much hope for buying supplies at a base of operations.(I have not explored every system and I'm not saying there
    isn't any bases in the outer rim systems but all I ever find is planets and moons to survey)
    I understand that preparation is key and making sure you don't get burned by a corona and having to moth ball a ship or two but instead of dying right out with no way to recover maybe a small money loan of 10k
    from a faction with a large interest rate or smaller rate if your friendly.I say this because if you need 60 supplies to repair ships because of low cr and also need supplies to essentially be able to continue to play
    it would cost about 100 supplies at about 100 cr per.I get that there will probably be two responses to this issue.One will be you live and learn and that's just part of the game.But hopefully enough people would
    agree that a slight game mechanic added to prevent a start over.
3. Could there be Way Points added for laying a course.
4. I think that do missions for exploring that give you 50k or more might be a little to easy to get money.Or perhaps balance it better since some of the trading missions give you so little after you buy said product.
5. I love fighters but it seems that you can just roll with 4 or more carriers and win most fights,even the final battle.It's on you tube if you want to see.I get people want to play how they want to play but I think
    fighter are to op that's just my opinion.

Some ideas for the future Starsector mor for the modding community.
1. I would like to see the ability to make shipyards and be able to colonize outer planets so we can acquire supplies or repair ships,make trading lanes etc.
2. I would like to see reasons for commodities like metals and volitiles, perhaps when making a shipyard or colony on planet.
3. I would like to see a more fleshed out items list,for example instead of just metals there id iron,aluminum,gold etc.
4. I would like to see gems introduced to game for use in lasers or tools for industry and money.

Starsector is one of my favorite games and love the 0.8 a lot and can't wait for modders to imply some features that I mentioned.Nexerelin,starsector++ just to name a few.
These are just my opinoins and if I got anything wrong or maybe there is something that I missed to make my play through better,then all the advice is appreciated.Thanks.
 
 
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: StarGibbon on May 04, 2017, 03:01:06 PM

No need to be snide,

The comment you quoted was a variation on your own, nearly verbatim in parts. If you have a problem with it, look in the mirror.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: tinsoldier on May 04, 2017, 04:11:09 PM
5. I love fighters but it seems that you can just roll with 4 or more carriers and win most fights,even the final battle.It's on you tube if you want to see.I get people want to play how they want to play but I think
    fighter are to op that's just my opinion.

I'm assuming you mean the [redacted] battlestation?  Do you have a link to the vid?  All I see are folks beating the damaged station with frigates/fighters.  I find it hard to believe you could beat the hero one with fighters (or frigates for that matter).
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Kyuss11 on May 04, 2017, 04:24:16 PM
Well this one is composed mostly of carriers with a capital ship that does some damage,however as you can see fighters are a powerful swarm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEGq56bDVu8
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 04, 2017, 04:32:23 PM
I plan to duplicate that with my fleet of clunkers (of Paragon flagship plus various carriers).  I killed my first damaged battlestation.  My last save is next to a hero battlestation.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: tinsoldier on May 04, 2017, 04:40:08 PM
Well this one is composed mostly of carriers with a capital ship that does some damage,however as you can see fighters are a powerful swarm.

Interesting, I guess your point stands!  Although it's worth noting that player modded something, he has 300 op points available for that battle and you normally only get 120 (unless there's some mechanic I don't understand, *I* only got 120).  That said, he only used like 122 (that still means one free ship! nyah).  He also has incredible range on those 4! tachyon lances, I bet he could've done it with the Paragon alone.

However, he did have 72 OP worth of carriers and with that much invested don't you think that they should contribute meaningfully to the fight particularly when escorted by the most powerful ship in the game?  Without the Paragon I still don't think the carriers alone would've had any chance.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: StarGibbon on May 04, 2017, 04:46:01 PM
I haven't killed a battlestation with them, but in my own all-carrier/leadership playthrough, the only thing that hard countered my conventional fighter loadouts *was* a paragon. So I don't feel any particular shame in that. I'm still convinced I could have taken it with a different loadout, or some well timed shield-busting carrier reinforcements after my conventional wings had cleared the rest of the battlefield.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 04, 2017, 04:46:51 PM
Quote
Interesting, I guess your point stands!  Although it's worth noting that player modded something, he has 300 op points available for that battle and you normally only get 120 (unless there's some mechanic I don't understand, *I* only got 120).  That said, he only used like 122 (that still means one free ship! nyah).  He also has incredible range on those 4! tachyon lances, I bet he could've done it with the Paragon alone.
Not sure about that.  Maybe with skilled; but with an unskilled Paragon (D), I needed the fighters to distract the battlestation.  Its HIL has more range than yours, and if the Paragon gets flux-locked, that HIL will hurt badly once your shields drop.  Combined with Gauss and Squalls, it is a bad situation.

My Paragon has two HILs, two Ion Beams, and two HVDs for assault.  (I would use Tachyon Lances, but I do not have enough of them now.)

Damaged battlestation is not too hard, but the hero battlestation is not quite the pushover.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: kobeathris on May 05, 2017, 06:18:36 AM
...he has 300 op points available for that battle and you normally only get 120 (unless there's some mechanic I don't understand, *I* only got 120). 

In the settings, you can adjust the maximum Deployment points available in a battle. The side with a larger fleet will get a larger share of the points available, this caps the combined total that can be on the field at once.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 05, 2017, 11:02:17 AM
Finally got to fight a full-powered battlestation.

Without skills, it was too hard for my Paragon with a half-dozen carriers.  The best I did was knock out all three arms, but lost most of its hull.  By the time I started to wail on the insides, I got a bit careless and the pulse lasers finished my Paragon off.

With mostly Combat skills, some tech, and a few fighter skills, it went much more smoothly, but the station still outranged my Paragon a bit.  Took some damage, but I finally won without too much difficulty.

However...

With max Command & Control, Gunnery Implants, and Electronic Warfare, and enough ships to get the maximum -25% to enemy shot range, the Paragon with HILs (and +15% to shot range) outranges the battlestation, and it was a one-sided battle in my Paragon's favor with the battlestation ineffectively shooting Gauss cannons at my ship.  My HILs outrange the battlestation's, and my Paragon was able to pick off pieces one by one without getting shot back much (or at all after I took out the arms with Gauss Cannons).  The battlestation did not bother firing Squalls.  The only threats from the battlestation were Gauss cannons and Flash bombers.  Otherwise, the Paragon can solo the battlestation because the battlestation cannot fire back!  It does not matter who else gets deployed, as long as you get the full -25% to enemy shot range.  You can deploy all of your freighters and tankers to get your skill buffs.  Just send the ships in the corner, and your Paragon can do all of the fighting.

Note, you need to full -25% enemy shot range (plus +15% on yours from Gunnery Implants) for a beam Paragon to consistently outrange the battlestation.  If you settle for -20% from max Electronic Warfare alone, the difference of range is too narrow to consistently outrange the battlestation's HILs.  You need to max the three skills Command & Control, Gunnery Implants, and Electronic Warfare to maximize your range advantage.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 05, 2017, 11:30:22 AM
And the moral of the story?  Shot range matters - a lot!  Just as -25% to shot range kills Unstable Injector as a viable hullmod for many ships, -25% to enemy shot range does bad things to the enemy.

I underestimated Command & Control because I thought the level 3 perk may be too expensive and the rest of the perks inconsequential.  If that extra -5% lets Paragon solo battlestations with ease and maybe let your fleet rip other enemy fleets, then Command & Control may be a very good skill if combined with all of the other range skills.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: TaLaR on May 05, 2017, 12:12:17 PM
@Megas

UI remains staple for frigates. DE and above it's only occasionally worth the range penalty.

I think you overstate usefulness of high EW, outside of remnant station scenario.

You won't be able to stack it like that against officer-ed fleets, since they can deploy more than you and also have EW skill (and if you try to stack EW by spamming DP-cheap civilians, you get into problem of trying to protect them).
Having 1st level of EW is critical to prevent enemy from getting full stack, but that's about it.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Kregoth on May 05, 2017, 12:27:05 PM
I have some Feedback, minor but I'm still discovering everything.

1. Carrier Command, and Fighter Doctrine(both are the exact same skill, mostly): Please remove Carrier Command, it makes no sense having two skill that do the same thing, plus stacking them will make fighters very OP! Both have the same exact level up bonus, except fighter Doctrine gives you hull mods. I am thinking this was just missed, rather than intentional.

2. Leveling up feels too fast which vastly reduced the feeling getting better as you level(leveling had no excitement to it). If the intent is to be that fast, slow it down and cut the max levels in half (20 max, but 2 skill points per level instead) This could reduce the annoyance of leveling an aptitude and waiting for another level before actually picking a skill. But leveling is just too fast and uneventful, half the time I don't even notice it.

Question: Can we expect to see mining added to the game? I figured something would be added by now, scavenging is one thing, but I want to blast some rocks too!
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Wyvern on May 05, 2017, 12:33:30 PM
Carrier Command and Fighter Doctrine do (deliberately) stack - and there's one important difference between them: one is a benefit for the piloted carrier only (and can be taken by officers), while the other is a fleet-wide bonus that can only be taken by the player.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Gothars on May 05, 2017, 12:34:10 PM
Welcome to the forum, Kregoth!

I have some Feedback, minor but I'm still discovering everything.

1. Carrier Command, and Fighter Doctrine(both are the exact same skill, mostly): Please remove Carrier Command, it makes no sense having two skill that do the same thing, plus stacking them will make fighters very OP! Both have the same exact level up bonus, except fighter Doctrine gives you hull mods. I am thinking this was just missed, rather than intentional.

They are actually quite different, Fighter Doctrine affects all ships in your fleet, while Carrier Command affects only your flag ship. So Doctrine is much better and should always be picked first.

Question: Can we expect to see mining added to the game? I figured something would be added by now, scavenging is one thing, but I want to blast some rocks too!

Mining will probably be added, but more likely in the  fashion of establishing, managing and protecting a mining facility of some sort. Blasting rocks yourself tends to get boring quickly.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Kregoth on May 05, 2017, 01:12:26 PM
Oh ok sorry for not really noticing that. thanks for the quick reply, awesome stuff in this update I am enjoying it. The skills are awesome they really impact the player's play style! I just wish it happened slower, the pace it is now makes the game feel shorter than it actually is. But I am sure you already have plans to further finetune it all anyway :)

Also been on these forums for years, I just don't really post much. thanks for the kind introduction :)
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: tinsoldier on May 05, 2017, 01:54:56 PM
Mining will probably be added, but more likely in the  fashion of establishing, managing and protecting a mining facility of some sort. Blasting rocks yourself tends to get boring quickly.

It would be useful for long-distance fleets if it could allow the player to replenish supplies/fuel particularly if stranded but also maybe as a mechanism for deep space expeditions
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Deshara on May 05, 2017, 02:39:52 PM
Mining will probably be added, but more likely in the  fashion of establishing, managing and protecting a mining facility of some sort. Blasting rocks yourself tends to get boring quickly.

It would be useful for long-distance fleets if it could allow the player to replenish supplies/fuel particularly if stranded but also maybe as a mechanism for deep space expeditions

Press 7 to not starve
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 05, 2017, 03:39:56 PM
I do not see how UI would work for frigates (aside from missile boats).  Shot range is so bad that I might as well take Safety Override instead (and that eats most of the OP).  Frigates, at least those I pilot, need all the shot range they can get.

Do officers really have the EW skill?  The only time I noticed EW from enemy fleets are those with Omens in them, which (I think) have the ECM hullmod built-in.

How can enemy fleets deploy more than you (aside from extended battles)?  Does a single fleet routinely break the fleet cap as in the 0.7x days?  I get that sometimes I bring slightly less ships for whatever reason, and they have a DP advantage, but it seems possible to match their fleets if I want to.

I originally planned on having just Electronic Warfare 1 (and no Command & Control) once I am ready to commit.  I may see how effective -25% EW really is on them.  I was surprised to see my Paragon with HILs outrange that battlestation.  That made the fight much, much easier.  I do not plan to build a battlestation killer, since said stations do not respawn, but if -25% CW works well against the vast majority of fleets, I may build for it.

I do not deploy civilians often, but I may deploy one occasionally just to make it earn its keep, usually with the Nav Relay because I get so annoyed how slow ships have become in 0.8.  (Currently, my fleet is completely unskilled.  Battlestation was the hardest fight for unskilled fleet, but my fleet was not as big or well equipped as it could have been - they were equipped to be disposable.)
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: TaLaR on May 05, 2017, 11:12:09 PM
Do officers really have the EW skill?  The only time I noticed EW from enemy fleets are those with Omens in them, which (I think) have the ECM hullmod built-in.

Big faction patrol fleets tend to have it.
Now that I think of it, You may be right in narrow sense that typical cash cows of 0.8 (pirates and remnants) don't have EW (and don't have that much number superiority).
But I want to smash some faction fleets in endgame too, just for fun.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 06, 2017, 05:53:43 AM
I would not mind fighting factions, if only to get rare weapons (and rare hullmods if I sign-up for Tri-Tachyon), but I do not feel comfortable locking out bases because my ravenous fleet eats lots of supplies and fuel after doing stuff beyond town.

I probably need to farm Remnants (if their fleets can respawn) for cores.  Cores are like prisoners in Nexerelin; redeem for reputation (and money).  Can cores raise reputation even while Vengeful?  Once I stock up on cores, my theory is I can abuse various factions (i.e., accept commission and kill enemies) then turn in cores to fix reputation when I am ready to quit commission.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: A.Winge on May 06, 2017, 08:58:29 AM
As others have mentioned here, I really feel like the combat path is not at all balanced with the scavenging path.  Given the limited number of skill points (which I will probably bypass via mod at some point), I feel that bounties need to have their rewards greatly increased.  As of right now, I can only have a decent start by going industry; everything else is not worth the investment.


Note:  I am a fairly new player, first buying SS right at the end of 7.2a.  I cannot comment on the overall state of the game vs previous versions, etc...my best bet is to compare it with games like SPAZ or EV Nova (there's a blast from the past...).
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Deshara on May 06, 2017, 09:16:41 AM
I do not see how UI would work for frigates (aside from missile boats).  Shot range is so bad that I might as well take Safety Override instead (and that eats most of the OP).  Frigates, at least those I pilot, need all the shot range they can get

He's not wrong. Since frigates already have a base range reduction factoring in the range restriction of small mounts, mayhaps UI could use a 7/15/20/25 range redux? Since frigates have smalls only & a max range of 750 compared to mediums 1000 but mediums & larges have the same max, the difference between frigs & destroyers is nearly twice that of the others. Frigates would remain viable but long-ranged smalls would be bumped down to the range of medium ranges giving UI a disadvantage between frigates but not render them worthless around destroyers

Or you could just make UI not affect small mounts lol or have a different range redux band for smalls than the others
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Thaago on May 06, 2017, 09:19:57 AM
I'm all for UI staying as it is - I think its much better for gameplay for the speed booster to be only good in niche builds. I've used it on precisely 1 ship build so far.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 06, 2017, 10:00:18 AM
As others have mentioned here, I really feel like the combat path is not at all balanced with the scavenging path.  Given the limited number of skill points (which I will probably bypass via mod at some point), I feel that bounties need to have their rewards greatly increased.  As of right now, I can only have a decent start by going industry; everything else is not worth the investment.
Bounties are only worth it if you can kill two or more at a time.  Killing only one bounty before going home is not profitable enough.  Having new bounties posted as soon as they are available, much like distress calls and faction wars, would help with this.

Yes, there is exploration, but that only generally helps if you have points in Surveying (and maybe Salvaging too).  Maybe once in a blue moon you might stumble on a class IV or V terran planet that anyone can survey.

I'm all for UI staying as it is - I think its much better for gameplay for the speed booster to be only good in niche builds. I've used it on precisely 1 ship build so far.
The -25% penalty is too harsh.  Every time I tried it on a conventional warship, it gets outranged badly and loses the flux war.  With high-tech ships, it is already hard to win a flux war with inefficient weapons and the now overly cowardly AI.  (I feel like I am playing against a camper or turtle player.)  With other ships, my long-range weapons become medium range weapons, and if I use 700 range ballistics, they suffer just like high-tech ships.  Maybe on a carrier that has no business fighting (though I have no room for it since other hullmods are more valuable).  With various relay hullmods, I now use those instead of Unstable Injector on civilians.  -15% may be more reasonable.  Even with Gunnery Implants 3, it would only break even.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Serenitis on May 08, 2017, 12:43:28 PM
the speed booster to be only good in niche builds. I've used it on precisely 1 ship build so far.
Same. Civilian ships only, for maximum running away speed.
It's not really a very fun niche tbh.

UI.
Remove all range penalty.
Restore engine fragility.
And then increase the bonus it gives, while giving it a penalty to turn and strafe speeds.
That would be a hard choice to make.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: TaLaR on May 08, 2017, 12:53:07 PM
UI is not that useless.

It's still auto-pick for most frigates. They can't hope to outrange anything more than other frigates and maybe some DEs anyway, so it's best to stack speed as much as possible. Unless you pick SO instead.

It's also auto-pick for Carriers (just put a Cautious/Timid officer in it and enjoy).

Otherwise it can be useful for Medusa(player piloting only), Aurora (AI can use competently  only beamboat variant), Odyssey (just in case, of course it's better to get a real Capital). Ships that are not going to impress anyone at range, but have decent base speed.

I agree that -25% may to be too harsh though. Especially when combined with SO.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Burner Account on May 08, 2017, 03:10:16 PM
Here is my two cents

1. There is no real significance to smuggling versus conventional trade, at least with my play style.

Go out and kill some stuff, or salvage some stuff, and dump it in the black market. doesn't matter if it's millions of dollars of cores, surveys, and loot, I can dump it, they review my fleet as I leave, say everything checks out or here's a minor reputation ding, be on your way, even with extreme suspicion. Lame!

2. I would like to see a distinction between faction war reputation and smuggling reputation.

For example, let's say you have a high hegomony favorability rating but a known smuggler. This would prevent you from having access to the black market at stations because they know who you are and that you're up to know good. They hassle the crap out of you, search your ship extra thoroughly, even though they don't kill you outright. Whether or not you have a high smuggling or conventional reputation affects the kind of jobs you have, for example drug running vs ore shipping.

To synthesize both of these ideas, a smuggling style of play should be mutually exclusive to a conventional trade style of play. Smugglers use small fast fleets that can fly through customs or avoid detection from customs. The kinds of missions they run including gun running, drug smuggling, and delivering things like cores to unsavory groups or perhaps establishing black markets within conventional stations. Smugglers would have to deal with bounty hunter fleets that the local guilds send after them for disrupting the economy, but again this does not necessarily mean the overall faction becomes hostile, afterall, everyone needs smugglers every once in awhile! Highly rated smugglers gain access to special blockade runner type ships from the black market.

Conventional traders deal with bulk goods, shipping and building for stations, huge supplies, tens of thousands, quantity over quality. Only high rated conventional traders have access to huge behemoth transport ships. While smugglers deal with bounty hunters, conventionals deal with pirates which will become hungry for you as they see how much stuff your fat fleet is carrying.

Crises provide opportunities for both play styles, for example food shortages ignore your trade rating, just get the food in no questions asked!

3. The restore D-hull ships is kinda boring. Not saying I don't like it but it could be fleshed out.

For example let's say you have two damaged d-wolves. But their broken in different ways, one has damaged armor and sensors, the other its engines and internals. You could have a salvage skill that let's you break the ships down its their components, then combine them in a single working ship, using resources like metal instead of cash.

Another thing, you could use this skill to upgrade low grade ships with high grade components. For example if you take a wolf engine and put it in a hound, that hound gets a five percent bonus to speed (contrasting with 5% penalty with degraded/lasting damage). Pimp your ship!

4. There needs to be a fire support order in the tactical menu. For example I put a pilium missile on a buffalo and ordered it to hold position 1000 m behind me, but it still rushed ahead to die its inevitable buffalo death, the long yellow arrow extending behind it towards its order on the map (dude where are you going). Basically an order that says, hold this position no matter what. Would be useful for carriers too, as they sometimes wander into trouble as well.

Everything else is pretty good i like this game thank you ;D
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 09, 2017, 06:35:18 AM
UI is not that useless.

It's still auto-pick for most frigates. They can't hope to outrange anything more than other frigates and maybe some DEs anyway, so it's best to stack speed as much as possible. Unless you pick SO instead.

It's also auto-pick for Carriers (just put a Cautious/Timid officer in it and enjoy).

Otherwise it can be useful for Medusa(player piloting only), Aurora (AI can use competently  only beamboat variant), Odyssey (just in case, of course it's better to get a real Capital). Ships that are not going to impress anyone at range, but have decent base speed.

I agree that -25% may to be too harsh though. Especially when combined with SO.
I would not call it auto-pick unless I have Gunnery Implants 3.  When I tried it on Wolf and Medusa (with unskilled character), they get outranged so badly by similarly sized enemies that my flagship gets flux-locked before they get into range to fire.  They already have trouble trying to pressure enemies without getting shot back with only 600 range.  I was better off with Safety Override if I wanted to get that close (and I do not have enough OP left to stack Unstable Injector with Safety Override).

When I tried it on Hammerhead with Mauler and HVD, the range penalty was enough that it no longer outranged the enemy, and the enemy still turtled like crazy.  It was basically an Arbalest and Mortar ship except I have less OP, maybe slightly less DPS, and risked losing rare weapons.  I quickly removed Unstable Injector from Hammerhead.  With Hammerhead being common to recover, I can afford to mount Open Market stuff on them and lose a few in battle.

Unstable Injector would be good on back-line carriers except the carrier hullmods are more useful.  Without skills, Expanded Deck Crew is handy, and Recovery Shuttles is useful for not losing as much crew with Talon dominated wings.  (Even if I had skills, I may consider Expanded Deck Crew to squeeze out even faster fighter replacements.)  Also, I would not use Unstable Injector on Heron or Legion, since they can brawl.  Part of Heron's effectiveness (and annoyance) is outranging things with HVD.  (Enemy Heron with HVD is at least as annoying as Mora, it kept kiting away from my fleet while it fired HVD.  Mora is too slow to do anything like that; all it can do is soak damage with Damper Field.)  Legion is a warship somewhere between Dominator and Onslaught that happens to have fighters.

I do not know if I want to use Unstable Injector on Odyssey.  It has terrible shot range (compared to most capitals) unless it uses beams.  If it uses beams, it needs its fighters to put hard flux on shields (which probably means Broadswords).  Odyssey really needs a second deck.  Come to think of it, what is Odyssey's role now?  A hybrid freighter?  A battlecruiser?  Its campaign stats are not much better than other capitals, and Legion puts Odyssey to shame in the battlestar role.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Histidine on May 09, 2017, 06:49:08 AM
I use UI on my Paragon because I figure with the 100% ATC range bonus that no other ship has, it can afford a 25% range penalty and still come out ahead while not being a brick to fly.

Haven't felt the desire to put it on any other ship. I prefer standoff builds in general, and if I want a knife fighter I may as well go all the way and install SO.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 09, 2017, 07:14:41 AM
UI on Paragon might be okay.  Although when I considered it, I tried four autopulse without Safety Override, and my shot range was barely better than an Onslaught.  It was like playing an Onslaught that traded Burn Drive for Fortress Shield.  Since Paragon is slow enough that most ships will avoid it if they want to, I decided to forget about UI and stick with the shot range.  If I use beams, I want to snipe at things.  Using UI at that point would destroy the point of using beams instead of stronger weapons.

However, one benefit of UI on Paragon and shorter shot range is the enemy does not kite as far.  If I wanted to solo things with Paragon, using UI to shorten the range enemies hang back could make the battle go faster.  In 0.72, without max skills, Paragon could solo fleets while Onslaught could not because enemy did not kite as much.  (With max skills, the kiting did not matter, Onslaught was too strong by that point.)
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Ranik on May 09, 2017, 10:16:14 AM
0.8a feedback.

Gameplay: Overall starting out is a massive grind as combat/trade is even less profitable since you seem to want to nerf anything profitable into the ground. The lack of discovering / exploiting trade routes that don't involve a temporary event, the stingy salvage and even stingier selling of (d) mod hulls to shipyards has made the game if anything more unpleasant to me.

Skills:
Industry skills are nearly mandatory to start out / turn a profit. Single D hull mods are nearly non existent without skills and mostly non existent with skills.
Technology/Leadership/Combat all lack fleet wide punch and are mediocre compared to 0.72a skills.

Combat: Ordering fighters to engage will constantly trickle flux and prevent the carrier from gaining zero flux speed bonus.

TL;DR: It feels like you tipped the scales too much in favor of the new salvage / survey / skill revamp and basic gameplay has become an uphill climb.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dri on May 09, 2017, 10:31:44 AM
Taking a commission with a major faction early on helps to make fighting random, non-bounty battles a bit more profitable. Of course, taking a commission also has its downsides...

As for Skills, I know the intent was definitely to nerf Combat—the player and lvl 20 officers were so good that non-officer'ed ships were practically irrelevant.

The fighters set to engage causing the zero flux boost to not work is probably intentional as well—it'd make it far too easy for carriers to kite while their fighters whittled down their target. Of course, the Helmsmanship skill can allow carriers to keep the ZFB, so maybe look into getting that for your carrier officers?
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Ranik on May 09, 2017, 10:53:45 AM
Taking a commission with a major faction early on helps to make fighting random, non-bounty battles a bit more profitable. Of course, taking a commission also has its downsides...

As for Skills, I know the intent was definitely to nerf Combat—the player and lvl 20 officers were so good that non-officer'ed ships were practically irrelevant.

The fighters set to engage causing the zero flux boost to not work is probably intentional as well—it'd make it far too easy for carriers to kite while their fighters whittled down their target. Of course, the Helmsmanship skill can allow carriers to keep the ZFB, so maybe look into getting that for your carrier officers?

As others have said Combat in general has been punished in this patch with the combination of high deployment costs, lack of salvage, and terrible recovered ship resale value, attaching a band aid to the wound by taking a commission does not rectify that. 

I understand the issue with 0.72a skills and they largely deserved a nerf, my issue is the utter lack of fleet wide skills in the skill trees that affect combat rather than campaign they have gone from overpowered to almost non-existent.

I assumed the flux flicker was a bug.

Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Gothars on May 09, 2017, 11:39:51 AM
@Ranik: Welcome to the forum!

my issue is the utter lack of fleet wide skills in the skill trees that affect combat rather than campaign they have gone from overpowered to almost non-existent.

I'm not sure what you mean, there are plenty of those. Im counting 7 with 3 levels each, so 21 fleet wide combat skills.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: FooF on May 09, 2017, 11:48:03 AM
As others have said Combat in general has been punished in this patch with the combination of high deployment costs, lack of salvage, and terrible recovered ship resale value, attaching a band aid to the wound by taking a commission does not rectify that. 

I understand the issue with 0.72a skills and they largely deserved a nerf, my issue is the utter lack of fleet wide skills in the skill trees that affect combat rather than campaign they have gone from overpowered to almost non-existent.

The Combat Tree is still viable, it just has much less overall impact in a fleet vs. fleet battle relative to the previous patch. Most of my combat officers have more skill bonuses than me but I'm ok with that. Even without the Combat Tree, between all the fleet-wide buffs and my vastly superior ability to position myself in a battle, my flagship is still the most important piece on the game board.

There are a few questionable decisions in the Combat Tree that I'd like to see resolved but going heavy Combat means you're ship is 3x harder to kill, hits way harder, and is a lot more maneuverable vs. base. You can turn a single ship into the equivalent of 2 or 3 but you're never going to turn it into a fleet-killing murder machine like before. I find the fleet-wide buffs to be just as, if not more important than what I do with my flagship. My flagship gets those buffs too so it's not like I'm "losing" anything, really. Only opportunity cost with other skills.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: SCC on May 09, 2017, 12:06:13 PM
I'm going to tell you something important: you are NOT supposed to recover and resell ships - you are supposed to recover ones you either want or you have to, but if you don't want, it's ok - you get its weapons and resources from scuttling it, which are actually worth more than the ship itself.
About early game hell: I don't really think I can help you since I can handle myself without buying any ships, only choosing my fights, recovering rare, not quite useless ships and making-do with what I have. If anything, look out for system bounties, they should help. Commissions have more pitfalls than it's worth early on.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: ANGRYABOUTELVES on May 09, 2017, 12:22:08 PM
Gameplay: Overall starting out is a massive grind as combat/trade is even less profitable since you seem to want to nerf anything profitable into the ground. The lack of discovering / exploiting trade routes that don't involve a temporary event, the stingy salvage and even stingier selling of (d) mod hulls to shipyards has made the game if anything more unpleasant to me.
This is where the missions come in. You can take missions to scan things in far-flung systems for 100,000 a pop, and doing them only requires a Dram and maybe your starting frigates if you want to fight the domain Probes. You do one of those and you've got enough to buy and outfit a pair of destroyers.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 09, 2017, 12:51:32 PM
The fighters set to engage causing the zero flux boost to not work is probably intentional as well—it'd make it far too easy for carriers to kite while their fighters whittled down their target. Of course, the Helmsmanship skill can allow carriers to keep the ZFB, so maybe look into getting that for your carrier officers?
That is the only thing redeeming about Helmsmanship 3, the carrier will be at full speed even while fighters are engaged.  Without it, the perk is a complete joke.

Focusing on Combat skills only is a waste of time.  Combined with cowardly AI and gutted Unstable Injectors, your flagship has trouble punching above its weight quickly.  Player gets more bang for his buck focusing mostly in fleetwide and/or campaign skills.  A few Combat skills should be okay, but putting everything in pilot-only skills and ignoring fleet is very limiting.

There are a few questionable decisions in the Combat Tree that I'd like to see resolved but going heavy Combat means you're ship is 3x harder to kill, hits way harder, and is a lot more maneuverable vs. base. You can turn a single ship into the equivalent of 2 or 3 but you're never going to turn it into a fleet-killing murder machine like before.
That is the problem.  I sink everything into Combat and only come out mildly stronger.  I get better results investing into fleet skills in Leadership, Technology, and (if going for clunkers) maybe Industry; and probably only need to spend fewer points.  There are not very many good perks in Combat (but there are some).
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Igncom1 on May 10, 2017, 07:13:16 AM
I'm currently finding it frustrating to find enemy fleets.

I have often gone to TT systems to find that the local fleets aren't there, a problem that I think is down to perpetual pirate fleet chasing and so fly off from the system into empty space where they can't be found.

Even with pirate fleets spawning in hyperspace, for some reason, there is rarely any of their fleets around bar the starting system which has high and lot times of activity.

The only faction that consistently has fleets around is the Diktat, and they have dozen of fleets at the same time.

Can anybody else confirm this? It's very frustrating to go chase a new bounty in another system to find that the pirates the locals were complaining about never existed in the first place!

Which lead me to the problem that the whole game is in a perpetual death cycle. In time you WILL lose due to lack of supplies, it's only a matter of time and whatever you can do to delay that loss. There is no guaranteed money anywhere or from anything so it's complete chance whether you can make it past the early game. You go to fight pirate fleets and they don't spawn, you go to fight another faction and they have no ships, you follow a bounty in a system to find it empty. Specialize in surveying? You can only survey once and good luck using those skills once that's done. Salvage stations in ricky systems? You can do it once, hope you brought enough storage space and then that it, no need to return to that system ever again.

Even fighting the remnant battle stations essentially ends the whole system, so more fleets and no more money.

Even sitting still at a port or in orbit is as expensive as going full burn across a star system, time is money that you'll spend hunting for resources that you have no grantee to ever find. I have little experience going for bounty targets but because they do little to say what ill be facing once I've spent all that fuel to go out there I don't think it's worth the trip and risk.

I'm finding it extremely difficult to justify ever leaving the starting system with a hegmeony commission. There is no way I can grantee to ability to do anything other then waste fuel and resources on a trip to get more fuel and resources. Even the few trips I did make into the unexplored sector only drained those systems of what resources they could provide, so I can never go back due to resource waste.

It's very frustrating and while I know that some people love the idea of this and love the risk, I can barely start a new game on easy mode while deliberately going into skills that reduce fuel and supply use.

Short of running around with just a medusa and soloing entire fleets all the time I have no idea how you are actually expected to do anything without eventually burning all sources of money out and then farming the Diktat fleets for the rest of the game.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Giblodyte on May 10, 2017, 07:41:07 AM
The fighters set to engage causing the zero flux boost to not work is probably intentional as well—it'd make it far too easy for carriers to kite while their fighters whittled down their target. Of course, the Helmsmanship skill can allow carriers to keep the ZFB, so maybe look into getting that for your carrier officers?
That is the only thing redeeming about Helmsmanship 3, the carrier will be at full speed even while fighters are engaged.  Without it, the perk is a complete joke.

Focusing on Combat skills only is a waste of time.  Combined with cowardly AI and gutted Unstable Injectors, your flagship has trouble punching above its weight quickly.  Player gets more bang for his buck focusing mostly in fleetwide and/or campaign skills.  A few Combat skills should be okay, but putting everything in pilot-only skills and ignoring fleet is very limiting.

There are a few questionable decisions in the Combat Tree that I'd like to see resolved but going heavy Combat means you're ship is 3x harder to kill, hits way harder, and is a lot more maneuverable vs. base. You can turn a single ship into the equivalent of 2 or 3 but you're never going to turn it into a fleet-killing murder machine like before.
That is the problem.  I sink everything into Combat and only come out mildly stronger.  I get better results investing into fleet skills in Leadership, Technology, and (if going for clunkers) maybe Industry; and probably only need to spend fewer points.  There are not very many good perks in Combat (but there are some).



Ehhhh I find the combat tree to be more potent than that, if you really want an indication then battling a ship with an officer vs one without is very noticeable, also try running a simulation on a ship with and without a high ranked pilot, it makes soloing with a decent ship a lot easier if done right and the benefits compound.


Skills:
Industry skills are nearly mandatory to start out / turn a profit. Single D hull mods are nearly non existent without skills and mostly non existent with skills.
Technology/Leadership/Combat all lack fleet wide punch and are mediocre compared to 0.72a skills.

Combat: Ordering fighters to engage will constantly trickle flux and prevent the carrier from gaining zero flux speed bonus.

TL;DR: It feels like you tipped the scales too much in favor of the new salvage / survey / skill revamp and basic gameplay has become an uphill climb.


After more playing I've actually found industry to be largely a waste. For three very important reasons:

1. There's no skill limitation on the size of your cargo hold
2. You don't need any skills to do analyse derelict missions
3. Having a powerful combat fleet is not mutually exclusive to trading and salvaging

So if you actually take a look at the skills and what they offer:

- Surveying planets costs supplies and is inconsistent and will be uneconomical until outposts. When you factor that the supply cost reduces the time you can spend in far flung corners and that there are finite planets nearby it's not worthwhile.
- Recovering ships, well it's very easy to just not, or to only salvage fuel/cargo ships as pack mules until you're loaded and want to keep good rare ships and can afford to fix them
- Salvaging, one point in this is essential since those domain era probes have decent amounts of loot. Survey ships, motherships and outposts above 25% rating are few and far between and you certainly couldn't rely on them to sustain a fleet.

The easiest, funnest, best way I've found is to jack up combat and those essential blue skills (longer weapon range, +5 to S-burn and transverse jump, lower fuel cost, increased flux capacity and dissipation, the godly 10% extra ordnance points) and build up a fleet with lots of fuel and cargo space to do both surveying derelict missions and bounties in the same general vicinity. It's not that much harder or more expensive than having a pure combat fleet as tankers and freighters are actually quite cheap. I mean you don't actually need any skills to do analyse derelict missions and they pay well so why would you limit yourself to having a weak combat fleet when the bounties are where the real money is? Furthermore it's actually much more profitable and efficient to crush fleets and steal their loot and trade that off alongside other trade missions than to avoid fighting.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: intrinsic_parity on May 10, 2017, 08:11:38 AM
In my personal experience, surveying is immensely profitable, I throw surveying equipment on all non combat ships which reduces essentially every planet to 5 supplies. I easily make 500k on an expedition from surveying data alone, 3-4 class IV or V planets will get you that if you sell in Askonia. Whatever missions/AI cores I get on top of that usually nets my 1 mil on every expedition with minimal risk to my fleet. I do all of this with a full combat fleet. If I took a small efficient exploration fleet, I could probably make significantly more, but I have no need for more money at this point. I have multiple capitals in storage etc. I primarily get salvage skills to salvage research stations. They give you really high level weapons and hull mods. The only other way I've gotten that stuff is through tritach commission. Even then it's hard to find, I figure if I already have 3 points in surveying, might as well take the research stations as well. I think an argument can be made that salvaging skills are not entirely worth since recovering ships isn't profitable, but it Definitely can help fill out your fleet early game to give you numerical advantage. Salvaging skills to me fell like they are most helpful in early game and decrease in value as you progress. On the subject of surveying though, finding a single class V planet is more profitable than any surveying/probe mission. Most class IV and V are volcanic worlds as far as I can tell, or terran. Volcanic I believe require high skills. Regardless, surveying is definitely extremely profitable. I strongly agree that exploration and combat are not mutually exclusive though. I still take whatever bounties are on my path when I head out, but those only account for ~1/3 my income. Combat skills only affect my ship and don't make it god-tier, I put some points in there but they just don't feel valuable when I can already do a lot of work without them and I could be getting tech and industry skills that will benefit my whole fleet and increase my profitability.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: FooF on May 10, 2017, 10:04:09 AM
After more playing I've actually found industry to be largely a waste. For three very important reasons:

1. There's no skill limitation on the size of your cargo hold
2. You don't need any skills to do analyse derelict missions
3. Having a powerful combat fleet is not mutually exclusive to trading and salvaging

So if you actually take a look at the skills and what they offer:

- Surveying planets costs supplies and is inconsistent and will be uneconomical until outposts. When you factor that the supply cost reduces the time you can spend in far flung corners and that there are finite planets nearby it's not worthwhile.
- Recovering ships, well it's very easy to just not, or to only salvage fuel/cargo ships as pack mules until you're loaded and want to keep good rare ships and can afford to fix them
- Salvaging, one point in this is essential since those domain era probes have decent amounts of loot. Survey ships, motherships and outposts above 25% rating are few and far between and you certainly couldn't rely on them to sustain a fleet.

The easiest, funnest, best way I've found is to jack up combat and those essential blue skills (longer weapon range, +5 to S-burn and transverse jump, lower fuel cost, increased flux capacity and dissipation, the godly 10% extra ordnance points) and build up a fleet with lots of fuel and cargo space to do both surveying derelict missions and bounties in the same general vicinity. It's not that much harder or more expensive than having a pure combat fleet as tankers and freighters are actually quite cheap. I mean you don't actually need any skills to do analyse derelict missions and they pay well so why would you limit yourself to having a weak combat fleet when the bounties are where the real money is? Furthermore it's actually much more profitable and efficient to crush fleets and steal their loot and trade that off alongside other trade missions than to avoid fighting.

I'm currently flying around with 20+ D-modded frigates, destroyers, tankers, and freighters, all ridiculously under-spec'd and outfitted with non-optimal weaponry and I'm having a blast. I don't have a single point in Combat. I salvage just about every junker I find and thanks to Industry skills, I just keep rolling with little CR hits or costs. All the bounties of <200k are running from me, even high-tech TT fleets. It's a completely different, but viable, playstyle and if if I wanted to survey/salvage with it, I'd easily be able to.

I say this to simply point out that there's a lot of ways to play that are subjectively "fun." Surveying is fun, too, as long as you equip yourself for it. I've done half a dozen playthroughs to 40, each with different specialization, and never once did I think "I can't fight." Even my survey playthrough had me fighting [Redacted] all the time or hostile salvage fleets. Even with my Combat-oriented run (with 10 officers all level 20), I never felt overpowered, really.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 10, 2017, 10:13:34 AM
Ehhhh I find the combat tree to be more potent than that, if you really want an indication then battling a ship with an officer vs one without is very noticeable, also try running a simulation on a ship with and without a high ranked pilot, it makes soloing with a decent ship a lot easier if done right and the benefits compound.
I tried; not impressed with the results.  Ships still run away from you.  Multiple capitals will still wreck you (except maybe for Paragon flagship).  If I take Paragon to kill capitals, the other ships will kite and run down my CR (because there are many), and there is little I can do about that.  If I take a faster ship, it is not powerful enough to kill everything, if it can survive getting hammered by capital-grade firepower.

With Unstable Injector as it is, combined with smarter AI, player cannot kite-and-snipe to the extent he used to.

The biggest problem with soloing in the past was time taken to finish fights.  But soloing fleets was extremely efficient in supplies consumed, and until 0.72, AI did not kite much.  In 0.65, I used frigate hordes of about 40 ships at endgame because while they are a bit less efficient than soloing, they finished fights much faster.  In 0.7x, officers made ships without them useless, and the enemy had many more ships than you.  Soloing or chain-flagships was the only way to win without losing too many ships.

As for officers, better to get Leadership and then get ten officers and deploy all, at least with max battle map size.  With few skill points, it is more efficient for me to get fleet and campaign skills and delegate combat stuff to officers.  I want to hot rod in a big ship with combat skills, but I cannot afford that (more than Gunnery Implants and Helmsmanship).

I guess if I used normal battle map size, I cannot deploy more than a few ships.  Paragon, then 30 more DP left?  Forget that, crank battle map size to the max for 200 to 300 DP limit.  Even that is only enough to deploy about half of my clunker fleet (of capitals, cruisers, and carriers).

If soloing or chain-flagships will be barely more efficient overall than fleets, then just deploy fleets and get combat over with quickly.


@ FooF:  I am still steamrolling bounty fleets with few causalities with my completely unskilled character.  My clunkers tend to have three or four damage mods and are outfitted with stuff mostly from Open Market.

I am beginning to miss using pristine ships with elite weapons.  They are too rare to use without easy access to more military markets with a commission.  I use mostly clunkers out of necessity.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 10, 2017, 10:31:07 AM
So I finally recovered an Odyssey, patched it up and gave it weapons, and... what is it good for, again?

Aurora had its fatal weakness rectified in 0.8.  Plasma Jets really help dictate engagements.  It still has crummy short-range weapons, but Plasma Jets make that mostly a non-issue.  (If something outguns Aurora, there is not much it can do, unlike ballistic snipers.)

Similarly, Paragon has Advanced Targeting Core.  No longer can Dominator and Eagle flagship trivially kite-and-snipe Paragon to death by a thousand cuts with long-range ballistics.

Odyssey does not have any of that.  It has short-ranged weapons (or beams blocked by shields).  It is relatively slow.  It has one fighter bay so whatever fighters it has will probably get munched fast.  Probably the best thing to put it in its lone fighter bay, if not relying on them for kinetics, is Xyphos to act as auxiliary ion beams at things within Odyssey's weapon range.  Odyssey is perhaps the weakest capital in the game.

Odyssey needs something to help it overcome its short-range.  Fighters could be it if Odyssey had more of them, or least something that always keeps replacement speed at 100% despite having only one fighter bay.

P.S.  Or... as alternative, Odyssey can go like Apogee and have its campaign stats boosted so that it is truly a hybrid ship akin to Gemini or Apogee instead of a warship with slightly better capacity stats.  Currently, Odyssey is a mediocre master-of-none.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: TaLaR on May 10, 2017, 10:46:51 AM
Odyssey is perhaps the weakest capital in the game.

It has been exactly that for a long time already.

P.S.  Or... as alternative, Odyssey can go like Apogee and have its campaign stats boosted so that it is truly a hybrid ship akin to Gemini or Apogee instead of a warship with slightly better capacity stats.  Currently, Odyssey is a mediocre master-of-none.

I don't think that sort of hybrids are particularly useful right now. In almost every case 2 hybrid ships are better replaced by combat + non-combat ship pair, especially considering that officers are a limited resource.
Odyssey might get a niche as hybrid, but it would be a very narrow one.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Zaskow on May 10, 2017, 11:47:55 AM
Here is my feedback so far for 0.8, played ~15 hours...

This is first version where I feel Starsector as almost completed game (I play from 0.6 version).
 
1. Very good tutorial. However, when you play it, your playthrough becomes very easy in the beginning, thanks to salvaged ships. I think they should be taken away somehow after clearing of pirates (warp jump disaster, system authority actions etc).
2. Salvaging is very good feature itself, but becomes pretty repetitive and boring with time flow. It strongly needs additional options and random encounters or events, especially on debris salvaging.
3. Pretty interesting planet surveys, but lack content. More events, options or even disasters would be really good. Am I right that this is first step to building outpost/colony?
4. Very good idea with remnants. I hope this part will be greatly expanded in future.
5. Game lacks greatly story events. Some interesting stories from Sector history (blog lore entries are really interesting), remnants history, old crew journals on salvaged ships etc. Hope this will be in future versions.
6. Combat system is good as always. In my noobish view, of course.
7. Did old boarding mechanics delete? I found that marines are dead weight now.
8. Could you make enemies to remember my fleet strength at least for short time?
Because it leads to some confusing things:
1) enemy sees my fleet;
2) begins attack;
3) sees my real strength and withdraw;
4) goes far enough to not see my fleet composition;
5) repeat from 2).
This is not very annoying, but looks pretty weird.  
9. D-variants of ship don't feels very UP. I used them very effective without any problems.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: SCC on May 10, 2017, 12:45:47 PM
1. That gives some space for making mistakes, IMO it's good.
3. Alex won't tell you, but honestly, just look at modifiers. Of course they're going to be built-on.
5. I'm not sure if Alex wants there to be storyline and quests. I guess we'll see.
7. Marines are useless now, yes.
8. IIRC it's going to be fixed in 0.8.1
9. Because they aren't, but that depends on peoples' preferences. I think the one bad thing is that flux modifiers apply to additional caps and vents.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 10, 2017, 07:54:23 PM
It has been exactly that for a long time already.
Not really.  Astral was worse.  It was an Odyssey with more flight decks at the cost of worse stats all-around and much slower and fatter profile.  During 0.7x, fighters were so bad that both was bad, though Astral was worse.  Also, Odyssey had somewhat better defenses than Conquest.  During 0.71, both battleships and both battlecruisers could solo fleets, though battleships were best.

Now in 0.8, fighter teleportation turned Astral from nobody to nightmare.  It is one of the stronger capitals now.


As for hybrids, few are good, at least early in the game.  Shepherd is great for early-game.  Gemini can do in a pinch as a freighter despite eating a bit more.  By endgame, sure, you want Colossus/Atlas and Prometheus as your stat sticks.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: TaLaR on May 10, 2017, 09:31:15 PM
Not really.  Astral was worse.

Right, I mean out of 4 combat Capitals. Astral was essentially a support vessel in 0.7x.

As for hybrids, few are good, at least early in the game.  Shepherd is great for early-game.  Gemini can do in a pinch as a freighter despite eating a bit more.  By endgame, sure, you want Colossus/Atlas and Prometheus as your stat sticks.

Shepherd is good, but in part because there simply isn't a dedicated freighter frigate to compare with.
Would you prefer 2 Geminis to Drover + Buffalo? Same amount of fighters, more survivability (due to speed), need only 1 officer. Still Gemini is among better hybrids. There are worse.
Also, while I agree that finding use for Hybrids is easier in the early game, that doesn't help Odyssey at all. By the time I can afford a Capital, I want one that's worth it.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Drokkath on May 11, 2017, 12:38:52 AM
-snip-
5. I'm not sure if Alex wants there to be storyline and quests. I guess we'll see.
-snip-

I myself wouldn't want there to be much of story line at all:
Spoiler
Google about Starbound and find comments about alpha and beta versions being much better than what the full release of the game ended up being by removing and streamlining a lot, I myself am in agreement with others as I've played the game myself, bought it and have about 200-300 hours clocked in and original hype, hope, enjoyment and fun.. all almost gone close to zero for me and for a whole lot of others who played Starbound. :'(
[close]

I basically prefer a lot of this half-story mixed with vague backstories in many areas currently in SS where you aka the player get to fill in the blanks with a story and theories of your own and I like it more than ever before as story-based games just tend to burn me out and make me feel like utter crud once its all over and because of that I'd rather or instead play games where I don't feel rushed in any shape or form to finish some story which I'm never really interested in to begin with. Making my own story though.. now that is quite a treat!:
Spoiler
Just a few days ago I spent about an entire day just making my customized super alien civilization in Stellaris, loved it.
[close]
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 11, 2017, 06:14:19 AM
Shepherd is good, but in part because there simply isn't a dedicated freighter frigate to compare with.
Would you prefer 2 Geminis to Drover + Buffalo? Same amount of fighters, more survivability (due to speed), need only 1 officer. Still Gemini is among better hybrids. There are worse.
Also, while I agree that finding use for Hybrids is easier in the early game, that doesn't help Odyssey at all. By the time I can afford a Capital, I want one that's worth it.
It depends on weapons I have and capacity I need.  I probably would lean toward two Gemini, because of more capacity, and they have fighters.  Even better would be Drover/Condor and Gemini because I have more fighters, almost as much capacity (for looting), and Gemini can fight with its fighters and maybe weapons, if necessary.

Hybrids late in the game have not been very useful since 0.6x.  0.6-0.62 was Atlas fleet escorted by one or two Medusa and 0.7x made fighters useless.

And Odyssey is quite bad now in 0.8.  It seems to have paid too much for slightly better capacity stats, which are not even hybrid grade.  It has all of the classic weaknesses of high-tech ships, but nothing to compensate for them.  One wing of fighters is not enough.


@ Drokkath:  At the very least, I want a win condition that says you win the game and maybe end it (e.g., you kill Morgoth, you have Grond and the iron crown, retire anytime to win).  I would not mind a lose condition that ends the game (e.g., Kohr-Ah reach Earth, everyone dies, you lose, Game Over!)
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Drokkath on May 11, 2017, 07:26:59 AM
At the very least, I want a win condition that says you win the game and maybe end it (e.g., you kill Morgoth, you have Grond and the iron crown, retire anytime to win).  I would not mind a lose condition that ends the game (e.g., Kohr-Ah reach Earth, everyone dies, you lose, Game Over!)

Aye, I agree. I'm fine with end game element being in a game as long as a said game continues and one can do other stuff past the end game.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: sotanaht on May 11, 2017, 09:09:35 AM
I don't know if it needs a story end, but it does need an "endgame" where you actually have some kind of long term goal that all the ships and money and levels you accumulate are used for.  Nexerelin does that of course, but someday the base game should have a similar kind of feature, if not quite exactly the same.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: SCC on May 11, 2017, 09:37:45 AM
I suspect that endgame will be there "when it's done".
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Drokkath on May 11, 2017, 12:15:26 PM
I suspect that endgame will be there "when it's done".

Hear hear! 'nuff said! One massive silver lining with Starsector is that it's on a higher pedestal than majority of triple-A games combined, well.. to me at least as I'm one of those who falls into the niche market. In fact when I once get the means to actually buy SS, I sure will.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Cik on May 11, 2017, 02:55:23 PM
wew
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: A.Winge on May 13, 2017, 08:36:16 AM
After playing through a few different styles (exploration/surveying, combat merc), I think what I want to see most of all is a way to store information about the universe without having to resort to pen and paper.  After all, I am flying a starship...surely there's enough hard drive space for a few extra log entries...



Spoiler
*Well, except for when I did a Fuel Procurement mission in between bounties...and my fleet with a Dominator, Mora, multiple Enforcers and other destroyers was intercepted by a Pirate fleet whose fleet highlight was 4 combat mules.  I admired their reckless bravery.  They, of course, did not survive  ;D
[close]

(This has probably been mentioned before, but I couldn't find the thread...)
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Drokkath on May 13, 2017, 12:43:11 PM
@A.Winge Uhh, methinks there is something like that already in the game, its rather hidden in under Intel section where there's a tab Planets [2] and I can confirm because I'm looking currently straight at it, the new tab section I mean. Since I've explored and surveyed many planets in star systems I've been to which is about 5-15% of the entire medium/normal sized game's star map already, which surprisingly feels like I've explored more than that and in a good way, doesn't really bother me as much if I start running into similar planets but fortunately with the way SS is built up it's probably a more easy thing to "fix"/add down the line by making or altering a few existing 2d planet art (which seems to be a case already) with slight different craters and landscape areas and atmosphere effects and size if it has any to making a few unique planets like bombarded and blown in half types of planets or massive objects and thus implementing more variety along with text.

Sorry, got derailed with my own thoughts, I was going to say that it does list the surveyed planets and by clicking on one you can even take a peek on planets you haven't surveyed or visited yet thanks to it bringing up the on-screen chart of which planet is closest to furthest of its star along with showing which planet has orbiting moons. Though it does seem to be in a state of disorganized as I can't tell just by looking as what station orbits what moon or planet, or what moon/satellite is orbiting the closest to its SOI (Sphere Of Influence).
The surveyed planets do have the info about what you found there, the info is just hidden under the icon tags the same way if you're in a shipyard main screen where on the right upper area has tags and straight to their left of the screen is stability levels and a number.

The new surveying aspect of the game could perhaps use a bit more flavor in a form of text or just different planetary art of your crew performing EVA mission on a surface that looks similar to what is seen from space aka the object the player is using survey on but at this point I'm just guessing and thinking out loud as I'm finding it rather hard to find flaws of the game, explains why I like playing SS from time to time again and again. The only major thing I find lacking is the current absence of Nexerelin, I'm a new Nexerelin junkie and I need my intake of that fix! :D
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: dk1332 on May 13, 2017, 01:05:43 PM

  • Add in an extended Fleet log that shows all of the "Sensor Data" you collect for the entirety of the game.  Data could be cleared whenever a target is Surveyed/Scavenged/Pounded to Scrap.
  • Add in an indication on the Sector or Intel map that shows warning beacon information.  This could be as simple as a note on the system, saying "Warning Beacon: Yellow/Orange/Red" or "Threat Level: Y/O/R", or similar.  I've found in all of my campaigns, once I get close to wanting to enter Orange/Red level systems, I am at a high enough fuel consumption that I do not want to go searching for them.  I could drop off Ships to search, and write down the information but that doesn't really make sense.  I like flying my fleetball of death and watching enemies scatter.*



Spoiler
*Well, except for when I did a Fuel Procurement mission in between bounties...and my fleet with a Dominator, Mora, multiple Enforcers and other destroyers was intercepted by a Pirate fleet whose fleet highlight was 4 combat mules.  I admired their reckless bravery.  They, of course, did not survive  ;D
[close]

(This has probably been mentioned before, but I couldn't find the thread...)


Yeah, a better fleet log needs to be a thing. I once stumbled a some information regarding to a derelict ship in Thule, then found some data regarding a research station on the opposite side of the map. Prioritized the research station since it gives more goodies than a derelict ship. Should've wrote it somewhere but thats too much of a hassle.

As for the warning beacons colors depending on how dangerous that star system is. That should be a thing. You either get surprised with your pants down if you are unprepared to fight hoards and hoards of redacted fleets or get disappointed to see there's only small 2-3 frigate fleets running around when you wanted a challenge or just plain deactivated ones. This game is set in the future people. At least they should have some better warning guidelines towards hostile star system. Not some vague "Uhh, there's something that can potentially kill you here so stay away....maybe...probably." warning sign.


On a side note. Anyone else also getting some scanning mission for probes/ships you already salvaged before? Not sure if a bug or there's still another target lying around the same system as the last one.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: SCC on May 13, 2017, 01:12:47 PM
@Drokkath there's also a map filter which shows if you've surveyed completely given system or planet, depending on whether map is in sector or system mode.
@dk1332 But the warning beacons are color-coded, yellow though orange to red, and ping-coded, 1 through 2 to 3 pings, depending on danger inside. The "fleet log", as far as I know, shows locations of interest for up to 1 cycle (I think it might be longer, but I'm not sure), so you have to select it in intel screen and zoom out and check, where it points to. It doesn't remember if you've been there, though.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: dk1332 on May 13, 2017, 01:45:07 PM
@SCC I haven't really noticed the warning beacons doing several pings for different threat levels. If they do tell which is which already and I did failed to notice, then I apologize.

As for the fleet log, I don't think they stay longer than a month or so. So far, I have been following some bread crumb trails to look for research stations to plunder so I usually find some location data of something but they don't last that long for at least a month or so. At least a list of log that shouldn't actually go away or at least until you found it yourself to keep things in order. That way, you can track your scavenging expeditions so far.

Though maybe separating stuff on which stays, from important ones like derelicts and stations and not so important ones like debris field, distress calls and probably planetary data?
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: SCC on May 13, 2017, 01:57:54 PM
Fleet logs... Okay, this one depends on whether distress calls stay longer than other stuff. If so, then I stand by my words that fleet logs stay around 1 cycle, perhaps longer. If they aren't treated any special, though, I'm forced to correct myself and say that fleet logs actually stay for 2 cycles.

I'm all for separating important and unimportant logs, though.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Drokkath on May 13, 2017, 03:25:02 PM
@Drokkath there's also a map filter which shows if you've surveyed completely given system or planet, depending on whether map is in sector or system mode.

Thanks, though I actually already had that switched on since day one of .8, I don't remember if it was on by default or not, must've hit a numerical key by accident if it's not on by default plus I also skipped the tutorial until days later when I made my second character and began noticing subtle and useful new user interface tabs, keys, areas and whatnot. All somethings that should be either more noticeable or added to the tutorial those rather blended areas of extra functions in UI as I didn't even know yesterday that surveyed planets have a tab menu of their own in Intel section, found out about it by pure accidental key press.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: A.Winge on May 14, 2017, 02:55:55 PM
@A.Winge Uhh, methinks there is something like that already in the game, its rather hidden in under Intel section where there's a tab Planets [2] and I can confirm because I'm looking currently straight at it, the new tab section I mean. Since I've explored and surveyed many planets in star systems I've been to which is about 5-15% of the entire medium/normal sized game's star map already, which surprisingly feels like I've explored more than that and in a good way, doesn't really bother me as much if I start running into similar planets but fortunately with the way SS is built up it's probably a more easy thing to "fix"/add down the line by making or altering a few existing 2d planet art (which seems to be a case already) with slight different craters and landscape areas and atmosphere effects and size if it has any to making a few unique planets like bombarded and blown in half types of planets or massive objects and thus implementing more variety along with text.

*Snip*

That's not quite what I meant, Drokkath, but I should probably clarify it better.  I am aware of Planet Exploration/Surveying filters; those are actually very good.

What I cannot find is a way to store log entries after the fact.  As others have mentioned, this includes things like Research Stations, Derelict Ships, or (please leave this one for as long as I need it) Domain Motherships.  I think that all of these are seeded during map generation, and only despawn once the player interacts with them (like the stable debris fields in some systems).  Distress calls that expire or objects that are interacted with could be removed from the list or put in an archive; whatever works best or is doable in the current implementation.

And I should also clarify that I do understand the different warning level pings (although Red and Orange could be slightly more distinct colors).  What I want is that as soon as I discover a warning beacon (when I get the XP), I would like it to permanently show up on the system map/intel map differently without having to enter or explore the system.  Think of it as a way to explore the system later, or avoid bounties/sensor missions in that system if unprepared.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: AxleMC131 on May 14, 2017, 03:09:58 PM
What I cannot find is a way to store log entries after the fact.  As others have mentioned, this includes things like Research Stations, Derelict Ships, or (please leave this one for as long as I need it) Domain Motherships.  I think that all of these are seeded during map generation, and only despawn once the player interacts with them (like the stable debris fields in some systems).  Distress calls that expire or objects that are interacted with could be removed from the list or put in an archive; whatever works best or is doable in the current implementation.

I had the same complaint on a YouTube comment the other day, and someone informed me that you can change the "Show messages from..." checkboxes in the Intel screen. Options are "week", "month" and "cycle", and are set to show messages up to a month old by default, if I remember correctly. HOWEVER apparently you can deselect them or something so that the fleet log items never disappear. Have yet to try this myself, but it's worth knowing.

And I should also clarify that I do understand the different warning level pings (although Red and Orange could be slightly more distinct colors).  What I want is that as soon as I discover a warning beacon (when I get the XP), I would like it to permanently show up on the system map/intel map differently without having to enter or explore the system.  Think of it as a way to explore the system later, or avoid bounties/sensor missions in that system if unprepared.

Umm... Wat? ??? Systems with warning beacons do show up on your sector map as you see them, permanently. You don't have to go into them. You just have to discover the beacon from hyperspace.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: SCC on May 14, 2017, 10:53:12 PM
Fleet log stores logs for as long as 2 cycles, but I don't know if that's the limit.
Warning beacons show up on map, but NOT when starscape is enabled.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: A.Winge on May 15, 2017, 10:20:46 AM
And I should also clarify that I do understand the different warning level pings (although Red and Orange could be slightly more distinct colors).  What I want is that as soon as I discover a warning beacon (when I get the XP), I would like it to permanently show up on the system map/intel map differently without having to enter or explore the system.  Think of it as a way to explore the system later, or avoid bounties/sensor missions in that system if unprepared.

Umm... Wat? ??? Systems with warning beacons do show up on your sector map as you see them, permanently. You don't have to go into them. You just have to discover the beacon from hyperspace.

[Finally gets the chance to try this out.]
Ah, I see now.  One of the filter options (I think Starscape) hides them by default.  Thank you!

I would still like them to be color-coded; right now, they all show up as orange.  I don't want to spend 2,000 Fuel only to find that a warning beacon I wanted to farm was only threat level yellow.  Additional filter options to highlight those systems would be nice as well (though not required).
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: AxleMC131 on May 15, 2017, 04:16:04 PM
[Finally gets the chance to try this out.]
Ah, I see now.  One of the filter options (I think Starscape) hides them by default.  Thank you!

I would still like them to be color-coded; right now, they all show up as orange.  I don't want to spend 2,000 Fuel only to find that a warning beacon I wanted to farm was only threat level yellow.  Additional filter options to highlight those systems would be nice as well (though not required).

Yah, they don't show up in Starscape mode.

I agree the map icons need to match the colour of the beacon itself, but although I haven't seen it yet, I'm fairly certain someone has already mentioned this to the Devs.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: 2_Wycked on May 15, 2017, 07:33:37 PM
Maybe I'm not reading the bounty descriptions right, but right now it seems that no matter what the bounty amount is the description is always a kind of vague "sizeable fleet"? I'm guessing this is on the docket for future tweaking but a bit more detail of the bounty fleet would go a long way to encouraging bounty hunting since you kind of just have to learn what size fleets tend to correspond to certain bounty amount thresholds. I've only gone up to 80k~ bounties so I could be missing something.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: AxleMC131 on May 15, 2017, 08:40:42 PM
Maybe I'm not reading the bounty descriptions right, but right now it seems that no matter what the bounty amount is the description is always a kind of vague "sizeable fleet"? I'm guessing this is on the docket for future tweaking but a bit more detail of the bounty fleet would go a long way to encouraging bounty hunting since you kind of just have to learn what size fleets tend to correspond to certain bounty amount thresholds. I've only gone up to 80k~ bounties so I could be missing something.

No, I think it basically always says "sizeable fleet". If I'm honest I agree that there needs to be some more information: maybe what the bounty's flagship is or something.

Nevertheless, the bounty reward is actually roughly based (I think) on the size of the fleet, so that's usually a good estimation of the size of your target.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Deshara on May 16, 2017, 01:22:38 PM
I think... maybe the design of the survey skill doesn't mesh with the intended design of the survey system. You talked in your blog post about not wanting the system to encourage players ever having to come back to re-survey a planet, but the current system with having tiered planets locked behind the 3 levels of the survey skill does just that; you go to a planet, out on the rim no less expending fuel and supplies in huge quantities to get there, just to find that even if you came fully equipped & crewed out, you can't survey this planet. And thus while you may not have to re-survey a planet after you've scanned it, you do have to resurvey systems.
Which has actually caused me to never get surveying after my first play of .8. I get it's a good source of income, but the fact that I would need to sink 6 points into surveying (and industry) in order to be even capable of fully surveying a system means I never even get started leveling up surveying cause I've got 2 things I'd rather do with 6 points than that 1. And then there's the problem that even if I do level up to get full survey capability, the current system (with accidents only happening sometimes, and only taking a little machinery (and also crew)) encourages me to try to purchase & bring along as little machinery as I thing I can get away with, since derelicts & salvaging means I'm probably gonna wind up maxed out on cargo capacity (darn scrap metal, if level 2 of salvaging enabled scrap metal salvage & 3 boosted the quanity up to full, current numbers I'd be happy to never level salvage past 1 lol) no matter what I do even without surveying.

I think, if the system was that surveying a planet more hazardous than your survey skill allows is guaranteed to have accidents, so a player that's only willing to sink two points into getting survey level one would be able attempt to fully survey an entire system at the expense of guaranteed accidents on planets their surveying isn't up to snuff on, it would encourage players to conduct surveying runs by metering out a decent quantity of supplies, stocking up on crew and filling their hold out with machinery and going out and surveying systems until they run out of machinery to lose, and maybe trying to salvage machinery from derelicts they find after they've run out. I think maybe that'd fit better with the "you aren't supposed to have to return to re-survey something" design doctrine, and would allow players to reasonably interact with the mechanic without having to spend 6 skill points on it. And, guessing a planet might be valuable & surveying it with guaranteed losses on a hunch and coming away with a valueable survey chart worth way more than the machinery you lost getting it would be cool and make me feel like a badass frontier prospector. And also would probably work better for players to pick cool planets they wanna do stuff with once the industry update drops & enables outposts, without needing to be gatelocked behind an arbitrary amount of the survey skill
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 16, 2017, 02:09:46 PM
Quote
No, I think it basically always says "sizeable fleet". If I'm honest I agree that there needs to be some more information: maybe what the bounty's flagship is or something.
That would be nice.  I would hate to drive all the way out somewhere only to find out my fleet is not strong enough to kill the fleet because one of the ships is too powerful.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: tinsoldier on May 16, 2017, 02:17:40 PM
Quote
No, I think it basically always says "sizeable fleet". If I'm honest I agree that there needs to be some more information: maybe what the bounty's flagship is or something.
That would be nice.  I would hate to drive all the way out somewhere only to find out my fleet is not strong enough to kill the fleet because one of the ships is too powerful.

The bounty fleets start off pretty anemic and they only increase in size as you complete bounties.  If you haven't been doing bounties for most of the game then your late-game fleet will severely over power any and all bounties until you complete a dozen or so (possibly at a loss in terms of time and fuel).  It'd be nice if there was always a mix of bounties (big and small).  However, that would necessitate the player having clarity into what they're going after or else the issue you've raised would plague players.


Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 16, 2017, 03:51:46 PM
I know.  Knowing what the flagship is would be nice for something like midgame when I can handle cruisers, then the next bounty features the first capital, and that is a big spike in difficulty (if it is something like Astral, Paragon, or Onslaught) if I do not have a capital of my own.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: 2_Wycked on May 16, 2017, 04:00:20 PM
Quote
No, I think it basically always says "sizeable fleet". If I'm honest I agree that there needs to be some more information: maybe what the bounty's flagship is or something.
That would be nice.  I would hate to drive all the way out somewhere only to find out my fleet is not strong enough to kill the fleet because one of the ships is too powerful.

The bounty fleets start off pretty anemic and they only increase in size as you complete bounties.  If you haven't been doing bounties for most of the game then your late-game fleet will severely over power any and all bounties until you complete a dozen or so (possibly at a loss in terms of time and fuel).  It'd be nice if there was always a mix of bounties (big and small).  However, that would necessitate the player having clarity into what they're going after or else the issue you've raised would plague players.

Hmm, did not know that. Thanks!
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: FooF on May 16, 2017, 05:28:21 PM
The bounty fleets start off pretty anemic and they only increase in size as you complete bounties.  If you haven't been doing bounties for most of the game then your late-game fleet will severely over power any and all bounties until you complete a dozen or so (possibly at a loss in terms of time and fuel).  It'd be nice if there was always a mix of bounties (big and small).  However, that would necessitate the player having clarity into what they're going after or else the issue you've raised would plague players.

I believe Alex said he's going to increase both the number of bounties given at a time and the variability of bounties so that there's going to be some that are more powerful than "normal" and some that are less. This gives more of a cushion in case you haven't been doing bounties and need something tougher and something weaker in case your fleet got wiped and that was your primary source of income.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 17, 2017, 09:42:16 AM
Just a quickie:  I noticed no skill offers EMP damage reduction.  This means ships cannot be largely immune to EMP weapons anymore.  The closest player can get to EMP immunity is to stack Damage Control 2 and Automated Repair Unit to make combat repair times fast.

Before 0.8, EMP weapons were a joke to an endgame player and some enemy ships with the right officer.  EMP seems not to be trifled with anymore.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Drokkath on May 17, 2017, 10:56:58 AM
@Megas

Indeed, although even my super-characters' super-ships in the previous game version of .7, their vastly superior shields, health, max flux levels, high flux dissipation and armor from the average norm were "easy prey" for ships with phase cloak and a few others that I noticed shot something out and upon contact with my ship, short-circuited my shield bubble off along with temporarily paralyzing my ship.

Now it seems those rare few ships are able to one-shot my shields off on a regular basis which is only a very minor irritation for me as in good luck for them trying to chew through my layered dwarf star alloy plus other metals and other exotic elements that make up the hull of my super-ships, obviously none of the materials are made from anti-EMP thing as all the focus for the bare super hull is for maximum physical survival as to withstand the sheer elements of space, warfare and hazards in general until shields recover at some point.

I just love the fact and actually seeing it when hostile faction sends its regards with Onslaughts or whatever is comparable to that and a few ships with reaper torpedoes my way and even with shields off I've managed to clumsily soak up the worst hits from the most damaging weapons fire.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 17, 2017, 11:06:13 AM
It sounds like you were hit by Afflictor's Quantum Disruptor.  That is a very evil ship system.  It interrupts any other ship system (including teleportation), lowers shields, and freezes the victim.  That lets Afflictor counter any of the fast counters that can keep up with it, despite reduced energy weapon damage.  It is also very dangerous when Afflictor joins its friends when they decide to swarm a ship.

Also, Ion Beam and Tachyon Lance can arc past shields if enemy has sufficient hard flux built up.  My Paragon with dual HVD and quad Tachyon Lance combo has destroyed weakened ships and battlestation sections that tried to hide behind shields.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Drokkath on May 17, 2017, 11:29:26 AM
Ah, thanks for the info. I honestly wasn't aware of Afflictor's Quantum Disruptor until now as when there are phase ships in hostile fleets there's usually a few smaller ones too and so I can't really tell apart what ship fired what unless I use my Temporal Shell, pause and look closer to the monitor which I usually do when I see an interesting ship in enemy's fleet. Phase cloak vessels are too much of a blur to me as they are quite fast and sometimes manage to blend in with the background with a ghostly vision of some "unknown" ship's area/part sticking out.

I have tried flying and doing combat with one of the phase-cloak ships in the past but that's like asking a bodybuilder-looking warrior clad in plate armor to use stealth and a dagger instead of a two-handed weapon or a sword and a shield. :D
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 17, 2017, 02:27:45 PM
Afflictor is a small phase ship, one of the two phase frigates.  It is a nasty piece of work.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: HELMUT on May 17, 2017, 02:33:18 PM
I didn't took the time to write proper feedback for 0.8a, but here's at least a very short summary of my issues during the few campaigns i played :

-Probes/Remnants battles need some auto-resolve feature. While they offer good cannon-fodder for the beginners, having to clean up the probes/lone remnant scouts rapidly become a chore. After a little bit, i was actively avoiding probes and beacon'd systems just because of this, which is a shame, since probes are the biggest "quest givers" that makes the game interesting.

-Fleet logs needs to be conserved longer. Where was that derelict field that probe told me about again? Erh... I guess i could write it down on paper, but in some way i don't think i should have to.

-Remove outer system survey missions. Most of the time i ended up wasting my fuel, supplies and time trying to find something lost in the depth of the sector just to come back empty-ended. Just like probes, i'm now avoiding those missions.

-Remnant fleets are too easy to beat, mostly because of their lack of officer. Despite their fancy tech and weaponry, i consider the Remnants less of a threat than pirates (i obviously omit the station in that regard). So yeah, officers could help, although not necessarily for every fleet. Maybe only in orange/red systems? It's also a good excuse to use more of those cool AI portraits too.

-Distress signals from NPCs are quite useless. Either it's a fuel beggar, either a pirate gank, in most cases it's not worth the player's time. So i've been thinking, how about some potential intel as a reward for rescuing fleets? I'm not too interested in a insignificant amount of rep and money, however i would be very happy knowing about that high-class planet or derelict field.

-I would like if comm relays could keep us informed of what's happening in the core worlds. Mainly about bounties. Traveling back and forth to the core worlds just to update the missions get old fast, i'd like to know about the most wanted even when i'm far from home.

-nerf mora pls. During early game, i found the presence of a Mora to be the deciding factor whether or not i engage a fleet. It is the ultimate endurance fighter, able to combine both defense (damper field) and offense (fighters) at the same time. In some way, it doesn't obey the flux rule other ships are bound to, it can still defend itself even when pressured.

Most importantly, it's inability to die make the Mora a death trap for early game fleets. Frigates can't burst down the beast due to DP field, and they certainly can't outlast it due to CR. Every time i suffered a crushing defeat, it was early game, against a Mora, and it was a fight against the clock. No fun allowed.

-Remnants don't always join each others fleets in battle, smaller fleets in particular. Quite aggravating when 3/4 lone scouts are following you throughout the system and you have fight each one of them separately.

-Probably reported already, but Kopesh bombers only fire Annihiators one by one at frigates.


This might seems like a lot of negativity in this post, but i'm actually enjoying 0.8a quite a bit so far. Just wanted to make sure those issues (especially the probe grind one) won't go unnoticed before the 0.8.1 update.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Alex on May 17, 2017, 02:40:23 PM
Thanks! Took a few notes; fixed the Khopesh issue (first time it came up, actually).
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 17, 2017, 02:51:11 PM
I plan to post a proper 0.8 feedback topic of my own, but I have not started drafting it yet (but will soon).  Not sure if I will post everything on the same topic or have two different topics, one on general play (and part recap of my previous commnets) and another on ship/skill/weapon commentary.  It will likely be a massive wall of text.  Maybe later this week.

The two times I had time to draft my post, I ended up playing Starsector instead to experiment with this or that like trying to solo simulator with skilled Paragon.  (Hint:  Not really possible, but more due to devious AI than lack of skill power.)
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dri on May 17, 2017, 02:59:46 PM
Let's not nerf the Mora, okay? Let's accept that not all ships can be killed in the same way as every other ship. Bring HE, bring bigger guns—not everything should go down easily to a pack of frigates or some other anemic composition.

We have way too many hammers in Starsector and not enough anvils—the fact that the Mora has been standing out such much is proof of that!
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: BillyRueben on May 17, 2017, 03:02:53 PM
Let's not nerf the Mora, okay? Let's accept that not all ships can be killed in the same way as every other ship. Bring HE, bring bigger guns—not everything should go down easily to a pack of frigates or some other anemic composition.

We have way too many hammers in Starsector and not enough anvils—the fact that the Mora has been standing out such much is proof of that!

Have you ever fought one of those SOBs with a level 20 officer? It takes an entire fleet to bring them down. I'm all for having tougher ships, but the Mora is a massive outlier.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Alex on May 17, 2017, 03:05:47 PM
There's a huge difference between "Mora", "Mora with level 20 officer", and "Mora with level 20 officer with all the defensive skills". DF makes those scale just entirely too well.

(Hint:  Not really possible, but more due to devious AI than lack of skill power.)

<evil laughter>
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: FooF on May 17, 2017, 03:13:22 PM
There's a huge difference between "Mora", "Mora with level 20 officer", and "Mora with level 20 officer with all the defensive skills". DF makes those scale just entirely too well.

AKA, "Here we go...", "$&*@!", and "Nope."  :D
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dri on May 17, 2017, 04:26:44 PM
So what is he current plan for the Mora then or is it not on your plate yet? A nerf to DF (possibly a cooldown so you can't spam all of its charges)? Outright replacing the Mora's DF with a different system?

Please don't give it Burn Drive...
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Alex on May 17, 2017, 04:31:51 PM
From internal patch notes:

Damper Field: damage reduction down to 50% (from 67%), charge regen rate halved (1 per 20 seconds)


Burn drive is good, man. If it feels overused, it's because it's a very solid ship system mechanically - a mobility boost that can be used relatively freely because it doesn't immediately lead to kiting-focused loadouts.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 17, 2017, 04:35:23 PM
@ Alex:  More specifically, the small ships Avoid the Paragon until they have the numbers to swarm it.  Paragon cannot force them to engage.  Once they swarm, they charge in like a pack of xenomorphs.  Even if you notice the swarm on time and escape, said swarm can retreat anytime, and you do not have much of a window to pick off maybe one or two out of the twenty plus.

Bigger ships like cruisers and capitals can try this, but they are too slow.  Paragon can kite and blast away with HVDs and quad Tachyon Lances and pick off ships one by one.  Once simulator progresses down into destroyers and frigates, it becomes like Aliens with the xenomorphs cutting off the space marines.

Before 0.8, extra speed (from Augmented Engines) and perks like hull regeneration made it possible to survive swarms in 0.72.  Before 0.72, they did not Avoid, and if you could survive at the corner, there was nothing they can do.  Onslaught with all skills maxed ate everything like popcorn back then.

If I pick any other ship for more mobility, the cruisers and capitals kill it.  Onslaught cannot deal with all from Conquest's missiles, Astral's bombers, and Paragon's beams.  If I try Astral, the bombers get picked off due to crossfire from multiple ships, then the Astral die.  Only Paragon has the raw power and defenses to solo all of the cruisers and capitals in the simulator.  But once it gets to the destroyers and frigates, Paragon cannot do much until they swarm, and Paragon cannot deal with twenty or more frigates pounding on it at once.


Re: Mora
At least Mora cannot kite.  Heron can, and you cannot send your fighters alone at it very easily when Heron has fighters of its own to offset yours.  I can send my fleet to swarm a Mora, and it will go down eventually.  Trying to catch a cowardly Heron with HVD is a bit of a pain.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: SierraTangoDelta on May 17, 2017, 04:40:39 PM
I echo most of Helmut's points above.

One thing different I have to say is that the skill system could use some tweaks—I feel like there is pretty much no reason to get abilities that only affect the piloted ship. Especially when you have options that lead to, for example, +15% range for just your ship OR ECM which gives the entire enemy fleet -20% range. Another example is the fleet-wide +15% CR, OR +15% for only the piloted ship.
Having to put 3 points into a tree also is somewhat prohibitive, and also feels like wasted levels.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dri on May 17, 2017, 04:48:15 PM
Oh, I know full well Burn Drive is a good system (it was amazing back when you could cancel it by venting). Just, if you're gonna slap it on so many ships, maybe it's time create a new ship system that is also solid mechanically...

You can't tell me you've already run dry on quality ship system ideas!
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 17, 2017, 04:55:38 PM
One more thing about heroic Paragon's last stand in simulator.  My best attempt had everything except the civilians and maybe a few carriers at the end of the list deployed.  What was left was more than about forty frigates and few other ships.  I think I might have had 27% CR left (I had Safety Procedures 2 for lower malfunction cutoff point).  Skilled Paragon is really freaking strong.  Probably the most powerful ship a player can use if it can get its target within weapons range.

Of course, in the campaign, you probably want a few carriers to eliminate frigates and the like.  Paragon cannot force fights if enemy does not want to engage.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Deshara on May 17, 2017, 05:04:51 PM
hey alex you might wanna scroll down to the very botton of the key-rebinding menu and... remove most of that
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 17, 2017, 06:22:59 PM
If Damper Field is getting weakened yet again, can it get some other benefit too?  Say like... immunity to EMP, faster dissipation, or just simply let the ship fire weapons while protected?  If it is only 50%, I might be tempted to just vent and eat the full damage instead of activating the field to take half damage and dissipate normally.

Currently, even 67% DR from Damper Field is not enough to save Brawler from getting EMP'ed by Salamander Brawler has no way of stopping.  With only 50%, better for Brawler to get the Accelerated Ammo Feeder back if Damper Field will not protect Brawler enough to matter.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Deshara on May 17, 2017, 06:53:09 PM
Damper Field ... immunity to EMP

this plz
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Drokkath on May 17, 2017, 08:28:38 PM
I haven't even flown a mora or a legion, drover yes but only once to test a fun loadout and when I have seen those new ships in hostile fleets, my own superior and altered versions of a few favorite/preferred ships and weaponry are able to steamroll anything plus I always have maxed out character with maxed out everything and I fly only one of the super-ships.

Point being that I personally don't mind taking remnant AI fleets and derelict AI fleets down one by one as I've grown used to having most of the game's faction fire everything at me, if there is a battle ongoing or a large swath of an enemy fleet, I grin and blast in at burn 20 and steamroll the opposition. Then again I never auto-resolve anything as I love taking on large fleets with a commando super-ship, I am a Xenophilic Mutant Commando for a reason, a heretic to both God-Emporer and the Chaos gods to a degree as I worship no one but myself.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: SCC on May 18, 2017, 05:32:14 AM
In 0.7.2 brawler could face tank 2 reapers thanks to DF and still live... Now 1 reaper leaves it at less than half of its HPs. At 50% damage reduction it'll barely survive one reaper.
Problem with DF is that there are 2 frigates with it and one cruiser and now DF is balanced around that cruiser because it's getting into durability ranges outside the game scope (Mora DFing has effectively 3750 armour and 30000 HPs), while frigs were hardy but not impossible to destroy... And they couldn't attack you while DFing, whereas Mora can. I wish DF scaled inversely with ship size because otherwise Brawlers will loose effectiveness and Centurions all they have going for them.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Embolism on May 18, 2017, 06:01:57 AM
In 0.7.2 brawler could face tank 2 reapers thanks to DF and still live... Now 1 reaper leaves it at less than half of its HPs. At 50% damage reduction it'll barely survive one reaper.
Problem with DF is that there are 2 frigates with it and one cruiser and now DF is balanced around that cruiser because it's getting into durability ranges outside the game scope (Mora DFing has effectively 3750 armour and 30000 HPs), while frigs were hardy but not impossible to destroy... And they couldn't attack you while DFing, whereas Mora can. I wish DF scaled inversely with ship size because otherwise Brawlers will loose effectiveness and Centurions all they have going for them.

This. The Brawler at least has decent firepower, the Centurion has nothing but DF. Balancing DF around the Mora will gut the Centurion, and there's barely any point in using it in the first place.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 18, 2017, 06:17:18 AM
Centurion needs more firepower (and its firing arcs changed to compete with Wayfarer's) if its Damper Field is getting weakened more, if it keeps Damper Field.  All it is good for is a flying Railgun brick that can keep up with some of the kiting frigates.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Toxcity on May 18, 2017, 07:40:35 AM
Maybe it could use a reduction in supplies a month/to deploy? When DF was 75% it being the same cost as a Tempest was okay, but with the Tempest buffs and DF nerfs it should probably be a bit cheaper.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 18, 2017, 08:38:15 AM
Maybe also change the Centurion's missile mount to universal (one Salamander does not cut it anymore) and give it another +10 top speed so it can chase down Lashers but not high tech ships.

I would not mind seeing Centurion DP cost lowered to 5.  It is the closest midline has to low-tech's Lasher and high-tech's Wolf.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: isaacssv552 on May 18, 2017, 09:20:17 AM
Is Coordinated Maneuvers removing the ship's contribution after capping the boost intentional? This creates a bizarre situation where the actual max is 1-4% below the listed max. I switched it to be Math.max(0, Math.min(total-curr, max)) (Removing the if (total > max) total = max;, of course.) and it works perfectly.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: SCC on May 18, 2017, 10:38:11 AM
Honestly I'd rather have a combat buff than logistical buff for centurion, it's already rare enough, make it at least fun to have.
@up yes it is, it's reported and fixed for 0.8.1.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dri on May 18, 2017, 11:43:24 AM
With DF down to 50% I can only see it being used as a "OH CRAP" button when you can't raise shields fast enough or you're near max on flux and a harpoon/torpedo is coming your way (and you don't want to suffer an overload). But then systems like Phase Skimmer are clearly superior for that purpose...

As Megas mentioned, using it as a guard for some normal speed flux dissipation has just become a whole lot less attractive and the system has become quite bland as a result.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Wyvern on May 18, 2017, 11:47:34 AM
Honestly I think the change is probably overkill - the main problem I have with Damper Field is the speed at which the charges regenerate, not the level of protection it offers while it's active.

Then again, I also don't find Moras to be overly problematic in my games, and I've only once gotten into a "everyone's trying to retreat because we're all at zero CR" type of fight.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: SCC on May 18, 2017, 11:52:10 AM
My main gripe about DF nerf is that Brawlers with high damage reduction can be a better distraction than other frigate due to good mounts, BUT had the durability to actually survive when bigger ships roll out. Without (reliable) DF they become less brawlers and more snipers.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Toxcity on May 18, 2017, 11:57:26 AM
If it is too weak Alex can just make the buff based on hullsize.

The system was never amazing vs. larger ships anyway, as they had the flux and/or firepower to disregard it. It was mostly a desperation option in those cases.

Damper not being amazing is okay since the ships that have it have some other advantages. Medium ballistics for brawler, hybrids for centurion, and fighters for Mora.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 18, 2017, 01:28:29 PM
Hybrid mounts is not a good enough reason for Centurion when it can only point two at enemies, and ballistics are generally better than energy unless you want EMP.  Because enemies are constantly kiting now, Centurion does not have time to point three guns at enemies (when it is already difficult enough to do) and keep up with them.  The best Centurion can do is keep firing two railguns at small ships while constantly advancing, never giving the enemy the chance to lower shields, vent, and recover.  Despite less damage to armor, constant long-range kinetic pressure is perhaps the easiest way for Centurion to kill frigates.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: cjuicy on May 18, 2017, 02:11:33 PM
Hybrid mounts is not a good enough reason for Centurion when it can only point two at enemies, and ballistics are generally better than energy unless you want EMP.  Because enemies are constantly kiting now, Centurion does not have time to point three guns at enemies (when it is already difficult enough to do) and keep up with them.  The best Centurion can do is keep firing two railguns at small ships while constantly advancing, never giving the enemy the chance to lower shields, vent, and recover.  Despite less damage to armor, constant long-range kinetic pressure is perhaps the easiest way for Centurion to kill frigates.
I use them as anti-fighter screens with tac lasers and an escort order. They work quite well.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Kregoth on May 18, 2017, 02:32:13 PM
Anyone know how to find more fuel? I have a commission with Hegemony so everyone hates me, but none of the Hegemony systems have any fuel, even black markets are empty. Will more fuel be produced soon? Most independent have little to no fuel as well, hard to go surveying when you can find fuel to buy :(

EDIT: found enough fuel to keep going, but I hope it doesn't get worse. Is there a bug to where every faction just becomes hostile to each other? there doesn't appear to be a single Faction without hostilities between each other. Also when the faction makes peace, I should have my rep returned to neutral, unless I blew them up. kind of frustrating when everyone hates me, when I haven't done anything to them and the war is over.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Techhead on May 18, 2017, 04:21:16 PM
My thoughts on Mora and Damper Field: Nerf the Mora's other defensive stats instead. My ideas:
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: intrinsic_parity on May 18, 2017, 04:34:42 PM
I nerfing the regen rate of DF charges and adding a significant delay (5-10) seconds between uses of the damper field would go a long way towards balance. I don't mind the damper field getting ships out of a sticky situation, its just bad when they can get out of a bunch of consecutive sticky situations. Maybe have reduced flux dissipation or prevent hard flux dissipation while damper field is active? It seems like the mora is able to use DF and then use shields to hold out until DF is ready again, and just continually avoid damage. Giving the player a decent window to do damage is all that needs to happen I think.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: TaLaR on May 18, 2017, 08:05:48 PM
Hard-nerfed Mora will become obsolete compared to Heron, so I don't think it's a good idea. What's the point to pick carrier that can neither kite nor tank, and has no fighter-enhancing system?
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Embolism on May 18, 2017, 08:56:40 PM
IMO: make the Mora's "combat prowess" more about firepower instead of toughness. Change its medium missiles to medium composites, up its flux stats and lower its shield efficiency/arc.

DF I think is fine at 67%. Nerf the recharge rate if needed, but nerfing both is overkill.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dark.Revenant on May 18, 2017, 09:06:46 PM
A 50% damper field with Mora's armor actually pencils out to significantly more damage reduction than 50% in the end.  A 200-HE blast against 1000 armor is usually 114 armor damage, but with a 50% damper field it's only 33 armor damage.  The higher the damage, the more benefit you get from damper field.  Same situation, a harpoon does 900 armor damage without DF, 321 with DF.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 19, 2017, 10:40:31 AM
IMO: make the Mora's "combat prowess" more about firepower instead of toughness. Change its medium missiles to medium composites, up its flux stats and lower its shield efficiency/arc.
I prefer Heron for combat prowess because it can mount HVD (or Mauler) and kite-and-snipe.  I usually use Mora because more enemies use it (and more easy to recover) and because it can tank.  If it cannot tank, then why use Mora once player can find enough Heron to use?  Also, Mora consumes 4 fuel instead of 3 like most cruisers.  The point is if Mora cannot tank anymore and gets nothing else, then it effectively becomes a pirate-style junk ship like Buffalo mk 2.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: A.Winge on May 19, 2017, 11:19:58 AM
I think the cooldown change on the Mora is probably enough.  That said, I hate fighting Moras, so I don't mind if they get nerfed into the ground for a patch or two  ;)


Is there a way to increase the skill cap past 40?  I kind of disagree with the current level cap, especially since it can completely lock out some of the game mechanics (Salvaging and Surveying).  It feels a bit too limiting.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: SCC on May 19, 2017, 11:23:53 AM
They shouldn't be nerfed to the ground, Mora should have some niche. Tanking is interesting, but it's also irritating if you can do that for much longer than any other ship in your weight class.
About level cap: look for "maxlevel" or something like that in starsector-core/data/config/settings.json.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: A.Winge on May 19, 2017, 11:34:44 AM
They shouldn't be nerfed to the ground, Mora should have some niche. Tanking is interesting, but it's also irritating if you can do that for much longer than any other ship in your weight class.
About level cap: look for "maxlevel" or something like that in starsector-core/data/config/settings.json.

I know, I'm just venting.  Beware the excess flux  ;)

Thanks for the tip, I'll try it out.  Along with some extra mods.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Toxcity on May 19, 2017, 11:59:12 AM
Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure that Damper Field's damage resistance procs before the armor formula. So if a harpoon (750 HE) hits a Mora with its base armor value (1250), it should only do 281 damage. Not to mention the Mora still has its shield and fighters to keep missiles at bay. The missiles also are good to keep enemy ships at bay.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Thaago on May 19, 2017, 06:28:16 PM
Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure that Damper Field's damage resistance procs before the armor formula. So if a harpoon (750 HE) hits a Mora with its base armor value (1250), it should only do 281 damage. Not to mention the Mora still has its shield and fighters to keep missiles at bay. The missiles also are good to keep enemy ships at bay.

Hmmm, I dunno. I've been playing 'The Last Hurrah' a lot, and I'll pump multiple Reapers into a Mora and just barely get through the armor. I'll check to make sure its not just bias.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: LoneWolf on May 19, 2017, 06:44:36 PM
Why were bounty missions so nerfed now? every single bounty is only in far off unexplored solar systems, still haven't found a single character bounty somewhere in the established systems.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Toxcity on May 19, 2017, 07:36:30 PM
Bounties were changed to be in uninhabited systems. As for named bounties, I think those are from SWP.

EDIT: You may want to try SS+. It makes the game a bit harder, but it lets early bounties generate in the core systems.

Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure that Damper Field's damage resistance procs before the armor formula. So if a harpoon (750 HE) hits a Mora with its base armor value (1250), it should only do 281 damage. Not to mention the Mora still has its shield and fighters to keep missiles at bay. The missiles also are good to keep enemy ships at bay.

Hmmm, I dunno. I've been playing 'The Last Hurrah' a lot, and I'll pump multiple Reapers into a Mora and just barely get through the armor. I'll check to make sure its not just bias.

My bad, I was using math based on the nerfed Damper Field. With the current 67% resistance one, a reaper only does 1816 damage to a Mora with base armor (1250) and DF active. The math is:

4000 * 2 = 8000; For HE damage modifier.
8000 * .33 = 2666.667; With DF reduction.
2666.667 * (2666.667 / (2666.667 + 1250)) = 1815.6; Plugged into armor formula.

If DF did damage reduction after the damage formula, Reaper would have done 2306.3 damage.

4000 * 2 = 8000; For HE damage modifier.
8000 * (8000 / (8000 + 1250)) = 6918.9; Plugged into armor formula.
8000 * .33 = 2306.3; With DF reduction.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: 2_Wycked on May 20, 2017, 08:23:29 AM
These are my thoughts after about 20ish hours. Full warning, I haven't played in about 2 years so I'm not exactly sure how new some of these features are. Also I'm sure Alex already has plenty of notes on what he wants to look at/alter so apologies if a lot of this was already pointed out or suggested.

Tutorial
This is great for introducing us to some of the lower level mechanics, but I think more could be done to indicate what exactly the core gameplay loop of Starsector is since the end of the tutorial just kind of drops you off the leash without any direction. Also, I would like to see more of a reward for completing the whole tutorial because in my experience I had a much easier time just skipping it and taking the 30k you start with that way. Way too often after completing the tutorial I was trapped in a slow death spiral as I didn't have enough money or supplies to really get out of Corvus, the local bounty ran out before I could build up any cash, and I couldn't sell my ships to get anything different since sell prices are so low now.

It would also be nice to have the option to take a commission with any faction after completing the tutorial instead of just the hegemony. New players probably won't understand the consequences of grabbing it and will suddenly have a lot of grinding ahead of them if they want to get in good with any other factions. Truthfully I'm not really sure I understand the point of commissions since it's way way easier to get mad cash by doing scan missions or named bounties and AI spawns seem difficult to predict inside systems. Are they intended to be mostly for role-playing to get access to cool unique faction tech?

Missions
These are also mostly great but I think everyone and their dog has noticed how comparatively easy scan/survey missions are for getting rich quick. There is a decent amount of emergent stuff going on between REDACTED, random pirates waiting to roll you, etc., so that it isn't totally risk-free but I'm not sure how "risky" these are intended to be as opposed to bounties or something. The mini-loop of salvaging probes, derelicts, and flying around taking scan missions seems like kind of the intended path for new players (I certainly tended to opt for these missions whenever starting a new game myself) and it is excellent, imo. Not sure if there are plans to flesh out the "get X amount of ____, deliver to Y system" missions but those aren't particularly enticing as is since the economy of the game is left to the player to figure out. Since they're just clicking through lines of dialogue on a menu I'm not sure how much more interesting you could make these, but I personally I ignore them 90% of the time unless I happen to have the requested material on hand or can buy it right there. Maybe that's the point?

Also, I'm not sure if there are some bugs with objective placement for the scan missions but a few times now I've flown out to the ass end of the map to scan something for it to turn out to be located "in the fringes of ___ system" or "in an asteroid belt" or "in the heart of ___ system" and I straight-up cannot find the thing. Definitely could be that I'm missing something but man that is frustrating.

General Notes
The derelict AI drone ships are brilliant. Probably my favorites design-wise, I love how crudely industrial and machine-like they look, very cool stuff. I fought my first survey mothership earlier today and it was awesome! I don't have as much experience with REDACTED but they feel like a good threat to keep scan/survey missions from feeling too comfortable / late game enemy to gear up for and their designs are also top-notch.

UI is mostly solid, but there are a couple of menus (planet survey, mission list while at a station/planet) that you need to hit ESC to back out of instead of TAB, which seems to do that everywhere else.

Ship availability seems a bit whack. I'm guessing that the Hegemony is supposed to bet the "beginner" faction since their low-tech ships are everywhere? The ratios seem skewed too far to the low-end ships when you realize that markets only reset after 30 days or if you clean them out of stuff to sell (could be wrong about that, this is something that should also be communicated to the player about the economy imo). I've got a solid 20 hours in and I've literally never seen an Apogee, for example, or an Astral or Aurora outside of enemy fleets. It could be that the higher tech ships are intended to be something players level into and I just never progressed that far but I would personally really like the option to choose a faction to side with at the beginning instead of being forced onto the Hegemony. Since it's kind of a grind to build up rep with other factions a lot of their more advanced ships are locked out for quite a while.

With all of that said, I'm very impressed by how far the game has come and I'm having a ton a fun with it. Kudos to Alex and the rest of the team!

TLDR
- Scan/survey missions are great, exploration is great. Maybe a bit too easy considering the amount of $$$ you get for them?
- Tutorial is very much appreciated for a returning player like myself but could be fleshed out more with info about the economy, bounties, faction relations, etc.
- UI is slick and just needs a couple of tweaks here and there.
- REDACTED and remnants/AI drones are excellent. Exploration feels very rewarding now.
- I would personally like to see more bounties or maybe the option to go on combat missions for factions as a supplementary thing? Feels a bit tough to make a living as a dedicated combat player, idk.









Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: isaacssv552 on May 20, 2017, 10:58:13 AM
I think you may have had bad luck with the starting markets, I had a Paragon, Astral, Odyssey, Aurora, and Apogee in my first visits to Tri-tachyon markets.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: A.Winge on May 21, 2017, 08:57:05 AM
I think you may have had bad luck with the starting markets, I had a Paragon, Astral, Odyssey, Aurora, and Apogee in my first visits to Tri-tachyon markets.

I remember seeing good variety in the Tri-Tac market before getting a commission.  But in that same game, once I decided to go with the Tri-Tac, the only ship I could find afterwards was the Odyssey.  I was not pleased...  >:(

How often do the markets refresh?
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: isaacssv552 on May 21, 2017, 11:30:44 AM
I think you may have had bad luck with the starting markets, I had a Paragon, Astral, Odyssey, Aurora, and Apogee in my first visits to Tri-tachyon markets.

I remember seeing good variety in the Tri-Tac market before getting a commission.  But in that same game, once I decided to go with the Tri-Tac, the only ship I could find afterwards was the Odyssey.  I was not pleased...  >:(

How often do the markets refresh?
30 days, although you could also install console commands and use forcemarketupdate. Alternatively, you could try going on a long surveying trip or something. (Long travel times are the quickest way to burn days relative to playtime I've found.)
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Pushover on May 21, 2017, 02:37:01 PM
The best way I found to wait for ships is to take procurement missions. Hybrasil has a lot of possibility to get in-system missions, and has a good variety of goods to take out of system. Waiting for the missions/doing them takes a few days, so you can check back once you finish a mission or two.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on May 21, 2017, 07:09:04 PM
Converted Hangar hullmod is really fun, but I need the extra OP from Loadout Design 3 to fit that and a decent wing of fighters along with everything else my ship needs to do its job, and at least Fighter Doctrine 3 for various defensive fighter buffs.

One thing I have not tried yet for soloing the simulator is Paragon with Converted Hangar, with Talons, Sparks, or Lux as the wing of fighters.  The fighters will be useless against the capitals, but Paragon can deal with them.  The point of the fighters is after Paragon kills most of the capitals and cruisers, the Paragon may try to locate isolated small ships then sic fighters after them instead of trying to chase one then get rushed by about forty enemy frigates.  If all it triggers is "Minor Enemy Presence", then the idea is to slowly wear away and destroy isolated ships one at a time until they kill enough that my Paragon cannot be swarmed.  It would be an ugly waiting game since it takes a while for fighters to kill and replenish themselves.  I have no idea if this would work, but it is the only idea I have left for trying to solo a simulator that a skilled Paragon could theoretically solo if the AI was not intelligent enough.  I probably will not try this idea soon (due to wasting points on Salvaging and Navigation to get the hullmod in the first place from a research station).

I will probably post my big wall-of-text general commentary of 0.8 soon, in a new topic.  It is mostly done, but I need to edit it some more.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Thaago on May 22, 2017, 12:27:11 PM
One quick piece of feedback: fighter corpses are still doing far too much damage. I just had a Talon impact do 240 armor damage to a Paragon - that comes out to a 740 damage shot. When there are dozens of impacts during a battle, I'm finding that I have to keep shields up not because of weapons, but because of high velocity hulks.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Zhentar on May 22, 2017, 12:44:33 PM
Way too often after completing the tutorial I was trapped in a slow death spiral as I didn't have enough money or supplies to really get out of Corvus, the local bounty ran out before I could build up any cash, and I couldn't sell my ships to get anything different since sell prices are so low now

The bounties seem kind of like a newbie trap now... flying around in system I can never find a pirate fleet larger than three frigates (which move too quickly to catch most of the time). In hyperspace there are larger fleets fairly frequently but there's a lot of competition to actually catch & fight them, so you can easily burn through a lot of fuel with little to no reward.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Cik on May 22, 2017, 12:48:16 PM
my advice is, sit in hyperspace and go dark

if you don't move, you don't burn fuel. chill out near a star somewhere and pick off passing fleets.

you still get the bounty as long as you are near enough to the star in hyperspace.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Igncom1 on May 22, 2017, 06:53:10 PM
my advice is, sit in hyperspace and go dark

if you don't move, you don't burn fuel. chill out near a star somewhere and pick off passing fleets.

you still get the bounty as long as you are near enough to the star in hyperspace.

You do burn fuel while sitting still, but very slowly.

Supplies however drain away no matter what you are doing or where you are going. There are no ports to park in and no asteroids to latch onto. Your choices are medium supply drain and maximum CR restore drain.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Botaragno on June 03, 2017, 05:20:53 PM
I suppose this is 0.81a related but still

Having the named bounty fleets be at minimum 10ly away from the inhabited worlds is more of a pain than anything. Primarily because you're bruning fuel to hunt after a couple of Wolf's a Hound and maybe a Buffalo in the early game, then when things rack up you just see these large huge pirate fleets hiding out nowhere in particular, presumably chewing through supplies with no actual pirating being done.

Also the massive "buff" to storms compounds on travelling outside the Core Worlds problems, from having to toggle Sustained Burn on and off to avoid running into another thicket, to how even the slightest graze sucks out 30 of your supplies in one go. So to get a medium game bounty, you have to gear up on fuel extra extra supplies for busting through any inevitable storm attrition for both the outbound journey and back.

Then you have to contend with running into the Scav fleets on your way in and out, and I don't think I've come across one where their size wouldn't give any inner-system faction detachment a run for their money.

Also I heard Survey payments got nerfed into the ground, so bang goes that sliver of non-combat income
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Drokkath on June 04, 2017, 09:59:53 AM
Yeah, known/established star systems have all planets surveyed by default now and it's why I got stuck in that damn tutorial as I couldn't activate the sensor burst and thus went in circles and then some with no results of finding that probe's/derelict's AI core in the tutorial, was so irritated about it earlier today that I almost felt like nuking the tutorial with something, I already know the basics and then some about the game so to me tutorials are always a chore as I prefer to usually fly by the seat of my pants and experience a game in my own way. I already had set up my character with necessary gear and skills but didn't account for getting stuck half-way in the tutorial like that. Note to self: Make a random never-used character first before making your actual character. *headdesk*

Ended up just leaving the first character's two save folders so I could skip the cursed thing and be free from point A and not at point B plus I don't like siding with either Hegemony or Tri-tachyon, at least Hegemony seems like somewhat lesser of evils but still lore-wise when trying to count on the now disassembled Domain-era government stuff feels wrong as something had to went seriously off the scale fubar with the gate systems going dead so I tend to think twice or more before doing something for either of the factions.

Wanton tutorial's frustrations and faction choosing lore-wise aside in 0.8.1a, I'm about to dive in the game again as so far I've not even gone into a battlemap mode in the recent update yet due to wasted hour or two in the bloody tutorial. :D
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dri on June 04, 2017, 06:39:20 PM
Warthogs are love, Warthogs are life! I love these tough little buggers and while they are defs slow for a fighter, tossing in a Talon or Claw wing to chase down a fast frigate so the Warthogs can catch up works wonders! Their triple mortar just wrecks stuff—not even cruisers are safe!

Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on June 04, 2017, 07:25:03 PM
Warthogs were up there with Sparks and Lux during 0.8.0.  Now, Warthogs are the most powerful non-bomber fighter.  Their only weakness is slow top speed (and higher OP cost).  During 0.8.0, leash was 3000, but that has extended to 4000 in 0.8.1.  I plan to abuse Warthogs so much in 0.8.1.  More speed from Wing Commander 1 is very good on Warthogs (but not so much on Thunders).
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Igncom1 on June 04, 2017, 07:30:13 PM
So are warthogs and broadswords mid tech or low tech fighters? Their armament suggests low tech but the colour of their hulls suggest mid tech.

I suppose the same question to the khopesh rocket bombers as well.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dri on June 04, 2017, 08:26:29 PM
I'm not sure how much attention to "Epoch" color David and Alex give to fighters. I seem to recall some lore about fighters not really being much of thing during early low tech times. So maybe it makes sense that they look midline-ish as it was during that time that fighters took off.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Botaragno on June 06, 2017, 11:37:51 AM
Christ these hyperstorms combined with the Core/Survey/Salvage nerf have really sucked the fun out of the game for me
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Alex on June 06, 2017, 11:53:29 AM
Just in case you're not aware- the later hotfixes have halved the rate of storms happening, so you might want to make sure your game version is up-to-date.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: mangalore on June 25, 2017, 02:08:00 PM
Not sure if I'm alone but my impression of 0.8 thus far is that balance wise the core gameplay loop is out of wack as I find in comparison to earlier game versions I now avoid combat at all costs and even in mid game find most bounty missions being more powerful than my fleet which means high risk little reward as the money won't cover potential losses and expenses, thus I rather go to survey/trade instead.

As to me the core gameplay loop of Starsector is mainly: gain funds > upgrade > fight > repeat, the fight part being not in it anymore is a worrying feeling. In the same sense trade only works via missions and survey/salvage aren't not that challenging in terms of game mechanics as fighting in 0.8 a lot seems lost balance wise.

Imo there should be some rebalance to make bounty hunting and fighting more fun and profitable to progress and an integral part of the game again. Hopefully it would suffice to have more variance in bounties aka a wider abundance of lower to higher paying bounties so if one cannot/dares not to go after the big prizes there is something smaller to go for ro build up.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: sectorfan on June 30, 2017, 02:37:22 PM
Here is my feedback, New game 0.8.1a, Level 40, 215 cycles.  Sorry it’s long, but hopeful helpful.

First and foremost, I love the combat.  Always had I bought the game years ago just for it.

That said, I find the balance to be very off in many places.  At the start of the game things are way too hard.  I believe this to be a combination of factors:

1. Missions are way too far away (20-30+ ly) and located in too difficult space for early game
2. It’s too easy to get into a spiral of death with low CR/supplies and/or running out of fuel
3. The starting area/core worlds are a mix of either too easy pirates that always run away or way too hard enemies with massive fleets with no middle ground

I started my build focused on salvage and survey for income.  I knew that CR/supplies would be a pain so tool ALL the skills in industry.  But I often found no fuel or supplies on longer missions.  Then I’d get frustrated that finding a less than 20 light year mission would require me to have too many ships just for support.  This loop of needing more fuel, that also needing more supplies, leading to needing bigger ships just to get places felt like a forced grind and was not fun for me.

After frustrations with survey and salvage, I switched over to doing bounties.  At first they were awesome paying $200k+ for some rather easy fights.  I made a ton of money and soon levelled to max 40.  However, I then hit the second grind wall... reputation.  It takes forever to get any reputation.  Even with a 60/100 reputation I still can’t buy good ships without a commission.  And that then makes you enemies with basically everyone else.  Not something a lower level player would want.

Now, I had played a much older version of SS and I knew I wanted a paragon.  But the TriTach have like three planets and only one military base?  Fine, so I keep travelling to them looking for missions to gain reputation.  However, I found most of the time they don’t even list misions for their faction at their base!  More frustration.

But then by pure chance I came across a Paragon-D!  Hooray, just what I wanted!  Except it had almost no weapons and was damaged.    Fair enough, I played for several more hours fixing it up and getting support vessels.  Then I try to do a new bounty for 280k.  3x onslaught battleships and like 6 carriers plus a bunch of hounds/etc.   Where is that balance?

Now I’ve got 3.5m credits, and a ton of weapons and mostly repaired D hull ships.  But I’m no longer finding the game fun.  I end up spending more time trying to get to missions and ensuring I have enough resources only to either find it again way too easy or way too hard.  And since I can’t even buy good ships with my credits I’d be forced into a war with factions and/or more grinding for reputation. 

My fleet at this point.  215 cycles and few days of play.
Paragon (D), Astral carrier (D), Heron carrier (D), Aurora (D), Medusa (non D/blackmarket), Harbringer (D), Omen, Tempest, 2x Wolf (D), Promethous Super Tanker (D), Atlas Super freighter (D), Colossus Freigher (D), Tug, Salvage Rig

No problems in core worlds, but often find I’m way outclassed anywhere else.  The cost to run is 5.3/supplies per day and 47 fuel per light year.  Makes it damn expensive to go places.

So that’s where I’m at.  I love the combat, I love the ship building... but kind of dislike most everything else.  CR/Supplies just feel like an unnecessary burden or chore that I’m forced to endure to get to the fun bits.  Sadly, I was spending more time playing around in the simulator then the main game.  My big request is that you put a multiplier option for supplies and CR.  I’m not opposed to them, but they just make the game too much of a grind.  Something easy like CR * X where 1 = 100% normal game and if I put 0.5 in it would be half normal rates.

It would also be nice if you can change your skill points, even if it cost.  Having to do it all over again to try out a new build seem even less fun. :(
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on June 30, 2017, 03:07:14 PM
Do you play or plan to play with mods? I would suggest that you do if you haven't already
One thing I would suggest is the Console Commands mod for access to both the Respec command and the ability to use Save Transfer.

I would also suggest taking a commission with either the Hegemony, for access to cheap supplies and many markets, Sindrians, for access to stupid amounts of cheap fuel, or the new Persian League, for comparable amounts of markets to the Heg.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on June 30, 2017, 03:15:11 PM
Persean League also has many of the hullmods otherwise exclusive to Tri-Tachyon.  They are also the faction most likely to have Mjolnirs for sale if you want them.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: ANGRYABOUTELVES on June 30, 2017, 03:23:39 PM
If you take a commission before you start doing bounties, the reputation comes naturally. Being enemies with people doesn't matter as long as you turn your transponder off in hyperspace, which you should be doing anyway, and don't go to systems held by opposing factions. The Persean League is probably the best commission choice for a new player; they're only hostile to the Hegemony so you can still buy your fuel at Sindria, they've got a lot of systems and markets, and they sell pretty good ships.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: sectorfan on July 01, 2017, 05:25:21 AM
Yes, I did look through the mod list for anything that reduced or removed CR/supplies/etc.  I didn't see anything, and many were out of date for 0.7.x or earlier.  I even took a look through the game files.  But it seemed there were too many places that appeared I needed to change to get it to work.

Thing is with a commission, you're at war with so many other factions I didn't want to deal with more CR issues.  And the transponder trick also works against you more often then not.  Since a friendly faction will come after you and you lose -5 rep faction and -5 station/planet just for having it off in or around their space.  Yet doing missions for them over and over rarely nets me more than 2-3. 

My biggest problem with CR is that there are tons of enemies out there.  With how often you get harassed by smaller fleets draining CR with each encounter.  Then the a bigger one appears from nowhere and you are screwed. 

Just seems like everything in this game is just designed to delay your ability to play.  Use emergency burn to catch or evade a target and you lose CR.  Run into a storm or need to use a ship to often.  Then the worst one is a limit on battle playtime due to CR reduction per minute of deployment.  I under the purpose, but seems too harsh a system forcing me to avoid combat... the main thing I *want* to do in this game.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on July 01, 2017, 09:11:20 AM
There is always loading the game in devmode and cheating yourself up a ton of money, XP, and reputation with some clicks or button presses, if adding mods is undesirable.

The thing I dislike most about modern combat is the AI fights like a grief-ing, cowardly, spawn-point camping, turtle player we fight in a fighting game or deathmatch FPS.  It kites and turtles until it has an overwhelming advantage then it swarms and kills quickly.  While effective, it almost needs a matching or superior fleet to counter, and that gets expensive.  With the latest release, bounties level up faster than you can and combat is not a good idea until endgame.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: sectorfan on July 01, 2017, 09:18:58 AM
Right, so I thought I'd give the suggestion to just play with a new character with Hegemony commission at start.  Going alright at 49/100, but then a stupid pirate in a hound keeps escaping every encounter.  Using either eburns or substained burn.  Now, the AI has NO problem spamming interdiction pulses on me throughout the game.  But heaven forbid I do it once with a fellow Hegemony near by... nope, instant -1 reputation and pirate still gets away.

Sorry, just not my kind of game anymore.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Dri on July 01, 2017, 09:40:52 AM
I thought Alex said small fleets (or in your case a single ship) wouldn't or couldn't IP a larger fleet. ???
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: sectorfan on July 01, 2017, 09:54:17 AM
The pirate didn't IP me, I had a small fleet of 6 or so ships.  I tried to IP the pirate who kept getting away and there was a Hegemony near by me at the time.  But I get hit by IP by "friendly" fleets all the time.  AI has no problems using it on me is my point.  But the first time I use it and I get a -1 rep.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on July 01, 2017, 10:09:41 AM
AI spamming IP is about as annoying as AI spamming "Gank Burn" in 0.7.x.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on July 01, 2017, 04:01:15 PM
I thought Alex said small fleets (or in your case a single ship) wouldn't or couldn't IP a larger fleet. ???
Either it is bugged or not working as advertised as my end game fleet gets interdicted all the time by tiny and weak ass shuttle fleets. And while yes, I don't get stunned in place but I do lose active SB and it is forced into a cooldown
Meanwhile, my 1.5K sensor range fleet can't do the same to said shuttle fleets

Also, the fact that we can't see the range until we turn it on, and can't stop it once it starts, really irks me as well...
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: AxleMC131 on July 02, 2017, 01:37:47 AM
Could IP work with two button presses, like the Transponder does? So, a prime on an initial press (which would reveal the range and perhaps highlight nearby fleets which are likely to be affected by the pulse), then actually activated on a second press.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: TaLaR on July 02, 2017, 02:13:52 AM
Could IP work with two button presses, like the Transponder does? So, a prime on an initial press (which would reveal the range and perhaps highlight nearby fleets which are likely to be affected by the pulse), then actually activated on a second press.

Could also show expected effect magnitude on fleets around.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Darloth on July 09, 2017, 08:38:41 AM
I'd actually like it if Emergency Burn didn't cost CR, or cost a lot less.

It's almost unusably expensive, as much as a whole-fleet combat deployment in many cases.

How about instead of a set CR cost it drains CR slowly while active and can be toggled on and off? Has that been considered yet?  (I wouldn't mind if it had its fuel cost brought back in as well, though I do understand the reasons that was removed.)
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on July 09, 2017, 08:54:36 AM
(I wouldn't mind if it had its fuel cost brought back in as well, though I do understand the reasons that was removed.)
What?!  Emergency Burn still burns fuel to activate.

I'd actually like it if Emergency Burn didn't cost CR, or cost a lot less.
That is what the Safety Procedures 3 perk does, along with halving (D) mod penalties.  (I would get Safety Procedures 3 for the (D)-mod penalty mitigation alone.)  Even without CR loss, Emergency Burn hurts too much to use.  The worst part of Emergency Burn is blocking Sustained Burn until EB fully recharges.  The fuel cost also hurts, especially if you have a big fleet and no Navigation 2 perk.

The main use of Emergency Burn today is to ignore terrain, like overcoming solar winds when trying to dock with something good in a system.  (Not very useful for escaping hyperspace storms due to a second or two of delay waiting for Sustained Burn to deactivate before Emergency Burn takes effect.)
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Althaea on July 09, 2017, 09:34:39 AM
Emergency burn is good for anything where you need a sudden burst of agility and speed, really. Sustained burn does not have that - it takes precious moments to charge up during which you are quite visible, acceleration is slow and turning is horrible.

How much utility this has can vary - it is very useful for pirate types to run down merchants (who may be charging up their sustained burn or have been interdicted), though.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on July 09, 2017, 09:54:11 AM
Emergency burn is good for anything where you need a sudden burst of agility and speed, really. Sustained burn does not have that - it takes precious moments to charge up during which you are quite visible, acceleration is slow and turning is horrible.
For someone who has Sustained Burn on at nearly all times, using Emergency Burn hurts because it paralyzes the fleet for about a second or two before EB kicks in, then it is better agility at significantly slower top speed for a few seconds, then EB ends and neither EB nor SB can be used for a few more seconds.  EB practically kills speed and eats more resources (CR and fuel) on top of that.  EB is a raw deal.

SB has bad acceleration/turning, that is its only weakness, and it is usually minor.  Simply toggling it (deactivate then reactivate a moment later) is usually enough to get more agility.

The only time I find EB useful now is to ignore solar wind while trying to catch an enemy fleet or trying to dock with a juicy (mission) object too close to a star.  That happens rarely.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Darloth on July 09, 2017, 03:47:31 PM
(I wouldn't mind if it had its fuel cost brought back in as well, though I do understand the reasons that was removed.)
What?!  Emergency Burn still burns fuel to activate.

Well, I loaded Starsector back up to check, and... yeah.  Sorry.  Not sure how I missed that.  I was sure I'd read somewhere that the fuel cost had been removed, but obviously not.

Oh well - shows how often I use E-burn nowadays.  I'd consider it if I had the skill that makes it not cost CR, I think it would be useful then, but as it is, just no.
Title: Re: .8 feedback thread
Post by: Megas on July 09, 2017, 06:53:30 PM
What was removed from EB in 0.8.1 is movement penalties from terrain.  In theory, this might be useful.  However, given how transition from SB to EB slows the fleet down and then both EB and SB cannot be used while EB charges, EB is usually a power-up letdown.