Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: TJJ on April 22, 2017, 06:01:52 AM
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Just a few thoughts & observations; please contribute your own:
- I'm using it exclusively, e-burn is largely defunct
- Even evasive AI can be caught by exploiting (run away, turn around, charge in @20, they can't dodge)
- When surveying/hunting for derelicts, sensor debuff is irrelevant; s-burn is ~3x faster, so even with -25% sensor range, you still scout more area s-burning.
- It might be contributing to those saying the sector actually feels smaller, as s-burn makes star systems significantly smaller than they were.
- Navigation - The skill that gives +5 s-burn, -25% fuel use, and 30% less terrain penalty is OPAF
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Navigation - The skill that gives +5 s-burn, -25% fuel use, and 30% less terrain penalty is OPAF[/li][/list]
It has to be. Otherwise I'll never consider a skill that does not contribute to combat whatsoever.
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I use it most of the time. This is the same as running in Doom and other early FPS games.
The lack of agility occasionally hurts, and I have turned off S-Burn to turn around, then turn it back on.
OPAF? Do you mean "Overpowered as ****"?
It makes the level 3 perk that removes CR penalty of that one Industry skill useless, since SB is better than EB because EB is not as fast and you still lose fuel for using EB.
It makes the Neutrino ability useless. Aside from the annoying volatiles requirement, I am not giving up Sustained Burn for it, ever.
I do like that it makes slow burn that used to be unacceptable (Venture, any ship with degraded engines) generally irrelevant.
The bonus to SB at level 3 Navigation seems like overkill. The main reason to get Navigation 3 is Transverse Jump ability. Now that is very convenient (but I cannot afford it with limited skill points and skills I want more).
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I like the the idea of S-burn but agree that it trivialises and invalidates too much (E-burn, Burn levels, chasing/running away from other fleets, sense of scale and wonder). It needs to be a lot more situational: I'd suggest giving it a very long charge-up, make it build up speed even slower, make it only usable with planned trips (i.e. changing your destination immediately shuts it off, can't be targeted on fleets), and make it practically blind you while lighting you up for half the system to see. It should be something you'd use only if you're fairly certain you won't get waylaid on the way.
Even then I fear it diminishes the size of the Sector too much, especially if AIs can't use it. Maybe add an extra fuel penalty that also applies in-system to further discourage it's use. Yeah I get this is pretty fun-policey but hey.
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Using sus burn to catch fleets is an issue i think.
However it cant just be set so that combat cannot happen with sus burn because then u dont have to worry about big fleets intercepting u while ur charging around.
I think if u try initiating a battle with sus burn there should b a penalty (50% PPT? maybe less or something else, double deploy cost)? *shrug*
If another fleet tries to intecept u while u sus burn (its been done to me a few times perfectly) then disengage should have a bonus for u? and a straight fight a penalty for the attacker? This will still allow giant fleets to stomp u.
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I'd suggest giving it a very long charge-up, make it build up speed even slower, make it only usable with planned trips (i.e. changing your destination immediately shuts it off), and make it practically blind you while lighting you up for half the system to see. It should be something you'd use only if you're fairly certain you won't get waylaid on the way.
That would mean I would never turn it off (unless I need to spam Sensor Burst to find stuff). So far, turning it off briefly for a little more agility is a good idea, but if SB takes too long to activate but nothing else changes, I will always leave SB on.
After a certain point, I want to get "waylaid". I play Starsector to fight, and try to build my ships for that purpose.
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Could be even simpler: Make Sustained Only work in a straight line. With the course plotting it would be alright to use. Maybe even only usable in Hyper?
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I have actually used e burn frequently enough to avoid fights. Small scavenger versus slightly larger, yet harder to detect pirate fleet can he a struggle for me at times. And sustained burn just doesn't cut the get away in a pinch. Considering I'm not doing a bounty humter playthrough yet, it can be fairly useful for salvagers to turn off s-burn, since you need to maneuver more to find derelicts and debris.. In my opinion anyway.
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Maybe even only usable in Hyper?
I like this, though if it were the case, it could be achieved by simply increasing the hyperspace speed boost.
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I'd suggest giving it a very long charge-up, make it build up speed even slower, make it only usable with planned trips (i.e. changing your destination immediately shuts it off), and make it practically blind you while lighting you up for half the system to see. It should be something you'd use only if you're fairly certain you won't get waylaid on the way.
That would mean I would never turn it off (unless I need to spam Sensor Burst to find stuff). So far, turning it off briefly for a little more agility is a good idea, but if SB takes too long to activate but nothing else changes, I will always leave SB on.
After a certain point, I want to get "waylaid". I play Starsector to fight, and try to build my ships for that purpose.
The way I envision it, changing your destination (i.e. making any turns at all, or stopping) will immediately turn S-burn off and make you charge it up and gain speed again if you want to keep using it. Since it also kills sensors (I'm thinking something big, like reduce sensor range by 90%) it's basically impossible to use it against fleets, as the moment it's ready you'll lose sight of your target and S-burn shuts down.
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Could be even simpler: Make Sustained Only work in a straight line. With the course plotting it would be alright to use. Maybe even only usable in Hyper?
Eh, I mean, if that was the case, I'd probably just speed up time. I kinda like using s-burn in system. Saves traveling distances between distant planets.
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S-Burn makes more ships not feel horrible to use and speeds up the boring travel times. I don't see any problem with it, other than travelling NPC fleets not even having a worse version of it - the gap between player fleet and NPC travelling from system to system is so large it feels unfair. But the gameplay benefits far outweigh the immersion problem.
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If travel times (in the sense of how much the player spends waiting, not things like quest and market timers) were the only reason for S-burn to exist, then why not just expand the speed-up-time function? And by expand I mean you could add options such as auto-disable when enemy fleet of size X is in range, etc.; if that's going to be an argument against it.
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The biggest problem with SB, if it can be called a problem, is it makes other abilities that are mutually exclusive with SB (like Neutrino) and one or two skill perks (namely Safety Procedures 3) less desirable. Well... also, tugs and Augmented Drive Field is kind of pointless too. But that is okay - OP is scarce now.
I do like that I use ships that I would never otherwise use (due to unacceptably low burn) without SB.
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SB definately widens ship choice
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SB definitely feels OP overall. Player can always be sure that he can outrun (and often catch) anything, no matter how slow are ships in fleet.
I think if SB speed remains the same, acceleration has to be much lower.
Acceleration also should not restore instantly when ending SB.
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It might be complex to calculate, but you could make the speed boost (and acceleration nerf) directly proportional to the distance to the target.
Really far away? You get the full +10 burn, and weak acceleration.
As you get closer to your plotted target, you get progressively less speed increase.
This would require you can only use it pointed at something. You could still use it on a fleet to get closer to them, but you could never catch a faster/equal fleet with it because you'd always be at normal speed by the time you were, say, 300 units away.
Used in the typical way from planet to planet, it would then (very) vaguely resemble a brachistochrone trajectory where you spend the first half speeding up and the second half slowing down again.
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SB definately widens ship choice
Definitely true, and a big plus in my eyes.
Perhaps burn speed (as a stat) should be done away with entirely.
Instead, the faster you go, the less fuel efficient your engines. (Like the old 4x game "Stars!")
It'd take some careful balancing of AI fleet behaviour though, such that they don't go punishingly quickly too often.
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In some ways S-Burn also narrows ship choice. The Falcon, Conquest and Odyssey were meant to be more viable by having extra Burn, but that's kind of gone down the drain.
IMO, ships shouldn't have less Burn than their class without very good reason (i.e. stronger than normal: being Civilian is not a good reason), but otherwise Burn level differences should remain.
As it is, if poor-Burn vessels is why you like S-Burn then you probably wouldn't like it if it was made a lot more situational, e.g. only useful for long-distance, fixed-point travel and completely unusable for chasing/fleeing from enemy fleets. And it does need to be made situational because as it is you may as well make it baseline for the player with how it's being used.
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Falcon is okay regardless of burn. It is useful as a Medusa-like ship that can kite with Mauler, HVD, and beams. SB should not hurt it.
Odyssey is hurt mostly by lack of fighter bays. With only one, a battleship can just slap on a hangar hullmod and use non-bombers with only a -25% penalty and pretend to be an Odyssey with more guns, armor, and OP. Now if Odyssey gets two, or even three bays, at least there will be a point to it. Astral is the king of carriers with its new system.
I will admit that Conquest is probably hurt. Onslaught is still worth 40 DP (same as Conquest and less than Odyssey), though I am not sure if Onslaught remains top dog given gameplay changes.
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I will admit that Conquest is probably hurt. Onslaught is still worth 40 DP (same as Conquest and less than Odyssey), though I am not sure if Onslaught remains top dog given gameplay changes.
I am beginning to think that fuel consumption may matter more than supply cost now. Base consumption progresses as 1-2-3-10 with ship size. Any Capital is an incredible fuel hog, but Onslaught with 15 is doubly so.
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That was the case too in 0.71-0.72. Capitals are horribly expensive. They were only worth it if they could solo more than a hundred ships singlehandedly. It was cheaper to kill huge fleets with one battleship than with a dozen or so ships led by fully tweaked-out Dominator.
Similarly with Atlas. But it held much more than destroyer-sized freighters, and fleet slots were at a premium. Today, we have that new Colossus heavy freighter. Almost half an Atlas there in terms of capacity.
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It is OP because you dont need time to stop and can immediately change direction. This skill need some slow down time from 20+ burn to usual 10 after it is deactivated.
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Sburn is op cause the AI needs an upgrade. If you're sburning at a smaller fleet they can see you, and see you're chasing them. They should react to that, even if it's just to Matador you at the last second and hit their sburn as you pass by & flee in the opposite direction, smashing that eburn button if you drop sburn to turn hard. Sburn doesn't need to be downgraded
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You shouldn't be able to interact with fleets/planets/stations while s-burning. It seems odd that you are going along at 20 burn yet you can still salvage a derelict if you pass over it. This along with making acceleration take longer would make it more balanced imo.
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It's odd how different my experience seems to be than everybody elses'. Everybody seems to be clamoring for S-Burn nerfs, and I think nerfing it as-is could very likely make for a more boring game.
Note: This post got a bit more rambly than expected, and I'm not overly experienced at the game. Plus I alt-tabbed out of a fight and want to get back to that. Forgive me if my thoughts jump all over, or I state something wrong.
I like S-Burn right now. I don't feel like the sector is "small" or any such thing - there are dozens upon dozens of systems in default-options sector (each one that you can explore - you don't *have* to fly in a single direction for 90 days for a thing to have "more space") and I still sometimes sit and stare at my screen on S-Burn while holding shift to get around. If something feels small it's because there are only 2 dozen or so inhabited systems by a few factions that don't try to expand. I most definitely don't want to have to alt-tab because of huge travel times or sit and stare at my screen as I hold shift for long periods of time. That isn't content I find fun, or immersion-improving, or whatever else. S-Burn majorly helps avoid such situations.
I also use E-burn sometimes. A lot? No, but I don't feel like I'm supposed to constantly use it. S-Burn destroys my maneuverability while in, stops my fleet to activate, and slows my acceleration - sometimes I need to e-burn away or in a different direction really fast to escape somebody. I sure am not instantly turning around and S-burning in the opposite direction without huge risk of them e-burning into me before I can actually build up the speed to escape.
Honestly, I shift it on/off a fair amount because of how much it decreases my turning ability. And when I do that when enemies are near, I'm also thinking if I'll be able to build speed back up before they e-burn into me.
Embolism suggested making shift speed up time more - this is a possibility I can support, if S-Burn is "nerfed." I'm still hesitant to say so though - warnings can make it safer, but they also make traveling more irritating (suddenly stopping time) or if you disable them, much more dangerous as it reduces your time to react. Then you're choosing between "irritating unexpected tops" or "extremely dangerous to reduce the time you spend waiting as a player." I don't think either of those are very great.
On "Burn" as a stat - I think it still has a purpose. It's primarily made "meh" (if it indeed is) because of how speed bands interact, and how the AI is limited.
1) The "Speed bands" of ships are about about 8-10 (Normal), 13-15 (E-Burn), and 18-20 (S-Burn).
2) The AI doesn't have access to the third band, as it cannot S-Burn.
3) The Third band is the fastest band, and even the slowest speed of it is decently faster than the highest of the 2nd band.
4) Burn speeds are capped at 20.
This means that if your entire fleet is 8-burn you can still escape a "fast" AI fleet, so it doesn't even matter that your ships are innately slower. Then with the 20-burn cap, the 11-Burn of Falcons and whatnot ends up being *mostly* useless - either you hit the 20-cap, or the extra benefit it provides is already unnecessary. It does help when you're in an E-Burn "chase" since it puts you above the AI, but those are not overly common.
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You shouldn't be able to interact with fleets/planets/stations while s-burning. It seems odd that you are going along at 20 burn yet you can still salvage a derelict if you pass over it. This along with making acceleration take longer would make it more balanced imo.
This was fixed in the newest hotfix
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Biggest problem with slow ships: getting anywhere takes ages.
Biggest advantage of sustained burn: getting anywhere is superfast, no matter what's your fleet composition.
Honestly, I think it wouldn't be a big nerf if your fleet wasn't very manoeuvrable or if it had to slow down to manoeuvre, you still would get everywhere quite fast.
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I think the idea behind S-Burn is great, but I agree it is a bit too 'always on' usable at the moment. I do however turn it off whenever I'm going through deep hyperspace - I need better turning to dodge storms.
Suggestion: Just lower the maneuverability by another 30%, increase the stopped time, and it should be good.
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I think if you're finding yourself using it forever you may be having yourself a boring overworld game, I have to turn mine off to dodge kill-fleets on the reg
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I think S-burn is in mostly an okay spot. If it needs modest nerfs, make it 2x burn instead of +10 burn by default. Keeps differences in ship burn level relevant, doesn't hurt the ability too much in the early game, and also means that the Navigation Perk doesn't give you a Burn 20 Onslaught.
Oh, and lockout the salvaging ability if it's not already.
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I think its too easy to cheese with this ability, especially catching fast fleets with it.
Possible solution: Make it impossible to initiate interaction with anything while S-burning. You can't engage someone, you can't dock on stations, you can't survey etc. before deactivating S-burn and slowing down to normal speeds.
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I think its too easy to cheese with this ability, especially catching fast fleets with it.
Possible solution: Make it impossible to initiate interaction with anything while S-burning. You can't engage someone, you can't dock on stations, you can't survey etc. before deactivating S-burn and slowing down to normal speeds.
I think its too easy to cheese with this ability, especially catching fast fleets with it.
Possible solution: Make it impossible to initiate interaction with anything while S-burning. You can't engage someone, you can't dock on stations, you can't survey etc. before deactivating S-burn and slowing down to normal speeds.
I'd say that makes sense lore wise as well... A ship burning well past the standard speeds of most that isn't in an emergency state would likely be denied entry to a port or otherwise.
As far as salvaging, it'd be stupid to try salavaging going so fast I'd assume unless you were a lone, fast ship. (hound or kite thinking of it...)
So, yeah, I think those suggestions win out.
As far as it goes currently. I find it difficult to dodge, but, I've occasionally cheesed it to avoid having my fleet stomped by the drone while exploring. Even then, sometimes it just pushes me into fire, so. ATM it's allright, but not so OP.
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Is this an example of over engineering?
In other games a ship has a speed.
In starsector, we have:
1) the ship's speed in combat
2) the ship's burn speed,
3) the e-burn speed
4) the s-burn speed
And basically all these features have to be pulled out of a hat because there is a fixed goal for how gameplay must be (Combat is WWII in space) and it needs to play nice with other types of gameplay that are totally different (campaign), while in addition meeting philosophical design goalposts like the players must never be bored, nothing must ever be too tedious, there fleet should adhere to certain characteristics, they mustn't be punished for having slow ships, etc.
Look, everyone says surveying and exploration needs to be nerfed because it's a cash cow. What if the nerf is not having S-burn be in the game at all? Then the cost will be more time and more supply ships for those missions.
Yea, maybe some player's will get bored or find it tedious going on those long voyages; maybe they'll go off and do combat. Maybe others will find it atmospheric, and it will make the sector seem bigger and more mysterious and alien? Tedium can be good in some cases.
Honestly if it were me I'd say make every ship's speed in campaign be whatever its speed in combat is. There, done. But then it would be different, emergent forms of fleet composition and combat instead of WWII in space.
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I think its too easy to cheese with this ability, especially catching fast fleets with it.
Possible solution: Make it impossible to initiate interaction with anything while S-burning. You can't engage someone, you can't dock on stations, you can't survey etc. before deactivating S-burn and slowing down to normal speeds.
When fast fleets stop cheesing with E Burn spam, THEN I will stop "cheesing" with S Burn
Also, the reason why the time speed up button wasn't just increased is because it would be much more strenuous on the Comp, as far as I remember
Also, burn speed is better than what we had before, trust me.
And if you find S Burn is too OP then why don't you just not use it and STOP trying to nerf the hell out of it. Or hell, why don't you just mod in the differences yourself?
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Sustained Burn probably makes tugs irrelevant, if there is truly a casualty to ship choice, but that is okay. Never liked having stat-stick ships or other civilians useless in a fight clogging my fleet slots and eating food, and tugs slurp more fuel than most ships (which is partly the reason why capitals are horribly expensive if you wanted to keep burn up with tugs). The most fun fleet is one filled with nothing but dedicated warships. (That does not mean I will not use civilians if I need them.)
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Look, everyone says surveying and exploration needs to be nerfed because it's a cash cow. What if the nerf is not having S-burn be in the game at all? Then the cost will be more time and more supply ships for those missions.
If you want to nerf a specific thing, then nerf it directly. Don't do sideways slanting stuff with "I'll remove Y, and then maybe R will be better" - fact is, basically everything has to travel far. Trading, bounties, exploration. Hell, a lot of the bounties I see are just as far as most exploration. You remove S-Burn, you hurt that stuff too.
Yea, maybe some player's will get bored or find it tedious going on those long voyages; maybe they'll go off and do combat. Maybe others will find it atmospheric, and it will make the sector seem bigger and more mysterious and alien? Tedium can be good in some cases.
Let's just say I disagree here to such an extent that I consider this suggestion insulting. To me this reads as you suggesting to drag players down to your desired speed of play and "screen-staring" because you seemingly lack the ability to just not use S-Burn and thus now it feels small to you (?) There are surely better ways to increase "atmosphere" and to make it seem "more mysterious and alien" than legging everything.
To go with the first response, a "nerf" to create some "now the player has to wonder: do they want to sit there doing almost nothing for the entire time as their fleet explores to make cash money, or do they want to just do something actually interesting instead to make less space-creds?" decision is terrible.
Exploration/surveying and traveling as a whole would be better served with a dedicated topic discussing it, as IF it needs changes, it needs more than "Adjust S-Burn such that it takes a lot of player time."
Honestly if it were me I'd say make every ship's speed in campaign be whatever its speed in combat is. There, done. But then it would be different, emergent forms of fleet composition and combat instead of WWII in space.
Unless you drastically change burn speeds, you're risking putting all the ships at about the same speed. The Burn range is very narrow, with most ships being 8-10. You could put these at large jumps in ability (say an 8-burn is our current 90, and a 10 burn is our current 150, or whatnot), but if they're not significantly disparate, the differences become almost meaningless.
However, you lose a large amount of granularity in speeds, which will warrant some significant changes to ships (eg, 10-burn 180 speed hounds will suddenly be the same as the 10-burn 120 speed hounds, meaning they just lost some advantage) which means work to rebalance, which isn't exciting.
The idea itself doesn't seem too bad, as making numbers the same between modes of play helps to streamline it... but it will change the game a fair amount and require some work to do, and it isn't really necessary.
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Honestly if it were me I'd say make every ship's speed in campaign be whatever its speed in combat is. There, done. But then it would be different, emergent forms of fleet composition and combat instead of WWII in space.
Unless you drastically change burn speeds, you're risking putting all the ships at about the same speed. The Burn range is very narrow, with most ships being 8-10. You could put these at large jumps in ability (say an 8-burn is our current 90, and a 10 burn is our current 150, or whatnot), but if they're not significantly disparate, the differences become almost meaningless.
However, you lose a large amount of granularity in speeds, which will warrant some significant changes to ships (eg, 10-burn 180 speed hounds will suddenly be the same as the 10-burn 120 speed hounds, meaning they just lost some advantage) which means work to rebalance, which isn't exciting.
The idea itself doesn't seem too bad, as making numbers the same between modes of play helps to streamline it... but it will change the game a fair amount and require some work to do, and it isn't really necessary.
He meant the other way around, Dragon
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Ah, crap. Yeah, you're right. Dunno how I flipped them. My bad.
Man, I think that'd make me hate using sub-100 ships even more, heh.
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Some potential changes would be to slow fown acceleration a lot, and lowercourse corrrction further. Maybe increase your own sensor rating if it doesn't do that already.
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Atm S-burn is literally 90% of my travel. I never E-burn, and i only switch to lower-normal speed when magic-scanning or not wanting to turn around in the Sburn. And it feels bad to use, between it getting interrupted by everything you do, and the spool itself.
I think all it really needs is a longer acceleration curve.
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Maybe we need a mod that makes a ring pop up on the minimal when you hover your mouse over the sburn to indicate how far something has to be to actually get there any quicker, in case a lot of the complaints are because of overuse
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Let's just say I disagree here to such an extent that I consider this suggestion insulting. To me this reads as you suggesting to drag players down to your desired speed of play and "screen-staring" because you seemingly lack the ability to just not use S-Burn and thus now it feels small to you (?) There are surely better ways to increase "atmosphere" and to make it seem "more mysterious and alien" than legging everything.
I'm throwing ideas and appreciate the feedback; don't be insulted. Everything is tied in; sometimes you nerf a thing by nerfing another thing.
It doesn't seem right about s-burn (and even eburn) that you get to use slow ships without having a slow fleet; and the AI doesn't even have sburn (right?) so it's an admission that things are insoluble unless you give special abilities to the player, which doesn't feel quite right for a game like this (unlike a you vs the world game like Mario)
There are ways to balance slow fleets vs fast fleets (like having the AI use supplies so you can outlast them) and tweaking cargo space, fuel, supply levels etc.
If there was no s-burn/e-burn, slow, weak early player fleets couldn't escape attack. Ideas to mitigate:
-More safe systems in the game,
-let the player pay off pirates
-make pirates not so hostile to player at start.
-stealth/terrain mechanics emphasized more in tutorial
-tweaking sensor mechanics to facilitate hiding
If there was no sburn/eburn, big player fleets of slow warships couldn't catch small/fast AI fleets. Ideas to mitigate:
-AI doesn't use supplies so they can run forever. Change that.
-Is this WWII in space? In real life (in the ocean) big ships are faster than small ones because they have bigger engines, but lower acceleration/maneuverability. Make that happen.
-Then bigger freighters wouldn't be sitting ducks but:
-Profitability/maneuverability issues would make big warships only useful for attacking other big fleets, not bullying little fleets.
-Piloting cap ships would require real skill (further balancing them), and/or feedback from the UI/HUD about how fast your ship can stop, and/or an AI helmsmen.
Another issue is the fundamental separation of campaign from combat. Even heavily armed super ships can't harm another ship unless their circle catches an enemy circle on campaign map. What could be done?
-Strategic ranged weapons in the campaign map
-Campaign abilities that can mess with other fleet
-Ability to separate a fast warship from your fleet of support tankers to chase a target. Etc
All this stuff might be awful, or it might be more interesting/weird/challenging than the 4-teir speed rating for the current campaign meta-combat where we're constantly pressing different buttons for different speeds to produce our desired combat engagements. Let's hope that we don't keep getting another kind of burn speed with each release anyway.
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Fairly simple solution to the s-burn problem:
When you activate s-burn, the game remembers your orientation (or if you stand still, the first direction you move towards once the ability is active). You get to swerve ~20° in either direction to evade hyperspace storms. Any more than that, and s-burn automatically turns off and needs to be spooled up again. S-burn is now more or less a straight line.
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Throwing my opinion's here:
* S-Burn is too easy to use for non travel related thingeys. I hear you can't interact with stuff with S-Burning in the coming hotfix? That's good, but you slow down so fast that this fix does not matter that much.
* The sector is big, you need S-Burn, or you need better fast-foward.
* The AI fleets do not use it, and the AI does not evade it correctly. If this was fixed, S-Burn would feel less powerful.
* I 100% completely hate cheesy rule patches like "must be at a distant waypoint" and "only 20 degrees right or left" or other things. I don't even think that's necessary.
Summary of opinions:
I overall like S-Burn, good addition. Yah, S-Burn be crazy, S-Burn stops too fast, Ai needs to use S-Burn to feel fair, no cheesy rule patches please please please.
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I wonder how many people will b**** once the AI DOES get S burn and now, once again, the AI will have a burn advantage over the player
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Well, it will be easy to dodge, unlike e-burn, so it won't be too bad on the getting hunted down front.
Difficult to catch enemies that are doing long haul travel I guess... but then again if you know a 'shipping lane' you can just fly along in the opposite direction and scoop them up as they come.
I would like to try the game with the AI having S-burn at least.
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Please, do not nerf this. For goodness sakes, it took a lot of the sheer boredom of Travel out of the game.
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* I 100% completely hate cheesy rule patches like "must be at a distant waypoint" and "only 20 degrees right or left" or other things. I don't even think that's necessary.
Whatever happens I agree with the above, Starsector tends a little too much in the direction of mysterious rules for balance as it is.
But it also really is a flawed, even decadent, view to say that tedium/boredom are always bad. It's like the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly-- the gunfight at the end is made more exciting because there's the scene of the guy running anticipatory circles in the cemetery to music for 5 minutes before it starts. It's a basic principle of aesthetics even-- you put something next to its opposite to make its own characteristics stand out more-- white next to black, tedium next to excitement. If the internet and call of duty have made people unable to grasp that then civilization is doomed.
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Please, do not nerf this. For goodness sakes, it took a lot of the sheer boredom of Travel out of the game.
This.
If anything is done, keep it minimal. Who cares if the AI can't do it, it's a convenience for the player. So many bigger fish to fry.
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The only good part about the standoff at the end of that western is the music. Otherwise, it is like a drawn-out episode of DBZ where most of the episode is watching Cell or some other villain transforming and Goku and friends stare at the fireworks like idiots (instead of splattering the helpless villain). Just shoot the dude now! It is like Tuco not heeding his own advice (of shoot, don't talk), although that would not help him given Blondie's sneaky preparations.
P.S. Also, the standoff is like a bad case of channel-surfing. Blink, eyes, blink, eyes, blink, eyes for a long time, then it gets fast and they finally end the misery.
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The only good part about the standoff at the end of that western is the music. Otherwise, it is like a drawn-out episode of DBZ where most of the episode is watching Cell or some other villain transforming and Goku and friends stare at the fireworks like idiots (instead of splattering the helpless villain). Just shoot the dude now! It is like Tuco not heeding his own advice (of shoot, don't talk), although that would not help him given Blondie's sneaky preparations.
I have no idea what this DBZ stuff is. Some millennial nonsense I'm sure :)
And as a connoisseur I prefer the director's cut edition where Tuco runs around in circles for 3 additional minutes while music plays!
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On the one hand, I love that S-burn trivializes the burn rating of everything. Even the slow-as-molasses capitals can get Burn 20 and I don't have to bring tugs. It saves a ton of time/supplies and really doesn't have a whole lot of downsides beyond really poor maneuvering and lowering sensors.
On the other, I hate that S-burn trivializes the burn rating of everything. It's no longer a meaningful stat when it was a god-stat prior and it made the different classes of ships distinct. With Level 3 Navigation, you can get any ship in the game up to 20 and that just feels "off."
So, I'm torn. It really makes the game faster but it's "game-y" itself. ???
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I have no idea what this DBZ stuff is. Some millennial nonsense I'm sure :)
Dragonball Z, classic shonen anime of the '90s. Was big deal at the time like Naruto was five to ten years ago. Never watched more than a few re-run episodes about a decade ago.
These days, there is a lot of old anime merch like Pokémon, Sailor Moon, and DBZ in stores.
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The lack of a fast(er) travel system can put off ALOT of potential buyers. The incursion of S Burn is one of the best additions to SS. Without it, many would not do the surveying and exploring part just because of the tedium and boringness of it
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But s-burn wasn't necessary prior to 0.8. The sector was much smaller. I agree that it makes for a great mechanic, but it's just a little too versatile for non-travel use right now.
A couple of you guys didn't like the '20°' idea on the grounds of it being game-y. But is it really? I imagine the fleet will account for stellar objects in its flight path, calibrate the engines for power instead of maneuverability. It'd make sense if the fleet was more or less locked into a direction once the engines fired.
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But s-burn wasn't necessary prior to 0.8. The sector was much smaller. I agree that it makes for a great mechanic, but it's just a little too versatile for non-travel use right now.
A couple of you guys didn't like the '20°' idea on the grounds of it being game-y. But is it really? I imagine the fleet will account for stellar objects in its flight path, calibrate the engines for power instead of maneuverability. It'd make sense if the fleet was more or less locked into a direction once the engines fired.
I can see people having issues with this and reporting it as either a bug (sustained burn cuts out for no apparent reason) or a bad feature (Impossible to tell turn limits of S Burn)
And to make a counter point, to turn using S Burn, you could just as easily reduce the output of certain engines, making the ships turn to that side
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It could be shown visually with two degree markers. And how easily something can or can't be done under a different mode of drive operation.. I guess that's in the realm of game lore. I like the idea of 'lock-in' because it tailors it to its purpose and adds a bit of a hint about what it is - or what I imagine it is.
If you leave s-burn turning as it is now though, there's very little downside to just keeping it on 90% of the time. Making turning and start-up even slower could also work. Or limiting its use to hyperspace only (stellar collision danger, etc).
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I don't think making S-burn only work in a line or with a limited angle of change would solve most of its problems. It would merely make it more inconvenient and it would take longer to line your "shot" up. You could still catch non-moving small fleets by burning straight at them, they don't have a chance to react. Or invade markets before the patrols notice you.
A slower deceleration, higher sensor profile and limiting initiating interactions (you could still be engaged) to slow speeds would be good, I think.
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I pretty much only use SB for hunting down AI and running from them and I'm kinda like abusing it. If SB is significantly nerfed I want some kind of fast travel to compensate.
Something like warp gates being short cuts or have the new SB fuel cost halved or even cut down to 1/3 to allow for less taxing hyperspace travel. I can definitely see SB being more of a long range tool rather than a short burst like I use abuse it.
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I don't read all of the post before but i use e burn as well as s burn. I use s burnt to approach the target fleet then e burn if they maneuver out of the way or s burt to a system and e burt to avoid that fleet that appears to be on an reverse plot and will tear me to shreds.
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I have another potential idea.
Why don't we remove its triggerable status, and just have sustained burn be a thing ships do whenever they're doing a sustained burn?
That is, whenever a fleet has been flying in one direction for long enough, they get an extra burn point. Each additional burn point above the maximum 'nominal' burn would decrease acceleration/deceleration, and increase the amount of time flying in one direction necessary to get more sustained burn bonus.
Small changes in direction will drop a couple of points of this (presumably handled in-engine as a much larger amount of granular points, say, 1000s of sustained burn points that build up over time and drop when you change course) but probably just the very top end. Large changes will fairly quickly dump all of your excess speed.
This makes maneuvering a little bit more of a skillful thing you can do, would work fine with the AI as it's something that just -happens- to every fleet (though would need to be simulated off-camera instead of actually tracking fleet direction), and it'd naturally lend itself to travel.
If you tune it right you don't actually need to set a maximum speed (though you could) - ships will just get faster and faster on reaally really long trips - but will almost certainly never get to silly speeds because each extra burn point will take, say, twice as long as the one before, and at some point they're going to need to maneuver, and at that much above your nominal burn speed (which could indeed be called your maneuvering speed) you'll drop lots of excess burn with only tiny adjustments.
Replace the sustained burn ability with a much less often used "Drop to maneuvering speed" ability, which just initiates an immediate deceleration to maneuvering speed, and you're done.
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The lack of a fast(er) travel system can put off ALOT of potential buyers. The incursion of S Burn is one of the best additions to SS. Without it, many would not do the surveying and exploring part just because of the tedium and boringness of it
Probably true, but Alex is not paying us to be his business advisors. We are paying him (nominally) to make a game we want to play. Let's confine ourselves more to what's wanted by actual buyers - us.
It sounds like s-burn is too powerful (and exploration too easy) but I also don't want to see a bunch of obtuse rules like this 20 degree thing. Giving sburn a higher sensor penalty might balance is tactical use and exploration use, since you need to be looking out for derelicts to grab fuel from; etc.
But this whole thing is just weird. Slow ships should be slow. Something is fundamentally askew in the game: power vs speed vs maneuverability aren't balanced correctly; so instead of addressing it the game just gives us all these burn speeds and makes everything the same. Also is it not weird that every fleet in the game has the same acceleration characteristics on the campaign map? That really limits things. Again, fleet movement characteristics should be directly copied from combat.
To make exporation less tedious there should be some fast but weak ships to use for that express purpose, without having to use slow tankers. Or give us fuel increasing hull mods. But on the other hand, from good authority I can say that exploration in real life is intrinsically tedious. It's stretches of nothing punctuated by mild interest, excitement, or despair. It's not a loot pinata. If it were, there wouldn't need to be explorers. For a game to try to change so fundamentally the nature of a thing it is supposed to be simulating may just be unreasonable. Has the game playing public really become incapable of enduring anything less than constant excitement? How sad.
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If I wanted to looks at ships pass by hyperspace, I would just get a screensaver. For the sake of gameplay what does making exploration take longer add? Fuel costs are already a good way to designate a ship for exploration; speed isn't necessary and could open up potential problems. Using real life as a reason to do something in a game like Starsector is insane. By that logic we should have to account for crew losses b/c some random crew members got a disease from Sindria.
As far as exploration and s-burn, there are two things which would make it seem a bit more of a prepared voyage. Making s-burn hyperspace only, so that there is a niche for e-burn and faster ships while in systems. This would also give fuel and supplies a bit more value, as they're needed to fully recover from e-burn. The other would be decreasing the amounts of fuel, heavy machinery, and supplies found while exploring. I like that it's there to help lessen the strain of exploration, but atm it allows explorations to last much longer than they prepared for.
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Sustained Burn should not be changed. Rather, fleets (particularly enemy fleets) should have an ability that allows them to jam travel drive fields, disabling Sustained Burn in a certain radius when activated, costing some CR or something. This could be used by intercepting fleets to be able to actually catch you, and would remove Sustained Burn as a tool for catching fleets that would normally be able to evade you. This would also open up Sustained Burn for the AI to use, since the player would justifiably have this ability as well.
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personally I think eburn should be able to catch sburn on the short term
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personally imo what darloth suggested feels like the best idea - simple yet effective. just keep the 20 burn cap. (it also gives a little "no friction in space" feel with it which is nice)
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Fleets (particularly enemy fleets) should have an ability that allows them to jam travel drive fields, disabling Sustained Burn in a certain radius when activated.
This is a good idea. Though, perhaps it should be a skill-acquired ability? Patrols from major powers could be assumed to have that skill, but small pirate fleets generally wouldn't (and large pirate fleets, just activating the thing should give the player time to realize what's going on and run).
The other notion I was thinking about was to remove sustained burn entirely and, instead, allow re-activation of domain gates - letting the player pay a hefty fuel / CR cost to jump from any gate to any other gate that they've visited. This'd be a natural extension of the tutorial's plotline, even. I wonder if I can mod this in? Hm...
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As a small first step, why not try increasing the time to accelerate/decelerate so it can't be gamed as much for hunting fast fleets and then e-burn can continue to be used as either an "emergency boost from standstill" or "emergency braking from s-burn". If the latest hotfix also disables interacting with objects at speed, e-burn could have an additional use as the "oh *** stop stop stop staaaahhhhp" when you need it or you suffer blowing past things and having to double-back.
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Sustained Burn should not be changed. Rather, fleets (particularly enemy fleets) should have an ability that allows them to jam travel drive fields, disabling Sustained Burn in a certain radius when activated, costing some CR or something. This could be used by intercepting fleets to be able to actually catch you, and would remove Sustained Burn as a tool for catching fleets that would normally be able to evade you. This would also open up Sustained Burn for the AI to use, since the player would justifiably have this ability as well.
I kind of like this idea. It could be like the game Elite, where the sburn drive just automatically stops whenever you get near any kind of mass (planet or ship)
If I wanted to looks at ships pass by hyperspace, I would just get a screensaver. For the sake of gameplay what does making exploration take longer add? Fuel costs are already a good way to designate a ship for exploration; speed isn't necessary and could open up potential problems. Using real life as a reason to do something in a game like Starsector is insane. By that logic we should have to account for crew losses b/c some random crew members got a disease from Sindria.
As far as exploration and s-burn, there are two things which would make it seem a bit more of a prepared voyage. Making s-burn hyperspace only, so that there is a niche for e-burn and faster ships while in systems. This would also give fuel and supplies a bit more value, as they're needed to fully recover from e-burn. The other would be decreasing the amounts of fuel, heavy machinery, and supplies found while exploring. I like that it's there to help lessen the strain of exploration, but atm it allows explorations to last much longer than they prepared for.
Wow one can't make an argument from reality about video games without someone going full throttle to a strawman argument like "lol then why don't we have crew get homesick and catch cold to be more realistic. duh it's a game!" Cutting out some irrelevant details for the sake of gameplay is ok, but trying to simulate a thing while also cutting out the most fundamental, intrinsic part of that thing doesn't really work.
But, your idea of making sburn only available in certain areas (hyperspace vs real space) is an interesting one. And I do agree with you that the main problem with exploration right now is probably not sburn, but rather the excessive frequency of fuel and supply drops to sustain your fleet.
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On the one hand, I love that S-burn trivializes the burn rating of everything. Even the slow-as-molasses capitals can get Burn 20 and I don't have to bring tugs. It saves a ton of time/supplies and really doesn't have a whole lot of downsides beyond really poor maneuvering and lowering sensors.
On the other, I hate that S-burn trivializes the burn rating of everything. It's no longer a meaningful stat when it was a god-stat prior and it made the different classes of ships distinct. With Level 3 Navigation, you can get any ship in the game up to 20 and that just feels "off."
So, I'm torn. It really makes the game faster but it's "game-y" itself. ???
I have similar sentiments, so I'm repeating my prior suggestion. (With a tweak)
Change S-burn from +10 Burn to x2 Burn. Leave the Navigation perk at +5 Burn. Un-cap the max burn level.
Before with the perk, everything hits Burn 20. Now things will vary from Burn 17 (for those fleets with Burn 6 capitals) to Burn 27 (for someone who goes all-out and only has Burn 11 frigates). And without the perk, your early game fleet is still probably going to be hitting Burn 18-20.
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That would make ships with low burn useless as before. Venture, scrap! (D) ships with degraded engines, scrap!
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I still think the best nerf (if one is needed) is to limit sustained burn to hyperspace.
I think it would be best to wait until the ability is fully implemented. Once the AI can use it, Alex will probably design an ability to disable or discourage it.
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That would make ships with low burn useless as before. Venture, scrap! (D) ships with degraded engines, scrap!
Not entirely, just relatively. Yes, a Venture would be relegated to "only" Burn 14 but with Nav 3, it's up to 19. Considering that a week ago none of our large fleets were going above Burn 9, this is still an improvement. Frigates hitting Burn 27, though...that's crazy. Still, it gives specialization for traveling to the furthest reaches quickly.
If the AI doesn't get S-Burn, the player will always be faster except in a handful of edge cases, even with a change like Techhead suggested. I'm for it.
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Burn caps at 20.
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Burn caps at 20.
I mentioned uncapping it in my suggestion post.
Also, a Burn-11 fleet is VERY specialized. It means nothing larger than frigates, no Shepherds, and everything with a base Burn 10 has paid OP for Augmented Engines. I'm kinda unsure why anyone would spring for that Burn 27 fleet build at all. But it'd be there.
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That would make ships with low burn useless as before. Venture, scrap! (D) ships with degraded engines, scrap!
Yea, this is the problem. But there are outside the box approaches to try, like making big ships have higher burn speeds (like in real life seaships) and making higher burn less maneuverable or economical , or something so that little ships won't just get constantly stomped.
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You could decouple sustained burn speed and maneuver burn speed, do some fancy size to burn weighted average over the entire fleet, and end up with:
Big fleets full of heavy bruiser ships have a very high sustained burn but a very low maneuverable burn. They're great for moving from place to place and ignoring smaller fleets, but can't chase.
Small fleets full of light vessels have a high maneuver burn but don't gain much at all from sustained burn, and are affected more by many (but not all) navigational hazards. They're good for lurking on the fringes picking off anyone who seems weak, and also little in-system trade hops and things.
I'm not sure if that's good, but it would be possible. It might be a lot more workable if you could split your fleet, or at least leave part of your fleet sitting somewhere for a while.
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^^ yes I like this. It's just Star Wars' fault that we got this idea that small spaceships are faster than big spaceships.
Han Solo lied, people died!
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Well the closest comparable game, Mount and Blade has a speed scale that starts slow, for the cheapest possible units, then starts giving both fast and slow options from medium quality upwards. That way the default speed for cheap armies (the pirate equivalent, aka what-a-new-player-fights) is slow and predictable.
Fast fleets ("cavalry") maybe shouldn't be the default, but rather a choice when you start upgrading from the default.
On another note, MnB also has extremely crappy, extremely cheap chaff units, something I always thought was missing from Starsector. Thanks to the new salvage system and D-mods, that's been changed.
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Indeed, designating things as Fast Frigates or Fast Cruisers and giving them +1 or +2 burn to compensate for their other, slightly sub-par stats for that size would be interesting.
The problem there is currently if you have one Fast Cruiser in your fleet of other normal Cruisers... you don't get anything from it (except if it's really fast in combat too, perhaps).
The Falcon already pretty much suffers from this, and/or fills this 'role'.
But you could add more and then have a whole fleet doctrine around it that might work, sure. Fleet splitting would help here as well if you could detach your fast ships to chase something down.
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I agree with the sentiment that the player should not be able to interact with things while SB-ing and that the deceleration/object interaction time should be increased. SB is meant for travel, not combat. To mitigate the longer decel time when traveling to a destination, the autopilot should account for this and auto decel in time for interaction to be ready when the player is close. So in otherwords, SB would auto deactivate when within a certain distance (based on your burn level) of the destination.
I think making a skill to drop players/ai out of SB is potentially viable but it really doesn't fix the core problem. It would be an interesting skill especially if the AI had SB.
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Sustained burn is so OP that you can even use it to escape from the center of a black hole ;D
(I think it would make sense that when you reach the absolute center of a black hole it instakills your entire fleet).
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You should be able to engage your hyperdrive at the last second and get flung across space to a random location :o