Added unique capital-class ship that can be acquired by the player. Good luck.Legion LXIX here I come :O
Light Dual AC: reduced OP cost to 5 (was: 6)But it already is 5 OP? I know the patch notes are in progress but just making sure.
Light Needler: reduced OP cost to 7 (was: 9)This is the only thing that I don't get. I mean we all know Light Needler wasn't worth 9 OP currently, but lowering it to 7 AND increasing Railgun to 8 seems a wee bit too much. It makes sense to me that they have the same OP cost at least, then you have an option between burst and sustained damage. With these changes Light Needler seems like a no-brainer unless I'm missing something crucial.
Railgun: increased OP cost to 8 (was: 7)
- Asteroid fields: chance for moderately damaging asteroid impacts on ships when not moving slowly
- AI will move slowly through asteroid fields
- Hyperspace storms: slow-moving fleets do not attract storm strikes
- AI will move slowly through storms instead of trying to avoid them
Onslaught:
Reduced arc of side-facing large turrets
Added built-in Heavy Ballistics Integration
Enforcer:
Increased armor to 900 (was: 750)
Increased hull to 6000 (was: 5000)
Reduced shield flux/damage to 1 (was: 1.2)
I literally said in another thread I felt like something was coming soon holy ***, finally the sacred text! Damn this is gonna take forever to read.
QuoteLight Dual AC: reduced OP cost to 5 (was: 6)But it already is 5 OP? I know the patch notes are in progress but just making sure.
QuoteLight Needler: reduced OP cost to 7 (was: 9)This is the only thing that I don't get. I mean we all know Light Needler wasn't worth 9 OP currently, but lowering it to 7 AND increasing Railgun to 8 seems a wee bit too much. It makes sense to me that they have the same OP cost at least, then you have an option between burst and sustained damage. With these changes Light Needler seems like a no-brainer unless I'm missing something crucial.
Railgun: increased OP cost to 8 (was: 7)
Does that also apply to the player's fleet when flying to a destination under autopilot?
Improved cargo screen performance when taking or leaving a VERY large number of items
Maximum post-Collapse colony growth limited to a maximum of colony size 6
"Pirate bases should no longer spawn in systems with neutron stars/pulsars"
Have to say i'm kinda sad to see this. I was hoping for a more creative solution, such as making it kinda rare/special and with some wonky effects. Something like having a few results where either they're totally unprepared so their fleets are just a mess, or they have some special feature/items that you normally wouldn't find at a pirate base so it's worth visiting, or even them being some sort of super high tech pirates so the base is actually a high tech with high tech ships sort of thing.
Brawler- losing damper field feels sad. Maybe it's more fun to pilot but it made it a great AI ship.
Sick of all those systems filled with size 10s within a decade, huh? :P
Are there any plans for a story mission to break this?
Exciting changes! Truthfully, I'm apprehensive about the new skill system because I find archetypal characters boring, but I trust there will be mods to address that. The content additions sound very enticing. ;D
Alex, you fixed the fleet composition so pirate fleets wouldn't have too much Atlas MKII, right? And the bounty fleets?
I modded the old system too, so as long as I can mod this one I'll be happy. ;D
Brawler:
Changed ship system to Maneuvering Jets (was: Damper Field)
Increased shield arc to 270 (was: 150)
Increased supply cost to 6 (was: 4)
Increased flux dissipation and capacity (200 -> 250, 2500 -> 3000)
Onslaught:
Reduced arc of side-facing large turrets
Added built-in Heavy Ballistics Integration
Light Needler: reduced OP cost to 7 (was: 9)
IR Pulse Laser: reduced flux cost per shot to 40 (was: 50)
Added "personal contacts" mechanics .....Really looking forwards to this. The NPCs on planets always felt sorta faceless, as I never really was able to build the relation meter. Quests from the bar and similar always have you running everywhere instead of working with your one bro in your favorite command station.
Added unique capital-class ship that can be acquired by the player. Good luck.Good luck? Good luck?
Added skill that allows recovery of REDACTED shipsYes. Yes. Yes.
* Joining an ongoing battle, winning, and then your allies pursue: leaving (instead of joining the pursuit) will now give you salvageLots of excellent QoL this patch! I'm a big fan of 'smoothness of operation', and I think it's worth being excited over.
* Laying in a course for a star in the hyperspace map will now lay in course for the closest jump-point into the system rather than the star's gravity well
* Added support for 4k resolutions
Added a new, very rare and powerful enemywtf is that monstrosity. sounds like some kind of dreadnought/mobile station horror.
13 new special weapons specific to this enemy
Maximum post-Collapse colony growth limited to a maximum of colony size 6
Is there an ingame reason for why new colonies can't grow past size 6? Because I feel like it'd be just as unreasonable if your colonies slowly but steadily grow to size 6 and then just...stop. Even after you keep playing for multiple decades.Sick of all those systems filled with size 10s within a decade, huh? :PWell, you have to admit it's a bit... unreasonable. But you get as many industries on a size 6, so mainly it's about taking the scale down a notch while keeping the options about the same.
Are there any plans for a story mission to break this?
As far as breaking the limit - no, nothing I'd call plans. I wouldn't rule it out if a story element called for it, but I don't particularly feel the need to have extra-large colonies in the game. Just that by itself doesn't feel like it adds anything and isn't a "goal", if that makes sense.
(Also, consider that there's a variety of nanoforge-like items that buff various aspects of colonies, which wasn't possible before.)
Important question...
Will there be a Champion (XIV)?
On a more serious note, will there be an improvement to the Codex such as search functions literally anytime in the future? After a couple mods, the Codex is not enough and it leaves a bit to be desired. Of course, the ability to see fighter weapon stats and compare between weapons in refit is great.
"Moving Slowly" -- How about Tactical Speed, Cruising Speed, or Thrusters Only for a name?
QuoteBrawler:
Changed ship system to Maneuvering Jets (was: Damper Field)
Increased shield arc to 270 (was: 150)
Increased supply cost to 6 (was: 4)
Increased flux dissipation and capacity (200 -> 250, 2500 -> 3000)
That is a pretty big supply cost increase. How does this work for the Brawler Variants?
QuoteOnslaught:How much is this? Can you still overlap one of the side facing larger turrets with the front?
Reduced arc of side-facing large turrets
Added built-in Heavy Ballistics Integration
QuoteLight Needler: reduced OP cost to 7 (was: 9)
That is a pretty big buff. The LN was already one of the better small ballistics due to its burst and accuracy. It had the same DPS/OP as the HN (though -100 range) and the HN was one of the better medium ballistics. Do the OP changes to light AC really make up for it?
QuoteIR Pulse Laser: reduced flux cost per shot to 40 (was: 50)
Those are some pretty big changes to small ballistic weapons. -1 OP for a light AC can be translated pretty cleanly to another capacitor or distributor. Does 25% less flux on IR pulse compensate?
Added unique capital-class ship that can be acquired by the player. Good luck.Good luck? Good luck?
Kinda sad about it. I agree, it felt silly to get such big colonies so quickly, but with this limit you will get to the max level even faster. Also, having all colonies limited to the same size feels a bit, i don't know, immersion breaking? You'd expect some planets to be population centers with high cap, while others to be limited to lower cap due to conditions and infrastructure (or lack thereof).
In example - planet doesn't automatically upgrade to the next level, and you have to "upgrade" infrastructure, rising the cap. Maybe make first X upgrades cost progressive amount of credits, and after a certain point require special items (similar to nanoforge), AI cores and story points. That would make colonies more diverse and defined by player choice, instead of every single colony having same population and industry limit.
Anyway, thanks for great work!
And I suspect that without a reduction in OP the nerf to Deck Crews might be a bit harsh, and just lead to dropping it altogether (which is fine with me).
Piloting REDACTED ships sounds like fun, too.
Sure. Size is logarithmic and at some point the ability of immigration to produce new colonists is exhausted in favor of natural growth. Which is much slower. Size 6 is 1 million to 10 million and size 7 is 10 million to 100million.
Maybe you could make growth slow down to like 2% per year(or lower) but this effectively caps growth at size 7 since it would take 35 years to grow from 6 to 7 and 7 to 8.
Thank you all!
"Pirate bases should no longer spawn in systems with neutron stars/pulsars"
Have to say i'm kinda sad to see this. I was hoping for a more creative solution, such as making it kinda rare/special and with some wonky effects. Something like having a few results where either they're totally unprepared so their fleets are just a mess, or they have some special feature/items that you normally wouldn't find at a pirate base so it's worth visiting, or even them being some sort of super high tech pirates so the base is actually a high tech with high tech ships sort of thing.
This mostly has to do with fleet AI just not being able to handle pulsars. If I ever have the time (ha) to dedicated to making it handle them, that might be reconsidered, but the likelihood of this seems low. It's just a complicated problem to solve. (And now that I'm talking about it, I kind of want to try. Must. Resist.)
One question: from what I can tell the Buffalo got some significant stat increases while the Tarsus, which in the current version is effectively equivalent, got an increased fuel/LY nerf.
It looks like
Buffalo: 400 capacity, 2 fuel/LY
Tarsus: 300 capacity, 3 fuel/LY
Is this what the stats should look like at this point?
Edit: also, does the Atlas Mk.II still have the 10 fuel/LY, or was the Atlas reduction to 6 also meant to apply to it?
QuoteBrawler:
Changed ship system to Maneuvering Jets (was: Damper Field)
Increased shield arc to 270 (was: 150)
Increased supply cost to 6 (was: 4)
Increased flux dissipation and capacity (200 -> 250, 2500 -> 3000)
That is a pretty big supply cost increase. How does this work for the Brawler Variants?
I'm not sure what you mean. Ahh - do you mean the Pather variants? They're just, well, more expensive. I don't think this really changes much, and they're frankly quite scary at times, so it might not be unwarranted.
Sure. Size is logarithmic and at some point the ability of immigration to produce new colonists is exhausted in favor of natural growth. Which is much slower. Size 6 is 1 million to 10 million and size 7 is 10 million to 100million.
Maybe you could make growth slow down to like 2% per year(or lower) but this effectively caps growth at size 7 since it would take 35 years to grow from 6 to 7 and 7 to 8.
Hmm - yeah, but then you know someone will feel forced to do it, and I don't want to have that on my conscience :)
Will there be another Damper Field-equipped ship?
Tons of QoL improvements. I'm surprised by the "Move slowly" function but think it's a good addition. Also a (very welcome) surprise is the "historian." That's just a neat touch.
Sure. Size is logarithmic and at some point the ability of immigration to produce new colonists is exhausted in favor of natural growth. Which is much slower. Size 6 is 1 million to 10 million and size 7 is 10 million to 100million.I'd be fine with very slow growth, even if it's to the point where it's effectively soft capped. But what I'm imagining (and which obviously might not be accurate to how it actually is ingame) is that my colony will grow to size 6 and then just...stop. Population growth stuck at 0% forever no matter how many decades pass or what happens in those decades. It'd just look off.
Maybe you could make growth slow down to like 2% per year(or lower) but this effectively caps growth at size 7 since it would take 35 years to grow from 6 to 7 and 7 to 8.
The pather variants but also the TT variant. Which loses a good deal of value here. it has plasma jets(and IEM built in) which are better than maneuvering. But its still running the same (well new)flux stats with medium energy weapons instead of being able to use ballistic. Its not gaining +50% flux/capacity after fitting and its not like the Brawler is particularly mobile as it is, at 100 base speed (150 for the wolf, 120 for the lasher)
For what it's worth, move slowly is already a thing in the current version. Makes you travel at the same speed as go dark right now, i think. Hold S to "activate" it.
IIRC the main use i get out of it is when hiding from a pulsar behind a small planet, where doing nothing makes you enter orbit and moving at normal speed increases the chance of misclicking/moving out of your cover.
Ships/systems:Are you considering increasing the sensor range of [REDACTED] fleets to make sneak salvaging in those systems more difficult? (I have been personally modding my game so that their burn level is increased by 2 to make them more punishing, since they don't have a burn drive ability).
- Added Phantom-class phase troop transport
- Added Revenant-class phase hybrid freighter/tanker
"Move slowly" is pretty bugged in the current version, iirc. Also, it's slower than "go dark"; having "go dark" make the fleet "move slowly" is new, and also "move slowly" is faster.
(Brain's a bit of a mush right now, so maybe I'm not making too much sense.)
One of the things I'm happy with here is at Tech 1, you pick Sensors vs Navigation, and the Sensors skill gives you a burn bonus to "moving slowly". So you can pick to either be a bit faster overall, or to be significantly faster while sneaking, which I think is a more interesting choice than "move faster" and "don't move faster", since we know how that one would go.
Scarab:It makes me happy to see the most (?) underwhelming ship in the game to get a nice buff. Also another feasible ship for slamming beams onto..
Increased flux dissipation to 250 (was: 150)
Increased flux capacity to 2500 (was: 2000)
Removed the two less than optimally placed weapon slots
Paladin PD SystemThe changes make me very happy. I still have a gut feeling that with these changes the Heavy Burst Laser will end up being underwhelming for its cost compared to the small Burst PD and the Paladin PD, but it's been some time since I last looked at the stats. And also a buff to some beam based weaponry makes me happy, goes well with that improvement of the Scarab ;)
Burst PD Laser
Heavy Burst Laser
Mining Laser
Ion Pulser:I'm surprised about these changes, I've always thought the Ion Pulser was one of the most effective energy weapons (and also a lot of fun to use).
Increased range to 500 (was: 450)
Increased damage to 100 (was: 75)
Increased emp damage to 600 (was: 400)
Heavy Armor: reduced maneuver penalty to 10%, moderately increased armor bonusAs I was saying with burst weapons.. seems suspicious :P (but nice to see :D)
All types of contacts allow you to order ships/weapons/fighters, without having a colony
Trade: use your own blueprints only
Military: use own, or faction's blueprints
Underworld: order good stuff regardless of blueprint availability; more expensive
Underworld contact functions as "arms dealer"; not selling production capacity
Is a way to get access to rare ships/items that might otherwise be too hard to find
Increased XP gain from fighting more challenging battles
Can you talk a bit more about the reasoning behind increasing the growth penalties for hazard rating? It already felt to me like it could be hard to justify trying to make a colony on high hazard worlds. I noticed that the synchrotron requires no atmosphere, are there other new industry boosters with similar requirements that incentivize high hazard colonies, or are they just becoming even less desirable in the next release?
Population growth stuck at 0% forever no matter how many decades pass or what happens in those decades. It'd just look off.
Actually, as far as ideas to make very large colonies possible to get but limited/hard/expensive/etc., what about Cryosleepers? New colonies without a Cryosleeper can only get so much growth from natural population growth and immigration before even Chico on it's worst day is able to make much of a dent, but Cryosleepers (optional: and an AI Core/Story Point to speed up the process) can push a colony to size 7/8/9/10/whatever makes the most sense?
As to how it works right now (bugged or not), and how that relates to "go dark", i wouldn't be able to tell, considering how limited my use of it is.
Thanks for the patch notes Alex, and g'luck on assembling everything together for this release!
Also I just wanted to say I'm excited you've thrown me a bone with the megastructure stuff in this release, and I can't wait to engage with what's there in the release, and to see more in future versions. Also, I don't know if David or you are doing the story elements/descriptions for them, but don't forget to check out Charles Sheffield's work - his novels (Summertide) partly inspired my lifelong fascination with them (and the ideas in Jack McDevitt's stuff, even if I found all his novels dry as a desert).
The first thing I'm doing is still changing the Apogee's shield efficiency back to .6 though, the suspiciously combat effective long-range exploration vessel checks every one of my favorite science fiction tropes, and I love her so much.
still no way to restrict maximum AI fleet power?
sad
fighting a fleet with 10+carriers is not fun, it just turns game into a turn based strategy
I never thought about it, but it definitely makes more sense this way, since it's weird that an enemy fleet could detect something like a derelict ship, but not think something's off when that derelict ship suddenly turns into a debris field.
QuoteScarab:It makes me happy to see the most (?) underwhelming ship in the game to get a nice buff. Also another feasible ship for slamming beams onto..
Increased flux dissipation to 250 (was: 150)
Increased flux capacity to 2500 (was: 2000)
Removed the two less than optimally placed weapon slots
QuoteIon Pulser:I'm surprised about these changes, I've always thought the Ion Pulser was one of the most effective energy weapons (and also a lot of fun to use).
Increased range to 500 (was: 450)
Increased damage to 100 (was: 75)
Increased emp damage to 600 (was: 400)
This change along with the decrease in OP for the Light Needler makes me wonder if you want to promote the use of more burst weapons, or if the reasons for the changes are completely something else.
I'm curious, is this also going to mean that we don't need to be commissioned + high relations with a faction if we want to buy their good weapons or even ships?
QuoteIncreased XP gain from fighting more challenging battles
Does this mean challenging in the sense of really high end late game battles, or challenging in the sense of battles against fleets much bigger/higher tier relative to your fleet? If it's the latter then that sounds really exciting and a lot of fun :D, a really nice boost for the early game and a satisfying reward for spending the time to load out a fleet efficiently, and not as many downsides to keeping a small fleet.
Also if it's the latter, does it take into account both fleets' officer levels? I wonder, would it also take into account the player's combat skills level?
Can you talk a bit more about the reasoning behind increasing the growth penalties for hazard rating? It already felt to me like it could be hard to justify trying to make a colony on high hazard worlds. I noticed that the synchrotron requires no atmosphere, are there other new industry boosters with similar requirements that incentivize high hazard colonies, or are they just becoming even less desirable in the next release?
Sounds like the old pay to increase growth which is now hazard pay lets you close the gap? Since its whatever the hazard penalty is + a few? So really high hazard worlds are no worse than zero hazard worlds. Habitable and Mild change that on top of that, but really high hazard growth isn't that bad off? Or maybe I'm misunderstanding something from the notes.
I feel like higher hazard worlds tended to have more mineral/fuel resources.
I am super pumped for the Xyphos having a range of 0! (Yes this is a tiny change, but I don't care, its wonderful.)
Unless I've missed something, higher hazard worlds will still make for higher maintenance costs, which is then reduced by having goods supplied in faction. It will depend heavily on the exact values everything ends up at, but there is the potential for "early" colonies wanting to be habitable in order to avoid maintenance and high hazard colonies being profitable "late", once demanded goods are supplied. Just a bit of theorycraft.
Are we going to get a hyperstorm map layer on the sector map? I don't remember how it was without Adjusted Sector, but at least with it, there doesn't seem to be any way to figure out where the hyperstorms are without almost flying into them. If I could, I'd try looking at a map and navigating around, but as it is, it's too much bother and I'd rather burn through.
Kind of sad about this, but mostly because I like making things bigger and better. Find a big, dark planet orbiting a black hole, build a blazing sun-moon, terraform in some green, add a couple astropoli...
On the one hand, you no longer need to specialize all your ships to get good value out of these mods. On the other hand, it means less to have a specialized fleet. Dunno how to feel about this. Probably good?
Alex I love you.
As always the attention to details is awesome.
Recall Device: now has a 30 second cooldown
Salvaging/scavenging temporarily boosts you sensor profile by 1000; it's in the patch notes - so, no, but also yes.
Greatly decreased pirate base bounty payoutseeeee
Maximum post-Collapse colony growth limited to a maximum of colony size 6Random thought: Cryorevival Facility is an obvious candidate for raising its planet's limit by 1.
Nanoforges: add Pollution when installed; becomes permanent after three monthsOw. Is this a way to incentivize colonies on non-habitable worlds?
Synchrotron: requires "No atmosphere" condition
Spaceport: removed "No spaceport" accessibility penalty when under construction or disrupted*happy dance*
High Tech orbital station:Can you also do something about the shield modules dying early on in autoresolve? This has awkward effects when a player joins an ongoing battle with/against the station.
Fixed issue with wrong type of weapon slot
Added Fighter Chassis Storage to hangar module
Tarsus: increased fuel use to 3/ly (was: 2)I feel like only one of those changes should have been implemented.
Buffalo: increased cargo capacity to 400 (was: 300)
Drover:Drover was overdue for an adjustment, but with Reserve Deployment already having the run-in with the nerf bat, isn't the DP increase on top of that really punitive?
Deployment/maintenance cost increased to 15 (was: 12)
Light Needler: reduced OP cost to 7 (was: 9)This is probably actually bad!
Railgun: increased OP cost to 8 (was: 7)
Added Fury-class light cruiser, high techHa ha ha this is three mod ships and one mod weapon that will now need renaming
Added Champion-class heavy cruiser, midline
Added Phantom-class phase troop transport
Added Revenant-class phase hybrid freighter/tanker
Afflictor: changed two of the front-facing hardpoints from Universal to HybridNoooooo my Reaper backstab bus
Added UI scaling setting
Gonna comment on some specific things, mostly the things I feel have problems.
So first I gotta say: this is almost entirely good news! I had to scroll down three pages to find a thing I specifically objected to.
I mean, not having easy money is good! But taking on any kind of base (especially now that one-module bases are no longer a thing) requires a considerable investment and risk in the early to mid game. It sounds like the problem was more that person bounties and LP base bounties weren't paying enough.
QuoteNanoforges: add Pollution when installed; becomes permanent after three monthsOw. Is this a way to incentivize colonies on non-habitable worlds?
Synchrotron: requires "No atmosphere" condition
Does pollution from nanoforges requite the Habitable condition (like the pollution from bombardment)?
It feels like the heavy industry itself should be the source of pollution, not the nanoforge. Was that deemed too punishing?
QuoteSpaceport: removed "No spaceport" accessibility penalty when under construction or disrupted*happy dance*
Although I fear that straight-up reducing the penalty to zero swings the pendulum to spaceport disruption being too weak. With the +5 in-faction trade capacity bonus, disrupting a core world spaceport will likely have no effect whatsoever on commodity scarcity on the planet or elsewhere in the faction.
Can you also do something about the shield modules dying early on in autoresolve? This has awkward effects when a player joins an ongoing battle with/against the station.
I feel like only one of those changes should have been implemented.
So the idea is that Tarsus is the safe option and Buffalo is the cost-efficient option. But past a certain point, having to fight a disengage scenario at all is a sign you did something wrong (which is why people like me keep suggesting ways to drag civ ships into fights). So the Tarsus's strength will very rarely be relevant.
...unless this is intended to work with the new options to turn civilian ships into combatants?
Drover was overdue for an adjustment, but with Reserve Deployment already having the run-in with the nerf bat, isn't the DP increase on top of that really punitive?
QuoteLight Needler: reduced OP cost to 7 (was: 9)This is probably actually bad!
Railgun: increased OP cost to 8 (was: 7)
The attachment is gone now (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18065.msg283004#msg283004), but bobucles made a graph which shows Light Needler significantly out-DPSes Railgun early in a fight (for like 20 seconds or such) due to having the large damage spike at t=0. Mind, that's a double-edged sword since it also adds flux to the firing ship, and you pay 2 more OP for the privilege, but it persuaded me that LNs are actually worth using over railguns sometimes. And Needler is more efficient and has faster projectiles.
Ha ha ha this is three mod ships and one mod weapon that will now need renaming
QuoteAdded UI scaling setting
4k time?!?
Kind of bummed about the hammerhead rear turrets not being able to face forward but it's pretty understandable considering how great safety overrides chaingun hammerheads are at ripping enemies to shreds
Added the chance to be able to promote a junior officer to a ship command position after battle, uses a story point-I presume this means that in an RNG post-battle prompt, you'll get the chance to recruit an officer for "free" via story point. Or is this one of those "mentor" things?
The Conquest! From using it alot because midline bestline, I've noticed it tends to just keep itself pointed directly at a target and fire torpedos (in the case of Reapers) until it runs dry, rather than attempting to broadside till flux is driven up, then torpdeo the living smitherines out of things like it really should.
It's cool to see the onslaught get changes! Do the two side mounts now point forwards, or is it still just another glorified place to put a Devastator (but now with less OP cost)
A few other random thoughts now that we're in the story update - Previously when dropping bombs on small raiders, rescuing people from planets, etc - the "Answer the Hail" option you occasionally get from planets with ruins - there was texts saying "Hopefully this was a good idea, hopefully they don't bring sickness, etc" or something of that nature.... With this update, can my people catch the space pox, eat rocks and die, if I accept a buncha refugees?
Decreased Pirate Base Bounties. Oh. Why did you do this? It generally takes 3-4 cruisers to kill a pirate station - unless you have the skills to do it yourself, alone - and usualy by the time you have one to two cruisers, the money is mediocre at best.
- The Railgun/Light Needler change is a little weird to me. I consider them different but equal: one is burst-y with no ability to harm armor while the other is a generally
excellent all-rounder kinetic. Both are very good. I think I'd be fine with both being 8 OP.
QuoteAdded the chance to be able to promote a junior officer to a ship command position after battle, uses a story point-I presume this means that in an RNG post-battle prompt, you'll get the chance to recruit an officer for "free" via story point. Or is this one of those "mentor" things?
- Assault Chaingun being brought back down to Earth. Ion Pulser being being buffed. Warthog being brought back. All good changes.
- IR Pulse being flux efficient is actually a huge change. It makes Small Energy slots Less Bad (I still won't call them "good"). A ton of High Tech ships rely on Small Energy to get things done and none of the options are good for breaking shields.
- Out of curiosity, since I didn't see anything mentioned, but any update on the "Orders" tab?
I was expecting the sabot to be nerfed. It is now anti low tech ships because its burst outranges small ballistic PD's and AI always tries to block it with shield which makes end up being overfluxed all the time.
It would be great if sabot burst range gets significantly reduced considering the amount of damage it does.
Would it be possible to change the max size of (of one or some or all) player colonies in the setting?
How about changing the faction color of the player? Is it still possible?
Is there a cap on how many story points you can have at once?
And has the XP curve been flattened or changed so you don't need millions of XP, even with +XP%, to get the next Story Point?
So, actually, let me make a note to check tomorrow; it seems offhand that requiring habitable for pollution is probably the right way to go.
Re: whether it's heavy industry or a nanoforge, I'm not sure it actually matters all that much which one causes it, since a nanoforge of some sort is almost required. But I suppose this leaves the option of having a safer, low-tier heavy industry, not that it's going to generally be a good option.
- Added a number of story-related missions and a hint of an endgame threat
Added unique capital-class ship that can be acquired by the player. Good luck.
Campaign fleet AI/behavior:Not gonna lie, I thought this was pretty funny. I personally had no issues with this even with a large fleet, as long as I'm able to roughly calculate the speed & direction a given fleet is taking and whether or not was I going to be able to catch up depending on the course of my fleet.
In general a bit worse at avoiding being intercepted; was too good at it
>Onslaught: Added built-in Heavy Ballistics IntegrationIt really does seem weird players prefer to use medium weapons when large slots are available. When on the other hand, you'd do anything to have a large energy mount instead of the medium one. I think the biggest problem are flux costs, where the majority of ships that can mount these weapons, really cannot use them decently. I'm not saying all of the large ballistics are bad, but half of them are either unusable or extremely niche where you could only fit them on one ship, and it's not even low tech.
I've got a feeling that there's an issue not with Onslaught and Conquest, but with large ballistic weapons instead...
Ruins in core systems now start out as exploredWill Tia, Duzahk, and Penelope's still have searchable ruins (should they generate any)?
Nanoforges: add Pollution when installed; becomes permanent after three monthsIs this going to be permanent as in absolutely final, or will you be able to 'upgrade' to a better version of the same thing later?
Added 10 new items conditionally boosting various industriesYes! Hopefully this will be the end of having multiple items stacked in a corner removing any difficult choices.
Found where currently you would find a synchrotron or a nanoforge - so, larger pool of items
Debris fields: can only be scavenged through once; explored fields marked on map
Entities / mission targets / etc spawning in the "outer system" will now generally spawn orbiting a far-out jump-point or planet at a medium range (3000-5000 units)Very welcome changes.
Hammerhead:Highest priority change. Consider highlighting in notes to reflect importance.
Fixed slight alignment issue for left medium hardpoint, this is Very Important
It's not that I need to see colonies 100+ times more populous than Chico everywhere, I just don't want colonies to hit a complete brick wall when it comes to growth when there's not really any reason why it shouldn't be able to keep growing. Growing very slowly because of the 10^x curve, sure, but growing surely all the same.Population growth stuck at 0% forever no matter how many decades pass or what happens in those decades. It'd just look off.
(Pretty sure it'll stop showing the progress bar at max size; if not, it should.)Actually, as far as ideas to make very large colonies possible to get but limited/hard/expensive/etc., what about Cryosleepers? New colonies without a Cryosleeper can only get so much growth from natural population growth and immigration before even Chico on it's worst day is able to make much of a dent, but Cryosleepers (optional: and an AI Core/Story Point to speed up the process) can push a colony to size 7/8/9/10/whatever makes the most sense?
It just comes down to me thinking that size 6 is about what's appropriate on the high end, feel-wise. You can have as many industries in a size 6 as you can now on a bigger colony, and items gives you industrial bonuses you wouldn't have had access to before. I'm not really sure why you'd want bigger colonies, beyond just "it's a bigger number". I mean, if you just want to have the largest colony in the Sector, that's already achievable with a size 6 colony :)
Typo ;).
- When recovering ships after combat:
- In an officer was in command, they will be reassigned back to that ship
Added Revenant-class phase hybrid freighter/tanker
Added Phantom-class phase troop transport
Added Revenant-class phase hybrid freighter/tanker
Raiding grants significant XP
Added story option (50% bonus XP) that removes reputation penalty from raiding
Moving slowly":
Now at half the burn level of the slowest ship rather than being fixed at burn level 2
"Sensors" skill gives bonus to this burn level
Go Dark: forces "moving slowly" instead of having a separate movement penalty
Active Sensor Burst: can move slowly while charging it up
Still reduces sensor profile while in applicable terrain (rings, asteroid fields, debris fields)
Asteroid fields: chance for moderately damaging asteroid impacts on ships when not moving slowly
AI will move slowly through asteroid fields
Hyperspace storms: slow-moving fleets do not attract storm strikes
AI will move slowly through storms instead of trying to avoid them
It's only rational. Onslaught's side slots have very limited coverage, so I see no point in investing much OP there. No flux to use that many large guns either, as you also noted.>Onslaught: Added built-in Heavy Ballistics IntegrationIt really does seem weird players prefer to use medium weapons when large slots are available. When on the other hand, you'd do anything to have a large energy mount instead of the medium one. I think the biggest problem are flux costs, where the majority of ships that can mount these weapons, really cannot use them decently. I'm not saying all of the large ballistics are bad, but half of them are either unusable or extremely niche where you could only fit them on one ship, and it's not even low tech.
I've got a feeling that there's an issue not with Onslaught and Conquest, but with large ballistic weapons instead...
Incidentally, with Pather cells now fixed is there any way to stop their constant attempts at sabotage beyond riding out to destroy their bases every...what was it, 230-365 days I think? Because that's another thing that might end up getting me caught in a cycle of babysitting, if Pathers keep blowing up my Orbital Works and whoops, -3/-50% pirate raid pops up before however long it takes to get fixed.That would make total sector colonization annoying. The only reason I bother with alpha cores and stuff is because the Pathers are broken.
A bigger concern with this change is that it'll have some kind of unexpected result that leads to me having to babysit my colonies even more than they currently need it. To name one thing, fleet size and ground defence strength are both tied to colony size, and I have no idea if a size six colony can defend itself against a -3/-50% pirate raid without me needing to drop everything and rush to it's aid every single time. Sure, Alpha Cores to boost stuff, but than I'd have the Hegemony and their extra buff ships knocking down my doors instead. And Alpha Cores aren't exactly burning holes in my stockpile anyway. Alternatively, Red Planet, but I'd like that to not be a requirement before I start putting down colonies that can defend themselves. And especially with all these profitability nerfs I probably won't have millions of credits burning holes in my pockets for a very long time either anyway...If this becomes a problem, I probably will aim for total core kill to eliminate the babysitting. Babysitting is lame. With that said, size 6 is the smallest size I would consider able to defend against expedition spam, since (without cores), star fortress has high demands that I can only comfortably meet with a size 6+ colony.
Not such a fan of the changes to colonies, though. Putting a hard cap on colony size basically forces the player to play "wide" rather than "tall" (in the parlance of 4X games). Given that the current version of Starsector already requires quite a bit of babysitting your colonies, bouncing back and forth across the Sector as threats pop up, I'm concerned that this will end up being an additional tax on the player's time. Especially since planets that are appropriate for particular industries just got rarer, thanks to the restrictions on industry-boosting items. And this change doesn't play well with an existing cap on colonies: the number of administrators/alpha cores the player has access to.Unless Alex changed colony limits, playing "wide" is only possible with alpha core admin spam, which may be threatened by fixed Pather cells.
• Added a new, very rare and powerful enemy:
• 13 new special weapons specific to this enemy
• A very limited number and subset of these can be acquired by the player during each campaign
When producing ships at a colony, an additional fee will be charged based on the weapons/fighters installed on the shipCan we tell production not to build these extra weapons (i.e., build empty hulls)? Often, when I can build ships, I have more than enough weapons on hand, or I order the extra weapons I want too without relying on weapons provide by some random variant.
This extra cost does not count against the monthly production capacity
Pirate bases should no longer spawn in systems with neutron stars/pulsarsThat should be a relief. Pirates that repeatedly respawn in those systems are a pain, and made Navigation nearly mandatory to avoid crossing pulsars twice per visit.
Bombardments will cause other in-system colonies to stops trading with the player for some time, depending on their relationship with the bombarded colonyDoes that mean if I sat bomb an annoying core world, that my own colonies within a system will stop trading with each other?
Added a new, very rare and powerful enemyWhat does "very rare" mean? Limited spawns like Legion14s, or (re)spawns rarely like rare drops (e.g., high-end uniques) in a Diablo game?
Part of an effort to incentivize colony world variety, yeah; most items have requirements or interactions with planetary conditions.Heavy Industry is a great filler for boosting production limits. If I am avoiding Pather cells (I did before I knew about the Pather bug), I do not use forges on additional Heavy Industries. Anytime I have spare industry slots, I build a Heavy Industry. Also, heavy industry produces machines, and it is nice to have a regenerating stack of machines in colony resources. (Waystation only handles supplies, fuel, and crew if demand is met.)
Pollution doesn't require habitable - consider corrosives, radiation, etc. Good point re: bombardments, though; let me remove the "habitable" requirement there. Hmm. On the other hand, what this does is instead of disincentivizing industry on habitable worlds, it more incentivizes (somewhat) industry on a world by itself. So, actually, let me make a note to check tomorrow; it seems offhand that requiring habitable for pollution is probably the right way to go.
Re: whether it's heavy industry or a nanoforge, I'm not sure it actually matters all that much which one causes it, since a nanoforge of some sort is almost required. But I suppose this leaves the option of having a safer, low-tier heavy industry, not that it's going to generally be a good option.
>Onslaught: Added built-in Heavy Ballistics IntegrationIt really does seem weird players prefer to use medium weapons when large slots are available. When on the other hand, you'd do anything to have a large energy mount instead of the medium one. I think the biggest problem are flux costs, where the majority of ships that can mount these weapons, really cannot use them decently. I'm not saying all of the large ballistics are bad, but half of them are either unusable or extremely niche where you could only fit them on one ship, and it's not even low tech.
I've got a feeling that there's an issue not with Onslaught and Conquest, but with large ballistic weapons instead...
It's only rational. Onslaught's side slots have very limited coverage, so I see no point in investing much OP there. No flux to use that many large guns either, as you also noted.>Onslaught: Added built-in Heavy Ballistics IntegrationIt really does seem weird players prefer to use medium weapons when large slots are available. When on the other hand, you'd do anything to have a large energy mount instead of the medium one. I think the biggest problem are flux costs, where the majority of ships that can mount these weapons, really cannot use them decently. I'm not saying all of the large ballistics are bad, but half of them are either unusable or extremely niche where you could only fit them on one ship, and it's not even low tech.
I've got a feeling that there's an issue not with Onslaught and Conquest, but with large ballistic weapons instead...
Besides, Onslaught really needs flak in side large slots. The only 2 other options to cover these angles are front medium slots (but these reach forward enemies, if onyl barely so, thus can be used for offensive weapons) and central medium side slots (which easily reach front, so offensive weapons are also high priority).
Heavy Ballistics Integration would incentivize using large guns there, but... There is no good alternative to flaks in large slot (outside mods anyway). Devastator is horrible PD.
As for the planet size, I think it's unfortunate that your colonies will never be as large as the core world ones. Probably doesn't matter for gameplay, but it feels bad.
There's one thing I've been meaning to bring up that slipped my mind - filter options. Will we get more of them? I'm specifically thinking of two cases. First is where I've surveyed all the planets in the sector and want to know where all the vast ruins are. Scrolling through the list and trying to spot them all is a pain. Second is rather mod-oriented, but when I'm mounting weapons on my ships I'd like to be able to filter for weapons that match the tech category of the ship, and filter for tech category when mounting weapons in general.
QuoteAdded unique capital-class ship that can be acquired by the player. Good luck.
Reading this, I'm getting a bad omen that something big and scary is coming on top of the hinted end-game threat...
Overall, I had no plans to update the game since my current campaign is going pretty well (I am the type of player that does one, extremely long playthrough. Not so fond of having to restart). But after reading the changelog... I'm starting to contemplate my decisions.
>Added a number of story-related missions and a hint of an endgame threat
I have a feeling that there's way more effort put into this, than this simple entry implies.
Just get rid of manoeuvrability penalty! It has no point, it just makes it hard to use on ships that benefit from it the most.
>Xyphos has no range now
Any particular reason for that change?
>Onslaught: Added built-in Heavy Ballistics IntegrationIt really does seem weird players prefer to use medium weapons when large slots are available. When on the other hand, you'd do anything to have a large energy mount instead of the medium one. I think the biggest problem are flux costs, where the majority of ships that can mount these weapons, really cannot use them decently. I'm not saying all of the large ballistics are bad, but half of them are either unusable or extremely niche where you could only fit them on one ship, and it's not even low tech.
I've got a feeling that there's an issue not with Onslaught and Conquest, but with large ballistic weapons instead...
QuoteRuins in core systems now start out as exploredWill Tia, Duzahk, and Penelope's still have searchable ruins (should they generate any)?
QuoteNanoforges: add Pollution when installed; becomes permanent after three monthsIs this going to be permanent as in absolutely final, or will you be able to 'upgrade' to a better version of the same thing later?
QuoteHammerhead:Highest priority change. Consider highlighting in notes to reflect importance.
Fixed slight alignment issue for left medium hardpoint, this is Very Important
It's not that I need to see colonies 100+ times more populous than Chico everywhere, I just don't want colonies to hit a complete brick wall when it comes to growth when there's not really any reason why it shouldn't be able to keep growing. Growing very slowly because of the 10^x curve, sure, but growing surely all the same.
A bigger concern with this change is that it'll have some kind of unexpected result that leads to me having to babysit my colonies even more than they currently need it. To name one thing, fleet size and ground defence strength are both tied to colony size, and I have no idea if a size six colony can defend itself against a -3/-50% pirate raid without me needing to drop everything and rush to it's aid every single time. Sure, Alpha Cores to boost stuff, but than I'd have the Hegemony and their extra buff ships knocking down my doors instead. And Alpha Cores aren't exactly burning holes in my stockpile anyway. Alternatively, Red Planet, but I'd like that to not be a requirement before I start putting down colonies that can defend themselves. And especially with all these profitability nerfs I probably won't have millions of credits burning holes in my pockets for a very long time either anyway...
Incidentally, with Pather cells now fixed is there any way to stop their constant attempts at sabotage beyond riding out to destroy their bases every...what was it, 230-365 days I think? Because that's another thing that might end up getting me caught in a cycle of babysitting, if Pathers keep blowing up my Orbital Works and whoops, -3/-50% pirate raid pops up before however long it takes to get fixed.
Also also:Typo ;).
- When recovering ships after combat:
- In an officer was in command, they will be reassigned back to that ship
not going to lie, i see that post and feel even more now that "SOON TM" cant come soon enough, I had just started a new game a few days ago after putting it down for a while, you know to not burn out. and now this tease drops. and i just want to get my hands on it just that much more now. I mean if you need us to beg I'm sure many of us will get on our knees and shamelessly cry and beg lol.
I am very curious to see all the changes realized, especially the character level progression and all the things that go with that.
QuoteAdded Revenant-class phase hybrid freighter/tanker
Alex I'm having such a hard time imagining this thing and I love it.
I could go through the entire list and nitpick but overall I think all the changes and additions are great. Its gonna be fun to go in blind to good ol' vanilla and experience new stuff once again.
I remmeber reading somewhere that you said you would look into pirate fleets their composition and behavior in general as in at the moment they do not "feel" like pirates but more like a zombie faction - they have alot of ships, theyre bad and theyre suicidical to kill you, rather than being raiders trying to profit.
Also someway to permanently deal with pather cells (such as destroying the faction as a whole or maybe a dedicated industry required either per planet or system) rather than the periodically having to destroy their bases.
most importantly however... RELEASE WHEN?
Cool, cool, cool :D Thanks for keeping spoilers to a minimum!
I like that there are now more unique industry items to find while exploring. The "unique stuff to find" was really not enough for all the "places to find stuff in". (I also wouldn't mind if there were some really unique stuff to find for the explorer who's currently not that interested in founding a colony, like hulls and weapons.)
Arrrph, I am a Pillaging Phase Pirate now! ;D
Mhh, is there even enough difference left between "moving slowly" and "going dark" to warrant them being separate options? Seems like turning off your transponder and moving slowly archives almost the same thing as going dark. Minus the 50% detection range reduction, which could just be added to moving slowly.
I just had the though that it might be cool if only "go dark" would extend the phase field of phase ships around the entire fleet (and more effectively), but it would cost them CR at a slow rate. So without phase ships in your fleet there would be no "go dark" option and "move slowly" would take over that function.
but... There is no good alternative to flaks in large slot (outside mods anyway). Devastator is horrible PD.
* What are the maximum colonies player can own, and maximum admins he can hire?
* With max player colony size at 6, do we get the cute size 7 images at size 6, or are they reserved for NPC colonies?
Yeah as Histidine mentioned, the graph comparing the LN and Railgun came to mind. Just loading up the simulator with a ship with 2 LNs and then 2 Railguns will show you a drastic difference. Sure the Railgun is more versatile but who cares about that when you have a Sabot in gun form almost. Also every other Needler weapon is the most expensive on OP in their respective tier, so this would just look wrong. I agree with Foof, 8 OP for both would be perfect, 7 is too low for such elite weapons.
Also I kinda forgot about Mk IX, surprised there weren't any changes to it when most of the people agree it's very underwhelming. It really doesn't justify having 1.15 efficiency, sure the dmg/shot is respectable for a kinetic weapon but it's also wildly inaccurate. I'm glad Devastator got some love tho, one meh large ballistic less :)
EDIT: Maybe I missed it, but you forgot to add that the High tech blueprint package now has Fury instead of Apogee.
You've outdone yourself again, Alex! It's difficult to pick my favorite aspect of these patch notes, but the story points system in particular seems like something the genre as a whole has been missing: a way for the player to directly say "this, here, is what's most meaningful to my playstyle."
Not such a fan of the changes to colonies, though. Putting a hard cap on colony size basically forces the player to play "wide" rather than "tall" (in the parlance of 4X games).
One last question: with the introduction of megaprojects, is there a chance we'll eventually see some kind of terraforming option introduced into the base game?
Not much to comment this time around, looking solid. Thank you for your hard work.
Good luck with the playtests Alex, I know they can be quite time consuming.
Can we tell production not to build these extra weapons (i.e., build empty hulls)? Often, when I can build ships, I have more than enough weapons on hand, or I order the extra weapons I want too without relying on weapons provide by some random variant.
In current version, I've noticed that with -10% range (level 1 ECM skill) AI still performs decently, but with -20% (maxed ECM skill) AI just gives up and gets mulched into paste without too much of an issue - it becomes really skittish and can't fight back outside of capitals and fighters.
So here's the question - what is the max range debuff without any skills in next update?
On another note, High Scatter Amplifier. Is it still there? If it is, its 50% range decrease is pretty punishing for energy point defence weapons. Will you do anything about that?
On that note, should producing fighters/weapons also generate supplies/fuel/crew like ship production does?
QuoteBombardments will cause other in-system colonies to stops trading with the player for some time, depending on their relationship with the bombarded colonyDoes that mean if I sat bomb an annoying core world, that my own colonies within a system will stop trading with each other?
QuoteAdded a new, very rare and powerful enemyWhat does "very rare" mean? Limited spawns like Legion14s, or (re)spawns rarely like rare drops (e.g., high-end uniques) in a Diablo game?
This is feels like an early christmas present. Can't wait to test it all out and start a new vanilla run. Really like the look of the new officer mechanics and i'm excited for the new raiding and marines.
Question re: "Revenant"
This is such an odd combination of attributes I'm trying to wrap my head around it. I imagine a phase logistic ship has higher maintenance and you pay a premium for both the reduced sensor profile and the ability for a phase ship to escape from battle.
It's also a tanker/freighter hybrid meaning it likely won't be as good as dedicated freighters or fuel tankers in those specific tasks but something like 2/3rds as good as either in both categories (i.e a Destroyer-sized ship would have 200 cargo and 400 fuel capacity). I suppose if you have a phase fleet, you'll just want to keep adding more and more of these ships.
The real questions I have is whether or not its combat worthy and/or if it's counted as "next size up" like other phase ships in terms of logistical profile. Will I want a Revenant in my fleet if I'm not going "all phase?" Does it offer anything that having both having a Buffalo and Phaeton wouldn't?
Come to think of it, how big is the Phantom and Revenant?
Large Ballistics are amazing and should always be fit (even if you're only using two for a broadside). They're absolutely superior than medium as primary weapons per OP. ...
Hmm, interesting, I'll need to keep an eye on it. The max debuff is 20%, but deployed ships grant a flat +2% each. Gunnery Implants also grants +6%/+3% when in frigate/destroyer. Given both of these, it'll be a lot easier to hit the limit if you have smaller ships on hand, which also means they have a shorter range, which may go some ways towards alleviating this.
Try getting a cruiser and max ECM skills, ships of same size will try backing off because of being outranged even more than they normally do.
That change will make game way easier for competent players, which is a shame in my eyes - I personally enjoy battles where AI puts up decent challenge. I hope it will be something I could change in the config files at very least.
All large kinetics are worse than medium kinetics for flux limited, mount plentiful ships
Fair! More of a reason to tweak those mechanics, though, than it is to allow stuff that makes no in-fiction sense. (Also, there's an item that boosts fleet sizes *a lot*, so I'm pretty sure it'll be doable anyway. But I need to have a look at the frequency of expeditions etc, regardless, so those things become an "interesting event" that you interact with and aren't so frequent that it's a chore.)True, although are those items usable enough that I don't need to find a ridiculously specific system to put down my first colonies and/or have to compromise in some way to actually use them? For instance I wouldn't fancy using those items if it caused factions to send expeditions or ticked off the now fixed Pathers, since that would only replace one problem with another.
giving it a quick try with some cruiser-vs-cruiser mirror matches, not seeing much functional difference between 10% and 20%; the side with the edge wins reliably, but it's kind of expected. I guess it may play differently in a not 1-1, though.
Hmm, how so? You're paying for getting 20% by needing overall weaker ships, so I'm not sure how this makes things easier - could you clarify? I mean, I could see how it might not eliminate the problem, but that's different.
...
Speaking of expeditions, "interesting event that you interact with" just sounds like "annually mandatory babysitting session" to me, honestly. And like it'd limit playstyle because if I have to intervene with my own fleet I'd pretty much be on a timer to amass a final endgame doomfleet whenever I put my first colony down.
...
... As we established in the cap/distributor thread we don't really care as much about flux limiting on DPS we care about cap and raw DPS. We want to trade our flux into theirs as fast as possible. This is especially valuable on a ship like the onslaught. ...
... So the HN (probably the best medium kinetic) does 16.6 DPS/OP. The Mark IX does 19.3 and it starts shooting earlier due to its higher range. There are better medium kinetics (HA is slightly better at 21.4) but we still have the range issue as if we're willing to drop down to a lower range the storm needler offers an absurd 26.78 DPS/OP.
2. Uh, is JDK 8 supported yet?
Speaking of expeditions, "interesting event that you interact with" just sounds like "annually mandatory babysitting session" to me, honestly.
Basically, I'm worried about colonies being overly nerfed in terms of them becoming a permanent ball and chain for the player
... I feel by incentivizing using smaller ships more often, it makes game easier in a way? I don't really know how to explain that.
I've read things like this a lot while lurking in these forums and i still don't understand it. In some of my playthroughs i've started colonizing as soon as half a year into the game and even then i've never found expeditions to be a problem. When fighting them myself i've usually found them to be underwhelming and by the time they might get bigger the colonies tend to be defended enough that they don't even need me.
Maybe they become a problem once they send multiple "very strong" fleets but in my experience they're not in any kind of a hurry to do that. Maybe they will eventually if you keep playing but by that time you'd have all the ships you want in your own fleet anyway.
Now the first pirate fleet, that appears to be scripted to be sent within a few months and tends to be a lot bigger than the ones that spawn from bases afterwards, *that* can be a challenge if you rushed for colonies.
I think maybe ECM should apply straight to the enemy fleet instead of competing with their ECM. This would make ECM less of a battle-winner, but it would still shift how battles work by making long range builds relatively weaker than normal.
RE HBI on Onslaught: I don't think it addresses the ship's core issues with flux usage and armor vs. shields.
IMO a lot of the large ballistic weapon problems would be solved if the Mk IX were a slightly more expensive, but better weapon. I'd pay 25 OP for the same gun at a tighter spread and 1.0 efficiency.I don't want Mk. IX fundamentally changed (like "premiumizing" it); it's nice to have a cheap 'n practical option for large kinetics in contrast with Gauss Cannon and Storm Needler. Less recoil and more efficiency certainly wouldn't hurt though.
P.S. Is the version number supposed to be 0.95 or 0.9.5?
No uses of 0.9.5 somewhere, it just struck me as strange compared to 0.9.1, 0.8.1, 0.7.2, 0.7.1 etc.P.S. Is the version number supposed to be 0.95 or 0.9.5?
0.95a - the way I've been using it, 0.9.5a would imply a 5th hotfix-and-balancing patch of the 0.9a release. ... did I mess up and say 0.9.5 somewhere?
IMO a lot of the large ballistic weapon problems would be solved if the Mk IX were a slightly more expensive, but better weapon. I'd pay 25 OP for the same gun at a tighter spread and 1.0 efficiency.I don't want Mk. IX fundamentally changed (like "premiumizing" it); it's nice to have a cheap 'n practical option for large kinetics in contrast with Gauss Cannon and Storm Needler. Less recoil and more efficiency certainly wouldn't hurt though.
(It's possible that many of the times I'm currently using Mk. IX, I should downsize to a Heavy Needler instead...)
P.S. Is the version number supposed to be 0.95 or 0.9.5?
I don't agree with this interpretation. If its true than optimal ships should have max caps, filling vents with leftovers... and yet extensive playtesting has not settled on that as optimal outside of a few very special ships. I note that your own Broadside Onslaught has 60 vents and 6 caps.
I think maybe ECM should apply straight to the enemy fleet instead of competing with their ECM. This would make ECM less of a battle-winner, but it would still shift how battles work by making long range builds relatively weaker than normal.
Hmm - that'd just effectively reduce range by 20% across the board for everything, no? At least in many, many cases.
RE HBI on Onslaught: I don't think it addresses the ship's core issues with flux usage and armor vs. shields.
Well, you're right about that - but those are ship features rather than ship issues! Which isn't to say that it's a perfectly balanced ship or whatever, but rather than anything that's done to balance it ought to work around these, imo.
Also, to add onto the version naming talk:
If you're using "0.9.1" and "0.9" for example, as far as I recall it makes sense to show it as "0.9.0" instead of just "0.9"
Like, if you're showing iterative hotfix versions then that position should be kept as 0 if none have occured yet..
maybe im just dumb tho
Wouldn't it usually be 0% vs. 10% or 10% vs. 20%, or did you remove the cap increases? Even 20% reduction across the board sometimes could be interesting in its own way, I think.
I'm not against HBI, but I put mediums on the Onslaught's side larges mainly to save flux, not OP. If the movement AI considered turning to face its best PD towards incoming missiles instead of preemptively throwing up shields, overfluxing with more larges might be more viable.
Please let us have Size-7 colonies through cryosleeper!
And +1 industry when a colony reaches size-7
Hmm? The patch notes talk about AI fleet composition changes.
Less top-heavy (i.e. fewer large ships), more even mix of ship classes on the high endthat doesn't seem to address the problem, it only affects composition of a fleet, not the size of it
Use "mercenary" type officers to augment the fleets and go above the 10 officer limit
Do some industries have multiple options for story-point based specialization/improvement? Mutual exclusivity between options?
Hmm? The patch notes talk about AI fleet composition changes.Less top-heavy (i.e. fewer large ships), more even mix of ship classes on the high endthat doesn't seem to address the problem, it only affects composition of a fleet, not the size of it
Use "mercenary" type officers to augment the fleets and go above the 10 officer limit
or am i not understanding something
we have that already, in "maxShipsInAIFleet", but if i set it lower it will not make fleets smaller in the late game, it will only make them to consist of the largest ships possible
i'm talking about hard restrictions of how much fleet points a fleet can possibly have, overriding any other factors(vanilla or modded).
because late game battles can take several hours real time to fight, when combined fleet points of ai fleet exceed maximum possible battle size multiple times over, it's just reinforcements after reinforcements after reinforcements over and over again, all at 10fps at best.
Also, give Conquest some love plz. Now that Onslaught stole its hullmod, it's even more of an odd-man-out.
It is already strange that colonies can summon thousands or millions of new people out of thin air within a timespan of just a few cycles. Frankly, I get where you're coming from re: larger colonies being fun. We all want to rule the galaxy. But it won't play well with the timescale.It would be nice if player could start a colony at size 4 (instead of 3) if player somehow brought more than 10k crew with him.
I think the only vanilla fleets that are clearly oversized are some of the pirate distress call ambushes* (like three fleets of 8-10 capitals + support each) and possibly pirate raids from max level bases. (EDIT: also level >10 person bounties)Hmm? The patch notes talk about AI fleet composition changes.Less top-heavy (i.e. fewer large ships), more even mix of ship classes on the high endthat doesn't seem to address the problem, it only affects composition of a fleet, not the size of it
Use "mercenary" type officers to augment the fleets and go above the 10 officer limit
or am i not understanding something
we have that already, in "maxShipsInAIFleet", but if i set it lower it will not make fleets smaller in the late game, it will only make them to consist of the largest ships possible
i'm talking about hard restrictions of how much fleet points a fleet can possibly have, overriding any other factors(vanilla or modded).
because late game battles can take several hours real time to fight, when combined fleet points of ai fleet exceed maximum possible battle size multiple times over, it's just reinforcements after reinforcements after reinforcements over and over again, all at 10fps at best.
I think you may be missing the "less top heavy" part? The max number of ships is the same but a top-end fleet will have a few capitals (along with smaller ships filling it in) and a bunch of officers rather than a *ton* of capitals and a few token something-elses.
This also reminds me - I may have toned down the number of fleets in the high-end expeditions, but it didn't make it into the patch notes. I seem to remember making some changes with these; will have to have another look.
(Edit: just to be clear, we're very much on the same page as far as what you're describing not being good.)
Mhh, is there even enough difference left between "moving slowly" and "going dark" to warrant them being separate options? Seems like turning off your transponder and moving slowly archives almost the same thing as going dark. Minus the 50% detection range reduction, which could just be added to moving slowly.
I just had the though that it might be cool if only "go dark" would extend the phase field of phase ships around the entire fleet (and more effectively), but it would cost them CR at a slow rate. So without phase ships in your fleet there would be no "go dark" option and "move slowly" would take over that function.
"Go dark" is a bit easier to use for a longer period, just usability-wise, and it auto-toggles the transponder off, so that's more convenient, too. "Move slowly" is more of a thing you do intermittently. Still, I get what you're saying, hmm.
QuoteNanoforges: add Pollution when installed; becomes permanent after three monthsIs this going to be permanent as in absolutely final, or will you be able to 'upgrade' to a better version of the same thing later?
Hmm, I don't quite understand the question. The Pollution condition will be permanent and nothing removes it, if that's what you're asking.
In the current version of the game they're indeed not a problem (aside from making the other factions seem incredibly selfish, suicidal and petty, maybe). But with the upcoming changes I'm afraid of them becoming a problem, if not directly than because of another change indirectly resulting in them being harder to deal with. For example, if the profitability nerfs make it so you just cannot afford to build up colony defences in time they might end up becoming an issue. Of course that specific example I don't think will be an issue, since it should be easily countered by the increased profitability of weapon sales and available work through contacts. But something else unexpected might crop up....
Speaking of expeditions, "interesting event that you interact with" just sounds like "annually mandatory babysitting session" to me, honestly. And like it'd limit playstyle because if I have to intervene with my own fleet I'd pretty much be on a timer to amass a final endgame doomfleet whenever I put my first colony down.
...
I've read things like this a lot while lurking in these forums and i still don't understand it. In some of my playthroughs i've started colonizing as soon as half a year into the game and even then i've never found expeditions to be a problem. When fighting them myself i've usually found them to be underwhelming and by the time they might get bigger the colonies tend to be defended enough that they don't even need me.
Maybe they become a problem once they send multiple "very strong" fleets but in my experience they're not in any kind of a hurry to do that. Maybe they will eventually if you keep playing but by that time you'd have all the ships you want in your own fleet anyway.
Now the first pirate fleet, that appears to be scripted to be sent within a few months and tends to be a lot bigger than the ones that spawn from bases afterwards, *that* can be a challenge if you rushed for colonies.
True. And honestly the "fewer, but more problematic" angle would probably work better in a "the universe actually makes sense" sort of way, because honestly I'm not sure why the various factions repeatedly send these massive doomfleets to die against the vastly superior defence fleets and (Alpha Cored) star fortresses that they died on the last many times they tried. Especially instead of protecting their own colonies against the many pirates that raid them into decivilizing. To name one particularly egregious example, in one save I've got...four or five size 10 colonies (good system Cryosleeper ;D) each with an Alpha Core admin, Alpha Core star fortress, Alpha Core military base (high command in one case), Alpha Core heavy batteries and Alpha Core Red Planet Device. You'd think the factions would learn that sending two fleets is not going to stop me from cutting into their ore export, and yet...Speaking of expeditions, "interesting event that you interact with" just sounds like "annually mandatory babysitting session" to me, honestly.
Eh, that really depends. I mean, I get where you're coming from, but e.g. (numbers totally made up) if an expedition comes once every ten cycles and is a huge problem you have to scramble to deal with, then that's going to feel differently than a drop-feed of weaker stuff every couple of months. So it's definitely a thing where how much of it there is and what it does/what kind of response it requires changes it qualitatively.Basically, I'm worried about colonies being overly nerfed in terms of them becoming a permanent ball and chain for the player
Like I said, fair concern, but per my previous response, I think it'll be ok. And if not, it'll need tuning!
(I don't think the item restrictions are *that* punishing, that is, you should be able to find a planet that you can use any given item on without too much trouble. An optimal one is another question, but that's already the case...)
...
In my experience the scripted pirate base that always spawns and very quickly sends a fleet your way is always a mere level 1 base, even a fledging colony can handle a -1/-10% raid...though they'll start at level 2 in the upcoming patch, and a -2/-30% base will send 2.5× bigger fleets, so...yeah. Anyway the issue isn't -1/-10% bases, it's the existing -3/-50% bases randomly deciding to raid your colonies long before you're ready to handle the fleets they send.
...
...
FWIW, what you're describing sounds exactly right to me. If I had to guess, I think there's a tendency to gloss over this interval - which probably makes up for most of the playthroughs for many players - because it's not a "stable end state", if that makes sense. Which, I mean, fair enough on that count, but also a grain of salt.
...
Again, it's not a bad weapon, but it shouldn't have 1.15 efficiency for its performance.If there will not be an elite medium-range heavy kinetic, I agree. With small, we have light needler and railgun. With medium, we have heavy needler. With heavy, we have... nothing. Closest Mark IX has to a useful medium-range alternative is downsizing to Heavy Needler.
If the option remains to bribe off these fleets, either with money or with favors, that'll also help. Just in case I get caught unprepared (I...might have a bad tendency to cut the defence budget in favor of more growth sometimes ::)) or really don't want to bother right that moment. Especially now that building up faction relationships should be easier with contacts (before like 99% of all mission only boosted the Independents) it'll be easier to grease the wheels with something other than a giant pile of...recycled pirate fleets whenever a system bounty pops up.Patch notes says story points will be required for bribes (that I like to call extortion payments). Urge to kill all of the core worlds rising!
It is stupid that the "massive doomfleets" sent to invade your systems are bigger or stronger than their system defense fleets. It should not be easier to destroy Chicomoztoc (or other major faction's capital world) and the rest of their worlds than it is to defend my colonies.I mean it makes sense if you think about it. For the doomfleet task forces, they take a bit to prepare and bring together ships from where they need to across the faction. Where as, ships defending there territory are just garrisons. I can’t help but think of the Mayasura story mission.
It may make sense, but it is unsatisfying for gameplay. My first priority is to amass enough military strength so that my colonies can take care of themselves and my fleet can be free to do fun things like explore and do quests (or raid enemies like Ordos) instead of being forced to babysit my colonies for an extended period of time. By the time my system defenses are strong enough, killing all of the core worlds becomes trivial.It is stupid that the "massive doomfleets" sent to invade your systems are bigger or stronger than their system defense fleets. It should not be easier to destroy Chicomoztoc (or other major faction's capital world) and the rest of their worlds than it is to defend my colonies.I mean it makes sense if you think about it. For the doomfleet task forces, they take a bit to prepare and bring together ships from where they need to across the faction. Where as, ships defending there territory are just garrisons. I can’t help but think of the Mayasura story mission.
As for the planet size, I think it's unfortunate that your colonies will never be as large as the core world ones. Probably doesn't matter for gameplay, but it feels bad.
That's quite subjective, so: fair enough! I just don't think it makes in-fiction sense.
Mining stations have a chance to drop a very large quantity of low-value commodities
Some of those doomfleets ought to be sent to pirate bases and their mortal enemies too.
Patch notes says story points will be required for bribes (that I like to call extortion payments). Urge to kill all of the core worlds rising!Eh...hopefully once colonies are set up and matured they'll be able to take care of themselves, but if not that's definitely going to result in me hoarding story points at that point in the game. I can't rely on a steady stream of xp to refresh them if I'm out exploring and happen to hit a dry streak, so I either have them on hand or I risk getting called off to go defend the homestead. And with five factions able to send expeditions, two factions determined to burn every (player owned) Free Port down to the ground and one faction needlessly concerned about AI core use...that's a lot of potential trouble that can crop up when I could be flying around in the other side of the sector.
Number of recoverable ships shown not limited by maximum number of ships in player fleetYay!
Now you listed all of the differences but forgot the most important one, losing efficiency
Mark IX Autocannon has much higher per-projectile damage: 200 vs 100, so higher armor stripping power and longer shield overload duration.
Mark IX Autocannon has a 230 per-projectile flux cost, HAC has 100.
(aren't large weapons supposed to be efficient anyways?).
Again, it's not a bad weapon, but it shouldn't have 1.15 efficiency for its performance.
If there will be a new heavy kinetic, or Storm Needler upgraded to 800+ range (why is Heavy Needler the only needler with 800 range), then Mark IX being mildly inefficient may not be a problem.
Now you listed all of the differences but forgot the most important one, losing efficiency
Wait. Is this the pollution being being made permanent?
I read that as the nanoforge getting 'locked' in place and thus becoming permanent, and was slightly concerned that this might introduce 'gamey' behaviour regarding never using 'inferior' versions of things.
1)Improved AI behaviour. Having the AI handle itself better and better every patch would provide us with what I think is a much needed difficulty and quality of life bump at the same time. I am looking forward to my aggressive ships to boost into the enemy with even less abandon also ;)
I've only got back to being active on the forum for a month but I could easily spot changes done out of suggestions and discussions we had. The thread about the Gladius resulting in buffing both Gladius and Warthog, the thread about armor resulting in the Heavy Armor modspec being buffed and I could go on! I am so glad you guys value direct feedback from a loving community as much as you do. I am probably buying Starsector to some of my friends this Christmas!
To name one particularly egregious example, in one save I've got...four or five size 10 colonies (good system Cryosleeper ;D) each with an Alpha Core admin, Alpha Core star fortress, Alpha Core military base (high command in one case), Alpha Core heavy batteries and Alpha Core Red Planet Device. You'd think the factions would learn that sending two fleets is not going to stop me from cutting into their ore export, and yet...
And yes, however the situation will end up actually playing out ingame it'll probably need and get tuned afterwards. Given the number of changes and especially completely new/overhauled features I'm fully expecting a few patches to fix the inevitable mistakes. And they'll be great fun to try out.
Ah yeah makes sense. I think i've only done one playthrough where i played for 15 years or so, and probably colonized pretty late on that one, because there isn't enough "endgame" to keep things interesting/challenging once you start running multiple capitals (plus fully fleshed out support fleet/maxed officers/etc) imo. So might be that i've only dipped my toe in that "stable end state", or never even seen it yet.
The lore junkie in me is positively losing his mind right now...
If it were me, colonies would also start smaller and slower - not with a spaceport and "population&infrastructure" but with landing pads and homesteads.
Mining stations have a chance to drop a very large quantity of low-value commodities
Speaking of, are there any plans to make mining stations (or other non colony-bound stations) available to the player? There is no real reason I can see why they apparently were a common thing in the Sector before the fall and now fell completely out of use. (Giving some (hint of a ) reason in game would also be fine.)
Think of it like a more efficient HVD rather than an HA. The HVD is a great medium kinetic but it only does 1.06 dmg/OP at .78 dmg/flux while the Mark IX is doing 19.3 DPS/OP at .85 dmg/flux.Right, both weapons are pinpoint accurate, right. Totally same comparison. Both weapons have average range for their size. Both weapons deal bonus EMP damage. I can go forever.
You've seen David's tweet about having written a novel's worth of text for this update, yeah? And, I have to say - with as much objectivity as I can muster - his writing is *so good*.Just out of curiosity, any chance of getting a(n estimated) word count?
Think of it like a more efficient HVD rather than an HA. The HVD is a great medium kinetic but it only does 1.06 dmg/OP at .78 dmg/flux while the Mark IX is doing 19.3 DPS/OP at .85 dmg/flux.Right, both weapons are pinpoint accurate, right. Totally same comparison. Both weapons have average range for their size. Both weapons deal bonus EMP damage. I can go forever.
Anyways so far I haven't seen a single argument on why it's actually a good weapon, without the person ignoring one crucial thing about it.
Onslaught:
- Reduced arc of side-facing large turrets
- Added built-in Heavy Ballistics Integration
- Shield Conversion - Omni: significantly reduced OP cost
- Added Breach SRM (small) and Breach SRM Pod (medium), a new anti-armor missile
- Medium version has high ammo, small version is extremely cheap
- Heavy Armor: reduced maneuver penalty to 10%, moderately increased armor bonus
- Fixed issue that would cause weapons turning towards a target to fire too early sometimes, missing the first volley
Does this means there's now no way to protect the fleet against CR degradation caused by terrain? Also how does this affect fleet maneuverability in terrains that pushes/pulls the fleet (namely pulsar and black holes)? They're extremely difficult to navigate without E-Burn cancelling out the external forces, without that it might be close to impossible to escape an event horizon without losing basically all supplies. And if that's the case, Research Stations within event horizons will likely never get salvaged.
- Emergency Burn no longer makes the fleet ignore terrain penalties
Edit: alex if you move mark IX to 1.0 efficiency please do so by lowering flux use and not by increasing DPS. If you increase DPS the mark IX will be obscene. If you lower flux it will merely be exceptionalI probably would prefer less flux over more damage because low-tech ships need it! Their dissipation is terrible. Too many mounts (possibly with less-than-ideal coverage), not enough dissipation.
If I want to compare a heavy kinetic with HVD, I would use Gauss Cannon, not Mark IX. Mark IX is clearly an autocannon relative for the heavy mount. I do not use HVDs on anything that is not a dedicated sniper because it lacks damage and efficiency, not to mention that HVD fires slowly enough for AI to shield flicker against it.
Gotcha, yeah. And very much agree on not enough being there at that point; that entire state is a rough edge that will eventually connect to the proper endgame.
Oh heck yes. Pumped for the story missions, new threats and mega-structures. Still share a bit of concern about the colonial size cap, I get the limit but I don't see why 10^7 or even 10^8 is a stretch given appropriate time, nurturing, funds, Domain-Era tech and maybe lots of story points.Same here, at least for 10^7.
Also on like... your line ships that do not line break you should be using HVD. They’re fantastic. Their minimum armor dmg point is 779(and they have EMP!). Which means that they do appreciable dmg to ships of all but the largest sizes while having a 200+ range advantage over HN/HAC. They should be your go-to weapon for ships like eagle and falcon once you advance to battleships and I would bet that they’re pretty dope on Dominators too.I tried that. It used to be great in pre-0.8a releases. Now, if I use it against a strong enemy like Ordos, they keep advancing then outgun my ships. After switching from HVD to needlers (and sometimes Mauler to Heavy Mortar), the tables get turned and the enemy gets outgunned more often instead.
You don’t have to be a dedicated sniper to get a tonne of use out of HVD.
“But the HN is super more efficient!” You say. And that only matters if we’re shooting exactly at (or under but close to) our flux dissipation... which we don’t want to be doing, we want to be shooting over our flux dissipation with both of these guns. And we want to be shooting as much over as we can in general with both of those guns
Edit: alex if you move mark IX to 1.0 efficiency please do so by lowering flux use and not by increasing DPS.
QuoteDoes this means there's now no way to protect the fleet against CR degradation caused by terrain? Also how does this affect fleet maneuverability in terrains that pushes/pulls the fleet (namely pulsar and black holes)? They're extremely difficult to navigate without E-Burn cancelling out the external forces, without that it might be close to impossible to escape an event horizon without losing basically all supplies. And if that's the case, Research Stations within event horizons will likely never get salvaged.
- Emergency Burn no longer makes the fleet ignore terrain penalties
I think the commerce instability penalty is also steep, maybe have the Alpha AI cut it down a notch?
Orbital solar Arrays are great, but one question: Is that a tied to a planet randomly or something we can build? If it is a build able industry does it take up a slot? Is more fleshed out Terraforming coming down the line? I have so many questions. The Cryo-sleeper AoE is a great touch though.
Overall some great additions and changes across the board I feel. Can't wait to dive in to a new sector!
Sounds to me like you're already making large strides in that direction with this update. Even though there might not be that much in it that's technically "end game stuff" it seems there are lots of things to diversify both the current "end game" and the journey towards it.
All the contact missions. Items to hunt down for your colonies. Industry upgrades for increasing numbers of story points (which in a way is a more active replacement for colony growth beyond size 6/7, i guess. In that both that growth and upgrading your last industry might be an extravagance, but at least story points are something you actively work towards instead of just waiting for time to pass while periodically filling up the growth incentives bar). Etc.
For a given flux budget, whether that is capacity based OR dissipation based, HN's do 43% more shield damage, given full accuracy
For damaging shields, a HN gives 43.75% more damage for the same flux invested, assuming all Mk IX and all HN shots hit*. There is a DPS penalty (250 vs 350), but that can be overcome by using more mounts. In terms of lowering enemy shields while not driving up the firing ship's flux, its shockingly better.
Anyways so far I haven't seen a single argument on why it's actually a good weapon, without the person ignoring one crucial thing about it.
Edit: alex if you move mark IX to 1.0 efficiency please do so by lowering flux use and not by increasing DPS. If you increase DPS the mark IX will be obscene. If you lower flux it will merely be exceptional
Ah - it's less steep than you think, because - due to not providing an income bonus - having super-high stability is less important now :)I don't know for non-income purposes. Stability is useful for more than that, with colony fleets and ship quality being the big one. If stability affects fleets much, then high stability may still be (too) useful just so colony patrols can kill invaders while player is away. Especially now that player colonies are down to 10^6. (Hmmm, I guess if I want core worlds alive, I better sat bomb some of the bigger ones a little bit so their expeditions are not so big.)
So a single volley from HN does much more damage than one Mark IX volley, almost double. The big burst is the reason why you use LN and HN in the first place. On the other hand it means the minimum flux cost is higher for HN at 1200 vs 920 for Mark IX.
And Mark IX has the time to shoot a second volley if so desired while HN is reloading, giving a total of 1600 damage for 1840 flux cost in a 4.6 seconds cycle.
And you know what? Mark IX has the time to shoot a third volley, giving a total of 2400 damage for 2760 flux cost.
So this is where LN/HN have a risk/reward thing. If the first volley hits shield, you win or are instantly in a good position. If the first volley hits armor or miss, it is a big waste and it might put the host ship in danger.
Do note that the mark IX shoots 160 to 140 / speed differential sooner.
Mark IX Autocannon has longer range: with ITU on capitals, that’s 1440 vs 1280, 160 more, so Mark IX will always fire at least one volley before HAC fires its first volley.
Either because they want to back away from you or you want to back away from them. If they have a speed advantage of 20 and want close this is almost 7 seconds.
If it were me, colonies would also start smaller and slower - not with a spaceport and "population&infrastructure" but with landing pads and homesteads.
Hmm, you know, I rather like that concept. Needs a lot of details etc, bu just starting out as a "size 2" colony or something (maybe even size 1), and then needing to do... something, to make it grow beyond that - and then once at size 3, it takes off on its own. That could be quite cool.
Hmm. Well, it seems a bit... I don't know. I guess both a bit redundant (there's plenty of planets!) and complicated (where can you put a good mining station? how does it roll Ore conditions? how do you know ahead of time what the conditions will be? where/how can you build them? Etc). But there's also a "this would be cool" aspect to it which might make it worthwhile regardless, but... there's just a lot that would have to happen to make it work.
I don't know for non-income purposes. Stability is useful for more than that, with colony fleets and ship quality being the big one. If stability affects fleets much, then high stability may still be (too) useful just so colony patrols can kill invaders while player is away. Especially now that player colonies are down to 10^6. (Hmmm, I guess if I want core worlds alive, I better sat bomb some of the bigger ones a little bit so their expeditions are not so big.)
Also, Pathers! If stability 10 is enough to keep Pathers at bay most of the time, then maybe keeping stability at 10 while Pathers hammer away for a long time may be the way to go if I want to attempt the full sector colonization game with alpha cores. I certainly do not want to play whack-a-mole Pathers. Once per year is only good if I can synch all cells to one base. Otherwise, it is whack-a-mole Pathers time.
Orbital solar Arrays are great, but one question: Is that a tied to a planet randomly or something we can build? If it is a build able industry does it take up a slot? Is more fleshed out Terraforming coming down the line? I have so many questions. The Cryo-sleeper AoE is a great touch though.
You can't build them, no. They're basically like a special planetary condition with some extra visuals. Definitely not looking at terraforming; something along those lines may or may not happen, but it's not a "goal".
Very simple idea: Colonies start at size 2 and automatically start building the Population And Infrastructure "building". Once this is build the colony is sufficiently developed ("tamed", "civilized", whichever word works best) to start taking in the waves of immigrants that make up the bulk of a colony's population growth, and so it'll start growing. Building a Spaceport next is technically optional at this point, but would obviously be very helpful to increase the colony's accessibility (and ability to bring in these immigrants).Oh, that would be lovely. Think of the vibe that remote frontier planets in shows like Firefly or The Mandalorian have, at the moment no Starsector planet is at that low (and adventurous) level.If it were me, colonies would also start smaller and slower - not with a spaceport and "population&infrastructure" but with landing pads and homesteads.Hmm, you know, I rather like that concept. Needs a lot of details etc, bu just starting out as a "size 2" colony or something (maybe even size 1), and then needing to do... something, to make it grow beyond that - and then once at size 3, it takes off on its own. That could be quite cool.
Here's some inspiration :Personally I wouldn't mind my first colony being my main quest provider for some time. You might have to fend of local threads, ship in food, survey nearby systems, set up trade contacts with friendly neighbors... and your fledgling colony would basically pay you in growth percentage points. But maybe once you have established a faction all this would be done by them (i.e. automated) for your next colony.Spoiler(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EKu9_VVXkAM-XzT?format=jpg&name=medium)
(https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/002/496/401/medium/kunal-rao-2.jpg?1462427229)
(https://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/simon-10.jpg)[close]
Oh, that would be lovely. Think of the vibe that remote frontier planets in shows like Firefly or The Mandalorian have, at the moment no Starsector planet is at that low (and adventurous) level.
Here's some inspiration :Spoiler(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EKu9_VVXkAM-XzT?format=jpg&name=medium)
(https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/002/496/401/medium/kunal-rao-2.jpg?1462427229)
(https://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/simon-10.jpg)[close]
Personally I wouldn't mind my first colony being my main quest provider for some time. You might have to fend of local threads, ship in food, survey nearby systems, set up trade contacts with friendly neighbors... and your fledgling colony would basically pay you in growth percentage points. But maybe once you have established a faction all this would be done by them (i.e. automated) for your next colony.
My, they could be an planetary industry (asteroid mining) that you build on planets which have little ore, but which are in a system with asteroid fields of some kind. And then the industry auto-builds a mining station somewhere in that system. That way no new UI is necessary.
And if you settle a system with an ancient station, repossessing it to give the asteroid mining industry a boost seems like an option.
Also, AI run stations seem like a great target for raids, and disabling them a new way to weaken enemies that you can't attack directly. And on the other hand, the vulnerability of your stations would guarantee that planetside mining would remain the more desirable option.
Very simple idea: Colonies start at size 2 and automatically start building the Population And Infrastructure "building". Once this is build the colony is sufficiently developed ("tamed", "civilized", whichever word works best) to start taking in the waves of immigrants that make up the bulk of a colony's population growth, and so it'll start growing. Building a Spaceport next is technically optional at this point, but would obviously be very helpful to increase the colony's accessibility (and ability to bring in these immigrants).
Obviously some concerns that the idea will add to the mandatory babysitting problem, but I'm hoping those could be worked out.
Do the new enemies represent the intended pinnacle of enemy difficulty or are there more intended tiers coming after? (Being only a *hint* of end game after all)
The new fighter AI tags are interesting! What inspired those for vanilla? Or are they more for modders?
Also, does the CONSERVE_FOR_ANTI_ARMOR hint mean the weapon isn't used on shields?
Imagine if the endgame enemy was the Hegemony, and you were facing a couple of Lashers. Maybe with a pre-buff Enforcer thrown in there, to make it a challenge.
:-X
IIRC not generally, and unless the ship is panic-firing. But e.g. it might fire them at a high-flux enemy to force them into a tough choice, etc, so it's not a cut-and-dry binary thing.
Any plans for kinetic torpedoes?
Cruisers and capitals with salvage gantry? Does the phase troop transport come with Ground Support Package?
What if Size-7/5 industry colonies are made a part of endgame colony management instead of something available from the get go?
And since cryosleepers usually spawn in less than optimal systems
Cryosleeper: now has (gradually reduced) effect at up to 10 light-years; spawns in better star systems
Look forward to the implementation of story points. Can they be used to stop pirate/ludic path activity in your colonies? And for a higher cost, would you be able to persuade them to target other factions? A little privateering to help you with the competition!
The fleets of 30 capitals sounds kind of bad, especially from a lore perspective. Will such fleets be rare? Would be cool if they are named, persistent fleets that pop up on the intelligence screen when created. Hunting down and destroying such a fleet would weaken a faction and it would take them some time to build such a fleet again. Major hostile actions, like losing a colony, would drastically accelerate the creation of the next fleet. Named fleets officers would also level, to be a consistent threat to the player.
The phase troop transport does, yeah, "no" on the other stuff.Oh nice!
The fleets of 30 capitals sounds kind of bad, especially from a lore perspective. Will such fleets be rare? Would be cool if they are named, persistent fleets that pop up on the intelligence screen when created. Hunting down and destroying such a fleet would weaken a faction and it would take them some time to build such a fleet again. Major hostile actions, like losing a colony, would drastically accelerate the creation of the next fleet. Named fleets officers would also level, to be a consistent threat to the player.
Are we going to get a hyperstorm map layer on the sector map? I don't remember how it was without Adjusted Sector, but at least with it, there doesn't seem to be any way to figure out where the hyperstorms are without almost flying into them. If I could, I'd try looking at a map and navigating around, but as it is, it's too much bother and I'd rather burn through.
If you press "1" on the map, it turns off the Starscape view and you can roughly see where the deep hyper areas are.
I'd like to further endorse the idea of being able to just plop down a beacon that says "here be colony" and then your organic mission is to actually transition from that into an actual faction - with a variety of options picked from a list to get to that point (mechanics wise, you could have a table of stuff that mods can add to that it draws from where it provides options for population (do you just give incentives for homesteaders, rescue cryosleepers,), administration, industry/resources, etc - seems like it could be a way to add another questline dynamic (that's still just a variation on go here do thing/pick thing up, return, but for engaging story reasons).That sound fun but it seems like a lot of work for Alex.
Besides that, I'd also like to not have too create a fully functioning colony to provide resources to the faction. I'd like the whole vast resources available in space aspect to be leaned further into - drop one lonely guy in an inflated balloon in charge of corralling a bevy of automated mining drones and their tenders in a ring system, mined out nickel-iron asteroids spun up for super cheap habitat space (no antimatter powered grav generators for the poor), lean into the whole 'these planets are *** and we have to make do' aspect of the Persean Sector. It's not as though there isn't the technology to do great things, but there's so much squabbling between the factions that no one's using the resources to do anything - until you the PC explodes upon the scene.
Basically Alex, I just want to put a particle collider around a gas giant and start mass-manufacturing supermaterials - these stars won't harvest themselves!
(Also John C. Wright has some fascinating stuff in his two space opera series)
I think "babysitting" only really applies to things that "just happen" at some random time, rather than things you basically explicitly signed up for doing.Definitely. Colonies requiring extra stuff is fine, just so long as it isn't overly random. Or only able to be supplied once the colony actually demands something. Imagine putting down a colony, getting halfway to further exploration and suddenly the colony goes "actually, we need...eh, let me get out a d4 here...5d100 Food to continue working!", whereas the next colony demands 4d100 Domestic Goods, the next some amount of Luxury Goods and the next Lobster (for some inexplicable reason) or what have you. That'd be...less than ideal.
Imagine if the endgame enemy was the Hegemony, and you were facing a couple of Lashers. Maybe with a pre-buff Enforcer thrown in there, to make it a challenge.I'd just like to note that Frigates and Destroyers individually have killed me more often than Cruisers and Capitals combined. So in terms of fleets that have an actual record of making Swiss cheese of my hull ::)...
(It's possible I'm exaggerating a bit for dramatic effect...)
I feel like there are only so many ways I can say I don't think it's a good fit in-fiction-wise.
I feel that plenty of people complaining about need for colony babysitting and invasions etc didn't play vanilla recently and have their experience coming from Nexerlin overdose.In my case, I refer to vanilla, unmodded gameplay when I talk about babysitting. I have not touched Nexerelin in any of the 0.9a releases. (Played mostly in pre-0.8a, and only once or twice during 0.8a.)
Not only do I agree wholeheartedly that the whole massive colonies thing never really felt like they fit with the game world, I'd add that I think the player should be limited to only one size 6 colony (ie, a designated capital), perhaps two size 5, and any further settlements can only be outposts (ie, for mining). Otherwise, the player will end up with a bunch of size 6 colonies and it would seem odd that the player faction's colonies are all the same size when all the ingame factions have a variety of worlds ranging from densely populated capitals to sparsely populated settlements.Size 10^6 is only millions on the whole planet. If anything, that seems too small on anything bigger than a small moon, especially on a good earthlike world. That is maybe a big city or three and nothing else. It is not like post-Collapse is reduced to caveman or medieval tech. They still have interstellar magitech, just not as much as they had.
Devastator:
Slightly increased explosion radius and core explosion radius and slightly reduced fuse range
More likely to hit ships, and will do more damage with its explosions due to more targets being within core radius
I feel that plenty of people complaining about need for colony babysitting and invasions etc didn't play vanilla recently and have their experience coming from Nexerlin overdose.In my case, I refer to vanilla, unmodded gameplay when I talk about babysitting. I have not touched Nexerelin in any of the 0.9a releases. (Played mostly in pre-0.8a, and only once or twice during 0.8a.)Not only do I agree wholeheartedly that the whole massive colonies thing never really felt like they fit with the game world, I'd add that I think the player should be limited to only one size 6 colony (ie, a designated capital), perhaps two size 5, and any further settlements can only be outposts (ie, for mining). Otherwise, the player will end up with a bunch of size 6 colonies and it would seem odd that the player faction's colonies are all the same size when all the ingame factions have a variety of worlds ranging from densely populated capitals to sparsely populated settlements.Size 10^6 is only millions on the whole planet. If anything, that seems too small on anything bigger than a small moon, especially on a good earthlike world. That is maybe a big city or three and nothing else. It is not like post-Collapse is reduced to caveman or medieval tech. They still have interstellar magitech, just not as much as they had.
Also, it is not hard having 10^4 crew in an endgame fleet if built for it. If I can plop down multiple 10^3 colonies in quick succession, it would be nice to plop a 10^4 colony instantly if I have the crew on hand. Also, I tend to have crew and marines in the tens of thousands stockpiled in colony resources or storage.
I think "babysitting" only really applies to things that "just happen" at some random time, rather than things you basically explicitly signed up for doing.Definitely. Colonies requiring extra stuff is fine, just so long as it isn't overly random. Or only able to be supplied once the colony actually demands something. Imagine putting down a colony, getting halfway to further exploration and suddenly the colony goes "actually, we need...eh, let me get out a d4 here...5d100 Food to continue working!", whereas the next colony demands 4d100 Domestic Goods, the next some amount of Luxury Goods and the next Lobster (for some inexplicable reason) or what have you. That'd be...less than ideal.
You could probably integrate this into the colonization screen pretty easily, I'd say, the one that says you need 1000 dudes, 100 Heavy Machinery and 200 Supplies to found a colony. Have another box below that lists what specific things that particular planet will need for a colony to reach the point where it'll be self-sufficient depending on the planet's conditions - say that every colony needs some amount of food/goods to tide them over until they can establish their own food sources, but planets with Destabilized Subpopulation specifically requires some amount of Marines to keep the initial colonists safe, tectonically active planets need additional supplies/heavy machinery to reinforce structures and build warning systems, High Gravity planets can require Heavy Armaments ("Humans require powered exoskeletons for regular movement and find even basic actions exhausting", which could be a part of the Heavy Armaments item, like power armor style?), etc.
The only real detail to remember (that I can come up with off the top of my head) is how to make sure that secondary list of required items is accessible remotely, without being at the specific planet. If the amount of items you need per hazard condition is static you could just look it up on a wiki and calculate it, or run around the core looking for planets with the right conditions and calculate what you need from that, but ideally it'd just be available from the Intel screen. That shouldn't be hard to add, though, I don't think.
also i agree with the trird guy above me, the devastator is awful to use because most of the shoots explode before they hit the target, i would also add that all the large point defence weapons (devastator, guardian, locust) suck.... it would be better to make them medium sized or give them a strong buff, ebcause as of now, you would be better putting a medium weapon in your large slot than puttting any of them
also also whats the deal with the warthog? just put the 3th mortar back... having 2 of them on a wing is enough of a nerf, they whent from op to COMPLETELY useless now and, form what i read, they gona be even worse, just entirelly useless
Honestly, by this point, shouldn't the 'real' map be the default? The 'pretty' map, as pretty as it is, is sorely not useful in the least as an actual map for navigation, and without a doubt a lot of players miss that little hotkey, and generally the hotkeys on the map screen, so even the fuel limits would be helpful to come pre-loaded.
I'm strangely impressed by the 'Move Slowly' change, which seems like a really elegant way to neaten up the small gameplay things around that.
I feel that plenty of people complaining about need for colony babysitting and invasions etc didn't play vanilla recently and have their experience coming from Nexerlin overdose.
Hey Alex, keep up the incredible work. I'm really excited to see 4k and UI updates are coming, being one of the people that loves playing this game in ultrawide in all its glory. Thanks for what you do!
Besides that, I'd also like to not have too create a fully functioning colony to provide resources to the faction. I'd like the whole vast resources available in space aspect to be leaned further into - drop one lonely guy in an inflated balloon in charge of corralling a bevy of automated mining drones and their tenders in a ring system, mined out nickel-iron asteroids spun up for super cheap habitat space (no antimatter powered grav generators for the poor), lean into the whole 'these planets are *** and we have to make do' aspect of the Persean Sector. It's not as though there isn't the technology to do great things, but there's so much squabbling between the factions that no one's using the resources to do anything - until you the PC explodes upon the scene.
Basically Alex, I just want to put a particle collider around a gas giant and start mass-manufacturing supermaterials - these stars won't harvest themselves!
(Also John C. Wright has some fascinating stuff in his two space opera series)
Definitely. Colonies requiring extra stuff is fine, just so long as it isn't overly random. Or only able to be supplied once the colony actually demands something. Imagine putting down a colony, getting halfway to further exploration and suddenly the colony goes "actually, we need...eh, let me get out a d4 here...5d100 Food to continue working!", whereas the next colony demands 4d100 Domestic Goods, the next some amount of Luxury Goods and the next Lobster (for some inexplicable reason) or what have you. That'd be...less than ideal.
I'd just like to note that Frigates and Destroyers individually have killed me more often than Cruisers and Capitals combined. So in terms of fleets that have an actual record of making Swiss cheese of my hull ::)...
Not only do I agree wholeheartedly that the whole massive colonies thing never really felt like they fit with the game world, I'd add that I think the player should be limited to only one size 6 colony (ie, a designated capital), perhaps two size 5, and any further settlements can only be outposts (ie, for mining). Otherwise, the player will end up with a bunch of size 6 colonies and it would seem odd that the player faction's colonies are all the same size when all the ingame factions have a variety of worlds ranging from densely populated capitals to sparsely populated settlements.
In my case, I refer to vanilla, unmodded gameplay when I talk about babysitting. I have not touched Nexerelin in any of the 0.9a releases. (Played mostly in pre-0.8a, and only once or twice during 0.8a.)
Is the Devastator still going to be using shotRangeVariance for its projectiles?
And if so, is it going to be set the same as it is now?
One of the reasons a lot of people don't seem too keen on this weapon is that many of its shots are effectively 'wasted' starting at ~60% of the weapon's range.If you don't feel that removing the variance entirely would be desirable, would you consider adjusting the range of the projectiles up to 40-45-ish and lowering the shotRangeVariance to match?SpoilerAs an exercise for my own curiosity I removed the variance and changed the projectile range from 30 to 52 (30 * 1.75), and it doesn't seem any more powerful. But it does at least feel somewhat more satisfying seeing most of the shots get near the target before bursting.
Recoil seems to be the limiting factor - as in the Devastator has horrible recoil stats, so the shots will form a perpendicular arc at max range instead of a stripe leading away from the ship.[close]
Just want to say: Thank you Alex, for answering all these many questions, I appreciate it as always :)
Mh, that way you'd just dump in everything they will need at the beginning and forget about it, I don't really see the difference to the current system. To me the appeal is in actually taking care of your colony for a while. What differentiates that from annoying babysitting is that a) that phase has a foreseeable end and b) you have control over when to take growth-enhancing missions, they shouldn't distract you from what you are otherwise doing, like constant invasion fleets do.
I agree that simple fetch quests are not very interesting (but then again, some people like trade missions). But escorting your colony's very first trade fleet on its maiden voyage would be interesting, for example.
I like the idea that a colony's initial requirements are influences by the planetary conditions.
Methinks someone has been a very naughty boy and has been cheesing pirate bases with an Overridden Hammerhead and its two Assault Chainguns ::)
Speaking of Bases and Battlestations, I'm under the opinion that the High Tech base needs a shield arc buff as the non-ultimate versions has very big gaps where the future extension would be wich results in it being overly vulnerable mid game when compared to the other base types.
The fleets of 30 capitals sounds kind of bad, especially from a lore perspective. Will such fleets be rare? Would be cool if they are named, persistent fleets that pop up on the intelligence screen when created. Hunting down and destroying such a fleet would weaken a faction and it would take them some time to build such a fleet again. Major hostile actions, like losing a colony, would drastically accelerate the creation of the next fleet. Named fleets officers would also level, to be a consistent threat to the player.
I think the hazard rating mechanics will natrually add some size spread to colonies, basically doing this - a high hazard mining colony would stay small unless you invested a lot into putting more population there. I'm not 100% sure actually how the economics of this work out - whether increasing colony size to 6 in a case like that would be a net profit or not, actually. It depends on what it's exporting etc. Since you'd be getting, likely, some flat bonuses from AI cores/items/improvements/etc, getting a few more points of production out of a higher size - at high expense, to boot - might not be worth it. Will have to see, though.
My concern with this based on the current version of the game is that high hazard colonies tend to really lag behind other colonies in profits until they get big.Another problem is slower growth. It is a pain to synch grow with other planets, which is important when I want to avoid shortages when one planet grows bigger first and gets shortages while the other planet(s) catch up. However, that is only a problem when sizes reach 7 and up, which will be moot by size 6 limit.
Hmm - does Nexerelin adjust punitive expeditions etc? I've been kind of assuming that whenever I hear about that, it's a vanilla thing, but it'd be good to know if it's in fact different in Nex.Punitive expeditions, not that I'm aware of. And personally I turn random player diplomacy off in Nex' config, so random faction DoWs and the sudden invasions they would bring isn't something I have to deal with either. Unless I actively pull the trigger first, but than obviously I'm fully aware of what I'm signing up for.
Gotcha, yeah - same page here. But e.g. "you need X amount of <whatever> for the colony to get to the next step towards taking off on its own" but there's no rush/consequences if you don't do it now now now sounds reasonable.Something that would stall colony growth would probably end up being seen as a priority task regardless, since obviously we want our colonies to grow. But that would only feel like babysitting if I was only informed of what's needed X days after the colony is founded, and couldn't drop stuff off ahead of time (and not have those resources be consumed for other reasons). Or if, say, a trade fleet gets lost and the colony suddenly needs me to personally go acquire and deliver X amount of goods to resume production of the Spaceport or wait out the (month-long?) shortage, that'd easily end up feeling like babysitting.
I think "oh it's just a Kite with Reapers" has a winning record against player flagships overall.Hmm...I've actually gotten exploded by my own bombers deploying a field of faster-moving mines right behind me and my unshielded rear more often than I've gotten hit by a Reaper, actually, at least hit on something other than my shield. My main supply of crow comes from (usually Phase) ships sneaking behind me and slowly dismantling my engines. Still haven't found a decent way to deal with phase ships either, other than waiting for them to forget that they're functionally untouchable and get slaughtered.
I feel like there are only so many ways I can say I don't think it's a good fit in-fiction-wise.
I think I misread a comment somewhere about concern that the fleet cap would cause capital heavy fleets, but the patch notes say the fleets will be better balanced.
My concern with this based on the current version of the game is that high hazard colonies tend to really lag behind other colonies in profits until they get big. So now if they are forced to be small, then it feels like the will never be as good as low hazard colonies. Do you feel like small mining colonies are valuable enough to be worthwhile over other colonies? The player can only manage a finite number so it feels like in the pursuit of making high hazard mining colonies thematically small, you might make them not very good in general. Unless the in-faction supply bonuses have been increased significantly, or the balance of profits for really good ore resources has changed, I can't really see a small mining colony with only one or two industries being useful. I'd rather just have another size 6 titan colony with 3 big production industries.
Punitive expeditions, not that I'm aware of. And personally I turn random player diplomacy off in Nex' config, so random faction DoWs and the sudden invasions they would bring isn't something I have to deal with either. Unless I actively pull the trigger first, but than obviously I'm fully aware of what I'm signing up for.
Commenting on the babysitting stuff:
I'm pretty sure Nex adds invasions and raids where hostile factions try to capture or harass your colonies, and those can be quite a bit bigger than the expeditions for the current colony level. They're not as common as expeditions though. I'm not sure if nex adjusts expeditions at all.
Something that would stall colony growth would probably end up being seen as a priority task regardless, since obviously we want our colonies to grow. But that would only feel like babysitting if I was only informed of what's needed X days after the colony is founded, and couldn't drop stuff off ahead of time (and not have those resources be consumed for other reasons). Or if, say, a trade fleet gets lost and the colony suddenly needs me to personally go acquire and deliver X amount of goods to resume production of the Spaceport or wait out the (month-long?) shortage, that'd easily end up feeling like babysitting.
But if I'm told "this colony will (eventually) need an additional 200 Heavy Machinery to become self-sufficient" right when I try to put down the colony, that's fine. That doesn't require me to stay near my colonies to manage stuff I can't manage remotely, or for me to drop whatever I'm doing and go do something else somewhere else with no warning because something random happened.
For me personally, I would want 'defend your colony' type missions to be rare and very difficult rather than common and fairly easy. I think the babysitting feeling comes from the fact that current expeditions happen somewhat frequently so that the player ends up constantly going back to their colony unless they build up some impenetrable defenses. This has led me to delay making a colony until I can afford to immediately build up a level 2 station and ground defenses so that I minimize the amount I need to personally defend.
I would like major defense type stuff (expeditions) to only really happen 3-4 times over a campaign, but I would also want it to be very difficult. Something where you know many months in advance and are trying to prepare by building up your fleet or whatever (maybe add some temporary defense mechanics as well). Maybe there could be some intel missions where you get a tip in a bar, or from a contact, that a faction is upset with your production and you can recon the fleet that is assembling or sabotage it etc.
Kind of unrelated, but is the player the de-facto "leader" of planets they colonized, or more like ....a majority stakeholder?
Ah, the mathematician's answer.Kind of unrelated, but is the player the de-facto "leader" of planets they colonized, or more like ....a majority stakeholder?
Yes!
I think the babysitting feeling comes from the fact that current expeditions happen somewhat frequently so that the player ends up constantly going back to their colony unless they build up some impenetrable defenses. This has led me to delay making a colony until I can afford to immediately build up a level 2 station and ground defenses so that I minimize the amount I need to personally defend.The frequency (especially once Free Port is on) is why I want to destroy the core worlds. No core worlds, no more expeditions (or the need to defend them from zombie pirates).
Hmm, I don't think I agree here; "priority" is different from "long-term negative consequences if you don't". Having things to prioritize is fine. I mean, establishing a colony could be considered "babysitting" in that light. And if you know all the requirements ahead of time, that just translates into having to get more stuff together to start a colony, and that just seems boring. This'd have to get thought through some; I don't think pure resource requirements would be all that interesting here - rather, "things to do" might work better. For example, "survey the entire system", "establish a comm relay", "clear out a pirate base that's in a system next door", "deal with a Pather expedition (that may be hostile or friendly, with Consequences either way), etc...Yeah, point taken. I'd be fine with it so long as it doesn't force me to interrupt what I'm doing and doesn't completely stall out colony stuff to the point where I feel like I'm wasting time if I don't get it done. Not that there's a time limit to the game, but it's best if stuff that takes time grows in the background while I go explore the Sector a bit more. Rather than me finishing all my explorations and only then doing the colony stuff, resulting in me sitting around for years waiting for stuff to grow.
However, having impenetrable defenses for my colonies only solves part of the babysitting problem. The other problem is the neverending zombie pirates that successfully raid (the mostly undefended) core worlds constantly unless I intercept the pirates. In one game, I ignored the pirates for a few years and Asharu decivilized and (I think) few other worlds had zero stability from constant pirate raids. If I want to save the core worlds for income purposes, I need to chase pirates constantly to save the core worlds.Random suggestion: Would turning off worlds decivilizing in the configs help with that at all? It makes no sense for it to happen to the core worlds like that and if your own colonies are at stability 0 for that long you'll likely have enough problems to deal with anyway. That's what I did in my last vanilla run, right before...some world, I can't remember which, but right before some core world would have decivilized. Only reason that save still has all the core worlds intact.
Totally important question here.
What is your opinion on sub frigate size pilotable or autonomous craft? By this I mean gunships, patrol boats, corvettes, heavy fighters, the like.
The Robberfly Corvette (from Blackrock) in particular seemed to be a very interesting concept, light, manoeuvrable, unshielded, and very small, but with enough weaponry to pose a credible threat to low level freighters. And incredibly synergistic with tactical lasers.
I can't really speak much about colony development, because the thing I really want with colonies is the orders tab. Colonies by themselves are just puzzles of how to make the most money out of them and custom production is the only unique (for the time being) benefit.
@ AcaMetis: My worlds were fine. It was the Indie worlds in Corvus and Arcadia that got wrecked because I ignored pirates (because I did not want to stop exploring in the fringe where my colonies were, and it should be up to the Hegemony and Indies to defend their worlds and clean up their mess.)I just clear whatever bases have bounties put on them most of the time, and I never have issues with decivilization. I never fight individual raids.
After that game, I have basically played Superman or Batman rushing to intercept every last pirate raid so that core worlds' stability does not drop. (And I do not want their stability to tank so I can raid them for blueprints later and not decivilize those worlds.) Chasing pirates to protect core worlds takes a big chunk of babysitting time, probably more than defending my worlds. Then the core worlds thank me by sending expeditions. It is like a scene right out of the movie High Plains Drifter where player is Clint Eastwood, the cowardly townsfolk whose town is painted red are all of the non-pirate factions, and the outlaws terrorizing the town until they die in the end are the relentless zombie pirates.
Pirates effortlessly decivilizing worlds in five to ten years is sort of lore breaking. AI wars and other big conflicts among major factions are just not believable when zombie pirate overlords overwhelm everyone with ease.
I just clear whatever bases have bounties put on them most of the time, and I never have issues with decivilization. I never fight individual raids.I try to clear base bounties too, but sometimes, I do not always catch them all on time, and I need to intercept a raid (unless I need the raid to succeed to proc a system bounty). Ever since Asharu decivilized after a few years in that one game, I have hunted pirates mostly non-stop to prevent another decivilization (until I decide the core worlds need to die).
decivilizing in 5 or 10 years is also a bit of an exaggeration i'd think. I've had at least a few playthroughs where i kept going more than 10 years and don't think i've ever seen a decivilization warning come up for even a backwater planet of the main factions in an unmodded game.Maybe it is random and I got unlucky. I played unmodded game, and Asharu decivilized sometime between five to ten years in one of my games. It was during the first v0.9a releases. Also, I had no decivilization warning. (That might have came in a later release.) Asharu suddenly decivilized, like sudden death in overtime.
Yes!
Those are all fair points. But the stars look pretty, so... look, let me have this one.
(A somewhat more salient point: I do think it's important to have a real-space view of the Sector visible in the game somewhere, just to make it feel like a "real" bunch of stars somewhere.)
Bit late, but Re: Colony Limits... I don't think putting a hard lock on one size 6 and size 5 for the rest would be a good idea. Or even that a hard limit at all is necessary. Colonies should grow organically. And since every step up is a 10x growth, it should be simple to tweak the formula for anything above size 6 to take too long for comfort.I would not want 10^6 for one and 10^5 for the rest. Makes meeting demand a pain. Also probably would need to babysit my colonies more (unless I sat bomb the big core worlds to lower their populations and weaken their expeditions permanently). Even if limits are higher, having one world having a higher limit than another means the smaller worlds need to produce more to satisfy demand for the bigger planet.
So if a guy wants to play extremely long games where a size 7 colony won't take 30 cycles but thanks to his min-maxing will only take 20 cycles to complete.... shouldn't we let him have it? It's not a massive upgrade and he won't feel like he's arbitrarily locked out of having a "real planet". It's just that like a "real planet", it will happen over a course of decades or centuries and not just years.
So if a guy wants to play extremely long games where a size 7 colony won't take 30 cycles but thanks to his min-maxing will only take 20 cycles to complete.... shouldn't we let him have it? It's not a massive upgrade and he won't feel like he's arbitrarily locked out of having a "real planet". It's just that like a "real planet", it will happen over a course of decades or centuries and not just years.For someone who does not want to wait too long, but wants to get his big planet badly enough for whatever reason, gameplay would be dominated by min-maxing that one stat (population growth).
But if people hang around in the game, actually bored out of their mind, just to see that number change from 6 to 7, that's bad game design.That would be me. I have done this for months, maybe years, with level and item grinding in Diablo 2. Obsession can trump boredom (because the player really want that goal badly enough), and that is not healthy.
just about every person that plays Startsector is, to some extent, a munchkin that will number crunch the game until they can glass the entire sector with the exhaust fumes of their fleet full of cheese.
just about every person that plays Startsector is, to some extent, a munchkin that will number crunch the game until they can glass the entire sector with the exhaust fumes of their fleet full of cheese.
Mh, I think you are confusing "every person that plays Startsector" with "many that play Startsector and are actively discussing it on the internet". The latter is a self selecting group that does not represent the whole playerbase, a vocal minority of of sorts.
I believe most players are simply picking options that seem fun or exciting to them.
Mh, I think you are confusing "every person that plays Startsector" with "many that play Startsector and are actively discussing it on the internet". The latter is a self selecting group that does not represent the whole playerbase, a vocal minority of of sorts.
I believe most players are simply picking options that seem fun or exciting to them.
The idea is to stop people from forcing themselves into gameplay that is not fun, because they feel they have to play "optimally" or "max out everything".What would force players to sit around for 20-30 ingame years to watch colonies grow from size 6 to size 7? It's not a requirement to unlock the super secret final boss (I'm assuming), all it does is make a few numbers bigger. And not in a way that's likely to make any sort of difference by that point. I don't recall anyone feeling forced to sit around until their colonies reach size 10 in the current patch, I don't understand why it would become a problem in the upcoming one.
Mh, I think you are confusing "every person that plays Startsector" with "many that play Startsector and are actively discussing it on the internet". The latter is a self selecting group that does not represent the whole playerbase, a vocal minority of of sorts.
I believe most players are simply picking options that seem fun or exciting to them.
When people pick options 'for fun' in games like Star Sector, they usually must also pick options that are optimized to counter balance it unless they don't care about making progress or essentially running their saves into the ground. Most of the things that I'm talking about, most people wouldn't event think about as Min-maxing, like picking a Buffalo over a Tarsus... which is totally min-maxing the logistical profile of your fleet. Or settling in a system with lots of moons to stack your defenses.
Lots of the stuff that people consider 'just the thing you do', like take Transverse Jump asap, is Munchkin min-maxing. The fact that not doing those things is considered either new-player behavior or an intentional role-play/difficulty increase is proof enough that most people that play this game are, to an extent min-maxing munchkins, even if they don't take every opportunity to be as optimal as possible.
Only read the OP so sorry if you already answered;
Is it possible to make the move slowly key a toggle on? Maybe by a setting?
Thanks!
So if a guy wants to play extremely long games where a size 7 colony won't take 30 cycles but thanks to his min-maxing will only take 20 cycles to complete.... shouldn't we let him have it? It's not a massive upgrade and he won't feel like he's arbitrarily locked out of having a "real planet". It's just that like a "real planet", it will happen over a course of decades or centuries and not just years.
The idea is to stop people from forcing themselves into gameplay that is not fun, because they feel they have to play "optimally" or "max out everything". If just some people who really want to hang around in a save for 50 years were to see the colonies grow to size 7, that would not be a problem. But if people hang around in the game, actually bored out of their mind, just to see that number change from 6 to 7, that's bad game design.
A hard-limit that entirely takes this off the table from the very get-go is kind of taking me out of the "your faction is a real faction" vibe that I want. One of the most amazing strengths of this game is that I am using the same ships, the same mechanics to equip those ships, to staff them with officers, etc. as the NPCs. For the most part it feels like I am playing the same game as them, and that is good. Similarly, the core fantasy of being able to start my own faction is that I am playing on an equal playing field with the big guys and can also get to where they are if I surpass enough hardships (which is also what makes starting your own faction in mount&blade so satisfying, RP-wise), but it kinda takes some of the wind out of the sails if I know from the get-go that there is an insurmountable upper barrier that cannot be surpassed no matter what.My first or second thought about factions exceeding the limit while I cannot is to sat bomb them down to size (6) if I do not want to destroy them outright (for purposes of income), especially if their expeditions are too big. If I cannot have big colonies like them, no one can!
That is why I have not seriously attempted the mad quest of full sector colonization yet, although I did grind Ordos in red systems for about forty-something alpha cores, just to see what kind of grinding I would need to do to get the cores needed to colonize everything, and to find what can kill Radiants the least painfully.Can you please tell us what were your finds for optimally killing Radiants? I've been using Drover-filled with Sparks spam ... Am I far from it?
I wish to ask, is there a way to make the "Shift" key sticky or toggleable in combat so I wouldn't have to keep holding it down?
Thank you for the responses in advance.
Can you please tell us what were your finds for optimally killing Radiants?I did not say I found anything better than what is already known by others. If anything, I had a sub-optimal character with points sunk into colony skills (that became obsolete after I farmed more than a few alpha cores). All I wanted is a way to farm cores without losing most of my fleet whenever more than one Radiant attacks - and without Drover and Spark spam since my character was not built for it.
There are a number of factions which don't have size 7 or 8 worlds. Tri-tachyon maxes at 6, Pirates, Independents and Pathers cap at size 5. So a newly settled player faction caps out like some of the smaller factions already present. If the player can grow a size 8 world over the course of decades, why shouldn't Tri-tachyon also be able to do so? That of course adds more mechanics and late game issues to balance.Tri-Tachyon is the only major that stops at 6.
I wish to ask, is there a way to make the "Shift" key sticky or toggleable in combat so I wouldn't have to keep holding it down?
Thank you for the responses in advance.
I suggested this a few weeks ago and in the short discussion that followed we came to the conclusion that it might be better to make an extra keybinding for it (like caps lock).
An option (checkbox in the menu) to choose wether you want to hold or toggle shift is good enough for most use cases though.
Anyway the other suggestion i made in that post is now part of the patch notes so i have good hopes we might get this one as well ;)
Regarding the "new, very rare, and powerful enemy:"
Of course, you can't say much but will this enemy type just be roaming about in the wild or will there be specific steps that have to take place to trigger them? On the one hand, I would a "There be dragons" part of the map or some kind of event that keeps the player humble while on the other hand, I would hate for a new player to get stomped prematurely. At least the [REDACTED] have warning beacons.
Also, if current threats are "a couple of Lashers/Enforcers" and what is planned is "the whole Hegemony," (even withe hyperbole)...that sounds both terrifying and exciting. I have my theories but I do hope that the player isn't the only one invested in stopping the existential threat.
as expected
Will planets with disruoted spaceports still generate procurement missions? The "Donn raid-and-trait" strategy makes getting credits too easy.
Just as it is with XP currently, which really peters out above level 70 if you have levels unlocked
The idea is to stop people from forcing themselves into gameplay that is not fun, because they feel they have to play "optimally" or "max out everything". If just some people who really want to hang around in a save for 50 years were to see the colonies grow to size 7, that would not be a problem. But if people hang around in the game, actually bored out of their mind, just to see that number change from 6 to 7, that's bad game design.
Personally, I feel like capping colony size is just a solution looking for a problem. Essentially, the only problems of large Colony sizes that I can see, are the lore conflict, the lack of "realism", and the thematic issues, all things you've previously said should move out of the way for game mechanics. Those three things could be more easily 'fixed' just by reducing the population number of each colony size, or giving certain core worlds specific conditions that, for lore-reasons just state they have larger populations than what their size would otherwise state.
Basically, you are never going to get 'high-hazard small mining colonies' organically. Unless you hamfist it in some way, it's just not happening. It just doesn't work with the mechanics. The only option I can think of is either a fundamental change to the mining system so that more population doesn't improve goods produced, a massive increase to mining profitability just for having the industry, or effectively some kind of 'mining colony' button that limits the colony growth, but gives massive bonuses to accessibility and production (and either prevents or doesn't benefit volatiles, farming, refineries, etc).
As for requiring items to bring income up to pre-nerf, or rather '0.95' levels, once again, it feels more like a solution looking for a problem. While currently colonies can quickly make money a non-issue, that's not because they're unbalanced but because the game has a fundamental lack of resource sinks in end game.
A fundament problem with the system is that there will always be a 'best' skill out of every choice. You can get those skills infinitely close, but you can never truly make them equal. Because of this, there will always be a 'best' build, and players will always gravitate towards it.
To give an example, let's take that navigation skill example. The one that increases overall speed is better. Why? Because it's an overall speed boost, vs making up for a penalty. I can just limit the times when I need to 'slow-move', which I will be used to anyway beforehand. In contrast, the slow-move buff only helps in situations that are sub-optimal to begin with, and no matter how fast you go when slow-moving, I assume it's never going to overtake someone going normal speed. The choice is between lessening a penalty that happens when you essentially screw up positioning in the map, or buffing everything else. It's especially egregious because neither really defines your gameplay, it's not a meaningful choice, it's a nobrainer.
If you really, absolutely, want to provoke different builds, in my opinion, the only real option is to make it so either each choice has nothing to do with each other, or fundamentally changes the way you play the game.
What's more, it's more than likely, that the industry/general/utility skills will be, once again prioritized over the combat skills because as always, generally speaking, it's not the player's combat performance that matters most. That's... one more thing that's sort of fundamental to the game as well.
Regardless, I hope my comments don't come off as... pushy or demanding. I believe that I don't necessarily disagree with what you're trying to accomplish. It's just that I think the way you're going about it won't get the results you want. While I certainly have my own desires for what I would 'like' from the game and perhaps I'm projecting my own desires onto you, I'm trying to go on what you've said in the past.
In the end, I'm an opinionated person, and as I write things like this, I tend to get defensive as I pick holes in my own comments. Also its been a few days since I've checked the patch notes or followed the conversation, so maybe some of these have been addressed, or are misunderstandings. I apologize in advance if this is the case.
Have a nice day.
What would force players to sit around for 20-30 ingame years to watch colonies grow from size 6 to size 7? It's not a requirement to unlock the super secret final boss (I'm assuming), all it does is make a few numbers bigger.
Is it possible to make the move slowly key a toggle on? Maybe by a setting?
I think making the Light Needler 7 OP is a mistake. It still won't be useful for ships that want more sustained kinetic pressure, and on ships that can fully utilize the burst like the Sunder or Doom it'll be undercosted. The Railgun nerf is appropriate, though.
I really love game devs like you. You give just enough info to make me get really excited about what's next, but you don't give any big spoilers. I really can't wait for the new raiding mechanics and story content!
Also, completly off-topic, but are there any mods that interest you content or gameplay wise?
Given the easy to modify nature of the game, I think as a core vanilla limit, size 6 is fine, and if someone wants their "Long war" mod that lets you play with interesting game play for decades and eventually become as large as the Hegemony, then the subset of players interested in it will grab that mod. Presumably Alex can make that number easy to change, and given the fact NPC worlds larger exist, should work naturally.
It makes no gameplay difference where the cap is set, since the factions and core are static/scripted so that they can be balanced with whatever the player is allowed to do. Colony size has no significance other than income in the current game, and since income can be independently tuned, it's actually just a matter of 'feeling' which is totally subjective.
Hi!
I'm new here and to the game.
I wish to ask, is there a way to make the "Shift" key sticky or toggleable in combat so I wouldn't have to keep holding it down?
Thank you for the responses in advance.
Very exciting news, and interesting discussions.
Glad to be a part of it.
Thank you for developing StarSector.
It is truly amazing.
English is not my native language. I apologize.
What's more, it's more than likely, that the industry/general/utility skills will be, once again prioritized over the combat skills because as always, generally speaking, it's not the player's combat performance that matters most. That's... one more thing that's sort of fundamental to the game as well.The reason why more people value other skills over combat skills is because there are more people who are bad at combat than who are good. And since combat skills scale with player's skill the most, put two and two together and combat skills are unpopular partially because they really are worth less to some people, and others learned to avoid them, because they used to be worth less to them.
I think that's something that seems like it's numerically correct but actually generally isn't, not if your personal piloting is reasonably good. Even in the currently-out version, combat skills are I think way better than common wisdom gives them credit for. In the next release, with Elite skills, you'll have even more personal impact (compared to an officer which will have very limited access to Elite skills). Plus, every aptitude but leadership has some (thematic to the aptitude) combat skills, so you'd pick some up regardless.Will new combat skills' bonuses be overall greater, than current combat skills? You get more locked in in the next update, so I hope so.
Hi!Hi!
I'm new here and to the game.
I wish to ask, is there a way to make the "Shift" key sticky or toggleable in combat so I wouldn't have to keep holding it down?
Thank you for the responses in advance.
Very exciting news, and interesting discussions.
Glad to be a part of it.
Thank you for developing StarSector.
It is truly amazing.
English is not my native language. I apologize.
Hi! Not quite, but if you go to gameplay settings (a tab in the "Settings" menu), there's a setting to invert the behavior, so that ships will face the mouse by default, and holding shift will temporarily stop it. Not sure if that'll be useful to you; depends on exactly what you're looking for. (As far as an extra control, well, running a bit short on buttons! Not a fan of using caps lock for things, since it has side effects...)
Happy you're into the game otherwise :)
The reason why more people value other skills over combat skills is because there are more people who are bad at combat than who are good. And since combat skills scale with player's skill the most, put two and two together and combat skills are unpopular partially because they really are worth less to some people, and others learned to avoid them, because they used to be worth less to them. I don't know of any particular point at which it's better to get combat skills than not to, but once you play for some time, it's worth to check and see if you're at that point yet.
- Flagging intel as "important" will no longer prevent it from being removed when it expires
The reason why more people value other skills over combat skills is because there are more people who are bad at combat than who are good. And since combat skills scale with player's skill the most, put two and two together and combat skills are unpopular partially because they really are worth less to some people, and others learned to avoid them, because they used to be worth less to them.
I don't know of any particular point at which it's better to get combat skills than not to, but once you play for some time, it's worth to check and see if you're at that point yet.
Will new combat skills' bonuses be overall greater, than current combat skills? You get more locked in in the next update, so I hope so.
A new button for toggling the function temporarily would be the option i wish to be implemented. Making it an optional toggleable function would be also really helpful.
May you please consider implementing combinations. For example by default C is decelerate.
I wish to use W+S or A+D or E+D or Q+A key combinations which otherwise doesn't really make sense to be used / be pressed / holded down together for that.
I'm sorry if I bothered you with these requests and thank you for considering implementing any of these and again for developing StarSector.
So this one's a mixed bag. Something like an incoming pirate raid? Yeah, take that off the list when I've killed it, I don't need that sticking around. Something like a 'survey this research station' mission that I tagged as important so I don't have to keep separate outside-the-game notes? No, I actually don't want that to expire when the mission's no longer being offered; I would very much like the information that "There is a research station in this system" to be something that sticks around.
RE: All the Onslaught discussions.
So the interesting thing here that I noticed recently is that the Onslaught's base flux dissipation is the same as the Dominator's base flux dissipation. Which does, looking at it, neatly explain why I'm happy to use Dominators, but find Onslaughts to be under-fluxed and overall just relatively poor ships for their price tag.
And on a completely un-related note, I'd like to bring this suggestion thread (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15118.0) back to Alex' attention; it would be very useful for modders to have some access to how ships get drawn in non-combat / non-refit contexts.
Hmm? The Dominator is 450, and the Onslaught is 600. Is that not what you're seeing in 0.9.1a? In other words, did I buff that aspect of it and forget about it?...Huh. Yup, looks like I goofed somehow, those are definitely the correct values. Not sure where I got that notion from, then.
Hmm? The Dominator is 450, and the Onslaught is 600. Is that not what you're seeing in 0.9.1a? In other words, did I buff that aspect of it and forget about it?...Huh. Yup, looks like I goofed somehow, those are definitely the correct values. Not sure where I got that notion from, then.
My initial though is you'd be less locked in due to being able to re-spec
@ ProfessionalHuman: Welcome to the forum! The control scheme you are proposing has actually been tried early on, but was found to be disorienting. You can read more here, if you like: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8643.0 (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8643.0)So, after reading http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8643.0 and watching some examples of games that use this approach i came to a conclusion that fixing camera to a ship actually doesn't work as well as i thouth. Thanks for providing a link to that discussion.
If that was changed and the keys mean "move north/south/west/east" instead then how do you see that working when your ship is pointed diagonally? Should the ship just half move forward/half strafe? Changing this would mean you can just move into 8 directions too.I assume that technically the ship will "just move" in desired direction. On screen you of course will see that both side and main engines are firing.
A few skills are permanent and can’t be reassigned; these are ones with effects that would either leave the game in an invalid state if the player had the skill and subsequently didn’t, or just ones that make it optimal to get the skill, use it, and then refund it.I like to know how many such perma-skills are there. Would like to know if the skill I want is permanent before I spend a point on it. No fun stepping on a landmine by trying to re-spec the skill away only to learn "too late, you can't".
Do combat skills really make that much of a difference ????
Ah, whew. I wonder if maybe increasing the efficiency of the TPC slightly might not help It's not *bad* at 0.8, but it's still energy damage on an otherwise-ballistic ship, so I wonder if .6 might not be more appropriate. That would bring it almost to the level of kinetc/HE vs their specialized targets, though...
But there is one thing that wasn't mentioned in that discussion. As i observed, when game chooses in wich direction to propell the ship it takes into account direction to where its nose pointing. What if there was a button that removes ships nose direction from equation? So then if i press "A" ship will always strafe to the left, if i press "D" ship will always strafe to the right, and so on. That could also make piloting broadside ships easier.If that was changed and the keys mean "move north/south/west/east" instead then how do you see that working when your ship is pointed diagonally? Should the ship just half move forward/half strafe? Changing this would mean you can just move into 8 directions too.I assume that technically the ship will "just move" in desired direction. On screen you of course will see that both side and main engines are firing.
I like to know how many such perma-skills are there. Would like to know if the skill I want is permanent before I spend a point on it. No fun stepping on a landmine by trying to re-spec the skill away only to learn "too late, you can't".
I'll point out, you can't swap out the TPC for their specialized variants (kinetic/HE). They also can't be acquired in any other way than on an Onslaught. So the question of TPC efficiency relative to kinetic and high explosive weapons is irrelevant. There's no substitution or decision to be made. Its not like you get to pick TPC over a Storm Needler or a Hellbore cannon. TPC stats have to be considered in combination with the Onslaught itself. The question is, does their current efficiency make the Onslaught too strong, too weak, or just right?
Given the Onslaught has 5 large weapon mounts on a base 600 flux budget, it really favors multiple low flux cost, high efficiency, low damage weapons. TPCs as 20 clip weapons at 200 flux per shot are not low flux cost weapons. 8000 flux in 4 seconds is a little under half base flux pool, and takes ~13 seconds to dissipate at base dissipation. Its really painful to watch when half the shots miss because the target ship is too small for both to hit. If you don't think 0.6 efficiency will break the balance of the ship itself, I'd suggest tweaking it to 0.6 and see how it plays out in the 0.95 release.
Do combat skills really make that much of a difference ???? They never seemed worth it to me, at least on paper, over the skill that get me a faster, cheaper, better, more resourceful, etc., etc. <snip>
Right, yeah - what I meant is that it might feel weird for the Onslaught to have the most efficient energy weapon in the game, so it's not really a mechanical concern - as you say, mechanics-wise, it's a non-issue. And, really, this *is* a point where mechanics beat feel pretty clearly. And the point about it missing a lot is a sound one.TPCs also have the most range of any hard-flux energy (mount) weapon by far. 1000 beats 700.
Ah, why not - let's give this a try; set it to 150/shot.
Thank you for your responses and sharing your thoughts on the matter and sorry again for these requests.A new button for toggling the function temporarily would be the option i wish to be implemented. Making it an optional toggleable function would be also really helpful.
Yeah, I understand what you mean!May you please consider implementing combinations. For example by default C is decelerate.
I wish to use W+S or A+D or E+D or Q+A key combinations which otherwise doesn't really make sense to be used / be pressed / holded down together for that.
I'm sorry if I bothered you with these requests and thank you for considering implementing any of these and again for developing StarSector.
I don't think that would work very well - it's pretty complicated, but also, most keyboards have a hardware limit on the number of nearby keys that they can registered as "pressed" at the same time. So, for example, if you're holding W+S, presses of Q, A, E, D, and some (but not all!) other nearby keys will not register. Again, this is a hardware thing; those input events just won't get generated. So requiring additional key presses like that is asking for trouble.
Will we be able to go beyond 5 weapon groups next patch? I've seen it being suggested and discussed a couple of times but can't remember if you (Alex) weighed in on it or not, and if so what your opinion on it was.
Does seem like something that might easily have slipped the patch notes even you implemented it.
Out of curiosity, are there any new sindrian diktat variants (Or faction-specific variants in general)?
I half expect a simple :-X tbh but might as well ask ::)
TPCs also have the most range of any hard-flux energy (mount) weapon by far. 1000 beats 700.
Thank you for your responses and sharing your thoughts on the matter and sorry again for these requests.
I really like the controls of the ship. Combat is fun.
I think you have to be very careful about buffing TPC efficiency. It hits quite hard against armor/hull so you kinda have to block with shields unlike kinetics with similar efficiency. Maybe there's a balance point somewhere in there though. I think a big part of the problem is actually the range. TPC outranges kinetics so the onslaught has often already spent half its flux pool on TPCs before it can even use the kinetics that might compensate for its weaker flux stats.Normally true, but not if Onslaught uses Gauss Cannon. I have used Gauss Cannon a few times on Onslaught (during mid-game) for long-range assault.
The easy fix for that, for player builds, is to put the TPC firing group on Alternating. That should probably happen to vanilla variants as well.
TPCs don't need a buff - just loosen their inner firing angle a bit so we don't have to hit with one TPC and miss with the other. Easy.Nah I like Alex's approach more. Making them hit closer to each other would be very bad for smaller ships. I think the whole point of those guns is to fire at massive targets and ravage everything without spending too much flux. I don't think they're supposed to be sniper weapons.
The AI can do it. Maybe I should have been more specific and said "player builds for AI use".The easy fix for that, for player builds, is to put the TPC firing group on Alternating. That should probably happen to vanilla variants as well.Alternating does nothing. TPCs are too rapid firing to try adjusting aim every single shot.
@AlexYes please!
Any words about that terrible tariffs?
Maybe make them scale down based on reputation and commission?
Will we be able to go beyond 5 weapon groups next patch? I've seen it being suggested and discussed a couple of times but can't remember if you (Alex) weighed in on it or not, and if so what your opinion on it was.
Does seem like something that might easily have slipped the patch notes even you implemented it.
Nope! It's just enough of a pain to do that I'm hesitant to "just do it".
<snip>
Do combat skills really make that much of a difference ???? They never seemed worth it to me, at least on paper, over the skill that get me a faster, cheaper, better, more resourceful, etc., etc., fleet and 10 officers to cover all my combat skill needs. One of the things I was actually hoping for in the next patch was logistics officers, people that can get the non-combat skills and leave me free to focus on combat without sacrificing my fleet's abilities, logistics profile and/or - somewhat importantly - combat performance. Fleet Logistics 3, Fighter Doctrine, Loadout Design, all useful skills that no officer in the game can cover for me...Your own skill at piloting ships by itself can better than any AI officer. If you augment that, your flagship can match entire fleets or space stations with just token support. Or without any support, if your flagship happens to be a Conquest (https://youtu.be/SecJjpCirtg?t=3866) or a Paragon (https://youtu.be/KKlDcpAcgTU?t=90).
Of course with all the changes coming I've no idea of that idea is still relevant - or whether it was even relevant in the first place, apparently - so we'll just have to see.
The easy fix for that, for player builds, is to put the TPC firing group on Alternating. That should probably happen to vanilla variants as well.That is not good enough for AI.
The AI can do it. Maybe I should have been more specific and said "player builds for AI use".I would like to build for "everybody" use, since I frequently swap ships in mid-battle, and I do not want AI to kill itself if I give my flagship to it. This is one reason Odyssey is my least favorite capital, thanks in part to plasma burn.
Added Breach SRM (small) and Breach SRM Pod (medium), a new anti-armor missileI wonder how the pod compares with Annihilators. It would be nice if the new Breach pod lasts at least as long as Locusts. Even with Expanded Missile Racks, Annihilators do not last long enough in big battles, and Onslaught that relies on Annihilators feels like a quasi-SO ship. If Breach pods last long, and are effective enough, they might replace Annihilator pods on my Onslaught loadouts.
Medium version has high ammo, small version is extremely cheap
Can we please get a buff to PD?This is a good, simple alternative to my dodge mechanic proposal.
Like giving PD a modifier that increases damage to fighters and missiles but reduces damage to everything else.
Honestly I think Conquest has less staying power compared to Onslaught. But also it's a lot cheaper, so I think it's fine.Conquest is not so flimsy if its shield is powered up. Max capacitors or Hardened Shields will give it sufficient durability in a duel. Also, Conquest can use high-end heavy weapons more easily than Onslaught.
I would not want this as a blanket for all. Heavy machine gun (and probably dual light MG too) is a PD weapon, but it is better used as an assault weapon to compliment the chaingun. LR PD laser is a low-powered but efficient general-purpose weapon. Something like Paladin PD would be useful as an autopulse substitute if it was not so inefficient. Nevermind weapons that get converted to PD like IPDAI IR Pulse Laser or Railgun.Can we please get a buff to PD?This is a good, simple alternative to my dodge mechanic proposal.
Like giving PD a modifier that increases damage to fighters and missiles but reduces damage to everything else.
I didn't say that Conquest is a paper tiger. I sad it has less staying power.And way more mobility, which makes it it deadlier in a fleet, especially to smaller targets. It should not match low-tech ships for armour. That would make it too easy to use in any situation.
I didn't say that Conquest is a paper tiger. I sad it has less staying power.
So, another thing. Wouldn't the new shield for EMP resist trade allow for 100% invulnerability in conjunction with armoured weapon mounts?
So, another thing. Wouldn't the new shield for EMP resist trade allow for 100% invulnerability in conjunction with armoured weapon mounts?
Usually reductions to stats are applied multiplicatively in this game, so 2 -50% would yield 25% (and increases to stats are applied additive, so 2 +50% would give 200%, not 225%). That would be my guess at least.
Usually I don't have an issue with the current five weapon groups... but there are some ships where it's a serious limitation, especially with respect to ships that are being set up for AI control. As has been mentioned, the Onslaught is a major contender here - the TPCs being fixed means that you get much better performance from them if you put them in separate weapon groups... and then you need a group for missiles, and a group for PD, and then you're down to one group left for literally everything else. A Dominator with asymmetrical large guns runs into the same problem, and I've had issues with arming Paragons as well.Will we be able to go beyond 5 weapon groups next patch? I've seen it being suggested and discussed a couple of times but can't remember if you (Alex) weighed in on it or not, and if so what your opinion on it was.
Does seem like something that might easily have slipped the patch notes even you implemented it.
Nope! It's just enough of a pain to do that I'm hesitant to "just do it".
@Alex
Any words about that terrible tariffs?
Maybe make them scale down based on reputation and commission?
Can we please get a buff to PD?
Like giving PD a modifier that increases damage to fighters and missiles but reduces damage to everything else.
I wonder how the pod compares with Annihilators. It would be nice if the new Breach pod lasts at least as long as Locusts. Even with Expanded Missile Racks, Annihilators do not last long enough in big battles, and Onslaught that relies on Annihilators feels like a quasi-SO ship. If Breach pods last long, and are effective enough, they might replace Annihilator pods on my Onslaught loadouts.
Often, I pick Conquest over Onslaught because Locusts last longer than Annihilators.
Usually reductions to stats are applied multiplicatively in this game, so 2 -50% would yield 25% (and increases to stats are applied additive, so 2 +50% would give 200%, not 225%). That would be my guess at least.
So far, I use Annihilators on Onslaught because there is nothing better. I use Annihilators mostly for anti-armor because every last forward-facing gun that are not TPCs is Heavy Needler (even in the center heavy mount, for anti-Radiant and everything else). After a few minutes of sustained firing, Onslaught is out of missiles, and if the fight is not mostly decided by then, Onslaught is not very useful. Unlike Conquest where it can launch Locusts non-stop for at least half of an entire fight.I wonder how the pod compares with Annihilators. It would be nice if the new Breach pod lasts at least as long as Locusts. Even with Expanded Missile Racks, Annihilators do not last long enough in big battles, and Onslaught that relies on Annihilators feels like a quasi-SO ship. If Breach pods last long, and are effective enough, they might replace Annihilator pods on my Onslaught loadouts.
Often, I pick Conquest over Onslaught because Locusts last longer than Annihilators.
They're fundamentally different roles - the Breach is more anti-armor, while the Annihilators are for sustained pressure. So the answer is "it depends", since Breach use will depend on how often there's an opportunity to fire them off at armor.
Added support for 4k resolutions
Somewhat experimental; please let me know if there are problems
I'm asking because I just ordered a 34" 3440 x 1440 21:9 monitor.It is, if you can live with very small fonts.
So, I searched the forum but didn't find anything about this: is Starsector compatible with widescreen, or rather will it become with this update?
I'm asking because I just ordered a 34" 3440 x 1440 21:9 monitor.
Relatedly, are framerates >60 supported? ;D
Is the chance to be able to buy a base Atlas (not the bad mk2, which nobody wants, unless you do a Pirate-only run) going to be modified in 0.9.5? In all my runs I hardly get more than 2 from trades and the rest (up to the 5 I usually carry around with me) from having to build them myself on my colonies ...
It's a bit strange since you can find the base Prometheus in almost every big market. I would love that the game would support the "trader" style RP as well, not only the "rush colony" or "rush combat" styles.
If you are able to buy Atlas and Prometheus from major colonies, then a trader style RP run would not even have to build any colonies (in theory)
EDIT: spelling and rephrasing
So, I searched the forum but didn't find anything about this: is Starsector compatible with widescreen, or rather will it become with this update?
I'm asking because I just ordered a 34" 3440 x 1440 21:9 monitor.
Relatedly, are framerates >60 supported? ;D
Well... a 3340 x 1440 monitor is less than ideal, since you'd only be able to scale to 1440/768 = 180%, roughly. Which'll work! But, yeah, there may be some issues with too much visibility/sound playback (there definitely would if it wasn't scaled; when scaled this might there might not be, actually). But mainly, since it can't quite scale things 2x, it won't be as crisp as it could be. It's not *bad* (e.g. I've played at 130% on my monitor, which is 1680x1050, and it's fine), but it won't be as nice as actual 4x with 200% scaling.
As far as fps, you can edit settings.json and there's an "fps" value there. You'd need a really beefy computer, though, especially if playing at 3340x1400 in fullscreen with UI scaling and antialiasing (which is basically required since, not 200%), which all requires extra performance from the graphics card.
from markets.
A question nobody has asked from what I read: can you give details about the Escort Package and Assault Package?
From one of your previous blog, I guess it is not related to ECM or navigation/speed boost which are now specific to frigates. So maybe they provide other fleet bonus (sight range? Manoeuvring boost?), or boost some of the ship capacities (flux for assault package, missile bonus for support package?)?
Thanks for the answer:) Great that it works in generaI, guess I will just have to try out the details.
My PC will also be replaced, would you guess a Rizen 5 3600 and a RTX 1660 would suffice?
Added support for 4k resolutions
Somewhat experimental; please let me know if there are problems
So, I searched the forum but didn't find anything about this: is Starsector compatible with widescreen, or rather will it become with this update?
I'm asking because I just ordered a 34" 3440 x 1440 21:9 monitor.
Relatedly, are framerates >60 supported? ;D
The combination of more pixels (due to widescreen) but needing to use anti-aliasing (due to not-quite-200% scaling) is probably the most performance-intensive situation there is here.
So it's hard-mode for my hardware, got it. Well, I have to somehow justify planning my new PC around a 2D indie game from 2011^^''
But I think the old concepts about alpha, beta, release are long since meaningless.
Is the chance to be able to buy a base Atlas (not the bad mk2, which nobody wants, unless you do a Pirate-only run) going to be modified in 0.9.5? In all my runs I hardly get more than 2 from trades and the rest (up to the 5 I usually carry around with me) from having to build them myself on my colonies ...
It's a bit strange since you can find the base Prometheus in almost every big market. I would love that the game would support the "trader" style RP as well, not only the "rush colony" or "rush combat" styles.
If you are able to buy Atlas and Prometheus from major colonies, then a trader style RP run would not even have to build any colonies (in theory)
EDIT: spelling and rephrasing
You'll be able to custom-order production from contacts/in bars, but: let me make a note to take a look at its baseline availability from markets.
But I think the old concepts about alpha, beta, release are long since meaningless.
I'm sure you're right, but I'm sticking to them :)
(Re: "release", I remember reading sometime back that the initial EA release on Steam is basically "the release", as far as any potential interest from press etc goes, and the actual 1.0 release doesn't really register... so, yeah, I'm sure you're right.)
A question nobody has asked from what I read: can you give details about the Escort Package and Assault Package?
From one of your previous blog, I guess it is not related to ECM or navigation/speed boost which are now specific to frigates. So maybe they provide other fleet bonus (sight range? Manoeuvring boost?), or boost some of the ship capacities (flux for assault package, missile bonus for support package?)?
It's a boost to the individual ships, actually! Escort Package gives a lot of hefty PD bonuses, while Assault Package makes the ship into a brick. The effect of these hullmods is *greatly* increased by a relevant skill.
The combination of more pixels (due to widescreen) but needing to use anti-aliasing (due to not-quite-200% scaling) is probably the most performance-intensive situation there is here.
About that. An idea would be (1) the ability to host a faction without owning a world and (2) the ability to hire captains to (say) trade between various worlds, with the player receiving a cut or something of that sort. Essentially, we can imitate the Hegemony, but we can't imitate the Tri-Tachyon. This would tie into the game's dynamic economy very well too, and provide a very different experience. You could tie this in with colonies, and have the player negotiate trade deals with contacts and in some situations even receive military contracts, and this could further tie into the proposed starting phases of a colony as a mission or two.
Also, diplomacy (ie vassalage and allowing players the ability to found colonies in a faction's name) is a must at some point or another, whether in vanilla or in nex.
Alex, what post-colony credit sinks will there be? Fleets? Research? Megaprojects?
What do you mean by the 200% thing? Whats the relation between 200% scaling & anti-aliasing?
About that. An idea would be (1) the ability to host a faction without owning a world and (2) the ability to hire captains to (say) trade between various worlds, with the player receiving a cut or something of that sort. Essentially, we can imitate the Hegemony, but we can't imitate the Tri-Tachyon. This would tie into the game's dynamic economy very well too, and provide a very different experience. You could tie this in with colonies, and have the player negotiate trade deals with contacts and in some situations even receive military contracts, and this could further tie into the proposed starting phases of a colony as a mission or two.
The question is, how is this interesting mechanically, aside from being a nice roleplaying thing? Colonies have the potential to make some trouble for you (i.e. lead into combat); the specifics of this can certainly be refined, but at least the path is there. If you just hire a fleet to trade for you, is it just a "get more money over time" mechanic? The design work here would be trying to make this interesting.
Usually I don't have an issue with the current five weapon groups... but there are some ships where it's a serious limitation, especially with respect to ships that are being set up for AI control.
Don't forget, there's always room for other factions attacking your companies if they get desperate.About that. An idea would be (1) the ability to host a faction without owning a world and (2) the ability to hire captains to (say) trade between various worlds, with the player receiving a cut or something of that sort. Essentially, we can imitate the Hegemony, but we can't imitate the Tri-Tachyon. This would tie into the game's dynamic economy very well too, and provide a very different experience. You could tie this in with colonies, and have the player negotiate trade deals with contacts and in some situations even receive military contracts, and this could further tie into the proposed starting phases of a colony as a mission or two.
The question is, how is this interesting mechanically, aside from being a nice roleplaying thing? Colonies have the potential to make some trouble for you (i.e. lead into combat); the specifics of this can certainly be refined, but at least the path is there. If you just hire a fleet to trade for you, is it just a "get more money over time" mechanic? The design work here would be trying to make this interesting.
This would mostly just provide more intricacy to colony building, but I could see a company of some sort be interesting. Maybe a combination of warding off pirates (perhaps through mercenaries), having to build trust with contacts, that sort of thing. It wouldn't supplant normal gameplay, just be an option with various difficulties (non-randomised, as discussed before) inherent. Then one can add the black market into the mix too. Now it is rather passive, but a large amount of good could come from a specialised intel tab, allowing the player to view their trade routes, and perhaps even the trade routes of other factions. That brings us to another application for contacts. Spies. I need to go now. Bye!
@Alex
Any words about that terrible tariffs?
Maybe make them scale down based on reputation and commission?
Well, the word is that they're about as punishing as I'd like them to be :) If they're more than you want to pay, sell that Paragon blueprint on the black market!
That is the problem.Riskier should be more rewarding, no?
Black market is all profit and almost zero risks.
I do not understand your opposition to allowing players making money from legal trade.
I do not understand your opposition to allowing players making money from legal trade.
The problems are that the black market isn't risky enough and players aren't rewarded enough for being really friendly with a faction.
If you scale to 200% (or 300%), there's no need for anti-aliasing - it already looks good, because it's double the amount of pixels, so the scaling algorithm has an easier time. For example, a line that's 1 pixel wide becomes 2 pixels wide, etc. If you scale to, say, 180%, a line 1 pixel wide becomes 1.8 pixels wide - which, of course, isn't a thing - and antialiasing is required to make that look reasonably good.
Transponder-off smuggling is more excitingWhile transponder-on trade may be safe, I never use that option because I do not want to deal with patrol scans. Plus there are enough places where I can safely turn off transponder next to the market before docking.
That is the problem.
Black market is all profit and almost zero risks.
I do not understand your opposition to allowing players making money from legal trade.
The problems are that the black market isn't risky enough and players aren't rewarded enough for being really friendly with a faction.
Agreed. Transponder-off smuggling is more exciting, but there's too little reason to do so, because transponder-on black market trade is so safe. Sometimes I wish it wasn't accessible at all with your transponders on.
But there are softer options. If, in case of high suspicion, your ships would get physically searched (causing disruption and lowering CR) instead of just scanned, that would up the stakes. Or if suspicious factions would continuously shadow you with some picket ships while you're in system, that could hinder your operations quite a bit. (Until you lure those watchdogs into a passing pirate fleet, of course.)
If you scale to 200% (or 300%), there's no need for anti-aliasing - it already looks good, because it's double the amount of pixels, so the scaling algorithm has an easier time. For example, a line that's 1 pixel wide becomes 2 pixels wide, etc. If you scale to, say, 180%, a line 1 pixel wide becomes 1.8 pixels wide - which, of course, isn't a thing - and antialiasing is required to make that look reasonably good.
Just to make sure: What keeps me from scaling to 200% (if my screen resolution is smaller than that) is that it would cut off the UI at the top and bottom, because it doesn't move, right?
@Alex
I would like to weigh in on the colony size discussion.
First of all, I completely understand, that the changes won't really affect the mechanics and the balance of power. So I'm not very interested in changing your mind at all.
However, I think many commentators simply don't understand why some players complain about this change, including maybe you. They don't necessarily complain about the change in the balance of power. Many of them see this limit (^6) doesn't make sense in-fiction-wise. Although for you, it makes the world more believable, for them it makes it less believable.
I think I can see the reason. Because it's on the edge of being possible/impossible.
...
Domain Derelicts would be much better early game zombie-like enemies than pirates, IMO. Track them back to their spawners (probes), nests (survey ships), and finally to the origins (motherships), eliminating the threat.
EDIT: When you hit the level cap, does the experience needed to get Story Points level out? Or does the exp needed still increase?
EXP levels out.
I don't think that the magnitude of the world population is a good indicator here.
Most of that population was not even close to technology levels capable of intercontinental travel or had no hope at all to make the journey (from China or British India for eg).
AFAIK that's not the case in SS.
Even if that is the case, the desperation level is more relevant. And IMO the desperation level in the Sector is very-very high, like Irish immigration levels high.
I don't want to say, it's plausible, but I think it's wrong to say, that it's implausible.
Domain Derelicts would be much better early game zombie-like enemies than pirates, IMO. Track them back to their spawners (probes), nests (survey ships), and finally to the origins (motherships), eliminating the threat.
Mechanically, sure! But that has a very different feel ("fight off a von neumann swarm") from the very start of the game that colors the entire experience and backstory in ways I don't like. And, really, pirates could function much the same way; there's nothing stopping that, I don't think? And they already to do some extent; bases etc.
The thing with Pirates as starting enemies is that you have easy access to them, while often having access to a station to repair or refit. Pirate ships are also recoverable letting you build up a small (if faulty) fleet early on.
EDIT: When you hit the level cap, does the experience needed to get Story Points level out? Or does the exp needed still increase?
Why would they want to be in some backwards colony instead?
And population is low because birth control in advanced societies, and because the population had to grow from a few small colonies in a desolate sector to billions in massive city worlds, in less than a thousand years.
It is strange that the population of the entire sector is less than earth in the 1800s. I've always felt like all of the scripted worlds should have population increased by 1-2 orders of magnitude. In that case, the player could have 10^7 colonies while still being firmly behind the scripted worlds.
Why would they want to be in some backwards colony instead?
And population is low because birth control in advanced societies, and because the population had to grow from a few small colonies in a desolate sector to billions in massive city worlds, in less than a thousand years.
Please consult the settlers of the New World, and I'm pretty sure you'll have your answer :)
Another thing.
This, to be honest, is B.S. of the highest order.
Did I stutter?
The thing with Pirates as starting enemies is that you have easy access to them, while often having access to a station to repair or refit. Pirate ships are also recoverable letting you build up a small (if faulty) fleet early on.
EDIT: When you hit the level cap, does the experience needed to get Story Points level out? Or does the exp needed still increase?
I have literally never taken ships from the pirates. Anything with defects is automatic trash, and you get enough money in the first thirty minutes of a game to finance a small carrier fleet.
I see what you're saying, yeah. My counter-point is that for me, 10^6 is very much already stretching the bounds of believability, especially in the timeframes involved.
I see what you're saying, yeah. My counter-point is that for me, 10^6 is very much already stretching the bounds of believability, especially in the timeframes involved.
Real-life migrations, like the one caused by the Syrian civil war, already are on the magnitude of beyond 10^6 today. Tens of millions were displaced within a few years during WW2.
So when assuming future technology for automated construction, 10^7 sounds reasonable to me.
I see what you're saying, yeah. My counter-point is that for me, 10^6 is very much already stretching the bounds of believability, especially in the timeframes involved.
Real-life migrations, like the one caused by the Syrian civil war, already are on the magnitude of beyond 10^6 today. Tens of millions were displaced within a few years during WW2.
So when assuming future technology for automated construction, 10^7 sounds reasonable to me.
That's for countries in constant war. The majority of the Sector's population resides within the Hegemony, a secure, orderly authoritarian state. Why would they move in the first place?
That's for countries in constant war. The majority of the Sector's population resides within the Hegemony, a secure, orderly authoritarian state. Why would they move in the first place?
If a core world somehow drops to or below 10^6 (I forget if this is possible in vanilla), is it "allowed" to go above it again? If so, is there something that clearly distinguishes planets with and without this permission to exceed the cap?
By the way, will factions start with some of those nanoforge-but-for-other-industries items used? It would give some incentive to raid factions besides blueprints, nanoforges and synchrotrons.
I find the colony debate strange. The Sector, as a whole, is on the decline so multiple 10^7 colonies or more popping up randomly makes little sense.
I couldn't care less what the arbitrary cap is to colonies as long as colonies operate, mechanically, the same. I think it odd that there is an expectation for a colony to grow from 1,000 to over 10 million or more in the span of 10-15 years. Soft caps or no, I know I won't be playing 30 in-game years just to see a colony go from 10^7 to 10^8, especially considering there is no in-game benefit for doing so. There's no realism to be achieved here so an arbitrary value doesn't bother me in the least.
I don't understand the fixation, honestly. It's an immersion thing, sure, but there are way bigger fish to fry.
What is less believable?Player can build a core killer fleet in less than five cycles. It is easier to obtain this fleet and bomb the core worlds to death than a fleet that can kill the strongest endgame enemy fleets. The fleets that guard even capital core worlds are roughly on par with 200k bounties, while expedition/named bounty fleets are 300+k. The only fight that is remotely challenging is the TT capital world because the high-tech star fortress can get cheap kills with long-range mine spam.
Becoming the safe heaven in 25 cycles, attracting the 1/10th of the Sector's population, or creating a fleet that could wipe out the Core Worlds...?
Because the latter is very much possible in 10-15 cycles...
IIRC there's a few cases where they do - where needed to make the economy "work" as far as the core worlds producing enough stuff for their demand, or at least close to it - but not generally for every type of item.If you don't want all of them to be available in every run, you can make them random instead.
The time to obtain a sector-destroying fleet is the time to obtain a Paragon and a Conquest. Paragon can destroy any station and Conquest can destroy any fleet. I wonder how fast could I get those, if I used every trick in the book...What is less believable?Player can build a core killer fleet in less than five cycles. It is easier to obtain this fleet and bomb the core worlds to death than a fleet that can kill the strongest endgame enemy fleets.
Becoming the safe heaven in 25 cycles, attracting the 1/10th of the Sector's population, or creating a fleet that could wipe out the Core Worlds...?
Because the latter is very much possible in 10-15 cycles...
@Alex
Btw I could very much imagine 10^7 migration
Yea it's weird to me how so many people got annoyed by that change, but hey it's easily moddable.
Anyways I forgot to ask one more thing. Will we get new ships in the simulator to test against? I know this is super minor and not important as the rest but it's nice to have a wider array of opponents you can test your build versus. Also please add the new combat ships to the random mission, thanks.
He hasn't ruled out making the core elimination harder.Yes please, destroying the core should be far harder.
Industry items are a flat bonus, which is disproportionately good early on.The old items are getting indirectly nerfed. Synchrotron will require a planet without an atmosphere. That sounds like 150% hazard minimum. Nanoforge will put pollution on a habitable planet. Currently, I put those industries are low hazard (100% or less) planets because of upkeep. I cannot really do that next release if I want to use those items.
Maybe it might be worth considering scaling the industry items boosts with the output of said industry?
Reserve Deployment:Can you clarify what this means? Is it 1/2/3 for ship sizes (destroyer/cruiser/capital ships), or maybe wing size (1-2/3-4/5-6), or something else entirely?
- Now adds 1/2/3 fighters above max wing size and affects bombers as well
A lot of complaints about colony sizes and industry changes, but don't you guys agreed that in the carent version colony's way too overpowered and too rewarding, that game aspect had to be changed so...Max colony skills and no cores gives about a million per month. That is enough to rebuild ships I lose and add another structure. Thanks to Pather bug (and easy-bribe Hegemony), building nearly unlimited large colonies is profitable and nearly risk-free.
I'm wondering is there anything related to Doom-class in 0.95? ;) beside Tweaked Mine Strike ship system AI.
Being able to create a colony, build an industy, and then drop an item on it & instantly outcompete most of the sector for production feels like far more of an issue than a number not changing tbh.
Industry items are a flat bonus, which is disproportionately good early on.
Maybe it might be worth considering scaling the industry items boosts with the output of said industry?
Anyways I forgot to ask one more thing. Will we get new ships in the simulator to test against? I know this is super minor and not important as the rest but it's nice to have a wider array of opponents you can test your build versus. Also please add the new combat ships to the random mission, thanks.
Pointing out this inconsistency between colony size and core elimination has two solutions...
I wonder of a habitable planet will be required to use a forge (for unavoidable pollution), or if forge can be used anywhere and pollute only habitables.
QuoteReserve Deployment:Can you clarify what this means? Is it 1/2/3 for ship sizes (destroyer/cruiser/capital ships), or maybe wing size (1-2/3-4/5-6), or something else entirely?
- Now adds 1/2/3 fighters above max wing size and affects bombers as well
Did it become much easier for players to gain reputation? If so, will we get more options to spend reputation for more goodies?
Since the player can't directly control Automated Ships....... will there be a hullmod to allow it?
I *think* that's on my list of items to look at. One thing I half want to do is have the sim opponents be unlocked (and have that carry over across playthroughs), but that's more of a thing than just adding some, so... hm. I don't want to just load the sim opponents list with everything, you know? It's already got a ton of stuff in it.Oh yeah I remember that suggestion about unlocking opponents, sounds interesting but obviously far more work. And I didn't think EVERY single ship should be in the simulator, just more types and varied opponents compared to 2 Lashers + 2 Lashers but with d-mods stuff we have now. Although personally it doesn't seem like it's "a ton" currently but I guess some of us got used to the simulator filled with mods where the list increases tenfold, so you hop back into vanilla and think "it's so small now awww".
And re: random mission - I'll see if I can have a look as well.
so i just skimmed over it, are there no changes worth mentioning to autofit? because as it is right now its all over the place :'(
Hmm, could you be more specific? I recall fixing a few bugs and tweaking faction weapon availability (in particular, iirc, giving pirates more stuff so that their high-tech stations aren't so sad) but I'm not aware of any particular issues with autofit. Perhaps some of this is a difference in expectations? It's not supposed to produce highly optimized best-in-class variants; rather it's "generally a mix of halfway-reasonable stuff, with some variants that are fairly random". It does get more consistent/produce "better" outcome as fleet "quality" goes up, though... anyway, any more feedback here would be very much appreciated!There is perhaps quite a bit of difference in expectation. Many of us are still living with the memory of DynaSector and the incredibly dangerous and absurd fits it provided.
Hmm, could you be more specific? I recall fixing a few bugs and tweaking faction weapon availability (in particular, iirc, giving pirates more stuff so that their high-tech stations aren't so sad) but I'm not aware of any particular issues with autofit. Perhaps some of this is a difference in expectations? It's not supposed to produce highly optimized best-in-class variants; rather it's "generally a mix of halfway-reasonable stuff, with some variants that are fairly random". It does get more consistent/produce "better" outcome as fleet "quality" goes up, though... anyway, any more feedback here would be very much appreciated!There is perhaps quite a bit of difference in expectation. Many of us are still living with the memory of DynaSector and the incredibly dangerous and absurd fits it provided.
Now that said the current iteration of autofit does some... very silly and incredibly dumb things quite often. Like giving ships weapons they can't use effectively at all, such as giving slow ships short range weapons or downsizing mounts in ways that don't make sense (such as the larges on a Conquest).
It's basically to the point that often enough AI fleets simply aren't a threat because their loadouts don't work, or are only threatening because they have weight of numbers. I understand that you don't exactly plan to tune autofit to the point that it's always incredibly dangerous and daunting to even consider combat, but it really does need some fine tuning to give the AI more of a fighting chance.
Downsizing by autofit in any way is almost bound to be a mistake.
When can we expect a .95a realease? :O
The size 6 planet limit seems to be pretty fair all around. It really takes too much game time to hit 8 or try going beyond that in an ordinary game. Still, it might be nice for various planet properties to increase or decrease that limit. Your average crappy post collapse colony might be a 6, but a neutron star might cripple it down to a 5. A super nice highly habitable gaia world can be a 7, and maybe a super rare planet terraforming tool could push it up to an 8? At that point the world would practically be the New Earth of the sector. In any event it would take real extreme circumstances to change a planet's limit, so it'd be the exception rather than the norm.
Since the colony changes keep coming up, as well as the core planets being too much of a pushover, i just wondered if you think they become more resilient or less with all the changes? ... What about adding or upgrading their defences that aren't linked to colony size (like orbital and ground defences)?
And are you filling up the extra colony slots that open up on various AI planets under the new rules? (and if so did you manually adjust total market values or did they "just" automatically increase a bit?)
Definitely not! Just a few items here and there where they were absolutely needed to make the default economy's ends meet. I'd like to keep as many of the items as possible a fun surprise, not, "oh, it's that thing I already saw on some core colony".
I have literally never taken ships from the pirates. Anything with defects is automatic trash, and you get enough money in the first thirty minutes of a game to finance a small carrier fleet.
Oh yes finally I am more excited for this than for christmass :DThere might be some, Alex tends to update patchnotes once or twice.
Can you drop a hint if there's any substantial changes for colony management in the works? It's probably my fav part of the game
Oh yes finally I am more excited for this than for christmass :D
Can you drop a hint if there's any substantial changes for colony management in the works? It's probably my fav part of the game
Ah, I see what you meant not, sorry I misunderstood! Yeah, they're more or less as-is; the stuff found on the core colonies is for 1) making the Sector economy work out and 2) flavor. It doesn't really need to be "optimized according to the rules" because it's not a symmetric 4x type of situation, you know?
Increased XP gain from fighting more challenging battles; up to 500% more XP gained
Story point uses include (but are not limited to):Speaking of Story points, these additions give the player more ways to spend resources on their fleet to further tune its effectiveness in combat and affect combat XP. However, depending on how the equation works, using these features could increase the "fleet strength" value of your fleet, which could make them less worthwhile. (Although using story points does grant bonus XP anyway, so it might cancel itself out)
- "Piloted ship" skills can be raised to "elite" level, unlocking an additional effect
- Building a limited number of permanent hullmods into ships, making the cost 0 ordnance points
- Officers: Can raise one skill to "elite" level (story point)
Cargo Pods: cheaper to stabilize, stabilization adds 400 days (was: 150)This also supports the idea of removing cargo ships to increase combat efficiency to some extent, as it makes it easier for the player to pick up all of the cargo they couldn't at a later time. (Also generally.. I'm quite happy about the prospect of stabilising cargo pods being less costly and more effective, big fan of this change!)
Sorry, did not read all 28 pages of discussion.Story points are renewable. Do not know how quickly player can earn enough XP to level up beyond max for more story points.
I like all changes except for inability to bribe Hegemony's inspectors without spending story points. Its just pointless. Story points will be limited resource (if i get it correctly), so, it will be way easier to eliminate entire Hegemony than going home every time to retrieve cores till inspection is done.
Also, an idea: Hegemony tells you that they will come with inspection... but dont tell which colony they want to check. For example, inspector secretly picks one planet and has a chance to pick second one if player has big number of worlds (more than 4, i guess...).
First of all, thanks for all your hard work, I can't wait to try the game out!
I know the patch is gonna drop when it's ready and I'm not gonna ask that...however if you could respond to these simple questions i bet it would make lots of people happy :p
-Ignoring that things can be added or changed or take more time than expected, what do you feel right now is your current progress on the patch? (50%, 90% etc)
-Compared to previous patches, do you feel you released these patch notes as early in development as those? or did you wait until you were closer to release?
One thing about the game, i would LOVE to have a way to disable CR degradation for the flagship, sometimes i enjoy taking my time and fighting unwinnable battles by slowly taking the edge, however CR heavily hinders this kind of gameplay and instead i feel forced to play in a way i don't really like. I'm fine with the fleet having it for balance purposes, but it really bums me out when i'm almost about to win an extremely difficult and long fight, just for my CR to run out :( (yes, even with the cr upgrade). What about an upgrade that progressively decrease CR usage for the flagship? so if you choose to go that route, you'd have to actually waste points on it, making your flagship immune to cr degradation at max level, but overall weaker/with a weaker fleet. Or maybe even adding some flux penalty to that upgrade/making it impossible to reach CR degradation immunity on phase ships.
Thanks again for your amazing work
I've thought about the gameplay implications of these notes a bit more, focused around this change
These changes add a new meaning to picking player Combat Skills, in the current 0.9.1a patch they can massively increase your fleet's combat efficiency - especially in the early game/for small fleets where you have very few combat ships - but with 0.95a's changes they further give a boost to XP gain and now by extension, Story Point gain.
QuoteCargo Pods: cheaper to stabilize, stabilization adds 400 days (was: 150)This also supports the idea of removing cargo ships to increase combat efficiency to some extent, as it makes it easier for the player to pick up all of the cargo they couldn't at a later time. (Also generally.. I'm quite happy about the prospect of stabilising cargo pods being less costly and more effective, big fan of this change!)
However, I have a few worries about this change to combat XP, depending on how the equation works for deciding on the strength of a fleet. For example if the number of officers in your fleet strongly affects the "strength" of your fleet for the purposes of combat XP calculation, then it could discourage hiring low level officers. If it scales with the level of the officer, it could discourage the use of officers overall (however, even if the scaling was punishing it would at least give you a choice of more Combat XP vs more pure fleet strength).
However, if the "fleet strength" value does scale with your fleet officers' levels, that also raises the worrying question of "Does your Player Combat Skills Level affect "fleet strength" ? I personally think this would be a mistake as it further discourages players from trying Combat Skills if they think they're bad at piloting ships.
Some more questions, does having more/more expensive weapons equipped on ships increase the player's "fleet strength" value? Does having less dmods increase the value?
Of course, all of this depends on how exactly the equation will work, and what the purpose of the change is. Since I don't know I'm just making assumptions about what it could be. It could scale with your officer levels but only a little bit, so that it's still better to have officers than not (as long as you use them). I guess there's a lot of unknowns here so I began thinking about the (in my opinion) worst case scenarios.
As far as I can tell, the main purpose of the change is either to reward the player for their skill (in piloting/ordering and planning/loading out their fleet),
or to reward the player for their skill and all the resources they put into making their fleet more combat effective.
I guess my question comes down to: Is that the case? And if so, which is it? (Although I can understand if you don't want to share exactly how it'll work; people are bound to take the equation and minmax their gameplay choices around its quirks)
I like all changes except for inability to bribe Hegemony's inspectors without spending story points. Its just pointless. Story points will be limited resource (if i get it correctly), so, it will be way easier to eliminate entire Hegemony than going home every time to retrieve cores till inspection is done.
Also, an idea: Hegemony tells you that they will come with inspection... but dont tell which colony they want to check. For example, inspector secretly picks one planet and has a chance to pick second one if player has big number of worlds (more than 4, i guess...).
Ah yes this reminded me, can we have inspections remember the last choice we picked? For example If I say my colony to retaliate, can it do that next time too, instead of just allowing them to take all cores? Obviously we'd still get the message, I'm just talking about scenarios where you forget about the notification.
Well yeah being the default option would be kinda silly. Didn't know it automatically made you hostile no matter what your relation is, I always thought it was a big flat penalty like -50 or something. But I'm sure this happened to me. Could it be that the first time I resisted them they became hostile but I somehow raised relations through missions and other stuff so the next option defaulted to the peace one? If such a thing can happen then honestly I don't know what makes more sense, seeing how you already made them angry once, then again, a player might try repairing those relations. Ehh you're probably right in the end (even tho the Hegemony deserves no mercy :)) )Ah yes this reminded me, can we have inspections remember the last choice we picked? For example If I say my colony to retaliate, can it do that next time too, instead of just allowing them to take all cores? Obviously we'd still get the message, I'm just talking about scenarios where you forget about the notification.
Tn that theoretical example, it'd do that already, right? Since you'd get auto-hostile for resisting. I don't think that defaulting to the option that makes you auto-hostile (when you're not already hostile) is a good idea.
But I'm sure this happened to me. Could it be that the first time I resisted them they became hostile but I somehow raised relations through missions and other stuff so the next option defaulted to the peace one?
Story points are renewable. Do not know how quickly player can earn enough XP to level up beyond max for more story points.If progression is the same as it is now (just scaled a bit to fit 15 max level cap) it will be very hard to get a lot of extra points.
That'd just make it impossible to prep for, no?Yes. But you can try to guess, or, maybe, just use AIs on some planets (not all of them). Or visit all planets and remove all cores, lol. It gives some options.
If progression is the same as it is now (just scaled a bit to fit 15 max level cap) it will be very hard to get a lot of extra points.Maybe, depending how much fighting against endgame fleets player will do. Leveling a few times past 40 now may not be not too slow, but things slow down quite a bit past 50.
Right, yeah; this is a good thing to think about, vis a vis "does this change encourage weird gameplay patterns". I'd be lying if I said I'd considered every detail (this was, to be honest, kind of an impulsive addition based on a suggestion from, iirc, Gothars), but!
I think overall having more/better officers will always be good - they do reduce the difficulty of the fight, but I think not to the point where it's better not to have them. It'd be pretty much impossible to do anything real meaningful without them. And, while officer level/presence matters here, it matters less than e.g. for deployment points distribution, so it shouldn't discourage putting officers in small ships. Player level - rather than specifically combat skills - factors in here, but, again, it's not an overwhelming factor. Weapons/dmods etc don't factor in; it's based off the base deployment points of a hull and officer levels. Again, though, I don't think it's something where trying to optimize out a dmod or two would make much difference.
(Officers that aren't assigned to a ship still count, since otherwise you'd be encouraged to unassign officers you're not planning to use in the fight... made that change just now, actually, since wasn't thinking about that aspect of it before.)
Overall, the hope is this is something that's worth playing around on the macro level - in terms overall fleet size/composition/engagement choices - but not on a micro level, trying to wring an extra couple of percent out of it.
I like all changes except for inability to bribe Hegemony's inspectors without spending story points.
Any chance that there'll be a way to administrate more colonies without having to resort to AI cores at some relatively quick point? I get that colonizing isn't the intended end goal and all, but it never struck me as sensible that some AI colonies can be administrated by a blank portrait saying "no one of particular note" (or some such) whereas your colonies not only must be administrated by someone, but that (given enough skill points invested) four of them can simultaneously be administrated as well as an Alpha Core - and only an Alpha Core - can administrate one planet, by someone exploring the galaxy on the other end of the sector.
Not that having to, you know, basically retire and sit at your colonies to administrate them would be a very fun mechanic, but it's still bizarre every time I think about it.
it is kind of funny that a artificial super intelligence can be outskilled in governing by a normal human
If I want to use cores, it is most likely to expand my empire, that is use them as admins. I do not want to guess where big H will hit next (at least not without an Intel bug) among dozens of alpha-run worlds. If I need to guess where big H will hit next (and chances of success are low and result of failure is bad stuff happening), I will stop that nonsense by wiping them off the map.For me essential usage of cores is Alpha-boosted spaceports. Other stuff is optional. Also... if max colony size will be 6, maybe i dont need Alphas in spaceports too. I mean: size 6 is pretty achievable without any effort (even if the progression will be scaled so size 6 will demand same time as size 8 demands now... if more - than ok, we still need some growth buffs).
If they make piloting skills impactful enough that the officer bonuses aren't needed for high level challenges, yeah I could see this becoming an issue for design.
About secret inspections: what if we dont know what colony will be checked, but if we have contacts in Heg we can ask them about that?
it is kind of funny that a artificial super intelligence can be outskilled in governing by a normal human
Reality is unrealistic.
it is kind of funny that a artificial super intelligence can be outskilled in governing by a normal human
Reality is unrealistic.
what
depends on the AI. They are "smarter" than humans because they can learn in simulations ultra fast. But you tell an combat trained AI that you plucked from a spaceship and tell it to govern millions of people it might not be so smart then.
An alpha-level AI core is capable of excelling at any task. Assigning one to run a colony-wide industry brings benefits well beyond the capacity of human leadership, and there are even rumors of alpha cores surreptitiously assigned to govern entire worlds.
Any chance that there'll be a way to administrate more colonies without having to resort to AI cores at some relatively quick point? I get that colonizing isn't the intended end goal and all ...
... but it never struck me as sensible that some AI colonies can be administrated by a blank portrait saying "no one of particular note" (or some such) whereas your colonies not only must be administrated by someone
... but that (given enough skill points invested) four of them can simultaneously be administrated as well as an Alpha Core - and only an Alpha Core - can administrate one planet, by someone exploring the galaxy on the other end of the sector.
A good thing about avoiding officers early, if this proves to be the case ...
Any thoughts on maybe toning down pirate raids to coincide with their buff to their minimum base modules and nerf to bounties when it comes to starting a colony in the early game?
I find after a pirate raid, they continously raid even if theyve suceeded several times in a row, it would be nice to either pay them protection or have a longer cooldown between raids. P I struggle to stabilize expending so much resources and time in defending my colony. Especially considering I find I get tied down to it very quickly.
If they don't already, Hegemony should send AI check expeditions even when the player isn't using AI cores as both a heads-up to new players that "hey if you use these those inspections are going to find them"
In fact, I'd say they should function similarly to ejecting illegal goods right before a patrol inspects you:
Removing cores leaves evidence depending on core type for x months (3, or variable 2+2 per core rank?) that Hegemony still picks up on. From my PoV, flying back to remove the cores before an inspection is both unfun and a bit of an exploit (since it seems to me the intent is that you either bribe or fight them if you're going to use cores, and in the next version bribe will function much better since it will be story point cost and thus not just a $ in versus $ out calculation).
Is there any place for us to download the 0.95a in progress version to check it out first hand?
Nope, sorry! It's not in an enjoyably playable state, anyway; you'd be surprised at how late in the dev cycle everything actually comes together to the degree that it makes any sense to have someone outside the dev team play it.
Sorry to keep saying no, but - it's strictly on a "when it's ready" basis :)
I've noticed that enemy fighter LPCs on carriers with the Reserve Deployment ability do not self-destruct as the mothership retreats from the battlefield, leading to some rather annoying time after all enemy ships retreated, like in this case:Spoiler(https://i.imgur.com/pPELVJP.png)[close]
You guys might want to look into that as you nerf Reserve Deplyment (unless you've already fixed it and I did not spot it in the patch notes). I've also had it happen with a Drover using Broadswords and a modder (SafariJohn) confirmed it seems to be originating from Vanilla. It should be fairly easy to reproduce in a real battle scenario.
Imagine exploring distant part of the sector and getting a message about inspection and needing to travel 40ly+ just to ask your contact about where the inspection is going. That would be super annoying.What a surprise. You already need to travel 40ly+ to remove cores if you get a message about inspection. And yes, it is super annoying. So, i dont see big difference.
Arranging holidays in an embrace with the Starsector is priceless.
I've thought about the gameplay implications of these notes a bit more, focused around this changeQuoteIncreased XP gain from fighting more challenging battles; up to 500% more XP gained
more than before you're discouraged from going after easy targets, and encouraged to go after larger targets where you can make full use of all of your combat ships.
These changes definitely encourage players to try maximising the efficiency of a smaller fleet through carefully designed fleet strategy and loadouts in order to fight bigger fleets
Combat vs Logistics by asking Combat-focused fleets the question "Do you want to focus on Combat XP, or do you want more space for Salvage?", which adds extra playstyle options even among Combat focused fleets.
QuoteCargo Pods: cheaper to stabilize, stabilization adds 400 days (was: 150)This also supports the idea of removing cargo ships to increase combat efficiency to some extent
Maximum level is 15
You get 4 story points per level. Or maybe 2. Point being, you get more of them than you get skill points, so they keep things flowing between level-ups. You also keep gaining story points after reaching the maximum level, so there’s progression beyond that.
depends on the AI. They are "smarter" than humans because they can learn in simulations ultra fast. But you tell an combat trained AI that you plucked from a spaceship and tell it to govern millions of people it might not be so smart then.
if that what he meant, it still doesnt make sense
Any chance that there'll be a way to administrate more colonies without having to resort to AI cores at some relatively quick point? I get that colonizing isn't the intended end goal and all ...
I can't really see doing that, no. As you say, that's not an intended goal, so I don't see a reason to develop in that direction only to need to cut it back down at some point. I mean, had to do that with colony size (pretty much knowing initially that size 10 would never stay as the limit), and look how much discussion that caused. Ha!
... but it never struck me as sensible that some AI colonies can be administrated by a blank portrait saying "no one of particular note" (or some such) whereas your colonies not only must be administrated by someone
The "blank portrait" is more or less equivalent to the "no skills admin" you can hire, so at most that's a UI issue :)
... but that (given enough skill points invested) four of them can simultaneously be administrated as well as an Alpha Core - and only an Alpha Core - can administrate one planet, by someone exploring the galaxy on the other end of the sector.
Consider that with an Alpha Core, there's a question of trust. There's the core, giving instructions for the optimal and perfect running of a colony, probably. And there's the human overseers, trying to figure out which of the core's instruction *may*, in roundabout and entirely unexpected ways, lead to Bad Things.
This makes me wonder: If the story points are all given at level up, and you have good reason to either spend them all at once to maximise their efficiency, or to hold on to them until you are in real big trouble - that doesn't really help to "keep things flowing", does it? It still leaves you stranded in the (presumably) long intervals between level ups.From Alex's wording I got the impression that story points are awarded as you earn them (at, say, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of progress towards the next level), not all at once when you level up. They wouldn't "keep things flowing between level-ups", if you earned them only at level-ups, no?
Mh. How about doling out some of the story points at half or quarter level intervals?
The post about stabilizing cargo and the possibility of people going full combat fleet for the exp bonus, and then going back with the haulers to pick up everything in a huge waste of time...An interesting idea, but Alex isn't going to add fleet functionality in this update.
Wouldn't it be possible to have a secondary fleet? maybe heavily limit it to only be able to have max 5-6 ships, only haulers or civilian ships etc (so you can't effectively use it to defend your colony effectively).
This means that you literally make your haulers vulnerable to attacks so they don't hinder your strike fleet, it also means that you actually get to use your haulers to try and escape from fights instead of almost never seeing them, combat haulers would also get taken more into consideration and why not, even strange and fun builds made entirely with combat haulers.
You could have the second fleet in tow at either the same speed or lagging behind, meaning that escaping from an unfavorable fight, means they would target your haulers instead (if they are closeby).
Of course a hauler only fleet would be targeted more heavily by NPCs, reducing its overall effectiveness
(Officers that aren't assigned to a ship still count, since otherwise you'd be encouraged to unassign officers you're not planning to use in the fight... made that change just now, actually, since wasn't thinking about that aspect of it before.)
(Officers that aren't assigned to a ship still count, since otherwise you'd be encouraged to unassign officers you're not planning to use in the fight... made that change just now, actually, since wasn't thinking about that aspect of it before.)
But that makes no sense. Just because you have them the campaign isn't necessarily easier. They should only factor into a battle if they are deployed to a fight.
I've noticed that enemy fighter LPCs on carriers with the Reserve Deployment ability do not self-destruct as the mothership retreats from the battlefield, leading to some rather annoying time after all enemy ships retreated, like in this case:Spoiler(https://i.imgur.com/pPELVJP.png)[close]
You guys might want to look into that as you nerf Reserve Deplyment (unless you've already fixed it and I did not spot it in the patch notes). I've also had it happen with a Drover using Broadswords and a modder (SafariJohn) confirmed it seems to be originating from Vanilla. It should be fairly easy to reproduce in a real battle scenario.
I'm sorry if I missed any reply to this Alex, but have you seen this error with reserve Deployment carriers?
Alex, good day. I really like the Starsector and have been playing it regularly since version 0.65. You have already been asked many times in the comments, but let me clarify the question a little. How many chances are there that the patch will be released before the new year? Arranging holidays in an embrace with the Starsector is priceless.
This, however, has me slightly worried. I hope it doesn't encourage a playstile where you go out hunting with a pure combat fleet to get all those sweet XP, stabilize your cargo, and then later have to come back with a cargo fleet to make a tedious pick up cruise. But I guess in the time that would take you could just fight more targets and get overall more XP that way...
Mh. How about doling out some of the story points at half or quarter level intervals?
From Alex's wording I got the impression that story points are awarded as you earn them (at, say, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of progress towards the next level), not all at once when you level up. They wouldn't "keep things flowing between level-ups", if you earned them only at level-ups, no?
Another point - if lvl. ups are now rare and far apart, how about celebrating them a bit more? A fanfare, some fireworks? At the moment I often miss it completely when I just leveled up.
Yeah, point definitely taken on the discussions it'd cause ::). It is unfortunate that playing colony tycoon basically requires resorting to Alpha Cores, though. No way to colonize like crazy while roleplaying as a Luddite or...Hegemon? Eh, whatever the word for a follower of the Hegemony is.
...
Here's to hoping that idea gets expanded on at some point. Because while on one side it'd be very obnoxious if using admin Alpha Cores (AI cores in general, for that matter) caused some kind of unavoidable and permanent problems, because you have to use them in order to put down more than one medium-sized system worth of self-sufficient colonies, on the other side I'd very much like to eventually out-Tri-Tachyon the Tri-Tachyon in terms of AI core usage and research. And that'd just make the Hegemony and Luddites both look like cranky old codgers overdue for a transfer to the nearest retirement home if that didn't result in something going spectacularly wrong ;).
Ah, got it. Any chance that bug will be fixed in the upcoming patch, than? I mean I get it's not a high priority, but, you know. Attention to the fine details.
I think your worries about optimising experience bonus from strength difference are unwarranted. Currently, it's cheaper to go full combat and not get any officers, but do people do that very often? In the next patch, it will be more risky to use smaller force, but also more rewarding, but I doubt the bonus to experience is going to be significant enough that people are going to change their playstyle. Not to mention that this basic desire (to get more, using less) is already present, yet it doesn't break the game in any way — not to mention that it's to preserve resources like credits, supplies, ships, that you can gain or lose, unlike XP, which can only be gained. And there's no time limit on the players yet to rush for XP.
The post about stabilizing cargo and the possibility of people going full combat fleet for the exp bonus, and then going back with the haulers to pick up everything in a huge waste of time...
Wouldn't it be possible to have a secondary fleet? maybe heavily limit it to only be able to have max 5-6 ships, only haulers or civilian ships etc (so you can't effectively use it to defend your colony effectively).
This means that you literally make your haulers vulnerable to attacks so they don't hinder your strike fleet, it also means that you actually get to use your haulers to try and escape from fights instead of almost never seeing them, combat haulers would also get taken more into consideration and why not, even strange and fun builds made entirely with combat haulers.
You could have the second fleet in tow at either the same speed or lagging behind, meaning that escaping from an unfavorable fight, means they would target your haulers instead (if they are closeby).
Of course a hauler only fleet would be targeted more heavily by NPCs, reducing its overall effectiveness
(Officers that aren't assigned to a ship still count, since otherwise you'd be encouraged to unassign officers you're not planning to use in the fight... made that change just now, actually, since wasn't thinking about that aspect of it before.)
But that makes no sense. Just because you have them the campaign isn't necessarily easier. They should only factor into a battle if they are deployed to a fight.
Its not really about 'sense' though: its about removing a tedious thing that a player would "have" to do to play "correctly". Even though the bonus doesn't represent the ease quite as faithfully/accurately, it makes gameplay better.
Here's an example: I come across a pirate fleet that I know I can easily beat without my officers on their ships. If I get more experience from the fight by removing the officers, that means that I can increase the loot I get (xp/story points) from the fight by doing micromangement for a few seconds before and after the fight. Gameplay wise there isn't anything interesting happening: its just some tedious clicking that a player trying to maximize their rewards would be incentivized towards doing before every easy fight.
There's a few other things in the game that share this design philosophy, like the logistics hullmods only being able to be installed in dock. It doesn't make much "sense" when I think about it: I can recover ships that have literally been blown in half, why is it hard to put surveying equipment on a ship while out exploring? But if I COULD do that, I could get the most rewards by installing the efficiency hullmod for travel, then right before every single explore and salvage swap over to the recovery ones. But that doesn't really add any 'fun' to the game, just added clicking before actually doing something interesting.
Thinking about it, this would incentivize you to expand your fleet as soon as possible so that you're fighting larger enemy fleets with more officers (and thus more XP bonus). I'm not sure that dynamic is good - you're kind of... skewing what counts as "challenging" in a direction that punishes using a smaller fleet, since using a large fleet with more officers would make comparatively weaker enemies count as more challenging. That doesn't seem like something adjusting the XP curve could fix.Er, huh?
So, yeah - the thing about using Alpha Cores to fuel endless colonies is that it's also another point that will undoubtedly cause a robust level of discussion when they're finally reined in. The way it is currently is very much a loose end; you're not "supposed" to colonize more than a couple of planets. Alpha Cores already cause a bit of trouble when used, but the amount of trouble is currently - for various reasons - far below the levels it needs to be. Ultimately, I'd expect using more than a couple cores to run additional colonies to be more trouble than it's worth. Well, depending on one's capacity to handle trouble. Lot of details to figure out here, though.
I always assumed Alpha Cores was basically wishing on the Monkey's Paw. Sure you get what you want, but it will come to bite you eventually. Perhaps I've been tainted by Crusader Kings 3 (which if you go down the Intrigue route, you'd have "wit checks" against other characters) but if a rogue AI kept on making harsher and harsher demands of the player, or else scuttling industries or even the whole colony, their fickle nature would be well-learned. Of course, if some Cores did no such thing, or caused minimal trouble, the player may be willing to roll the dice. In short, it'd be cool if Alpha Cores had personalities like Compliant, Mischievous, and Chaotic.
Maybe dmods should factor into it after all, since that's the main point that makes Pirate fleets so weak for their size.
However that would mean the player can exploit dmods to make their own fleet's strength value lower, so you could make the equation pretend Player ships are all at a non-dmod level.
I think it's reasonable to do it this way, it assumes a kind of "best case scenario" for the player, which means a player can't trick the game into thinking he has a weak fleet when actually the player's ships might for be dmodded but without any combat dmods, or they are combat impacting dmods but the player chose ships that have the least impact for their role, and assumes the pirate fleet's ships have all combat impacting dmods. (Although actually, doesn't fighting dmod riddled fleets give less XP anyway?)
I'm thinking it might be good to play it safe and add some slight inconsistencies to the equation just to make sure the player can't abuse it. Because the player can choose what their own fleet's strength will be, where it's possible to keep rolling for the "perfect dmods", but they can't choose their enemy with the same precision as for their own fleet.
Just to kind of reword what I'm trying to say, you can generalise for enemy fleets, that more dmods make them weaker, but you can't use that same generalisation for players.
Of course this might be overcomplicating/overdesigning this feature and might actually make it too much trouble for what it's worth.
I always assumed Alpha Cores was basically wishing on the Monkey's Paw. Sure you get what you want, but it will come to bite you eventually.
Solid points all around! I think it'll actually work better to count d-mods both for the player and for the enemy, so that it doesn't feel like you're being penalized for using d-modded ships. I think the risk of this being optimized around is very low, since it... basically doesn't matter all that much; XP is not a finite resource and there's always more where that came from. Sort of like not every single credit is being wrung out, at some point, it's "good enough" and there's no reason to bother. So I think it's more a question of how it feels.Most importantly, d-mods are not officers or hullmods that you can just swap at any moment.
Assessing each alpha core in a management position could be worth some quest or two, or other interaction. If you were able to identify a malicious alpha core before it escaped you, it could be fun to sell such trojan horses them to other factions to cause a shortage or a stability hit.
Most importantly, d-mods are not officers or hullmods that you can just swap at any moment.
Alex, since you are limiting the number of colonies players can/should have....
Can you make a system which lets players assign their spare ships and officers to a colony as a static(-ish) defense force?
@Zaizai: I like the way you think :)Please say it will be implemented!
(My point was that if something makes your fleet stronger but doesn't make the XP bonus smaller, then you'd want to add as much of that as possible to maximize it. But whether that actually holds up depends on whether these increases in strength add up in a non-linear way, how the bonus XP calculation works, etc...)Yes, exactly. You want all your (combat) ships to have officers. This is true, and in fact the point of my suggestion: to remove any question about whether or not more officers is a good thing.
Still, a fleet with 5 officers facing 10 pirate ships without and being told it's a challenging fight... hm.Then don't phrase it that way? Could even just not display the value at all, just keep the same "You gain 3,000XP" message after the battle, and add in a tip saying something like "The smaller your fleet is relative to your opponent, the more XP you'll gain from battles."
So if I remember years ago, this list will grow for another year, and then result in another huge release after we have all forgotten about this.
I am actually kind of annoyed. I get there has been work done, but why release patch notes before a patch is released. A patch that likely won't be released for another eight to twelve months?
I get it, Alex is alone by choice, but this doesn't build hype (at least with me), it builds resentment. I am getting sick of waiting for a game I paid for eight years ago.
Sorry I am a downer but I am seriously tired of this. An incomplete game for this long should be consigned to the vaporware dustbin of history.
So if I remember years ago, this list will grow for another year, and then result in another huge release after we have all forgotten about this.
I am actually kind of annoyed. I get there has been work done, but why release patch notes before a patch is released. A patch that likely won't be released for another eight to twelve months?
I get it, Alex is alone by choice, but this doesn't build hype (at least with me), it builds resentment. I am getting sick of waiting for a game I paid for eight years ago.
Sorry I am a downer but I am seriously tired of this. An incomplete game for this long should be consigned to the vaporware dustbin of history.
So consider the current release the full game if you want? It's already got a lot more content and polish than plenty of other games...
As far as I know, Alex posts patch notes before the release to mark progress and to show to others that progress is being made. We also get to shout at him for every obviously wrong decision he makes.
Actually, the purchase page makes it very clear that what you're buying is the current version of the game.So consider the current release the full game if you want? It's already got a lot more content and polish than plenty of other games...
...but that would not only be a lie, but a direct denial of reality.
When you preorder, you’re getting Starsector (formerly “Starfarer”) in its current state – that’s why we’re offering it at a discounted price. As an added bonus, preordering entitles you to all future updates, including the final version.Personally, I've had a lot of fun playing Starsector through the various versions I've been around for, and don't regret the money spent; even in its current release it's already a much better game than some completed games.
Still, a fleet with 5 officers facing 10 pirate ships without and being told it's a challenging fight... hm.Then don't phrase it that way? Could even just not display the value at all, just keep the same "You gain 3,000XP" message after the battle, and add in a tip saying something like "The smaller your fleet is relative to your opponent, the more XP you'll gain from battles."
As has been said, this isn't something that the player is meant to be trying to fine-tune.
Still, a fleet with 5 officers facing 10 pirate ships without and being told it's a challenging fight... hm.Then don't phrase it that way? Could even just not display the value at all, just keep the same "You gain 3,000XP" message after the battle, and add in a tip saying something like "The smaller your fleet is relative to your opponent, the more XP you'll gain from battles."
As has been said, this isn't something that the player is meant to be trying to fine-tune.
Still need to make the player fairly aware of it, though! I'm not really sold on the benefits of not counting officers here; they're so much better than without that I think it's trying to fix something that wouldn't actually be a problem. I mean, what you're saying makes sense, but what's currently in the game I think also works, and I kind of want to just stop messing with it :)
@Zelnik: I'm sorry that the way I'm going about it is causing resentment for you! I don't think I can really do anything differently here, though; it's a pretty sizeable project. All I can do is work on the game in the best way I'm able to, and try to provide (hopefully enjoyable!) versions of the game along the way.
I hear what you're saying! I don't mean to discount it, but it's one of those things where... there's no useful action I can take in response to this information, whether voiced by you or someone else. (Well, no action that wouldn't compromise the final product. I'm assuming you wouldn't I rather tie up a few loose ends real quick and call it 1.0. Besides, I don't want that.)Quick question: have you considered making smaller updates over the course of the year, while you work on the "big bad update"? I'm talking about relatively small things like those already included in these patch notes, like adding a ship here and there, balancing some weapons, adding small stuff etc.
So! I'll just hope that when the next version is released, you (and others of a similar mind) will find it to your liking :)
Quick question: have you considered making smaller updates over the course of the year, while you work on the "big bad update"? I'm talking about relatively small things like those already included in these patch notes, like adding a ship here and there, balancing some weapons, adding small stuff etc.
While not substantial and hype inducing, they could help keeping the playerbase engaged and speaking about the game to their friends/making youtube videos etc etc (which of course, means more sales for you).
I personally have no trouble waiting, however i do find myself picking the game for a bit, and then forgetting about it until i randomly remember months later and check about the update progress. If even 20% of the current patch notes were separated into smaller updates every couple months or something, it could make many people happier and keep the community strong imho.
While not substantial and hype inducing, they could help keeping the playerbase engaged and speaking about the game to their friends/making youtube videos etc etc (which of course, means more sales for you).Personally, I find the modding and Tournaments already do a good job of adding 'small updates' to my experience of the game and keeping the community strong.
If even 20% of the current patch notes were separated into smaller updates every couple months or something, it could make many people happier and keep the community strong imho.
How can I be exited for something that hasn't manifested in eight years?Thermonuclear take time:
Plus some changes could be mod-breaking etc.
Thermonuclear take time:
Getting excited (or worse, "hyped") over the game to come in the distant future (hypothetical complete Starsector) instead of the game we already have (Starsector 0.9.1) or the not-yet-out game with visible progress on it (Starsector 0.95a as indicated by the blog posts and patch notes) contributes to the incentives that get you something like Anthem. Or Star Citizen.
More generally: For the purposes of what's beneficial for the customer, excitement is not in itself good (nor bad) and building it should not be a goal.
I see the major relevant risks of the long development cycle as:
- Alex gets tired of the project and drops out
... #1 doesn't look like it either (sure hope not!), but I can't tell from the outside.
Of course, the most direct way to speed up the dev cycle – crunching – is going to be directly counterproductive for #1. Hiring a new dev with Sseth money imposes significant onboarding costs at this late stage, although this could be mitigated if the person was already familiar with the game's innards.
(Alex: Have you ever contemplated contracting one of the major modders here to help you and/or David with development? I can list a few names (not including me though, I'd turn down any offer that was made) who I think would be available and good at it. There's another notable space indie game out now (AI War II) where circumstances led to the dev relying heavily on two volunteers-turned-contractors to get the current release out, so I was wondering if this model might be worth considering elsewhere.)
One thing that would be kind of awesome for these large updates, is if you could somehow get the mod relevant data on the patch change to the modders ahead of time, so they can be working on updating their mods to the new patch when it releases, rather than fans of their mods having to wait for x# of days after the new patch before their mods are updating. (Probably not realistic/feasible I admit, but a gal can dream! 8) )
How well would this work?
Spend story point to do a convoy raid. ...