Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: Juan-Dela_Cruz on May 02, 2022, 09:44:37 AM
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What's the particular reason as to why the Diktat just gets a direct nerf?
Imagine joining a faction and doing missions for them to get their cool unique ships and they are just... Worse? A built-in but full price situational hullmod, and a horrible D-mod.
I get it fits the lore but it can't just be 'this is the faction for bad stupid people'.
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I'll point out, the Lion's Guard is not the Sindarian Diktat faction, it is a sub-faction without any markets or commission. So the Sindarian Diktat itself is not getting a nerf. It's been stated by Alex the only ship used by the Lion's Guard you'll be able to buy with a Sindarian Diktat commission is the Executor, which is actually used by the standard Diktat forces, since it's their capital as well. Given there's no direct equivalent to the Executor because of the mod slots (and maybe ship system - that is unclear to me), it is a hard call declare it's balance, since it is a different ship from everything else in the game. As for the built in Solar Shielding on it, there are plenty of ships with built in hull mods that their OP allotment likely takes into account but are highly situational. Odyssey has High Resolution Sensors, for example.
The d-mod on the capital can be restored, but is admittedly a financial consideration (or a skill tree consideration) not needed when purchasing pristine ships from other commissions. On the other hand, you can't get that particular capital from other commissions, since it is a single faction ship.
The Sindarian Diktat itself will provide you with Eagles, Falcons, Hammerheads, and so on just as good as the Persean League provides. They just don't come with the purple paint job. Pretty sure you won't see Lion's Guard inspections, so the only time you'll interact with them is around Sindaria.
As for "horrible" D-mod, if the effects are minor as Alex implies, like 5% effects, it might be one of the best d-mods for Derelict Contingent, assuming you're going down that route. We'll have to see the final numbers. Although, as far as I understand it, the only way to get Lion's Guard only ships is to salvage them, which means they'll likely come with other d-mods that you'll want to restore anyways in more typical play throughs.
Overall, the Lion's Guard exists to fulfill a story function as opposed to a game balance or new combat option mechanic. The update isn't saying these are necessarily stupid people (they are likely bad in the sense of morality), but it is representing a cult of personality dictatorship. Doesn't matter if the people are fundamentally dumb or not, it is quite possible for the closest people to the dictator to evolve into yes-men or dead-men, which is exactly the point the Lion's Guard is making. It's a bunch of yes-men military flunkies which are closest to the Supreme Executor, while the rest of the military carries on competently.
Also, Alex has implied he's likely going to change the built-in at full price Solar Shielding, so that may not be an issue in the fully released version.
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I'm a bit disappointed that the Sindrian Diktat didn't get its own unique flavor ship, just altered versions of other ships. I get what Alex is going for, a stereotypical "tinpot dictatorship" faction. But I feel like he's laying it on a bit too thick with the "megalomaniac dictator surrounded by dumb sycophants" theme.
How could the Diktat even survive as a faction if everyone sucks up to a deluded egotist who makes everything worse through excessive micro-management? If Supreme Executor Andrada is as bumbling and overconfident as he sounds in the latest blog post then what is the glue holding the Diktat together?
Perhaps there could be some kind of hidden power behind the throne, craftily manipulating Andrada while allowing him to think he's calling all the shots? Or maybe an inner circle of supporters who are loyal to Andrada and his vision, but are also bright enough to realize he has a few screws loose and know how to reign in his megalomania just enough to keep him from ruining the Diktat without offending his ego?
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EDIT: I just skimmed through the section for the Sindrian Diktat in the latest blog post and remembered a very particular point I considered a discrepancy at first: Philip Andrada is a former Hegemony Admiral. That is how he came to power in the Askonia system in the first place. The Hegemony sent him there to conquer it, and he did, but then he defected and founded the Diktat. The Hegemony's psych profile on Andrada describes him as intelligent and charismatic, but also an egotist.
And yet it goes on to say that he doesn't know how to fit his own ships! He fits short range weapons on big fat battleships with low speed and maneuverability, which makes them unlikely to bring those weapons to bear in a fight. An experienced admiral ought to know better. How did this guy make it so far up the ranks if he doesn't know the basics of how to fit his own ships!? I get that he's an egotist and injects himself into fields of expertise that he's unfamiliar with, but as a successful fleet officer shouldn't he at least know the basics of ship classes and weaponry?
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How could the Diktat even survive as a faction if everyone sucks up to a deluded egotist who makes everything worse through excessive micro-management? If Supreme Executor Andrada is as bumbling and overconfident as he sounds in the latest blog post then what is the glue holding the Diktat together?
Institutional inertia backed by the biggest fuel reserves with unity enforced by scaremongering over the external enemy along with said external enemy's unwillingness to actually invade because of high potential cost of life and resources.
EDIT: I just skimmed through the section for the Sindrian Diktat in the latest blog post and remembered a very particular point I considered a discrepancy at first: Philip Andrada is a former Hegemony Admiral. That is how he came to power in the Askonia system in the first place. The Hegemony sent him there to conquer it, and he did, but then he defected and founded the Diktat. The Hegemony's psych profile on Andrada describes him as intelligent and charismatic, but also an egotist.
And yet it goes on to say that he doesn't know how to fit his own ships! He fits short range weapons on big fat battleships with low speed and maneuverability, which makes them unlikely to bring those weapons to bear in a fight. An experienced admiral ought to know better. How did this guy make it so far up the ranks if he doesn't know the basics of how to fit his own ships!? I get that he's an egotist and injects himself into fields of expertise that he's unfamiliar with, but as a successful fleet officer shouldn't he at least know the basics of ship classes and weaponry?
My occasional dabbling with the shipgirl fandoms (Kantai Collection and Azur Lane) led me in contact with various people all too willing to explain the meanings and background reasons for shipgirl designs and general naval history, and the main takeaways I got that are relevant to the current topic:
1) The higher the rank, the more political it gets, with the side-effect of the political skills almost overshadowing the actual military side and requirements.
2) Admiral =/= Expert on the technical specs and/or how to use stuff effectively.
And in the places like Diktat of course it gets worse.
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I don't mind the hullmod being negative because it's something the player can rectify if for whatever reason you want to fly Sindrian colours.
Solar Shielding however I think should either be optional (part of Sindrian ship design but not built-in) or should really have some discount given the Sindrians invented the tech. I wouldn't mind if it got nerfed back to not affecting shields (that never made sense to me anyway) or only affecting beam damage, to me the hullmod is as flavour as the "special modifications" hullmod is as far as combat is concerned.
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Solar Shielding is part of the anti-Ordos kit. -20% damage is great, and there had better be a good reason not to use it when fighting Ordos.
And Ordos farming is what matters most at the end of the game, due to loot, maximum story point gain, and stress-testing ship loadouts or fleet configurations (because Ordos is significantly stronger than every other recurring enemy in the game).
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And I think that was a step backwards. IMO Solar Shielding should be more about the logistics side of things rather than the combat side, I think buffing it from -10% beam damage to armor/hull (which was weak but nice flavour-wise) to a blanket -20% energy damage to shields/armor/hull, was a mistake.
If Alex thinks giving LG skins free or discounted Solar Shielding is too much of a "buff", then I'd rather Solar Shielding's combat capability be nerfed back to what it was so it's... appropriately "flavourful" that having it for free/discounted isn't a big deal.
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Do people even use weaker ship variants (like pirate ones), unless they aren't really all that weaker (pirate Afflictor)? Acquiring better variants of essentially the same ship is just another step of fleet optimisation, and people will avoid using worse ships, unless there are compelling reasons to use them, like the lack of availability of anything better or some requirements to run better ships. Lion's Guard versions don't really appear appealing to me.
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The one and only reason to use weaker variants (base/pirate Enforcer vs XIV Enforcer, etc) is their market availability. In the early game the player might not have enough opportunities to fill all spots with rare variants and temporarily uses more common ones with the intention the eventually replace them.
This doesn't apply to LG at all, because they are both much harder to obtain than normal midline hulls, and are inferior to them in the long run (even after the restoration, they are objectively worse due to being less flexible).
I honestly don't know why Alex is so adamant on this idea. :( Pirate and luddic ships also represent "questionable" modifications, but implemented in a way that's not useless to the player.
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The Lion's guard ships have the "special modifications" d-mod for the sake of world building. It's supposed to represent Andrada's overreach in all matters. While he may be a crafty politician and strategist, his ego prevents him from realizing that he has no expertise in star ship design itself. The "special modifications" are random changes Andrada felt his ships needed, despite the fact they all make the ship worse.
Personally, I don't like the decision. However I understand why Alex made the Lions Guard this way. I think the gameplay should take precedent over the lore or background. I think it's truly a shame that these excellent looking ships will be relegated to uselessness due to there inherent inferiority to the bog standard. It just doesn't feel good. Perhaps the Lions guard ships should be side grades that reflect Andrada's doctrine or propensity for energy weapons.
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Pirate and luddic ships also represent "questionable" modifications, but implemented in a way that's not useless to the player.
Lion's Guard ships should have at least somewhat different mounts so that they aren't just strictly worse variants of their base versions. More hybrid or energy mounts maybe.
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I think the narrative justification is... passable. It can be understood why these ships have detriments (if you think pretty hard about it, not sure how much in-game evidence will explain further)
The problem I have is the 'feels-bad' factor of the cool designs being strictly worse - it just makes them hard to use. Not sure exactly on the interactions with D-mod skills, but this is something that to me feels like it shouldn't be counted as a typical D-mod. Those are generally damage/non functioning subsystems that will never be optimal, so you only have to worry about them being 'good enough'
Luddic Path ships are usually a bad idea due to their specific 'customizations' - but they can serve specific purposes and fit into a small niche with some creative builds and a bit of work. Some are better than others of course.
Comparatively it would eliminate some 'feels-bad' for the hot new LG skins if they were broadly a downgrade, but with a narrow upside that could possibly be exploited if circumstances are just right and some creative outfitting is used.
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The Lion's guard ships have the "special modifications" d-mod for the sake of world building. It's supposed to represent Andrada's overreach in all matters. While he may be a crafty politician and strategist, his ego prevents him from realizing that he has no expertise in star ship design itself. The "special modifications" are random changes Andrada felt his ships needed, despite the fact they all make the ship worse.
Personally, I don't like the decision. However I understand why Alex made the Lions Guard this way. I think the gameplay should take precedent over the lore or background. I think it's truly a shame that these excellent looking ships will be relegated to uselessness due to there inherent inferiority to the bog standard. It just doesn't feel good. Perhaps the Lions guard ships should be side grades that reflect Andrada's doctrine or propensity for energy weapons.
Couldn't agree more. I just think he wanted to spice up the game with unusual pros and cons it's just this one happens to be bad as it prioritizes lore over gameplay.
Pirate and luddic ships also represent "questionable" modifications, but implemented in a way that's not useless to the player.
Lion's Guard ships should have at least somewhat different mounts so that they aren't just strictly worse variants of their base versions. More hybrid or energy mounts maybe.
Yup agreed. So far they are just dull downgrades.
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Repetitively explaining to a nine-to-one negative audience reaction why said reaction is wrong, and when they find that unconvincing, to just EXPLAIN HARDER, has never gotten anyone anywhere.
The narrative explanation is "passable" in the sense that he clearly believes what he's saying. Regardless of the lack of verisimilitude or accuracy with respect to any number of historical or recent examples. Autocratic regimes may have good militaries or bad militaries, but you will never find an example of an autocratic regime where the elite forces are worse equipped and less competent than the regular grunts. Because the first priority of autocracies is security, including security against internal coups d'etats, and that means force, and that means the elites that are most directly loyal to the leader have to be more capable (and better rewarded) than anybody else in the autocracy. No amount of charismatic self-delusion can make up for that, and any autocracy that tries such a path doesn't last long at all.
It's absolutely remarkable that he is so dead set on doing something so clumsy and wrong.
It's not even that the "charismatic leader with little military knowledge" is a bad model. It's a perfectly accurate model. It just can not possibly be remotely applicable to the circumstances as set up here; it doesn't work. A charismatic leader with less military talent than he believes would not been able to get into that situation in the first place; having gotten into it, his regime would not have the visible characteristics that Sindria has.
All of that before getting into the overall characterization of the man and the government, and why Clownshoes Fascist is suddenly imposed as the Only True Interpretation. I'd always seen it as a Space Napoleon situation - competent military man put into an impossible situation by his superiors' bureaucratic maneuvers says "to hell with this", cuts the Gordian knot, and finds himself riding a tiger of subsequent events. You could take that any direction, entirely depending on player inclination. But apparently shades of gray aren't allowed.
"Should be vanilla" is something that gets said about any number of mods, but I can guarantee you, any mod that fixes this will be installed before I do anything with this update. (Won't fix any narrative clownshoes-ing of course. But that's secondary; the narrative is new once, the gameplay is what keeps me coming back.)
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I think the tone of the post might've been a bit too on the nose. It reads like smug propaganda rather than a cold blooded technical assessment of how tinpot petro-dictatorships typically roll. The Hegemony has a slight tendency to huff its own farts in the name of solidarity and reclaiming the Domain's legacy - but they're a massive military bureaucracy first and foremost, there's no shortage of stone faced analysts seriously examining enemy weaponry with no trace of factional bias.
That said the conclusions are hilariously on point. Pretty paint for the parades! Shiny weapons for firing range demonstrations! Surprisingly little actual bottom-up initiative, despite the leader's founding myth and personal history, because military coups are cyclic and the Hegemony's spies and saboteurs are everywhere. Everywhere.
overall characterization of the man and the government, and why Clownshoes Fascist is suddenly imposed as the Only True Interpretation. I'd always seen it as a Space Napoleon situation - competent military man put into an impossible situation by his superiors' bureaucratic maneuvers says "to hell with this", cuts the Gordian knot, and finds himself riding a tiger of subsequent events. You could take that any direction, entirely depending on player inclination. But apparently shades of gray aren't allowed.
If the Great Man theory of history appeals to you, you need to internalize that dictatorships are successful despite the rot. The rot is unavoidable.
Yes the secret weapons program is Tri-Tach dumping their bad ideas to spite the Hegemony. Yes the upper ranks are full of yes men while the middle ranks are watched closely for undue foreign influence. ("What? Refit our cruisers for SO assault to exploit our secret weapon's kinetic E-slot advantage? Have you been reading the drivel out of Pather pamphlets?!")
None of that matters. Sindria is an ideal and a myth and it's holding strong with Andrada's white knuckle grip on the controls.
Even noticing the clouds on the horizon, even thinking about succession and long-term stability, that puts you in danger. True adherents focus on the upsides and don't fret about potential downsides. They have faith in the people's will to follow their leader's glorious vision.
If you see shades of gray you've already lost sight of that glorious vision and I pity you.
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It's absolutely remarkable that he is so dead set on doing something so clumsy and wrong.
This might sound a bit sadistic so please try not to misunderstand what I'm trying to say here. It's very entertaining seeing Alex react in this position because I honestly can't remember if anything like this ever happened in my 7-8 years of following the game. Usually everything is taken pretty well, feedback is majorly positive, with a few concerns here and there, and at worst he's gotten mixed feedback (the new skills system blog posts came to mind). But never have I seen something (even minor as this) completely disliked by the community. Even most "positive" posts just seem like they're accepting it purely because of Alex's stance on others. And yeah the "no you don't understand, it makes sense if you really really think about it" responses felt weird. I honestly don't get why is it so important to leave everything as it was shown in the blog.
The part that bothers me the most is the actual explanation of Special Modifications. Look I seriously don't mind something being *** in a game, but being *** for the sake of being *** because "I said so" is so random. We have a game here that's trying to have realistic relations and backgrounds, yet take a look at this cartoon man with his cartoon faction in a grim future world. It feels suuuper off. You're telling me that changing something about the ships, with the intent to make a certain part better, would have a result of making numerous things straight up worse, and not a single upside? Where does that happen lmao? No matter how stupidly you modify something, it's going to have at least ONE positive thing after the change. Unless of course your engineers are drooling babies and they just beat up ships with hammers. The excuse for it being "not really a d-mod" d-mod is also lame because d-mods at least make your ship cheaper, you know some benefit. Special modifications truly lives up to its "special" name. In all blog posts I've read that was the dumbest part my eyes have come across.
But leave everything as it is, deploy the patch once it's ready, and if the final community reaction after actually playing is still the same, then I expect some change. Otherwise there's no point in commenting blog posts.
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ya'll just mad Hegemony was right
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The narrative explanation is "passable" in the sense that he clearly believes what he's saying. Regardless of the lack of verisimilitude or accuracy with respect to any number of historical or recent examples. Autocratic regimes may have good militaries or bad militaries, but you will never find an example of an autocratic regime where the elite forces are worse equipped and less competent than the regular grunts. Because the first priority of autocracies is security, including security against internal coups d'etats, and that means force, and that means the elites that are most directly loyal to the leader have to be more capable (and better rewarded) than anybody else in the autocracy. No amount of charismatic self-delusion can make up for that, and any autocracy that tries such a path doesn't last long at all.
Well, first remember that the Lion's Guard isn't poorly equipped. Andrada's oversight may be detrimental, but they still get the finest hulls the Diktat can produce, and the penalty from Special Modifications is stated to be minimal - certainly less impactful than an actual D-Mod you might find on a ship of the regular fleet. On a similar vein, the hollowness of their 'elite' standing is based on information that the player knows but is not available in the setting of the game. We know the Guard aren't an effective fighting force because we get to look behind the curtain and the creator of the game told us so, but until they bluster their way into a real war and get their noses pushed in the average Sindrian probably doesn't have any reason to question their reputation. This means the reputation itself can enable them to do their work by discouraging any potential threats to Andrada's power, even if the Guard might not be up to the task if they were actually challenged. It's similar to how Sparta was able to create tremendous leverage from their reputation as an elite military force when their actual track record was profoundly average.
I'd imagine that officers of the regular fleet probably also don't get commands with the kind of prominence that would lend themselves to being launching points for coups.
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Well, first remember that the Lion's Guard isn't poorly equipped. Andrada's oversight may be detrimental, but they still get the finest hulls the Diktat can produce, and the penalty from Special Modifications is stated to be minimal
If you read the blog post carefully you'll see that literally any ship not called Executor has standard weapons, on a worse than usual hull... I'd hardly call that "finest". And if the argument for Special modifications is going to be that they're so small, I don't see why it couldn't also have a small upside, weird double standards. Don't even call it like that anymore since it doesn't portray its effects well. What do you think the player's reaction is going to be upon looking up the effects of "Special modifications". They're not called horrible, nonsensical, absurd or silly modifications, they're special, insinuating it at least does something.
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We have a game here that's trying to have realistic relations and backgrounds, yet take a look at this cartoon man with his cartoon faction in a grim future world.
Starsector isn't very realistic and I don't think it really tries to be. I think construing it as a "realistic" world (whatever that means) comes from occasional token gestures at actual science and physics that are mostly there for flavor; the "science" part of the science fiction here is mostly the soft, social kind examining the ways different corners of our society might react to something like AI. At the end of the day Rule of Cool and gameplay concerns (generally) trump logic in (almost) all circumstances.
Except, of course, this one. I can understand why some don't like how it goes against that mold but I mostly like it, ironically, for its take on Wunderwaffen. Video games, even ones specifically about the Second World War and the Nazis, have a tendency to inflate and fetishize fascist technological prowess based on their recurring fascination with nonsensical blue-sky engineering projects. I like how it takes the *** out of that. Governments built on fear, personality and yesmanship aren't better at Getting *** Done because they cut through all the red tape *** plaguing "Democracies." They're just not very good at much except enriching their elites and, occasionally, genocide.
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Starsector takes inspiration from Alastair Reynolds who takes a pretty cynical and dark take on hard sci-fi. Wunderwaffen have amazing long-term impact but always have trouble with logistics and integration into conventional forces in the short-term. The cool thing about Starsector is it focuses on both - yeah the Diktat pretty boys are mostly there for show. Buuut get some of their superweapons into the hands of people who know what they're doing (us, the players!) and amazing things are going to happen. Alternatively, get the right admiral in command of some Lions Guard ships and the D-mod is actually a net win...
Grievous69, the purpose of "special modifications" that come with a spiffy paintjob is cohesion and pride. Morale, in other words. In some warmaking metagames where the dominant strategy is to make the enemy rout before your side does (anything predating modern artillery) or ideally before your side gets into bayonet range bright pretty colors and useless but intimidating flash were all the rage.
There's plenty of examples where brightly dressed elite troops had their bluff called. The result consists of their shell-shocked opponents wandering through the wreckage, looting dead bodies, poking and prodding the best equipment the enemy had, and going "huh, so it was all just for looks all along?" It's always has been.
Unless of course your engineers are drooling babies and they just beat up ships with hammers.
Trick to understanding the modern bureaucratic workforce is that junior employees think engineers are wizards who can do no wrong. Mid-level employees think engineers are drooling babies beating stuff up with hammers. Senior employees agree, but try to get stuff done anyway.
It's pretty amazing to see an Alastair-tier blackpill on brightly colored pretty boys roll through the community. Generated some strong responses. ;D
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literally any ship not called Executor has standard weapons, on a worse than usual hull...
While I guess it makes sense to limit secret weapons like that, I still think it's weird on just how limited Alex intends to make them. If they were just Lion's Guard exclusives, then sure. If they were just Executor exclusives so they could appear in the regular military too, sure. But to have them be exclusive to Lion's Guard Executors only while NEVER appearing on the black market (and IIRC military markets even with a commission?), well, that just feels a bit much.
Seems like all of that content will just be completely irrelevant and hidden unless you specifically go to fight the Lion's Guard for them. You can even get limited XIV ships that need lost Domain-era manufacturing or whatever with a commission and high enough rep, so it just feels excessive.
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It's a kinetic energy slot. It's a heavy blaster kinetic energy slot. I'll climb down into hell and fight satan himself for it.
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Cope harder while the gameplay suffers, surely it's going to be worth it.
@Big Bee
Exactly my point, the whole faction exists so the player may loot 2 exclusive weapon specifically from a minor force from a minor faction and ONLY if you find an Executor there. Then pray to RNG to see what weapons you get. That sounds horrible, something you'd find in a MMO or some mobile game. Reduced a faction to a grind fest. If you can honestly defend that from a gameplay perspective then virtually anything goes from that point on.
It's a kinetic energy slot. It's a heavy blaster kinetic energy slot. I'll climb down into hell and fight satan himself for it.
Weapon that crucial should be a part of the base set of weapons, then maybe an elite niche version should be a reward for fighting them. But it seems it's not going to be that good, which I'm very glad for. Gating a must have weapon on some high tech ships in such a way seems so bad from a gameplay standpoint.
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Nah, energy not having damage types is what keeps ballistics good. This is an awesome way to tie combat mechanics into lore.
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What I think a big reason for the negative reaction is how they're phrased, and how that relates to the rest of the world.
Starsector is a universe where pirates and Pathers are capable of turning civilian crafts into terrifying weapons of war with benefits that well outweigh their negatives despite having no possibility to enforce central quality standards, yet a dictatorship with leagues more resources, with an experienced engineer corp that has generally been shown as competent militarily, cannot implement what comes across as basically a request for reinforced bulkheads.
I understand that the description is clearly supposed to be written from the perspective of a Diktat officer, and thus downplays Andrada's engineering incompetence, but given his role, his general competency in that role up to this point, and the surprisingly competent pirate and terrorist engineers in the universe, it does not make the sense for something ultimately so small and easily done for everyone else to backfire this spectacularly.
I could get this if the changes were ultimately hurried as to not displease the Great Leader in Space and designed in such a way to aesthetically please him and his ego rather than actually serve their function, but this does not come across in the text at all. Nor is it easy to do so while still writing from the same perspective.
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Game needs smart characters to be believable. Dictators with inefficient personal guard wont survive for long and out of character so to speak. And if other factions would be changes similarly to some cliche my game immersion will be ruined forever.
If Andrada supposed to be evil dictator he must be efficient no matter the cost in lives/anything because true evil is perfect efficiency without morals.
If this is a dictator clown show then how the polity survived for so long without Andrada being assasinated? Persian league is not a charity to propel some regime for nothing.
This change just ruins the immersion for me. You cant survive in star sector by being dumb but i guess this is a start.
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The praetorian guard, and 99% of all monarchs, might disagree with that sentiment.
You can be incompetent as hell and still be in charge from the actions of competent underlings.
Gameplay wise it might not be too fun to have a debuff on a ship for no reason, lore wise it makes more sense then everyone being the best of the best.
If you think dictators survive by being the best of the best, then I have a bridge to sell you.
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If you read the blog post carefully you'll see that literally any ship not called Executor has standard weapons, on a worse than usual hull... I'd hardly call that "finest". And if the argument for Special modifications is going to be that they're so small, I don't see why it couldn't also have a small upside, weird double standards. Don't even call it like that anymore since it doesn't portray its effects well. What do you think the player's reaction is going to be upon looking up the effects of "Special modifications". They're not called horrible, nonsensical, absurd or silly modifications, they're special, insinuating it at least does something.
The Lion's Guard as a whole get access to the Diktat's weapons program, not just the Executor. Executors in LG fleets merely get a double-helping of their weapons program.
Also according to one of Alex's tweets, Lion's Guard fleets have a quality bonus, meaning fewer d-mods than regular Diktat patrols (not including the Special Modifications d-mod).
Speaking of, the "Special" in "Special Modifications" is more tongue-in-cheek than literal. You'd be able to tell at once glance, especially considering the description.
If it had a bonus, it wouldn't be consistent with any of the other d-mods in the game, or you wouldn't be able to remove it.
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it does not make the sense for something ultimately so small and easily done for everyone else to backfire this spectacularly
I could get this if the changes were ultimately hurried as to not displease the Great Leader in Space and designed in such a way to aesthetically please him and his ego rather than actually serve their function, but this does not come across in the text at all.
It absolutely does though.
Andrada fancies himself as the infallible strongman who can succeed at any task and do no wrong. Ever.
He might have been an effective leader in the past, but he's spent too long getting high off his own supply, with a ton of 'yes people' enabling him.
Dear Leader's special 'assistance' being completely detrimental, with the true believers cheering it hoping for a chance to get thier tongues dirty, and the rank-and-file quietly hoping to never be assigned to the 'special' ships that will absolutely kill them if they ever see action is 100% on point.
tl;dr
Andrada thinks the changes improve the ships. And no-one is going to question him, because to do so would be... Unhealthy.
Criticising/Contradicting a dictator is not known for leading to a long and trouble-free life.
There's a whole heaping pile of leaders just from the 20th century alone to model this kind of behaviour from.
Andrada is a common(ish) Argentinian name, if you need a starting point.
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The Lion's Guard as a whole get access to the Diktat's weapons program, not just the Executor.
Where are you reading that? Alex clearly stated that the unique weapons are only reserved for the Executor. And when I suggested that the other ships could use a Kinetic blaster here and there to make it more unique he said he'll think about it.
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All the grumbling on the Sindrian Diktat, when it's ultimately a minor thing can be traced back to how the community hyped up the Lion's Guard and Andrada himself based on a few bits of lore and fluff we have about the faction.
This leads to extrapolation of what the SD is and isn't, not helped by mods introducing LG ship skins.
tl;dr - headcanon isn't canon
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I think the tone of the post might've been a bit too on the nose. It reads like smug propaganda rather than a cold blooded technical assessment of how tinpot petro-dictatorships typically roll. The Hegemony has a slight tendency to huff its own farts in the name of solidarity and reclaiming the Domain's legacy - but they're a massive military bureaucracy first and foremost, there's no shortage of stone faced analysts seriously examining enemy weaponry with no trace of factional bias.
That said the conclusions are hilariously on point. Pretty paint for the parades! Shiny weapons for firing range demonstrations! Surprisingly little actual bottom-up initiative, despite the leader's founding myth and personal history, because military coups are cyclic and the Hegemony's spies and saboteurs are everywhere. Everywhere.
overall characterization of the man and the government, and why Clownshoes Fascist is suddenly imposed as the Only True Interpretation. I'd always seen it as a Space Napoleon situation - competent military man put into an impossible situation by his superiors' bureaucratic maneuvers says "to hell with this", cuts the Gordian knot, and finds himself riding a tiger of subsequent events. You could take that any direction, entirely depending on player inclination. But apparently shades of gray aren't allowed.
If the Great Man theory of history appeals to you, you need to internalize that dictatorships are successful despite the rot. The rot is unavoidable.
Yes the secret weapons program is Tri-Tach dumping their bad ideas to spite the Hegemony. Yes the upper ranks are full of yes men while the middle ranks are watched closely for undue foreign influence. ("What? Refit our cruisers for SO assault to exploit our secret weapon's kinetic E-slot advantage? Have you been reading the drivel out of Pather pamphlets?!")
None of that matters. Sindria is an ideal and a myth and it's holding strong with Andrada's white knuckle grip on the controls.
Even noticing the clouds on the horizon, even thinking about succession and long-term stability, that puts you in danger. True adherents focus on the upsides and don't fret about potential downsides. They have faith in the people's will to follow their leader's glorious vision.
If you see shades of gray you've already lost sight of that glorious vision and I pity you.
You are still prioritizing lore over the gameplay and so far you failed to explain why elite forces are worse than regular ones. The dictators delusion is just a weak explanation, just relentlessly pushing for it wont make people believe it.
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They aren't elite forces, they are parade forces who dress up and play pretend like elite forces.
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I want to emphasize very strongly that "elite military force of autocratic state that is selected primarily for loyalty to the government and believes their own hype but falls apart as soon as someone tries to use them for actual warfare" is not a fictional concept that Alex just came up with.
Sindria is basically the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, right down to the reason people put up with their ***.
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I want to emphasize very strongly that "elite military force of autocratic state that is selected primarily for loyalty to the government and believes their own hype but falls apart as soon as someone tries to use them for actual warfare" is not a fictional concept that Alex just came up with.
And that's completely fine! The issue is mostly the implementation, that their rare, reskinned ships have no benefit over their base hulls whatsoever to make up for their downsides. Even the Pirates and Pathers can make ship variants that have some benefit and reason to use over their base versions, so it's odd that LG ships don't even get some different mounts that would make the ships have some use as a sidegrade. They don't have to be upgrades, they can even be slightly weaker by default, just don't make them direct downgrades without even any neutral non-cosmetic differences.
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And that's completely fine! The issue is mostly the implementation, that their rare, reskinned ships have no benefit over their base hulls whatsoever to make up for their downsides.
They aren't elite forces, they are parade forces who dress up and play pretend like elite forces.
I think it might be better if rather than "Special modifications" it was something like "Parade Armouring"
So it's modifications that make the ship look nice and shiny for a parade but don't actually have any real practical combat bonus, maybe even the shiny outer cladding layer is weaker than the standard less pretty cladding, and could even interfere with flux dissipation.
But it looks nice and shiny, so there's no way the Elite Lions Guard ships are going to say no to using it.
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You are still prioritizing lore over the gameplay and so far you failed to explain why elite forces are worse than regular ones. The dictators delusion is just a weak explanation, just relentlessly pushing for it wont make people believe it.
I was kind of hoping that describing the general pattern would help you recognize it in conflicts you're familiar with. It is, after all, common as dirt.
Like dirt, more common in some places than others. Without referencing currently occurring events look at the performance of any Soviet-trained middle eastern tank crews, the Afghani use of captured AKS-74Us as status symbols, Armenian air defenses being paraded vs being droned... Or, if it feels like I'm showing bias: liquidation of AA special forces, Afghani use of captured optics as a status symbol, actual combat performance of expensive Patriot batteries (and Israel's furious efforts to first upgrade and improve their firmware, then straight up replace them with more reliable domestic production...)
An elite recon unit packing their parade uniforms then getting cut off and captured is a thing. Their captors looking at their fancy rare suppressed weapons and going "huh, these would be real handy while doing guerilla stuff on our home turf" is very much a thing. Admittedly so is refusing to accept reality and maintaining your headcannon, which, tbh, is how it should be.
Edit: first thing I'm doing when patch lands is getting into a phase frigate then baiting and whittling down isolated Sindrian patrols until they drop kinetic heavy blasters. The resulting SO Plasma Cannon Sunder flagship is going to conquer the sector.
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You are still prioritizing lore over the gameplay and so far you failed to explain why elite forces are worse than regular ones. The dictators delusion is just a weak explanation, just relentlessly pushing for it wont make people believe it.
I was kind of hoping that describing the general pattern would help you recognize it in conflicts you're familiar with. It is, after all, common as dirt.
Like dirt, more common in some places than others. Without referencing currently occurring events look at the performance of any Soviet-trained middle eastern tank crews, the Afghani use of captured AKS-74Us as status symbols, Armenian air defenses being paraded vs being droned... Or, if it feels like I'm showing bias: liquidation of AA special forces, Afghani use of captured optics as a status symbol, actual combat performance of expensive Patriot batteries (and Israel's furious efforts to first upgrade and improve their firmware, then straight up replace them with more reliable domestic production...)
An elite recon unit packing their parade uniforms then getting cut off and captured is a thing. Their captors looking at their fancy rare suppressed weapons and going "huh, these would be real handy while doing guerilla stuff on our home turf" is very much a thing. Admittedly so is refusing to accept reality and maintaining your headcannon, which, tbh, is how it should be.
Edit: first thing I'm doing when patch lands is getting into a phase frigate then baiting and whittling down isolated Sindrian patrols until they drop kinetic heavy blasters. The resulting SO Plasma Cannon Sunder flagship is going to conquer the sector.
All I'm saying it can be opposite considering the fact the other factions in the game are not democratic at all they should have suffer from these as well by this logic. I get that this is your headcannon, it's just many people on the forum is not feeling it that way. And it's not good for the gameplay, which should be prioritized not the lore. In fact even if we don't deviate from the current lore for some reason, which I think it's okay to retcon at this stage, I would suggest special modifications should with interesting, powerful but unreliable shipsystems that change for every Lions Guard ship. It would be more fitting for this story, it looks great on paper but the results are just bad. Currently it doesn't even look great on paper and so far Sindrian Diktat looks boring and uniquified in a very wrong way.
I think the tone of the post might've been a bit too on the nose. It reads like smug propaganda rather than a cold blooded technical assessment of how tinpot petro-dictatorships typically roll. The Hegemony has a slight tendency to huff its own farts in the name of solidarity and reclaiming the Domain's legacy - but they're a massive military bureaucracy first and foremost, there's no shortage of stone faced analysts seriously examining enemy weaponry with no trace of factional bias.
That said the conclusions are hilariously on point. Pretty paint for the parades! Shiny weapons for firing range demonstrations! Surprisingly little actual bottom-up initiative, despite the leader's founding myth and personal history, because military coups are cyclic and the Hegemony's spies and saboteurs are everywhere. Everywhere.
overall characterization of the man and the government, and why Clownshoes Fascist is suddenly imposed as the Only True Interpretation. I'd always seen it as a Space Napoleon situation - competent military man put into an impossible situation by his superiors' bureaucratic maneuvers says "to hell with this", cuts the Gordian knot, and finds himself riding a tiger of subsequent events. You could take that any direction, entirely depending on player inclination. But apparently shades of gray aren't allowed.
If the Great Man theory of history appeals to you, you need to internalize that dictatorships are successful despite the rot. The rot is unavoidable.
Yes the secret weapons program is Tri-Tach dumping their bad ideas to spite the Hegemony. Yes the upper ranks are full of yes men while the middle ranks are watched closely for undue foreign influence. ("What? Refit our cruisers for SO assault to exploit our secret weapon's kinetic E-slot advantage? Have you been reading the drivel out of Pather pamphlets?!")
None of that matters. Sindria is an ideal and a myth and it's holding strong with Andrada's white knuckle grip on the controls.
Even noticing the clouds on the horizon, even thinking about succession and long-term stability, that puts you in danger. True adherents focus on the upsides and don't fret about potential downsides. They have faith in the people's will to follow their leader's glorious vision.
If you see shades of gray you've already lost sight of that glorious vision and I pity you.
It could be bureaucratized dictatorship and be competent like Napoleons and the long term rot is not really relevant. It's not a long lasting strategy game where we need to see inevitable rot and it's a weak argument imo since everything in the end rots, so it's not really relevant.
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It's not a democracy thing. There's no democratic militaries. It's definitely a shame that the rare pretty midline ships are straight downgrades unless you're fighting nothing but remnants in coronas.
It'd be cool if the Lion was a Napoleon or Alexander the Great character but the Diktat's been holed up in one system since its formation. One of the pirate Warlords is a better fit for that role. Maybe he can be a John Boyd type: brilliant and revolutionary in his niche, big ego and fanatical adherents, not as much of a generalist as they think they are.
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Others have already covered the lore connections to RL (here and the blogpost thread) better than I could, so I'll just say that having minor upsides for Special Modifications* and/or the built-in Solar Shielding would make the pill easier to swallow for players. I'm thinking something like a 5% hull integrity bonus, and a 25-50% OP discount compared to modular version, respectively.
Pretty sure it's been mentioned in some way before, but LP ships being best by far in their niche post-restoration, while the LG ships remain worse than baseline, is... awkward.
*it might look strange for an officially-a-dmod to have an upside, but ironically SpecMods is the only D-mod right now that doesn't have the upside of lower supplies-to-recover cost
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Where are you reading that? Alex clearly stated that the unique weapons are only reserved for the Executor. And when I suggested that the other ships could use a Kinetic blaster here and there to make it more unique he said he'll think about it.
Straight from the blog post:
Both the normal military and the Lion’s Guard get access to the Executor; the Lion’s Guard however are the only ones lucky enough to also have full access to the fruits of the weapons program. Their elite Executor variant is loaded for bear – with a pair of Gigacannons, and a quartet of Kinetic Blasters.
This at least gives me the idea that weapons program would be available to the Lion's Guard as a whole, just with an emphasis on the Executor as it's main "beneficiary".
You are still prioritizing lore over the gameplay and so far you failed to explain why elite forces are worse than regular ones. The dictators delusion is just a weak explanation, just relentlessly pushing for it wont make people believe it.
The problem is, there's nothing strictly wrong with it. Gameplay-wise, Lion's Guard ships act and function like slightly weaker vessels, as intended. No one complains that the Colossus Mk.III's fighter bays are hideously kneecapped. You're treating LG ships this they're a 14th Battlegroup equivalent, which it's clearly not intended to be. You don't need to have a reason to use every ship in the game.
You're expecting an "elite" force to have the best equipment and receive special attention. The Lion's Guard receive both, in the form of the Diktat weapons program, Lion's Guard specific modifications, and slightly improved ship quality over regular Diktat patrols (fewer d-mods on average, as per Alex's tweet (https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/1521527394099736576?cxt=HHwWgMC5ldDGxp0qAAAA)). These are the "best" because they both came at the request of Supreme Executor Andrada. However, it subverts your expectations and does some storytelling, since the Lion's Guard ships in fact are worse off than usual due to the machinations of a deeply flawed governing body.
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Honestly, this argument is silly. Weather or not you support this design decision boils down almost entirely to weather or not you liked the orange cartoon fascists or the purple cartoon fascists for whatever reason. This is for the most part, emotional. Does it really matter that Lions gaurd ships have a small debuf? Not really. But people, (myself included) lose their crap over it because it feels like a betrayal of the Diktats previous characterization.
I’ve found mostly, the people whom support the change were the people who already didn’t like diktat for whatever personal reason.
The discussion has been so focused on this because the entire Sindrian part of the blogpost was about the Lion’s guard; And we had already seen twitter posts about the Pegasus and DEMs. In the way of remnants, we got a few paragraphs and a gif, not much to go on.
Ultimately, most players don’t like this decision because it undeniably has a underwhelming or negative impact on gameplay. Starsector historically speaking at the very least, wasn’t a story driven game, and still isn’t for the most part; And while the world building, lore, and storytelling are exquisite, they are still secondary to the actual gameplay. A vast majority people play starsector for the experience of playing starsector, therefore the gameplay takes precedence. When people see the new, very cool, ship variants they want it to have an interesting impact on gameplay. D-skins are not interesting in the slightest.
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In addition to the elite loadout for the Executor, the Lion’s Guard also gets access to equally-elite versions of all of the regulars’ midline ships. They have a similar “stark” look and sport the Diktat’s colors. All of these “benefit” from the built-in “Special Modifications” hullmod, as well as built-in-at-cost Solar Shielding. Unlike the Executor, these don’t get access to the special weapons.
Truly remarkable how some are so adamant at defending their points and trying to explain mumbo jumbo for Alex yet lack the ability to read. Imagine discussing a blog post with people who barely read it, but no let's just keep mentioning real life example, that'll teach them.
The problem is, there's nothing strictly wrong with it.
There's everything wrong with it, they're literally worse than any other skin in the game. Pirate hulls are either different due to mounts, ship system, cost, etc. LP skins get built-in SO. These are the *** terrorists and the outperform a faction military by a wide margin. Again, I don't have issues with ships not made to be something extra, for all I care make them worse. But make them actually unique and interesting, not "basically x without any other differences but less yz stats and less OP". How can people still argue that this isn't bad for gameplay is beyond me. Do you really wish ill on the game just so you can say you were defending Alex's points back in the day?
@Antelope Syrup
Good post just as I was writing mine. People enjoy this game because it's fun to play, not because "look haha they make dictator guy silly bad man".
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I will also say I don’t like how the two new Diktat weapons impact gameplay. The only way to obtain them is by farming LG fleets. As many others have stated this boils the Diktat down into “Guys you have to kill for the funny gun”. This is boring. Alex’s counterpoint was essentially “No, because if you want the weapons you have to risk your reputation with the diktat”. The problem being, nobody cares!
Sindrian fuel isn’t that lucrative, lobster isn’t either. There is nothing to gain from a diktat commission than possibly a worse version of another factions capital. People usually only take commissions because of role play reasons, and there’s little left in the way of appeal regarding the Diktat anymore.
@Grievous69 thank you :)
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Askonia is the heart of the sector. It's well placed for a Duzahk colony, especially a refining + orbital works one on Drujh. Knock out Nachiketa and fuel gets lucrative. The military markets have solid ships. There's a chance of even higher upsides if interesting planets spawn in Askonia or Duzahk, or you're playing with Nexerelin and can invade and hold Umbra with a barebones force.
10/10 commission.
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Truly remarkable how some are so adamant at defending their points and trying to explain mumbo jumbo for Alex yet lack the ability to read. Imagine discussing a blog post with people who barely read it, but no let's just keep mentioning real life example, that'll teach them.
/reading, my bad.
The aggression really wasn't warranted, though.
There's everything wrong with it, they're literally worse than any other skin in the game. Pirate hulls are either different due to mounts, ship system, cost, etc. LP skins get built-in SO. These are the *** terrorists and the outperform a faction military by a wide margin. Again, I don't have issues with ships not made to be something extra, for all I care make them worse. But make them actually unique and interesting, not "basically x without any other differences but less yz stats and less OP". How can people still argue that this isn't bad for gameplay is beyond me. Do you really wish ill on the game just so you can say you were defending Alex's points back in the day?
Pirates hulls are, on the whole, worse off in combat than their regular variants (barring a few unique ones like the pirate Falcon, while others may have minor campaign layer effects at no cost). Some also have fewer ordnance points. Case in point, the Wolf (P) - has a straight-up worse version of the Phase Skimmer, loses 2 weapon mounts, and has fewer ordnance points. No redeeming qualities whatsoever over the regular Wolf.
You bring up Pather ships. Those also come with Ill-Advised Modifications, and LG ships get Special Modifications (both can be restored out as well). However, Safety Overrides locks the ship into a very specific role, and allows no deviation at all what with the severe range restriction and -66% PPT debuff - you can massively outrange SO ships and beat them off before they even come into range. Compared to the LG ships, this is a massive railroading of the ship's combat role rather than an (honestly minor) reduction in the flexibility of the ship with at-cost Solar Shielding, which has precisely no downsides as a hullmod.
In any case, I still see no real problems with it. Like I said before, not every ship needs to be used by the player. Some ships' purpose in life is to be killed by the player - these belong to that category.
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The blog post also makes it sound like the elite weapons are for LG patrols only - but more likely it's using the existing game system of commissioned reputation gating access to elite equipment on the Military market.
Sign commission, run a few missions, get a few contacts and bam - you're the Lion's Guard now! Time to load up on cheap fuel and go hunt Remnant fleets with your flashy purple assault ships that do heavy kinetic damage from energy mounts.
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The blog post also makes it sound like the elite weapons are for LG patrols only - but more likely it's using the existing game system of commissioned reputation gating access to elite equipment on the Military market.
Just a quibble, but I've used the same method (spawning unique fleets via a structure at the market) twice now, and unless the method for spawning in Lion's Guard fleets has changed, it explicitly doesn't place those weapons in any of the local submarkets. The faction file containing them is used only to inflate the fleets, and then the fleet is transferred over to the base faction via script. So the script would have to change for those weapons to become available to the player just because of the fleets spawning from the Lion's Guard HQ structure.
The submarkets populate with weapons and ships using the base faction's file only. The relevant code is in the submarket implementations in com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.submarkets, you can take a look for yourself.
(personally, I like forcing the player to acquire certain gear only through combat and other non-market interactions, but everybody has their own preference for this stuff.)
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My man explained himself why are the other skins interesting but somehow got to the wrong conclusion. Also the pirate Wolf costs 4 DP instead of 5 DP... If you don't like snarky posts then please look up the information you're arguing on a forum.
And the final thing that keeps getting brought up is an amusing argument that "not ever ship needs to be used by the player". I simply ask why, what do you get from having obviously bad/trap choices in a game? Let's say you have a whole class of weapons in an RPG that suck and you're only challenging yourself by using them. Why spent development time and effort, making something that will only get used once until the player realizes that "well this is trash" and then never look at it again. If the answer is "worldbuilding" or "for the lulz" I give up on this discussion.
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If you don't like snarky posts then please look up the information you're arguing on a forum.
Yes, a completely gimped frigate costing 4 DP instead of 5 DP totally makes it interesting and worthwhile. Semantics won't save your side of the argument. Not an excuse for aggression either.
Also, in case you aren't really able to judge balance, the Lion's Guard ships, once restored, is no longer worse off than other ships of the same type. Yes, Solar Shielding is built-in at cost, but it has no downsides. It is merely less flexible. If you had a restored Lion's Guard Falcon and a regular Falcon, both with the same loadout, both would perform identically.
If the answer is "worldbuilding" or "for the lulz" I give up on this discussion.
What I find funny is that this is exactly what Alex wanted (https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/1520486033820987392?cxt=HHwWgMC9vb3_7JkqAAAA). And I think it's fine too. It builds up the story of the game, though you've already made it clear you don't value that very much. With that mindset, you should be absolutely shocked and appalled to know what the Princess of Persia quest contains.
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There are so many games with basic and common gear that simply never get used that I could mention.
Ultimately the normal Sindrian Fleet I feel should be a focus for either having little to no penalty as they aren't a parade force and actually have to routinely fight the local pirates and other invaders. If anyone is going to revert those special modifications it's them "whoops sorry, pirates hit us hard, blew those flux safety panels right off! we will fixed it as soon as we return to port..... and 2 cycles time...."
Otherwise you end up with parade ships like the guard have with 'dictator approved' upgrades and the necessary solar shielding, which should probably come for free. The guard do get their fancy new doomsday weapons, but on ships that can;t effectively use them, with officers who have seen as much battle as I have, with stats that aren't exactly great outside of being on some super specific min-maxed build anyway.
Ultimately I think one of the main things that has caused people to spit their dummy out is that 99% of the rest of the coming changes are too good. Two new capitals for the luddites, a new one for the league, and now the Sindrians are getting a copy of that one with a fluffy penalty slapped on top.
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@The Soldier
Look man I love Alex as much as the next guy, you can find me orgasming with excitement on literally any other blog post, but let's not put him on a pedestal as an ascended being who's perfect. He can make bad calls, wrong decisions, not everything he decides to develop for the game is good. If the vast majority of the community doesn't like something, why should we be okay with it, purely because it keeps being explained like it's some sort of hypnotic act?
The other examples you've given are completely different from this discussion. You can't compare a sub faction in Starsector (when there's <10 factions total) to a single item in Skyrim that has thousands of items. If every LG ship was somehow unique (not just a bit worse), and then that uniqueness made 1 or 2 of their ships obviously inferior to the base variants, I'd be 100% fine with that. If you want to draw a parallel to Skyrim, imagine one weapon class, say two-handed swords. Now imagine there comes a new set of weapons, looking different and being called differently, only to find they're the exact same two-handed swords that just deal less damage compared to the originals, without any other benefit or perk of any kind. Tell me that's good game design.
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There are so many games with basic and common gear that simply never get used that I could mention.
Yes, and that gear has a role of being progression gear. Meaning you use in when you start out, eventually finding better things and ditching the now obsolete gear.
But LG ships aren't given to you when you start out, you have to go out there, fight them, and then recover their ships. How bad would it feel to kill a mini boss in a game, only to see it dropped tutorial gear.
EDIT: Accidentally double posted instead of editing the above post :/
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It's supposed to be worse, so it's good game design. ;D
Also way to put words in my mouth as being some deranged fanatic just because I disagree with you, thanks.
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My bad, the response was directed at another post, I forgot to @
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If you want to draw a parallel to Skyrim, imagine one weapon class, say two-handed swords. Now imagine there comes a new set of weapons, looking different and being called differently, only to find they're the exact same two-handed swords that just deal less damage compared to the originals, without any other benefit or perk of any kind. Tell me that's good game design.
I think there's a chance for a meaningful discussion here and an opportunity for you to understand game design. It's not that the LG ships "deal less damage", they do something else. Take the sword analogy - your regular Eagle-shaped sword might deal 100 physical damage per swing. But, the Lion's Guard version of the sword has a rune which converts 20% of it's damage to fire damage - so, 80 physical and 20 fire. Some enemies might be resistant to fire damage (say, low-tech enemies), others might be more vulnerable to it (say, high tech enemies). The only difference between the regular sword and the Lion's Guard version is you can remove the fire damage conversion rune on the regular one, and it's permanent on the Lion's Guard one, eating up one of your rune slots but otherwise functioning normally. Less flexible, but perfectly usable once you polish off that pesky Special Modifications-shaped rust.
That, is perfectly fine.
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Ayyy finally an analogy we both agree on. It's just the matter of me not liking the idea of adding such inflexible samey ships to a faction while you don't mind it.
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At first I was kinda.. meh on the changes, but now that I've had time to stew on them, I think they're not too bad, there's a logic to a dictator of 30 years or so becoming increasingly detached from reality.
With that said, I feel like it creates an interesting opportunity for player agency in terms of more narrative quests. Sindria in general is a narrative goldmine and could be a great setting for a series of side-quests involving the player getting involved with the balance of power in the region.
For example; if the player becomes close enough to the Diktat, and has a commission, perhaps they get the chance to get involved in some special assignments. These assignments will send you into the darker corners of the Diktat, you'll see how far you're willing to go, and if you prove yourself to be hollow enough, gain an honorary admission into the Lion's guard.
Alternatively, you might find that the seedy underbelly of Sindria is too much to bear and throw your lot in with the rebels, pushing the player into direct conflict with the guard and offering an opportunity to share some of the Diktat's special toys with the pirates and anarchists in the system (and watching the resulting chaos of putting these things into the wild where pirates can play their games)
In general I'd love to see more interactions that have wider gameplay consequences through branching story narratives, especially if they can be properly gelled in with existing mechanics (like feeding blueprints to pirates)
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I'm gonna err on the side of "Alex knows what he's doing" in regards to the LG skins. Less because "dictators are bad" moralizing, and more since it points toward having to do with additional story content. Like it LG are meant to be mid tier enemies for the story, doesn't that kind of run against making them an elite group (with all the officer skills, elite skins, and s-mods that would entail).
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It's not a democracy thing. There's no democratic militaries. It's definitely a shame that the rare pretty midline ships are straight downgrades unless you're fighting nothing but remnants in coronas.
It'd be cool if the Lion was a Napoleon or Alexander the Great character but the Diktat's been holed up in one system since its formation. One of the pirate Warlords is a better fit for that role. Maybe he can be a John Boyd type: brilliant and revolutionary in his niche, big ego and fanatical adherents, not as much of a generalist as they think they are.
If you read my rest of the post I made suggestion to implement the lore with more interest way, erratic ship systems can easily give them a unique identity, fits the Alex's insisted lore and more interesting gameplay options :)
My man explained himself why are the other skins interesting but somehow got to the wrong conclusion. Also the pirate Wolf costs 4 DP instead of 5 DP... If you don't like snarky posts then please look up the information you're arguing on a forum.
And the final thing that keeps getting brought up is an amusing argument that "not ever ship needs to be used by the player". I simply ask why, what do you get from having obviously bad/trap choices in a game? Let's say you have a whole class of weapons in an RPG that suck and you're only challenging yourself by using them. Why spent development time and effort, making something that will only get used once until the player realizes that "well this is trash" and then never look at it again. If the answer is "worldbuilding" or "for the lulz" I give up on this discussion.
Completely agree with this.
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The blog post also makes it sound like the elite weapons are for LG patrols only - but more likely it's using the existing game system of commissioned reputation gating access to elite equipment on the Military market.
Sign commission, run a few missions, get a few contacts and bam - you're the Lion's Guard now! Time to load up on cheap fuel and go hunt Remnant fleets with your flashy purple assault ships that do heavy kinetic damage from energy mounts.
In the blogpost and in the discussion thread Alex have confirmed that they can only be obtained by killing their executors
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If you read my rest of the post I made suggestion to implement the lore with more interest way
Been thinking about this. If the Lion's Guard is meant to represent the fist of the dictator, I'd bet that makes non-LG officers a bit nervous. They might behave a bit differently in the presence of officers commanding LG ships, trying to guess how to please the officer, or at least avoid their gaze. They might even behave randomly 1 or 2 levels more cautiously or more aggressively than normal, at random, when LG ships with officers are present in the fleet.
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If you read my rest of the post I made suggestion to implement the lore with more interest way
Been thinking about this. If the Lion's Guard is meant to represent the fist of the dictator, I'd bet that makes non-LG officers a bit nervous. They might behave a bit differently in the presence of officers commanding LG ships, trying to guess how to please the officer, or at least avoid their gaze. They might even behave randomly 1 or 2 levels more cautiously or more aggressively than normal, at random, when LG ships with officers are present in the fleet.
That's definitely a stretch. The change wouldn't be that noticeable to the player, because the LG becomes both more aggressive and cautious at the same time, the average stays the same. To begin with, this thread was originally about the developer making gamepley changes based on lore justifications.
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I get the 'dictator bad at ship design' schtik and I think having it represented in hullmods is a good impementation, dictator says more armor -> more armor but with some negatives as well, it shouldn't be all negative, Andrada is supposed to be a competent commander so he should know what is good for a ship to have even if its impementation causes more problems than benefits.
The main issue I have is that the 'elite of the elite' lions guard are the only ones with the special hullmod and they're not any better than their default counter part. Just the fact that they have more resourses behind them should result in some better performance, I don't buy that mr dictator micromanaged every last detail making any extra resources in their construction mute.
Tbh I'd like to see a 'sindrian overhaul' given to all ships in sindria, representing imposed changes by andrada giving some bonus and negatives and for the lions guard to have a "lions guard" built-in hullmod with better stats due to more resources and/or the more skilled crew in addition to the 'sindrian overhaul' and more energy mounts than practical since andrada really wants to play high tech.
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The reason why only the Lion's gaurd have the hullmod is because they are given the most of the Supreme executors "attention". They do have the most resources of the sindiran fleet, as shown by the fact they have zero D mods other than spec. modifications. Again, this is still a bad way to demonstrate Andrada's overreach in the military. As many others have suggested the LG ships should have alternate mounts or systems to diversify gameplay instead of creating a group of basically useless ships.