Tagged "seriously does anyone use these I'd like to know"?
Yes, rarely. If I'm in the mood for more in-depth bloggy stuff after reading through a post, I might check out related stuff. Though I do also just find posts manually then.
So they're like a little QoL thing that, if it didn't exist, I wouldn't notice being absent.
Glad officers are finally becoming a reality but sad that they're just randomly generated mini-me clones of your character. IS there even an intention to add unique NPCs that are somehow part of a story?
I meant that could you set it so that a variant uses the aggressive AI changes in an AI fleet.
Yes and no. You couldn't do it through the variant, but you could set a captain with the right personality for the fleet member - it'd have to be done during fleet creation.
Note: SS+ already does this for AI fleets. AI personalities have been in the game to a limited degree since the ship AI existed.
I think that the UI for moving Officers around is pretty important. We probably need to be able to sort them by level, name and perhaps by bonus-to-stuff. It's one of those things that will pay off later, I suspect.
Players are rapidly going to want to customize their fleets with Officers as buffs... but more importantly, when Industry is a thing, well, we're going to be wanting to shuffle a lot of leaders around to help out in civilian areas, too :)
On Fighters, my suggestion is that... well, this may be slightly heretical, but... why not have them be the Ace of the Wing, and make them immortal in the battle until the Wing is gone, respawning after being shot down? One Fighter would get the buffs, under the hood. I'd double the buffs vs. anything else, too, so that it matters.
Looks fun. Several enemy ships having unpredictable level 10 abilities will be a nice challenge.
What happens if we use the change command option? I'm guessing the officer abilities have to disappear, otherwise its an easy exploit to just train up combat officers, go full tech yourself, and then swap to their ships in the middle of combat.
Erm, this is player-only for the moment. Nothing's preventing the AI from using this, but it just isn't right now. Yay, content stuff.
I'd still like an option to set that for ships without a captain assigned, though. Maybe it could be less reliable in this case, but I think it's a choice so elementary that it should be available for every ship in the fleet.
That's a little disappointing, considering that player levels by themselves are already making player fleets much stronger than AI fleets by default. Now we'll also have officers in out disposal. Seems a little unbalanced, don't you think?
Don't worry, SS+ will probably give AI officers in no time.
Is it possible to not command a ship at all? Have an officer in charge of your flagship and just order ships around? You could always buy a super cheap ship to command from (and not deploy it), but again that doesn't make a ton of sense (you could also make your flagship a freighter, but again, doesn't make a lot of sense.)
One attribute that people might like on officers is how much they follow orders. Currently, as people note, the AI tends to get distracted if attacked. An attribute that went 'this ship will head straight for the objective, only turning to fire/raise shields' to 'this ship is flying and then... SQUIRREL!'
Don't worry, SS+ will probably give AI officers in no time.
Fairly sure it already has!
Right now, I like the idea of restricting this to officers - it both makes them more special and eliminates the micro-management that would result from doing this to every ship.
If a Vigilance with a Graviton Beam and a Pilum is rushing in to get itself killed, btw, it's either 1) an AI bug, 2) an issue with the orders it's been given, or 3) an issue with the situation it's been deployed into (e.g. outnumbered by faster enemies). I've had that precise loadout in a number of campaign games and it's been one of the most reliably survivable frigates for me. I'd love to know the exact situation you're running into. If you're able, a video of it happening would just be the bees knees.
Yeah, I've been trying to isolate it. The best I have so far is that a Grav beam + Pilum Vigilance sent out against two Lashers in simulator will occasionally allow one of them to get within 4-500 range, despite being faster than either of them and having no need to be closer than ~900. It doesn't happen that often, but in a real battle, it only takes one mistake to get something as fragile as a Vigilance killed. If I figure out something specific, I'll definitely post a bug report.
It's perfectly possible that I just expect too much of it, but either way being able to give a Vigilance a "cautious" personality should help in that.
Can we execute incompetent officers pour encourager les autres?
(I'm kidding, but it would be funny for a bit, especially if it did benefit the player in some way)
1) Could we (sometime in the future) capture enemy officers after battles, to recruit ourselves or for ransom?
2) Would it be desirable to have an option to tweak the officer personalities up or down one level? Obviously a Timid officer isn't going to become Aggressive just because you order him to, but if say, we have a ship that works best when shooting at range and only one Stable officer handy, we could tell her to be more cautious in combat.
3) Will the skills available to an office be correlated with their personality?
4) What happens when we switch flagships mid-battle to a ship that already has an officer?
Hmm - do you have Augmented Engines on that Vigilance? Because otherwise, one of those two Lashers is significantly faster, because it does.
And there was much rejoicing and waving of tiny flags.
An avoid order and less distractable ships? Sweet! I've been resorting to simply pulling everyone back when the lvl 10 enemy Onslaught makes its appearance.I think it would make sense for the aggressive AI to be easily distracted by things on the way to less 'aggressive' tasks, such as capturing a point. Why capture the point when there's a frigate to chase?
It might be neat if the officers "called in" their status sometimes (engaging enemy, taking heavy fire, needs help). Might just clutter up the screen though.
I would not like the aggressive AI to also be more distractible. If anything, I imagine an extremely aggressive officer charging headlong at their target, damn the consequences (and getting blown up by the Onslaught in the way :P).
Also added an "Avoid" order.
Quick question: the skills these officers can get. Are they combat only, or do they draw from a specific list? In particular, can they get the Gunnery Implants skill?I did see a Gunnery Implants skill, level 4 here:
I was thinking of all fighters getting the buffs Smiley Combat skills aren't all personal, anyway, and can conceptually represent abilities in leading/instructing crew.It'd have a lot more flavor if it was one ship in the Wing.
I'd love it if you could give officers, as a group, more potential to distinguish themselves and be more than ship booster packs. I like the idea to associate personality with certain skills. I also think that more varied personalities would help here, they don't even have to be advantageous. Or is it important to keep the number of traits low for some reason?
How about a paranoid officer who likes to shoot empty space, a choleric one who doesn't stop shooting at disabled ships, or a prideful one who doesn't back away from superior forces? They could get big related skill bonuses to keep them attractive (and more interesting) choices. You could implement that as independent (rare?) personality traits or as sub-traits to the main ones (aggressive-prideful, aggressive-paranoid etc.).
Yay, I wanted that for ages :) Is it placed on specific enemies or on allied ships?
Quick question: the skills these officers can get. Are they combat only, or do they draw from a specific list? In particular, can they get the Gunnery Implants skill?
Ah, about recruitment: do you have plans to combine it with mission contact reputations? I.e. recruit a contact only after you impressed him/her?
Special paint-job, make the buffs pretty hardcore and "ooh, look out, that one's got an Ace pilot" rather than, "I wonder how buffed every one of those Talons is" :) Just a thought; it would certainly humanize that :)
In the short term, to give a little more flair/functionality to the personality types perhaps some flat bonuses based on personality?
Timid: bonus to shield dissipation
Cautious: bonus to weapon range
Aggressive: Bonus to speed
The small bonuses would help the traits be used more effectively on the battlefield.
In the short term, to give a little more flair/functionality to the personality types perhaps some flat bonuses based on personality?
Timid: bonus to shield dissipation
Cautious: bonus to weapon range
Aggressive: Bonus to speed
The small bonuses would help the traits be used more effectively on the battlefield.
Hmm. I think that seems a bit redundant; there are already skills for all these things. If I were to go in that direction, I think it'd be cleaner to have officers with certain personalities favor certain skills more (i.e. more likely to roll the for level-up).
If it's just the one buffed Talon, I'm pretty sure no amount of Ace-ness is going to help it vs a single Tactical Laser :)Well, perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe it's the only Talon that managed to close. If the bonuses are good enough (heck, if they had a ramp that could be adjusted per Wing def) maybe it's a really exceptional Talon; maybe it's a Talon with a shield, or a Talon with twice the strafe, or 3X the armor or whatever.
They could get big related skill bonuses to keep them attractive (and more interesting) choices.
That sounds really neat - basically, extra skills that only officers get. I've been mulling over something like that for (eventual, potential) staff officers; my main concern there is that it's yet more extra content, where there's already quite a lot of it still to add.
I also wonder if the player wouldn't wonder why *they* can't get those; might feel like "OP bonus to prop up AI" even when not intended as such.
I do use the tags, quite often as it's a good way to find related topics without resorting to google search. When I read a new article I like to read similar ones that may have been written earlier. Articles are rad.
I.e. in this article I used them to try to find an older article you wrote about captain personalities: http://fractalsoftworks.com/2011/08/03/captain-personalities-fleet-control-update/
Unfortunately it didn't work, as like you said consistency stuff. But in theory it would work!
So are there any real downsides to officers yet? Or should I immediately place one in every one of my ship as fast as possible?
It would be neat to see a MAJOR downside to officers, such as splitting all "loot" with your officers (exp, credits, after battle scrap, ect). That way there is a little bit of "is it worth it?" before spamming every ship with officers. I'd rather there not just be a simple "pay me X credits every week", because those become meaningless so quickly in games.
Oh, another idea!
I assume any hull mod bonuses associated with a skill would not apply to officers (like FMR/ECCM for Missile Specialization). How about enabling officers to apply specific hull mods to the ship they command, as a form of skill bonus? Could even be worth it as part of the normal upgrade path, unrelated to behavior compensation. A timid officers might have a chance to enable the Reinforced Bulkheads or Extended Shields hullmod.
Would be a great way to put hullmods that are far from the player character's skill path on single, specialized ships. Or, for new players, try the effect of a hullmod with an officer before dedicating the character to a upgrade path direction.
SpoilerHi Alex, long time lurker here, firstly thanks for the update, I guess you are starting to 'flesh' things out for Starfarer now since as you said, most of the basic mechanics are getting done.
I would like to add 2 suggestions:
1. Would it possible to change the names and portraits of officers you recruit (even the future planned staff ones)
2. Or for a higher credit cost (whatever needed to recruit basic officers) you can create 'Custom' Officers, with the same rules as the normal ones but you get to pick their initial skill, psychology (the mentioned timid etc ), in addition to their portraits and names.
The reason for the above suggestions is to add abit of flavour for the player to use if they wish, to the game. I sometimes play in a strange way, so in games where you can customise whatever you play for example X-Com or the more recent Pillars of eternity, you can add your RL friends names to them.
It does being abit of tension and laughs (for example when your sniper named after a friend 1 shots a Muton on full health, only to be taken out by a sectoid who got a crit hit).
I think they won't take much extra coding (I hope) but adding the option to customise these officers would be a appreciated touch.
Thanks[close]
If officers demand too much payment, I will fight as before, either alone or with nameless disposable heroes, and leave officers alone to rot.
I like the idea of shared combat reward with your officers. I can definitively see something like 5% of the loot's money and goods getting claimed by each officers. Same for the bounties. Having 10 officers would mean getting only 50% of the money and force the player to balance their number, unless he really want to go after high level bounties. On the other hand, maybe a captained ship could cost less to deploy, as the officers should participate in the expenses too.
Maybe we can imagine two types of contracts: the monthly salary, or the loot share... And rookies officers would generally ask for a salary (cheaper in the long run but you have to level them up), while experienced ones would favor various shares of loot. Given how powerful skills are, plus with the benefit of the personality, I'm sure they will massively boost their ship and be worth it even if the price is high.
The combination of personality reflected in AI and combat skill bonuses is a good way to get you to give a crap bout your officers - I also suggest a list of randomly generated quirks inherent to each officer, not big ones but little cool things that are inherent to each officer and can help at any combat role. Maybe they could scale too, youd occasionally be asked if you wanted to "invest" in the quirk as it'd be listed there with the skills.
I also think that more varied personalities would help here, they don't even have to be advantageous.
How about a paranoid officer who likes to shoot empty space, a choleric one who doesn't stop shooting at disabled ships, or a prideful one who doesn't back away from superior forces? They could get big related skill bonuses to keep them attractive (and more interesting) choices. You could implement that as independent (rare?) personality traits or as sub-traits to the main ones (aggressive-prideful, aggressive-paranoid etc.).
I do like the idea of giving tradeoffs for bad behaviors, though that also has some potential downsides - if the player "gets" it, it could be great. If not, it could be "jeez look at this broken AI".
The combination of personality reflected in AI and combat skill bonuses is a good way to get you to give a crap bout your officers - I also suggest a list of randomly generated quirks inherent to each officer, not big ones but little cool things that are inherent to each officer and can help at any combat role. Maybe they could scale too, youd occasionally be asked if you wanted to "invest" in the quirk as it'd be listed there with the skills.
This, so much this. I love the implementation of random traits that's in Darkest Dungeon for example, half of them are positive, half negative (still fun) and you get to fix/change some of them spending resources. Ideally I'd want an officer to make me think *oh John is overkilling lashers as usual, well at least he's a beast with those missile stats* instead of *nice, John's lasher is 13% more combat effective*.
It also adds an element of 'humanity' which is appealing to a lot of players. Losing a dear old officer would most likely generate an emotional response. Bungie made an RTS before halo called myth, which had units with personalized names that leveled up with each kill. Losing a skilled veteran really meant something in that game. I'm sure there are other examples.
If they can die, this happens: They occasionally lose beloved officers, and have to replace them with new ones. This keeps things fresh, and it adds an element of jeapordy for high level players, who by that time are so powerful and wealthy that they can easily replace other losses. Engagement/combat becomes boring when you have nothing significant to lose.
Re: officers dying/becoming incapacitated:
At the moment, no. There's no "greater good" to sacrifice them for. When there is (e.g., say you're trying to defend an outpost, and it's *worth it* to take losses) then these kinds of mechanics may make sense, and I'll look at it again then.
In the first screenshot, there is a Lieutenant Torres. Does the rang depend on the level of the officer? Or does it mean something else?
Wait, so does this mean that the officers are in the current build of the game? (havent had enough time to keep up with the updates XD)
Regarding officer XP, I've always thought Mount and Blade did a decent job of it. Everyone gets flat experience for being part of the group doing battle, then experience is rewarded based on kills. To translate that here I would go with flat XP + % of damage inflicted normalized by ship OP, to ensure that small ships with limited damage capability that are doing their job 'well' are still rewarded.
But the current 80% solution works almost as well.
Regarding Officers and Fighters: You could apply some kind of bonus to fighters in the fleet if an officer is onboard a carrier ship (being any ship with flight decks), perhaps which scales according to how many flight decks are on that ship (which would lore-wise scale that ship's importance in the fleet with regard to preparing fighters for combat)
[...] Might require more explicitly tying fighters to specific carriers [...]I would LOVE to see this (wasn't it the case back in 0.58? can't remember). Something like 2 wings per flight decks in the fleet could be kept active while traveling in hyperspace, the rest having to be mothballed. No longer a lone Gemini could causally haul 7 wings just out of a wormhole, if there is even a Gemini!
Flight decks are a bit common in non combat shipsThey're really not. The Atlas is the only noncombatant that has a flight deck, unless you consider both the Condor and the Gemini to be noncombatants (despite the Gemini's claim that it's a freighter, it's at least as much an escort carrier or light carrier as the Condor and not nearly as much a freighter as the Mule).
Regarding Officers and Fighters: You could apply some kind of bonus to fighters in the fleet if an officer is onboard a carrier ship (being any ship with flight decks), perhaps which scales according to how many flight decks are on that ship (which would lore-wise scale that ship's importance in the fleet with regard to preparing fighters for combat)
I could see that being interesting, especially if there were, say, Combat skills that impacted fighters. Might require more explicitly tying fighters to specific carriers, although, as you say, scaling it based on the number of decks might work. But it'd raise some weird cases - i.e. that lone wing of Talons you have would get worse (???) because you bought a second Astral and it doesn't have an officer on it. Could be worked around, but that's starting to get messy.
I have a question about what will happen if officer's ship will be destroyed? Will officer have a chance to use save capsule and go to flagship?