What about EXP gained from trade? Will officers get a portion of that as well? If I have 10 officers will each get 9% of the earned EXP?
Will we be able to adjust how much they take from the total amount of combat experience? (IE I could set it so that they can take 10% to 100% from the "pool" of exp) This would be useful all the way through the game.I agree with Alex that this seems like an odd thing to let the player do directly. However, given that the experience is stated to be dependent on time spent in combat, I'd think that you can fudge it to some degree. E.g. a battle is worth 100 experience and you deploy 3 officers A, B, and C; A is deployed for the whole battle, B is deployed as reinforcements after a quarter of the battle has passed, and C was in the initial wave but retreated after half the battle passed. Experience might then be divided up as A gets (100 experience)*1/(1 + 0.75 + 0.5), B gets (100 experience)*0.75/(1 + 0.75 + 0.5), and C gets (100 experience)*0.5/(1 + 0.75 + 0.5).
This one is going to be handy. The enemy Onslaught will suddenly feel very alone during battle.
- Added "Avoid" order, can be set on enemy ships to make all your ships try to avoid getting near them.
It's basically something like this: there's some base amount of XP gained for the battle, and officers get a fraction of that based on the fraction of the time they were in battle. They don't compete with each other for XP, it turns out I lied about that in my previous reply.Hmm. That does have the advantage of simplicity, but it also incentivizes "always deploy all ships with officers on them" (using a cheap ship if you're being stingy with the credits).
Added "Avoid" order, can be set on enemy ships to make all your ships try to avoid getting near them.
Does the AI can do something similar to a player ship now?
On the other hand, competing for XP potentially introduces its own set of gamey behaviours (most extreme case: taking an officer off a ship so you can still field it without worrying about leeching XP). If you really want to eliminate these, sometimes the most straightforward option is the only one: give all officers the full XP amount even if they spent the entire battle twiddling their thumbs in the reserve.
Just wanted to say Awesome Game!, can't wait for the new release (any spoilers towards the date /wink).
Come on!
Fighter wings especially needs officers, like Manfred von Richtohofen, Roy Focker, Hikaru Ichniro, Tom Cruise or Arnold Schwarzenegger, who should dramatically increase the potency of their weaponry and add bonuses to their evasion.
Do Xyphos have their shiny new Pulse Lasers?
Will there be any new factions in future updates (Or even this one?) or no?
Oh man, Fighter Wings being overhauled would be awesome. The whole puttering along at FTL speed consuming fuel (and in some edge cases, even slowing down the fleet) when there's carriers right there feels and plays so wrong.Fighter wings don't burn fuel, and that slowing down the fleet thing is very rare.
Come on!
Fighter wings especially needs officers, like Manfred von Richtohofen, Roy Focker, Hikaru Ichniro, Tom Cruise or Arnold Schwarzenegger, who should dramatically increase the potency of their weaponry and add bonuses to their evasion.
... perhaps. But not right now. I don't want to mess with fighter wings too much right now; not entirely sure they'll continue on forever in their present form. They might. But they also might not.
Tom Cruise
Maybe they should just get incapacitated for a (random/dependent on the ship size) while if their ship is disabled, but do get killed if the hulk get completely destroyed. Making them invulnerable don't seems a good idea to me as they would becomes no brainers, but killing them too often isn't good either.
Edit: I've been thinking about this on the way home, and I'm really curious, do you mind sharing the broad outlines of your potential plans for fighter revisions? I am curious because to me fighters are great, a really well integrated and elaborate (if OP en masse) system that adds a lot to the game.
Now, I'm going to counter the above point with why officers were added into the game in the first place: to immerse the player and seamlessly bring more depth to fleet management. I feel they should have a chance to die from ship destruction. Why? Because an army of immortal captains is not immersive. Also, why waste a good opportunity to even further distinguish officer personalities from one another. Perhaps more aggressive or prideful captains maintain that a good captain goes down with their ship. Timid captains would probably never choose this.That was pretty much my point... They die from ship destruction, but survive most of the time if their ship is only disabled. (Their survival rate could even be an "Leadership" skill btw)
Very good AI improvements there. Always enjoy those, they usually aren't expected, so its a nice bonus that keeps the combat from becoming stale because you've "figured out" your enemies, and overall improves the experience
Re: fighters, I think the only thing that needs looking at in the near future is the combat speed, removing 0-flux boost made the slower ones quite a lot less attractive, and skyrocketed the appeal of Thunders.
I honestly think that they should just get the zero flux speed bonus back.
Silly request that I've had for a long time:+1 to this request! And maybe do the same with caps lock being a toggle for Turn to cursor
Can you make the time acceleration key toggle-able on Linux/Windows installs? I hear that it works that way on Macs, but I don't have one, so I've never been able to experience that wonderful feature.
Like seriously half my time on the campaign map is spent with my left hand permanently pushing the shift key. At first this doesn't seem like a big deal, but after a few hours of play it begins to get a little bit aggravating.
Silly request that I've had for a long time:
Can you make the time acceleration key toggle-able on Linux/Windows installs? I hear that it works that way on Macs, but I don't have one, so I've never been able to experience that wonderful feature.
Like seriously half my time on the campaign map is spent with my left hand permanently pushing the shift key. At first this doesn't seem like a big deal, but after a few hours of play it begins to get a little bit aggravating.
Did the Pilum range bug get fixed? They move slower now and I remember hearing their flight time wasn't changed to compensate.
So the Lasher is getting the extra flux dissipation from the first round of buffs + the recent -30% flux from weapons when Accel Ammo Feeder is active?
Thats some pretty nice Lasher lovin'! 8)
Silly request that I've had for a long time:
Can you make the time acceleration key toggle-able on Linux/Windows installs? I hear that it works that way on Macs, but I don't have one, so I've never been able to experience that wonderful feature.
Like seriously half my time on the campaign map is spent with my left hand permanently pushing the shift key. At first this doesn't seem like a big deal, but after a few hours of play it begins to get a little bit aggravating.
If we're being honest, it's more of a bug that it works that way on a Mac (but only if bound to the Caps Lock key).
Beyond that, my thoughts on it: personally, I prefer the "hold to <do whatever>" behavior, so it'd need to be a UI toggle to toggle the behavior one way or the other. The way the game is now, the time speedup is a necessity. However, I'd love for the campaign gameplay to get to the point where it either wasn't necessary at all, or just wasn't necessary nearly as much. I also have some concerns about being to support it as the Sector gets larger, as it basically demands double the performance, though there are probably ways to work around that.
Anyway, what all that boils down to is me not wanting to mess with it right now, until it's clear which way it's going to go. Apologies :)
I get that you don't want to touch the issue before you've made up your mind how it's going to go. That said, adding a keybind for toggle-able time accel would be a major quality of life fix for players while we wait for the aforesaid campaign gameplay changes. If it's almost impossible to play the game without the time accel, it would be super awesome to make it easier on people. It's the same concept as when a good GUI requires half the number of clicks as a bad one. Tapping caps-lock once > holding shift for hours and hours and hours :P
When I have to travel long distance I often send the fleet on their way then alt+tab to do something else while they get there. Because the game pauses when they arrive at an interactable target it never wastes any time. At worst I miss some attacks of opportunity against trade fleets.
You're implying that travelling in the game is boring and hands-off. This is not so unless you play the biggest, baddest fleet around exclusively. If you aren't doing that, there is always the threat that a bigger fish will come and take a bite while you're out in hyperspace. Both sides have a point here, but I think the fundamental issue is that you should not arrive at a point where you aren't threatened while travelling anymore. And if you are at that point, congratulations, you've won. Time to start over.
I get that you don't want to touch the issue before you've made up your mind how it's going to go. That said, adding a keybind for toggle-able time accel would be a major quality of life fix for players while we wait for the aforesaid campaign gameplay changes. If it's almost impossible to play the game without the time accel, it would be super awesome to make it easier on people. It's the same concept as when a good GUI requires half the number of clicks as a bad one. Tapping caps-lock once > holding shift for hours and hours and hours :P
Hmm. Let me think about it - might go the "value in settings.json" route, if I have an opportunity to mess with it. Doing a few too many things right now to just do it.
Fixed bug where fighter wings would not properly lose CR for taking losses in combat in some circumstances
So maybe?Maybe later I'm hoping
So maybe?
What about their stories and roles...Simple, they die (like good Disposable Heroes) so the player gets XP and levels up. Always more where they came from.
How about the enemy fleet commander?
Good question, I was wondering the same thing, will commanders and officers also be part of "persistent NPCs?"
Will they die? Will they be randomly generated? What about their stories and roles...
I've been thinking about that. Not right now, but maybe - there are some interesting possibilities there.It would be great to be able to butter up Hegemony commanders with Volturnian Lobster (via personal missions?) whilst they're on base, so that they're more likely to let you pass without paying a toll when they're out and about later.
Any word on the ships that have not been added back in, like the torpedo bomber, sabot fighter
and the huge carrier?
The above question made me think: Alex, do you reckon there will be more content in the form of raw new ships, weapons, factions etc. in the patches at some point? When all the hooks are in place and functional? A lot of content comes each patch now too, but mostly in the form of more star systems and entirely new mechanics.
I'm not sure what ship you're talking about - if it's the Astral (high tech carrier, capital ship) then it's still in the game, both missions and campaign. It shouldn't even be that rare at the one Tri-Tachyon military base. If it's something else, then consider me officially confused :)I never found the Astral in Tibicena, but I have no problem finding Odyssey or Paragon.
there are some gaps in ship roles I'd like to eventually fill
Just want to mention that I find the lack of other light cruisers besides the Falcon most regrettable :)I would have preferred Falcon to be shrunk a bit and classified as a destroyer. Either that or given two more light mounts ahead of its mediums so it does not need to choose between PD or assault. As it is, I prefer smaller and cheaper options over the Falcon.
Any word on the ships that have not been added back in, like the torpedo bomber, sabot fighter
These aren't even on my radar right now, honestly. Little bits of content (which is what those guys are, imo) are going to come and go. They might come back, and they might not. We'll see!and the huge carrier?
I'm not sure what ship you're talking about - if it's the Astral (high tech carrier, capital ship) then it's still in the game, both missions and campaign. It shouldn't even be that rare at the one Tri-Tachyon military base. If it's something else, then consider me officially confused :)
For this release or one in the future, can we have quality of life improvement for ship deployment?
I'm just wondering how much until the release of 0.7. I downloaded the game yesterday, played 5 hours just looking for comms from mercenaries (I've read the blog). Then I realized the patch didn't hit. Had to cry myself to sleep... :'(
No! That would be a handy tooltip or hint fffffffuuuuuuuhhhhh
I love the little torpedo bomber though! PLEASE put it back in? *bambi eyes*
Wanna see in future releases of starsector a player (your ship/fleet) vs huge starbases and spase stations with orbital weapons! like this
(http://smages.com/images/meow.png)
Tridents are pretty effective bombers. Always cool to see them launch thierpayload all the time. Unlike the... Dagger...
Tridents are pretty effective bombers. Always cool to see them launch thierpayload all the time. Unlike the... Dagger...
Not so sure on the 15 second 'aim time' mechanic, it seems like a blanket approach that doesn't take into account differences between weapons. I'd rather see some weapons' firing arc widen as they're turned and narrow down when they remain steady to simulate aiming and prevent crazy 'snap shots'. Skills could tie into this.
Removed logistics rating mechanic
Ships have explicit "supplies/month" and "supplies/recover from deployment" stats, set to the same value (i.e one deployment costs as many supplies as operating for a month)
High Maintenance hullmod: increases supplies/month only
Automated Repair Unit hullmod: removed penalties; increase in CR recovery does *not* reduce the overall recovery cost
Removed supply cost per day for crew and marines (assumed to be negligible compared to ship maintenance)
Logistics skill, Leadership aptitude: now reduce maintenance supply use 30%/20% respectively
Fleet size hard-limited to 25 ships total
I may or may not have asked this some time long ago, way back in the day, but are you planning on adding more missions or Events to this update, or is it strictly there for structure purposes, and you're saving that for the "content" stage?Yep, missions are gonna be in this update!
P.S. Also, are there any plans to make missions story driven? Or branching?
*Removed logistics rating mechanic*
What made you decide to remove it?
OK, that seems like a major simplification. Sounds good at first, I hope it works out. What will the big fleet logistic indicator show now? ...Operation Time? :)
About this zeroing in mechanic: Will the aiming be reset under certain conditions, e.g. when the target gets out of sensor range? Or does it stay optimal forever once it is?
"Solar Shielding" hullmod: Sounds great for specialized sun dwelling pirate gangs with that mod on every ship 8)
Would it be possible to see some examples of the new logistics costs and stuff? As from how I am understanding it, it looks like we are going to be bleeding even more supplies than what we did back in .62? AND deployments are going to hurt even more
I may or may not have asked this some time long ago, way back in the day, but are you planning on adding more missions or Events to this update, or is it strictly there for structure purposes, and you're saving that for the "content" stage?
P.S. Also, are there any plans to make missions story driven? Or branching?
Combat balance:Liking most of these. Not sure about the sabot going single-shot again; I rather liked the spray effect, and would have just given them salamander-style regeneration instead of making them viable anti-armor weapons.
- Sabot:
- Improved missile aim
- Changed damage back to single-shot with 750 damage
- Added variance in Sabot launch range to make it a bit more unpredictable
- Increased projectile speed to where the AI can't always react and lower shields in time
- Non-missile projectiles that are fading out after reaching maximum range now deal soft-flux damage to shields
- Slightly improved Harpoon missile target tracking
- Accelerated Ammo Feeder: reduces flux cost of ballistic weapons by 30%
- Pilum: reduced hitpoints to 50 (from 125)
Fixed NPE caused by assigning quad trails to ships; quad trails for ships still have artifacts
The space has been recycled for sensor widgets; not a pixel wasted. Well, not strictly recycled as the widget got rearranged, but you get the idea :)
cool patch notes but "Fleet size hard-limited to 25 ships total" why?
Yet another Pilum nerf, though? 50 HP... they are gonna be swatted away with even more ease. Is their original speed going to be brought back?
What is the new aiming mechanic meant to reinforce or discourage? Seems like its a ploy to further reduce "kiting" effectivness.
I'm happy to hear about the autofire aim getting better the longer it fires at a target, and then resetting. Its always glaringly obvious in games when the computer fails to improve its aim after consistently missing by the exact same amount :P.
cool patch notes but "Fleet size hard-limited to 25 ships total" why?
I'd guess because with logistic costs gone, there's nothing else to stop you from getting an unlimited number of ships.
I hope that limit is handled like cargo/crew, i.e. it can be surpassed but only at logarithmically increasing penalty costs.
Logistics is gone! Interesting. I'm curious about the 25 ship hard limit - any plans to put that under a skill? (I know, skills are subject to a retuning pass SoonTm)
•Augmented Engines: burn speed increase reduced to 1, now also reduces sensor strength by 50%/increases sensor profile by 50%, removed capacity penalty-50% sensors? Does that mean my ship's base visibility is cut in half? If so, that seems too much. I understand extra profile (due to brighter monster-sized engine), but going blind too... sounds crippling.
Quote•Augmented Engines: burn speed increase reduced to 1, now also reduces sensor strength by 50%/increases sensor profile by 50%, removed capacity penalty-50% sensors? Does that mean my ship's base visibility is cut in half? If so, that seems too much. I understand extra profile (due to brighter monster-sized engine), but going blind too... sounds crippling.
I assume 25 ships is a player-only restriction.
Quote•Augmented Engines: burn speed increase reduced to 1, now also reduces sensor strength by 50%/increases sensor profile by 50%, removed capacity penalty-50% sensors? Does that mean my ship's base visibility is cut in half? If so, that seems too much. I understand extra profile (due to brighter monster-sized engine), but going blind too... sounds crippling.
The space has been recycled for sensor widgets; not a pixel wasted. Well, not strictly recycled as the widget got rearranged, but you get the idea :)
Picture please? :)
Liking most of these. Not sure about the sabot going single-shot again; I rather liked the spray effect, and would have just given them salamander-style regeneration instead of making them viable anti-armor weapons.
Sabots need to do some damage to armor or hull. Currently, with the spray Sabot, almost any ship can drop shields and tank a Sabot spray for insignificant damage. With the old 750 sabot, a hit to hull (or even armor if thin enough) will hurt, if the ship drops shields.Yes. True. Good. Sabots are the specialist anti-shield missiles. They're support weapons. They shouldn't be punching holes in armor, just like a launch of harpoons shouldn't be breaking shields.
Yeah, I get what you're saying. It's just... they're supposed to be shield-breakers. Can't really do that without also giving them a chance to cause overloads - i.e. fast enough that the AI can't always react. And once you have something like that, regen doesn't feel right.Which brings us to this. I disagree on them needing to be fast enough that the AI can't always react; they just need to be used in conjunction with good anti-armor weaponry (maulers, blasters, etc). The interesting part isn't going "bang, haha, you're overloaded and couldn't do anything about it", the interesting part is forcing a target to choose between armor hits from other weapons versus the hard flux of the sabot.
That doesn't really relate to one-shot vs spray, though. That's more of an aesthetic/subjective choice for me - it just feels better to use, and matches the weapon art. It's also a bit of a buff, sort of like ammo regen would be for the spray version. Similar end result, I think, in terms of usefulness.
Fleet size hard-limited to 25 ships totalI really hope this is amenable to a mod-side variable change.
Nice changes, esp. the Sabot ones. Hopefully they will be worth considering over Harpoons, Annihilators and Reapers now.I'm still not certain that this will work out well, but it's a good step in the right direction. I really think that the ultimate answer on Sabots is that they'd be the best at actually penetrating Capital-level PD because of the stand-off range, making them a good one-two missile punch, with Reapers / Harpoon spam following up when the ship doesn't have Flux left. However, that means that they'd have to have considerably longer ranges than they do at present.
QuoteFleet size hard-limited to 25 ships totalI really hope this is amenable to a mod-side variable change.
Why a hard limit anyhow? I presume this is to limit certain obvious tactics with cheap Frigates that can be combined to do massive missile spam, but it appears to me that the obvious answer is to simply make them CR-inefficient for their size rather than to have an absolute upper limit on fleet sizes, so that the tactic is available, but expensive.
Also, wherefore the Hurricane? It's still fairly lame for what it costs.
On the quad-strip issues, thanks for fixing the NPE. Not sure why there'd still be artifacts, though; can't it simply orphan / kill the trails when the Engine isn't being given a forward command, for both Engine types, which would resolve it? I mean, they both get commands through what appears (from the outside) to be practically identical code, so this seems like where to address that and have identical behaviors.
The only way it makes any sense is if the scale and economy of the game is going to be different so that a player is unlikely to ever be able to have 25 ships, let alone 25 large ships - but as it stands now, that's not at all a large number for the late game.
Bigger ships would be more attractive if they did not move so slow and take forever to recover CR.Well, the first complaint should be fixed - as far as I can tell, Alex has more or less leveled the playing ground for burn levels. At least, with the last few patch notes and blog posts. The smaller ships are slower, largers ones faster, but the smaller ones still have a very slight advantage.
I don't think huge fleets are going to be practical even in this release.
That said, I *could* see adding some kind of soft limit to fleet size, but at most on the level of, say, increasing maintenance costs more than linearly beyond a certain point. If that proves necessary. Which I don't think it will, but we'll see.
I made my comment based on current version, not the v0.7 to come.Bigger ships would be more attractive if they did not move so slow and take forever to recover CR.Well, the first complaint should be fixed - as far as I can tell, Alex has more or less leveled the playing ground for burn levels. At least, with the last few patch notes and blog posts. The smaller ships are slower, largers ones faster, but the smaller ones still have a very slight advantage.
I won't say it's broken now or anything, but I broadly agree with orost's criticisms of the new system. (On the plus side, it does at least remove the oddity of high-tech ships being cheaper to idle than low-tech ones.)I do not mind high tech being a bit cheaper. Low tech is competitive with high tech in ship classes heavier than frigates. Enforcer is about on par with Medusa. High tech cruisers cannot outgun the Medusa without missiles (and Dominator outguns high tech cruisers), and Onslaught is a monster, despite lacking Paragon's defenses. High-tech ships are bad at kiting (600 range is short), and kiting is very good in this game.
What about the "Battle size" preference, which is based on DP, right? I'm uncomfortable with that preference, since it allows player to manipulate combat and reduce it to soloing 1v1 a trickle of the AI ships. It undercuts modders/content designers trying to make specific encounters, battles, or set-pieces, if the size of the battle can be altered by the player.Player used to be able to control how many ships the AI would deploy with that and player deploying a small ship. Now that the AI deploys overwhelming force against your lone ship no matter what, I set battle size to the max so that if I get a big fleet, I get to deploy overwhelming force instead. Frigate swarm does not work with 200 battle size. I need to crank it to the max of 500, which is barely enough, but the results are glorious.
Augmented Engines: burn speed increase reduced to 1, now also reduces sensor strength by 50%/increases sensor profile by 50%, removed capacity penaltyCan anyone say what sensor profile is?
About that hard cap on fleet size, why not limit the fleet by max crew? That would naturally balance the fleet composition: if the cap is at 2000 you can only have a couple a Capitals... Though that's a lot of frigates! Okay it would require to re-balance the crew complements, but since they do not consume supplies anymore they are mostly there for flavor now: take the old FP, multiply by 10 and voilà, you have a balanced skeleton crew requirement!
Another suggestion from DR was to use a ship size weight like 1/1/2/3/5 so a 25 fleet size would translate to 25 frigates or 5 capitals, witch is somewhat close to the current values without the Logistic Rating tedium.
A soft limit would be nice for consistency with the cargo/crew limits and to avoid the mechanic feeling "gamey" or arbitrary.
As for the hard coded limit, I can see the UI problems, but also its a bit odd that you can have 25 fighter wings or 25 paragons. This is quite different. I like the soft limit idea. If your fleet gets big enough, don't you run into the problem of Xerxes' giant army drinking rivers dry? Where would you get enough supplies for a really big fleet? This is what keeps most armies from getting too large. Speed, stealth, and emergency burn penalties also seem logical at some point, perhaps even more so than maintenance costs (which would realistically decrease with scale)
What about missions? Aren't they based on DPs? They are very fun as set-piece battle designed challenges, which campaign sadly lacks. If campaign gets storyline/branched set-piece designed battles as part of campaign missions (which it should), then we could wave goodbye to normal missions without too much sadness.
What about the "Battle size" preference, which is based on DP, right? I'm uncomfortable with that preference, since it allows player to manipulate combat and reduce it to soloing 1v1 a trickle of the AI ships. It undercuts modders/content designers trying to make specific encounters, battles, or set-pieces, if the size of the battle can be altered by the player.
Can anyone say what sensor profile is?
Yeah, seriously. In vanilla Starsector (which is what Alex is most concerned about) who ever got up to 25 ships? Why would you? You can easily smash any bounty in vanilla Starsector with 10 or less ships.Me. Either with frigate hordes (frigates, in numbers, are faster and more efficient than bigger ships) or absurd Atlas fleet to haul 30,000+ cargo (to exploit shortages and disruptions).
25 ships for vanilla Starsector is crazy huge.
^^^ Come to think of it, this is very strange that a valkyrie with 10 person skeleton crew uses the same amount of supplies as a valkyrie with 500 crew. Maybe something could be done with crew using cargo space instead of 'crew slots'?
It doesn't seem right that tonnes of extra crew/marines don't have any cost; but i'd be interested to hear a little more background on the decision.
I don't really like the change to removing supply cost on crew. With food still being grown on planets and shipped around, medicines, training and everything else that keeps them doing their jobs their cost really does not seem negligible compared with ammo and spare parts for the ships themselves.
So, IIRC, one point of the logistics rating mechanic was to present the player with a gradual choice: A small but elite fleet (high LR means increased CR) or a big fleet with low CR. An interesting choice.
Are there new incentives to stay small? The sensor mechanic doesn't seem to be one, since while small fleets are less visible, they also have less sensor range.
I'd not like to end up feeling like I'm doing something stupid when I run solo or just with a few escorts.
Are we going to have a point where we are flying civilian fleets like construction rigs, flying in a hound and trying to defend them against fighters or something?
So, IIRC, one point of the logistics rating mechanic was to present the player with a gradual choice: A small but elite fleet (high LR means increased CR) or a big fleet with low CR. An interesting choice.This just reminded me of another reason why I liked LR: At 150% LR, you had 10% extra CR. Are we going to have something similar like that with the new system?
Are there new incentives to stay small? The sensor mechanic doesn't seem to be one, since while small fleets are less visible, they also have less sensor range.
Nope. You can still get to 100% with elite crew and 10 Combat, though.Is this for only my flagship or my whole fleet?
It'd be neat if getting a Lasher felt like a major accomplishment, for example. It feels like that stage of the game passes by too quickly at the moment.
I do like the small-scale stuff myself, though, so ultimately I'd like to extend that feeling you get before your war machine "kicks in" and you can afford anything and steamroll everything.
Yeah, I've seen the discussion, I think. Then you could make ships much harder to acquire, too - more expensive, rare, etc. It'd be neat if getting a Lasher felt like a major accomplishment, for example. It feels like that stage of the game passes by too quickly at the moment.
It'd be neat if getting a Lasher felt like a major accomplishment, for example. It feels like that stage of the game passes by too quickly at the moment.
When can we download the latest version? ;)
It feels like that stage of the game passes by too quickly at the moment.
Well, I wasn't so much thinking of the late- or end-game, but more looking for a good reason to not try to get "as many ships as possible, as fast as possible".I missed this but...
I have a reason to not get as many ships fast as possible. I love my max Combat/Technology skills so much, I max them first in every game.
That said, one mechanic I can envision is a negative relationship between fleet size and chance to repair disabled ships. Small fleets are more likely to recover disabled ships than big fleets.
Right. It's just the game's way of saying, "don't have that many ships, ok?" Intentionally gamey and without any in-lore justification. It's a small and clear rule, and seems a fair tradeoff for the amount of cleanup it allows. It *is* configurable through settings.json, though.
Right. It's just the game's way of saying, "don't have that many ships, ok?" Intentionally gamey and without any in-lore justification. It's a small and clear rule, and seems a fair tradeoff for the amount of cleanup it allows. It *is* configurable through settings.json, though.
*reads about hard cap on fleet size*
Can that stuff be edited via fiddling with game files? If not then I have another question.
Can I get a refund? I didn't buy this game to run tiny it's bitsy fleets. I always go big. D:
QuoteFleet size hard-limited to 25 ships totalI really hope this is amenable to a mod-side variable change.
As I mentioned in one of my previous, it is - a value in settings.json.
You guys do realize with more then 40 ships from both sides the game will already grind to a halt and become unplayable right?
Well, for comparison, I have an overclocked i7 5960X and can just barely average 60 fps in a size-400 battle involving about 45 ships total at any given time (bunched together in a full-on melee).
Or maybe it isn't... Alex, do I correctly recall you saying that the game throttles down to 30 fps under certain conditions or am I going crazier than usual?
The GPU is not your bottleneck. Additional OpenGL rendering calls are pinning your CPU for more than your GPU.
The biggest CPU hog is the rendering engine.Yep. The biggest CPU items, assuming you have ShaderLib turned up to full blast are:
AFAIK, SS uses legacy fixed-function, immediate-mode OpenGL which is... inefficient, to put it mildly. Lots and lots of API calls and GPU <-> CPU data traffic that could be completely avoided with more modern techniques. This causes a lot of overhead even with relatively simple 2D graphics.
On the other hand, modern OpenGL is hugely demanding in terms of development time and very specific skills, so it was probably a good decision to not use it. I'd rather have a game about whose performance I can complain than no game at all because the highly complex engine required for modern graphics APIs got stuck in development hell.
Client vertex arrays (which I assume you meant, it's a bit ambiguous with unrelated Vertex Array Objects also existing), while a whole lot better than direct vertex specification, are actually also immediate mode and very slow in comparison to retained-mode buffer objects. The difference being that with vertex arrays, you re-send the data every time you draw it, while with buffer objects you send it once and then refer to it via a handle. It's a huge PITA to set up and manage, but the performance gains are stunning - draw commands are just a tiny handful of bytes and are fully asynchronous. For example, the very basic integrated Intel graphics card in my laptop can easily draw 5 million triangles at 60 frames per second if they're all in one retained buffer.
Yeah, you're absolutely right. Texture atlasing, even dynamic, can definitely be done successfully (have you played Supreme Commander? all of its UI is drawn with a single draw call!) but it's probably way outside of what a single-person project can afford to spend time on.
I'm absolutely not criticizing you for using older graphics techniques, it's still a very valid choice for 2D, I just wanted to explain to others why graphics may be significant to Starsector's performance even though it's 2D and not nearly as visually complex as modern 3D games - because those 3D games have dozens of programmers working on them and can afford to do things in a much, much more complex way.
That's a pretty good guess! Curious, did you read it as going up, or sideways? Looking at it again, it kind of looks like a tube, which is interesting, but different than the idea, which is something like a wavefront.I read it as a tube that was going up, a sort of a moving hyperstring thing that one could try to hitch a ride on.
But yours looks prettier. Can you use it to travel? While trying not to die? That would be awesome :)
I read it as a tube that was going up, a sort of a moving hyperstring thing that one could try to hitch a ride on.
Gif2 looks like bigger tube that revolves slower and leaves stuff behind :)
I'm chomping at the bit for this update... Every single day I check for its release!
Thank you Alex for your work, and keep going! After this update I'm going to vigorously push this game onto like 30 friends.
I'm chomping at the bit for this update... Every single day I check for its release!
Thank you Alex for your work, and keep going! After this update I'm going to vigorously push this game onto like 30 friends.
Thanks for your kind words! Looking forward to this release myself :)
I'm chomping at the bit for this update... Every single day I check for its release!
Thank you Alex for your work, and keep going! After this update I'm going to vigorously push this game onto like 30 friends.
Thanks for your kind words! Looking forward to this release myself :)
I too check the blog every day just hoping for the update to be there. Thank you for making such a great game for us to play.
I'm chomping at the bit for this update... Every single day I check for its release!
Thank you Alex for your work, and keep going! After this update I'm going to vigorously push this game onto like 30 friends.
Thanks for your kind words! Looking forward to this release myself :)
I too check the blog every day just hoping for the update to be there. Thank you for making such a great game for us to play.
I would gladly buy this game another three or four times over if it would help Alex progress through development... I'll admit, I'm awaiting this update as anxiously as I looked forward to the introduction of Campaign Mode.
It won't, though I suppose you could hack around it (say, always reassign the officer to their original ship with a script). Seems like this could come in handy, though, I'll keep it in mind.The same way we prevent the installation of certain hullmods in some mods I suppose. Not great considering the lack of UI indications, but doable.
Is there a way to give donations? I check hoping 3-4 times a week for this update, it's going to be so great!
It won't, though I suppose you could hack around it (say, always reassign the officer to their original ship with a script). Seems like this could come in handy, though, I'll keep it in mind.The same way we prevent the installation of certain hullmods in some mods I suppose. Not great considering the lack of UI indications, but doable.
If you need more incentive to do that, it could be also useful for stuff like escort/passenger VIP missions where their ship joins your fleet, or AI/living ships that have a personality and skills...
There isn't - I appreciate the sentiment (a lot!) but it doesn't feel right. But hey, if you spread the word to your friends or buy them some copies, then I certainly wouldn't complain :)
Alex is saying... Buy one copy for each of your friends then throw them on their heads.
I'm chomping at the bit for this update... Every single day I check for its release!
Thank you Alex for your work, and keep going! After this update I'm going to vigorously push this game onto like 30 friends.
Thanks for your kind words! Looking forward to this release myself :)
I too check the blog every day just hoping for the update to be there. Thank you for making such a great game for us to play.
I would gladly buy this game another three or four times over if it would help Alex progress through development... I'll admit, I'm awaiting this update as anxiously as I looked forward to the introduction of Campaign Mode.
Is there a way to give donations? I check hoping 3-4 times a week for this update, it's going to be so great!
Will we see some vanilla ships with hybrid slots this release?
PLEASE ALEX, I N E E D the next update, at this point I am checking the blog every hour or so (I think I have a problem but that beside the point). I can feel myself dying and withering away without it. I have an addiction, that only you can fix.
PLEASE ALEX, I N E E D the next update, at this point I am checking the blog every hour or so (I think I have a problem but that beside the point). I can feel myself dying and withering away without it. I have an addiction, that only you can fix.
PLEASE ALEX, I N E E D the next update, at this point I am checking the blog every hour or so (I think I have a problem but that beside the point). I can feel myself dying and withering away without it. I have an addiction, that only you can fix.
I don't think "Keep doing it" is a good idea to cure any kind of addiction, if you ask me.
A few years ago I thought I was doing bad with 2 days worth of time on the bay12 forum. I have 7 days here.Heh, 68 days here, if you're going by the counter at the top of the forum. ;) I'm pretty eager for the next release, but I've learned to take the hit. Sort of like, how when you get older, you gain more patience.
I think once you reach 93 days online, you should probably take a break, hence why im not around much. :I
That new missile cruiser + new AMMO_RELOAD ship system sounds ominous.
Many missions updated; extensive backstory addedespecially ('cause unexpected) and many more Yays! to follow when I have more time ;D
Fighting a faction's enemies in their system will no longer improve reputation with them
Yay! in general, Yay! to thisDidn't see that; that's awesome!Many missions updated; extensive backstory addedespecially ('cause unexpected) and many more Yays! to follow when I have more time ;D
EDIT: regarding the new graphics for some ships, are these updated 'primary' sprites, or alternative color schemes?
What does "their" system mean here, the system of the hostile faction or of the faction you want to impress?
(Re: Pilums - there's a bug in the current version where their flight time is half of what it should be.)
I'm looking forward to a Hammerhead with more ballistic capable mounts - the ship has needed a bit of a boost for a while, and they will combine nicely with its ship system.
(Re: Pilums - there's a bug in the current version where their flight time is half of what it should be.)
I think I was the one who pointed that bug out. ;)I'm looking forward to a Hammerhead with more ballistic capable mounts - the ship has needed a bit of a boost for a while, and they will combine nicely with its ship system.
Being able to stick Light Assault Guns or Autocannons/Railguns/Needlers in those front small slots will be fun.
I think I was the one who pointed that bug out. ;)
The new Assault Chaingun looks interesting - something like 400 dps now, but only at very close range. I'm guessing it was the individual shots that were made more powerful, not the fire rate, so it punches through armor better than before. For most use cases the Mauler will still be better due to range, but I'm glad its getting its damage lowered.
What ships are going to be good with it - perhaps something fast in order to close range. Hound vs Hound battles are going to be super deadly with them lol. I do note that the HMG and it share 450 range - perhaps as a matched pair on the front of a Hammerhead or Falcon? I doubt Enforcers will have the speed to use it (or the flux stats).
"Safety Overrides" sounds like it could be a dream for various playstyles ...
Streamlining end-of-combat sounds good. 75% CR back does seem like an incentive to over-deploy, but then again, I like chain-battling, which is why I over-deploy to spread the CR hit to everyone.
Does fighting Luddic Path affect reputation with the Luddic Church? If not, yay! More targets to fight!
MIRV changes sound like it has become the heavy Harpoon.
I always felt the Falcon was a bit undergunned. This is nice. Can't wait to see the new ship sprites and the missile cruiser!
MIRV changes sound like it has become the heavy Harpoon.
Question: Is the new Assault Chaingun considered a PD weapon like the Heavy Machine Gun?
Shouldn't the ACG have a slight reduction to flux cost (say, +35% instead of +50%)? Low tech ships with those often had major issues keeping them going, and now you basically have to go all-in with vents to support one (assuming +50% flux).
More monstrous than Cyclone Reaper? If not, I will probably stick with Cyclone Reapers for my flagship. MIRVs is what I give to the less competent AI, or to a Conquest when I cannot turn it without disrupting the broadsides' firing. Since MIRVs will not regenerate, I will probably downgrade to Pilums instead, unless the new large missile weapons are better. (I tend to build ships for endurance and kiting, and limited ammo interferes with that.)MIRV changes sound like it has become the heavy Harpoon.Oh man, it's rather monstrous now.
Hireable officer personalities (i.e. combat behavior) now based on the faction of the planet on which they're located
New graphics for Arbalest Autocannon
Added several new missile weapons (one small and two large)
Added new midline missile cruiser
Hammerhead: changed small energy mounts to hybrid (can slot in energy/ballistic)
Heavy Machinegun: reduced OP cost to 10, range increased to 450 (from 400)
Oh, interesting. Is this absolute (you can get an officer with skill XY only from faction YZ) or just a probability modifier? Does this affect the officers of the factions own fleets, too?
Looking forward to testing that combination extensively.
Also, can we get a sneak preview of one of the new sprites? Pretty please? :)
(I assume you upped shot dmg to 60 and flux, not increasing ROF)
I really wish there was more frigs with oversize weapon mounts. A high end assault frigate with better PD than the Brawler (eg. Any PD At All)
Hmm. I actually kind of want more frigates with *just* small slots. It feels like small weapons don't get as much of a chance to shine as primary armament, which they're certainly capable of.Huh, interesting. I mean, three of my four favorite frigate setups are on ships with all small weapons, and there is something very fun about the closer engagement range and multi-weapon pew-pew-pewing those ships facilitate. I'd be in favor of more small-weapon ships.
Re: Small slotsYeah, one of the chief impediments to using small weapons is the difficulty pairing them longer-range (generally kinetic) options with good finishing weapons. There's definitely a hole in weapon options for mid-long range HE... but I'm kinda torn as to if that hole should be filled. At least when playing with mods on that fill in most holes, that is one I still have to keep in mind and work with.
Depends on the weapons the small slots can use. Railgun and needler are great, but needs a similarly long-ranged HE or big damage energy weapon to complement it, and there are not any such small non-kinetic weapons of matching range (missiles do not count because they have low ammo). LAG is decent. Energy weapons are either too short-ranged (bolts) or hard-countered by shields (beams) if not backed up by other weapons.
Currently, speed and shot range are among the most important combat stats (for those who want to solo fleets with smaller ships), and medium and large ballistics are the best at shot range.
"Hammer torpedoes" eh?
I wonder if they might be kinetic torps given the sprite and name.
Will Unstable Injectors and Augmented Engines also modify engine glows?
I wonder if they might be kinetic torps given the sprite and name.
Yeah, one of the chief impediments to using small weapons is the difficulty pairing them longer-range (generally kinetic) options with good finishing weapons. There's definitely a hole in weapon options for mid-long range HE... but I'm kinda torn as to if that hole should be filled. At least when playing with mods on that fill in most holes, that is one I still have to keep in mind and work with.
Built-in hullmods (Flux Shunt, Repair Gantry, etc) no longer show up in mission refit
QuoteBuilt-in hullmods (Flux Shunt, Repair Gantry, etc) no longer show up in mission refit
The refit screen was my go to way of finding out what built in hull mods do. How do we do that now? Perhaps rather than eliminating them you could give them a special font or something...I dunno
Neat...am I reading this right, you can now engage two different fleets at the same time? Or is it just two fleets fight and you get to choose which you engage, and you have time to pick rather than it being insta decided. The reason i ask...it says friendly fire hurts rep, which means friendly NPC ships must be in combat...that would be great but I doubt I'm reading it right...Read the blog post and the ensuing conversations to answer that. :)
Ah, Megas going off with his Cruisers and Capture orders. I feel like it would make the game a lot more flexible, even if it's not used by too many people. Simply adds more possibilities and eliminates the moments of frustration when the throws you a curve ball like that.It would make a cruiser-only fleet easier to use, especially if I use Falcons as scouts. And sometimes, I would like a cruiser to go to a point and steal it from puny enemy ships, if the cruiser is fast and close enough, or is the only other ship I have on the map.
Safety Override is intriguing me! Any preliminary numbers on how large the speed and flux bonuses are? Between aggressive captains and tooling out ships to ride in and blast away, I can really imagine the "Assault" role coming into its own.
Speaking of wish list items; did you ever get around to tweaking the AI to improve fast ships getting away from slower ships when ordered? I kind of remember you saying something but can't seem to find it.
Re: cruisers - done.Thanks. This should be fun.
^Might use the built-in hullmod to block it, I think it would be a serious no-brainer on almost all brdy ships. A trade-off more suited for them could probably be implemented in a different hullmod.
Auto-resolving pursuit: greatly increased effectivenessBest change of 0.7a hands down.
Fighting a faction's enemies in their system will no longer improve reputation with themI do wonder what's the rationalization behind this change though..
^Might use the built-in hullmod to block it, I think it would be a serious no-brainer on almost all brdy ships. A trade-off more suited for them could probably be implemented in a different hullmod.
Why particularly for BRDY? High flux stats?
There is the 0.33 peak time multiplier as a tradeoff, plus the high OP cost.
(Still not entirely sure it's adequate, btw. Might further reduce the peak time multiplier for destroyers and cruisers.)
QuoteFighting a faction's enemies in their system will no longer improve reputation with themI do wonder what's the rationalization behind this change though..
What does "their" system mean here, the system of the hostile faction or of the faction you want to impress?
The one you want to impress. Basically thinking that "helping allies in battle" replaces this.
I do wonder what's the rationalization behind this change though..
Safety Override makes me think ships would get slapped hard for overloading. Maybe add chance suffer weap/engine chokes when overloaded? Much more dangerous to suffer that in a cruiser or destroyer, and a really unappealing drawback. Otoh having bad peak time in a cruiser sounds bad enough in itself.
How is the engine glow implemented by the way?
private Color color = new Color(255,100,255,255);
@Override
public void advanceInCombat(ShipAPI ship, float amount) {
ship.getEngineController().fadeToOtherColor(this, color, null, 1f, 0.4f);
ship.getEngineController().extendFlame(this, 0.25f, 0.25f, 1f);
}
Decorative weapons now render in the campaign view and on ship iconsSo... does that mean that the scripts run, too? Or, if it's a Decorative that we want to be hidden, does it need to be hidden on frame 0?
Safety Override is intriguing me! Any preliminary numbers on how large the speed and flux bonuses are? Between aggressive captains and tooling out ships to ride in and blast away, I can really imagine the "Assault" role coming into its own.
Speed: +50/30/20. Flux dissipation: multiplied by a factor of 2, which means the bonus from adding vents (or anything else, such as skills) is doubled as well.Speaking of wish list items; did you ever get around to tweaking the AI to improve fast ships getting away from slower ships when ordered? I kind of remember you saying something but can't seem to find it.
Yes, that should be much more reliable. They'll open up a safe distance and circle around it. There's also the new "avoid" order for when you just want everyone to keep away from something.
No scripts, no - that would be a bit insane :) Those can't really run outside a CombatEngine, anyway. So, yes: hide or show in frame 0 based on what's desired.QuoteDecorative weapons now render in the campaign view and on ship iconsSo... does that mean that the scripts run, too? Or, if it's a Decorative that we want to be hidden, does it need to be hidden on frame 0?
Any chance that we can finally add some custom particle types / generate particles with an angle value when generated, as a straightforward way to do muzzle flashes, certain types of special effects, contrails, etc.? That seems like something with a multitude of uses for you, not just us, in terms of final polish and optimization (to put it one way, particles are a non-minor load when we're having a big fight, so cutting down the number needed would be a fairly fast / cheap way to conserve FPS).
I just hope it doesn't turn too much into a game of "keep away from the safety override ships until they start malfunctioning, then blast them".
No scripts, no - that would be a bit insane :) Those can't really run outside a CombatEngine, anyway. So, yes: hide or show in frame 0 based on what's desired.QuoteDecorative weapons now render in the campaign view and on ship iconsSo... does that mean that the scripts run, too? Or, if it's a Decorative that we want to be hidden, does it need to be hidden on frame 0?Any chance that we can finally add some custom particle types / generate particles with an angle value when generated, as a straightforward way to do muzzle flashes, certain types of special effects, contrails, etc.? That seems like something with a multitude of uses for you, not just us, in terms of final polish and optimization (to put it one way, particles are a non-minor load when we're having a big fight, so cutting down the number needed would be a fairly fast / cheap way to conserve FPS).
Hmm - wasn't planning on that in particular; probably belongs in the modding or suggestions forum, as I'm not 100% clear on the details. If it's some sort of entirely new particle thing, though, then honestly, chances are low - I can't add that sort of thing without testing it extensively (which in practical terms means using it), and I'm not exactly planning to overhaul combat graphics like that.I just hope it doesn't turn too much into a game of "keep away from the safety override ships until they start malfunctioning, then blast them".
It's not something that's in common use by AI ships; meant to be more of a player playstyle thing. Pathers (i.e. Luddic Path) tend to use it, but they only have frigates - and playing keep-away against a frigate with +50 speed isn't exactly an easy thing to do. Oh, just realized I forgot to mention one more detail on SO - it also allows the 0-flux boost to function regardless of flux level. So, yeah, keep-away isn't going to be much of an option.
(As a side note, SO can make Pather frigates very tough to face in the early game. Sure, it's only a Cerberus, but it's in your face firing *the entire time*. I recommend tithing. Or alpha strikes.)
New graphics for some ships (Eagle, Enforcer, Falcon, Dominator, and a few others)
- Adjusted crew losses from battle so that you don't end up being heavily over crew capacity after losing ships
Does that mean more crew will die during engagements?
How much has the Falcon changed? I've always thought it looked a bit too... kitbashed. As if the artist went "Should I make a new sprite? Nah, lets just drag and select this middlepart, and press delete, BAM, a totally new original ship."
Do marines die as well now? This can be a pretty big cause of crew overload if you have a lot of them.Does that mean more crew will die during engagements?
Indeed it does.
(It'd probably be hugely annoying to bleed marines with random ship losses, but you could just make them die only if the remaining ships are still overloaded after crew deaths)
Wow. That sounds broken, but if it doesn't play that way then it will make for an entirely new set of threats. I remember from Ironclads a few versions back that one of the pirate factions had these super nasty, super fast, well armed frigates. In the early game, their patrols were so fearsome that you basically ran on sight from them; sounds like the Pathers might convey a similar vibe, which is really cool.
The other way to go is that instead of having longer overloads, the ships suffered from the effects of low CR somewhat even before the timer runs down - engines or weapons giving out infrequently. Not sure if I really like it as its a bit random, but it fits the theme of power over reliability.
Bribes, YESSSSS, that will be interesting with the...
- Added Luddic Path faction, radical arm of the Luddic Church
- No markets, but launches small raider fleets from Luddic Church worlds
- Hostile to player, but individual fleets may be bought off with a "tithe"
...Oh. It won't be very useful then.
- Turned off customs inspections, at least for now - sneaking into market w/ transponder off fills the same role
So, assuming one of the new large weapons is a rack of the "Hammers" and the other fill the former role of the Hurricane, we are still stuck with a single weapon for support on larges missile mounts like the Astral's. Also with this fire-rate, it sounds like a guaranteed kill if anyone but an Onslaught or Paragon vent or overload near that new Hurricane.
- Hurricane MIRV - changed to be a medium range finisher weapon rather than long-range
- Removed ammo regeneration
- Increased number of warheads to 10
- Reduced refire delay to 5 seconds
- Reduced range to be in line with MRMs
- Increased missile hitpoints and range at which the main missile splits
- Increased flight time of individual warheads
More text space, MOOORE text space, MOAR.... ;D
- Added text scrolling for standalone (non-campaign) mission descriptions
Attaching a screenshot of the new Enforcer
Oh, interesting. Is this absolute (you can get an officer with skill XY only from faction YZ) or just a probability modifier? Does this affect the officers of the faction's own fleets, too?It's not skills - it's the probability for them to have a specific personality, which is one of timid/cautious/steady/aggressive.
I actually kind of want more frigates with *just* small slots. It feels like small weapons don't get as much of a chance to shine as primary armament, which they're certainly capable of.
QuoteBuilt-in hullmods (Flux Shunt, Repair Gantry, etc) no longer show up in mission refit
The refit screen was my go to way of finding out what built in hull mods do. How do we do that now? Perhaps rather than eliminating them you could give them a special font or something...I dunno
Sure, you can maximize DPS on your flux-heavy weapons and have very short venting time. But the fact of the matter is: your shield is no better than before! It may sound like a great idea to stick SO on an Enforcer and reap endless power, but then you realize that its shield is made of paper, you've got no OP to spare for Heavy Armor, and the time limit is ticking fast.
...Oh. It won't be very useful then.
Oh, just realized I forgot to mention one more detail on SO - it also allows the 0-flux boost to function regardless of flux level. So, yeah, keep-away isn't going to be much of an option.That is huge! It will probably be more like +50 speed on-top of the speed bonus given by Safety Override, because most ships lose their bonus speed once shields are up and the fighting starts. Fighters are starting to look so slow...
There is the 0.33 peak time multiplier as a tradeoffSince I use Hardened Subsystems on almost every ship, this will be more than that if I am forced to remove Hardened Subsystems to squeeze Safety Override in.
Also just a little suggestion, I think the expanded magazines hull mod should be changed to buff ballistic weapons in some way since it has no use at the moment.
Hyperion might benefit from Safety Override. Even with max flux stats, it spends A LOT of time venting due to how much flux blasters (and frequent teleporting) generate.
Depends. When soloing fleets, most of the Hyperion's time is spent in post peak-performance (i.e., when CR is decaying), especially with Hardened Subsystems. If Safety Override merely cuts peak performance but not CR decay, 80 seconds lost may be less if Hyperion spends only 1 or 2 seconds venting instead of 3 to 5 seconds, and Hyperion vents much.Hyperion might benefit from Safety Override. Even with max flux stats, it spends A LOT of time venting due to how much flux blasters (and frequent teleporting) generate.With 40 seconds base PRT and no real need for the speed buff thanks to teleporting? No thanks.
A lot of the players here forget that flux dissipation gives diminishing returns. Sure, you can maximize DPS on your flux-heavy weapons and have very short venting time. But the fact of the matter is: your shield is no better than before! It may sound like a great idea to stick SO on an Enforcer and reap endless power, but then you realize that its shield is made of paper, you've got no OP to spare for Heavy Armor, and the time limit is ticking fast.
This could get ridiculous on larger ships. I don't even want to think about what an Eagle does with SO.
Man, I really hope the new patch will release soon as I'm really getting anxious to play with all the new STUFF! But Alex, would you say early game is harder, easier or about the same as it currently is?
So, assuming one of the new large weapons is a rack of the "Hammers" and the other fill the former role of the Hurricane, we are still stuck with a single weapon for support on larges missile mounts like the Astral's. Also with this fire-rate, it sounds like a guaranteed kill if anyone but an Onslaught or Paragon vent or overload near that new Hurricane.
Oh, right. Same question then: Absolute or probability modifier? Does this affect the officers of the faction's own fleets, too?
Could be quite a handicap if e.g. all or most Tri-Tachyon officers are cautious, but interesting to fight against (or with! :))nonetheless.
"captain":{
"timid":1,
"cautious":5,
"steady":10,
"aggressive":10,
},Sounds good, although quite some frigates rely on small weapons already (Lasher, Shade, Afflictor, Sheppard, Omen). I'd like to see some destroyers do the same.
...Oh. It won't be very useful then.
I imagine bribes will be quite useful, considering that you'll have much less information about the position of enemy fleets than now and will be more likely to run into otherwise fatal situations.
Also just a little suggestion, I think the expanded magazines hull mod should be changed to buff ballistic weapons in some way since it has no use at the moment.
One more question: Does the peak time multiplier from Safety Override speed up CR decay?
When soloing the enemy with a ship, smaller ships get more time post peak-performance, especially with Hardened Subsystems. For example, take a Wolf, 180 seconds (or 270 seconds with Hardened Subsystems) of peak performance. With 60 points of CR to burn through, it is about 240 more seconds (or 360 with Hardened Subsystems). If it is my flagship, I probably have 100 CR, and 20% more CR is another 120 seconds with hardened subsystems.
This is why Hardened Subsystems is good for any ship that solos fleets, or any frigate in endgame fights.
Hyperion might benefit from Safety Override. Even with max flux stats, it spends A LOT of time venting due to how much flux blasters (and frequent teleporting) generate.
I also think the Safety Override mod is too extreme in both bonuses and penalties. If you were to halve the buffs and shave a bit off the negatives, you'd still have a functional mod.
Edit: To be clear - I very much wanna try it as it is, but I predict it's going to have to be mellowed down a bit.
If Shepherd is low-tech (due to codex saying Borer drones are low-tech), and Mule and Venture are of the same style as Shepherd, it can be argued that Venture is low-tech despite the energy weapon mount. That said, the aforementioned yellow ship line appears to straddle the low-tech and midline epochs.
What is the practical effect of this, exactly? Are there more fleets in the game in general now or fewer? Are they bigger/smaller?
This change is confusing to me, does it mean that, say, clearing pirates in a Hegemony system won't gain reputation with the Hegemony anymore? If true, the only way of gaining rep through combat would be by fighting in systems with bounties and by assisting in battles then?
If I'm understanding this correctly then this is a big nerf to rep acquisition, not sure how I feel about it.
This mount will be a godsend to many mods. But I'm curious, is the Hammerhead the only ship in the game that currently has those turrets? Seems like such a major addition of turret type could be used to adjust the balance of many ships.
You want to smuggle something. But, you want to keep the risks (and reputation penalties) low, so you need to go in with the transponder off. So, you try to do that, but a patrol spots you and goes after you. They tell you to turn your transponder on, and once you comply, they run a cargo scan and confiscate any contraband that's found.
The biggest reason is visually its would make more sense, as right now the projectiles shoot off at too much of an angle and it just feel video game-y.
The increased accuracy would also not but a buff but often as a nerf on AI. As alot of the times the in-inaccuracies are what allows the AI to hit small targets to compensate for shot leading changes, and ACG is a prime example of this.
Also this rewards more precise aiming : A well placed volly can rip apart a hound or a warthog, or a bad volly can miss every shot; Instead as of current state of just shoot in the direction it will basically turn out the same.
If the player ship spotted then it works the same as now I take it? As in they ping, follow you, and you will be blocked from accessing the market until you comply or they disengage.
If so what happens if you keep running? Currently you take a rep loss after the second message, is that still in even with the transponder off?
The logical place for Hull mods to appear (regardless of whether they're built-in or not) would be the codex.i would also really like to see this. i remember checking the codex for hullmod descriptions when i played for the first time, and being rather confused about not finding any. making decisions about where to spend your skill points is difficult when all you can see is the name of unlocked hullmods, without any kind of further information.
IMO the name Front Shield Generator should be Shield Generator, if that's the one that adds shield to non-shielded one.
Speaking of the codex, keyboard navigation would be nice.
I can never remember which is which.i don't have trouble (anymore) remembering what each does, but maybe just calling the Emitter something along the lines of Front Shield Conversion / Converter would be better.
@Sy: That's a fair point, but I don't want to mess with the Codex right now given that I'll probably (very likely, even) need to revamp it extensively at some point anyway.ah, okay :]
Fleet size restriction is only a UI restriction for players. AI fleets have no such restriction.
How are the Sensors going to be worked into characters skills?Right now, probably not at all. The skill revamp is slowly taking shape in my head, but I don't want to tackle it until industry, and I'm hesitant to add more skills that would just need to be revamped.
For the modding-inclined, uploaded the javadoc for the current dev version:Oh awesome. Time to dig through it and prepare myself...
http://fractalsoftworks.com/starfarer.api/index.html?overview-summary.html
Still a round of modding-focused enhancements I'd like to do, but aside from that, I think it's in fairly finalized shape.
i.e. not days.NOOOOOOOOOOOOO*screams*
(http://i.imgur.com/Ucj922u.gif)Starsector 3 confirmed!!!
The hype is giving me low key shakes
Well, thank the heavens for that accident. I always thought it was weird they were missing. Not bad, just strange.I always felt the Falcon was a bit undergunned. This is nice. Can't wait to see the new ship sprites and the missile cruiser!
Funny thing is adding the new turrets was a complete accident (at least on my part) due to basing the sprite on the Eagle and just porting the changes over to the Falcon w/o removing the turrets. Alex noticed them after I pushed the new sprite and decided to made them work.
kill who you could, keep gearing up your fleet...
- Assault Chaingun: increased damage and flux cost by 50%, reduced range to 450 (from 700)
Wait sorry, can I ask how this works? Does this mean more crew will die if you lose a ship, or more crew will die from general battle damage without losing any ships, just taking hull damage?Does that mean more crew will die during engagements?
Indeed it does.
Since you cannot space excess crewReally you can't? :( I must admit I never needed to push some extra mouths from airlock, but frankly I should be able to if that is my whim. This game design is as bad and 4th wall breaking as unkillable children in Fallout, Skyrim and so on.
I see crews as little more than numbers...Crew is nothing but a number or soulless abstraction in the game. At best, they are disposable heroes. At worst, <insert fortune-cookie psychobabble from any of the Matrix films>.
Wait sorry, can I ask how this works? Does this mean more crew will die if you lose a ship, or more crew will die from general battle damage without losing any ships, just taking hull damage?
There's no extra crew casualties unless you end up over capacity by battle's end.
Far all it's flaws, Spaz had really cool mechanics regarding crew. You actually felt bad spacing them, or accidentally shooting their life-pods, because you could see them agonizing in space..
I think the first step in giving value to crew should be to make them harder to hire.and not as quick to level, i think. according to their description, elite crewmen are rare in the sector, because all the faction conflicts, piracy and failing tech make life in space so dangerous that most just don't survive long enough to become really experienced. but in actual gameplay, even green crews become elite very quickly, so the player fleet is usually crewed almost exclusively by elites (unless a large number of them was lost in a recent battle, or there's a shiny, big new ship in the fleet).
That was cool in goofy SPAZ, but would feel totally out of place in Sector. I think the first step in giving value to crew should be to make them harder to hire.That's why I mentioned Nexus: the shuttles evacuating a destroyed ship would fit better and still add some connection to your crew that goes beyond "Is my crew gauge filled"?
That's why I mentioned Nexus: the shuttles evacuating a destroyed ship would fit better and still add some connection to your crew that goes beyond "Is my crew gauge filled"?
I think the first step in giving value to crew should be to make them harder to hire.and not as quick to level, i think. according to their description, elite crewmen are rare in the sector, because all the faction conflicts, piracy and failing tech make life in space so dangerous that most just don't survive long enough to become really experienced. but in actual gameplay, even green crews become elite very quickly, so the player fleet is usually crewed almost exclusively by elites (unless a large number of them was lost in a recent battle, or there's a shiny, big new ship in the fleet).
That's why I mentioned Nexus: the shuttles evacuating a destroyed ship would fit better and still add some connection to your crew that goes beyond "Is my crew gauge filled"?
I think the first step in giving value to crew should be to make them harder to hire.and not as quick to level, i think. according to their description, elite crewmen are rare in the sector, because all the faction conflicts, piracy and failing tech make life in space so dangerous that most just don't survive long enough to become really experienced. but in actual gameplay, even green crews become elite very quickly, so the player fleet is usually crewed almost exclusively by elites (unless a large number of them was lost in a recent battle, or there's a shiny, big new ship in the fleet).
Very true. I wouldn't mind a stronger differentiation between crew level either. Maybe with greens normally bringing CR so low as to cause malfunctions.
As a purely graphical effect that sounds as if it would fit well with sinking ships (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8476.0) :)Hehehe you're chasing that Roadrunner really hard ;D Tbh i would really like to see that implemented.
That's why I mentioned Nexus: the shuttles evacuating a destroyed ship would fit better and still add some connection to your crew that goes beyond "Is my crew gauge filled"?i agree the escape pods in Nexus were really cool, and even important for some mission objectives. but in Nexus, all ships (iirc) had flight decks for fighters, bombers and boarding shuttles, so it made sense that escape pods could easily land on allied ships, even during battle. that part at least probably wouldn't make a lot of sense in SS, since it's hard to imagine all the escape pods of a disabled Onslaught landing on a single Hound^^
And hey, there's already a tiny shuttle that would fit the bill.i think the pods would have to be even smaller than the command shuttle. the shuttle is about the size of some interceptors, so unless ships have the ability (and a reason to) shoot down enemy pods, it would probably be confusing to have a bunch of those darting around the battlefield. something Swarmer-SRM sized could work, maybe with a distinct engine trail that makes them easily distinguishable from actual missiles and other projectiles.
Very true. I wouldn't mind a stronger differentiation between crew level either. Maybe with greens normally bringing CR so low as to cause malfunctions.that'd be cool! but then we would also need some way of controlling our fleet's crew distribution, instead of having some all-elite crews in the upper left of the fleet screen, and all-green ones in the lower right. could just work with a slightly altered version of the old "logistical priority" button, allowing us to designate high priority ships that get first pick of any experienced crew, but with the rest of the personnel evenly distributed across all other ships in the fleet.
same! ^_^As a purely graphical effect that sounds as if it would fit well with sinking ships (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8476.0) :)Hehehe you're chasing that Roadrunner really hard ;D Tbh i would really like to see that implemented.
That reminds me, will a vengeful relationship be reversible/harder to acquire in .7? If a negative relationship to major factions becomes commonplace it would be a hassle to get permanently stuck there (easily).
No on both counts. It's not something you can acquire accidentally or, for that matter, easily - you'd have to pursue retreating enemy ships while already deep into "hostile".
I was using 100% crews. It was in the mission refit simulator, so that may make a difference.
That reminds me, will a vengeful relationship be reversible/harder to acquire in .7? If a negative relationship to major factions becomes commonplace it would be a hassle to get permanently stuck there (easily).
No on both counts. It's not something you can acquire accidentally or, for that matter, easily - you'd have to pursue retreating enemy ships while already deep into "hostile".
Well, there isn't any kind of warning, so, yes, it happens accidentally. For once if you don't know about the consequences of pursuit - it is not communicated anywhere in the game IIRC - but also when you get distracted by a some objective you have. For example, if the flagship of a named bounty fleet gets damaged and retreats, or if you attacked a fleet to board a specific ship and it retreats.
It also works the other way around, when I'm not absolutely positive that my relation to a faction is still OKish I don't dare to pursuit them because they might permanently hate me.
In any case, some more transparency would be nice here.
I was using 100% crews. It was in the mission refit simulator, so that may make a difference.Hmm. Just ran a refit sim with a Lasher at 60% CR and LMGs; it had literally zero trouble shooting down incoming Pilums.
Hmm. Thinking about this some more, for now I think it makes sense to just make "vengeful" recoverable from the same way "hostile" is. Doesn't sound like people are really winding up much in "vengeful" intentionally to begin with, and all it's doing is cutting out pursuit scenarios.
Maybe instead of pursuit pushing you into Vengeful, you could gain that status by having your fleet destroy ships that reactivate after battle (presuming the boarding code still does that)? These ships are helpless; the only reason to shoot them after they reactivate is to get a tiny bit more loot. I could see factions taking it as the equivalent of shooting down escape pods.
Doesn't sound like people are really winding up much in "vengeful" intentionally
public void reportBattleFinished(CampaignFleetAPI winner, BattleAPI battle)
{
CampaignFleetAPI loser = battle.getOtherSideFor(winner).get(0);public void reportBattleFinished(CampaignFleetAPI winner, BattleAPI battle)
{
CampaignFleetAPI loser = battle.getPrimary(battle.getOtherSideFor(winner));Hybrasil, Yma, Aztlan, and Samarra are what we know right now of the 7 new systems.
Brasil, also known as Hy-Brasil or several other variants, is a phantom island said to lie in the Atlantic Ocean west of Ireland. Irish myths described it as cloaked in mist except for one day every seven years, when it became visible but still could not be reached.
Aztlán is the legendary ancestral home of the Aztec peoples. Historians have speculated about the possible location of Aztlan and tend to place it either in northwestern Mexico or the southwest US, although there are significant doubts about whether the place is purely mythical or represents a historical reality.
The Samarra culture is a Chalcolithic archaeological culture in northern Mesopotamia that is roughly dated to 5500–4800 BCE. At Tell es-Sawwan, evidence of irrigation—including flax—establishes the presence of a prosperous settled culture with a highly organized social structure. The culture is primarily known for its finely made pottery decorated with stylized animals, including birds, and geometric designs on dark backgrounds.
Interesting names:Ohhh, that's interesting. If there was to be something interesting about the system, I might guess that there's a lot of gas giants in that system pumping out a lot of campaign map nebulae - seems fitting if you ask me.
HybrasilQuoteBrasil, also known as Hy-Brasil or several other variants, is a phantom island said to lie in the Atlantic Ocean west of Ireland. Irish myths described it as cloaked in mist except for one day every seven years, when it became visible but still could not be reached.
Got nothing on Yma.
A question, since I'm toying with the idea of upgrading my PC a bit: how is game performance coming along? Does it get faster with optimization or slower from added content? I'm interested in performance in battle and campaign.
Isn't Starsector very GPU bound? Just get a fairly recent vid card and you should be fine.Then you didn't tried it with enough mods ;)
I have a GTX 680 and I don't ever recall framerate stutter.
Isn't Starsector very GPU bound? Just get a fairly recent vid card and you should be fine.Mostly CPU actually, as far as I know. The GPU stuff comes from shaderlib
I have a GTX 680 and I don't ever recall framerate stutter.
If I understand it correctly, it's kind of both. Starsector has high graphics overhead, so there is a lot of time spent in the graphics driver, which is CPU work but how efficient it is can depend on what GPU you have.
Except now when you have Win 10If I understand it correctly, it's kind of both. Starsector has high graphics overhead, so there is a lot of time spent in the graphics driver, which is CPU work but how efficient it is can depend on what GPU you have.
It's not your video card, it's your video driver that matters. Starsector barely even scratches a modern GPU, but the CPU overhead is significant, and depends entirely on the driver. NVidia's drivers are better, naturally.
It's not your video card, it's your video driver that matters.
Is there going to be a tutorial or some campaign help messages for the new features?
Updated OP with another batch of notes.Oh, nice.Is there going to be a tutorial or some campaign help messages for the new features?
No, but there are lots of tooltips and in-context explanations for why things are happening (or aren't), so I'm hopeful that'll be sufficient.
Navigation skill: now reduces burn level penalties from terrain by 5% per level <--- Is this a bonus or is it replacing the burn speed boost?
Helmsmanship level 5 perk: now grants maneuverability bonus instead of top speed with zero flux <--- No more zero speed flux boost at 20%? Why? And don't we already have another maneuverability skill/ perk?
Safety Overrides: now also extends overload duration by 50% <--- OUch, that's gonna hurt along with the high OP usage and its other drawbacks...
Wait, if you can't be wrongly accused anymore (as per the change 2 lines above that), then what's the point of this? Or is it just bribing the chief investigator?
"Evenly-matched or weaker fleets may follow you around waiting for an opportunity instead of fleeing or ignoring your fleet"
"Added "radio chatter" sounds when near a market"
"Valhalla: improved accessibility of Ragnar Complex and nearby markets"
"Valhalla: improved accessibility of Ragnar Complex and nearby markets"
Also, assuming you added a warp point to the other star in the binary system?
Also, assuming you added a warp point to the other star in the binary system?
It would be neat if there were a jump point inside the system from near Valhalla to near Ragnar. It would make Ragnar still feel remote even though it's accessible whereas a jump point from hyperspace wouldn't.
I absolutely love this change! Might make the fleets feel a lot more human - I do this pretty damn often myself.
Wow, that is gonna be a change! Why the change of heart? Are you adding a new skill with the burn speed boosts in it or are they gone forever? Also why have the burn speed meter goes up to 20 when most likely 16 IIRC is the highest with all of the boosts?Navigation skill: now reduces burn level penalties from terrain by 5% per level <--- Is this a bonus or is it replacing the burn speed boost?Replacing.
Ah OK, was a bit confused there by the wording.Helmsmanship level 5 perk: now grants maneuverability bonus instead of top speed with zero flux <--- No more zero speed flux boost at 20%? Why? And don't we already have another maneuverability skill/ perk?The level 5 perk was an extra +25 to the boost. Level 10 was the "have it at up to 25%".
Why? It was getting a bit out of hand with ships getting too much top speed and not enough acceleration. With AI controlled ships receiving these bonuses now, it was too much for it to handle.
Are any variants going to have SO in them? It seems like the AI wouldn't be a good user of it because once it overloads, it will most likely dieSafety Overrides: now also extends overload duration by 50% <--- OUch, that's gonna hurt along with the high OP usage and its other drawbacks...It's still really good. Had an Eagle in my fleet with SO and a dps-focused officer and, seriously, it made things disappear.
It would be cool and a cheap quality of life fix if the burn speed bonus applied to a very small range from 0%-1% flux. There are a couple of instances where flux hovers in the single or double digits but passive dissipation is enough to *theoretically* keep it at 0. It's only the way that flux is added that prevents it from dissipating more than it accumulates and therefore staying at 0%.
Terrain adjustments:
Nebulas and asteroid rings/fields now reduce fleet speed based on fleet size instead of reducing the burn level of individual ships
Wow, that is gonna be a change! Why the change of heart? Are you adding a new skill with the burn speed boosts in it or are they gone forever? Also why have the burn speed meter goes up to 20 when most likely 16 IIRC is the highest with all of the boosts?
Are any variants going to have SO in them? It seems like the AI wouldn't be a good user of it because once it overloads, it will most likely die
Does this mean that a small fleet can theoretically get away from a faster big fleet (say.... an armada of pirate frigates) by ducking into a hazard and shaking sensor range?
I'm SO looking forward to putting SO on things! ;)
Ah okay, that makes sense. I always use the speed bonus as more of a thing to be gamed rather than a simple bonus that mostly just applies to the pre-combat stage. But I guess the removal of the flux speed perk from the skill tree now puts it firmly into that noncombat corner.
Hey, even Alex isn't immune to the quote mishap. :D
Evenly-matched or weaker fleets may follow you around waiting for an opportunity instead of fleeing or ignoring your fleet
I could totally see a mass of fleets waiting for you to enter a battle.
Is there a limit to how much fleets will follow you? Or a limit on how long they will follow you for?
Added "radio chatter" sounds when near a marketHehe, I like that one! ;)
Holly molly, that's mod Christmas in advance!
- CombatUIAPI
- addMessage(int newLineIndentIndex, Object ... params)
- FluxTrackerAPI.stopVenting()
- ShieldAPI
- toggleOn()
- ShipAPI
- void setVentCoreTexture(String textureId);
- void setVentFringeTexture(String textureId);
- ViewportAPI
- void setCenter(Vector2f c);
- boolean isModEnabled(String id);
Huh - sounds a lot like how Lagrange points work in Aurora if I'm understanding you correctly. Those would be cool."Valhalla: improved accessibility of Ragnar Complex and nearby markets"
Also, assuming you added a warp point to the other star in the binary system?
It would be neat if there were a jump point inside the system from near Valhalla to near Ragnar. It would make Ragnar still feel remote even though it's accessible whereas a jump point from hyperspace wouldn't.
It occurs to me that this scenario is possible in the monogamy event logic:Yeah, I was gonna bring this up too.
Faction A is friendly with Faction B.
Player is friendly with both Faction A and Faction B.
Faction A and Faction B are angry about this and both drop the player to Inhospitable.
Only cooperative seems to block it, which causes weird edge cases like this.
I take this to mean the Persean League still isn't in the game. Whyyyyy? I want my space EU! :(
- Maintaining positive reputation with more than one major faction (Diktat, Hegemony, Tri-Tachyon, Luddic Church) is not possible for very long; will eventually become hostile to all but one
Faction A is friendly with Faction B.
Player is friendly with both Faction A and Faction B.
Faction A and Faction B are angry about this and both drop the player to Inhospitable.
Maintaining positive reputation with more than one major faction (Diktat, Hegemony, Tri-Tachyon, Luddic Church) is not possible for very long; will eventually become hostile to all but one
Smuggling investigation:Mh, it would be great to have some kind o feedback about our chances when smuggling. How much can I buy on the black market without raising suspicion? How much do I have to trade legally to cover things up? How about a rough "market authority suspicion level" indicator with a few green-yellow-red stages (e.g. inconspicuous, wary, under observation, highly suspicious).
Can be covered up (reducing chances/avoiding investigation entirely) by also selling on open market
I think none of the major factions are friendly with each other, so that scenario doesn't come up. It could in mods though, I suppose?The new Ludd sub-faction could fit this case, or the Lion's guard. But yeah, mod factions will cause some big issues with the monogamy: even in the case of factions neutral to each other, the idea that if you get friendly with just one faction you suddenly are enemy with 10 or 15+ others doesn't sound fun...
That's only if you get really chummy with a faction AND the investigation finds you guilty though. Also I assume we might be able to flag which factions are mutually incompatible.
Maintaining positive reputation with more than one major faction (Diktat, Hegemony, Tri-Tachyon, Luddic Church) is not possible for very long; will eventually become hostile to all but oneSo no you can't stay friendly with more than one faction, and even then, you'd have to pay a lot of money to maintain more than a few in a positive state. Basically if you get cooperative with someone, you can no longer trade, and only hunt their bounties. If this applied only to mutually hostile factions it would be fine, but in it's current implementation that's not the case.
So no you can't stay friendly with more than one faction, and even then, you'd have to pay a lot of money to maintain more than a few in a positive state. Basically if you get cooperative with someone, you can no longer trade, and only hunt their bounties. If this applied only to mutually hostile factions it would be fine, but in it's current implementation that's not the case.
Does the emergency burn have lag? i.e. You activate emergency burn and there's a small delay between the activation and EB taking effect.
Thing is you could (with skill) EB away from a fleet that is burning towards you.
You'd have enough time, then, to get to a friendly fleet to assist you in taking care of the fleets that are following you.
It occurs to me that this scenario is possible in the monogamy event logic:
Faction A is friendly with Faction B.
Player is friendly with both Faction A and Faction B.
Faction A and Faction B are angry about this and both drop the player to Inhospitable.
Only cooperative seems to block it, which causes weird edge cases like this.
Added "radio chatter" sounds when near a marketHehe, I like that one! ;)
(Also Sindrian Diktat as a "major" faction seems a bit odd; I always "read" them as a mere single-system polity of limited importance in the Sector's grand scheme of things. Looks like all the modders thought so too, given they don't give it any new markets like they do for Hegemony/TT/the Church. The more you know!)
Is it possible to lower the reputation with a faction in a controlled manner to avoid that? Seems like it could get friendly without the player wanting it to, because he took advantage of food shortage events or bounties.
Mh, it would be great to have some kind o feedback about our chances when smuggling. How much can I buy on the black market without raising suspicion? How much do I have to trade legally to cover things up? How about a rough "market authority suspicion level" indicator with a few green-yellow-red stages (e.g. inconspicuous, wary, under observation, highly suspicious).
I'm shocked! :) Stian actually found that video you put together and was, shall we say, rather enthused about getting this in the game. I think it turned out really well, too. So - thank you!Glad to be of service.
That's actually intentional, but a bit academic since it would make no difference in vanilla. A mod that put in nuanced diplomacy - at least, nuanced to the point where there'd be a difference to setting factions to "friendly" vs "cooperative" - could also replace the event entirely.Is there a way in-game to know which factions can trigger an investigation or not? Because unless I'm mistaken, all mod factions that have at least one "ally" (ie one faction above suspicious) will have to opt out the inspections... Witch could become really confusing if mod Faction A can lower your reputation with the Hegemony, but mod Faction B do not. Plus it really limit the usefulness of that feature since you won't interact with those that do trigger the even while trading happily with the others.
Is navigation still going to have the ability to use stars as one way jump points?
Is there a way in-game to know which factions can trigger an investigation or not? Because unless I'm mistaken, all mod factions that have at least one "ally" (ie one faction above suspicious) will have to opt out the inspections... Witch could become really confusing if mod Faction A can lower your reputation with the Hegemony, but mod Faction B do not. Plus it really limit the usefulness of that feature since you won't interact with those that do trigger the even while trading happily with the others.
Quick question: Do we still respawn in Corvus if our fleet wipes anywhere (i.e., TPK)? If so, that seems like a reason to be friendly with Hegemony if only to avoid harassment while we pick up replacements in Corvus.
Isn't it the backstory of the Sindrian Dictat basically what Megas is talking about though? One person with a battlefleet who takes over a system and declares themselves the ruler. I'm guessing there was some serious asskicking involved that stopped the Hegemony from just snapping them up again.
I think the Sindrian Diktat was created by the Hegemony themselves - not really by a rouge person invading and making a faction by themselves. They had (and still have) the authority and power of the Hegemony behind them - think of the Sindrian Diktat as a satellite state of the Hegemony.In that case, neither faction should have a problem with you allying with either, but that will not be the case. You become friends with one, the other (and everyone else) hates you.
In that case, neither faction should have a problem with you allying with either, but that will not be the case. You become friends with one, the other (and everyone else) hates you.Well, in the words of Alex:
I expect factions to dog-pile an upstart. If the player can survive the dog-piling, he should be able to crush what is left. Basically, bruised-yet-still-standing survivor says "Is that your best? My turn now!" <Cue slasher smile.>
In that case, neither faction should have a problem with you allying with either, but that will not be the case. You become friends with one, the other (and everyone else) hates you.Well, in the words of Alex:
"'Major' might be the wrong word here. In their case, it's more 'suspicious and insular'."
It could be changed so that they're either not a major faction, or have them become at least Cooperative with the Hegemony so the rep balance change doesn't happen in some future patch notes.
Oh, to clarify - Thaago's take was correct. Diktat and Hegemony do not get along as the Diktat was formed by the rogue admiral Andrada who (mis-)used Hegemony authority to intervene in the Askonian civil war, take over, and form the Sindrian Diktat. The Hegemony doesn't just invade because Askonia is at the center of a whole bunch of competing powers who, although they don't like the Diktat (who does?) enjoy its existence as a convenient thorn in the Hegemony's side.
... Some of these competing powers just aren't on the map yet, cough. But we'll get there!
(Will now restrain my info-dumping to overlong mission briefings and in-game descriptions.)
Establishing your "street cred", if you will.
Commander personality now has some effect on fleet behavior
Battles in deep hyperspace no longer have nebula patches on the battlefield
...a special hyperspace terrain feature would be awesome at some point. Imagine suddenly opening rifts, or a maelstrom, or wormholes leading to the other side of the battle map ;DAfter a lengthy struggle and heavy loss, your fleet finally manages to overload enemy Onslaught. Reapers fly to deliver their deadly charge. Just as the first torpedo is about to find its mark, a wormhole opens, sending the giant capital into unknown area of battlefield. A minute later, your carriers report sensor contact, but that was their last communication...
Augmented Engines: burn speed increase reduced to 1, now also reduces sensor strength by 50%/increases sensor profile by 50%, removed capacity penalty
i'd actually prefer unlocked hullmods to be 'sidegrades' rather than straight upgrades to other hullmods. something you'd prefer in most cases (as you do have to spend skill points to get it) but not something that makes another hullmod completely obsolete.Well, to be honest, Starsector isn't exactly strong with the sidegrade things. Take the Buffalo Mk.IIs or the (D) variants, Dedicated Targeting Core, and even the Light Mortar - ships, weapons, and hullmods are made explicitly worse than other things in this game. It's balanced akin to CS: GO - prices and availability are king here.
Well, to be honest, Starsector isn't exactly strong with the sidegrade things. Take the Buffalo Mk.IIs or the (D) variants, Dedicated Targeting Core, and even the Light Mortar - ships, weapons, and hullmods are made explicitly worse than other things in this game. It's balanced akin to CS: GO - prices and availability are king here.true, but hullmods don't have a price every time you install them and you only have to unlock them once for the whole fleet. there's no reason to ever use a strictly worse hullmod again after having unlocked its superior version. with ships and weapons, every new acquisition is affected by cost and rarity, even if you already have a large fleet of high-tech ships with elite loadouts.
And only a tiny fraction of the sector is now present in-game.
Why the nerf to the Atlas its already incredibly squishy did it get buffed in some other way?
Re: Atlas losing flight deck: I thought Atlas had zilch for mounts because of flight deck. Prometheus, the big fuel tanker, can equip enough weapons to defend itself from enemy frigates. The Atlas cannot. Also, Prometheus has drones to add to its firepower, but Atlas just has worthless flares.
It would be nice if the Atlas can be buffed some other way, like upgrading it small mounts to mediums or replacing the system with something more useful.
Would be cool if that was an alternative/complementary way of resolving a "faction ties" investigation. "What, you think I like them Hegemony bastards just because I worked with them? Watch me!" **** gun*
Can you discover a commander's personality when you speak with them, or just via observation of their behavior? Also, I assume the fleet commander takes part in battle as a combat officer?
What about asteroids? They seem like the less "hyperspacy" of the two.
...a special hyperspace terrain feature would be awesome at some point. Imagine suddenly opening rifts, or a maelstrom, or wormholes leading to the other side of the battle map ;D
Something I thought of: If faction ties only check for major factions, and Pirates do not count as major faction, and if becoming friendly with one major faction makes the rest of the majors hate you, then it seems eventually, it may be a good idea to become friendly with pirates too, if only to gain access to military market and be able to buy rare weapons, once player graduates from killing pirates to killing the N-1 majors. Trading with pirates should not be a problem in systems where the only other factions there are enemies.
P.S. Another benefit of friendly pirates is another place to repair your fleet. That is better than buying rare weapons at Umbra.
True, but the opportunity cost of unlocking those hullmods is part of the balance of skills. At present the +OP% from Tech skills is good, but not good enough for me without the hullmods.right, and i do think unlocks should generally be more powerful because of that. i just prefer them to be better for most ships or playstyles, rather than an objective upgrade in every case. of course, getting that balance right can be pretty tricky. the Unstable Injector for example is technically a sidegrade, as it also increases acceleration. but in practise, there's not much reason to put it on any ship after you've unlocked Augmented Engines :/
Augmented Engines vs Emergency Burnooh, interesting. so even putting Augmented Engines on every ship in the fleet wouldn't actually half the range at which we can detect other fleets?
I'd say in terms of Sector area, we're something like 25% of the way there (though that's very much subject to change). As far as the number of markets, it's probably about halfway or thereabouts.
ooh, interesting. so even putting Augmented Engines on every ship in the fleet wouldn't actually half the range at which we can detect other fleets?
QuoteI'd say in terms of Sector area, we're something like 25% of the way there (though that's very much subject to change). As far as the number of markets, it's probably about halfway or thereabouts.
As of 0.65 or 0.7?
As of 0.7a. Although in terms of *area*, they're the same.Wait, does that mean you're shoving 4 times as many systems as there are in 0.7a with the same hyperspace map? Is it going to get anywhere near as crowded as the Ironclads mod gets?
You can do that, actually :)
Pretty sure he meant the 5 new systems in 0.7 will not be accomplished by any new area, while the end game might have an area four times as big as the current one.
And only a tiny fraction of the sector is now present in-game.
I wouldn't say that. The original target for the number of "core" worlds was somewhere around 20. As far as the number of star systems total, it's gone in a bit of a different direction - there's much more detail to individual star systems, which I think will work out better than having a ton of less-detailed systems. I'd say in terms of Sector area, we're something like 25% of the way there (though that's very much subject to change). As far as the number of markets, it's probably about halfway or thereabouts.
I don't want to get into the details too much (too liable to change and all that), but right now thinking in terms of randomly generating some systems.
Please take it easy with procedural generation - its bland, boring and you soon see through it to the formula beneath. =/There are many ways to do "randomly generated" content, some allowing to create interesting things. For example the generator could pick into a list of pre-made systems, mix and matching some of the planets around. Or there could be randomly selected all the planets to fill some hand-crafted "systems archetypes"...
I'd much, much rather have fewer but hand-made systems with unique and polished content.
I'd say in terms of Sector area, we're something like 25% of the way there [...]So, final Sector will be just 4x the area of the current one? I'd imagine it needs to be at least 25x to get a reasonably explore-able space.
So, final Sector will be just 4x the area of the current one? I'd imagine it needs to be at least 25x to get a reasonably explore-able space.
Alex, is the current build stable? Seems like it would be easy to find yourself not seeing the forest for the trees after such a long period (9 months and counting) of internal development.
It seems pretty stable to me; hasn't crashed on me during playtesting, memory usage looks good, etc. I mean, I'd expect a fair amount of bugs to slip through due to the scope of the update (hence the all-but-inevitable post-release hotfix), but I feel good about where it's at. Is that what you're asking?Have to admit this has been something I've always been impressed with.
It seems pretty stable to me; hasn't crashed on me during playtesting, memory usage looks good, etc. I mean, I'd expect a fair amount of bugs to slip through due to the scope of the update (hence the all-but-inevitable post-release hotfix), but I feel good about where it's at. Is that what you're asking?Have to admit this has been something I've always been impressed with.
Every build I've played has been perfectly stable.
so I just have to ask for your understanding for the things that do inevitably slip through.no! how dare you release alpha versions that aren't 100% perfect?! *shakes fist*
It seems pretty stable to me; hasn't crashed on me during playtesting, memory usage looks good, etc. I mean, I'd expect a fair amount of bugs to slip through due to the scope of the update (hence the all-but-inevitable post-release hotfix), but I feel good about where it's at. Is that what you're asking?Have to admit this has been something I've always been impressed with.
Every build I've played has been perfectly stable.
Thanks! I try to do my best. (But, it's just too big a project to test comprehensively, and being careful while coding, while helpful, still isn't a guarantee... so I just have to ask for your understanding for the things that do inevitably slip through.)
While these fine people tip toe around the subject, Alex would you consider letting us test it for you?
We can help find bug, and helpfully report them:)
I have an old question that may have been answered already,
>Friendly fire incidents will cause a reputation drop depending on the severity
>Very serious incidents will drop reputation all the way to hostile
?Will computer controlled ships on my side be cause'n much friendly fire, or is this only based on my own dumb errors?
[...](I have thought about asking a few people to give it a whirl a bit early - probably modders, since that seems like it'd be a mutually beneficial arrangement - but haven't leaned strongly one way or another.)[...]You know we would love that! ;)
stop talking to alex and let them get this release ready!Probably a wize call... but is it the call the public will make?
Maintaining positive reputation with more than one major faction is not possible for very long; will eventually become hostile to all but one
Now the only way to play the game is by becoming a partisan for one faction, whereas before one could become a partisan of one faction, play the middle, etc.
I'm hoping the TTachs got some better markets...Now the only way to play the game is by becoming a partisan for one faction, whereas before one could become a partisan of one faction, play the middle, etc.
As I understand this you can still "play the middle", you just can't become everybody's darling anymore. I think it's a good change, since the current optimal playstile is to only fight pirates for a very long time in each playthrough, just so you don't lose the access to each faction's military market. That becomes repetitive after some time. Now the game has many more desirable playthrough options, one for each major faction and some middle ground.
I also hope that the faction will differ in more than text, ships and color, like their long term goals and fleet strategies, but this seems like a fundamental gameplay mechanism they should share. Besides, all the not-major factions(Pathers, Pirates ,Indis so far) already differ here.
I also hope that the faction will differ in more than text, ships and color, like their long term goals and fleet strategies, but this seems like a fundamental gameplay mechanism they should share. Besides, all the not-major factions(Pathers, Pirates ,Indis so far) already differ here.So far, the factions feel like Tri-Tachyon or Hegemony, with the rest of the majors being Hegemony #2 and #3. Also, all military markets stocking multiple Hammerheads is really annoying.
@Alex - Speaking of testing, I was wondering how you go about doing the testing on your end. I've been doing a bunch of work on an Android game lately, and it never seems very clear on where/when/if to start using unit tests and whatnot. Admittedly, I'm still building the core bits of the game engine, but I'm having trouble finding any clear places to insert tests and QC stuff (especially for classes that handle user input and whatnot). What have you been doing in that regards? Figured I'd ask since your stuff has generally been pretty bug-free in my experience.
kinda off topic but ive been jazzed about the officers for a while. I'm sure they're implimented in a simpler way but I loved the way they handles Generals from Rome: Total War 1. It was tons of fun after you were in a good ways into a campaign to look at the family tree and discover the "personality" each general had developed as a course of his actions. I just hope the officers can build rank and efficency etc. and I NEED this release alex :P
In lieu of detailed replies to everyone saying similar things, I'll just say instead that I totally get the appeal of adding something unique to each officer :)
It's less clear exactly what shape that will need to take, though, so I think it makes sense to leave it be for the moment, implement a bunch of other features that are more impactful for the time spent, and perhaps get back around to it either when it's a good opportunity to work it in, or when it is the most impactful thing to work on.
Well... in my experience, unit tests haven't been useful for much of anything. If you're working on a math or string library, especially with multiple committers? Sure, unit tests would be *great*. Something more real-world, though? It just gets a lot less practical. Also, as you point out, there are issues when you start dealing with user input. Still could be worked with using mock objects and such, but to me the extra effort, extra complexity, and saddling the code with stuff that makes it harder to change just aren't remotely worth it.
Personally, I just try to minimize the opportunity for bugs to creep in (i.e. don't do anything fancy, put in null checks where you don't think you need them, that sort of thing), and test the code at the time of writing it. And never assume that the simplest change you made is just going to work. The number of times I thought it would, tested anyway, and then found a bug are too many to count. I think it's more of a mindset thing than anything.
Of course, bugs still do creep in. But they do with unit tests, too. In the end, I think it's finding something that works for you. Even if it involves unit tests; I won't judge :)
Unit tests are great for components of the game that you don't want to change/regress but expect to break often. For a networked game, a determinism test would be very useful, for example.
Unit tests are great for components of the game that you don't want to change/regress but expect to break often. For a networked game, a determinism test would be very useful, for example.
Hmm. Given that definition, this sounds more like functional testing rather than unit testing. I mean, you're not testing the component at that point - it's not changing, so why would it break - but the things that are feeding into it. And you'd have to keep updating the test to make sure it covers new things that aren't part of that component but factor in anyway (e.g. a new weapon, etc). So that's adding extra dev costs to a lot of things. Is it worth it? Maybe, maybe not. I guess, as usual, it just depends.
Atlas: removed flight deckI hope it got a buff to make up for that; it was one of its few charms :)
True...QuoteAtlas: removed flight deckI hope it got a buff to make up for that; it was one of its few charms :)
My workplace may have a very... odd use of testing terminology.
QuoteAtlas: removed flight deckI hope it got a buff to make up for that; it was one of its few charms :)
I was just starting to feel bad about not using them for other stuff because I've seen a lot of material that's really pushing them.
Take your time alex, F4 and SW:BF are here/comming and then theres ghost recon wildlands and then theres ass. creed syndicate and the division.. and legacy of the void maybe.Yeah he is most likely playing in the wasteland right now
u do you boo boo.
Take your time alex, F4 and SW:BF are here/comming and then theres ghost recon wildlands and then theres ass. creed syndicate and the division.. and legacy of the void maybe.Yeah he is most likely playing in the wasteland right now
u do you boo boo.
11th hour bug fixes, huh Alex?
I sense it...the update will arrive VERY SOON.
I can't even imagine the comments per minute when the update actually hits.Ehh zero? Because everyone is playing the update :P
How is the radio chatter implemented? is it one sound file that is played, or is it several sounds played together depending on the market?And I hope there is a way to disable/ turn down the frequency of it (for better performance)
I mostly want to know because my mashed potato of an old computer gets crushed by lots of sounds in java.
How is the radio chatter implemented? is it one sound file that is played, or is it several sounds played together depending on the market?
I mostly want to know because my mashed potato of an old computer gets crushed by lots of sounds in java.
So you are NOT competing with Fallout 4?
Thought you were gonna release on the 10th?
As long as it doesn't release on the 17th, because I will not be able to tear myself away from Battlefront.And here I'm hoping for a birthday present from Alex
It could make for a nice christmas present, I bet :P
It could make for a nice christmas present, I bet :P
It could make for a nice christmas present, I bet :P
Oh GOD no! Don't listen to him, Alex!!! Christmas is too far away!
To say i'm looking forward to an update is an understatement. When I first bought the game back in March 2012, I didn't really think much of it. I updated later on to 0.6.2a, but it did not grab my attention. Then the 0.6.5.1a release came out, so I pushed myself to give it a fair try and found myself clearing a space on the shelf right next to my all time favourite space games (Master Of Orion 2 and Space Rangers 2).
It could make for a nice christmas present, I bet :P
Oh GOD no! Don't listen to him, Alex!!! Christmas is too far away!
Yeah, no way. Valentine's Day seems more appropriate anyway, doesn't it? (Kidding, kidding.)
Great... December/January release date.Well, he *did* say 11th hour bug fixes a couple of days ago with that 50 MB of US saving bug - so it has to be close to release if he says that.
Safety Overrides: now also extends overload duration by 50%Isn't that a skill effect that applies to the player? A disadvantage for something like that would really make more sense as a toggle of some kind.
QuoteSafety Overrides: now also extends overload duration by 50%Isn't that a skill effect that applies to the player? A disadvantage for something like that would really make more sense as a toggle of some kind.
I think he mixed up the skill called Safety Overrides with new hull mod and thinks that the skill will now cause you to have 50% longer overloadsQuoteSafety Overrides: now also extends overload duration by 50%Isn't that a skill effect that applies to the player? A disadvantage for something like that would really make more sense as a toggle of some kind.
I'm not sure what you mean; could you clarify?
I agree Starsector as it is now is not ready for Steam. It does not take long to reach endgame, and there is no win (or lose) condition. Also, people will need to install 64-bit Java to play more than a few mods. If Starsector needs mods to be good for more than a few games, it will not last long.
The masses will be attracted by a shiny new game for a month or two, then move on to more fresh meat... unless the game is superb enough to be replayed over and over again. Starsector, good as it is, is not at that level yet.
Ahhhh, right, there's a perk called "Safety Override". Yeah, need to rename that, that's super confusing.
It's quite fun to struggle your way to the top, and depending on your playstyle it can also take quite a while. So I think (re)playability is quite decent already. But if you're looking for inspiration, I can only repeat myself and suggest: Mount & Blade: Warband. Crusader Kings 2. Nexerelin and Uomoz's Corvus.
Having 'system lords' struggle for dominance instead of faceless factions. Being able to interact with them, to forge treaties and do missions. Being able to lay siege to and take control of stations. Being able to start your own faction and have everybody else hate you for it.
Industry isn't in yet, so I'm gonna hold my tongue on that one and see what you come up with. ;)
Quick question: Will boarding be an option if player already has max (25) ships in his fleet? Just thinking that if player has max ships, boarding should be skipped altogether or else problems ensue (player exceeds cap, marines mysteriously auto-fail, or something).
[...] Can't wait to work on that, actually. [...]Soontm?
Hey Alex, are there were mods that you wish you could make a part of the base game, and which ones would they be? Any factions or creative contributions that you would put in if you had the time and budget?
Opening it back up because, you know. Very soon(tm).YEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS
it's not going to be today; still need to do a bit more testing with the RC.NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
To try to make up for that, updated patch notes with the last bit of changes :)YEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS
Damage taken is set to "full" by default
Changes as of November 17, 2015
Campaign
- Increased salvage from combat by 50%
- Removed easy/normal start choice from new game creation; added two difficulty choices:
- Normal
- Easy
- 50% more salvage (supplies, credits, etc)
*squeek* We are so close to the update!
Is the increased salvage in campaign only for easy mode or is it a change globally in the game and easy mode gives an additional 50% salvage boost?
Safety Override blocks venting? Only passive dissipation is allowed? (If so, that makes the now named Dedicated Conduits perk useless for that ship.)the 10 point perk (Advanced Routing Algorithms) should be VERY strong with it, though.
Range nerf most certainly guts Safety Override's usefulness at kiting, which is understandable. (I would have used Safety Override just to make my ships faster, or rather make up for speed lost now that Helmsmanship 5 no longers makes the player faster.)
Is the difficulty setting permanent, instead of determining starting assets? (If so, I will play Normal. I may be a munchkin, but I want to play fair.)
Is the increased salvage in campaign only for easy mode or is it a change globally in the game and easy mode gives an additional 50% salvage boost?
(this might be a confusing sentence, sorry)
does increased salvage also mean looting more weapons?
I wonder why salvage is increased at all though, wasn't the idea to make random battles without in-game-reason (bounty, mission, asset defense) unprofitable?
@ Gothars: Probably because you cannot get paid from any and every faction, if you become friends with one, as we can in 0.65?
Removing venting entirely is brutal, going to have to see how that feels.
No, just credits/supplies/heavy equipment/metals.kk. no increased fuel either?
will be interesting to see how that works for BRDY.Removing venting entirely is brutal, going to have to see how that feels.Keep in mind that the normal dissipation rate is equivalent to venting speed w/o SO. It's like you're always venting.
Removing venting entirely is brutal, going to have to see how that feels.
Keep in mind that the normal dissipation rate is equivalent to venting speed w/o SO. It's like you're always venting.
will be interesting to see how that works for BRDY.
Brdy ships directly modify the vent rate, which is irrelevant here, so it won't be as good as it seems. Probably still a valid tradeoff.yeah, that's what i meant. on the one hand, it makes the BR Flux Core useless, and many BR ships already have a low CR timer. but on the other hand, a highly aggressive playstyle with even better mobility sounds like a good fit. should make for an interesting choice, i think.
Oh, right, fuel too. Forgot to list that.ok, ty :]
Venting speed with or without Dedicated Conduits?Removing venting entirely is brutal, going to have to see how that feels.
Keep in mind that the normal dissipation rate is equivalent to venting speed w/o SO. It's like you're always venting.
P.S. Also, because of how brutally expensive Safety Override is, I planned on sacking vents to get the OP needed for Safety Override. (Max vents is usually a no-brainer for most ships.) But now that venting is not possible, I may want to keep max vents... maybe. If I cannot fit Safety Override in, I probably will not bother with it.
Well, you get 2x the benefit from vents with SO, so sacking vents to get it might be counter-productive.Agreed, but Safety Override costing so much OP to use, I foresee the need to give up something to squeeze it in. In my case, taking away from vents will probably be the least painful option (I also planned on getting Safety Override, combined with additional faster venting options, to vent spam very hungry flux hogs like crazy) - I refuse to part with Augmented Engines and ITU. I suppose Resistant Flux Conduits gets the axe since I use it mostly for faster vent speed, but that alone will not be enough. (I put Resistant Flux Conduits on most of my ships too.) I doubt I want to downgrade weapons too (unless I get it solely for range), though I usually put missiles on the chopping block if squeezed for OP (limited ammo is not good when OP is scarce).
Added current "suspicion level" to black market tooltip
"All" button in deployment dialog will now select as many ships as possible for deployment when there aren't enough points to select all of them, instead of being disabled
"Trade disrupted" and "price update" reports only show up in the campaign-level message list if they're from the same system.
"Trade disrupted" and "price update" reports only show up in the campaign-level message list if they're from the same system.
You mean the same system you are currently in? Or when the messages come together?
If the first one, what about hyperspace?
After the update, if I attack a trade fleet, will other trade fleets help fight against me? Cuz then I have like 50 massive fleets against me...
QuoteAfter the update, if I attack a trade fleet, will other trade fleets help fight against me? Cuz then I have like 50 massive fleets against me...
I don't think your save is going to make the transition. Just a bet. ;D
Yeah, I can see dropping vents if you want SO as a "speed boost at the cost of peak time" option, rather than a dissipation boost. But it's a lot of dissipation to give up, and Augmented Engines + SO may well be overkill, while ITU is kind of pointless with SO. In any case, I'm excited to see how this turns out :)
Looks fun! Have you finalized what the exact range changes for SO are/will the game have that info?
Also, in your experience how well do the officer personalities mesh with SO? Are there any personalities that are more aggressive about lowering shields to allow hard flux to dissipate? I'm imagining a situation where a SO ship takes a bunch of hard flux on the shield and then clams up. Then again, they have so much dissipation that maybe they can just keep firing everything anyways.
Looks fun! Have you finalized what the exact range changes for SO are/will the game have that info?
It's 450 + 0.25 * (range - 450). The tooltip just says "drastically".
Always successful provided there are enough marines
Looks fun! Have you finalized what the exact range changes for SO are/will the game have that info?
It's 450 + 0.25 * (range - 450). The tooltip just says "drastically".
So a laser which does 1000 range will now have a range of 587.5? That IS drastic.
Range 400 gets increased to 412.5 though :)
Range 400 gets increased to 412.5 though :)
Wouldn't that be 437.5?
Anyway, I'd assume that there is a "if range >=450" cutoff. Otherwise the 250 range Vulcan would have 400 range with SO.
Just realized that AI's reduced skills in the new Easy difficulty may mean less experience from fighting. Another reason to play Normal, so that skill hungry characters can have more experience, more levels, more skills, and MORE POWER!I doubt it. If it will be implemented, it should be reserved for 50% damage crutch.
Spoiler(http://i.imgur.com/A8nhMmN.gif)[close]
Me trying to resist the urge to f5
(http://i.imgur.com/A8nhMmN.gif)
Me trying to resist the urge to f5
Oh c'mon Alex, spare us. At this point you should tell us the day its going to happen. The suspense of the impending release is getting brutal.
Imminent release confirmed ??? 8)Maybe tomorrow but most likely not today as it LOOKS like Alex has a tendency to post around 4 to 5PM EST
That bug got fixed within minutes. It was major in terms of impact not in terms fix difficulty :)So... what was it, may I ask? Stories of random bug are nearly always interesting to me.
So... what was it, may I ask? Stories of random bug are nearly always interesting to me.
I'm operating under the assumption the new version got released yesterday and I'm just holding off. ;DRead the title of the op, it says "Starsector 0.7a (IN DEVELOPMENT)" in other words, wait young grasshopper
the game is talkingSpoiler(http://i.imgur.com/bjcfg8a.png)[close]
This waiting is a mental equal of physical pain.
The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 8 June 1977 contain a number of provisions that absolutely prohibit torture and other cruel or inhuman treatment and outrages upon individual dignity.
You don't want to break the Gevena Convention, do you Alex?
Your guys' suffering gives me an indescribable perverse pleasure.let's hope Alex doesn't feel the same way .__.
Your guys' suffering gives me an indescribable perverse pleasure.That is disgusting and I love it
ALEX I LOVE YOU
no homo
You don't know how slow is my connection... It's not broadband!
Also, RC7? Did you slept at all these past 2 days Alex?
Well dl is extremely slow so watch it while you wait :D
I really like the derelict gates (plural, I assume, haven't left Corvus yet) floating about, even if they don't do anything yet (OR DO THEY)
I seem to remember that being an issue for you last time, too. Maybe the alternate links will work faster? Those are straight from this server, while the download buttons get it from amazon.Wow man i barely remember that even now when you mentioned it. Nice mission icons btw. And that is it from this version of the game from me. Still resisting urge to play :P
...(That's the exact gif I sent to Alex yesterday :D)
I haven't played vanilla in such a long time. God the starts are hard (even on easy). With the transponder stuff now, the range that I can detect pirates is tiny and I end up burning supplies trying to find ones that I can reasonably handle. I literally ran out of credits and supplies so I had to start over.
sensor stuff is neat but i haven't really gotten that far into the game yet on account of being jumped by pirate attack fleets. maybe i'm just doing it wrong but detect range in the wolf is so small as to be basically nonexistent.
Really good work on the new update, but man is game hard now. I'm playing on easy and I'm getting *** hard, pirates come out of nowhere with crazy burn speed and just kill me. Also I don't understand the transponder thing, it says when I turn it off I should be harder to detect but most off the time turning it off doesn't do anything. Can anyone please explain me how this new stuff works. Thanks in advance ;)
Really good work on the new update, but man is game hard now. I'm playing on easy and I'm getting *** hard, pirates come out of nowhere with crazy burn speed and just kill me. Also I don't understand the transponder thing, it says when I turn it off I should be harder to detect but most off the time turning it off doesn't do anything. Can anyone please explain me how this new stuff works. Thanks in advance ;)
Just dont fly directly to possible pirate locations .. get closer to them slowly, also use sensor burst to draw some attention. Probably a pirate force will look after it ( transponder on or you will draw local forces attention , too )
Have a look a the 2 numbers in the left ( the numbers are how well you´re seen while how well you can see them )
turning transponder off and flying dark both reduces your sensor profile i think. You could try that.
Or just follow a medium sized Hegemony fleet ( heading for pirate worlds ) and join the fight.
It's out! Updated OP with link to blog post.
Hmm... you need to be stationary to take advantage of planetary rings, but if you stay still they just slide out from underneath you after a few seconds. That's very awkward. Maybe stopping on top of them should "anchor" you to them and keep you immobile relative to them.
Must admit was totally (repeatedly) bushwhacked by not understanding the sensor mechanics immediately ... but yeah, once you start to use them, and think about how to use them, I think they really do work nicely.
Maybe there is some tweaking to do on ranges for starter fleets, to try and avoid the 'newbie trap' (those first few pirates really, genuinely, just came from nowhere :)), but then, maybe not (now I've learnt my lesson, I understand it is a key mechanic and can start to skulk about, skirting around the 'genestealer' blips hanging around in space). Looks like there will be a lot of discussion on this, anyway :)
A question though: How do you catch things in bigger ships with the Navigation skill changed to what it is now? Do you just have to be sneakier?
- I found New Maxios had supplies @ ~350 ea... blew my entire balance on super expensive supplies (~120 ea) from the nearby Tri-Tach base to make a quick buck..... then returned to New Maxios to find supplies @ 40 ea >:( Restart!
My one complaint is that this release didn't provide me with a replacement mouse!
I'm stuck playing with a RMB that doesn't work properly! The micro-switch often double clicks, leading to both undesired overloads & unintended hull damage :(
Ordering new mouse right after I finish this post; can't have it spoil my SS enjoyment.
Greetings new player here only had this game last week i think, but i played nonstop of previous build but i must say this build is even more amazing, i'm really amazed and i love fighting side by side with the hedgemony against pirates and everything this update is about. The whole sensors thing is really cool and truly gives me a feel of a space commander even more than the previous build i played, nicely done thanks :D
The game sometimes freezes before combat begins, and I need to exit the game; I suspect lack of memory. (I do not have 64-bit Java on my machine.) I should try dev mode to see if that fixes the problem (after I get a bigger fleet).
Game seems harder to start than before. It is easy to get ambushed, and it is hard to find weak or small targets to pick off. Joining battles is a double-edged sword. Sometimes, you get to join a big battle and earn some XP and loot. Other times, you just stumbled unknowingly into an impossible fight, and you need to flee (and get pursued).
Two of the new systems are dead duds - no markets, no enemies, waste of time.
Safety Override is good for some ships stuck with short-ranged weapons. I use it on the Lasher. I tried it on my Wolf with Heavy Blaster, but not being able to vent hurts too much.
Okay, here's the biggest problem that's obvious to me immediately: Quick Load doesn't work in battle. You have to quit aaaaaall the way to the main menu, then manually load the game via the load game menu.
- If you counted on the "joint battles" to ease the early on difficulty, you failed >< The game is much harder and quite prone to jump on you by surprise early on. The "Oh you didn't detected that other pirate fleet that will join my side to wreck your brand new ships? That's so sad" Effect...
- Detection range visual cue isn't really readable given the distance to the fleet, I often wonder if I'm way inside or way outside. Also the shortcut doesn't do anything?
- Lastly DAMN THOSE CRAZIES LUDD FLEETS!
Yaaaay update! Thanks god, some modders started to lose their mind with wait.It is in the config file already Helmut!
Anyway, i played the campaign a bit and it felt so good! So much new stuff, ships, weapons, reskin, and juicy secret lore! Also cats skulking in the portrait folder.
The game also felt harder to me, but i think it's mostly due to the new sensor system. Like (i think?) everyone, i was also caught by surprise by ninja pirates ambushing me. It was also probably due to my playstyle adapted to the previous version where my finger was constantly locked on the "accelerate time" button in campaign. Now it's much riskier to do that. Fortunately, once i learned when to de/activate the transponder and use the emergency burn, things goes much smoother.
Another reason why the game felt so hard at the beginning is probably because of the Wolf. It's quite a glass cannon and the front shield coupled to its long profile make it so vulnerable to flanking. I personally switched to a Lasher with safety override and unstable injector. Strapped two annihilators, a truckload of machine guns and yelled "RAMMING SPEED!" at every targets. It's brutally efficient, even destroyers are food for a dakka-lasher.
Expanded battles can be quite fantastic as well. Just at the beginning of my campaign, a huge brawl between the Hegemony, independents and pirates exploded in hyperspace. Ships everywhere.Spoiler(http://i.imgur.com/F6tnkce.png)
Only the tip of the iceberg, many pirates were still hidden in the fog of war.[close]
Had some troubles with ships explosions though. With the mods, i forgot about those blinding flashes when big ships exploded. I know this have been a suggestion for a long time, but i hope this will looked at in the future, it's genuinely painful to the eyes.
And yeah, Luddic path ships are pure evil. So freaking fast and agile, and absolutely everywhere!
I think once get a feel for those mechanics, it gets a good bit easier :) I mean, I get what you're saying, but from personal playtesting, the early game feels a lot smoother than it ever did. Again, once I got over the "getting bushwacked" thing. Which is definitely a thing.Here's how I see it:
What shortcut?
Just pay them off :) Or put SO on your own ship.That I did, but SO is very costly before a few levels in tech. (but it so great in a Lasher!!!!)
Had some troubles with ships explosions though. With the mods, i forgot about those blinding flashes when big ships exploded. I know this have been a suggestion for a long time, but i hope this will looked at in the future, it's genuinely painful to the eyes.There's a ship explosion whiteout option in the config. I turned it off.
It is in the config file already Helmut!
For those that don't know where it is, it is in the settings file. Look for this line and set it to false like it is here: "enableShipExplosionWhiteout":false,
There's a ship explosion whiteout option in the config. I turned it off.
One thing I dislike about the sensor business is how damnably zealous about enforcing transponders patrols are. I mean, sure, you saw me with transponder off for a couple seconds on the edge of the system, but is that really worth commiting a 25-ship battlefleet to a week-long chase involving multiple emergency burns? Hell, they'll even get that mad if I have my transponder off somewhere in deep hyperspace between systems and they happen to see it.I'd agree with this. I'm only two frigates damnit, it can't be that worthwhile to chase after me!
I feel that a patrol's reaction to transponder off should strongly depend on where it happens. Right next to a market - proabably a smuggler, definitely needs to be pursued. Somewhere in the system - will probably investigate, but will give up if it can't catch up quickly. Somewhere in hyperspace outside of faction's space - will probably be ignored unless there's a reason to do otherwise.
Also, it should depend on the fleet's size. A couple unidentified frigates is no huge deal. An unidentified large fleet could be an invasion force trying to sneak in for a surprise attack and should be vigorously investigated by patrols.
Hmm... you need to be stationary to take advantage of planetary rings, but if you stay still they just slide out from underneath you after a few seconds. That's very awkward. Maybe stopping on top of them should "anchor" you to them and keep you immobile relative to them.
Hmm, yeah. Note: you can move slowly without losing the bonus. One-two second bursts to somewhere very close by are ok.
Here's how I see it:
In 0.65 you got thrown alone in the water, but if you kept your eyes open your only threat was to engage a fleet too strong. And once you got the hang of it, you could get a sizable fleet of cruisers in under 2 hours.
Now? Well you can get caught of guard early one with little chance to prevent it. Pirates fleets tend to happily gang on you. Loot has little to no values with the economy so filled with huge stacks. Shortages take much longer to reach and are often less profitable.
So yeah the games is much more interesting, and it's smoother in the sense that you don't gain a lot of power too easily, I feel it is harder overall.
Show sensor range, the fourth one.
That I did, but SO is very costly before a few levels in tech. (but it so great in a Lasher!!!!)
Another reason why the game felt so hard at the beginning is probably because of the Wolf. It's quite a glass cannon and the front shield coupled to its long profile make it so vulnerable to flanking. I personally switched to a Lasher with safety override and unstable injector. Strapped two annihilators, a truckload of machine guns and yelled "RAMMING SPEED!" at every targets. It's brutally efficient, even destroyers are food for a dakka-lasher.
I haven't fully understood all the sensor mechanics yet, but the cat and mouse games are already a blast. A pirate fleet tried to jump me and I dodged into a patrol which chased them over the horizon and left me laughing :) I thought it might be helpful if hovering the cursor over the TRIPAD sensor range indicator would show a circle of the same? The pure numbers seem very abstract.
e/ Oh and I forgot to mention, my girlfriend told me to tell you that the star coronas are really beautiful, Alex ;D
The first couple times I got bushwhacked but I'm learning quickly. One odd thing is the fighter (torpedo bomber) ai when joining in a fight. They tend to linger and not do much and not move as they get shot unless they can actively shoot something. Two of three Tridents had already expended ammo but there was a carrier on the field. Will turn into a bug report if I can document more, just thought I'd bring it up for you/others to be aware of.
Two "watercooler" moments already: one was joining my first big battle in my little lonely wolf and just seeing a ton of ships already in the middle of combat. Great experience, even if I barely got anything for helping out. (Newbie trap: joining battles and spending more on supplies than you earned for helping)
Second was new mechanics, decided to plant a comm sniffer. Lingered out of range of anything, killed transponder, went dark and crawled in, planted the sniffer, eyeing up every ship as it slowly crawled past, sensor range just not quite hitting me. Finally finish up, just as a patrol swings my way. Moving in the opposite direction from him so he loses me, then he does an active sensor burst. I panic and hit the emergency burn, he does the same, I just outrace him and turn away and hit go dark as he flies by, not noticing me. Slowly crawl back to the station, barely remembering to turn my transponder on before I get there. Great experience, loved every second, and entirely from new mechanics.
GREAT JOB ALEX!!
They seem to be guided for the 1st few ms?
I feel that a patrol's reaction to transponder off should strongly depend on where it happens. Right next to a market - proabably a smuggler, definitely needs to be pursued. Somewhere in the system - will probably investigate, but will give up if it can't catch up quickly. Somewhere in hyperspace outside of faction's space - will probably be ignored unless there's a reason to do otherwise.
Also, it should depend on the fleet's size. A couple unidentified frigates is no huge deal. An unidentified large fleet could be an invasion force trying to sneak in for a surprise attack and should be vigorously investigated by patrols.
I would really like a way to station-keep like the AIs do orbiting planets/stations. Maybe holding the mouse button down for a couple seconds or ctrl-click? Have it work in the map-view, too, so you can drift in an asteroid belt or ring system.
Is there no experience gained from completing missions? Not even normal trade experience (assuming that's still in; thus far, the only 'trading' I've done are the courier contracts)? Just wondering, because I've completed several missions and turned a profit on each, and have gained a grand total of 0 experience towards the next level.
Also, some missions feel like they have extremely tight time limits; I'm getting the feeling that it's usually not worth bothering with 10-day missions if the delivery point isn't in the same system, at least not early on.
It looks like this was removed between the WIP API and the final release. Was this accidental, or were there unexpected problems with this method?
- SettingsAPI
- List<String> getAllVariantIds();
It looks like this was removed between the WIP API and the final release. Was this accidental, or were there unexpected problems with this method?
- SettingsAPI
- List<String> getAllVariantIds();
Just had an idea about the sensor range sudden pirate newbie trap. How about if there are orbital installations which increase the sensor profile of enemy ships in a radius around them? So not a sensor phalanx proper, more like an echo beacon. Place some in the starting area and pirates/pathers nearby wont surprise the player.
Later on they could be sabotaged by pirates or even the player himself.
Why do mothballed fighter wings have a blue background to their CR bar, yet other ships when mothballed have a red CR bar background?
I just played through Undertale and I was like, I can't play video games anymore they're too intense, seriously i can't invest any more emotion or energy in video games, the only exception might be Starsector thank god it's never gonna be releasFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-
- SettingsAPI
- List<String> getAllVariantIds();
It looks like this was removed between the WIP API and the final release. Was this accidental, or were there unexpected problems with this method?
I still see it both in my code and in the javadoc. Wonder what's going on?
(I don't know about the loot having no value; while there's a lot more stuff all around, the prices are still where they ought to be. There's more disruptions, but that just means more opportunities to exploit.)Well I definitively see a huge difference compared to 0.65: Stacks in the hundred of thousands of Rations, Metal or Organics, even remote markets have 25K of food available...
Just go on space amazon and order some.
Well I definitively see a huge difference compared to 0.65: Stacks in the hundred of thousands of Rations, Metal or Organics, even remote markets have 25K of food available...
Often they make no sense too. Why is somebody paying me to deliver 50 fuel at 300 credits each when there is 800 fuel available for 50 each on the open market where they are? Just go on space amazon and order some.
Do bigger sizes of ships add more sensor strength, or do you just want more ships?
Erm, if that happens it's a bug. It's not supposed to offer delivery missions of a commodity to a place that has that commodity on its own market or nearby. Tested it, too. Maybe you're seeing a mission to deliver fuel offered *at* a market that has fuel, but the destination is a different market?
Anyway, I'm just this second starting a new campaign (I'm home now) and before I do anything else I have to say: I love the new portraits, great work David! They're so much cleaner than the old ones.
I love the new TT portraitAnyway, I'm just this second starting a new campaign (I'm home now) and before I do anything else I have to say: I love the new portraits, great work David! They're so much cleaner than the old ones.
(Thanks!)
I'm sure it was fuel, because I remember using up too much of it to complete a contract and not having enough to fly back.
However I can't see any fuel contracts any more. I'll keep an eye on it and if a lot of them suddenly pop up like that again I'll check if there is actually no fuel in the destination markets (and backup the save)
2 Enforcers, 80k in the bank, very close to the "game becomes unloseable" threshold........
Ah! The sensor mechanics are incredibly fun! I got caught once with my transponder down by a Heg patrol before I learned to quickly double tap it to turn it on/off. Thing I just discovered: active sensor bursts from inside of Nebulae let you see farther than you are seen! Still a couple thousand, but its really interesting...
I've joined one big fight that was raging in hyperspace. I only got a little bit of cash/loot for it, but I double leveled (4 -> 6). Is the experienced based on the battle size or the number of ships I popped? I got a surprising number of kills.
I would not trust that aggresive captain I hired with my wolf, now that I figured out how you hire them. But a lasher? He's pretty effective in it when he isn't taking heavy damage!
I don't really have much to add. It's so good. Just so good.
Those Luddic Path enemies were surprisingly tough. The Luddic Cerberus ended up doing some damage to my Lasher before I took it out.
...Those Luddic Path enemies were surprisingly tough. The Luddic Cerberus ended up doing some damage to my Lasher before I took it out.
(That Cerberus loadout - I'm really happy with it in terms of how effective it is. If you can board one, the SO on it is built-in and so costs no OP, which is a pretty nice bonus.)
Also: while I haven't put SO on a wolf, it is absolutely amazing on A class Hounds! I have it without an officer atm, just as a flanking buddy, and it just dances around blasting with that chaingun. It helps that they have a naturally long combat timer as well.
There is one weird thing I noticed: I got a mission to deliver 50 fuel to the station I was already in. The station had 50 fuel in its black market so I just bought its fuel, left and fulfilled the mission. This just seems like something you probably shouldn't be able to do. :P
Building on this, since detection is now a key game mechanic, it'd be helpful to have more options for enhancing sensor range / effectiveness. Probably easily modded-in, but I like the idea of a new utility ship functioning as a space-AWACS.
More importantly, with the removal of the burn-boosting skills, larger/slower fleets seem like they get 'bounced' constantly--one solution would be increased sensor efficacy for fleets with fighters, simulating radar pickets, CAPs, etc. Heck, that could even be a new ability for the player--toggling fighter stances to trade increased fuel / CR burn for greater detection range.
Is the hotfix save compatible?
...Naw, actually, I'm loving it so far. This took the atmosphere up another notch. Bam! ;-)
I did find something that strikes me as a bit odd: if I get legitimately shaken down for running with my transponder off, other fleets from the same faction will still come crawling in and also yell at me for having my transponder off (more accurately, berating me that I can't get away with just turning it back on). I wouldn't really mind if only the pilot herself was upset, but it double-dings on the faction reputation too. There definitely needs to be an immediate cancellation of an interception for all inspection fleets, not just the one that caught up to you, when you comply with the first inspection.
Also, since the only reason my transponder was off was because I had chosen to go dark and didn't realise it wasn't back on again, could I suggest some sort of positive feedback on the screen (even just a text label above the skillbar like "TRANSPONDER OFF")? Currently the only feedback that you have it off is technically inverse feedback: it removes the halo that would ordinarily be around the transponder icon. Given that running with it off is more "abnormal" than running with it on, there needs to be a positive indication that you're treading in hot water -- otherwise it could be a potential newbie scarer-offer.
(The forum sensors the "peed" off word but not the b word above? Curious.)
I think I found a bug? I captured a ship and got a free pirate captain. Presumably if I de-assign it'll go away, but I'm not throwing away free stuff to find out, haha.
Is hiring captains through the comm system the only way to get them? I was so excited when I noticed that my captured XIV (love these awesome skins BTW) Dominator had the commanding officer on-board already but I was sadden to see them forever disappear after removing them
Ah OK. Well as long as you're thinking about it.Is hiring captains through the comm system the only way to get them? I was so excited when I noticed that my captured XIV (love these awesome skins BTW) Dominator had the commanding officer on-board already but I was sadden to see them forever disappear after removing them
Yes, and that's a bug - sorry :) Maybe there'll be more ways in the future, but aiming for a "minimal viable" implementation of a lot of things in 0.7a. Get the breadth in first, then more depth if/as needed, where it makes sense.
Seconding that this does in fact happen. I've only put in a few hours so far, but within the first 45 minutes of play I got jumped by a sizable (destroyer+5ish frigates) pirate patrol literally right next to Jangala. That was a quick save and reload for me. (not gonna try ironman until I have more experience lol)Just had an idea about the sensor range sudden pirate newbie trap. How about if there are orbital installations which increase the sensor profile of enemy ships in a radius around them? So not a sensor phalanx proper, more like an echo beacon. Place some in the starting area and pirates/pathers nearby wont surprise the player.
Later on they could be sabotaged by pirates or even the player himself.
Hmm. It's a neat concept (somewhat related, been thinking about nav buoys/sensor arrays in campaign) but is getting caught by pirates right next to Corvus really the problem? It seems to happen more when you're going somewhere, i.e. from Corvus to Barad, or Corvus to the jumppoint, etc.
Is it possible they were different factions or some such? They're supposed to break off pursuit once one patrol catches up with you and you agree to the scan. Just tested it and it seems to work.
Seconding that this does in fact happen. I've only put in a few hours so far, but within the first 45 minutes of play I got jumped by a sizable (destroyer+5ish frigates) pirate patrol literally right next to Jangala. That was a quick save and reload for me. (not gonna try ironman until I have more experience lol)
In the battle aftermath screen, there does not seem to be a numerical count of crew member casualties.
-I've noticed the graphics seem to have improved..I thought the textures on some of the planets had improved, but i'm not sure whether i'm imagining this.
-I've always choosen the bounty hunter route, since the wolf just seems to way outclass the other starting ships. I like the fact the default loadout has been crippled a bit, since I never found myself having to upgrade at all for the wolf since the Phase Lance + 3 Tactical lasers would until it's final decomissioning in mid-late game. Nice having to scrounge around for those all important weapons now :)
-Hyperspace looks awesome, planets looks beautiful, stars looking very nice. I'm also loving the high tech terrorforming equipment and other massive space superstructures. I'm now down for some good reading on the Lore of this universe...anyone know where I can read up on all of the details?
One was a large Hegemony Patrol and the other was a Hegemony Fast Picket. It knocked my Hegemony rep down to -9 (from -5; -2 each) so they had to be from the same faction. =)
I'll try to reproduce it again if it ever comes up. I did turn to meet the first patrol head on rather than allowing them to catch up, so maybe it was based on a condition that doesn't fire when wittingly intercepting the fleet? Both fleets were in near proximity to one another, but not close enough to aid each other in battle, if that also helps in reproducing it. They had fit on the same screen when zoomed in by two? three? notches on the scroll wheel.
Quick question:
Reputation drops below hostile in all cases where an enemy ship is destroyed. Previous versions would stop at hostile so long as the player did not pursue/destroy beaten opponents. I didn't see this change in the patch notes, is it supposed to be the case? If so, should the player have some way of patching up relations?
More importantly, with the removal of the burn-boosting skills, larger/slower fleets seem like they get 'bounced' constantly--one solution would be increased sensor efficacy for fleets with fighters, simulating radar pickets, CAPs, etc. Heck, that could even be a new ability for the player--toggling fighter stances to trade increased fuel / CR burn for greater detection range.
Huh, neat idea re: CAPs, possibly as an ability. What do you mean by "bounced"?
I did find something that strikes me as a bit odd: if I get legitimately shaken down for running with my transponder off, other fleets from the same faction will still come crawling in and also yell at me for having my transponder off (more accurately, berating me that I can't get away with just turning it back on). I wouldn't really mind if only the pilot herself was upset, but it double-dings on the faction reputation too. There definitely needs to be an immediate cancellation of an interception for all inspection fleets, not just the one that caught up to you, when you comply with the first inspection.
Is it possible they were different factions or some such? They're supposed to break off pursuit once one patrol catches up with you and you agree to the scan. Just tested it and it seems to work.
Start from sneaking into a pirate base and smuggling something.well, actually smuggling (aka using black market) at the pirate base would decrease my standing with them, not increase it. unless you mean open market trading with disabled transponder, which, yes, does work. but the reputation gains i get from that trade are set-off by every pirate around trying to get into a fight with me, as mentioned, even if i never take any hostile actions against them. this would not be an issue if there was a start option that begins the campaign with any non-hostile pirate reputation.
One thought I'd had is adding a new ability - call it "High Alert" - that would give you, say, +500 sensor range in exchange for increased maintenance costs. But you'd have to know how to utilize that, so, again, not exactly newbie-friendly.Why having "High-Alert" similar to "Going Dark" but raising your sensor range instead? With half the speed and no CR recovery. And to keep Sensor ping useful, maybe you can make it more long ranged but only in a frontal cone?
-Hyperspace looks awesome, planets looks beautiful, stars looking very nice. I'm also loving the high tech terrorforming equipment and other massive space superstructures. I'm now down for some good reading on the Lore of this universe...anyone know where I can read up on all of the details?
Noticed Gemini is one of the few destroyers with burn 8 (most have 9). Now Condor may be a more useful carrier if burn speed is a priority.oh, i like that! Gemini stats felt pretty overpowered, especially given its described as a civilian ship. with them having less burn speed (which seems to be common among civilian ships now) and the subpar sensors, the Condor's role as the baseline military carrier should become much more solidified, even for player fleets. although the Gemini still retains more actual combat power.^^
Noticed Gemini is one of the few destroyers with burn 8 (most have 9). Now Condor may be a more useful carrier if burn speed is a priority.
...the heron wasn't new?it's newer than most ships, v0.65 i believe. but still been in for almost a year :P
I didn't recognize it when i saw one show up in a big heg v pirates fight.
Also, what are these random coloured arcs which bounce around the screen all the time? They're pretty distracting.
Sorry for being all negative and such.
Also, what are these random coloured arcs which bounce around the screen all the time? They're pretty distracting.Those are the sensor ranges of other fleets
Just had an idea about the sensor range sudden pirate newbie trap. How about if there are orbital installations which increase the sensor profile of enemy ships in a radius around them? So not a sensor phalanx proper, more like an echo beacon. Place some in the starting area and pirates/pathers nearby wont surprise the player.
Later on they could be sabotaged by pirates or even the player himself.
Hmm. It's a neat concept (somewhat related, been thinking about nav buoys/sensor arrays in campaign) but is getting caught by pirates right next to Corvus really the problem? It seems to happen more when you're going somewhere, i.e. from Corvus to Barad, or Corvus to the jumppoint, etc.
It's a good system, but the precise meaning isn't completely intuitive.
Actually it's quite intuitive, at least I've picked it up without a hitch. Arcs are faction-coloured or gray for any minor faction.Also, what are these random coloured arcs which bounce around the screen all the time? They're pretty distracting.
Sorry for being all negative and such.
I too would appreciate a thorough explanation of their meaning; they're obviously a sensor indication, but:
- Are they showing someone else detecting you, or you detecting someone else?
- Does their position indicating the extent of nearby fleet's sensor range? or is it just the direction that matters?
It's a good system, but the precise meaning isn't completely intuitive.
STOP! YOU VIOLATED THE LAW!HALT!
I have to say I'm very disappointed by your failure to fix the long-standing problems. Namely:
Enemy AI blatantly cheats. It maneuver in ways that are impossible for the player (i.e. ADADADAD spam that magically makes it dance through my shots). It has the ability to go out of map bounds. And it has inhumanly fast reactions and absolutely perfect precision. Phase ships disappear the moment you press the trigger, before your shot even goes off.
Friendly AI is completely ***. I have a big ship and a small ship. Literally all I need the small ship to do is to guard my flank against *** little frigates and fighters. What does it do? Half the time it charges into the middle of an enemy group and dies immediately, the other half it decides to pass in front of me as I'm firing, gets its engines shot up, and dies immediately.
Quick load only works on the map. Nowhere else. It doesn't work in battle, it doesn't work in dialog and inventory screens, i.e. exactly at the times when you want to use it. If I get caught by an enemy I can't afford to get caught by, I have to click through the encounter menu, enter battle, exit battle, then finally load the game. Manually, because quick load doesn't work in the main menu either. Yes, the loading times are very fast, but it's a pain in the ass nonetheless.
I can confirm that. When I'm venting my Wolf, my other Wolf, which is escorting me, moves forward for the duration of the venting, if there are enemies in range.QuoteFriendly AI is completely ***. I have a big ship and a small ship. Literally all I need the small ship to do is to guard my flank against *** little frigates and fighters. What does it do? Half the time it charges into the middle of an enemy group and dies immediately, the other half it decides to pass in front of me as I'm firing, gets its engines shot up, and dies immediately.
Did you use an escort command? Or otherwise order it to do something? Sometimes the AI charges ahead (hopefully officer AI helps with that, but I haven't gotten first hand testing yet). I will often put an escort command on my main ship to keep us all bundled until things get heavy, and then I remove it to give them more maneuvering freedom.
I have noticed that my escorts pass in front of me more often when I'm high on flux. No idea if thats true or just what I'm thinking. Anyway, consider using your ally as cover instead of shooting them - they will often open up a long enough window for an aggressive vent, after which things are golden.
I played this game for hundreds of hours, probably much longer than either of you.not gonna comment on the rest, but i'm preeeeetty sure that there are many people here who have played the game for literally hundreds of hours already. and i'd guess that many of the modders have played the game and worked with the underlying code for thousands of hours.
Did I ask for help or comment? No, I did not. I played this game for hundreds of hours, probably much longer than either of you. I know what I'm doing and I know what I'm seeing the AI do. I'm not asking for help from you, I'm offering help to the developer. If you want to respond in some way, "thank you for helping make the game better" would be appropriate.Did you ask for a comment? Yes since you posted it on an open forum. If you don't like that, maybe internet is not a place for you.
I have to say I'm very disappointed by your failure to fix the long-standing problems.Especially when I see neither a failure, nor any long standing problem of that sort. Point of view that seems shared by a lot of people here.
Did I ask for help or comment? No, I did not. I played this game for hundreds of hours, probably much longer than either of you. I know what I'm doing and I know what I'm seeing the AI do. I'm not asking for help from you, I'm offering help to the developer. If you want to respond in some way, "thank you for helping make the game better" would be appropriate.
I also forgot to mention the ship movement, both on the map and in battle. It needs to be way, way more responsive. The inertia is tuned way too high. Not only does this make the game frustrating for the player, even the AI can't handle it. I happened upon a battle I wanted to join, so I clicked it. Instead of, y'know, going to it, my fleet (well, my ship) went past it, in a complete circle around it, and only then came into contact with it.
I played this game for hundreds of hours, probably much longer than either of you.not gonna comment on the rest, but i'm preeeeetty sure that there are many people here who have played the game for literally hundreds of hours already. and i'd guess that many of the modders have played the game and worked with the underlying code for thousands of hours.
The AI doesn't cheat.
has any of you guys seen the Gryphon yet? haven't found it in any markets or fleets so far, and can't even get it in the Random Battle mission to take it for a test ride either q_q
has any of you guys seen the Gryphon yet? haven't found it in any markets or fleets so far, and can't even get it in the Random Battle mission to take it for a test ride either q_q
Yeah i've seen it accasionally in hegemony markets, Couldnt buy it though since my relation was too lowguess i'll have to get my pirate captain some rep with the Hegemony, then.. i want that ship!
WUBALUBADUBDUB!are you sure?
Are smuggling fines supposed to be -80 rep with the faction even from something small like 50 supplies ?.Depending on how much you smuggled in (I think it depends on how many credits worth sold to the Black Market), your suspicion level (as seen when you hover your mouse over the "Black Market" tab). You can cover this up if you do enough Open Market or Military trades.
(I don't remember the exact planet I bought them, but it only had supplies in sale at black market and none in the open if that matters)
Investigation, Guilty and bang. Went from +50 to -30 with independent.
Depending on how much you smuggled in (I think it depends on how many credits worth sold to the Black Market), your suspicion level (as seen when you hover your mouse over the "Black Market" tab). You can cover this up if you do enough Open Market or Military trades.
is there a way (or even an already updated mod) to increase rep with pirates that i'm missing? :/
It's a (rather dated--WWII era) air combat term for getting attacked suddenly and without warning--ie "bounced by a flight of '109s diving out of the sun." Or, in this case, encountering Pirate / Luddite frigate fleets that seem to come out of nowhere, leaving minimal time for stealth or running away. Makes sense when you're essentially on your own, but by the time you've got a few ships together it could be interesting to have some progression in this area, partially offsetting slower movement. In addition to helping the player rely less on avoidance abilities which disrupt travel and faction relationships, from a 'fluff' perspective I think patrol and screen options could fit nicely with the scope of the campaign, an abstraction for splitting or controlling multiple fleets.
I've seen this as well, definitely fleets from the same faction. The issue appears specific to cases where the player re-enables the transponder between being detected and intercepted by faction fleets. Merely having the transponder off results in only one interception.
One thought I'd had is adding a new ability - call it "High Alert" - that would give you, say, +500 sensor range in exchange for increased maintenance costs. But you'd have to know how to utilize that, so, again, not exactly newbie-friendly.Why having "High-Alert" similar to "Going Dark" but raising your sensor range instead? With half the speed and no CR recovery. And to keep Sensor ping useful, maybe you can make it more long ranged but only in a frontal cone?
Or maybe the opposite: High Alert would halve your speed and maneuverability in campaign, cost some CR and stop the recovery but would double your detection range in a 90 degrees forward cone, as a way to check your path. Ping being omni directional and longer ranged would still be more useful to find a ship gone dark.
Is it intentional that the Kite (A) loses the Civilian-grade Hull hullmod of the regular version, but the Buffalo (A) doesn't?
(I think it makes some sense, just checking)
EDIT: Also, why do Falcon/Heron and the battlecruisers no longer have a burn speed advantage over their fellows? That used to be among their selling points.
The default detection range is pretty small so you can't see fleets until they're almost on top of you, and now that everything can be randomly faster than you whenever it decides it is really easy to get trapped by fleets which are both tougher than you AND faster than you.
Bam. Dead before you even start.
Yes. You can activate the burn thing as well, but you don't even know you need to before some random thing jumps out of the dark at you, plus this introduces a "twitch" element to the game which is a huge reason I like(d) SS - because it doesn't (didn't) have any of those.
It's the combination of really fast enemies which can make themselves faster, and almost zero ability for situational awareness which makes the game far to "hard" for me to consider it even remotely fun at the moment. :(
Maybe if the emergency burn boost thing had a limitation like "can't initiate combat for x amount of time after activating" to prevent fleets from using it to chase things instead of running away from things (like in an emergency) it would be a little less harsh?
Also, what are these random coloured arcs which bounce around the screen all the time? They're pretty distracting.
I too would appreciate a thorough explanation of their meaning; they're obviously a sensor indication, but:
- Are they showing someone else detecting you, or you detecting someone else?
- Does their position indicating the extent of nearby fleet's sensor range? or is it just the direction that matters?
It's a good system, but the precise meaning isn't completely intuitive.
I was thinking of a (or several) big installation that can cover, like, half the system as long as it's active. Hell, simply let it cover the entire area in which a new player is supposed to learn the ropes.
The potential problem is that new players don't understand that they are being helped and overestimate their sensor range. That could be counteracted by clearly stating when a contact is identified with the help of the beacon, e.g. a little text on the target "beacon revealed".
Such a temporary mechanic is the only the thing I can think of to keep the sensors as (super!) interesting to more experienced players without being frustrating to newbies *shrug*
Enemy AI blatantly cheats. It maneuver in ways that are impossible for the player (i.e. ADADADAD spam that magically makes it dance through my shots). It has the ability to go out of map bounds. And it has inhumanly fast reactions and absolutely perfect precision. Phase ships disappear the moment you press the trigger, before your shot even goes off.
Friendly AI is completely ***. I have a big ship and a small ship. Literally all I need the small ship to do is to guard my flank against *** little frigates and fighters. What does it do? Half the time it charges into the middle of an enemy group and dies immediately, the other half it decides to pass in front of me as I'm firing, gets its engines shot up, and dies immediately.
These are extremely serious problems that really need to be fixed ASAP. Especially the AI issues, especially the zig-zagging. Yes, I know I can do it too, but the AI has the reactions and precision of a computer, it's able to lead its shots perfectly no matter how I move. I, on the other hand, am flailing at a keyboard and mouse, trying to pay attention to three things at once, and trying lead my shots on a ship that's dodging and weaving on a screen that's a mess of shots and explosions and that sways with every movement of my ship and my mouse cursor. It's ridiculous.
I have noticed that my escorts pass in front of me more often when I'm high on flux. No idea if thats true or just what I'm thinking.
WUBALUBADUBDUB!
The range on "Squall MLRS" seems to be either incorrect or bugged.
It shows the range as 2000, but when fired the missiles seem to "shut down" at 500 and then disappear completely at around 1000 or so range.
(Fired from Apogee with ECCM package just to mention it)
Are smuggling fines supposed to be -80 rep with the faction even from something small like 50 supplies ?.
(I don't remember the exact planet I bought them, but it only had supplies in sale at black market and none in the open if that matters)
Investigation, Guilty and bang. Went from +50 to -30 with independent.
Named bounties with factions with "Inhospitable" or worse do really need some adjustment.
Doing a 50k bounty for no reward and measly +3 rep kinda gives the feeling that you just got cheated.
How about something like: getting 50% of the bounty and then +rep depending on the remaining 50% ?
(For example if +1 rep would be worth 2.5k, 50k bounty would be 25k money gained and +10 rep)
Depending on how much you smuggled in (I think it depends on how many credits worth sold to the Black Market), your suspicion level (as seen when you hover your mouse over the "Black Market" tab). You can cover this up if you do enough Open Market or Military trades.
By the way, I think this only works if you first do the black market trading and then the legal trading, without leaving the station in between.
still, doesn't feel great to be punished twice for one transgression, not to mention confusing when you don't realize what's going on.
also, question on the side: should i post bug reports / feedback like this in this thread here, or make a new thread in the Bug Reports & Support section (assuming there isn't a dedicated thread on the topic already)?
I feel like the casualty rates for boarding are a little crazy. It always seems like I lose at least twice as many marines as there are enemy crew in any boarding action and at times it's far higher. I just encountered a rather extreme example where I lost 28 marines boarding a Lasher with 2 crew.
I feel like the casualty rates for boarding are a little crazy. It always seems like I lose at least twice as many marines as there are enemy crew in any boarding action and at times it's far higher. I just encountered a rather extreme example where I lost 28 marines boarding a Lasher with 2 crew.Let's not forget that these are HIGHLY trained men and women in power armor!
I also noticed Alex that the amount of crew killed and the detected amount don't match up most of the time. The detected amount always seems highed than the kill countIt's ZOMBIES
Well , what does (A) variant stand for? Advanced?I might not know what the (A) stands for, but I certainly know that it's better. I found a Hound (A) right off the bat after delivering some Drugs to Asharu on my way back at Jangala - picked that right up and sold my old Hound. Damn, that thing is still with me in my playthrough. It managed to survive a double-hit of Hammer with it's officer - I'm impressed. :D
I like the "degraded engines/faulty power grids add sensor profile" idea. Even if it only means you get that "there's something there" sensor icon, at least the pirates won't be a complete surprise. Of course, I imagine sensor hullmods that boost range or hide sensor profiles, dedicated support/utility ships that specialize in sensor intel/counter-intel, etc. are only a matter of time.They (Apogee and the Omen) already do have enhanced sensors! It is a built in hull mod
As an aside, what determines the sensor range/profile? Is it solely determined by fleet size or do individual hulls have their own sensor stats? I was thinking about some of the "science" ships out there (Apogee comes to mind) and how I could imagine them having more powerful sensors than your run-of-the-mill ship of the same size.
It managed to survive a double-hit of Hammer with it's officer - I'm impressed. :D
As an aside, what determines the sensor range/profile? Is it solely determined by fleet size or do individual hulls have their own sensor stats? I was thinking about some of the "science" ships out there (Apogee comes to mind) and how I could imagine them having more powerful sensors than your run-of-the-mill ship of the same size.
Apparantly someone mastered gunnery implant :)It managed to survive a double-hit of Hammer with it's officer - I'm impressed. :D
(I'm more impressed that something managed to hit a Hound with a Hammer at all, never mind twice.)
Alex, can you add confirmation to Active sensor burst? You know... it's a risky option.
And some extra warning about pinging with transpoder off somehow.
pyg, you can find out from the Intel screen, check the 'missions' sub section.Oh yeah, I just did that and it worked... why did I ever wonder how it should be that way?
I was being chased by a rather large group of pirates, but despite outrunning them, they caught up during the transition from hyperspace->normal space, since during the animation they are free to move around and jump through the gate while my ships are being anchored until the jumping animation completes.
Either giving them the same delay or pausing the game during the animation would work. It does keep things tense during a chase, but it's kind of like the monsters that chase you in your nightmares as a child: You suddenly find your legs can no longer move, but meanwhile that monster approaches steadily closer and closer...
Hmm. The thing is, AI reactions are not instantaneous or even frame-perfect (though they're pretty fast), its precision isn't exact, and it doesn't always (or even often) lead perfectly. Its maneuvering to avoid shots is veeery far from being perfect, as well - most of the shots you perceive as being dodged by it, it's not even directly aware of.
I mean, I can understand being frustrated - especially facing some of the faster frigates, such as the Pather Kite, or the smaller phase ships - but I don't think "AI cheating" is to blame here. I wouldn't personally call slightly-better-than-human reactions cheating, anyway - in most cases, it doesn't result in superior performance but instead barely makes up for not anticipating/planning ahead.
As for going out of map bounds, it's a bit of an issue that only affects retreating ships, on both sides.
As far as the friendly AI, btw: it's exactly the same AI.
I feel like in both cases, it's a question of learning how the systems work and making them work for you. Want an escort that's not aggressive, for example? Put a timid officer in charge. Etc.
That said, thanks for your feedback! It's definitely valuable seeing how someone perceives what's going on, coming from a different place. I mean, "how things work" isn't more important than "how they're perceived", and I'll certainly keep this in mind. I will say I don't assign the same priority to "fixing" this that you do, and am not even clear on what "fixing" it would mean, given what's going on. My apologies; we're just not on the same page here.
If it makes you reload, yeah. But if you have to deal with it? This is the kind of thing where iron mode (or self-imposed iron mode) can really add to the experience. A matter of taste, of course... I just find dealing with unexpected difficulties fun. And here, as a bonus, it's even entirely your own fault :PTrue... I meant just that I feel stupid.
It affects me in every single battle I fight. Because allied AI is so useless, I tend to go solo. Because I go solo, I kite a lot. Because I kite, enemy ships try to flank me and surround me. Because they try to flank me, I strafe to the side. Because I strafe to the side, I bump against the edge of the map. Because I can go no further, enemy ships are free to flank me by going out of bounds.I don't know if it's changed in 0.7, but in 0.65.2a not only do enemy ships not go out of bounds to any meaningful extent, if they're going to they turn around and fly back in at right angles to the map edge. This makes them almost harmless for several seconds while front shields and weapons are pointing away from you.
I was being chased by a rather large group of pirates, but despite outrunning them, they caught up during the transition from hyperspace->normal space, since during the animation they are free to move around and jump through the gate while my ships are being anchored until the jumping animation completes.
Either giving them the same delay or pausing the game during the animation would work. It does keep things tense during a chase, but it's kind of like the monsters that chase you in your nightmares as a child: You suddenly find your legs can no longer move, but meanwhile that monster approaches steadily closer and closer...
They're not supposed to be able to engage you during the transition. They may catch up and start their own transition, but they can't actually attack. There may be an interval where they can, while your fleet is moving towards the point but hasn't quite started the jump yet, but it should be very short unless the jumppoint is moving quickly. Is that what you ran into?
Alright, so maybe there's a variation of a few frames, but it's nowhere near enough. Like I said, when fighting a phase ship, it will vanish as soon as you click, with inhumanly fast reaction time. I mean, look at this!Spoilerhttps://youtu.be/7Y_S-SCEphU[close]
QuoteAs for going out of map bounds, it's a bit of an issue that only affects retreating ships, on both sides.
It affects me in every single battle I fight.
QuoteAs far as the friendly AI, btw: it's exactly the same AI.
Yes, it is the same AI, and I bet you if the AI could speak, it would complain about other friendly ships passing through its firing arcs too. Maybe it shouldn't be the same AI? It seems entirely logical to me that the player's ship should be treated differently. When one AI ship does something frustrating to another AI ship, nobody cares, it's just AI. When it does it to the player, it makes the game less enjoyable. To my mind that's a problem.
This also relates to my previous point about AI ships having perfect awareness of what's going on around them. They can stop shooting to avoid hitting allies very reliably. Humans can only look at one thing at a time. Often I have to keep my eyes on the edge of the screen to see what that big cruiser is up to and only keep track of the little frigate I'm firing at out of the corner of my eye. When an AI ally passes in front of me in such a situation, there's no way I can notice it in time to avoid blasting it to bits.
Not to be overly sarcastic here, but I haven't seen a "won't pass through your firing arcs while you're firing" among officer personality traits yet.
Oh, and btw, one other thing that may have been mentioned already. Investigations into ties with other factions are just crazy. All I did was hunt some pirates for a Ludd bounty, then a bunch of investigations of my ties to them came up, and now everyone hates me for it, even factions that are on friendly terms with the Ludds. :(
Sorry, I may not of explained it quite right.
They can't engage my forces until after the transition, the problem is they can move towards you and catch up during the jump animation. So if for example the pirates where chasing you at about 400 pixels away and you start a jump out of hyperspace; by the time you can finally move (after the jump animation), they are directly on top of you and so you have no opportunity to run away.
The range on "Squall MLRS" seems to be either incorrect or bugged.
It shows the range as 2000, but when fired the missiles seem to "shut down" at 500 and then disappear completely at around 1000 or so range.
(Fired from Apogee with ECCM package just to mention it)
It affects me in every single battle I fight. Because allied AI is so useless, I tend to go solo. Because I go solo, I kite a lot. Because I kite, enemy ships try to flank me and surround me. Because they try to flank me, I strafe to the side. Because I strafe to the side, I bump against the edge of the map. Because I can go no further, enemy ships are free to flank me by going out of bounds.
I don't know if it's changed in 0.7, but in 0.65.2a not only do enemy ships not go out of bounds to any meaningful extent, if they're going to they turn around and fly back in at right angles to the map edge. This makes them almost harmless for several seconds while front shields and weapons are pointing away from you.
@Sordid
Would you mind sharing what specific ways the allied AI is bad? It is the same AI as the enemy, so it benefits from all of the same reaction times, etc, so I find it to be quite competent. If you have been playing without them you might be surprised at how much better it has become over the years. Especially with officers giving them skills.
I agree that fighting phase ships can be frustrating, but the alternative where they mess up and take hits, is far worse. They would become essentially useless. Unfortunately the only thing to do with them is to wait them out; its very easy with other ships in the fleet, but it is boring. (This is what phase ships are good at - fighting 1 other ship. They don't do well when outnumbered.)
I'm not going to say fighting phase ships 1v1 is the best experience ever. It's doable with the right tactics, though. Expecting to score hits with that approach isn't going to work, generally; if you could, phase ships would be useless in AI hands.
This is the behavior I see near map bounds:Spoiler(http://giant.gfycat.com/ConsciousAngryHummingbird.gif)[close]
Occasionally, there's some dipping beyond the boundary, but no more than what your ship can also do. I don't know what you're seeing.
The thing is, literally no matter what the AI does (unless it does nothing at all), it's going to do something that's not to someone's liking at one time or another. That's just a reality. You can choose to get aggravated by it, or you can choose to treat it as something to figure out and work with. You might feel that these things in particular are major aggravations, and I certainly can't say that you're wrong - it's a subjective experience, and (in the least condescending way possible) I'm sure it's true for you.
What I can say is, given the situation, I'm pretty positive that "fixing" (in quotes because in my view, they mostly aren't problems) these things would create much bigger problems, from my subjective perspective. So, I'm not not fixing them because working on new features is more fun or whatnot. I actually enjoy working on AI a lot, and probably spend more time on it than is prudent, but I feel it's very important to a single-player game. We just don't see eye-to-eye on the specifics here, and I'm not sure that we can.
Regarding shooting allies: if you're continuing to fire without looking where you're firing, I have to say, that's entirely on you. You can put the guns on auto-fire, you can even pause the game while do it or while you look around, or you can stop firing for a second while you're not looking - which often isn't even a DPS loss, since it's generally limited by flux not time on target. The AI may be to blame for passing in front of you, but it isn't to blame for being shot.
Well, the point is to - at this point, in a rather heavy-handed way - force you to fight faction-level enemies in the late game. For the current implementation, "realism" wasn't a partcular concern, so I'd say it's working as intended :) (Side note: to actually hostile-level hate you for it, they'd all have had to have investigated you at least three times each, so it's not exactly as though you've just hunted a few bounties...)
Well... I kind of already addressed that in my previous posts where I detailed some of the reasons why no, it's not my fault when the AI gets shot. To briefly reiterate, the AI has perfect awareness of what's going on around it. Human beings don't. When my escort passes in front of me while my guns are blazing, it absolutely is his own fault. But again, I understand perfectly what's going on here. It's a case of "I made the AI, I spent a lot of time on it, therefore any problems with it are the player's fault, not the AI's." It's Apple's "you're holding it wrong" all over again. Disappointing. That M&B trap I mentioned? This is what it looks like when you're sliding down into it. It breaks my heart, but there's nothing I can do that I haven't already done. Thank you for taking the time to reply.
Long time player and forum dweller but haven't had an account until now. Just wanted to say .7a is awesome and this game is really shaping up to be amazing. Thanks for making it and stuff!
If you open a comm link with the Luddic Path fleet (the lime green guys), you can pay them off.
As a suggestion, I think they should open a comm link with the player themselves upon interception. It's far from obvious that you can pay them off if you talk to them instead of trying to fight or run.
What I maen by "broken economy" is that some goods everyone has in absurd amounts, you can remove them from the game completely that they would make no difference, since there is no point in ever trading them, even with events (and I never saw them in missions).
In one of my re-starts, in corvus alone there was 500k organic stuff, 800k food, I visited another system, and it also had 700k of organic stuff, and 1 million of that blue thing...
Meanwhile people are all over the place wanting deliveries of 100 machines, but noone can supply that (nor it fits the starting ship, nor you can afford it at start, in fact at start almost no mission is doable at all! in one of my re-start attempts I resorted to using cheat engine to give me money, because it was very boring trying to scrounge money to start as a trader, since I could not afford any goods at all to sell elsewhere!)
Still, I came back to say I found a bug with your transponder system: when targeting a fleet, you are immediately let known who they are: I saw a "blip", used active sensor thing, and saw a gray fleet, I clicked on them, and on the top of my screen this showed: "Laying an intercept course for Pirate attack fleet", but when I mouseover they are still "Unindentified fleet", I guess this is a bug and not intended.
Thanks for the report - noted, will fix that up.Of course, I post this in the bug forums and it gets noticed here before there. :P
@TarranMaybe, though I will note that the Tri-Tachyon was Suspicious with me, so that might be why they're giving me sass.
The Tri-Tachyon usually doesn't give a damn if your Transponder is on or off. I guess there's separate levels of how hidden you are to how much the AI can care?
I think patrols generally go as far as they can before having to turn back and refuel. Arcadia to Valhalla isn't too far, comparatively to the other star systems (like Penelope's Star, really far out).
About the AI discussion, Alex, have you considered nerfing the AI for different difficulties?
In larger fleet battles, though, they can't seem to multitask very well - I usually see the AI set up an Assault order somewhere in space that sends 90% of their fleet to that area. The AI really needs to learn how to divide and conquer, much like how the player does (which means, don't send your entire fleet to one half of the map - the other half of the enemy fleet could just swing around and pull off a massive flank, which is the usual situation in most large battles with me).
Thanks for the report - noted, will fix that up.Of course, I post this in the bug forums and it gets noticed here before there. :P
I got another mission telling me to bring 10 drugs to Ragnar or something, so I decided "Screw it, I want money" so off I went.
A bunch of pirates sneak up on me immediately upon leaving the system, but they ask me for my drugs in return for, yaknow, not killing me.
I told them to go eff themselves.
They immediately killed me and I rage quit.
This is gonna take some getting used to. but at least the game is hard again! My only complaint is that some of the star systems are really... empty. Are these placeholders for the Exploration update?
Hmm. Sure, frigates, but how do you do vs destroyers and such? It can take quite a while to take out proper destroyers (i.e. not a Buffalo Mk.II) with a Pulse Laser, especially if there is more than one so it's harder to focus on it entirely. Long enough that it costs you many more supplies due to CR degradation.
Part of the balance here is definitely cost - however many supplies it ends up costing you to recover, that's roughly how many deployment-supplies of non-SO ships it should be in the rough ballpark of, performance wise. It's a lot easier to get some SO ships going, though, so that's got to count for something too.
Then there's having to take more time to recover. It's not always an option, right? A bounty might be expiring, etc. Using Emergency Burn isn't free either, and you can't recover while it's going. This all might be more of an issue when there's more time pressure in the campaign - e.g., sure you could whittle down that enemy fleet, but they're sending marines down to raid your outpost right now.
All that said, I might very well end up nerfing it a bit. It certainly sounds like you've put it to very good use; any thoughts on what'd make sense to you as far as nerfs? One consideration is that speed really ought to stay the way it is, otherwise AI ships using it means the optimal strategy against them is waiting out their CR and that's a no-go.
I agree that SO needs to be locked away but on the other hand, if people are needing to put SO on to be able to get out of early game then what to do then? If you nerf the pirate numbers, then people could become dirt poor. Much more and even more players will have problems in the early game
I'd take my hyperion and teleport behind an eagle, right between its shields/engine and just push it away from the rest of the fleet while gravitroning/torpedo/harpoon'ing it to death, many many lols were had.
supplies and their use arent really an issue when you only have /one/ ship and you are slaughtering enemies with regularity. I stopped running out of supplies and fuel once I made my first 20k. The time thing, yeah, but obviously since you haven't added all that stuff yet it's very difficult to balance it with features you might only have in-mind.
IMO it makes 0 sense that you can get a hull mod at the very start of the game that gives you an ability that is far and away better than that one level 10 combat skill that gives you 0 flux boost until 25% flux. 0 flux bonus no matter how much flux you have, as well as another fantastic speed boost, AND it gives you extra flux-per-second on top of that?! I don't see how this got past you, man!
Did you ever time how long it takes to vent a full bar of flux versus how much time it takes to naturally disperse that same amount of flux with SO? because it didn't seem like that much of a difference to me. the real kicker is, even though you can't vent with SO, with shields off and not firing weapons, you still vent flux very quickly, and there's the added bonus of not being completely vulnerable like you are with normal venting, and you go like 30%+ faster.
Hah! Nice :)
Running out may not be an issue, but it still cuts into your profits. My point is that if you can, say, deploy triple the ships without SO, and steamroll things in a similar fashion, then that's more or less ok, balance-wise. Just a different playstyle.
The question is exactly what the downsides (which are already drastic) should be to balance it out. I think it already works out pretty well in terms of how it feels in combat - SO ships are fun to play, right? So maybe some non-combat penalties are in order. Increased sensor profile, increased maintenance costs, reduced sensor range, maybe something else. Perhaps a bit of a nerf in the dissipation bonus department, as well.
Again, thank you for the feedback - this is good, and is exactly the sort of thing that's going to help figure it out.
It could certainly use a nerf, (I like the idea of decreasing effect over time as suggested above) but not a big one IMO.i think depending on details like whether the drop is linear, whether the bonuses are eventually negated entirely and whether all bonuses are affected, the peak performance time itself might not need such a drastic reduction. having SO reduce PPT by only half or so but with continously dropping performance would allow ships to stay in battle for longer if necessary, while still favoring a very aggressive playstyle, even more so than is currently the case in many of the smaller battles.
The trick with SO I think is that it's exceedingly useful early game to pick the enemy ships one by one and blast them away. But once you start facing bigger ships and fleets, the battles last longer and the Peak time reduction start to take it's toll real hard. It could certainly use a nerf, (I like the idea of decreasing effect over time as suggested above) but not a big one IMO.
Theres a limit on ships now? Thats going to be annoying.25 ships / fighter wings total. Not sure if you can edit that, though.
So its a hard limit, and it doesn't matter do you have 25 capital ships or 25 frigates?Theres a limit on ships now? Thats going to be annoying.25 ships / fighter wings total. Not sure if you can edit that, though.
Not found SS this exciting & enjoyable since I 1st bought it way back when.
Will the gates play a role in the game or are they just there for the lore?
There are a lot of graphical improvements that I like, but at the same tiem a lot of graphical downgrades. Noticed a lot of ships look worse with less detail and more bland textures than before. Eagle especially looks very bad, dominator also looks a lot worse, with several other ships that have a graphical downgrade. You should be putting more details on ships, not less.
There are a lot of graphical improvements that I like, but at the same tiem a lot of graphical downgrades. Noticed a lot of ships look worse with less detail and more bland textures than before. Eagle especially looks very bad, dominator also looks a lot worse, with several other ships that have a graphical downgrade. You should be putting more details on ships, not less.
Wow, really? I love the new smoother curves :) Some of the old sprites are preserved in D-variants btw, were the fit much better imo. Here's an blog post of the artist (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2015/07/26/the-trouble-with-greebles/), giving his reasons for the change.
All I'm saying is, is "look where you're shooting" too much to ask? That... seems fairly basic to me.
I'm not saying it's a good thing when the AI crosses your line of fire. In many circumstances, it's a mistake. But, the consequences aren't all that bad if you handle it well, which is far from impossible, and which you have lots of tools to assist you with. Thus, while it's definitely an issue, it's not a particularly high-priority one in my view.
(Side note: I'm rather a fan of M&B. Great game! Not without a few issues, but even so.)
Not happy at the thought process of thinking that less detail is better. Hope it will stop here and not continue to make other ships look more simple. Probably one of the worst graphic downgrades I saw, and hope it will not happen to other parts of the game.
Not happy at the thought process of thinking that less detail is better. Hope it will stop here and not continue to make other ships look more simple. Probably one of the worst graphic downgrades I saw, and hope it will not happen to other parts of the game.
It's not really a downgrade,but a matter of taste you like ships with more details and some people like ships with smoother lines
Agreed. Condor and Tarsus look awful now :(
When you remove details from a object, make its sprite/texture more simple, its called a downgrade. Nothing wrong with people liking it or not liking it, but its still called a downgrade. I hope the game will not go that route and change, in my perspective, for worse.There's such thing as too many details - read David's blog post.
Not to mention, since you took customs shakedowns away, and I never have to turn my transponder off, there's 0 risk from transporting illegal cargo
This game's come a nice, long way since Alex and David dropped in on a forum discussion and convinced me and a bunch of other people to buy.
Not that we took much convincing, but in January 2011 things looked a little different.Spoiler(http://www.fractalsoftworks.com/public/conquest2.jpg)[close]
Been trying out each version and lurking here. Thanks a ton for keeping on with it, I still very much love where this game is headed!
Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 1:54 PM
All that said, I might very well end up nerfing it a bit. It certainly sounds like you've put it to very good use; any thoughts on what'd make sense to you as far as nerfs? One consideration is that speed really ought to stay the way it is, otherwise AI ships using it means the optimal strategy against them is waiting out their CR and that's a no-go.
Is... is that really what an actually released version looked like? That really takes me back.You posted that as an "exclusive sneak peek at the brand-new Conquest-class battlecruiser" on January 31, 2011, so it was a couple months before that first public version!
Feb 1, 2011 at 5:36 PM
Thank you for preordering Starfarer.
Most likely among the first 10-20 players :)
has any of you guys seen the Gryphon yet? haven't found it in any markets or fleets so far, and can't even get it in the Random Battle mission to take it for a test ride either q_qSo I got tired of looking for one of these ships after seeing it in the codex, and acquired one via console mod to be a flagship for my small fleet of frigates. Ended up spending a fair bit on supplies while looking for decent missiles, but aside from one time when I learned the missile autoforge also drains cr, not just provides missiles and a burst of flux (and ended up needing to reload because the resulting repair bill drained too much of my supplies), I like it. Even if it costs more per fight than two of the frigates combined, hehe.
Also, ironically, we need a money sink. I have 2 freaking million credits, and have no idea what to spend it on. Cruisers? Don't need them, my lvl 20 officers have turned my Medusae and Hammerheads into death incarnate. Capital ships? Too slow, and I have several bombers on standby in case my opponents have one.
has any of you guys seen the Gryphon yet? haven't found it in any markets or fleets so far, and can't even get it in the Random Battle mission to take it for a test ride either q_qSo I got tired of looking for one of these ships after seeing it in the codex, and acquired one via console mod to be a flagship for my small fleet of frigates. Ended up spending a fair bit on supplies while looking for decent missiles, but aside from one time when I learned the missile autoforge also drains cr, not just provides missiles and a burst of flux (and ended up needing to reload because the resulting repair bill drained too much of my supplies), I like it. Even if it costs more per fight than two of the frigates combined, hehe.
You really shouldn't balance SO based on a chance for something bad to happen or also around taking heavy damage - if something bad does happen then people will simply save scum. It needs to be a constant weakness not an "only if this happens weakness" and I recommend it not only costs lots of OP (as it already does) but also penalizes a ship's remaining OP by 10 to 20 percent (code in tooltip stating that SO must be installed before all other hullmods).
I really don't like the trend of speed/movement boosting hullmods as they always end up being extremely powerful and borderline you-are-stupid for not using them. I've always liked the slower but more tactical combat Starsector has had where your ships facing and positioning actually matter, please don't turn this into SPAZ (I like SPAZ but thats a different style) or even worse, an arcade shoot'em up style combat.
So I got tired of looking for one of these ships after seeing it in the codex, and acquired one via console mod to be a flagship for my small fleet of frigates. Ended up spending a fair bit on supplies while looking for decent missiles, but aside from one time when I learned the missile autoforge also drains cr, not just provides missiles and a burst of flux (and ended up needing to reload because the resulting repair bill drained too much of my supplies), I like it. Even if it costs more per fight than two of the frigates combined, hehe.yeah, i'll likely give myself one of those via the console as well. especially since i'm playing a pirate at the moment, finding good ships past destroyer size is difficult in itself, nevermind one specific (and likely somewhat rare) ship^^
i have a feeling the Gryphon isn't great flagship material, though. i do wanna try it out, but unless it's a torpedo heavy loadout, it will probably do just as well in the hands of an officer as in your own, whereas most other ships become a lot more dangerous if you pilot them yourself.
But since most factions aren't actually at war with each other, bounties and such wouldn't feel right as an incentive.
The mission board does say 'whether public or otherwise'. Be friendly enough with the hegemony or the tritachs (or the sindrians, or the luddites, or the mod faction...), get access to secret bounties on 'problematic' opponents? Perhaps smuggle in some contraband under the mask of someone else's transponder to cause them a headache? (How would you even sneak into askonia starbases otherwise anyway? The sindrians have patrols constantly and more often than anyone else it feels like.)But since most factions aren't actually at war with each other, bounties and such wouldn't feel right as an incentive.
I kinda disagree. Isn't "they hate each other, but can't go to open war" the perfect scenario to hire a third party (the player) to do some dirty jobs? Of course not with public bounties, but something more subtle. Otherwise they wouldn't need you at all but do the smashing themselves.
I would love to get hired for hitjob on some Corporate manager. Optimally in small station bar, by a shady looking guy in a trench coat who almost managed to stop himself in time from giving a typical Hegemony military salute ;D
I kinda disagree. Isn't "they hate each other, but can't go to open war" the perfect scenario to hire a third party (the player) to do some dirty jobs? Of course not with public bounties, but something more subtle. Otherwise they wouldn't need you at all but do the smashing themselves.i like the idea of faction-exclusive bounty jobs as well, but maybe it would be a better fit (in terms of gameplay) as part of the mission-system, requiring good standing to be able to accept or even see the mission.
I'd love to see a mission that hires you as a mercenary to follow around a fleet for a period of time and assist it in combat as necessary. You get to choose your battles, but bonus earnings are dependent on how much you did, and if you didn't do enough it will be considered failed.
May I ask, did you play in Iron mode? Because, my experience was that I felt like this "no money worries" zone was approaching several times, but then every time a setback hit me and I was forced to rebuild my fleet, pay a major bribe or spent ridiculous amounts for repairs. Because of those setbacks (which probably had me reloading reloading if not for Iron mode) my progression of wealth, fleet and skills is reeeelatively balanced.
So I set number of fleets to 5000 along with 2000 pirates and 1800 mercenaries and the game is slow now(serious lag).
is there currently any reason for the player to use the new Civilian Transport ships? they do have some cargo capacity, but a lot less than actual freighters. i suppose you would use them if you want to have several hundreds Marines with you, but that seems a little overkill.Frigate version has 50% more cargo capacity than a Hermes.
a bit of a shame, since i really like their sprites. at least i get to see them in battle as a Pirate every now and then, though. ^^
Frigate version has 50% more cargo capacity than a Hermes.but it
Enforcer; how I love thee....same here! i think this is the first time i've ever used an Enforcer as flagship, and i absolutely love it. the oversized weapons and heavy armor synergize incredibly well with SO, which also gets rid of its main drawback, lack of maneuverability.
But seriously this is really something that needs looking at.
My one complaint is the marine price of boarding. So far I boarded two frigates both with an assault force of 100 marines. The first had 4 crew still alive and the other one had 2. The first frigate cost me 24 marines, the second 34. :o
Its a good thing that there are two planets from which we can get marines cheap or the whole deal would be raw.
I've noticed something odd about the delivery missions as well.
There are rather a lot of requests for organs. Sometimes the boards are almost entirely organs and one maybe two for something more mundane.
This seems a bit.... Not right.
A bit more variety, and some slightly less "tight" time limits on some contracts would make this feature more or less perfect. Include all the commodities as well, not just the finished goods.
Too many missions ask for drugs, organs, and maybe hand weapons. A bit less common but frequently seen are for exotic stuff like lobsters and luxury items. Occasionally, I see missions for supplies or fuel.
Appreciate the feedback! This is one of those things where it feels like no matter how much the pirates get nerfed, it's never enough. Let's nerf them some more, then - modified the various (D) hullmods so that most pirates end up with quadruple the sensor profile (and something like twice the effective "detected at" range).egads! with another huge nerf to (D) variants, could you make standard variants for sale more common at Pirate bases and black markets? it already feels like 90% of the ships i have access to as a Pirate myself are useless (at least of those ship types that actually have (D) variants).
Hummm, what's going on with the Onslaught having its weapons emplacements from different epoch?
Hummm, what's going on with the Onslaught having its weapons emplacements from different epoch?
What do you mean?
How difficult would it to create a guided tutorial through the first stages of the game?
He had a fragmentation weapon (Thumper) as the primary weapon, but he wasn't to know about how fragmentation is not particularly good against shields or armour in terms of damage.
I'm guessing since this is a beta, we just have a few tool-tips at the moment, but the final version will have tool-tips once you have finalized the game. MOO2 (Master of Orion II) did a fantastic job with teaching you how to play inside the game with all the tool-tip pop-up's for everything you mouse over..please do this! :)
Difficult? Probably not very. Time-consuming? Extremely, especially given that every update would break it horribly. IMO, as much as something like this is eventually needed, it's not worth doing until things are much more stable and full-featured mechanics-wise.
That stuff is in the combat tutorials, btw.
Hmm. I feel like there are tooltips pretty much everywhere and I try to add copious tooltips for every new feature. Where in particular do you feel they're missing?
@ Nanao-kun: Where were they for you?i'm ~lvl 30 as well and have been able to find/buy 4 so far, all of them on black markets (i don't have positive standing with any factions aside from Pirates). so relative to my experience, a dozen by lvl 16 seems quite a lot, but not a single one by lvl 30 also seems very unlucky.
It's a shame tooltips can't have tooltips!i know i've thought that myself in many other games...
@Thaago
Do you run with transponder off in hyperspace? I noticed when i ran with transponder off i wouldn't run into any pirates, they wouldn't be able to detect me. If you are looking to grab some attention, you can activate the sensor booster and any in your vicinity will come running. though you might attract some larger foes ;)
Rather than make picks at the start to determine the class you play (bounty hunter, trader, etc), start the game off by getting the player to go through some scripted scenario's to introduce all the different aspects of game play. This would also be a great opportunity as well to introduce the player to the starsector universe and the different factions that inhabit it.Personally, I find that mandatory start of game tutorial sequences get old rather quickly. It's all well and good to have a tutorial available, but if the game's enjoyable enough for me to want to replay it several times, I really do not want to have to run through the tutorial every time I start a new character (and certainly not the same tutorial), and I'd really prefer not to have to keep around an old save file from the end of the tutorial sequence in order to skip it. The 'sink or swim' approach may not be all that friendly to new players, but if the starting conditions are reasonably fair, it's a lot more enjoyable, at least to me, when starting a new character after having already played at least one character a reasonable amount of time than having to go through the same old tutorial sequence yet again.
Finally allow the player to choose their desired class and their preferred allegiance (a small starting bonus to relations with that faction, with a corresponding decrease in relations with factions that are hostile to that one). Now start the player in that factions home system.
I feel that the number of faction fleets is about right in the 'populated' regions - numerous patrols in system and local hyperspace, but you can still sneak around if you're lucky/clever. Its in the 'empty' places that there just isn't enough going on. Hyperspace is ok because you have the storms to navigate, but still feels a bit empty.
@Thaago
Do you run with transponder off in hyperspace? I noticed when i ran with transponder off i wouldn't run into any pirates, they wouldn't be able to detect me. If you are looking to grab some attention, you can activate the sensor booster and any in your vicinity will come running. though you might attract some larger foes ;)
When I was still a little fleet I did so on purpose, partly out of caution and partly because the fleets could still be dangerous to my lone Wolf.
Now I run in hyperspace with the transponder on and freaking blast active sensors trying to get things attention (sometimes cause I feel like fighting, but usually because I'm near a system with a bounty). I sometimes see fleets with 2-3 frigates, but they of course run from my 2 Destroyers + 3 frigates.
I have yet to see any non-bounty pirate fleet with a combat destroyer or above, which is disappointing (Buffalo Mk II a couple of times).
Could I just not be high enough level yet? Are the enemy fleets tied to that like bounties are? If so, I request being able to slide that difficulty waaaay up as part of a 'hard mode'.
The second hurdle is needing some proficiency at frigate-flying; if you can't beat 2-3 (D) frigates in your starter Wolf, things get significantly more difficult as the range of viable targets shrinks dramatically.This. This is why I took so long to get anywhere.
A solution for early-game woes for newbies: Give a special, player-only bonus to sensor range and burn speed in Easy difficulty only, and tell them in-game to play Easy.Hmm, or perhaps make AI fleets not use Emergency Burn in Easy?
A solution for early-game woes for newbies: Give a special, player-only bonus to sensor range and burn speed in Easy difficulty only, and tell them in-game to play Easy.Couldn't just increasing mutual detection range overall do it? To give them enough time to react. For most cases, a couple of seconds will do.
Serenitis explains why early-game is harder: The enemy is or almost as fast as you and you often cannot see them in time before you can run away.
Noted. I'll take a look.I recently lost 20 marines boarding a Hermes class shuttle that had 0 crew... I had 50 marines and it did show a 100% chance of capture. Losing a marine or two to some unforeseen accident or maybe some automated defenses or something I could see happening, but certainly wasn't expecting to lose 20 marines against a derelict Hermes. :D
I mean, it's supposed to be expensive - a tradeoff for boarding being a sure thing - but not at that ratio, at least mostly not. The thing that's odd here is getting a Lasher with only 2 crew defending it, that shouldn't be possible and means something else messed up.
(Actually, getting 0 crew should *really* not be possible; "2 crew" is the fallback case when that happens. Yeah, definitely need to look into it.)
OK, I'll have to say some things about the Griffin.Ack, does it really work that badly in AI hands? I wasn't going to complain about the CR cost since it was basically me trading supplies for more missiles, but by all means change the cost if the AI does that badly with it! I'd prefer keeping the ship around over having to store it away if I ever get a different ship I want to command from.
The ship is fine, but the system... it's just awful, really. The problem are the CR costs, 15% for one use, respectively 25 supplies. The AI uses it liberally, for example, if the medium and big launchers are almost full but the small ones are empty, the system will be used. Regardless of enemy strength or overall tactical situation, as it seems. That means that deployment costs for the Griffon are totally unpredictable, they can vary between 20 and as much as 170(!) supplies. That in turn means, you don't want to deploy it, except in emergencies where you absolutely can't win without it.
And it's not only costly, but also counterproductive in battle. The system gets used even if it gets the ship into malfunction CR levels. I just tested it in the simulator against two consecutive Enforcers, the Griffin used its system twice and brought its CR from 44% down to 14%, crippling itself. That was a fight it could have won more easily without using the system at all, its flux didn't even get high at any point.
Third problem is if the ship is under player control, the system still doesn't handle well. There's no refractory period between uses, and barely any audiovisual feedback for use, it just doesn't feel consequential. The sound is the same as for the Fast Missile Racks system, further adding to this illusion. You can easily spam it several times in a row without even knowing what you're doing to your ship.
This also means the system is extremely abusable if costs don't matter/you don't notice them. At high CR you can launch about 160 Harpoons within 30 seconds, or your front slots alone can launch about 50 reapers within a few seconds. That is basically turning the system into an "I win!" button in many situations.
As a consequence, I think that the ship, the system and the game balance would be far better served with a classical long time delay between system uses and the abolition of its CR cost. (Some sparks or movement on the grated part on the ships back to show that the system is currently working/reloading would also be a nice touch.)
Gryphon stuff
I on the other paw have never seen my AI use it! I will note though that I'm using an aggressive officer and had reapers in the smalls.Gryphon stuff
Very much agreed, when I first tested it out I tried the ability once in the sim and then never used it or allowed the AI to pilot the ship. Tying ability use to something like CR degradation just does not work out simply because it heavily punishes the pilot for using the system. Interestingly, the ship and ship system descriptions both never mention anything about CR degradation but do emphasize a supposedly massive flux cost which in reality is very minor.
I finally saw a Phase Lance, but I haven't seen a single IR Pulse Laser in all my runs so far. :(
Not sure about a cooldown; one issue there is that if it's not too long, then it could get pretty insane, with tons of missile spam. And I'm not a fan of super-long cooldowns.
Would being able to fire off the entire missile load every 30 seconds or so be OP? Kind of seems like it would, doesn't it? Might just have to try it and see.
I made a similar ship system in Seeker for the Clipper: it's a toggle system that reload the missiles progressively (like 2% of the max ammo per second) and lock every weapons in the meantime. Of course that's logical in this case because all it's weapons are missiles, even the PD. Anyway it work pretty well and don't seems overpowered.
I liked that system, but IIRC the missiles were built in? I'd imagine it would be difficult to transfer to a ship with variable missiles, since those have widely varying ammo counts/relevance that can't be easily abstracted. It would probably end up strongly favoring one certain type of missile. Think e.g. about single shot reapers, when would they be reloaded, early or late after system activation?The PD were built-in but not the 6 other medium mounts. And when I played a bit with it in campaign, it worked fine with all missile. The ammo is usually balanced with the damage per shot: you don't have missile weapons with both high damage, high ammo and short cooldown (I forgot to mention that using this system activated the cooldown of all the weapons too).
*It's nearly impossible to wipe out entire Mercantile Fleets, though - those Hermes are faster than everything you can get and escape far ahead of even the fastest fighters, like Thunders.
The PD were built-in but not the 6 other medium mounts. And when I played a bit with it in campaign, it worked fine with all missile. The ammo is usually balanced with the damage per shot: you don't have missile weapons with both high damage, high ammo and short cooldown (I forgot to mention that using this system activated the cooldown of all the weapons too).
I made a similar ship system in Seeker for the Clipper: it's a toggle system that reload the missiles progressively (like 2% of the max ammo per second) and lock every weapons in the meantime. Of course that's logical in this case because all it's weapons are missiles, even the PD. Anyway it work pretty well and don't seems overpowered.
Yes, that seems OP. 90 or 120 seconds would seem more appropriate. Why are you not a fan of that? Seems simplest.
Also I just boarded a pirate Kite which had a single crewman left just for the lolz. I was in the midst of a drunken stupor after beating a concentration of three pirate fleets that ambushed me when I jumped out of a system. Must have ordered my marines to go in butt naked after sending an armor suit and heavy weaponry in first in order to even the playing field. Didn't like those 22 marines anyway :P
Just got the Gryphon and I can't really comment on it yet, in the one battle I used it however it did blow through two destroyers and three frigates so I am willing to tolerate the CR issue when I have to use it.Dat guy was on rampage eh? 22 kills, heck.
Also I just boarded a pirate Kite which had a single crewman left just for the lolz. I was in the midst of a drunken stupor after beating a concentration of three pirate fleets that ambushed me when I jumped out of a system. Must have ordered my marines to go in butt naked after sending an armor suit and heavy weaponry in first in order to even the playing field. Didn't like those 22 marines anyway :P
I have two dedicated pursuit Wolfs with SO, Unstable Injector, and aggressive lvl.10 Helmsman officers.
That said the AI is really conservative with missiles unless it thinks it's gonna die, so it doesn't fly the ship very aggressively.
oops, never mind, it brought itself into low CR to reload 20% depleted rockets.
this was the loadout I used: http://imgur.com/kHK08PL
]XIVth fleet ships can be purchased on the black market - should this be possible (IMO it makes sense for them to be only available through the Hegemony)?[/li][/list]
- Tachyon lance appears to bypass shields occasionally (doing hull damage, despite the opponent still having shields up), i'm not sure though if this is part of how the weapon functions though.
I've seen venting in the middle of being bombarded on all sides
but when out of weapons range of an enemy opponent, the AI controlling your ship seems to keep the shield up and refuses to drop the shields or vent to dissipate flux.
The AI doesn't seem to want to fire the Squall when it's equipped on an Apogee, even when it's the only weapon installed. (Only in sim so far, but strange.)
In the mouseover text for Coatl, I think you meant to say "so closetheto Chicomoztoc"
btw, did you know about this?
http://i.imgur.com/DSRayUl.jpg
it seems to think the outer system gate is a one way gravity exit, but it's a normal hyperspace gate.
Also I just boarded a pirate Kite which had a single crewman left just for the lolz. I was in the midst of a drunken stupor after beating a concentration of three pirate fleets that ambushed me when I jumped out of a system. Must have ordered my marines to go in butt naked after sending an armor suit and heavy weaponry in first in order to even the playing field. Didn't like those 22 marines anyway :P
Yeah, I literally just fixed this bug. The problem was the effective strength of the marines for the action was being capped, but the casualties were being based on the uncapped strength. Right now, you're basically guaranteed to lose a third or so of your marines any time you board, regardless of enemy strength. Again, now fixed :)
And a good point! This would (maybe) give us a reason to finally use Atropos for their slightly shorter reloading time....but I use the atropos for the minor homing since I'm a terrible shot with reapers, not the reload time. :)
finally got a chance myself to test the Gryphon for a bit, and i don't see what the problem is.
seems perfectly fine to me:Spoiler(http://i.imgur.com/T94YR8n.gif)
:3[close]
finally got a chance myself to test the Gryphon for a bit, and i don't see what the problem is.
seems perfectly fine to me:Spoiler(http://i.imgur.com/T94YR8n.gif)
:3[close]
Personally, I find that mandatory start of game tutorial sequences get old rather quickly. It's all well and good to have a tutorial available, but if the game's enjoyable enough for me to want to replay it several times, I really do not want to have to run through the tutorial every time I start a new character (and certainly not the same tutorial), and I'd really prefer not to have to keep around an old save file from the end of the tutorial sequence in order to skip it. The 'sink or swim' approach may not be all that friendly to new players, but if the starting conditions are reasonably fair, it's a lot more enjoyable, at least to me, when starting a new character after having already played at least one character a reasonable amount of time than having to go through the same old tutorial sequence yet again.
Anyway, the problem with the current setup in Starfarctor is that you have a dialog-based system which specifies your starting scenarios, so it's difficult to shoehorn the player in as an amateur when the scenarios already imply a fair bit of experience. But if there were an option that let you strike it off as, say, the son or daughter of an experienced captain who tries to teach you the trade, then Bad Things Happen(TM) and you take over the family business (piracy, military, trading, smuggling, whatever), followed by choosing how you end up by following the remaining starting scenario options. Seems like it could work!
finally got a chance myself to test the Gryphon for a bit, and i don't see what the problem is.
seems perfectly fine to me:Spoiler(http://i.imgur.com/T94YR8n.gif)[close]
Regarding picking one weapon to reload: this seems like it'd be kind of hard for the player to accurately predict, hmm.
Another thing, i can't order the movement of a single ship, the whole fleet will try to defend the spot.
The new Hurricane is broken, no doubt about that. The short cooldown coupled with the massive damage and excellent tracking make it a no-brainer. At the very least, the reload time need to be longer, that weapon is just unfair.
Agreed. Harpoon spam in case of overload seems fair to me though, you often can take shelter behind allies to soften the blow.Some people complained that the AI sometime decide to get in your line of fire, I rather like that behavior: You can lower your shield and let the flux dissipate a bit before going back to work. With a bit of practice you can rotate your units fairly quickly and avoid a lot of losses facing a superior force. However many times I hated the AI when it decided to expertly get off my line of fire while I vented, allowing four or five harpoons to kill my ship.
Re: Animated Gryphon
That Gryphon should be out of commission for a while after that fight. It just blew all of itsspellstorpedoes on that Onslaught and, presumably, the other ships.
.....the Onslaught & 3 Dominators are out of commission permanently Roll EyesOther ships can take out fleets, just not as quickly as those that can torpedo spam.
Though the more important point is; what could the Onslaught & Dominators have done to counter that? even in the hands of a human it would have been over just as quickly.Back in 0.65, this is why you assassinate Combat 10 missile flagships like enemy Dominator with triple Harpoon Pods immediately before they get a chance to launch their missiles.
You should rename "Emergency Burn" to "Gank Burn" because the AI constantly uses it offensively to pop out of nowhere and wreck you
Is Jangala supposed to have the "Luddic Majority" trait?
Is the new system where the factions check up your recent actions working as intended?
I mean I can understand that Tri-Tachyon and/or Luddic Path dislike me supporting the Hegemony....but why is it exactly the same for Sindrian Diktat and Luddic Church? They are no enemies of the Hegemony yet I get the same severe reputation penalties when found guilty of supporting the Hegemony.
Shouldn't they either just don't care or at least have a way smaller penalty for supporting a faction which is neutral to them?
There really should be a Large anti-missile weapon that Just Works well enough that you need that level of mega-spam to dent it. I really want to see more ships like the Gryphon, thematically, that require a counter to defeat; in AI hands, it'd make players have to deploy more diverse answers than just Ye Old Super-Frigate / Destroyer when they reach late-game play.
<goes back to nerfing Gryphon>noooooooooo
I don't think the Gryphon needs nerfing.I'd agree with this if it wasn't already ninja'd, ack.
The problem isn't that it's OP, it's that there just aren't any available counters to that dynamic.
There really should be a Large anti-missile weapon that Just Works well enough that you need that level of mega-spam to dent it. I really want to see more ships like the Gryphon, thematically, that require a counter to defeat; in AI hands, it'd make players have to deploy more diverse answers than just Ye Old Super-Frigate / Destroyer when they reach late-game play.
Is the new system where the factions check up your recent actions working as intended?
It's a temporary, heavy-handed way of making sure you only align with one faction by the endgame. Looking at some ways to make it a bit less heavy-handed while accomplishing the same goal.I mean I can understand that Tri-Tachyon and/or Luddic Path dislike me supporting the Hegemony....but why is it exactly the same for Sindrian Diktat and Luddic Church? They are no enemies of the Hegemony yet I get the same severe reputation penalties when found guilty of supporting the Hegemony.
Shouldn't they either just don't care or at least have a way smaller penalty for supporting a faction which is neutral to them?
They're not openly hostile, but espionage etc goes on all the time. Often through third-party-looking agents, such as yourself.
It's a temporary, heavy-handed way of making sure you only align with one faction by the endgame. Looking at some ways to make it a bit less heavy-handed while accomplishing the same goal.
Just want to mention that the music of the Luddic Church is awesome, especially for neutral and hostile encounters. Sounds like a monastic choir mixed with Mongolian throat singing :D
More specifically, a lot of fleets wouldn't even have access to a large turreted slot of the right type, whatever that might be.I'd say that that is something that should be both techs, just different mechanics, and perhaps a fighter that has that specialty. I agree that it'd be bad if it was just one weapon, but we have one already in Energy and I still think the Haephestus needs a distinct role.
After a smuggling investigation by the independents my rep with them was lowered with -103 due to my high standing.
I was very sad afterwards.
Actually I'd really like to see a large anti fighter / missile weapon, both ballistic and energy variant. Something like a carpet bombing weapon near the missiles akin to a flak but with more oomph (and explosions). It could give more options in the loadouts we want on Capital ships with large turrets. Maybe exchange a single Large weapon for defense and use the other medium and small for more weapons, both Kinetic and explosives.You have the Guardian large energy weapon that is a very good PD (and can kill ships alright)
On the topic of relations, I just had on of these automatic 6 months 15 points increase when you don't interact with a faction, and now everyone is inspecting my relation with them T__T You really can't win at this game.
It delayed when Tri-Tachyon and Sindrian Diktat became hostile with me. In other words, it bought me a few more months worth of time by requiring yet another investigation (per faction) to sink my reputation to hostile.On the topic of relations, I just had on of these automatic 6 months 15 points increase when you don't interact with a faction, and now everyone is inspecting my relation with them T__T You really can't win at this game.
Uhh, right. Forgot about that! Is that a thing anybody would miss if it was gone?
It needs a nerf but not something that will cripple it. I would suggest something simple like the ability having only a limited number of uses or if it came with a heavy flux penalty as the tooltip implies.I've played with it some more as well, and i'd agree this would be a decent way to go.
He probably used GifCam (http://blog.bahraniapps.com/gifcam/), then uploaded to Imgur for compression.
I do feel a bit bad for constantly pestering Alex with my inane suggestions, so perhaps if he is getting some sleep (hopefully); someone else could point out whether the "Missile Specialization - Autoloader reprogramming skill" giving a single missile per rack has been discussed before.
It seems to favour small missile slots with high damage missiles like the reaper much more than the smaller damage missiles like the annihilator rockets (51 rockets instead of 50 doesn't seem very impressive).
I do feel a bit bad for constantly pestering Alex with my inane suggestions, so perhaps if he is getting some sleep (hopefully); someone else could point out whether the "Missile Specialization - Autoloader reprogramming skill" giving a single missile per rack has been discussed before.
It seems to favour small missile slots with high damage missiles like the reaper much more than the smaller damage missiles like the annihilator rockets (51 rockets instead of 50 doesn't seem very impressive).
It has been discussed. What you say is true, but the bonus comes alongside a rate of fire bonus, which benefits the opposite kind of missile, i.e. with plenty munitions. So it kinda balances.
It's reasonably fair during early game. You make a mistake, you pay for it. But later on? The Harpoon party become absurd, one ship overload? 30 Harpoons immediately fly to instagib it. The more ships that can mount Harpoons, the more dangerous the spam become. The community battle tournament that happened a while ago proved quite spectacularly that some missiles become exponentially dangerous in large numbers, lrms especially. In my late-game campaign where battles have a lot of ships, it's a bit like that as well. And it can be quite frustrating when you're the victim.
Are named jump points (like Jangala Jump Point) Supposed to be stationary or are they supposed to move with the planet? As mine are staying in one place
My Jangala jump point is also stationary.
Also agreeing that the current implementation of the Investigation system is sorta nutty in how punitive it is. It makes sense for the Tri-Tachs to get violent around some Hegemony toady, but most of the other factions aren't in shooting conflicts with each other and there's a pretty serious line between "mistrust" and "shoot on sight". It's also pretty bad from a gameplay perspective because the primary effect is cutting back drastically on the amount of stuff you can do. 3/5 factions won't pay out for bounties and won't let you run their missions (and trying to tick up reputation between investigations sure isn't going to be fruitful), but since most of them aren't enemies with the people you work for you don't even have anything to gain by going after them. Instead you just try to stay out of their way and spend more time sitting around waiting for stuff to do that you can actually get paid for.
My Jangala jump point is also stationary.
Are named jump points (like Jangala Jump Point) Supposed to be stationary or are they supposed to move with the planet? As mine are staying in one place
Just in case its been buried in all the suggestions: Great update Alex! I've had a blast playing so far, and I think I speak for the community when I say that we have so many suggestions/criticisms because we are excited!
Then witness, and beMy Jangala jump point is also stationary.Are named jump points (like Jangala Jump Point) Supposed to be stationary or are they supposed to move with the planet? As mine are staying in one place
Are you guys sure? And this is in vanilla? Because that would make no sense whatsoever and would make me incredibly confused. The Jangala Jumppoint, in particular, is supposed to keep pace with Jangala - and does, as far as I can see. And since the orbiting mechanism is the same as for other things that orbit, well, refer to "confused" part.
Then witness, and beamazed, uh, confused. =P
Also, have pirates always had only (D)-class combat ships in vanilla? Kinda a bummer for those that like capturing ships to build our fleet - and the capture rate is very slim to start with. (although I understand wanted to make it overly rare rather than overly common to begin with, now that they are 100%) Any chance ship boarding (or anything else to make playing as a pirate more feasible) could get some love in 7.1?
Then witness, and beamazed, uh, confused. =P
That looks like it's working fine - trailing 60 degrees behind Jangala, in its Lagrange point, like it's supposed to be.Also, have pirates always had only (D)-class combat ships in vanilla? Kinda a bummer for those that like capturing ships to build our fleet - and the capture rate is very slim to start with. (although I understand wanted to make it overly rare rather than overly common to begin with, now that they are 100%) Any chance ship boarding (or anything else to make playing as a pirate more feasible) could get some love in 7.1?
Looking at it re: pirate viability. No details yet.
Re: Animated Gryphonthis extreme case definitely only works in the simulator. in the campaign, if an ai fleet has an Onslaught and three Dominators, chances are those are all captained by experienced officers and accompanied by a signficant fighter/frigate/destroyer escort. in stand-alone missions, the player doesn't have the required combat skills. and even with the scenario so skewed in my favor, the gif took me five or so attempts to take out all four of them before running out of CR.
That Gryphon should be out of commission for a while after that fight. It just blew all of itsspellstorpedoes on that Onslaught and, presumably, the other ships.
<goes back to nerfing Gryphon>^_^
Just in case its been buried in all the suggestions: Great update Alex! I've had a blast playing so far, and I think I speak for the community when I say that we have so many suggestions/criticisms because we are excited!100% agreed! =)
someone else could point out whether the "Missile Specialization - Autoloader reprogramming skill" giving a single missile per rack has been discussed before.as Gothars said, the two different effects of the perk still make it very useful for a wide variety of different launcher types.
It seems to favour small missile slots with high damage missiles like the reaper much more than the smaller damage missiles like the annihilator rockets (51 rockets instead of 50 doesn't seem very impressive).
EDIT: If you don't mind me asking Sy, how did you manage to record the video and convert it to a low bandwidth gif?it's the first time i made something like this, so i had to google for options as well. i tried GifCam and ScreenToGif (https://screentogif.codeplex.com/), and stuck with the later as it seems to have more/easier options to edit the recorded gif.
I've tried radeonpro and that doesn't seem to support recording within Java; and FRAPS needs to be bought, in order to give me longer than 30 second video clips; and I have no idea what software is recommended to convert video to an animated gif.
however, i do think the small single-shot Reaper specifically is problematic in this combination. not just because the perk doubles its ammo, but because the weapon doesn't have any meaningful firing delay stat, likely because it wasn't originally intended to fire more than once anyway. even without something like the Gryphon's unique system, a single Enforcer can fire up to 8 Reapers basically instantly -- for only 8 OP! this also means that the medium (5 ammo) and large (20 ammo) Reaper launchers feel weak in comparison, as those do have a significant firing delay even with the perk (10 and 5 sec, respectively).
it's the first time i made something like this, so i had to google for options as well. i tried GifCam and ScreenToGif (https://screentogif.codeplex.com/), and stuck with the later as it seems to have more/easier options to edit the recorded gif.
but, unless i'm doing something wrong, neither of these seem to allow you to actually play SS while they are recording, as they only work while their window is 'above' whatever you're trying to capture. so i did actually use the trial version of Fraps (that battle was only like 20sec realtime, and i always have Fraps running in the background for its fps counter anyway) to record from SS, then used ScreenToGif to record from the playing video...
i imagine there are probably much faster and easier ways to do this. i've seen similar gifs in several mod threads, like BRDY (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=4018.0) and Scy (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8010.0), so you might wanna ask those guys instead^^
Thanks!, i'll give that one a go as well. I didn't have much luck with the gifcam as it quickly runs out of memory and does not seem to be particularly stable. Also I was hoping to do some time compression for longer battles.Gyfcam has option to reduce the frame-rate and record to the hard-drive instead of the memory if run out of memory. Though if you want to make long captures, Gif is definitively NOT the best way. You would be better off using OBS or some other capture software and convert them in FLV or low quality MP4.
I'm currently using 2 of these on my Sunder with a missile specialist captain to great effect (Dominator cruiser, no problem!). So lets not draw any attention to it as there really is no need to modify this behaviour at all; let's keep Alex's attention on the Gryphon, yes, yes, just keep nerfing that one instead.. ;)but i just switched my flagship from an Enforcer to the Gryphon, so clearly, it's the Enforcer that needs a nerf! granted, i haven't yet been able to take out an Onslaught and three Dominators in 22sec with my Enforcer...
Thanks!, i'll give that one a go as well. I didn't have much luck with the gifcam as it quickly runs out of memory and does not seem to be particularly stable. Also I was hoping to do some time compression for longer battles.ScreenToGif seems to speed up the final gif automatically, by quite a bit. which is generally a good idea, it makes it look a lot more fluid while keeping the required filesize low. buuut i'd like to be able to adjust the speed myself, which i don't think is possible (unless you want to manually edit the delay for every single frame) :/
but i just switched my flagship from an Enforcer to the Gryphon, so clearly, it's the Enforcer that needs a nerf! granted, i haven't yet been able to take out an Onslaught and three Dominators in 22sec with my Enforcer...That is insane :o
smtng
Yeah, looking at this for the .1 release. Need more carrot to go with the stick, and probably a bit less stick in the first place.
That is insane :ooh, it is sped up by quite a bit. you can see the Thermal Pulse Cannons and Hephaestus Assault Guns firing at around double their normal speed. but the gif is also only 11sec long. in the original clip, the time from the first Reaper leaving its launcher to the screen going white from the last Dominator's deathplosion is 21.7sec.
I was under the impression you had time compressed the gif you posted earlier!
Well I hate to say it, but I don't think there will be much left of the Gryphon you love after Alex is done with it...q_q
Hey Alex, I was thinking hard on this one as this system looks very not flexible atm.i think a system that scales the chance of being convicted and/or the punishment based on (prior) reputation would be nice. it probably shouldn't be very complex though, at least not the parts of it that the player needs to understand in order to make the right decisions.
And maybe I found a good balanced solution
Another problem with Pirates are missions. Sooner or later, you will encounter scripted pirates who want to rob you and will not take "No" for an answer (just like briefing for Fistful of Credits).I think Pirates can take your loot at any time if you have it on you. Like, if you're carrying 10 Harvested Organs and you just happen to run into a pirate fleet, I think you can open the comms link and and hand it over. Although I might be wrong about that - although I'm 100% sure that it's true when you've got a mission (that you can do that with any pirate).
I think Pirates can take your loot at any time if you have it on you. Like, if you're carrying 10 Harvested Organs and you just happen to run into a pirate fleet, I think you can open the comms link and and hand it over. Although I might be wrong about that - although I'm 100% sure that it's true when you've got a mission (that you can do that with any pirate).i believe the ones that 'ask' you to hand over some goods are Pirate Raiders, specifically. they are also the only ones that still go after you despite having positive reputation with the Pirate faction...
could we maybe get a pirate start with a reasonable standing with the pirates and semi-hostile with everyone else, with maybe a few (D) ships or something? seems nigh impossible to play pirate at the moment because they constantly come after you, and then once you blast the first of their fleets they refuse to let you dock. likewise, a wolf isn't exactly a very pirate-y ship.i suggested a pirate starting option as well, and iirc Alex said he'll think about it.
If you start the game by bountyhunting in corvus, your rep with the pirates goes to -100% quick, suddenly you're the bounty hunter of legend, scourge of pirates, known to all throughout the sector for your ruthlessness... in your stock wolf frig.xD
lo... and tremble at the might of the wolf frig and its companion Hermes shuttle. We must convene a meeting of the pirate captains to deal with this threat once and for all.
@ The_Soldier: Handing over the loot mollifies them... if you have it when they catch up, which is very un-Pirate of the player, not to mention it can be a big loss of reputation if you fail to hand it over for any reason and they know who you are. (I usually have delivered the goods first, then meet the raiders.) The logical response of a pirate player would be to crush the raiders for daring to challenge him, which hurts reputation. Currently, a would-be pirate player faces a sadistic choice: lose lots of money to raiders or lose lots of reputation if you fight them.Well...considering pretty much 100% of pirates run with their transponder off, maybe you should follow suit. I'm sure there's a lot of in fighting between the pirates (at least, in a perfect world, hehe) and since they have no idea who the other guy is, they never "loose relations" with the pirates.
but if you blow the raiders away you take a rep hit -.-
I have to admit, I find the reputation in starsector a little irritating at times. It can make sense for organized factions who communicate and work together, but for pirates and independents it's silly.
If you start the game by bountyhunting in corvus, your rep with the pirates goes to -100% quick, suddenly you're the bounty hunter of legend, scourge of pirates, known to all throughout the sector for your ruthlessness... in your stock wolf frig.
lo... and tremble at the might of the wolf frig and its companion Hermes shuttle. We must convene a meeting of the pirate captains to deal with this threat once and for all.
i actually made a thread about the Pirate Raider issue (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9814.0) a few days ago. no response yet.. but i imagine the amount of new bug reports and suggestions popping up must be quite overwhelming at the moment. ^^
Also, a quick thought: Maybe it would ease early game (and lone wolf gameplay) if single ships (and very small fleets) would get a sensor range bonus? Call it non-interference bonus or some such. Say even single ships/tiny fleets* have at least the range of something like a battleship. While the sensor profile scales normally from the beginning. Then you have a new effective minimum without boosting patrols or affecting later gameplay. And you wouldn't be quite as blind in the beginning.
*with the battleship equivalent, up to three frigates get a (progressively smaller) bonus, four don't need it anymore
Also agreeing that the current implementation of the Investigation system is sorta nutty in how punitive it is. It makes sense for the Tri-Tachs to get violent around some Hegemony toady, but most of the other factions aren't in shooting conflicts with each other and there's a pretty serious line between "mistrust" and "shoot on sight". It's also pretty bad from a gameplay perspective because the primary effect is cutting back drastically on the amount of stuff you can do. 3/5 factions won't pay out for bounties and won't let you run their missions (and trying to tick up reputation between investigations sure isn't going to be fruitful), but since most of them aren't enemies with the people you work for you don't even have anything to gain by going after them. Instead you just try to stay out of their way and spend more time sitting around waiting for stuff to do that you can actually get paid for.
Yeah, looking at this for the .1 release. Need more carrot to go with the stick, and probably a bit less stick in the first place.My Jangala jump point is also stationary.Are named jump points (like Jangala Jump Point) Supposed to be stationary or are they supposed to move with the planet? As mine are staying in one place
Are you guys sure? And this is in vanilla? Because that would make no sense whatsoever and would make me incredibly confused. The Jangala Jumppoint, in particular, is supposed to keep pace with Jangala - and does, as far as I can see. And since the orbiting mechanism is the same as for other things that orbit, well, refer to "confused" part.Just in case its been buried in all the suggestions: Great update Alex! I've had a blast playing so far, and I think I speak for the community when I say that we have so many suggestions/criticisms because we are excited!
Thank you :) Definitely hasn't been buried - I'm very happy with how this update has been received overall, and I appreciate all the suggestions. They make a big difference - even if I don't end up doing the specific thing, it'll often spark another idea, etc. And there are of course some rough pieces that need pointing out so they can be fixed and/or polished up.
Also, assault chaingun costs too much flux. Putting more than one on an Enforcer is not very smart even with Safety Override, and you should think twice before putting one on a Hammerhead. If I do not plan to use Safety Override on a ship, Heavy Mauler is the only viable medium HE, and with the damage lowered, it is not as good as it used to be for all-purpose assault. (Mauler is still good if you really need the range.)
...
Another thing you might want to look at is filling out the weapons roster a little bit. The scarcity mechanics are in a good enough spot for right now and I enjoy the compromises they force you to make in terms of black market transactions and 'best available' fittings, but there are a few gaps where weapon substitutions basically don't exist. The ballistic kinetic line is an example of availability done well; high-end weapons like Needlers and Railguns are in limited supply and often unavailable without faction standings or luck off the black market, but Autocannons provide serviceable replacements that are commonly available. You might not always be able to fit out a ship exactly the way you want, but you will be able to get close enough, and making those compromises is part of the core survival aspect of the game.
The issue mostly emerges with the ballistic explosive line. At the small gun level, the only serviceable option is the Light Assault Gun. They aren't exactly rare, but they aren't readily available in the early game where they are most important and if you can't get any then too bad, Mortars are a joke, so your Lasher just sucks against armor. Mediums are in a similar spot, where they only two options are the Assault Chaingun, which is now a 450 range chainsaw, and the Heavy Mauler, a premium grade weapon that is rightly limited in supply. An analogue to the Heavy Autocannon (good-enough generalist filler gun that you can find almost anywhere) is badly needed to plug the gap, since as it stands by the time you get your first Destroyer you may once again find yourself with no reasonable options for explosive damage.
Again, being forced to compromise your loadouts (or reputations) by availability is a good thing an and integral part of the game's design. Being unable to fit out your ships because basic weapon categories either don't exist or are only very scarcely available takes it a bit too far.
Worse than ballistics are energy weapons. Only mining laser is available in open market. The rest require welcoming relations (or black market), which trigger the endgame even if you are not ready for it.I actually have a really good time checking the black markets and going "oooh, they have a pair of heavy blasters! Time to take a rep gamble!". I was trying to get my hegemony stats up and saw some in an out of the way location and actually went away, snuck back in with transponder off, and then bought them to minimize the risks. To me this kind of rarity gives good gameplay.
Also, assault chaingun costs too much flux. Putting more than one on an Enforcer is not very smart even with Safety Override, and you should think twice before putting one on a Hammerhead. If I do not plan to use Safety Override on a ship, Heavy Mauler is the only viable medium HE, and with the damage lowered, it is not as good as it used to be for all-purpose assault. (Mauler is still good if you really need the range.)I mildly agree - it does have a hefty flux cost, but not unmanageable. My SO Assault Enforcer has 2x HMG, 1xACG. But I'm of camp that believes you don't need more than 1 HE weapon on a ship anyways - armor for the most part goes down fast, while taking out shields is a royal pain. And I pack lots of missiles/reapers :D.
Also, assault chaingun costs too much flux. Putting more than one on an Enforcer is not very smart even with Safety Override, and you should think twice before putting one on a Hammerhead. If I do not plan to use Safety Override on a ship, Heavy Mauler is the only viable medium HE, and with the damage lowered, it is not as good as it used to be for all-purpose assault. (Mauler is still good if you really need the range.)
@Voyager: it's a fair point, especially as it pertains to not getting any guns for certain slots (i.e. small HE ballistic, energy mediums) when they exist and aren't the sort of top-tier that needs to be harder to get.
Regarding the medium slots, I think it gets a little more interesting. Should there be a go-to, average HE medium ballistic? There are workable alternatives - using missiles for HE, using an Arbalest for its high per-shot damage, etc. I think there's an argument to be made that *as long as you can still create viable loadouts*, gaps in weapon roles promote more interesting ship designs. Sure, you could just slap on generic HE 1 and generic kinetic 2 and you're good to go, but... well.
It's not entirely an accident, for example, that there are lots of HE missiles. On the flipside, there aren't many kinetic missiles, but there are more ballistic options there.
One potential issue is this means that a lone frigate will see two/three/etc frigates before they see it. The current sensor formula has a symmetry to it where both sides will see each other at exactly the same range, unless they have bonuses/penalties. Maybe it's less "issue" and more "feature", though.
Had a bounty In Aztlan, went to the given location and staked out...for a whole month. Nothing happened even though I scoured the whole are.For some reason, bounties can and will chase down other enemy fleets that get near. Hell, even patrols will chase them down if they spot them with their transponder off. So, yea. They'll leave their spot now (which I actually like - forces you to look around).
By the end of the 2 months of the bounty I received intel saying my bounty in Hybrasil was over (same name, look and faction posting bounty).
Still have the screen since I was sure I'd forget about it.
Unless the bounty can move from time to time.
For some reason, bounties can and will chase down other enemy fleets that get near. Hell, even patrols will chase them down if they spot them with their transponder off. So, yea. They'll leave their spot now (which I actually like - forces you to look around).
For some reason, bounties can and will chase down other enemy fleets that get near. Hell, even patrols will chase them down if they spot them with their transponder off. So, yea. They'll leave their spot now (which I actually like - forces you to look around).
Yeah... that's so that they will attack the player when they come near. Might just need to script it so they *only* attack the player and not anybody else.
(Side note: "downgrade to a smaller slot to get a weapon with different utility" is a design thing from way back. It hasn't been adhered to strictly, but something like "ACG, Mauler, downgrade to LAG if you want a generic" is part of that. Again, the idea is to encourage more varied loadouts. Lack of available LAGs notwithstanding...)
re: Officers
i agree with combining Cautious & Timid. i think having some officers that are very careful and passive is good, but i much prefer having Aggressive or Steady on most of my ships with only one or two Cautious/Timid, so the differentiation there seems pointless.
re: Sensor Ships
i love the idea of dedicated ECM/ECCM ships!
Oh, there are quite different use cases for the two personalities :) A cautious officer is very good with long ranged support ships, like a beam Sunder. He also allows nimble frigates to stay alive during a capital level fight. Putting a cautious officer on a carrier won't yield good results though, here you need a timid one that stays well away from danger. Or, in theory, for a LRM ship, if there were such a thing (mods?).hmm, maybe i just haven't used the right ships/loadouts for Cautious officers yet. Gryphon certainly seems like a great fit, but only once the system gets fixed. ^^
Ships that add sensor strength/reduce sensor profile would hardly contribute to the respective ranges in a big fleet, due to how they are calculated (sort of negative exponential growth). Only small fleets would benefit noticeably.yeah, but that's exactly why the few ships with High Resolution Sensors or Phase Field don't really add much, except maybe for lone-wolf Apogees or dedicated phase fleets. i like that they have these hullmods, they are still a nice bonus and add some flavor, but they're not gonna make any significant difference for most fleets. dedicated support ships on the other hand could have hullmods that either have a much larger effect on sensor strength/profile, or directly influence sensor range, similar to abilities or terrain.
However, ships of that kind that add/boost active campaign abilities could work! Making your sensor ping stronger or sending a decoy sensor ghost fleet ahead or some such.that also sounds interesting. either way, i'd love to see support ships that tie into the new detection mechanics in a meaningful way.
Comment about officers: Aggressive officers are very useful in the early game, where you are stuck with Lashers and civilians, and they get into range to use short-ranged weapons, which is everything if Safety Override is used. By endgame, so many aggressive officers is not useful if you want to use longer-ranged weapons. In early-game, I like three or four Aggressive, but by endgame, I do not want more than two. This means some officers get fired for outliving their usefulness.i'll probably keep at least 4 Aggressive ships with SO throughout the game, maybe more. 2 or 3 Wolfs/Tempests for hunting down fleeing transports, and some Enforcers (or even Dominators? couldn't test those yet) for heavy battles.
Similarly, Safety Override shares that fate. In early-game, the speed and dissipation from Safety Override is very good for many ships. By endgame, all of Safety Override's drawbacks hurt too much.
and my F#@$%ing frigate.RIP ^^
One thing that we desperately need and don't yet have is a way to toggle/turn off player skills individually.actually, i'm pretty sure testing ships in the simulator does use its currently asigned captain; that can be you, one of your officers, or no captain at all. you see the current one in the upper left corner of the Refit screen (and can change it directly from there). if the ship you're testing isn't your current flagship and has no officer, it shouldn't profit from any skills.
When some newbie says, "hey guys how do I fight the Luddic Path SO ships" it would be a lot better to be able to give him a design that he can build at level 1, rather than saying, "okay first get to level 22 so you have Optimized Assembly and +20% OP like I do on my current character, then build your starter Wolf this way", I'd like to temporarily reduce my OP back down to default levels so I have the same thing to work with as a new character. There's no way to do that short of starting a new game at the moment, right?
I'd like to temporarily reduce my OP back down to default levels so I have the same thing to work with as a new character. There's no way to do that short of starting a new game at the moment, right?Console Commands mod: Respec. Though currently it has a minor bug in not actually resetting your attribute points but giving you the points as if it did.
The AI is vastly improved. I've said some real harsh things in the past like "I will play Iron Mode when the game has a checkbox that says 'AI captains don't suicide my only Tempest'" and at this point I feel my concerns have been alleviated. In a campaign and a half I have not had my AI companions blatantly suicide one single ship, it's a great change that they seem to know "when that pirate Dominator blows up it will destroy my Wolf if I'm within 100 of it so I better back up a little". It's a tiny change but it makes a huge difference. At this point I actually trust my AI soldiers with my expensive ships. (Too bad I have never yet seen my precious Tempests for sale outside of a Tri-Tach military market ever so I can't see if the AI can be trusted with them.)
"Escort" is no longer a death sentence for the escorting ship, good change there. I love the "Avoid" command as well. My most recent bounty was a 40000-credit pirate fleet of several Wolfs, Cerberuses, and Kites, captained by a Dominator, and with the current fleet I mentioned above I was able to use the Avoid command on the big guy and all my ships stayed away from him until the other enemies were destroyed.
It took me a while to end up at the guess that it was becasue I'm hostile to the Church (because Hegemony cargo boxes are evil).
Huh, I'll be darned. Is that a new feature in 0.7a?i don't think it's new, but i'm not 100% certain.
Also, no hat.so sad. you might've even gotten one from the Luddic guys. church people always have the fanciest hats!
Man, Dagger wings scare me when I'm in a cruiser much more than other cruisers!
I have a question about bounties. Are there any above 320K ? I have yet to find one even with a full 25 ship fleet and only 2 non fighters in it.
i'm getting the feeling some of these mission objectives aren't very realistic...If you actually have the cargo space, that sounds like a pretty spectacular way to finish off doing missions, heh.
(http://i.imgur.com/gMdBkzb.jpg)
That leads me to combat. Again, it has been said before, but my biggest issue here is power creep. More and more buffs were introduced over time- first systems, then character skills, then officers, and more aggressive AI - and I feel that combat has become much faster and less tactical as a consequence. It is still a lot of fun, but more the "power fantasy" kind of fun. I enjoy the relatively slow, tactical combat, like in the missions, more.
i'm getting the feeling some of these mission objectives aren't very realistic...If you actually have the cargo space, that sounds like a pretty spectacular way to finish off doing missions, heh.
(http://i.imgur.com/gMdBkzb.jpg)
Oh, and a comment about boarding ...let me just say in my entire playthrough (lvl 47 so far) I had only once the chance to board a ship I actually wanted, a Hound (A). And I fought my fare share of desirable elite ships. That seems too rare, the mechanic is (once again) hardly relevant this way.i'm around the same level and have gotten 3 Wolfs, a Tempest and (just now! \o/) a Heron. since i'm playing a Pirate, all of these are very much ships i'm happy to board. still not exactly frequent, but a lot better than a single Hound (A). ^^
I was thinking, maybe if multiple ships are potentially boardable, the actually boardable one could be always the most expensive ship of the candidates, instead of randomly selected? (That's how it works ATM IIRC.)
If you actually have the cargo space, that sounds like a pretty spectacular way to finish off doing missions, heh.the cargo space is less the problem than the fact that Volturian Lobsters are VERY rare. finding 10k (!) of these seems impossible (unless i've missed a market that actually sells them in reasonable quantities) even if you buy and safe every one you ever find. and good luck heading to whereever you stored the Lobsters, then to Aztlan (starting point was Jangala) in under 3 weeks :P
Just a quick note here: with the eventual skill revamp, I'd like to reduce the impact of skills overall (while making each skill point more important), reduce the impact of offensive/maneuvering skills in particular, and see about having relatively more defensive skills. It's definitely too fast-paced when everything has a level 20 officer in it.sounds good! :]
The increments are more to show the arcs than exact ranges. They're rounded so that they're evenly spaced within the weapon range, which isn't guaranteed to divide into a specific increment. FWIW, from glancing at the code, it looks like it's aiming for ~125 units, but I could be wrong.
That leads me to combat. Again, it has been said before, but my biggest issue here is power creep. More and more buffs were introduced over time- first systems, then character skills, then officers, and more aggressive AI - and I feel that combat has become much faster and less tactical as a consequence. It is still a lot of fun, but more the "power fantasy" kind of fun. I enjoy the relatively slow, tactical combat, like in the missions, more.
Just a quick note here: with the eventual skill revamp, I'd like to reduce the impact of skills overall (while making each skill point more important), reduce the impact of offensive/maneuvering skills in particular, and see about having relatively more defensive skills. It's definitely too fast-paced when everything has a level 20 officer in it.
Black market:
Reduced number of (D) variants
Added ships and weapons drawn from the "independent" faction
Slightly higher chance of getting ships/weapons from market's faction
Better odds for some specific weapons to spawn:
Light Assault Gun
IR Pulse Laser
Phase Lance
I've been making some changes to improve ship/weapon availability on the black market, so far it's:Black market:
Reduced number of (D) variants
Added ships and weapons drawn from the "independent" faction
Slightly higher chance of getting ships/weapons from market's faction
Better odds for some specific weapons to spawn:
Light Assault Gun
IR Pulse Laser
Phase Lance
Note that this, to some extent, covers the medium energy slots as pulse lasers/heavy blasters are more likely to spawn, due to pulling from the independent ships and weapons lists. So: what, if anything, in addition to those and the LAG/IR Pulse/PL trio, has been particularly difficult to track down? In particular, among basic weapons that are needed to be able to fit a specific ship *at all* as opposed to making a "perfect" variant of it.
I've been making some changes to improve ship/weapon availability on the black market, so far it's:Black market:
Reduced number of (D) variants
Added ships and weapons drawn from the "independent" faction
Slightly higher chance of getting ships/weapons from market's faction
Better odds for some specific weapons to spawn:
Light Assault Gun
IR Pulse Laser
Phase Lance
Note that this, to some extent, covers the medium energy slots as pulse lasers/heavy blasters are more likely to spawn, due to pulling from the independent ships and weapons lists. So: what, if anything, in addition to those and the LAG/IR Pulse/PL trio, has been particularly difficult to track down? In particular, among basic weapons that are needed to be able to fit a specific ship *at all* as opposed to making a "perfect" variant of it.
The only other instance that springs immediately to mind is finding a Large Energy mount for Sunders. They're among the earliest worthwhile destroyers you're likely to see for sale, but they aren't really worth using without a solid weapon in their defining slot (read: not a HIL) and none of the appropriate weapons are common spawns, probably rightfully so.
The only other instance that springs immediately to mind is finding a Large Energy mount for Sunders. They're among the earliest worthwhile destroyers you're likely to see for sale, but they aren't really worth using without a solid weapon in their defining slot (read: not a HIL) and none of the appropriate weapons are common spawns, probably rightfully so.
That's funny, I could not find any HILs while the black markets were full (relative to my demand) of Tachyon Lances, Plasma Cannons and Autopulses. If anything, I'd say those might be too common. At least I had no trouble finding any big weapon I wanted at any point, but that could of course be luck.
The HIL is not a bad weapon on the Sunder btw, combine it with Gravitons and use the System and you can pop frigates quick&safely from long range.
In a Simulated battle with an Onslaught-class Battleship, this single Sunder can locate itself safely behind the Onslaught and just slowly kill it. Not very dramatic, no Michael Bay special effects, just a quiet death and there is nothing the Onslaught can do about it.
If I'm doing the math right the light mortar is actually pretty close to the LAG's DPS vs hounds and other armor bearing early threats. I got something like 13 damage a shot for the LAG = 52 DPS vs the mortar's (shorter ranged, less accurate) 40 damage per shot. Definitely not something to discount entirely given how they cost half the OP and less than a third the flux.
Alex, how about considering removing the burn penalty from D-class ships? Would make them slightly more attractive to use, and they're already bad enough in combat compared to the standard hulls.
D class is supposed to be garbage though. But it's true they are pretty much worthless currently.
I liked Sabaton's idea about reducing the supply cost for them. Lot of cheap, cannon fodder. It technically make sense and they'll finally have some uses even later in the game.
Regarding sensors, I find it odd that you can't actually be stealthy with a small fleet. Basically, you have no way of seeing fleets you need to hide from if you're trying to be stealthy beyond the shimmering lines. You also have no way of telling if you're currently in a sensor range. It would be nice to visualize how far your sensors reach, as well.
Ways I might suggest fixing these:Have sensor range at a flat rate, allowing for skills or ship mods to modify it.
Having ship sensor profile remain the same as it is, because it seems reasonable.
Adding a sensor range indicator for your fleet on the map view?
I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, but unidentified fleets seems to have the same grey-blue on the map as the player, instead of their usual grey.
Great update, but... Extremely low chances to board anything. Again... :'( I began 2 games with 20-30 battles each - only 1 attempt appeared.
I'd go so far as to say that the UI support for this is in a good place. Might just be something that needs to be explained a little better.i think the ui feedback regarding sensor stuff is great and rather intuitive, except for one exception: when you have a large fleet, it's sometimes impossible to actually see what, if any, fleets are inside your sensor range. fleets can be off-screen and still too close for their "triple sensor lines" to show up, so you actually have no way of knowing they are there, without checking your map. it would be nice if there was a small indication at the edge of your screen (somewhat similar to how nearby sensor contacts are shown in battle) for any fleet that's within your sensor range but off-screen, showing their approximate position, size and faction (if known).
The chance is 5% per ship, so that sounds like very bad luck indeed.Are you sure it's per ship and not per battle? Since we can only board one ship could it be applied to only one destroyed ship? Because in several hours I only had a pair of boarding attempts. Then I raised the chances in the config file to 20% and it really feel like I get one attempt every 5 battles...
The chance is 5% per ship, so that sounds like very bad luck indeed.
The chance is 5% per ship, so that sounds like very bad luck indeed.Are you sure it's per ship and not per battle? Since we can only board one ship could it be applied to only one destroyed ship? Because in several hours I only had a pair of boarding attempts. Then I raised the chances in the config file to 20% and it really feel like I get one attempt every 5 battles...
Prior to .7, it felt like I was getting 1-2 boarding opportunities per battle.
Question: How long do markets panic if you kill something nearby? I challenged six patrols simultaneously in one huge extended battle, and won with only a single casualty (Hammerhead). Then I docked (with transponder off), and the failure message says it will take many months before I can try again. (I wanted to use their black market to buy organs.)
You can see the extent of other fleet's sensor ranges when you're near the edge of the range - that's when you see those triple sensor lines. If you're on the outside, the other fleet can't see you. If you're on the inside, they can. Now, if you're well outside or well inside their sensor range, you don't see these lines, but with a bit of experience, given the context, you should always have a good feel for whether another fleet sees you or not.
no it's the following at a safe distance command that they are running too perfectly.
Really needs some kind of sanity checking so I'm not starting the game with a bunch of bounties that all expire almost immediately. And maybe force a named pirate bounty in Corvus at start so people who don't want to trade don't have to startscum.Jangala always begins with an active bounty, although it's harder to find pirates now since they tend to hide around.
As I warp in my sunder, theres a pirate Enforcer right in front of me and while I was still warping into the map, he let loose 4 reapers at me.
The 5% boarding thing probably wouldn't feel like such a gyp if there could be more than one boarding action per battle.What would be nice is if multiple ships are eligible for boarding, we choose the one we want to board or kill. The rest escape.
Hey guys, have any of you actually seen the Sabot Pod (medium size) in the game at all? I'm just curious. Don't think bad luck could account for a total absence of that weapon in my playthrough so far...i have seen it a couple times, yeah, but it is rare. probably seen 3 or so, currently at lvl 45. that's just from black markets though.
One more extended question: Is there a range limit to markets' sensors? If I kill patrols in the system, do the markets panic no matter where in the system I kill patrols or only within a certain range? If there is a range limit, what is it?yup, if you lure them far enough, the market won't know about your battles. but i don't know the exact distance, or whether it's dependent on something like size of the fleet/battle.
Then I raised the chances in the config file to 20% and it really feel like I get one attempt every 5 battles...
Just putting a decent reload time on the "one-shot" missiles would help with that. It's a simple fix that I've advocated doing for quite a while.
Hey guys, have any of you actually seen the Sabot Pod (medium size) in the game at all? I'm just curious. Don't think bad luck could account for a total absence of that weapon in my playthrough so far...
As for a harpoony Dominator, i agree that it should be quite good.
Btw. I'm having more fun with a Dominator harpoon boat: insane armor-check;tons,o,missiles-check; long range pew-check; imune to missiles/fighterswarms-check. Cheap ass ship-CHECK.
There is a little thing I've noticed, Trade fleets in hyperspace just fly straight toward their destination, not giving a crap about storms. It would be nice if they used the clear paths towards their destinations, like actual trade routes. It would also make it easier to make ambushes and it would be more IMERSIVEThey should cross small patch of deep hyperspace tho. Hybrasil - Corvus route can be insanely long if you avoid it entirely.
There is a little thing I've noticed, Trade fleets in hyperspace just fly straight toward their destination, not giving a crap about storms. It would be nice if they used the clear paths towards their destinations, like actual trade routes. It would also make it easier to make ambushes and it would be more IMERSIVEThey should cross small patch of deep hyperspace tho. Hybrasil - Corvus route can be insanely long if you avoid it entirely.
I believe there are pathfinding algorithms that takes 'movement cost' into account - movement cost, speed reduction, hazard, or whatever you call it.
Hey therehi and welcome!
Now I'm going to dig into .7spoiler: it's pretty awesome.
Ok. This may sound stupid, but I *constantly* forget to buy black market things first. Is it something were supposed to adjust to? Or maybe market suspicion could temporarily go negative so we don't have to keep the order in mind. :-\
Not logged on for ages, but gotta say that this update is really nice.
Also, it's neat to see hybrid mounts are thing now. Guess with all the changes that have happened in the last Three Years (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=3140.msg54412#msg54412) Alex changed his mind about them. ;D
i just fought a fleet that apparently belonged to the faction "Neutral". not just a faction that's neutral towards me, but its own faction. so since i had my transponder on, i'm now Hostile with Neutral... is that intentional? ^^
It's less that they have extreme flux stats, etc. and that they have an armor multiplier (depending on hull size) and extra OP. I currently have an Enforcer (XIV) as my flagship and it has 862 standard and 110 OP without any skills/hullmods. That lets you focus on those ships weaknesses, or other areas (they also look cool).
EDIT: Also the standard variants for those ships tend to be pretty bad.
I've fought a lot more of these than what I'd consider sensible fleets lately. The problem gets even worse thanks to fighter wings' ability to survive even if they're all destroyed if their carrier survives, so what this means in practice is that I fight a mixed fleet and wipe out all the cruisers and destroyers and half the frigates, but one carrier gets away so the 20 fighter wings with it also get away even though I destroyed them all. Then instead of sensibly returning to their planet to lick their wounds they "Maintain Contact With Your Fleet" so a fleet of nothing but fighters joins the next regular fleet to fight me, then I mostly wipe them out but this time one carrier and 40 fighter wings get away. Maybe the old "hangar space" mechanic needs to make a comeback? Or maybe track the number of crew AI ships have aboard? There's no way if I'm killing one crew each time I destroy a fighter they have enough expendable dudes to fight my fleet five times in a row.
The "ridiculous amount of fighters in a fleet" thing is a bug; fixed for 0.7.1a.
The fleet sizes for enemies; are they meant to be able to exceed your own fleets cap of 25 (even if they are not receiving nearby assistance)?
Perhaps save-scumming battles for a ship you want to board may still be possible, despite the contrary being posted otherwise?
Perhaps save-scumming battles for a ship you want to board may still be possible, despite the contrary being posted otherwise?
I guess only Alex can answer this, but.. Normally save-scum 'resistance' comes from saving the seed value used by the random number generator, which means that reloading a game will load the game to the same state and with the same results on random events. Often this is easy to foil by altering the sequence of events after a reload, which will apply the RNG value that was previously used (in the abandoned game, before reloading) for determining the ship capture event on something else. This results in a new RNG value for the ship capture event.
@ Lucian Greyhawk:
there are times i save my game and exit (only play iron mode) and try loading a game and saved game has a bug cant load game and before u say mod i never play with mods
there are times i save my game and exit (only play iron mode) and try loading a game and saved game has a bug cant load game and before u say mod i never play with mods
has a captain why do i lose that stolen captain when i mothball and store the ship?
also i don't know about other ppl but me i have never or rarely made any $ doing trades (except buying low end newb crew and selling high end elite crew or when there is a massive price increase from a shortage) any thoughts there?
as for hiding the trades it's a lil hard to hide 115k bm trades with 5k legit trades :) but there are no legit trades at a pirate base lol and as a pirate can't really do any legit trading as all markets (except neutral atm) are banned from me.