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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Messages - Rune Wolf

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@sqrt(-1)
Thinking it over, I'm changing my mind. Because I still have that synchrotron core. Meaning, I didn't need it's value in cold hard cash, but it's too rare to just let go, now that I'm starting to get enough money a colony is something I can consider. It's just sitting there taking up 1 cargo unit and I can't use it or dare sell it.

I'd say the rare high-value items are problematic in the early-game. I sold the first synchrotron core I found, because even as a new player, I recognized that - it was too early to be building a colony, therefore an item that enhances production in a colony is useless to the player at that early stage in the game. But the "seed money" from selling it is useful, early-game.

The only reason blueprints and mods don't suffer from the problem of being expensive paperweights to new players, is - they are used up when you learn them and disappear - so the decision can be made then and there for cash now vs. production capabilities later. Nanoforges and Synchrotron Cores ask the same question of the player, but if the answer is later, you have to carry them around all that time. Even 1% storage fee is an expense due to high value.

So I can see the logic of reconsidering the uses of these items, or changing the way they ask the short term gain vs. long term reward question.

If I'm honest, I think I've been - at least partially - arguing for the sake of defending an early-game achievement, but, Changing the rules of the game to allow some new types of missions does not change the experience I had with it already.

@Dread Lord Murubarda
I have that stuff now.* I learned the value of each of those things "the hard way", and acquired them one at a time. Which might be why I'm starting to have some success.

*...well, except for a 100 reduction in survey equipment. I'd not considered stacking the bonuses that high... but I will now. ;)

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  • Skillful players manage to complete the game in a few hours due to the inflated values of Nanoforges and Synchrotron cores which can be acquired quickly when using some finesse.
I'm getting the impression learning curve + the random number generator hating me, gave me a very challenging first game? I'll fine out after some replays/different strategies, but my first game experience was, Discovering that A. stations tend to have high value items and B. actually finding one that had them, instead of some - ok - value items, took 5 Years, game-time, and no, it was not "just a few hours" real time. You tell me how normal/not normal that is.

I have yet to encounter a Pristine Nanoforge. Ever.

Bear in mind this research station required going dark and - barely - sneaking past pirates patrolling the system on a "sundiving" maneuver (1-way exit into the star) Taking a bold risk = getting a bold reward. I thought this was cool, I skirted the razor's edge of making a fortune or die trying, and - barely - made the right maneuvers and escaped.

So I'm not fond of the idea that the second I reached the research station (which was a mission), 2 pirate armadas would have instantly swooped in and killed me, going dark or no.

Existence before that was "treading water" in fuel and supply upkeep, no game progression was happening.

Although it has been equal parts frustrating, and entertaining, the gritty feel of a character in, say Firefly, and the struggle to make enough money to keep flying.

(No discounting the idea I might get new ideas after several playthroughs, trying different strategies, but at the moment, this has been my experience. so far.)

Quote
  • Loot can already be stabilized in an orbit.
...how???

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1. The only reason I have had any success with a playthrough focused on Exploration, is because the Random Number Generator gods finally decided, in Year 5, to place some Alpha AI/Blueprints/Synchrotron Core in a research station.* And I had to pull of a feat of Going Dark and sneaking past Pirate Armadas to get it. (more on that later) This 1million cr "haul" is the only reason I was able to consider having a combat-capable fleet and colonies, prior to that stroke of luck, the game was not advancing.

*I have yet to encounter a Pristine Nanoforge, as opposed to a corrupted one. This has not happened yet in 60+ hours of gameplay.

2. If Random Ship X (you use Ox Tug as an example) is required to transport certain items, what will happen is, they will not be salvaged by a early-to-mid game player.

3. Items not salvaged are gone.* They are effectively destroyed.

*Yes, they are cargo containers, but the "crates" do not remain in space long enough to be returned to, when they are on the Fringe of the map, where an Exploration Fleet is most likely to find these valuable items.

4. Ruins/Station salvage would need to be overhauled, so it functions like Derelict Station storage, for leaving a valuable item behind to be a functional game mechanic.

5. Anything found on Exploration, Survey, and Salvage, is going to be, by definition, far away from the Core Worlds. This means lots and lots of fuel will be used. Multiply the fuel per light-year of any ship an Exploration Ship is going to keep around by 100.

6. Ox Tugs cannot be afforded by an Early-to-Mid game player.

7. No, an Early-to-Mid game player cannot afford an Ox Tug.

8. An Exploration Fleet must make hard economic choices. Everything there must
A. Make money. (E.G. Salvage Rig, Shepherd)
B. Haul Supplies/Fuel/Crew for surveying planets with ruins.
C. Provide Defense.
D. Doesn't belong in the Fleet.

9. An Ox Tug is Case D. It doesn't belong in an Exploration Fleet. It guzzles fuel and supplies, while contributing nothing. It doesn't make money. It can't store enough cargo, fuel, or crew to be useful. It has zero combat capability. An Exploration Fleet, especially in the Early Game, will not be able to afford one without bankrupting the player.

10. Remember when I said I - barely - managed to sneak a Synchrotron Core past Pirate Armadas? This isn't happening if you make it an item that emits a signal. If that were the case, I would have savescummed and not taken the tech haul.

11. How much money do I have left after upgrading my fleet? About the value of that Synchrotron Core. That Core is the only reason I can consider building a colony now. Understand this. Making the game's most valuable items inaccessable, prevents new players from being successful.

This hurts Exploration.
This hurts Salvage.
This hurts Colonies.

12. Please remove the word "fun" from this thread's title. It is an inaccurate description.

-----

Bonus Lucky 13: Fluff-based arguments are incorrect. Carriers exist.

IIRC A nanoforge is a piece of equipment a carrier uses to produce new fighters on demand. A synchrotron core is a specialized nanoforge that produces only fuel. A carrier's nanoforge is specialized to produce only fighters.

From this evidence, we can say:
A. A carrier's nanoforge fits inside a Destroyer-size vessel (Condor, Gemini) just fine, thank you.
B. A carrier's nanoforge takes up less than 100 cargo.
C. A carrier's nanoforge does not "bleed" enormous sensor emissions while in normal operation, heavy-use (combat), or in flight across the map.

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Yeah, I too want that to happens! Also becase most of the time feels like we do not influence in a positive way the others factions colonies.

but I am thinking that we should have the option to sell these super rare items w/o any tariff, and even  more than that, get a reputation increase.
Yeah, it would make a lot of sense if we could turn in things like nanoforges and synchrotron cores to authority figures the way we can with AI cores.

I am also thinking about sort of procurement quests, but longer, no extra reward, your normal price depending on demand, but without tariff. for example, luddic church announces that they are looking for transplutonic ores, so now you can sell it w/o a tariff at any of their colonies for X months or X quantity.
That could be a really cool event. It could make legal trading a lot more viable without incentivizing spreadsheets.

They could actually use it in the industry instead of just disappear in the Market like looks like what happens. The same for others commodities like surveys, trade goods, blueprints, they could end in the faction factory if we sold them, like se a hegemory start using some tempest after selling a blueprint of it to them. Or maybe a planet could get a imigration boost for the excess of availability of food and domestic goods after us selling a good amount in a Market. Instead when we do those "Concerned person on a table..." bar mission all the goods dong' go nowhere, it's don't influence the Market at all.

Aye, this.
After hearing it said in the playthrough I watched, black market weapons and ship blueprints end up in the hands of pirates, (E.G. fleets of pirate Paragons, you ded) I was very careful who I traded what to. Is this a lie??? A mod???

I tried to "build up" the Independents and Persean League (and maybe "take down" the Hegemony) with carefully-distributed sales of AI cores and nanoforges to planets with specialized industries, weapons and old-but-good ships to Independent stations with ragtag ships for sale, blueprints to Persean military bases that might actually be able to field them. Data on habitable planets was carefully spread to factions that I could tolerate settling a colony there before me. (Never Black Market or Pirates, or Planets with Luddic Path activity, lest they buy the data and set up bases there.) I was thinking of data and weapons sneaking through the markets, like it was the Star Wars universe or something. I put a lot of wasted thought into this.

...then I noticed everything I sold just sits there for sale (except AI cores that just "poof").

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General Discussion / Re: Feedback from a new player
« on: November 25, 2019, 05:28:04 AM »
Good resource management, IMO, should be easy to bludgeon/ignore for newbies and an opportunity for fine optimization for veterans. Because if the veteran blows it and runs out, they kick themselves, but if a newbie blows it, they kick the game.

True that. I've come close to just uninstalling. I think the only thing that kept me going was memories of old school Ultima from 80s where you had to buy food for your party.

I'm gonna buck the trend and not a fan of autosave. If it could be turned on, I wouldn't.
Most of the timed autosave and before/after battle autosave suggestions I see up here are Bad IdeasTM. A few possibilities...
A timed "every 10 minutes" save halfway through a trip that runs out of fuel.
Save just BEFORE combat, when you can't escape even at E-Burn.
Save just AFTER going through a battle you screwed up and lost.
Save just AFTER winning a battle... that cost your super-rare flagship.

...Still New Player In the teeth of this. Listen to Daynen, I sussed out most of these same ideas the hard way.

Press F1 on a commodity, to see best prices to buy/sell, and their locations. (Be aware the system is 'dumb' and might recommend Pirate bases, and Luddic Path bases (not to be confused with Luddic Church)). I have one planet in my map, that is a fuel production center, sells fuel for about 12cr, and I go out of my way to tank up there.

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General Discussion / Re: Hyperspace Storms: Unfun or Necessary?
« on: November 25, 2019, 04:11:34 AM »
have the sector map show the actual, correct locations of cloud formations,
^
THIS

I'm mapping, BY-HAND, Hyperspace terrain, giving it names like "The Expanse", "The Northeast Passage", "The Corridor", "The Keyhole". It never changes. Deep Hyperspace is a static terrain feature. Even the relative amount of "energy" (how stormy it is) remains the same in each section - some are quiet Deep Hyperspace, others are rolling thunder.

Even the Radar pretends to - but does not - show Deep Hyperspace boundaries properly.

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General Discussion / Re: Campaign tutorial mission is brutal
« on: November 25, 2019, 03:53:49 AM »
Aye, if the Tutorial on "Normal" is winnable, I'd like to see some veteran player get it done. At least the Hard Missions feel like there should be a way to win. (Normal Tutorial = Impossible Mission)

Campaign start, no Tutorial with just a couple ships made more sense for learning curve, more opportunity to learn things one-at-a-time AND understand what each ship is and all its features do.

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I find myself with similar thoughts. I'm frankly surprised there aren't planets that cause crew loss to high hazard rating, same as high risk salvage.

However, consider, how this actually affects the player. Ruins are the only thing that makes survey profitable. The only thing.* Data is worth garbage, surveying every "rock" out there is a loss... but if the player can find an old Dominion colony with vast ruins? That's the payday. 50% of them are on dead colonies where things went horribly wrong, 50% of them are on planets that went Borderlands.** Marines are a high cost "commodity", a starting player cannot afford them easily. Marines also use crew slots, this will hurt both ways - 1. They may use up crew slots needed to survey the planet (ever bring a transport full of 400 dudes to end up 50 dudes short?) - 2. now imagine finding out you brought 40 expensive marines and are 5 marines short - 3. that moment when you can't have enough marines unless you buy another ship to carry them. This won't completely screw over players trying to make a profit on exploration, but it will make an already hardcore game that much more hardcore.

...I mean, I brought 500 dudes and I'm 50 short because this planet is a huge high grav nightmare. (Guess why this colony failed.) What's the need to truck around 50 marines too?

(*Well, there are derelict stations, but those - technically - don't need to be surveyed, though they tend to show up in orbit of similar habitable planets with failed colonies.)

(**Because the image of basically being Crimson Lance is kind of loltastic. I seem to remember mowing down 100 of them or so at a time as a "barbarian" mercenary... obviously this can only go well!)

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General Discussion / Re: What's Your Ideal Salvage Fleet?
« on: November 18, 2019, 01:57:04 AM »
I just came to the horrifying realization that burn rate is supplies.
Time is money.
Maintenence is supplies per ship per day.
More burn rate is less days spent getting to your destination.

Buying expensive ships that are slow, you pay for them twice!
I am currently buying 1000 supplies per "expedition". That's a flight to some mission objective in the corner of the map and back.
If I got rid of all burn rate 8 ships, going to burn rate 10, that's a 25% increase, a 25% decrease in travel time, 25% less supplies used.
25% of 1000 is...
This saves 250 supplies.

If just sell the Heron Carrier, or install Augmented Drive Field, it would save more supply use as Efficiency Overhauling every ship.

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Suggestions / Plot Course Around The Star?
« on: November 18, 2019, 12:49:08 AM »
To the Autopilot: can you not fly straight into a star to get to a planet on the other side of the system? It seems like a simple thing. Skirt the edge of the Corona automatically, because that's all I'm doing manually.

Also, today, the autopilot, when sent to a known planet in Civilized Space, (not some unexplored system where it always barrels right towards the star) decided it would be a good idea to use the star's jump point, burn my ships to cinders, because it was 0.4 days quicker.  :-\

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General Discussion / Re: What's Your Ideal Salvage Fleet?
« on: November 18, 2019, 12:35:05 AM »
Maybe it's geography?

...today I had a mission to the NW region of the map I hadn't been before, and, there was a passage of smooth hyperspace the whole way, used roughly half the supplies and fuel I brought. I am not used to that.

(To understand travel the map seed I've got, to reach 3 of the 4 corners, there is not a "pocket" of deep hyperspace, but an "expanse". As in, the whole screen is deep hyperspace. I'm starting to wonder how normal/not normal this is. The NE corner is really thick, to the point I think it's affecting the part of the game simulating NPC fleets and factions - to the extent this game is simulating such things? Nobody, and I mean nobody, not Pirates, Luddites, or other Salvage fleets, not missions for bounties or suspected base locations, ever go out there. You are alone.)

Fuel might be mathematical, but supply isn't. "100 days" worth of supplies are often gone in 20 days of deep hyperspace travel.


@SapphireSage - Increased Maintenence and Erratic Fuel Injector are deal-breaker D-mods for me. I've given every ship Efficiency Overhaul.
I read that thread. I've taken navigation 2 and putting points in logistics now.

@Lucky33 - Everything you're saying is spot on. No, I wasn't thinking hard numbers about fuel or supply until it became a problem.

I was obsessed with burn speed when I started. Then I figured 9 was almost as good as 10, and 8 was almost as good as 9, right? I have a known logical fallacy from other games I've played, of sacrificing every other consideration for high speed, and running into trouble later for it. People are talking about high speeds here, so I'm not the only one going for max speed.

@ Plantissue - What's actually going on is I wait until there's, 3, 4, or more exploration missions clustered in one region of the map and then take them all. Some of them are survey, and since I'm already geared for it, on the return trip, I poke into systems and look for planets that might generate Grade IV or V data. These are also the ones that tend to have ruins or derelict stations.

I've been thinking about this. Even Grade-I data is 10,000c. Say it costs 50 supplies to survey it, kind of an average number. Supplies average 100c. Turning 5,000c supplies into 10,000c data is double your investment. Of course, fuel and travel time must be factored in, but still, it's worth it if the star's already along your route and the planet's next to the jump point.

I'm not sure if - at what point - a survey fleet could make a profit doing this. It seems like everything is - theoretically - profitable, but in-practice, expenses, "black swans" like pirate attacks, and those tariffs - make nothing profitable... not without a mission.

Yes, I've been wondering at what point I go for combat. It's hit or miss. Some pirate fleets run from me now. I've tried attacking them, but one was really good at using E-burns to dodge, another just ran straight to pirate base with an armada of 12 capital ships for protection.

Yes, upgrading to larger, destroyers and cruisers was the plan. Maybe a carrier-based fleet, using the small ships I already have as escorts.

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General Discussion / Re: What's Your Ideal Salvage Fleet?
« on: November 16, 2019, 05:53:10 PM »
@ Flix Wow, did you do that playthrough just for me?
6:30 Yeah, if I'd had the kind of luck to find a battleship just laying around, we'd be having a completely different discussion. XD
16:00 WHAT did you do to make your tanker go 245 speed? If I could 'mod that kind of speed on my ships, things that are normally speed 50 (freighters, for example) would be viable!

@Lucky33
I'm past the "what does this button do?" stage. The problem IS the maintenence and fuel costs of each indvidual ship are small, but all together...

I shyed away from slow ships. I'd LOVE a Phaeton tanker, proper Salvage Rig, ect, but my experience so far has been anything slower than combat speed 70-80 CAN'T escape in an evade-style battle. All my ships of speed 50 or so were taken from my fleet by pirates.
It's an interesting ship list though!

I'll have to give the Apogee start a try... next time. I'm running my first character 'till he succeeds or dies.

@ Serenitis
Every one of my ships has Efficiency Overhaul.

I've taken 2 skill points into navigation, and yes, logistics looks appealing. I started into the leadership and industrial skills, I can see they're going to help, but my character is still too low level to have everything you list. Currently level 1 in those things, and "rolling upgrades" into level 2. What I'm hearing is, "give it time, once your character levels up, it gets better".

The struggle for fuel was because I recently expanded the fleet and had only 2 Dram tankers. I thought it would be enough. (The truth is always more complicated - I'd budgeted just enough fuel, but then I answered a distress call from a fellow salvager trapped around a black hole, I couldn't pass it up - then I saw the new fuel range on the map...) 5 Drams might be enough, but the fuel cost ate up all my profits.

 - Thanks for the all the replies!

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General Discussion / What's Your Ideal Salvage Fleet?
« on: November 15, 2019, 10:04:23 PM »
Yes, new player. Yes, first game. But, moving away from "how do I make the ship go?" questions and on to more "meaty" questions. (Yes, I have checked older posts, and the wiki, but if this particular fleet build strategy was discussed, it's not easy to find).

Normal start with Wayfarer and Shepherd.
Decided to try and "just make an honest living" first go-around.

Year 1
With one of each combat frigate (the Wayfarer, Hound, Centurion), Shepherd, Nebula transport (for all the hundreds of survey crew) and a Dram tanker, going after clusters of Survey and Probe missions (and whatever I deemed worth surveying and salvaging on the return trip), I was making something like 368,187 credits each expedition.

Everything I had at this point has a reason for being there. It either A. makes money B. carries fuel or supplies I need C. goes fast (Because time is money and fuel is money and supplies is money). This was getting results, but I wasn't happy.

So little cargo space, every time I found a planet with Ruins, I had to leave most of the rich salvage behind... Same for the sheer number of derelicts, debris, probes (well, the ones that don't have defenses, if they put up a fight, this little of a fleet can't handle it.)

Run-ins with a couple terrifying pirate armadas had me panic-buy anything without "deal breaker" D-mods

Year 3
1 Heron carrier (flag)
3 Captained escorts (Shrike, Centurion, Afflictor)
4 Wolf frigates
4 Shepherd drone tenders (because A. they have salvage platforms, and B. anything slow as a Salvage Rig at combat speed 50, gets caught by pirates)
8 Combat Freighters of various types (Wayfarer, Hound, Cerberus)
5 Dram tankers

This fleet runs out of fuel, runs out of supplies, and even when it doesn't, spends all that 485,144 credits emptying out multiple planets for supplies and fuel. (When even Chicomoztoc doesn't have enough supplies for you, you might just be overdoing it. Just a bit.)

Ironically, I was making waaay more money with a handful of "rustbuckets".

The Problem: this "better" fleet is - barely - running at break-even at Survey/Salvage work. It's NOT profitable.

The Question: What should this fleet be?

What's the ideal size and ships for a Salvage/Survey fleet?

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Suggestions / Re: Thinking Inside the Box About Hyperspace Terrain
« on: November 15, 2019, 09:24:51 PM »
Quote
Secret systems in huge storms sounds like an amazing way to add late/end game areas. Just make it very difficult to get into the jump point without some special tech from a quest.
Huh. My first (current) game is on a seed with a very large "expanse" of deep hyperspace in the NW region, isolating a small constellation. With a nebula system on the edge, that is, a jump point with no star. Vanilla Starsector is - almost - capable of things like this, it just needs a little encouragement.

... Storms also deal scaling damage, bigger fleets get hit harder. Add two and two together. The best fleet for exploring hyperspace storms turns out to be a small early game fleet, because a large capital fleet is going to get zonked.
This explains so much.

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Suggestions / Campaign Tutorial Improvement?
« on: November 12, 2019, 01:20:43 PM »
Some feedback as a new player. (You can only test it as a new player once! Then, you know too much...)

One simulated year into play, I found changing course with the mouse (example, to avoid an inconveniently-paced star, or a hyperspace storm lacking in social niceties), would stop the course I laid in, and it was NOT intuitive - for me - how to get back on it. The ships just "coast" to a stop, even though the arrow for the course I laid in is still there. I was resorting to using TAB and laying in the course all over again. :(

Helpful people explained within 5 minutes of my post it's A to autopilot on/off, and S to stop/start. Kudos to that.

I had to know. I just replayed the Campaign Tutorial - did I miss this stuff in information overload? No, it's just not there!
For that matter, changing course with the mouse was something I picked up from watching the game played online.

The Tutorial section for piloting in combat is very thorough, anything I didn't catch the first time, was there when I reviewed it, but IMHO the Tutorial for the Campaign could use improvement to raise it to the same level.

PS - On a somewhat related idea, I tried clicking on sensor blips in the Radar in the lower right - as-if this minimap could lay in a course to anything displayed on it, but no, that doesn't work. It might be an idea for a new feature in the game, though, I couldn't say how much work-to-implement it would be.

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