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Messages - Chthonic One

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1
Beams would be too strong, particularly high intensity laser and tac lance. You would never be able to retreat and vent if the enemy was using beams properly. Big ships would not just be disincentivized, they would be really bad, probably useless. Speed would be the most important stat by far, kiting would be the optimal strategy... Also it becomes easier to track something at longer range, because the required angular tracking rate for a given target speed is lower. No thank you.

As I posted, "Targeting precision and optical weapon focus would need to be introduced to reduce damage at far ranges." Note that slug and missile weapons would still be deadly in comparison to beam. Beam weapons would lose focus causing less damage at a far range. Slug and missile weapons would do the same damage at distance. As long as they didn't miss.

Missiles shouldn't have a range limit but instead have an amount of fuel they burn through. Initial boost, stop engine and coast. Adjust direction, engine start to boost again, stop engine again and coast. Reach suitable distance to target, adjust direction and run-in boost. Lots of possible behaviors to differentiate the missile models.

If need be you could always increase the shield and armor of the larger ships in comparison to the small. It's not like I'd suggest to remove weapon range limits and make no other changes to compensate for that big change.
If you're going that far, ballistic damage should be based on relative velocity between the target and the munition. If the munition is moving in the same direction as the target it loses much of it's punch.

2
Suggestions / Re: Add some visual depth to nebulae
« on: April 29, 2021, 12:23:15 PM »
Ironically, at that distance to the nebula, you wouldn't see a thing.

The only reason you see a nebula at a distance is because of how reflected light collects back at you, but at close range, there isn't enough reflected light to even notice.

3
You cannot smash them without flying into the station. They can harass you because they can always retreat to the station...
If they come out to harass me, I stop and prepare to fight them, and they retreat to the station, at that point they have ceased to harass me!

I'd say the situation is symmetrical between the fleets: neither can get close to the other without putting itself in danger. But given this symmetry, one of them should not be able to inflict massive supplies damage on the other.



Actually, I want to say this: Why does harry even exist now? For player it does nothing unless you really want to run some smaller fleet into the ground; for NPCs its main function seems to be to punish the player for committing one of an undefined set of mistakes.

No. As soon as you turn around to leave they harass you again. You can uhhh. "Sit ready for combat forever" but that would be them successfully harrying you by forcing you into peak readiness and thus reducing your combat readiness in the future.

I do agree that harry doesn't really have a particular use except to give yourself from negative rep. AI fleets don't have simulated resources so it only gives them CR damage that doesn't matter anyway because like... You are far stronger than them in the first place to be able to harry.
No, if they don't chase you consistently, they aren't harassing you. They harassing requires being in weapons range or at least the threat of weapons range, requiring the other fleet to maneuver to dodge. They can't do that from the safety of a station without losing that safety.

This is the whole pit bull on a leash barking at a cat just outside his leash's radius situation. The pit bull can bark all he wants, but he can't harass the cat. The cat can sit and wait as long as he wants, so long as he stays outside of the range of the leash. The leash in this case is the range of the station.

4
It seems reasonable that only defenders should get the benefits of a station, because only defenders are retreating to the station for help.

Only defenders get the benefit of the station. They can Harry you, since maneuvering to force a pitched battle means they can retreat to the station. And if you try to back off they Harry you again....

That being said a story point to engage without the station present would be nice. “Execute a feint to draw the attacking fleets in where the station cannot support them (1 SP, 0% bonus XP)
If a defending fleet around a station harries me, that means they are leaving the protective defensive area of the station. What is stopping me from just turning around and smashing them once they've done that?

That's the point. If they want the protection of the station, they can't harry. They lose that protection if they do. If they choose to harry, they lose the protection and the attacker can choose now to engage.

5
The problem I run into is when I kill a defensive patrol outside of station range, but a lone frigate survives. Then, as I approach the colony, the lone frigate can run up and force me into a nasty station battle when I just want a quick in-n-out raid for some commodities, even though the ship is entirely harmless on its own - and so would the station be, had I been a smidge luckier when my CO cleaned up the survivors of the battle.
Hm, maybe if the station plus defenders wouldn't be enough to deter raiding then they also shouldn't be able to harry?
Harry indicates that they want to fight seriously and that they want to chase. The station cannot chase, so it fails that check. The defenders in this case do not want to fight seriously without the station, so they fail that check. Since both fail a check each, no one gets to harry.

6
Can't you guys just get phase ships with phase field skill? I found it pretty easy to do stealth missions once you have enough phase ships because the phase field stacks. This story line deliberately make it so you can see the power and versatility of phase ships --> stealth missions, TT phase hunter, and end-fight boss. Like, trying to play as a conventional fleet kind of defeats the clear implications of the storyline, which is basically the TT has phase ships so they can do cool stuff.
Didn't use phase ship skill here. Even a single fast ship hiding in the asteroid belt nearby causing a distraction is enough to draw attention away so that it can circle around the other way and get the job done. No dram needed.

7
Not a strawman.

If I wait next to my station until an invader comes, then I intercept it, I want my battlestation to attack the invader with me, and it does if contact is close enough.

If an enemy intercepts my fleet when it is almost next to their station, they all attack my fleet as expected.  Can be an annoyance.

If there is symmetry in rules, then if an enemy battlestation does not back up the fleet that intercepted mine, then it stands to reason that if my fleet intercepts an invader, then my battlestation would not back my fleet up due to rules symmetry.  If that happened, we can expect complaint in patch notes or new topics in Suggestions or Bug Reports about "Help!  My battlestation is not helping me!" or something similar.  All because the current rules are inconvenient when our fleet is invading the enemy.  I merely pointing out the downsides if rules symmetry is enforced to make things fair.

You are missing underlying reasoning for why TS has stated he thinks it should be changed. He is not attacking rules symmetry.
"This makes no sense because my ships should be able to stay out of range of the space station."
In other words, battlestation should not participate in offensive because it has no ability to move.

For Suggestions or Bug Reports about "Help!  My battlestation is not helping me!" or something similar answer would be simple: because it has no ability to move, you have to be attacked to get help from battlestation

If you still don't understand the difference, I'll try an analogy.
By law police officer can attack a criminal, but why can not a criminal then attack police officer too? Because the law states that arrest is an action allowed on a criminal only.
In discussed situation, if law allows everyone to attack everyone instead, the TS is arguing with the reasoning for why the law allows it, not the symmetry.
This 100%

If I attack a ship near a station friendly to it, yes 100% the station should be involved.

If a ship near a station friendly to it attacks me, no, the station should not be able to join it in the attack. The station is immobile.

The same goes for if the enemy attacks me.

If I am attacked near a friendly station, the station should be involved.

If I attack an enemy near a friendly station, I should not get a free station involved in the fight. It is immobile and cannot come to my aid.


Too often I see weak fleets turn to flee to a station, then suddenly turn bloodthirsty the second they get into range of the station. If they do this the options to me should be as follows:
1. Disengage
1a. If the enemy chooses to engage without the station I can choose to engage them without the station involved or disengage while they harry me or perform a Story Point combat maneuver.
1b. If the enemy chooses not to engage without the station I can disengage without penalty as they were too weak to harry me on their own.
2. I have the option to attack if I want.
3. Story point option to trap them away from the station.

If I choose to engage an enemy within the range of a station my options for battle should be similarly altered:
1. Disengage (This can bring up a new set of options depending on enemy decisions)
1a. If enemy chooses to engage the station, they can harry my retreat.
1b. If the enemy chooses not to engage the station, it's a clean disengage.
2. I have the option to attack if I want.
3. Story point to open a fight to maneuver the main fight over to the station. (Need to defeat X CR to complete this action based on relative fleet size) Upon completion of this objective, able to retreat and start a new battle with the station involved.

8
I tried it the very sneaky way: 4 phase ships + 1 Dram with Militarysed systems and Isolated engine. They never saw it coming (sensor profile of 27 in dark run)

However, I do agree the main quest is quite hard to get a grasp on, you never know if you should follow it with a single frigate or the Pacific fleet.
I've been playing this game for several years, and some fights are just insane, I'm feeling a cheater burning story points each time I'm caught unprepared or without 10 capitals in my fleet. Not a great playing experience in these cases...
I managed to go through the whole thing right up to the spoiler fight without engaging a single ship. Clever stealth managed to avoid every single fleet that somehow knew where I was supernaturally as I headed back from a mission.

Personally, I hate that this trope is thrown at you so often. Why is there a fleet of 9000 ships just sitting in hyperspace looking for a fleet matching your exact description regardless of whether or not your transponder is on or off, whether or not you've swapped ships out prior to arriving, or even how long you've spent since you did the last part of the mission? The resource cost of just waiting there maintaining that fleet has to be insane, and that fleet would have had to fall apart after a while.

9
Suggestions / Re: Radiant should be 60 DP
« on: April 17, 2021, 03:38:29 PM »
People try to get a lot of ecm-mule Lumen into their build when in other threads people are actually turning Glimmers into engines of destruction.
Glimmers never drop for me as salvage.

Lumens at least are pretty good at combat.

10
Suggestions / Re: Make Thumpers work with Extended Magazines mod
« on: April 17, 2021, 01:29:26 PM »
I wonder if having actual magazines for some ballistic weapons would work well and be interesting.
All ballistics had limited ammo before the 0.65a releases.  Player could shield tank them until the enemy ran out of ammo, then shoot back.
I was wondering what that mod was even for. Now I know it isn't for anything anymore.

11
General Discussion / Re: Look at that marine required number
« on: April 16, 2021, 12:54:37 PM »
Is 120 000 marines even possible with only 30 ships? Gotta pump up those numbers,those are rookie numbers :)
Why do people thing they are limited to 30 ships.

Heck, why do people think they are limited to the crew that their fleet says they can hold?

Just bleed supplies.

Can you even lose your last ship?

12
Only pollutes habitable planets. I find that planets with no atmosphere are at least as useful as habitable planets due to the fact that you can install certain mods on them without problems, and you can also install nanoforges on them without pollution at all.
I am well aware of that.  Still does not mean it may reduce good colony locations if I cannot find a convenient one with 150% hazard or less, or deal with Pather cells if I use items.

If it is a choice between convenience with no items or awkward colony placement just for a measly +1 that may not make a difference, I may take the convenient option.  If I do not take colony skills and do not have cores, I have only two worlds with (hired) admins with IP, and IP seems mandatory to meet demand for some things.
So long as it's not your first colony, who really cares what the hazard rating is? Just give them hazard pay until you can reduce the hazard rating in other ways and improve accessibility. Even better if you have sleeper pods nearby.

13
Suggestions / Re: More restraints on s-mods for more interesting usage
« on: April 16, 2021, 11:05:31 AM »
I don't like that there's no decision to make - you're objectively wrong to not build in the most expensive mods.  Choosing what mod you S-mod should be a matter of the players preference. Assigning an OP value to S-mods, either directly or indirectly, would at least let players emphasize different mods.  Maybe I want to standardize Armored Weapon Mounts throughout my whole fleet. 

Another thought is that S-mods could have escalating SP costs. If it cost 2 Story Points to mount additional S-mods, that would mean you pick a few important ships to slap 3 s-mods on instead of like, every officer ship.
And what good does armored weapon mounts do for your carriers and missile frigates that hang out behind your front line, and don't get shot at repeatedly? It becomes a wasted slot.

My point is that unless you have a completely monotoned fleet without any variety, there is no reason why you aren't picking a variety of mods anyways. If you do have a completely monotoned fleet, you really aren't using tactics in combat.

14
General Discussion / Re: Look at that marine required number
« on: April 16, 2021, 04:31:15 AM »
What causes it to scale like that?

I know with trade missions the mission generator looks at the size of your cargo hold and picks a number you can carry -- do you have crew space in your fleet for 31,000 marines?
Pirates sitting on my planets keep targeting my other planets in the same system, some of them have like 70k defense ratings.
This scenario is killing me.
"Hey man, i know me and my buddies have been harassing your trade convoys and attacking random civilians for fun, but look at what i got here, no less than 50 bucks! It's all yours if you punch yourself in the face, set fire to your own people and open the prison door so that me and my best bro can get back to raiding, pretty please?
The best part is, even if you got those troops together, you can't even raid your own colony. You don't even get the option to.

15
@ Wyvern:  I meant any forge.  Corrupted nanoforge still pollutes a planet, and may add +4 Pather interest (I do not know if the latter is still true).  If I have Field Repairs, no forge may be better than corrupted because of the forge's downsides, and the missing +1 to demand to various buildings can be met by improving Heavy Industry/Orbital Works.  The only thing going for corrupted is +20% quality, which can be useful, but probably not enough to save it if I lack a good planet to bypass the drawbacks.

If I have pristine, I may bend over backwards looking for a better place to colonize, but if corrupted is the best I can get, I may say "forget it" and plop orbital works on a Terran or low hazard habitable and not use a forge (and that yields only +2 interest instead of +6, and I want to avoid Pather cells at all costs since they are not bugged anymore).
Only pollutes habitable planets. I find that planets with no atmosphere are at least as useful as habitable planets due to the fact that you can install certain mods on them without problems, and you can also install nanoforges on them without pollution at all.

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