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Blog Posts / Re: Skill Changes, Part 2
« on: July 19, 2021, 03:35:46 PM »
So, about half a foot to chew on, fair enough.
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Blog Posts / Re: Skill Changes, Part 2
« on: July 19, 2021, 02:59:54 PM »Enemy AI and builds have improved, and they'll ram that down any captial's throat pretty hard(though your own AI is still a potato).
(AI's the same on both sides...)
Not trying to be saucy, but that doesn't meet the observation standard from my big bad N of 1. If I have your attention, I'm actually quite curious!
Looking at vanilla only (nex has been intriguing me lately):
A) [REDACTED] do not have the standard AI, and no combination of commands and officer personalities can replicate how they behave to my own satisfaction. In vanilla, [REDACTED] and {INCREDIBLY REDACTED} are the two situations for which you really want to bust out capitals, and ironically to me, seem to be the situations they are weakest in.
B) I suspect that enemy fleets are run by an invisible 'fleet commander'. It seems, based on how fluidly they behave, that this invisible fleet commander has an absolute metric ton of command points. You can replicate how enemy fleets behave, but you don't have the command points to come close to the sustained behavior.
If these are in the ballpark, then I'll stand by the statement. You can't replicate the best behaviors and thus the distinction is worthy of merit and consideration. If I'm spewing nonsense, I'll just chew on the foot in my mouth for a while.
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Blog Posts / Re: Skill Changes, Part 2
« on: July 19, 2021, 12:23:28 PM »I am pretty sure people still use Paragons and consider them strong, even if they benefit from neither tier 5 combat skill.
As one of the random schlubs that only picked up the game about two years ago, I actually have a different position.
The standard capitals feel altogether weaker over the last series of patches with the last one cementing them into a 'station buster only' slot in most of my fleets. Enemy AI and builds have improved, and they'll ram that down any captial's throat pretty hard(though your own AI is still a potato). I'd rather field an Aurora, Griffon, or Doom than any capital.
As a caveat a shield shunt onslaught with toughness hull mods and good PD is an exception to that rule. The AI loses its mind trying to shove missiles and fighters at that boat and its a wonderful anchor for that reason, but still a touch underwhelming. Paragons just get swarmed and explode, and the others are even worse.
I suppose this logic could extend to 'line ships' in general but a lot of what Alex has posted gives me hope that a line ship doctrine will be solid again.
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General Discussion / Griffon really does suffer from a case of "bad AI"
« on: June 26, 2021, 07:56:17 PM »
Slap yourself together a quick 2 s mod griffon build: eccm(s) hardened Shields (s) Solar Shielding Flux Distributor
4 x dual machine guns on the flanking small ballistic ports
1x dual flak cannon on the front slot
2 sabot SRM on the side medium ports
1 sabot SRM on small front port
2 breach SRM on the front small ports
1 Hammer Barrage on the front large port
Grab someone with missile spec and take it into sim.
Player controlled you can body a Conquest in about 15 seconds.
AI controlled? It might not even win.
It refuses, under any circumstances, to fire its sabot SRMs, no matter the weapon grouping. If you put the sabots on Auto, it will immediately switch to that group and disable the auto and then refuse to fire.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting the AI to be as good as a player. But this is beyond the pale in terms of how disappointing and frustrating alike it is.
There are companion problems. You can set these up pretty easily. For instance, build a kinetic ship that's very good at causing overloads and then give it some explosive weapon damage type options to follow up on that overload? It will just sit there, staring at the overloaded ship and not fire. Not even if its below 1/2 flux, full hull, and pointed right at the overloaded ship. There's no mitigating circumstance, there's no other ships to confuse it. It is either poor design or intentional sandbagging. Because the enemy fleet AI will NOT behave this way. If you or one of yours overloads, all nearby enemy ships will turn on a dime and have at you with whatever burst DPS they can sling.
Please consider making this something to review for future release iterations.
4 x dual machine guns on the flanking small ballistic ports
1x dual flak cannon on the front slot
2 sabot SRM on the side medium ports
1 sabot SRM on small front port
2 breach SRM on the front small ports
1 Hammer Barrage on the front large port
Grab someone with missile spec and take it into sim.
Player controlled you can body a Conquest in about 15 seconds.
AI controlled? It might not even win.
It refuses, under any circumstances, to fire its sabot SRMs, no matter the weapon grouping. If you put the sabots on Auto, it will immediately switch to that group and disable the auto and then refuse to fire.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting the AI to be as good as a player. But this is beyond the pale in terms of how disappointing and frustrating alike it is.
There are companion problems. You can set these up pretty easily. For instance, build a kinetic ship that's very good at causing overloads and then give it some explosive weapon damage type options to follow up on that overload? It will just sit there, staring at the overloaded ship and not fire. Not even if its below 1/2 flux, full hull, and pointed right at the overloaded ship. There's no mitigating circumstance, there's no other ships to confuse it. It is either poor design or intentional sandbagging. Because the enemy fleet AI will NOT behave this way. If you or one of yours overloads, all nearby enemy ships will turn on a dime and have at you with whatever burst DPS they can sling.
Please consider making this something to review for future release iterations.
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General Discussion / Re: Doom is Just Unbalanced
« on: June 22, 2021, 08:03:32 PM »
In vanilla, generally speaking:
Doom > phase > SO(high tech cruisers) > Standard Strong (astral/paragon/onslaught(armor + hull mods)
I rarely advocate any 'nerfing' of anything unless its out of band in a tremendous way within the context of a single player game. Doom probably is out of band to that degree. When fighting remnants, for instance, I have found XIV capitals are stronger then SO high tech cruisers. I don't know if the XIV are equal or better than the paragon there, but they feel strong in addition to getting results. They have a spot they really shine. SO cruisers really shine against Ludd and his goons, or the midliners, but are quite 'meh' in big [REDACTED] fights. Paragon and astral feel like they straddle the middle ground, but in a good way.
Doom? Haven't found any situations it doesn't shine. And if you're up against one in a big AI fleet (since they ignore logistics), you're going to loose a lot of ships. And that's the only time you're up against it. 1 v 1 or 1 v2 options exist, but that's comparing in a vacuum instead of the reality of what you experience in game play. Those things that can halt a doom are turned into debris fields almost instantly if they try to charge in and do their job before you've thinned the herd considerably. And by then, you've had the no counter play no options death of all your frigates and destroyers.
In a nut shell I can get behind real optional power/counterplay on the doom(and to a smaller degree phase ships) by tweaking the expected competitors, or down tweak it a bit. But it does not need 'big nerfs' or you're finding yourself taking away something fun to use for a lot of people and offering no recourse.
Doom > phase > SO(high tech cruisers) > Standard Strong (astral/paragon/onslaught(armor + hull mods)
I rarely advocate any 'nerfing' of anything unless its out of band in a tremendous way within the context of a single player game. Doom probably is out of band to that degree. When fighting remnants, for instance, I have found XIV capitals are stronger then SO high tech cruisers. I don't know if the XIV are equal or better than the paragon there, but they feel strong in addition to getting results. They have a spot they really shine. SO cruisers really shine against Ludd and his goons, or the midliners, but are quite 'meh' in big [REDACTED] fights. Paragon and astral feel like they straddle the middle ground, but in a good way.
Doom? Haven't found any situations it doesn't shine. And if you're up against one in a big AI fleet (since they ignore logistics), you're going to loose a lot of ships. And that's the only time you're up against it. 1 v 1 or 1 v2 options exist, but that's comparing in a vacuum instead of the reality of what you experience in game play. Those things that can halt a doom are turned into debris fields almost instantly if they try to charge in and do their job before you've thinned the herd considerably. And by then, you've had the no counter play no options death of all your frigates and destroyers.
In a nut shell I can get behind real optional power/counterplay on the doom(and to a smaller degree phase ships) by tweaking the expected competitors, or down tweak it a bit. But it does not need 'big nerfs' or you're finding yourself taking away something fun to use for a lot of people and offering no recourse.
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Suggestions / Re: Is Burn Drive (along with 0.95) the worst thing that ever happened to Low Tech?
« on: May 13, 2021, 10:19:33 AM »
Low Tech
Bad Worst special: check
Horrible Logistics: check
Shield shunt + armor mods + armor skills: Check back with me tomorrow I'm starting up a hegemony game.
I feel low tech is under the curve a bit. I haven't played with them in the .95 yet though to be certain they still feel weird. They were definitely bad in the old version. I have a itchy sensation that's telling me shield shunt and skills focusing on it will result in roflstomp against the AI though.
Horrible Logistics: check
Shield shunt + armor mods + armor skills: Check back with me tomorrow I'm starting up a hegemony game.
I feel low tech is under the curve a bit. I haven't played with them in the .95 yet though to be certain they still feel weird. They were definitely bad in the old version. I have a itchy sensation that's telling me shield shunt and skills focusing on it will result in roflstomp against the AI though.
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General Discussion / Re: Best Skill Tree 0.95
« on: May 13, 2021, 10:03:42 AM »
Tech is unquestionably the strongest: it has strategic and tactical buffs alike that are just gobstoppers.
Fully agree with the sentiment that others should get a refactor with an improvement slant: desegregating skills that you want both of but in this new system would require 75% of your SP to get.
Fully agree with the sentiment that others should get a refactor with an improvement slant: desegregating skills that you want both of but in this new system would require 75% of your SP to get.
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General Discussion / Re: Bounty Balance
« on: May 13, 2021, 09:37:44 AM »
I agree: these could use a pass in the next spiral. Enemy fleet composition to reward ratios are poor, the scaling of bounty size to your fleet is off, and the erratic nature of dispensation is also off.
For the first few months, though, they are great if you are a combat fleet.
For the first few months, though, they are great if you are a combat fleet.
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General Discussion / Re: The Frigate Bias
« on: May 13, 2021, 09:35:56 AM »SpoilerWe can agree to disagree.
Having an overpowered mechanic in a game that a player must arbitrarily avoid if they don't want to destroy the balance detracts from the enjoyment of the game. It's like having a big flashing 'Double power?' button on the refit screen at all times for example. 'But you can just not use it, no drawback!!' isn't really a convincing argument. It destroys immersion even if it is intentionally not used. Similarly with storypoint disengage ('magic your way out of this battle?'). It hurts the game even if you don't use it.
The drawbacks to SO are comparatively minor and can be bypassed. PPT by just retreating when it's low and bringing something else in, no biggie, and in many instances this doesn't apply because things are dead. Range by building short range setups (which you always do) that don't care about range penalties. The whole point of SO is to get right up in the face of the enemy with your broken flux and speed and smash them, so a range penalty is lul.
My issue with SO is that it completely changes the stats and capabilities of ships in an arbitrary and senseless way. If you are happy playing with that great but I can't agree it's a good addition to the game.[close]
Again: I've laid out how it is NOT overpowered, repeatedly, taking most of your points and not getting many answers back.
The new one is 'story point disengage'. To that I say: go ahead. Then you won't have that story point for s-mods, better rewards, mentoring officers, AI inspections, etc. It in an of itself is a good system because the opportunity cost is innate. If you blow your story points saving yourself from SO mistakes you're behind the curve otherwise. Good. And if you have to blow story points to not die, maybe . . . SO isn't as hype as people claim?
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General Discussion / Re: The Frigate Bias
« on: May 13, 2021, 06:30:20 AM »
That's just one part: many ships work better without it, yes. The others are that it comes with user opportunity costs, situational difficulties, and really suffers in protracted engagements of any sort (be it a long 1 map battle or consecutive battles). If you want to use SO and not blunder into death frequently, you've got to orient your character, ship design, fleet composition, and strategic engagement choices. If SO hasn't killed you, you aren't playing ironman.
In other words, its not just an 'I win' button. There's real drawbacks that make it internally feel good as well as externally. Further, removing it deletes fun/a playstyle from the game and doesn't give any back leading to a net detriment.
In other words, its not just an 'I win' button. There's real drawbacks that make it internally feel good as well as externally. Further, removing it deletes fun/a playstyle from the game and doesn't give any back leading to a net detriment.
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General Discussion / Re: The Frigate Bias
« on: May 13, 2021, 06:11:12 AM »SpoilerI don't really agree but I am very new so feel free to point out any errors. I'm not saying high-tech being too strong (or low-tech being too weak) is not an issue, but SO can be considered in isolation.
You can't assess in isolation because it scales existing values. The ship mechanics and stats are required variables to gauge it's effect. It's not flat bonuses by size, like Heavy armor mod, it's scaling existing stats on a multiplier. Now that I think about it, SO shouldn't be a multiplier, it should be a flat value based on size.
Last time I checked the speed bonus is a flat value? Also ships of a certain DP tend to have similar flux venting stats which SO doubles. It's not like maximum flux vent for similar class ships varies widely, outside mods like Scy nation which is a very exceptional case. Low-tech has slightly lower venting which, in a vacuum, you can say generally get less benefit from this portion of SO. However they are slower and the speed boost is flat, so they get more benefit, again in a vacuum, from this part.
SO seems to have a particularly broken interaction with the Hyperion due to the ship's system (I wouldn't know because I don't abuse SO). However the Hyperion is ridiculous without SO too. I think this kind of analysis is a red herring. SO is broken and gives an unexplainable magical ultra performance boost which enables you to outpower ships of higher classes and outspeed ships of lower classes at the same time.
Shouldn't be in the game, jmo.[close]
Pretty sure my previous post dismantled this strawman pretty hard. Would you care to elaborate in light of that address?
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General Discussion / Re: The Frigate Bias
« on: May 13, 2021, 06:09:32 AM »SO could be impacting other players negatively, if the game is balanced around it, so you have to use it or perish. I will have to play a non-high-tech campaign to see if it's generally the case, but for high-tech, I didn't really feel the need to use it.
Strong point!
I have a couple hundred in .9 and above, and as far as I can tell: the game is not balanced around it. Midline is crazy strong in zone of control builds/fire arc style fleets. I deleted juuuust as hard using them without SO. I think low tech is . . . .in a weird place over all. I had a lot of real hit and miss attempts. This to me would suggest Low Tech needs a little love (or I'm not grasping the key strategy of fleets in the low tech group).
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General Discussion / Re: The Frigate Bias
« on: May 13, 2021, 05:33:37 AM »SpoilerShow of hands, who thinks safety overrides are not high impact on the following ships:
- Eagle
- Falcon
- Sunder
- Hammerhead
- Brawler
None of those are high tech, all of them smashes face.
Quote from: Argentj on Today at 04:30:46 AM
The reason I say this is that most of the posters here are missing a key point about Starsector: it is a single player game. We do not need to parrot the foolish behavior of AAA overlords that ruin their own games. Thus, anything that improves the FUN people have playing it with the key caveat that it doesn't impede other forms of fun, is a wholesale win. SO is a wholesale win for players who enjoy it.
No, most posters didn't miss it's singleplayer.
Safe to say most people also saw your "it's a sandbox, powercreep is fun, don't touch my overpowered things" post a million times already.
Just describe why you like it, and that you prefer having it the game.
That's what we did, the other way around. Kinda moot since it's very unlikely to be removed, but posting an opinion doesn't hurt.[close]
Those in glass houses . . . you just did exactly what you accuse me of doing and imply is bad behavior. Shame. And if they didn't miss it(single player and fun): why would this(so) ever be a point of contention?
And you dodged the main thrust of my post: Safety Overrides does not impact other play styles. The only opportunity cost of not using safety overrrides is: not using safety overrides. As such removing it or 'nerfing' it is actually of net detriment to the game as a whole. You took away some not insignificant % of the player base's fun but gave them nothing in return.
But lets hit up on SO in general: is it actually 'power creep'? In short: no. It does exactly what the label says: for a 30 second or so window, you'll be strong. After that, you'll be fodder. And if you think you'll just slap on hardened subsystems, oh, and that skill that gives extend operating time, oh another . . . Before you know you, you're angling a large portion of S-mods, OP, and skill points all to making it work 'well.'
Because if you don't, you're a paper tiger. You get 1, short deployment. Screw up on a strategic scale and you're dead because the second Ordo or full stack pirate group is going to wipe the system with your feeble, 0 CR self.
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General Discussion / Re: Rambling commentary of 0.95
« on: May 13, 2021, 04:50:35 AM »
After putting hours into .95, I can say I really like it. There are some problems (frigate meta as mention in another post) and some key wins. Here's a short list of things I'd change to hone in on making it even more fun.
- Refactor skills that are dead after your fleet grows in size. Players should not be punished for doing well or growing or having a playstyle that isn't yours.
- Refactor skills that punish players for liking larger hulls (or other playstyle choices). This couples with what the AI spams on its pilots.
- Refactor the skill tree access: I'd like to see a combination of .9 and .95's approach to accessing tiers of skills. That is to say if you unlock a tier 2 skill in a tree, all tier 2's are unlocked for purchase. This means you have to pick a tier 5 to unlock the rest, but doesn't force you to take 'dead' or 'pointless' or 'only good early game' or 'not my playstyle' effects.
Edit: also be wary of putting two similar play style skills on lockout from one another. Building a survey/scavenger in this new system is the pits.
- Refactor jobs/missions access. Stations should have set personnel on them(unless they die), and those personnel should offer you jobs (sometimes being aggressive and sending you messages you pick up when passing comm relays to come see them for one).
-These offers should vary based on your reputation with their factions and others. While this sounds weird, lets hash out two examples. One: you have high rep with their faction(hegemony) and very low rep with another(pirate). This hegemony guy would send you off to slap around priates. Two: you have very low reputation with them (tri-tach) and very high reputation with their desired target. You are now very desirable to hire on as a double agent, and the rewards offered might be very high indeed for a bit of betrayal.
- Local reputation should trump overall reputation. If I'm -100 with pirates, but Kara's Den personnel all have 50+ reputation of me, their patrols should ignore me, trade should be casual, and missions plenty.
That's the short list, hope it is useful.
- Refactor skills that are dead after your fleet grows in size. Players should not be punished for doing well or growing or having a playstyle that isn't yours.
- Refactor skills that punish players for liking larger hulls (or other playstyle choices). This couples with what the AI spams on its pilots.
- Refactor the skill tree access: I'd like to see a combination of .9 and .95's approach to accessing tiers of skills. That is to say if you unlock a tier 2 skill in a tree, all tier 2's are unlocked for purchase. This means you have to pick a tier 5 to unlock the rest, but doesn't force you to take 'dead' or 'pointless' or 'only good early game' or 'not my playstyle' effects.
Edit: also be wary of putting two similar play style skills on lockout from one another. Building a survey/scavenger in this new system is the pits.
- Refactor jobs/missions access. Stations should have set personnel on them(unless they die), and those personnel should offer you jobs (sometimes being aggressive and sending you messages you pick up when passing comm relays to come see them for one).
-These offers should vary based on your reputation with their factions and others. While this sounds weird, lets hash out two examples. One: you have high rep with their faction(hegemony) and very low rep with another(pirate). This hegemony guy would send you off to slap around priates. Two: you have very low reputation with them (tri-tach) and very high reputation with their desired target. You are now very desirable to hire on as a double agent, and the rewards offered might be very high indeed for a bit of betrayal.
- Local reputation should trump overall reputation. If I'm -100 with pirates, but Kara's Den personnel all have 50+ reputation of me, their patrols should ignore me, trade should be casual, and missions plenty.
That's the short list, hope it is useful.
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General Discussion / Re: The Frigate Bias
« on: May 13, 2021, 04:30:46 AM »
Please don't do anything at all about Safety Overrides. If anything, thanks to the double nerf bat bigger hulls got this patch, it needs a buff on them. Better would be tweaking how and why frigate spam is good, however.
The reason I say this is that most of the posters here are missing a key point about Starsector: it is a single player game. We do not need to parrot the foolish behavior of AAA overlords that ruin their own games. Thus, anything that improves the FUN people have playing it with the key caveat that it doesn't impede other forms of fun, is a wholesale win. SO is a wholesale win for players who enjoy it.
On the topic of this post: the frigate meta is the opposite. It does improve the fun of frigate players, but for those who don't care for them or enjoy one of the myriad other ways to play, the AI uses it against you and reduces your fun. You are pushed to embrace this against other forms and thus it is a bad thing.
The guilty party here is things like Target Analysis[combat]. Why? Every AI ship has it, thus all capitals now take +20% more damage, period. And why do you take a capital flagship? At least one of the primary reasons is to be more tanky and feel more powerful. Getting ripped apart by a half dozen gnats doesn't feel powerful or tanky.
I like the direction .95 is going: more quests, more story, more versatility. But it is a first draft, and needs a polish round.
The reason I say this is that most of the posters here are missing a key point about Starsector: it is a single player game. We do not need to parrot the foolish behavior of AAA overlords that ruin their own games. Thus, anything that improves the FUN people have playing it with the key caveat that it doesn't impede other forms of fun, is a wholesale win. SO is a wholesale win for players who enjoy it.
On the topic of this post: the frigate meta is the opposite. It does improve the fun of frigate players, but for those who don't care for them or enjoy one of the myriad other ways to play, the AI uses it against you and reduces your fun. You are pushed to embrace this against other forms and thus it is a bad thing.
The guilty party here is things like Target Analysis[combat]. Why? Every AI ship has it, thus all capitals now take +20% more damage, period. And why do you take a capital flagship? At least one of the primary reasons is to be more tanky and feel more powerful. Getting ripped apart by a half dozen gnats doesn't feel powerful or tanky.
I like the direction .95 is going: more quests, more story, more versatility. But it is a first draft, and needs a polish round.
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