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1

Suggestions / Re: Separate Personal (Combat) skills and Fleet skills

« on: April 17, 2024, 12:16:36 PM »

In terms of multiple officers per ship, I suggested something similar a while ago as a way to make ship builds more flexible. Right now you need to raise an officer to max level and get a specific skill set, but if you want to use different ships you now need to fire your officers and train new ones from scratch. Not the worst problem in the world, but my idea was to make every officer only have 1 skill with each ship only able to hold up to 5 officers. With this change, your ship setups become very modular and require far less commitment. For elite skills, it's pretty simple: the officer in the first slot on each ship is designated the "captain." The captain's personality controls the ship, and their skill gets treated as elite. Officer training could increase the number of officers you can fit on one ship while officer management increases the total number of officer you can have.

This obviously never got picked up. Maybe because it would be hard to implement, maybe because it just doesn't fit Alex's vision for what role officers are supposed to play. There's a big difference between having 8 officers that level up over time, and having 40 officers that are static and unchanging. The latter has great flexibility in gameplay, but the former allows you to get attached to your officers and watch them grow over the course of a playthrough. At least, you could get attached *in theory,* but in practice I don't see anyone treat them as much more than bundles of stat boosts with a funny name.

Compared to Vanshilar's suggestion, I think each officer having 1 skill is better than giving them 2 because it would solve a lot of potential frustration with skills being bundled together that you don't want on the same ship. I never considered putting officers on the player flagship, but it would make perfect sense to be able to jam them in there and all their skills get treated as elite while the player is present (an idea which I find both thematically and mechanically satisfying). Plus the "captain" (now second-in-command) could determine your flagship's personality during autopilot.

Even with 40 officers I think it wouldn't be too hard to make the interface work, they only have 1 skill, so you can shrink down their portrait to about the same size with a name over the top like:

Then stack up 5 of these per row.
Put the personality underneath, dull and grey, while the captain's is bright white to indicate that it is active.

I actually have an idea for how to make a clean and simple interface for changing which officer are assigned to which ship, I'll edit together an example of that in a bit. Mostly for fun, though, because the whole idea would not only require a lot of work upfront, it would also disrupt the game balance a lot.

2

Suggestions / Re: Decrease High Scatter Amplifier OP cost down to 3/5/7/10

« on: April 15, 2024, 07:20:07 PM »

What if, instead of reducing range. HSA scaled the hard flux a beam did between 0 at max range and 100 at ranges below 200+50% of range over 200.

IE turn it into something similar to the high flux damage bonus skill for energy weapons.

I suggested this over a year ago, but no dice.

Maybe you could have high scatter amplifier basically give you 2 beams: it does soft flux out to the weapon's full range and hard flux once the enemy comes within 50% of the beam's range. So you don't lose the ability to apply soft flux pressure at range, you only gain hard flux at close range, and you can have the change marked by a visual difference in the beam. The problem (besides the extra effort to implement it) is it could just turn out ugly, and that's no good.

This is the type of thing that sounds good on paper but comes with a lot of extra baggage that probably isn't worth sorting through.

3

General Discussion / Re: Your favorite frigate fits in 0.97?

« on: April 14, 2024, 09:54:05 AM »

I asked about TT Brawlers specifically because I have used the ship some and quite like it, and was surprised that people don't talk about it more often. Seems like others are using it also but it's just flying under the radar.

Maybe the base Brawler is just a solid design--2 M slots on a frigate with reasonable shield, speed, ordnance and good flux--so all of them are good. LP Brawler just gets most of the attention.

I think the baseline brawler kinda sucks, tbh. TT version gets 10 more op which is a lot on a frigate, but sorely needed for one with no turret slots. LP version gets free SO and system changed to AAF. The baseline seems like it could be cool with double HVD making it basically the only long-range frigate in the game (outside of using beams), but in practice it's just not worth using.

The ship has incredible stats for a 5 dp frigate, which makes it a great example of why you shouldn't underestimate "soft" factors like speed and weapon arcs.

4

Suggestions / Re: Separate Personal (Combat) skills and Fleet skills

« on: April 14, 2024, 09:13:26 AM »

Re: officer elites:
I wasn't sure how people felt about it, so I didn't touch upon it. I would go for a slightly different approach, of taking away base elites, instead of those from skills. It isn't unprecedented for skills to unlock new mechanics or improve existing ones to make them play differently.

I think officer training could stand to be nerfed a bit compared to officer management (though not urgently), and it makes sense that if officers are too strong that you could take cybernetic and shift some of the skill's power away from the officers and towards the player. The natural direction to take both of these thoughts is to remove the bonus elite skills, leaving officers with only the 1 they have naturally. It also helps elite skills fulfill their original purpose.

Throw in what Alex mentioned about some unique player skill from an item and I think things could get pretty interesting.

5

Suggestions / Re: Separate Personal (Combat) skills and Fleet skills

« on: April 14, 2024, 08:55:42 AM »

Thinking further on it, if you reduce the default officer level to 4 and remove the extra elite skill from officer training, then both officer skills add the same number of skills to your fleet. Officer management would add 2 officers with 4 skills each, while officer training would add 1 skill to 8 officers. I guess officer management would also add 2 elite skills, so it's not perfect parity, but still kind of neat.

6

Suggestions / Re: Separate Personal (Combat) skills and Fleet skills

« on: April 14, 2024, 08:19:41 AM »

@ BigBrainEnergy:  I am thinking about endgame when it is Ordos hunting time.  Before that part, when hunting human fleets, I can manage without Leadership, without s-mods, and without officers optimized for a specific ship.  Once I need to fight Ordos, I need to select ships for a final fleet, put s-mods on them, and raise officers with specific skills for those ships.  In other words, locking in the fleet.  I did not need to do this in older releases.  (Well, there was no skill respec before, but in the releases with max level, it was mostly a choice between getting colony skills or not and getting carrier skills or not.  In releases with soft cap, it was possible to grind to level 70+ and get practically everything.)

I only started playing in 0.95 when "locking in" a fleet was already the norm, so I can't really say whether it was better or worse before.

Industry is nice before endgame, but it would be nice if it was more useful for endgame too like the other three trees.  I liked endgame in older releases, but endgame in modern releases is too much work to build for (if I do not cheat) unless I opt for solo Omega Ziggurat, which is blocked by technically non-hostile enemies (if I do not want to destroy rep) that have became more common in crises.  (Before crises, I could spend a story point to flee at worst if I got stopped by a quest fleet that refused to take no for an answer and threatened combat.  I cannot flee from invaders coming to wreck my colonies or scanning or destroying traffic in my systems as I pass by.)

I think derelict ops is a powerful skill, but I find d-mods yucky so I pass on it pretty much every time. With hull restoration the 15% cr basically nets you 1 skill per officer by removing the need for combat endurance, which I think would be better off replaced by granting a third s-mod in place of botb. Given that s-mods are more limited than officer skills that seems more valuable, especially with how good some s-mod bonuses are.

The reason they make these videos is probably the same reason I like them... because a player showing off their piloting skills is less impressive/interesting to me than showing off a well designed fleet with good loadouts.

For me, it is the opposite.  I like to see flagship smash the enemy like a good old arcade shump.  Something like SCC's solo phase ship builds or his recent Radiant flagship, or TaLaR's Afflictor shenanigans.

That's exactly where personal preference influences playstyle and by extension, skill selection.

And, yeah, it's a fair point about officers having too many elite skills; that definitely got a little out of hand. I've pulled it back a bit with CyberAug going from +2 elites to +1, but 3/6 elites is still a lot.

I feel like you've chosen a harder balancing path by coupling the player to NPCs and end game challenges so tightly in terms of skills.  Your balance levers are elite skills number and maximum level for the officers.  Whereas in a more decoupled system, where perhaps officers and AI cores alike only ever get 1 elite skills, period, you also get the lever of changing elite power itself like you did in the recent release.  In such a system, AI cores could remove all the elite skills (not even 1 - they are alien in a sense) and just get a bonus Hypercognition skill, like they do with Administration where you actually did break the player/officer/core symmetry.  Or maybe instead of selecting elites, you pick an AI Hypercognition specialization.  Defense, Offense, Support.  Something like that.  Make them orthogonal to people, they're non-human, let the "skills" reflect that.  It also gives you something you can use tune end game difficulty very easily without changing anything else, and potentially adds variety to encounters.  Instead of just having all the skills, now an Offensive Radiant with very different and large bonuses will feel very different to a Support Radiant and a bit of variety at the end.  Right now an Alpha Core Radiant is an Alpha Core Radiant, because you haven't left yourself the option of customizing, simply applying the same 90% of all elite skills - which mirrors player flagship power.

Personally, since I almost never pick the +2 officer skill, you could probably drop the elite skill from Officer Training and people would still take it. +1 base skill on 8 officers isn't bad, especially compared to most fleet wides.  As for Cybernetic Augmentation, you could double the damage reduction for the flagship as well and remove the +1 elite skill and call it a day.  Again, this isn't that different from simply giving the player's flagship larger bonuses - here it is just more and different bonuses.  So easier to balance.

It does make sense to drag down the number of elite skills officers get when that is supposed to be the main balancing lever here. Officer training would still be a decent pick without the bonus elite skill. For cybernetic augmentation Alex did say the damage reduction isn't buffed for the flagship because that can get out of hand, but if you remove the extra elite skill for officers I think it's fair to allow the skill to get a little crazy for the flagship.

Stripping elite skills from the AI cores and giving them hypercognition instead is pretty clever. I'm not sold on specializing into different types, but you could just have a generic +5% damage dealt -5% damage taken +5% flux cap +5% dissipation. Then make it 10% for betas and 15% for alphas.

7

Suggestions / Re: Separate Personal (Combat) skills and Fleet skills

« on: April 14, 2024, 07:49:10 AM »

"It is the strongest." Really? Based on what, your anecdotal experience? Nice. In my experience that's not true. I guess I win, right? No further explanation needed

Cap'n Hector's various "5 ships vs 5 ordos" videos (Legions, Onslaughts, Paragons, , Draba's various fleet comp vs 6 ordos videos, Rainy's (on Discord) ordo hunting escapades, Legionhead's (also on Discord) ordo hunting fleet (I don't know if he ended up getting 5 points in industry or not) and yes, even my own experiences after playing the game for quite some time.

Arguments to the contrary would be Vanshilar's fights against 5 ordos, Sinigir's 3740 DP fight and my Radiant fleet vs 5 ordos fight.

There is a lot more content of a certain kind.

Right, but we've over been over why 5 ordo fleets are NOT considered for balancing. As if that wasn't enough, last time I checked both capn hector and vanshilar are in agreement that getting combat skills and manually piloting a flagship is in fact, very strong.

This is overall a terrible argument. Should I just spam videos of me using a flagship odyssey to beat 5 ordos and start using that as "proof" that combat skills are overpowered?

The reason they make these videos is probably the same reason I like them... because a player showing off their piloting skills is less impressive/interesting to me than showing off a well designed fleet with good loadouts.

8

Suggestions / Re: Separate Personal (Combat) skills and Fleet skills

« on: April 14, 2024, 06:49:45 AM »

What I saw recently was a number of people complaining that cybernetic augmentation was too strong. I don't think so, but I think it is good. Grabbing 5 in leadership and technology lets you grab almost all the best fleetwide skills, and at that point putting your last 5 into combat is the best option even if you went for automated ships.

That is just it.  Leadership and Technology feel mandatory this release (and the last two releases too).  That leaves Combat and Industry optional.  Pick one of those two to dump, either Combat for (no flagship) units play or Industry for flagship play.  I feel like I shoot myself in the foot if I want Combat and Industry instead, then leave five left for either Leadership or Technology.

It is one reason (but not the only reason) why I have been dissatisfied with Starsector lately and yearn for a release with pre-0.8a combat but with the campaign/story/exploration and the ships and weapons availability of the latest release.

Are they mandatory? You seem to get by just fine without leadership. You only get 15 skill points, obviously you're intended to specialize, and what you specialize into reflects your preferences. Industry is great for most of the game, but it falls off endgame when you have a ton of credits anyways. Not perfect balancing but it's not terrible. I avoid industry now just because the early game becomes too easy, and I have no reason to spec into it late game so guess what? I always end up 5-5-5 with the other trees. That doesn't mean this is the best way to play the game but it reflects how I approach it.

My complaint about the combat tree is that, ironically, it feels weakest in the early game right now. Better to get flux regulation and crew training first before going into combat skills, partly because the combat skills aren't all that strong if you only have 1-2 on a frigate, but they get pretty strong once you have 4+ on a cruiser or bigger. Then again I haven't really tried going straight into combat skill more than a couple of times so maybe the sample size is too small.

9

Suggestions / Re: Separate Personal (Combat) skills and Fleet skills

« on: April 14, 2024, 06:41:20 AM »

quote

I usually only put a single point in Leadership (Crew training) and I really don't feel my fleets are any weaker for doing that.

meybe ur just 2 dumb 2 notice

The point is I can take almost any combination of skills and have a good run with no problems. Hell one day I'd like to do a zero skill run, just for the experiment.

You won't be able to rely on your flagship, but otherwise it shouldn't be much different until the late game, where skills like EW or OT come into play.

If you're having a hard time deciding which skills to get, and how to get everything you want with the limit of 15 skill points then that's great. It means Alex did a great job balancing them.

See, the thing I'm arguing for is that for most people it's not a hard decision to ditch combat entirely. Maybe veteran players stick to piloting because they know they can make it work, but I'm not convinced it's something that occurs to less experienced players.

Get your rose tinted glasses off

lol nerd

Can the skills be even further improved as of right now? Maybe. But I'm perfectly happy with them now, and would rather see the game improved in areas that it's lacking, rather than have a skill system rework #69.

I didn't know nerfing officers is actually reworking the entire skill system. Do you think Alex reworked the skill system in 0.97 as well?

Are you implying that all-officer focused playstyle is the best in the game? Because that's, uh, something.

It is the strongest.

[close]

It's one thing to have a disagreement, but at no point have you made an argument that I've found remotely convincing. You're just assuming that your point of view is correct and when people disagree you're just saying "lol ur dumb" instead of defending your position.

"It is the strongest." Really? Based on what, your anecdotal experience? Nice. In my experience that's not true. I guess I win, right? No further explanation needed

10

Suggestions / Re: Separate Personal (Combat) skills and Fleet skills

« on: April 14, 2024, 04:01:58 AM »

It isn't impossible to play with a flagship focus playstyle, it just feels uncompetitive for many people.

What I saw recently was a number of people complaining that cybernetic augmentation was too strong. I don't think so, but I think it is good. Grabbing 5 in leadership and technology lets you grab almost all the best fleetwide skills, and at that point putting your last 5 into combat is the best option even if you went for automated ships.

11

Suggestions / Re: Decrease High Scatter Amplifier OP cost down to 3/5/7/10

« on: April 13, 2024, 12:36:12 PM »

Sure, let's nerf it until it's in the same group with shield shunt and HSA - technically in the game but not actually used.

Hullmods that benefit specific weapons/loadouts need to be strong enough to actually open up new build options. If you nerf s-mags, it will only become even more of "only ever use when you had this type of build to begin with", or even "never use at all".

People used magazines before there was an s-mod bonus, and dropping the regen bonus to 33% is hardly "into the ground." It would absolutely still get used even if it had no s-mod bonus, you just wouldn't s-mod it.

I'd say reduce the cost of HSA and buff its s-mod bonus.

12

Suggestions / Re: Separate Personal (Combat) skills and Fleet skills

« on: April 13, 2024, 08:21:13 AM »

Out of all the proposed changes, reducing officer level is the most palatable to me. I can't say that I'm in favor of it, but I do see the merit.

I think it introduces some problems balancing the combat skills against each other, though, because now those skill choices are more competitive due to being more limited. It already feels like you can barely squeeze in all the skills a ship needs, and many builds feel like they need 6-7. As it stands some skills are already higher priority than others, which is fine in the current state, but if you cut back the options even more you'll find some are consistently ignored simply because there's no room to fit anything beyond the basics. It sounds like a balancing nightmare to be honest.

13

Suggestions / Re: Separate Personal (Combat) skills and Fleet skills

« on: April 13, 2024, 04:41:07 AM »

Overall pretty happy with the skill system after the last change. I might tweak a few things here and there but there is a variety of ways you can level up that change the game without being overpowered, the current "electronic warfare" skill being a great example, and cybernetic augmentation is a great reward for players who invest in combat skills (on top of the skills themselves being great if you are a good pilot).

14

Suggestions / Re: Hull Restoration is way too overpowered

« on: April 11, 2024, 08:58:03 AM »

Really depends on what stage of the game you're at. Early game it's the obvious best pick, but past a certain point you have a full fleet of pristine ships and a massive pile of spare credits you can use to patch up any d-mods you get, so you might as well respec out of it and go into a different tree. If you have a lot of experience you'll find it makes the early game too easy, but you always have the option of ignoring it.

Derelict operations is also a pretty good alternative, making d-mods actually a net positive.

15

General Discussion / Re: Your favorite frigate fits in 0.97?

« on: April 09, 2024, 01:07:30 AM »

Omens and afflictors are indeed, still great.

Monitors are still good even without SO, the difference is now they really need an officer for elite field modulation while SO builds could get by without one. They're also a lot slower without it. Now you're going to grab unstable injectors and helmsmanship to try and make up for that. They can no longer diver into the face of a radiant in the heart of the remnant fleet and just chill, but they still work as a fantastic support/distraction with the escort command and reckless personality.