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1

General Discussion / Re: What is "ships when importing" section in the factions files?

« on: November 12, 2023, 08:40:00 AM »

Luddic Path has no Heavy Industry.  I would sooo raid their heavy industry for pather capital blueprints if they had an industry to raid from.

Time for big brain: Install Nex mod. Join the Pathers. Conquer a heavy industry planet in their name. Steal blueprints from the planet you just took. Profit.

2

General Discussion / Re: Lore: How does Domain probe manage to pump out such a huge defense armada?

« on: November 03, 2023, 08:43:34 AM »

Beyond the notion of 'game is game and therefore scales over time to keep probes a bit more interesting than a random stop,' I tend to look at the fleets with the probes as the remains of an exploration fleet that was with the probe or probes within a system. Why the Domain would feel the need to send escort fleets with their exploration probes is an interesting question. But we don't know a lot of concrete info about the Domain so speculate away!

3

Blog Posts / Re: Wormholes and Sundry - Getting Around the Sector

« on: September 18, 2023, 08:43:39 AM »

Throwing more pennies of thought into the ring that will be more related to the general topic this time, I promise.

Anyway, from a gameplay perspective, I think these are great. Expanding upon an a new mechanic to give us rewards for exploration. Both refreshing general exploration and giving us more ways of traversing the galaxy. Personally, I look forward to learning, and finding hilarity in, the catapult system to see how far I can hurl myself across the sector and see what trouble I'll find myself in from wherever I land. I look forward to trying it out!

I also sat and pondered the lore question as to why the player would be the only one with these abilities and I think I have a semi-reasonable answer. It certainly isn't perfect but I think it holds water as a general theory. To lay it out: we can see that the major factions struggle to truly explore space on their own. We can see this through two major point. First, there are the numerous missions offered by the factions to the player in bars, contacts, and over the open comms. The last one shows that these exploration missions are meant to be open to everyone. NPCs and the player alike. Which is why they can just be removed at random. Second, when we go exploring, the factions that are out there are: independents, pirates, *REDACTED*, pathers, and bounties. In other words, the major factions of they Hegemony, Tri-Tachyon, the Persean League, and the Luddic Church vessels do not leave the core very often. There are a few exceptions, but they are few and far between. So what does this create? It builds a situation where there is only a group of captains who are willing/able to leave the core to conduct salvaging and exploration operations. This isn't inherently small, but it also isn't necessarily massive. As such, only this group of captains will have the chance to collect the hyperspace data to build up to these technologies. You, the player, are one of those captains. The other half of this point is survival. Our dear developers have created a universe that is full of danger. You can browse these forums and find plenty of players who have lost their ships to pirates, *REDACTED*, etc. And, of course, plenty of us also cruise the sector and wipe out plenty of fleets. As such, the collection of captains who would also live long enough to build sufficient hyperspace data to even create these hyperspace techs is likely small.

To bring it all together, we play in a deadly sector where the the major factions rely on independent contractors, like us, to explore the universe and that the captains who would even survive long enough to develop the tech is a subgroup of those contractors. As such, we, the player, would be one of the few, and maybe only, ones who could exploit the information that we acquire to create such fantastic abilities. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Have a great day!

4

Blog Posts / Re: Wormholes and Sundry - Getting Around the Sector

« on: September 14, 2023, 06:46:19 PM »

Oh, this is definitely player-only stuff.

So the player is just a better scientist than anyone else, and no other merc, or advanced military, knows or cares to use extremely convenient things that are easily learned by the player.
The player, who is just this god. Untouchable, unequaled. The chosen hero out of a picture book who is superior at everything they do - and simply just cannot stop getting new abilities that no-one else has. I really wish it had been made clear that this is what the player is intended to be from the start instead of pretending that the player is a captain in a future world for so long.

Hmm, well, personally, I have rarely felt like that in the game. How I see the the displayed captain and AI abilities when encountered in the wild as the sum of their combat skills. Their abilities that they developed/were programmed with to smite their enemies. We don't see their administrative acumen or if they overclock their scanners to see farther or if they stuff square millimeter with cargo because that isn't directly related to our glorious combat with them. The only real 'evidence' I have of this is that the Alpha Core, when we stick it into our colony, gains an additional administrative bonus over anything the player can get. Granted, we can manage two colonies without penalty so there's a counter-argument to be made.

Furthermore, to give credence to your argument, the possibility that computer captains balance their skill loadouts between combat and other does not diminish the fact that the player can load up on combat skills and become far more powerful than any computer opponent. As such, I would suggest that the game should spawn, continuously but rarely, a scattering of human and AI captains that have dedicated themselves to the art of war with the skills to back it. They could show up anywhere from bounties to just hanging out on the map. No more noticeable than any other captain but still standing as potential challenges to players, or other captains, who stand against them.

Now, to return to the general topic of this thread and examine the idea of either the player being, or having access to, scientist(s) beyond the ken of anyone else in the sector to pull off these feats in hyperspace, I admit I have no immediate answer. Not any that don't put words into the mouths of the developers. (As opposed to interpreting the world that exists.)

5

General Discussion / Re: A huge nerf to the missiles

« on: July 02, 2023, 12:48:30 PM »

I'm in agreement that looking at PD, including fighters that have the role of effectively being PD, rather than slashing missiles sounds more beneficial. I also agree that computer-controlled ships should work to respond appropriately to the threat at hand. As discussed, a vessel at no flux shouldn't treat a harpoon as a meaningful threat but should work to deal/avoid a sabot so it isn't walloped by that anti-shield damage. Opposite goes for armor only vessels. There could be some interesting discussion/balance surrounding how much a ship should react based on flux, its current armor, and available PD weapons. (EG, a ship with shields and zero flux but significant PD powers forward, despite a pair of sabots as it assumes it can intercept them.) But I'm not particularly familiar with programming. Let alone everything that is required to have the computer pilot a ship in any manner.

6

General Discussion / Re: The real reckless AI in action

« on: June 25, 2023, 11:47:03 AM »

So that my brethren may find Omega...I CHARGE!

7

General Discussion / Re: Expectations for 1.0

« on: June 08, 2023, 07:09:52 PM »

To add my two cents here: first penny is that there is a lot of good stuff here and I agree, wholeheartedly, with the people asking for end-game content, story conclusions, and final bosses. To put down a more unique penny: I would like to see an expansion on the one-off missions/contracts. What do I mean by that? Well, let's first look at what we have in very broad strokes:

We have, overall, three different kinds of contracts: A, A to B, and A to B to A.
Examples of A: A fellow offers to sell us a ship and the player says yes or no. A fellow wants X resource from a colony and the player says yes or no.
Examples of A to B: A fellow asks the player to do a bounty, the player says yes or no, then, if yes, the player goes to location B to fulfill the bounty. A fellow asks the player to deliver X of an item, the player says yes or no, then the player, if yes, goes to location B to fulfill the request.
Examples of A to B to A: A fellow asks the player to extract another person, the player goes to location B to do so, then returns to A.

You get the idea. Now, there is nothing wrong with this system! I still want each of these request types. Rather, I would like to see an addition of a few, maybe, A to B to C or A to B to C then back to A or B. Which could create quests like: The Hegemony wants you to extract an agent from the pirates. You get there only to find that the agent has fled to another location and the pirates know about it. They then offer you money to turn the agent over to them rather than the Heg. The player gets to location C and then needs to decide which way to go and, depending on the decision, could raise and lower relations with the pirates and the Heg.

Big goal here is to have another level of good, basic jobs that the player can pick up.

8

General Discussion / Your One Ship

« on: March 20, 2023, 02:31:07 PM »

While I imagine this has been done before, it's not on the front page. As I am a mildly lazy human being, I'm going to just fire off a post here. So, what's your One Ship? What do I mean by One Ship? Well, I'm glad you asked (even if you didn't). Your One Ship is the ship you'll always go for. That, for whatever reason, you grab as soon as you can get it. Does it have 3, 4, 5 D-mods? Maybe. But it's your One Ship so dang it you're taking it and never letting go until you can get a better one, restore it, or it blows up so completely that no amount of story points can bring it back. And maybe you even decide to reload so as not to lose it. So I want to know what it is! Whether it's the super-capital from the mod no one has heard about to the Atlas freighter to even the legendary vroom-vroom of cheapness: the Kite.

For me, mine is the not-so-humble Scarab Heavy Frigate. The big draw? It can be outfitted to be useful in almost any situation. With its superb Temporal Shell giving it the ability to control any engagement, the Scarab can dance into and out of battles. Winning engagements against multiple similar sized opponents. Speedy enough to grab objectives, durable enough to hold them. Front load it with weapons, and it shreds shields then pummels the remaining armor. But, if I don't need or want a hunter, I can refit its broad weapon placements to become an escort/support. LR PDs and a few missiles sees it shielding cruisers, carriers, and capitals. Of course, one could that about most any vessel. However, what makes the Scarab more unique i this returns to how Temporal Shell can be applied anywhere rather than feel limited. For example, the Wolf is pretty darn versatile in its weapon options as well. However, I feel that its teleport ability is significantly better when not chained to escort detail. The Scarab's ability is more generally applicable. Shooting and moving faster to make the most use of its weapons and defenses. Lastly, the Scarab is a ship that is handled fairly well by the AI. Being, when I had a couple in my fleet, one of the ships that rarely if ever showed up on the recovery screen. The immense draw of this is, naturally, the fact that you don't need to baby it. Send it out and it will get the job done while you, as the player, can fly the vessels that need the players touch to reach their true potential. Or fly the Scarab anyway and have fun spinning it like a top spewing lasers in every direction.

So what's yours!

9

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.96a (In Development) Patch Notes

« on: February 27, 2023, 08:55:56 AM »

*reads about the small missile auto-loader. Recalls that some phase ships have missile mounts. Reasons that a phase ship is equivalent to submarine. Sabaton's "Wolfpack" starts playing in the background*


In thinking about this, you say that the auto-loader only effects missiles placed in their proper mount. Marking out that ones placed in synergy won't receive the bonus. My question is: will it effect small missiles placed in medium missile mounts?

Update looks great and I can't wait for it! I particularly look forward to, beyond a submarine wolfpack play-through, the new S-mod changes. As, how it stands, whenever I design a ship with the intention of S-mods, I just make sure the most expensive mod is S-modded. With the changes adding additional benefits to S-modding, it'll make me think more in that department. Which is fantastic!