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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); In-development patch notes for Starsector 0.98a (2/8/25)

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Messages - Rudragun

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1
Suggestions / Re: feedback after 4 years of playing
« on: February 08, 2025, 08:44:11 PM »
I enjoy the discussion of lore, so I'll hop in as well.

1. Regarding Pirates, the faction description in-game describes them as "not technically a unified faction." Their appellation is exogenous and is more about their hostility to you and the major factions than it is about the markets' relationships with each other.
The Pirate "faction" markets are all small populations (3 or 4) but fall into a few different categories. I'm sure you've read all their lore, but bear with me. There are a few different reasons they haven't been absorbed:
  • Little of value (Garnir, Kanni) and/or too polluted to be practically habitable (Lost Astropolis)
  • Mercenaries (Donn for Tri-Tachyon mercenaries, Thulian Raider Base for the conflicts among gens of the Persean League)
  • Umbra: see Usurper questline
  • Too fortified (Kanta's Den) or too difficult to conquer outright (Kapteyn Starworks)
Kapteyn Starworks is an interesting exception. Like Laicalle Habitat in the same system, it was conquered by Warlord Leonis, but Laicalle Habitat seems to have voluntarily joined the Persean League, albeit under threat of conquest.

The tutorial actually has Derinkuyu Mining Station switch from Pirate control to Independent. I would like more opportunities for things like that. I think it would be very neat for the player faction to absorb one or two of the pirate markets.
I imagine Kanta's Den, Garnir, Kanni, and Lost Astropolis would remain Pirate no matter what you did because no faction is really motivated to absorb them. Kanta can easily dominate them (and the pop-up bases outside the core), but the others do seem to have their own power base or benefactor.

As I was writing this, I came more around to your line of thinking about the Pirates as heterogeneous, but I still think the name is fine.

2. Independents are fine, and the faction description in-game describes them as "not a unified faction as such." Their faction description as a whole shouts "non-aligned movement" to me.

3. My impression of the sector is that it's like a factory cut off from anyone who can actually make molds or heavy equipment; however, they still have plenty of ore to pour into the molds. When some critical terraforming technology becomes defunct, the technological gap is so large that there is no hope of a replacement, but they do have blueprints for ships and plenty of metal.
That said, the problem late-game is not that the frigate/destroyer fleets don't exist but rather that you have no incentive to engage them.

4. Haven't played with colony threats at all, somehow haven't made a colony since they got added.

5. I think David has ably answered the question of the Hegemony. I do take your point about the name, though, and think the faction description could reflect the historical reason for the name.
For my part, I can easily imagine the Pearseans sneeringly referring to the XIV Battlegroup as the so-called-Hegemony and for the name to stick when the XIV Battlegroup arrived 48 years after the Collapse and declared their hegemony over a Persean sector controlled largely by warlords. I wouldn't expect the XIV Battlegroup to object to being called the Hegemony.

The "Sindrian Diktat" is evidently an allusion to the Eventide Diktat, meant to legitimate Andrada as Diktat Executor for life. It contrasts to the Eventide Diktat as being a Persean concern instead of a reference to the Domain. I don't have an issue with it, though I do understand your point. It's a bit odd, but the name makes sense if you consider it as coming from the leader's title, which makes sense for the self-aggrandizing Andrada.

2
Bug Reports & Support / Re: The Typo Thread
« on: February 02, 2025, 02:07:44 PM »
There seems to be a missing predicate in line 4625 of rules.csv:
Quote
The package will ping us with an encrypted hypercomms pulse once it's, and that'll release your funds.

3
Mods / Re: [0.97a] Officer Extension (0.6.6)
« on: March 24, 2024, 09:48:09 AM »
Love this mod. Would like if you could also change how many skills an officer could select from upon level-up as I would prefer to have all skills available than promote/demote until I get the one I need.

4
Suggestions / Re: Developer game mechanics that suck
« on: March 12, 2024, 10:06:35 AM »
A lot here. Developers (programmers) tend to respond best when you have specifics, like having a video or savefile, although some of this wouldn't fit in one video anyway or wouldn't be appropriate for video.

1. Not being able to run away without a story point. ...
... If you fleet is small or fast (your slowest burn vs their highest burn) enough, you can retreat without a fight ...
I'll say that I don't like this part. When I'm cruising around at 2x speed with an 11-burn fleet and accidentally get caught, I am very annoyed that I can't disengage for free. Is the cutoff 2 burn over the fastest enemy?
I especially do not like this when I am doing the story as story enemies know where I am even when they can't see me on their sensor, so I get caught by them just because they spawn super close and immediately wing in on me even though I have a 300 sensor profile and more burn.

3. Ships refusing to listen to commands.  ...
This one I feel like is almost a UI/labeling issue. If the tooltips were better and commands labelled more clearly, I would like this better. Like if the Rally Civilian Craft command were instead labelled Secure and said "this ship will move to the Secure waypoint and not move away even when under fire." To go even further, the UI could show the current Rally Civilian Craft name and tooltip instead if the ship is a civilian ship.

4. Not enough command points to do anything useful. ...
You can give multiple orders with one command point and even get like 10 seconds grace time after unpausing to give more orders with that same command point (grace times ends immediately if you leave the command screen though which is something I think should be changed).
I would love for this to change.

1. Star navigation has 2 separate UI's. What the hell? ... Allow for proper navigation on the first map. ...
The only thing I really want as far as "proper navigation" is the ability to shift-click multiple waypoints toward a destination. After I've gone through a part of the map and have an idea of where deep hyperspace is, I'd like to set my fleet to follow a series of lines that would avoid them. If there's a slipstream, I'll deal with it like I already have to.

2. No unified looting and navigating menus. ... This system needs to be unified and fixed.
This would be nice. I would like if <ESC> always exited and if the story-special events on port planets got moved to the first option on the bar instead of displacing the bar. I always check the bar, but sometimes I don't want to start a questline. Maybe the bar's description could change to include the story option (e.g. "Visit the Bar or the Shrine")

3. Finding and sorting of planets is so hidden in the UI I don't know if people even know it exists.
I use the Planet Search mod for this. It would be nice if it were vanilla.

5
General Discussion / Re: [Poll] Command Style
« on: March 07, 2024, 11:30:24 AM »
If I have Support Doctrine, I never run out. Otherwise, I have too few command points.
The problem I have with the Command Points system is that the countdown for a Command Point is not in real-time (unless you stay in the tactical view. i.e. if I give a command, unpause and pilot my ship for a second, then pause again to revise it, I have lost that command point. As soon as you switch off the strategic/tactical view, you have lost that point; if you stay on the tactical view and leave your ship to autopilot, it has a time bar that goes down until that point expires. This was a huge hurdle for me in learning the game, and I still make the mistake sometimes and lose a command point that I was still using because I know I'm still in the time period but have switched to my ship to vent or something.

6
Suggestions / Re: Built-in Drones should not be Fighter Wings
« on: March 06, 2024, 07:40:15 PM »
I agree and disagree with this.
I think the carrier skills should only apply to combat ships in the way Tactical Drills and Crew Training are already configured.
This way, you're not diluting your carrier skills by giving them to non-combatants. You could have the carrier skills apply to them by installing Militarized Subsystems, which you would already be doing for the boost from Crew Training and/or Tactical Drills. (If you're in Leadership, you probably got Crew Training.)
As it is, Tempest really does benefit from the carrier replacement rate skill (as do a lot of mod ships), and I wouldn't want it to lose this bonus. The buff to Tempest seems neat, but part of the reason for the Termination Sequence system was to make the Tempest less consistent while still having damage spikes, right?

7
Modding / Re: [0.97a] Support Ships Pack 0.7.1
« on: February 29, 2024, 07:29:15 PM »
The Aspirant probably should have a second look at it. It is supposed to be a cheapo cruiser, but yeah, it is probably a bit too fragile and/or slow. I'll do some testing for that. I think it is close to where it should be, I'll just maybe give it a kick in the rear.
I think buffing just one aspect would be fine, and I agree it's close. A bit more speed would lean into it being a fire support cruiser, or a bit more armor would lean into it being a cheap flagship cruiser.

Maybe there's just a really good fit I haven't found, but it doesn't feel worth 25 DP.
The Ossifrage... is maybe a bit too terrible... Like that is the role it is supposed to be, the overdesigned midline boondoggle, but it also should be usable in some fleet comps where its totally all over the place design is actually good. The turn speed is really just to help the AI, so it is a shame that they still struggle with it. The jank is the point, but it needs to be a fun jank, not a bad jank. I'll figure something out.
I spent some more time with it today, and it's closer to okay than I thought. Warthogs are great on it, and I hadn't tried them before. The AI does try to broadside with it, but it seems to always leave the hardpoint shy of actually being on-target. If the large ballistic were angled more toward the front of the ship or if the medium energy could be part of the broadside, I feel like it would be fine.

Rambling
I tried switching the small ballistics to energy and the medium energy to 360° arc. I felt like small ballistics don't fit the vanilla midline cruiser/capital designs (which I admit is probably unimportant), and the medium energy seems otherwise useless.
The large ballistic hardpoint is begging for a high-DPS weapon like Hephaestus or Mjolnir since it can't keep it on target and so doesn't mind the high flux costs. On the other hand, it can't rely on the hardpoint for armor damage because it can't keep it on target. Medium energy has really good anti-armor options in Heavy Blaster and Phase Lance, so you don't have to rely on the hardpoint to hit armor. I liked the change when I tried it, seemed like a decent trade for the ship.

Fit was Warthogs, Harpoons, Hephaestus, Heavy Needler in front medium, HVD in back medium, and Heavy Blaster in the energy. Range mismatch didn't seem to matter because the alpha was so high. Phase Lance seemed to do about as well as the Heavy Blaster. Warthogs are excellent with Reserve Deployment and way better than anything else I tried in that slot.

Test was autopilot 100% CR Support Doctrine Ossifrage (so Helmsmanship, Ordnance Expertise, Damage Control and Combat Endurance) and Flux Regulation from Tech tree, vs sim Dominator (Heph/Mk IX/Typhoons), Lasher, and Vigilance (Pilum). So 25 (-5 from Support Doctrine) DP vs 34 DP. Seems like it should be able to hold its own given all of those skills vs officerless sim, though Support Doctrine skills are obviously not optimal; I probably would take Ordnance Expertise, maybe Helmsmanship, and definitely Combat Endurance if I haven't gone Industry.

Anyway, the wide turret arcs really help with dealing with multiple ships. The Warthogs are the first fighter I've tried that actually managed to kill either frigate because there's too much pressure from the other ships to let it actually keep its guns on any of them long enough with three around. The autopilot fired all the Harpoons at the Lasher every time, but sometimes none of them reached it before the Warthogs killed it.

An issue seems to be that the Ossifrage tries to back away from the Dominator by turning its front against the Dominator and retreating straight backwards instead of strafing (which I think would be slower). However! With this much DPS, the Ossifrage could get the Dominator up to high flux to make it not pursue. The Ossifrage still wouldn't put its hardpoint against the Dominator that often, but it did sometimes, certainly more than before. The Dominator could usually back off safely because of the missile pressure from the Vigilance, but that seems fine, just fleet dynamics.

This has very little relevance to [REDACTED], ofc, but not every ship needs to be capable of that, and maybe there is a fit that works for it.

I don't know what kind of change you're thinking about, but I would suggest trying out increasing the arc of the medium energy. The arc doesn't even have to be to 360°, just has to be enough to bully away questing frigates and to bring it to bear against its left side, maybe 270° or 300°? Probably wouldn't want it to face forward to keep the identity of the ship. The ship really needs consistent anti-armor, and the large ballistic can provide anti-armor but not consistency. Maybe I should've tested Breach missiles in the 3 small slots before changing any of the turrets.

I could definitely see a world where the Ossifrage gets a medium missile or has the large ballistic moved more forward (or angled more forward) instead of increasing the medium energy arc, though. I just really wanted the medium energy to be useful.
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Edit:
[weird Legion behavior]
Basically it was thinking that it was a broadside loadout because... the specific placement of the turrets on the Legion, combined with the range of the weapons, and the range it was checking its optimal firepower angle against, made it "miss" some of the turrets but not others.
Looks like broadside is really finicky anyway. Someone accidentally made a broadside Legion with an almost symmetrical loadout.

8
Modding / Re: [0.97a] Support Ships Pack 0.7.1
« on: February 27, 2024, 06:32:36 PM »
I haven't played with most of the ships in this pack, but I wanted to talk about the ones I have tried.

Maunder
The Maunder is easily my favorite, and I used it as my flagship when I was running around with frigates. I like using Elite Point Defense as my first combat skill, so I'm always on the lookout for ships with a bunch of small ballistics. I haven't used the Accelerated Ammo Feeder version, but I really enjoyed the pirate version. 2 medium missiles with Fast Missile Racks for 6 DP is quite a good deal, and all the small ballistics give it a lot of good options for outfitting. Both versions have plenty of OP, which you really need for the 2 medium mounts on a frigate. Tie it all together with good speed, and it is a lovely little thing.
I like running into enemy Maunders, too.
I didn't find space for it in my endgame fleet as 6 DP was just a little too expensive, but I think the DP cost is actually quite fair, and I might revisit it and hand it some high ammo missiles like Breaches to strip armor or Salamanders to occupy enemy PD and harass unshielded engines. The medium ballistics on the normal version seem promising too, maybe a Hypervelocity Driver and Heavy Mauler would work.
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Carton (P)
The Carton (P) is a very fun addition to the pirates. I was quite surprised to find frigate/destroyer pirate fleets flinging Squalls at me, but it was a good surprise. It's limited well by its low OP and its unique hullmod that reduces missile ammo.
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Dram Mk. II
Dram Mk. II doesn't seem to do anything special in LP fleets, but I haven't struggled fighting LP fleets at all this run, so I wouldn't say I could make a good judgment of it.
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Tercio
The Tercio feels calibrated well. Great turret arcs and good mounts with adequate flux stats but no shield. The front plate with the damper field is very cool but a bit funky as I have had it waste a charge on its own missiles. Burn Drive feels weird, but I don't know what else it could reasonably get. It suffers from the same problems that afflict all small heavily-armored ships (not enough armor or hull to stand up to big weapons), but that's not a tick against it in the right fleet. Might be strong enough to bring to Remnants, but I didn't find a XIV version to test it.
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Gemini (LC)
The Gemini (LC) feels like a fair trade. Gaining one fighter bay is great, but you lose the medium missile, and it has 0.95a stats, so 10 less speed and 10 less OP, which make it much more vulnerable than the vanilla version. Not sure it would be fair if it had both, but it could probably get the OP buff without issue. It also still has Civilian-grade Hull, which is probably just an oversight.
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Nebulae
Nebulae are fun to blow up.
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Aspirant
I'm still undecided if the aspirant is decent or not. Its 40 speed is just really bad (worse than the Mora), and its acceleration/deceleration stats are as bad as the Dominator but with no Burn Drive. Turn rate is fine, basically the same as an Eradicator, though the Aspirant does have a hardpoint. I didn't notice it having any particular difficulty staying on target. The armor does feel too low for a low-tech cruiser, comparable to Aurora/Gryphon, though the Aspirant is only 18 DP. The turret arcs are quite good, and the large ballistic lets you use Ballistic Rangefinder, which is always good fun. I feel like I should give this one a second look.
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Ossifrage
The Ossifrage is just as frustrating as the description says. I can't find a loadout that doesn't leave it pointing its large ballistic hardpoint against a frigate 1500 su away while a cruiser comes in against its front. It turns superlatively well for a cruiser, but the AI is just so bad with this ship.
It has more OP than a Champion, but the mounts are really awkward, and it's not very tanky while being as slow as a Colossus Mk II/III. The ballistics have really good arcs, excepting the side hardpoint. The medium energy only overlaps with two small energies. The three small missiles don't feel worth the OP. I was trying to use Ballistic Rangefinder with this ship, but maybe it's not wise to use it for 4 turrets? It might be better to use 2 hypervelocity drivers and 2 light needlers or vulcans.
It doesn't really fit with the vanilla Midline set, which I do realize is intentional. They're all specialists, but the Ossifrage is explicitly not a specialist. It also has small ballistics, which don't appear in any of the vanilla Midline cruisers or capitals. Maybe it ought to get a medium missile too if it's supposed to be a generalist.
Maybe there's just a really good fit I haven't found, but it doesn't feel worth 25 DP.
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Haven't used a Geoid myself, but I see them a lot in big scavenger/independent fleets.

Edit: adding a couple more. For context, my fleet is Support Doctrine with 1 capital, 3 cruisers, and a bunch of Escort Package destroyers. I basically only assign Capture orders at the start and then Defend orders on the big 'uns, though I do have to get more fancy when fighting tougher opponents, like special contact bounties or [REDACTED].
Apsis
This seems really good. It definitely feels like a premium destroyer: it's tanky, mobile, and has a pretty good weapon package. I tried it with PCLs and Sarissa. I couldn't get quite enough OP to fill all the slots and have Expanded Missile Racks, but that seems fair. I used Pulse Laser on the medium, IR Pulse Laser and Ion Cannon on the small, but I'm not settled on this yet. Between Sarissa and Active Flare Launcher, it had enough PD. The Apsis held its own pretty well in general, and I got to see it bully a pirate Eradicator away.
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Sidebar
Similar to the Apsis, the Sidebar is a premium destroyer with a good overall package. Fortress Shield is always strong, but it seemed to mostly use it for getting out of trouble than for tanking, though I never set an eliminate order. It stood up to a pirate Falcon for a very respectable amount of time and was able to back off when it was in danger. I went with Phase Lance, IR Pulse Laser, a Burst PD Laser, and a Salamander. I should probably have put Breach Missiles in the small missile slot instead.
My first impression of the Slider wing in sim was that it was too strong or had too far of an engagement range, but I think it's okay after seeing it in action against a fleet instead of just a few frigates. It's probably really really good in early game, though. Compared to the Warthog, the Slider has one fewer fighter, double DPS, shields instead of flares, double engagement range, and 70 more speed. Its IR Pulse Lasers have lower hit strength, which is inconsequential for frigates but limits its ability to punch up.
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Parabola
I'm not really sure how to outfit the Parabola. I tried Advanced Optics Phase Lances and Burst PD Lasers, but I don't know if that's even a good fit.
Honestly, it's probably just a poor fit for my fleet. Anyway, 3 hangars for 22 DP seems expensive considering it doesn't have a fighter system, but it does have reasonable weapon slots, flux stats, and OP compared to something like a Heron. My fleet can afford to protect backline carriers, so its mobility isn't very important to me since it doesn't usually get isolated. I should have been watching it more closely because I kind of suspect that it was needlessly sending its fighters to escort my big ships when it should have been sending them against frigates and destroyers.
I really like the sprite, by the way.
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Revoker
I really like this thing. I have a level 7 officer who is pretty much perfect (System Expertise instead of Missile Specialisation, but otherwise great), so I stuck her in it and took it out for a bunch of bounties. I S-modded Expanded Magazines and Advanced Turret Gyros, and I gave it Autopulses, Squall, two Phase Lances forward, and Burst PD Lasers in the smalls. I'm still not settled on what the rear medium energies should be.
The IPCs have a really nice hit strength, so they did a lot of armor and hull damage (compare its 300 to the Hephaestus' 120 HE). The Large Energies up front have really wide arcs, so it can drive away small stuff pretty easily if they approach from the front or side. I did have to assign it an escort, which I should have expected from its 200° shield arc. I used the Sidebar as its escort and was pleased with the pair's performance. Overall, I was really happy with it. It's great at punching down, as fast as promised, and it has really good slots. 40 DP feels pretty fair, seems like it compares well to the Onslaught or Legion, depending on what kind of fleet you have. Outfitting it felt pretty straightforward after I stopped trying to force Paladin PD System in the rear syngergy slot.
Sidenote, I do feel like the Ion Pulse Cannon is a bit too loud.
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9
Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.97a (Released) Patch Notes
« on: February 03, 2024, 05:47:25 PM »
  • Combat Endurance: elite effect will now repair the hull up to 100% (was: up to 50%)
Did this not make into the release? Still looks like up to 50% to me. I could definitely see 100% being too strong, though.

10
Quote
What a curious mix of kinetics up front! Cool

And it's not random.

Needler is efficient and quickly drops shields. But adding more than one causes enemy to keep its shields up between bursts - and we want the shields down for HIL to do its job.

Autocannon has good DPS and because of constant stream of rounds keeps the enemy shield down. But Autocannons in hybrid slots underperforms because of poor range and accuracy.

Driver doesn't suffer the range and accuracy problem and it really snipes frigates! Also, for some reason, kiting enemies keep themselves outside Autocannon range, but feel safe in the Driver range. For their own detriment.

Seconding that this is a very interesting build! Reminds me of a thread about pre-nerf Eradicators (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=23921.msg356197) where pponmypupu had good success with a combination of 1000 range medium kinetic and HE and 800 range small kinetic.

Since the Redacted are so aggressive, having two range-bands of kinetics can be very good. From what I've seen, they will charge into your short-range kinetics, get high on flux, and then can't get themselves unstuck without dropping shields because they can't afford to take the longer-range kinetics on the shields. Then your 1000 range HE and frag get a field day because that ship still can't drop shields until they're out of range of everything because of the HVDs.

Quote
Pilum catapult might be worth a try

I tried it, but it didn't do much in my opinion. Locust was better, especially for frigates. But in the end, I prefer to invest OP in non-missile stuff.

Leaving off missiles makes sense to me. You've got 2 large weapons and 9 mediums. Even the new Pilum LRM Catapult would cost you 28 OP on an already overfluxed loadout, and the extra frag damage would be totally redundant with the four High Energy Focus IR Autolances. (Plus, missiles can be shot down!) Squalls run counter to your kinetic plan of letting the Remnant get close, and Hurricane MIRVs are again redundant with HEF HIL + IR Autolance.

Locusts seem not worth 36 OP here, even if you left off expanded missile racks and missile specialization. Like you said, they're good against frigates, but they basically bring nothing else to the build since they're fragmentation and you have plenty of that.

11
Mods / Re: [0.96a] Better Variants 1.3.0
« on: July 12, 2023, 04:31:15 PM »
I think you're right that I'm just confused. I just tried this again, and the variants did load correctly into the campaign. Sorry about that!

12
Mods / Re: [0.96a] Better Variants 1.3.0
« on: July 08, 2023, 02:49:03 PM »
Is this mod meant to be dependent on Dark Revenant's Ship/Weapon Pack?
None of the variants from this mod were loading in my game when I loaded only: this mod, Variants Lib, LazyLib, and MagicLib. Didn't work when I added GraphicsLib but did work when I added Ship/Weapon Pack.

Tried with a fresh install of 0.96a-RC10, new downloads of the above mods, and checking in campaign and the Random Battle mission.

13
Bug Reports & Support / Re: The Typo Thread
« on: June 23, 2023, 07:57:59 PM »
Mule's description is missing an auxiliary verb (or is in the wrong tense):

"The Mule is a rugged and reliable combat-capable freighter which built its reputation on the sparsely-patrolled frontiers of the Domain. Post-collapse, the Mule's appeal only grown through the cycles ..."

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