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1

Mods / Re: [0.98a] Hazard Mining Incorporated (DEBLOATENING!? Ed., 0.4.0)

« on: April 27, 2025, 06:17:47 AM »

Hi. Thank you for updating your mod. HMI and Brighton have been must have mods for me for a very long time !

I'd like to share with you a couple of remarks and suggestions if you don't mind.

1. Unique HMI Industries :

a) Red Water Distillery / Nevermore Fuel Production => lore wise, those industries are technological abominations. The Nevermore Fuel Production is the result of a Synchrotron going wild, while the Red Water is of dubious origin. It would make sense for both of these Industries to attract a very high Pather interest (which they currently don't). My suggestion is to modify both industries so that Luddic Path cells spawn on both markets.

b) Enriched Extractor => this industry is a bit OP and makes Volatiles shortage and Fuel shortages quite rare (especially Fuel when you take into account that the Nevermore Fuel Production exists). I suggest reducing both Volatile and Fuel production by 1 unit (I tested it and with Pather cells occasionnally causing disruption at Nevermore it works nicely).

1. Mercy system :

a) Samiel => for a such an important place to HMI, I found Samiel to be underdefended. It only has a population of 4 (making their fleets smaller) and it is now surrounded by both the Luddic Path and the Luddic Church. It is very often under attack and it very often loses. I suggest upgrading its Orbital Station to Battlestation to make it a bit stronger.

b) Soul => this is now a Luddic Church market and it has a High Tech Battlestation. Because the Luddic Church has almost no energy weapons (only Mining Lasers and Mining Blasters), it makes their battlestation incredibly weak because it can only uses 2 weapons and has to leave all Large slots empty. I suggest to turn it into a Low Tech station and also to reduce its power a bit by downgrading it to an Orbital Station so that HMI has better chances against it.

2. Opuntia system :

Cactorum should also attract Pather interest since its whole raison d'etre is to process destroyed Mess ships and various debris. I noticed it only has 2 industries when it could have 3. Since it has the Vast Ruins condition and since HMI loves using tech mined technology, I suggest adding it the Tech Mining industry. This would be enough to attract Pather interest and boost a bit Cactorum (it does need it since it spends its time under attack by Mess fleets !).

3. Obsidian system :

Galena also has only 1 industry when it could have 2. I suggest adding it the Refining industry to boost it a bit, especially since it is now facing competition from both the Hegemony and Tritachyon in the same system.

2

General Discussion / Re: Can we talk about the game's art and spritework rq?

« on: April 25, 2025, 11:52:47 AM »

Agreed. I just love the sprites in this game !

3

General Discussion / Re: 0.98 impressions

« on: April 23, 2025, 05:09:23 PM »

I see conquests die to ships like radiant jumping in on them and they can't get away fast enough.  This can be mitigated using avoid orders or baiting the radiant with careful orders until it's more isolated, but it's certainly still dangerous.  While AI-controlled invictus has severe limitations, player controlled should win quite a few 1v1 trades against radiants before it runs out of armor and its > 150k effective hull points.

And why is it a problem that the Conquest cannot a survive a Radiant which decided to jump on it ? The Radiant is the only battleship in the game that also has insane mobility thanks to its system. Of course the Conquest, a fragile battlecruiser, designed to maneuver around the battlefield and to use its superior (but conventional) mobility is gonna die. But it's not the Conquest's fault.

But anyway, I still don't see how that means the AI cannot play it. Even if I were to pilot a Conquest myself, there's little I could do if a Radiant decides to rapidly close the distance by using all its Phase Skimmer charges in quick succession.

4

General Discussion / Re: 0.98 impressions

« on: April 23, 2025, 04:23:05 PM »

Falcon and Medusa: how is Falcon 14 DP and Medusa 12 DP? Lmaoooooo. Manoeuvring Jets were a mediocre system before Systems Expertise was added and now it feels like you're forced to fly a worse ship whenever manjets are off cooldown.

The Falcon fulfills a very weird and extremely annoying niche. It's an undergunned cruiser, but it's fast on top of having a mobility system and it can both medium ballistic and energy weapons, which means HVD / Graviton / Ion Beam / IRAL and range, range and range. A Falcon can be incredibly infuriating to fight if its loadout is focused on long range weapons. I don't like it, but I think it deserves to cost 14 DP. It's not gonna kill lots of things, but it's gonna last a very long time.

Invictus: it only has large mounts, yet it has HBI. Why? To nerf Ordnance Expertise on this ship? Because large ballistics still aren't good enough that people would rather downsize? Yes, I am late, I haven't really used it previously.

I have no proof, but I think the Invictus has HBI so that it can be given a very small amount of OP for its class and DP and to encourage the player to still fill most weapons mounts. Anyway, it works.

HMD: I'm paying 15 OP for a better HAC? Come on, Alex, give it more DPS! In general I wish for more elite medium ballistics.

We are talking about a 200 kinetic DPS weapon (more than HVD) with 200 damage for 140 flux/sec and perfect accuracy (which matters a lot when installed in a turret). It's a very, very good weapon. The increased damage also means it can actually contribute to killing larger hulls while the HAC, with its pitiful accuracy and only 100 damage, contributes next to nothing against hull. At 13 OP, the HMD was a no brainer compared to the HAC because even though the HAC was costing less OP, you had to invest a lot more into flux vents to support it because its flux efficiency was considerably worse. Now the HMD is still very good, but unless you have quite a few OP to spare, you need to pause and think. Which is fine since the HMD is supposed to be more of a sidegrade to the HAC.

Threat phase ship: you aren't adding a Remnant phase ship for whatever the reason. Well, maybe then it would be worth it to make a Threat phase ship? I would prefer if Remnants got one, but I'll take anything.

Lore-wise, AI hates p-space for an unknown number of reasons. AI goes insane when in p-space. This is why the Grendel, which was supposed to be an automated ship, was retrofitted to accomodate crews instead. I heavily suspect that p-space, hyperspace, AI hating/going insane when in p-space, Omegas, the Dwellers and the Music are all connected somehow (Ziggurat is connected to p-space as are the motes according to the discussion you get after scanning it during the Project Ziggurat quest and motes also appear in hyperspace). Hence why Alex & David haven't made a phase Remnant ship yet and why we never see AI ships in hyperspace (except for the random ghost sensor which spawns a heavily damaged Remnants fleet and I think the fact it is heavily damaged is a clue about what's going on in hyperspace). There's a reason for that.

I would like to see Assault Chaingun go back to having 700 base range and Heavy Mortar get buffed to 800 range. ACG isn't bad, but it's SO-only for no particularly good reason.

I'd rather want the ACG to get 600 range so that it can be paired with Elite PD and HMGs for aggressive but non-SO builds. The Heavy Mortar being the super cheap anti-hull option is fine (I'd still would like it to get as much damage per projectile as the Hephag though). Overall I agree, it's kinda sad to see how the Heavy Blaster can be used outside of SO build on high tech ships while the ACG is stuck as a SO weapon :/

Falcon, Eagle, Conquest all suffer from same AI flaw - it doesn't understand how to kite even when it has clear speed + range advantage. Unless said advantage is to truly ridiculous degree, unreachable in practice against any non-joke opponents.

I see this claim everywhere, especially on Reddit, and I still don't understand why people are saying that. Eagles and Falcons are the safest cruisers I've ever added to my fleet, way safer than non SO high tech cruisers. The Conquest can be derpy at times, but asymmetric builds almost entirely fix that and since I've discovered the magical power of putting each side in its own weapon groups, even symmetric builds are working very fine. I lose more Onslaughts and Invictuses than I lose Conquests because of how more maneuverable they are. Like Eagles and Falcons, I can give it very few orders and it will be fine while I always need to keep an eye on my Onslaughts to avoid them being surrounded and killed by lategame threats.

5

Modding / Re: [0.98a] Combat Background Enhanced v0.2

« on: April 23, 2025, 10:39:37 AM »

An outstanding mod that adds a lot of flavor to battles ! Thanks

6

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.98a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: April 22, 2025, 03:10:44 PM »

Idk, Assault Units are a pretty straightforward DPS check.  You will eventually get attrited to them by them if you can't either destroy them immediately or have the ability to press in on the fabricator.

Yeah, but it's one specific ship and its aggression meter depends on its ship system being active or not. Meanwhile, the whole Remnant fleet tries to hug me, all ships at once.

7

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.98a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: April 22, 2025, 02:55:42 PM »

About finding Threat fleets, you guys might just had bad RNGs. My systems are 90% INFESTED with Threat fleets. Now I do go deep into the Abyss, but I really don't need to look out for them. There's almost too much of them. Also, I never needed to use the Neutrino Detector : at least one Threat fleet is always in range of an Active Sensor Burst. I jump in, launch an Active Sensor Burst and if it doesn't find anything, I get out and find a next system.

As for the overall design of the Threat, I don't have the same experience as you guys do. I agree that it's a bit of a DPS check and you need to be reasonably aggressive against them, but the Threat being way more passive and slowler than the Remnants, I found that they allow more freedom for building your fleet. The Remnants, being very fast, suicidal and their strength coming from their raw stats and AI cores, are far more of a DPS check than the Threat. And I do appreciate that, for once, a player-piloted Afflictor is not an easy solution to a fight (it's still viable, but it requires better piloting).

I do agree that Reclamation Swarms are a tad too resilient though. I get that just staying behind and shooting at Reclamation Swarms isn't something that Alex wants to encourage (although it is possible according to at least one person on this site who manages to do it with a Gemini / Rampart fleet), but even with good PD weapons they are difficult to take down. Even shooting at them with all your weapons (except capital-grade firepower) is often not enough which is frustrating.

EDIT : One critic I do have against the Threat (that you guys also said) is that killing ships which are being constructed restore too easily a Fabricator's CR. I found that the last push against the Fabricators tend to become a bit of slog because of that. Ships being constructed and dying before completion should at least not restore as much CR to a Fabricator as completed and active ships. I did find out that capturing objectives tend to lure some Threat ships away and it helps a bit, but not by a lot.

8

General Discussion / Re: Is coordinate maneuvers worth it?

« on: April 22, 2025, 02:25:04 PM »

Yes, but it depends on your fleet. If you have a small fleets, keeping objectives might be difficult because you will outnumbered by quite a lot, lots of time. It also depends if your fleets have ships that can be equipped with Nav Relay (Herons are great ships to use Nav Relay).

Anyway, Coordinated Maneuvers bonus to nav rating doesn't depend on owning objectives or Nav Relay. It's always active and smart deployment of good frigates or destroyers will last a very long time in battle.

More top speed is always good, but it's especially good on very slow ships because it allows them to keep up with the rest of your fleet in battle and it allows them to keep shooting at ennemy ships which skirt around your ships maximum range. It's obviously good on ships that rely more on agility or maneuverability to survive (ex : Conquests, Odysseys, etc), but it's also very good on very slow ships like Paragons & Invictuses.

Take the Invictus. It has a base top speed of 35. With 100% CR, it gets to 39. Add Helmsmanship and it gets to 44. Add Elite Helmsmanship and you get to 52. Now, add Coordinated Maneuvers and you get to 61 top speed. You just increased your total top speed by 74% and it does make a massive difference in battle. On a Paragon, you go from 30 top speed to 54 top speed (an 80% increase).

TL;DR : Coordinated Maneuvers is good, but it depends on your fleet. It's not mandatory.

9

General Discussion / Re: We need to talk about Technology capstones again

« on: April 22, 2025, 10:36:52 AM »

Maybe lock putting cores in the story-based automated ships behind AS, but not using neural link. That accomplishes two things:

* Oldslaught doesn't trivialize early game - it's a free capital, sure, but you need AS or NL to get it to put skills on it.

* AS feels special again - you can't put an AI core in a ship without it, which is a clear demarcation line and reestablishes the value-add of "your fleet, in practical terms, now has more officers than it did".

Just wanted to say, I'm *really* liking this idea! Heck, it could even be "anything above Gamma requires it" if the non-AS ships are too weak without at least something. Need to think it through a bit more, but made a note for the future.

Am I understanding this correctly? This would mean that as long as the ship is Neural Linked, it wouldn't count towards the AS total for CR reduction.  Only once it has a core placed in would it count against the AS total.  This would still allow you to have Remnant ships with cores without totally tanking your CR just for having the story ships.

I think the idea is that the Oldslaught never counts towards AS points (like currently), but you would need AS to put an AI core in it (or perhaps to put an AI core of better quality than a Gamma level). Same for the automated XIV ships.

10

General Discussion / Re: We need to talk about Technology capstones again

« on: April 22, 2025, 08:02:20 AM »

Mercs also break the officers limit!

Yes, but Mercenary Officers are 99% garbage (not bad, straight up garbage, it's common to find Mercenaries with both BWM and EWM) because they still have a completely randomized set of skills on top of having a wide range of levels. They are really not comparable to AI cores. Since I've started playing Starsector, I only managed once to find a good Mercenary.

I know you can circumvent this problem by turning some of your own, perfect officers into Mercenaries through respec and Officer Management to circumvent this problem, but honestly, it feels more like an oversight than anything else (I don't use this "trick" because of that).

11

General Discussion / Re: We need to talk about Technology capstones again

« on: April 22, 2025, 05:11:52 AM »

When you go no-flagship then you almost surely get Automated Ships(well, you used to) for free extra officers. And to get both capstones requires unrealistic level of investment into rest of the tree.

Yes, but it's a good trade-off in my opinion. You can go beyond the Officers limit with AI cores and still get access to level 6 Officers with 2 Elite Skills and BotB for example.

the key appeal of the skill, as I see it, is the ability to use Remnant ships that are fundamentally and qualitatively better than their human counterparts

Remnant ships aren't better without cores, that's the catch. Even Radiant isn't that great for 60 DP without sysExp. Only Fulgent is kinda sorta better than human ships by itself, but it's also a fire support destroyer, the most worthless class of ships in the game.

The main (only) appeal of the capstone is extra officers that break level limits.

I disagree too. Apex is now an absolute menace with the buffed Terminators Drones and the Fulgent was heavily buffed this patch to the point were it is now a very dangerous destroyer.

And the Radiant is still a complete monster. We are talking about a 1500 flux dissipation ship with 5 converging large weapons (2 of them being synergy), the hull of an Onslaught and 1500 armor and 0.6 shield efficiency. It's miles stronger than any human ship.

12

General Discussion / Re: We need to talk about Technology capstones again

« on: April 22, 2025, 03:40:34 AM »

I don't understand this sentence. If you are indeed using a no-flagship style of fleet, why would CybAug be unreachable ? You should have more skillpoints to reach it since you are skipping the Combat skills.

I think he means that it's less viable - if you have no flagship, then every elite combat skill you take is only worth a little bit of extra damage/damage reduction. I don't think I agree, though - the extra elite skill for officers alone makes it very worthwhile, and you'll grab two elite combat skills in the industry tree anyways on your way to HR or DO.

Oh ok.

I don't agree either. Not only do you never say no to bonus damage / extra damage reduction, but in 0.97 many Elite skills were buffed. Getting an extra Elite skill for your officers is incredibly valuable. Officers were already kinda ridiculous in 0.96 because of how easy it was to get CybAug and up to 4 Elite skills. They would have been even more ridiculous in 0.97.

13

General Discussion / Re: We need to talk about Technology capstones again

« on: April 22, 2025, 03:30:17 AM »

The problem with CybAug, aside from making it basically unreachable for no-flagship playstyle(which means we lost two elite skills per officer as a result)

I don't understand this sentence. If you are indeed using a no-flagship style of fleet, why would CybAug be unreachable ? You should have more skillpoints to reach it since you are skipping the Combat skills.

14

Mods / Re: [0.97a] Hazard Mining Incorporated (Xi Liu Fiddling Ed., 0.3.8f)

« on: April 21, 2025, 03:36:42 PM »

The mod is already compatible with 0.98 simply by updating the modinfo file into the folder.

It's just that people are not fond of the Maxwell mini-faction (can't say I ain't either).

15

General Discussion / Re: Underperforming weapons

« on: April 21, 2025, 03:32:10 PM »

Your claim that the Gauss is good entirely relies on spamming the only cheap ship in the game that can mount up to 3 large weapons (which also happens to have almost Dominator level of hull and armor, how nice). It is also a shield-less ship which allows it to dedicate all of its flux to its weapons. It also requires a heavy investment into the Technology skill tree to get access to automated ships.

Meanwhile, if you don't use automated ships, you have the choice between the Manticore (which is way, way more fragile than the Rampart) or ... Atlas MK.II, right before reaching Dominator level of DP. Guess you also have the Mudskipper MK.II but we are entering meme territory.

Sorry, but I don't find your claim very conclusive. You managed to find a very specific fleet in which the Gauss shines because you found a way to spam it, but that's it. Though I do congratulate you for managing to build such a fleet.