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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Messages - Megas

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1
General Discussion / Re: 0.97 IR Pulse Laser Thread
« on: Today at 11:17:29 AM »
IR PL is okay, if not great.  The only buff for IRPL I like to see is for it to be moved to the basic BP pack like Pulse Laser was and made available in Open Market if a low-budget energy bolt weapon (like fighters' high-delay IRPL) will not be added.  Mining Laser as the only basic small energy option is underwhelming.

HSA tac lasers have better range and better flux efficiency. The difference is significant. The downside is lower DPS/slot, but with so many small slots it becomes irrelevant.
One advantage IRPL has over HSA Tac Lasers is not having HSA does not chop the range of other beams like various PD or Phase Lance.

I tend to use HSA Tac Lasers only when I want HSA Graviton too.  Even then, I only use that on ships that do not have smod Mags and ePD.  If I get those two things, then HSA burst PD is better.

2
Pirates are the main threat to size 3 colonies, and the only one other than Pathers where diplomancy gives a better reward than fighting them off.  Resolving Pirates by bribing Kanta instead of fighting them gives 20% accessibility instead of 10%.  Pathers can only be resolved diplomatically (by giving them the planetkiller), fighting them just puts them to sleep for a year like blowing up a base.  Other human factions join Hostile Activity after worlds grow to size 4.

Pathers should probably start being a nuisance once heavy industry is constructed
Getting a Pather cell just for building a heavy industry alone would be terrible.  Eating a permanent -1 stability and play whack-a-mole Pather base just for building a critical industry (ship building and supply production), and the only way to get them off your back permanently is to give them the planetkiller? No thanks!  Leaving the world at size 3 is not an option because the supply demand from other buildings in bigger worlds is too high for a size 3 world to satisfy.  Also, since the player needs a nanoforge to boost ship quality for pristine ships and to produce enough supplies to satisfy demand of hungry Military Bases and High Commands, heavy industry will generate significant interest (+4) through the nanoforge alone.  (Cells appear when interest is 7+.)  Currently, it is possible for the player to avoid Pather cells.

3
In the few releases before 0.97a, you get one, two, maybe three expedition fleets, and it always starts weak then ramps up.  Now, I see at least four large fleets for most if not all crises.  (Pirates, I saw about ten, give or take a few; League, I killed several before the blockade broke; TTstar had several merc fleets; Diktat and Path each had four big fleets; Church seemed to have the least with one big fleet containing multiple Invictus supported by two? smaller fleets.)

Today's crises are at least on par with max strength expeditions from prior releases, but you see a crisis sooner than player sees an older max strength expedition.

4
The sudden spike is a gotcha since player playing this release for the first time has no warning, only trial-and-error gameplay.  Experience from prior releases is useless or possibly counter-productive for preparing for the crises spawned by the HA overhaul.  Next game I play, I will not grow colonies beyond 3 until I get an endgame fleet that can crush them (because I want their powers for winning the crises).  Before this release, expeditions ramped up slowly and I could wait until colonies grew to size 5 before I had to be powerful enough to defeat anything thrown at colonies.  Now, invaders come with overwhelming power compared to before, and earlier than before.  Also, because of stronger enemies, unless player gets the right worlds and items to brutality min-max fleets and defenses, colony defenses that were effective out-of-the-box in previous releases are not so anymore and now obsolete. In previous releases, ground defenses were reliable enough at stopping early pirate raids and can block some raids if developed enough.  Now, player probably needs to intercept the invaders and kill them personally.

After a few crises get defeated, the rest take way too long to start, and I need to resort to colonizing extra planets in red systems to anger the Remnants and tick up the HA bar a bit faster.

5
Suggestions / Re: Change Harbinger's System to a Movement Disruption
« on: March 22, 2024, 05:17:54 AM »
There are two modes of using phase anchor : reducing cooldowns and venting soft flux.  Needlers, thumpers, and phase lances are flux efficient compared to their other alternatives, this wastes one of the most useful benefits of phase anchor : you can use the most flux costly weapons in the game and vent the soft flux in complete safety.  Stacking the most flux intensive weapons will always throw more hard flux at the target.  You only use other weapons if the flux gets too high for the vents and caps you want to put on the ship.

So needlers and lances are for bullying weaker ships.
For Ziggurat, at 75 DP and with unblockable EMP, weaker ships are all of them.

By venting, I guess you mean faster dissipation while phased.  Yes, that is nice and useful too.  Tachyon lance at 1.2 efficiency is not that efficient.  Lances and needlers will pile up flux, and while the ship is phased, hard flux builds up too.

Your voodoo word games are weak.  The problem with Quantum Disruptor isn't that it's hard to use, it's that the notion of a consequence-free action either wins the game or it does nothing at all.
Quantum Disruptor is hard to use because:
1) The range is too short if I use range boosters on typical assault weapons (with 600 base range).  If I take three medium weapons, boost their range with ITU, Gunnery Implants, and (in case of beams) Advanced Optics, the weapons outrange the system, and my Harbinger effectively has no system.  It gets frustrating with NPC-piloted ships because they try to maintain maximum weapon range, although it is frustrating for me too because I would want to maintain range as well.
2) Then, if I get close enough to use the system, I overload the target for how long? No more than a second?  The relatively precise timing required makes it hard to exploit the opening, like a fighting game move that requires a one or two frame window to input.
3) Finally, I need to wait a long time before the system recharges, unless I have Neural Link (but again, should not need the skill to help fix a broken system).  Systems Expertise alone does not help recharging fast enough (although it is nice when combined with Neural Link).  This may not be a problem if the overload duration was not so short.

You do not like the system, fine.  QD feels a bit unfair and in theme with high-tech phase ships being somewhat unfair.  I would like the system if it was not so frustrating or hard to use (for everyone).  And consequence-free is the point of most offensive and maybe some faster mobility systems.  Use (modern) ammo feeder/high energy focus/entropy amplifier to burst down an enemy fast or use teleportation or jets to escape or pounce on enemy.

6
Suggestions / Re: Change Harbinger's System to a Movement Disruption
« on: March 21, 2024, 01:32:27 PM »
if you change Afflictor's ability to Harbinger's, its name will no longer make any sense.
Afflictor originally had Active Flare Launcher, then it was changed to Quantum Disruptor (Harbinger may have been added around this time), then it traded with Harbinger for the Entropy Amplifer it has today (and Harbinger got Afflictor's Quantum Dirsuptor).

7
Suggestions / Re: Change Harbinger's System to a Movement Disruption
« on: March 21, 2024, 01:27:19 PM »
@ Brainwright:
The reason for needlers on Ziggurat is both lances and needlers have similar timings, both with long reload delays.  Phase Anchor cuts the delay of both down, and Ziggurat has its unique coils hullmod so it can phase any time after weapons stop firing, which is after cloak delay.  Kinetic Blaster fires too steadily for Phase Anchor to be much use, not to mention less range and efficiency than ballistics.

I guess Elite Target Analysis is an option for shutting down weapons, but if I do not have it, then ion is needed to shut down weapons fast.  My Harbingers are piloted by NPCs, and I do not have fully developed officers during the time of the game that I use Harbingers (not at max level, no elite skills).

Yes, modern QD is bad, and we know why.  Might as well be "without QD" much of the time, especially if Harbinger cannot shut down weapons or kill the target during the tiny overload window.  I would like QD to be better again, and I think it could happen.  Drover and Converted Hangar were partially un-nerfed eventually.  I see no reason QD cannot be tweaked further to be more user-friendly.

8
@ Killer of Fate:  Nova can ram things, but it does not do much beyond pushing things around.  Crazy, but more comical (play carnival music) than hardcore (play heavy metal).  It is similar level of Monitor shield-ramming things. Only when enemy has no life left that Nova can kill the enemy by ramming it.  What I like to see (which probably would not happen, but per the title...) is the ramming made much more damaging so skewering things with Nova is more practical and far more commonplace.  With the frontal shield and firepower it has, it even looks like it was built for ramming.

No, it would not be a pure melee ship, it still has everything else.  I guess AI deliberately ramming ships (with Nova Burst changed to buff collision damage too) is asking for too much, but it overextends too often and gets slaughtered anyway.  Why not exploit that by making Nova deliberately try to skewer enemies instead of simply using Nova Burst to approach enemy but overextending and dying anyway?

9
General Discussion / Re: Question on endgame dorito bounty fleet
« on: March 21, 2024, 04:17:01 AM »
Do you have a save before you accepted the bounty?  Reload that game and wait until new bounties get posted.

What I do is if the contact offers the Omega bounty, I save the game before accepting it.  Accept bounty and proceed to its location, and if the Tesseract does not have a large weapon I want, reload the game and do not accept the bounty.  Wait at least a month for new bounties to be offered, which can include a rerolled Omega bounty.  If I see the rerolled Omega bounty, I save and try again.

10
What change would I like to see on Nova?  Nova Burst leaning more into ramming objects, like a battlecruiser-sized missile.  More speed and distance, and much more collision damage to the enemy while Nova takes less damage from collisions and exploding ships when activating the system.  AI updated to ram enemies as its primary attack when Nova Burst is available.

Making the system do more fart damage would be nice too.  If enemies swarm Nova, use the system to blow all of them away for big damage.

Give Nova Rugged Construction, maybe, for its new life at crashing into enemies and dying with them after one too many.

11
Suggestions / Re: Ship and Officer Age.
« on: March 20, 2024, 06:23:55 AM »
My game has become longer with crises in the game.  They can take years to proc, and I want to kill them after I get my endgame fleet to get their powers (or rewards).

Before 0.97a, I probably finish sometime between 212 and 220.  My last game, I was some years beyond 220.

It takes me about five or six years to build up an endgame fleet.
It takes me about ten years to grow five worlds to size 6.
Lately, I try to build up a fleet before I build a colony.  Colony is no good if I cannot defend it.

Colonies are money pits until they reach max size.  Only when all of them make it to max size do they start printing money, but they have to print money for a while to make up for being money pits for years.

I have not bothered to grind Ordos recently because building up officers custom-made for individual ships is tedious.  Doing this locks the fleet, and it is not fun.  I build up generalist officers to use what I find early, which is not final fleet material.

If officers age and drop out, then leveling them up should be much faster.

In Starsector, officers should be treated as equipment or accessories.  The real characters are the ships, not the officers.

12
Suggestions / Re: Hull restoration giving a 3rd s-mod instead of BOTB
« on: March 18, 2024, 11:32:14 AM »
I was going to suggest +1 S-mod goes in Industrial Planning. The thing is, if you do get it early, who cares? What are you going to do: dump 3 s-mods into a Destroyer? It also makes Industrial Planning worthwhile on a few levels and not just for Colonies. For a T3 skill, I think it’s fair.
It is not so much early as the ease it can be taken.  Almost every build will have Industry 3 for that third s-mod if Industrial Planning gets it, which is less points spent than for a capstone.

If Industrial Planning got the third s-mod, then maybe it could become a capstone and demote Hull Restoration to tier 3 (without the CR), but Hull Restoration probably has too much of an economic impact pre-endgame to be worth less than a capstone.  Containment Procedures was nerfed, after all.

Is third s-mod alone too powerful for anything less than capstone?  (It alone is not good enough for a skill because it requires story point spent like old tier 3 Cybernetics.)  Then again, if three s-mod enemies become more common, maybe third s-mod could be more accessible, or just have the default be three s-mods and replace that +1 s-mod with another for BotB or whatever skill gets it.

13
Suggestions / Re: Change Harbinger's System to a Movement Disruption
« on: March 18, 2024, 11:05:33 AM »
Movement Disruption at a glance looked more like immobilization.  So, it looks like you want Harbinger to drop space grease under the target and have it slide wherever.  With constantly backpedaling enemies facing their target, it would probably function like an awkward tractor beam.  If it ends up working like a tractor beam (because of everyone points at their enemies), then make it a tractor beam, but it would look better if a capital ship sucked in a small ship than the reverse.

Face the facts : old quantum disruptor isn't coming back because it's bad.  Adding it back in demands hard nerfs to the Harbinger.

What it needs is better dogfighting as it's prone to being swarmed and surrounded every time it pushes aggressively.
No, Harbinger does not need nerfs if Quantum Disruptor gets better.  Harbinger with old QD was only overpowered with Reapers.  After Harbinger lost Synergy mounts, it became inferior to Afflictor ever since, and it did not punch much above its weight, if at all, like Afflictor and Doom could.  QD being used against you could be annoying, but just that, annoying.

Without QD, Harbinger gets shot at every time it decloaks to attack, not unlike a no-shield armor tank like Vanguard.  Right now, the only recourse is it use Ion Pulsers and maybe shut down the enemy before it shoots back much.  Normal Phase Lances are not an option because its beam reach is longer than its system.  (HSA Lances have too short range.)  Other weapons do not stun the enemy, and Harbinger takes unavoidable damage trading shots, just like Vanguard.  If Harbinger had Rugged Construction like Gremlin or Grendel, trading shots like this would be okay, but it does not.

With cloak delays and most weapon reloads, Phase Anchor is mostly useful for death prevention and avoiding d-mods on phase ships.  With weapons that reload faster than AMBs (which is nearly all of them), after ship decloaks and attack, I wait too long (at least without elite Field Modulation) before my ship can cloak again, which is too late for the faster reload time to be of much use.  If I want to use AMBs, Afflictor uses them better than Harbinger can.  Phase Anchor is great on Ziggurat though, because it has Experimental Phase Coils to mostly eliminate the cloak delay, which works great for needlers and tachyon lances without cloaking delay getting in the way.

14
Suggestions / Re: Hull restoration giving a 3rd s-mod instead of BOTB
« on: March 18, 2024, 06:09:47 AM »
CR either needs to be either in Technology or Industry... or maybe Combat since it is only one guy vs. the whole fleet, but Crew Training and Hull Restoration gives 100% CR to non-officer ships.  Hmmm...

I like it thematically, but real talk: Would you really waste 3-4 skillpoints in the Industry tree just to get 3rd S-mod on your ships?
If it makes Industry more useful for endgame, yes.

After the nerf the Ordnance Expertise, taking Industry feels bad at endgame.  Hull Restoration is nice (I like its QoL features) but taking a non-combat skill between that and tier 2 feels awful (even if I like Industrial Planning for no AI core runs), and Hull Restoration does not give enough combat power to be worth eating a non-combat skill in tier 3 in endgame.

If Industrial Planning stays, I like to see a better player-only bonus for taking it, ideally a combat power.  +50% production is maybe useful once or twice in a given game at best before endgame.  I would love to see the 3rd s-mod in Industrial Planning but that would make it too easy to get (and player would probably just go get Derelict Ops for capstone).

15
Suggestions / Re: Change Harbinger's System to a Movement Disruption
« on: March 18, 2024, 05:51:20 AM »
Doom had this system briefly between Fast Missile Racks and Mine Strike for a release or two:  Interdictor Array.  It knocked out some engines, but usually not enough for a flameout.  It was a joke.

Quantum Disruptor needs to be good again if it stays on Harbinger.  Quantum Disruptor needs more range (without the need of Systems Expertise) so Harbinger can use it with beyond short-range weapons, and it either needs charges again, much faster recharge, or overload duration much longer than a frame or two.

If none of that is good, then swap systems back to their original owners (Quantum Disruptor was originally Afflictor's, and Entropy Amplifier was originally Harbinger's).  Original Quantum Disruptor was overpowered and better than Entropy Amplifier.  Today, the reverse is true, Entropy Amplifier is better than today's Quantum Disruptor.  Then again, Harbinger is not mobile enough, and it needs to paralyze enemies with old Quantum Disruptor to help defend itself, but Quantum Disruptor today is useless at that.

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