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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 - Sozzer

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1
Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Tahlan Shipworks 0.8.666a
« on: December 11, 2022, 10:19:33 PM »
The Legio AI demon ships are truly hellish to fight. I think they punch one or two tiers above the ship size they actually are and with their unique armor, supercharged flux stats, and often uncatchable mobility, killing one takes a whole fleet. My worse nightmare is the hound which has regenerating armor on par with destroyers, a sacrificial front armor piece, damper fields, and a charge that reduces damage taken. Impossible to catch and just as impossible to kill  :). I have trouble with just the frigate, I can't imagine fighting a whole fleet of varying sizes! Its a shame you can't really use them yourself.

skill issue

(just spawn ships with console if you want them, nobody's stopping you)

2
Blog Posts / Re: The Pilgrim's Path
« on: July 23, 2022, 02:18:55 PM »
Yeah i may have gone too far with my opinions, but it all plays into the fact that the luddic church has way more potential than just being the space papacy.

i'm not sure space eastern orthodoxy is necessarily taking things to their utmost potential either, frankly
though "space papacy" seems pretty incongruous with most of their lore - for the most part it does seem like you're struggling to picture them as their own thing, rather than simply assigning them as XYZ In Space and associating their entire faction with this

Your headcanon about the church might differ from mine, it might align with the devs views, but i payed full price for this game and i get to have a voice if i feel it's going in the wrong direction.
I like the luddics and i don't want them to go in the complete opposite direction of what i wanted them to be
oh what i'd want is pretty different from their actual direction too, don't get me wrong
as i said, it's not about you wanting them to be different, it's about you trying to insist that a whole host of tangentially related points are reasons they should be different, rather than just a direction you prefer

3
Blog Posts / Re: The Pilgrim's Path
« on: July 23, 2022, 01:41:08 PM »
All i'm saying is this new luddic *** is turnung out generic and am offering different examples to how it can be better

i believe you said quite a number of other things that (imo) paint a pretty clear picture of your issue with it
including but not limited to arguing against the piety of the catholic church, describing gothic architecture as "a middle finger to god", explicitly describing any culture other than small eastern european nations as never having placed faith highly, insisting on the idea that actually it's visually complex architecture that's advanced and not holy and visually simple (but no less complex or, arguably, ostentatious) architecture is great and pious (even though understated-but-grand architecture is still plenty showy, just in a different way), and also outright admitting that it's probably just your headcanon

spoiler: it is in fact your headcanon, yes

my gripe personally isn't with you wanting them to be different in a certain way - everyone wants some part of just about anything to be different in some fashion
it's with you awkwardly masking it behind weird proxy arguments about piety and religious architecture when it's just not liking them not fitting the mental image you had for them in all respects (which is an especially odd decision when you're talking about a group that explicitly don't have a truly centralised standard, and whose faith is shaped heavily by location and local populace)

4
Blog Posts / Re: The Pilgrim's Path
« on: July 23, 2022, 12:38:33 PM »
If you want my honest opinion, the new church lore feels like it was written by a westerner, someone who doesn't live in a society that actually holds the Church and religion very highly, here the idea of a church shooting up to the sky was almost heresy until just 200 years ago

have you considered that different cultures and societies may show their high regard for the church in different ways
"only x region REALLY values the church, everywhere else has always been degenerate sinners" is the most milquetoast form of religious elitism and applying it to videogame architecture because you headcanon them as Chad Ultra Orthodox Traditionalists(tm) is pretty funny, if not exactly productive

5
Blog Posts / Re: The Pilgrim's Path
« on: July 23, 2022, 09:24:17 AM »
in neldonax's defense, any notable irl church is very humble, understated, and simple


6
Suggestions / Re: General Suggestions and Food for Thought
« on: December 31, 2021, 08:30:32 PM »
Alright.  Just... won't then.  Apologies.

I should clarify that, assuming you're being serious, making suggestions like these isn't bad. It's a good spirit, just that you're struggling to actually address counterpoints brought up, which combined with the tone of "wisdom" (which I... assume, you're putting on?) and generally obtuse phrasing makes it hard for people to really enagage seriously with your suggestions. Getting indignant or offended when people take your effort as shitposting is only going to reinforce that view.

I'm still struggling to see this as serious due to the consistently aloof and self-assured tone of the responses throughout the thread to this point, but I'm going to just base the following off the idea that you are 100% genuine here.

The best way to get people to take these kinds of suggestions seriously is to directly engage, acknowledge problems, and see if you can come up with solutions.
When tedium was brought up, you talked around it, losing the topic entirely. When the issues of official mods were raised, you simply gave an example of a mod you think should be such.
Don't be afraid to admit that suggestions can have major flaws, and you'll find people are much more agreeable.

That said, some people have also crossed quite a few lines from what I saw of the prior thread before its deletion. That's unfortunate to see, and if shitposting it's not very pleasant as a response; even less so if not.

7
Suggestions / Re: General Suggestions and Food for Thought
« on: December 31, 2021, 08:10:11 PM »
You post... a lot, often very rambling and incoherent, with a tone of simply already knowing the answers to everything but once you're pressed for actual solutions to the problems they raise, you simply respond with "this is a SUGGESTIONS forum, I don't need to have solutions". It's pretty bizarre to simply make counterpoint after counterpoint, and as soon as anyone brings up something you can't just talk at or around, to claim that they're expecting too much from a man who's written several essays of ideas absolutely dripping with the tone of self-assured "wisdom" in the past couple days.
And in case you'll reflexively claim otherwise, I'll also include your quote on this exact matter:
Quote
This isn't a 'I have solutions pre-packaged for you' forum.

It's a Suggestions forum.  For ideas.

Ideas are not solutions.  Ideas are not always conveyed in the best language.  Ideas are not always expressed in a way that is pleasing to you, or even necessarily 'helpful'.

They are meant to be pondered, like drinking a rich mulled cider.  You're supposed to linger on the overtones, consider the spices and seasonings, and compare to other things.

I'd be posting this on the 'Mod Updates' forum if I had a solution pre-packaged, and I was just letting folks know that I 'had it all taken care of'.
It also doesn't help to drown people in text while ignoring half of what you quote and directing it to an entirely different topic. Yes, ideas don't have to be perfectly formulated essays, but you consistently shift away from actually answering the questions.

That said, while I'm still convinced that this is impressively elaborate shitposting (either that, or some of the stranger quotes are fascinating examples of life imitating art), a good few of these are brought up fairly seriously now and then either way, so it doesn't... hurt, to discuss them even if you are. It also just serves as a mildly entertaining distraction while it's too hot to do much else here.



snip

I broke this down a bit better on another post.  It's definitely not 'add a bunch of new items'.  Most of them are already there!  ^_^  If anything, it would be 'add a bunch of new Support Skills' so that Combat oriented folks can get one sort of experience, and Exploration folks can get another.  I definitely know what the official explanation is supposed to be on what Supplies are.  And if the AI actually used them, the current implementation would be PERFECT for a quick-and-dirty, good-enough AI stat.  But as a Player concern?  It just feels rough.  Like the game has moved past that point.  Now that we've got Ship Parts, and still more Fuel that we could possibly ever use (except for when we don't) it wouldn't be hard to move some of the current, flat Supply requirement into Fuel, Metal, Ship Parts, etc.

Maybe laser weapons run on Volitiles.  Maybe kinetics run on Metal.  And maybe crew run on Food.

Sure, there'd still be Supplies floating around, but from a Player standpoint it should be a lot, lot less.  That's just my opinion.
Only because when you run OUT of something right now, especially Fuel or Supplies, the penalty for it just... doesn't... quite... make sense if you really think about it.
Unless Supplies is something like 'anti-psychosis space drugs', and crew will just go off the rails if they don't get 'em!  **LAUGHS**

I think you're missing the point here. I don't know if it's intentional, though the following response addressing only the positive half and ignoring the raised issue of tedium entirely makes me question, but the point isn't about adding new items. It's about requiring the player to track new items. Things making sense when you think hard about them should generally be secondary to gameplay, at least unless you're trying to make a simulator - which, Starsector is not by any stretch. (Also, we don't have ship parts. The only ones I know of are from a mod.)



Let me break down two examples of things that don't make sense, but could be solved in ways that would not necessarily add to gameplay (and may actually take away from it):

Supplies as the core resource that acts as a box of whatever you need.
This sort of abstraction can be eliminated, but doing so requires a vastly greater amount of effort from the player just to do the exact same things and reach the more directly enjoyable parts of gameplay. While I actually enjoy this kind of over-detailed element when it's a core aspect of the gameplay loop, it just... isn't, here, and wouldn't really create engaging gameplay by suddenly being part of it now. While I don't expect you to actually have a solution to the suggestions you make, as you've made it clear not to bother expecting them to be thought through, adding a bunch of support skills that just make it a moot point simply means nearly every player will be "taxed" skill points to not deal with a part of gameplay that most of them simply don't want to have in the first place.

Black holes, stars, etc not being deadly.
You could make them deadly, but what this does is makes exploration and roaming much more punishing (especially on black holes and neutron stars) without it being particularly interactive. Run out of fuel? You're already probably screwed but have a chance of escape; while now, if you're near a black hole you've lost everything, and other stars will still do massive damage and rip out a huge chunk of your fleet, at least unless the damage is so negligible it essentially doesn't matter.
I'd almost say that this would be "fine" as an idea for a sort of difficulty setting, except that exploration can be punishing anyway; you could just as readily be ambushed by a pirate fleet while salvaging that tears you to shreds and be forced into a death spiral as you could simply have not planned well, and you have to be downright masochistic to enjoy uninteractive punishment loops where you could walk away, make lunch, and then come back and assess the same damages as if you were there.



The point I'm trying to get across here is that simply "adding detail" and "making things make sense" causes a domino effect wherein each change causes new problems, which need new changes, which cause new problems, which... etc, etc.

I'd try to explain the tedium issue in more depth, but you've actively avoided responding to it thus far, so I'm not sure it's actually worth it.



Story points - Agents/diplomats are Nex features, no? Three out of the five bullets here have no bearing to vanilla and shouldn't even be in this thread.
Are we trying to make the game more interesting/engaging/full of life, or not?  ^_~  'Cause Nexerlin is featured in its own little category, and adds SUCH flavor to the game!  WHY is it simply a mod?  It's ALREADY got a special shelf.  It's already right on top.  And it add features and dynamics to the game WITHOUT having to go reinvent the wheel.
Why have 'official mods'..?  Because some of this stuff SCREAMS to be Vanilla, takes nothing AWAY from Vanilla, and does nothing but take away from the empty spaces in Vanilla.
And that means that any Dev attempt to fill those spaces (so well covered by Nexerlin, for example) would mean direct COMPETITION with Nexerlin, which would be devastating to everyone!

Because official mods mean:
- Bug reports that are "vanilla" but not really vanilla and actually need to be fixed by one of a dozen different people who may or may not even be able to fix it or have any way of knowing it was the result of their mod.
- Having to coordinate updates with the various authors of said "official" mods, who may be unable for weeks or months to get an update done due to personal circumstances, potentially dramatically delaying game updates.
- Alex having to actively direct content in those mods (and mod authors having to compromise their intentions) to a certain degree to keep them from reaching a point where they don't fit whatever criteria are made for them.
- Much more direct association of the mod authors' actions, words, etc with Alex and the game.

Among many other things.

Filling in every conceivable empty space just isn't a good goal. Games get bloated and lose a coherent feel if you try to do so.
Leaving out things that don't need to be there and tack on extra layers or systems and letting mods fill them out as desired is perfectly reasonable.
And I'm not sure why people continually insist Nexerelin in particular ought to be vanilla; it's a wonderful mod, to be sure, but it adds multiple extra layers of complexity, different systems that assume a robust understanding of various vanilla ones, a much steeper learning curve, a variety of extraneous features that aren't part of any central design, et cetera. I love it, but I don't see why people keep deciding it should be vanilla or packaged with it.



Also, it doesn't really fit anywhere here, but it was bugging me: The reason fuel is continually consumed even while moving in a straight line is that the hyperdrive bubble used to allow FTL travel is very hungry for it. It makes sense once you read things a little closer.

8
Thank you for the report! I suspect this is a driver issue, actually, but - could you try setting "slipstreamUseGLLines" to false in settings.json? I have a feeling that might resolve it.

Now that I've had the time to test it - this seems to resolve it, yep.

9
Title essentially summarises it. While the game is playing this flickers heavily while crossing specific locations, but if paused it remains consistent. It persists through loading saves.

https://i.imgur.com/yfzktoJ.mp4 <- clip of the behaviour in question.

I also have a copy of the save file which is at a spot where this consistently happens, which I've uploaded here in case it's useful. The specific save file was created with LazyLib and Console Commands active; however, neither one was active at the original generation stage or when I first encountered the issue, and I've tested without either one on and it persists loading the save.

I'm guessing this is some sort of debug function, but you'd know much better than I would on that.

10
Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« on: December 06, 2021, 12:06:18 AM »
That's fair. I have to wonder, any plans to make another missile oriented at massing them, pushing toward that goal from a different direction? Or is it a niche you think just won't really work in vanilla?

Let me flip the question around - why would a missile like that be good for gameplay?

(I don't immediately see that it would be - it seems like it'd actually be bad, if we're talking about encouraging a "mass this fairly non-interactive thing until you win" strategy, but if you have ideas...!)

Hrm. I think the main problem is when massing it becomes a win condition for battles in itself, rather than an alternative to a specific element of a playstyle, such as making them serve the position of consistent pressure.
The main problem with them in my experience was that there tended to be kind of a "tipping point" where you had enough pilums that you essentially just overwhelmed defenses by default and would win if the enemy ever dropped their shields. If they could be made to have minimal kill pressure on their own, it'd probably be ideal. Certainly, not being able to tear up armour would be a considerable help. I might tinker around with the concept for a bit and see what comes of it.
One thing I'm kind of tempted by is finding a way to appropriately fit them into ballistic slots; awkward to do, but it'd mean that the considerable value of a missile slot doesn't have to be respected as heavily, while also meaning your main source of pressure becomes a genuine choice between conventional guns and massed missiles. I'll see what happens I guess.

11
Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« on: December 05, 2021, 03:33:51 AM »
snip

First up: it's definitely a different missile. But, as you noted, what it retains is the general idea of the Pilum, which is a long-range support missile. (Plus, for fun, it functions more like its ancient namesake now, what with punching holes in shields and all.)

A support missile generally means it's not going to be synched up well with whatever its supporting, so unlimited ammo is a desired quality. But this means that you have to be careful that it doesn't out-compete non-support missiles in their roles. For example, even a modest speed boost lets the old Pilum function pretty well as an unlimited-ammo medium range finisher missile, and that really steps on the Harpoon. The fast second stage is a way to let it have reasonable anti-PD performance while ... bascially not suppressing venting in an overly-large area simply by existing. Plus, this second stage means that there's less accomulation of Pilums from multiple salvoes following a target around - they'll get used up (by getting close enough and engaging the second stage) at about the rate they're fired.

The idea is to let it support another ship, and shield-piercing EMP damage should accomplish that. With HE damage, it's easier to get into trouble with it being too good as a short-range finisher instead of support, hence frag damage.

As for why not make it another missile - I don't think the original Pilum concept worked out, ultimately, and I was just done trying to salvage it in anything like its original form.
That's fair. I have to wonder, any plans to make another missile oriented at massing them, pushing toward that goal from a different direction? Or is it a niche you think just won't really work in vanilla?


(And while I'm here, question we were discussing over on discord - is the temporal shell understood to be related to phase technology, or is the description of the scarab merely using phase as a different example of TT pushing the boundaries?)

I'd say it's probably related, though to what degree is extremely fluid.
Interesting, if a little suspicious. I appreciate the answer!

12
Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« on: December 04, 2021, 04:52:12 AM »
I'll admit that I'm pretty curious what the reasoning was for the Pilum gaining a second stage for the final sprint compared to making it a bit faster in general - and even more curious why the change from HE. It seems less like an adjustment to the pilum, and more like a missile with a completely different role and use case sharing only name and a generally supportive role.
Which isn't necessarily a complaint, but it seems like it'd have been about as effective to just make this as a separate missile entirely, so I guess I'm asking why not do that?


(And while I'm here, question we were discussing over on discord - is the temporal shell understood to be related to phase technology, or is the description of the scarab merely using phase as a different example of TT pushing the boundaries?)

13
(I think Spacewar also had a similar system right? I haven't played it in a while...)
Quote

(it did, fuel for movement and a limited supply of torpedoes)

14
At least with no flux, warships can fully arm themselves rather than leave too many mounts empty.  Mounts are meant to be used, not sacked for OP or left empty because of poor flux stats (especially low tech).  Skimping weapons is one thing I do not like about Starsector ever since skills were whacked in 0.8.  (Skills before 0.8 were strong enough that it enabled the good ships to fill all mounts and kill fleets.)  Still does not help carriers that need to spend most of their OP on high-end fighters and deck crew much.

Flux as currently balanced prevents warships from going all-out on weapons - looks ugly.
also idk about this one
leaving mounts empty is something you really don't need to do on 99% of ships, and you can save a ton of op by just using S-mods on the most important ships in your fleet
i'm probably one of the few people who actively choose to leave mounts empty on regular occasion (aside from those who straight up don't know how to use S-mods), and it's usually to fudge the AI into behaving a really specific way on certain ships - i don't think i've ever found a ship where i've NEEDED to leave mounts empty because of flux reasons, and if you do, consider the following:
- reallocate OP into flux performance (esp. vents on most ships). you should be doing this on nearly every ship to fine-tune a balance between flux throughput when firing, and flux venting ability
- use guns smart, instead of just firing every gun nonstop forever
- use S-mods for the most expensive mods you'd fit on a ship as part of the actual outfitting in question, not to build in things you feel are "obligatory for every ship" or as "bonus mods" on top of the existing stuff
- remember that using the most expensive and/or powerful gun for every slot is not at all a good idea, and be willing to use weaker, cheaper guns mixed in with the stronger ones

you'll get vastly more performance and dps out of a well-balanced fit than out of a ship that's fitted with the strongest flux-iest guns you can get your hands on, and that's kind of what makes outfitting more interesting than just "i slapped the biggest gun on, now i win"


i considered putting this in the other message but it was already getting pretty long, i can merge if someone's bothered though

15
I don't think anyone has stuck around long enough to make a rebalance mod for all the ships and weapons in the game, while disliking the core mechanic of Starsector's combat.

i think its more of an issue that starsector is kind of inaccessable rn, which keeps its modding community too small and kind of stale, for people to tackle core mechanics like that directly

it also doesnt help that the game is still in beta

IDK, the process would be as simple as setting all flux-relevant values to 0, except ship base capacity at 1 to make sure they don't accidentally an overload. i could probably make a shoddy meme mod that does it in ~20 minutes and declare that flux is boring and now all ships can shoot forever
there'd be a few hitches - would have to disable shields entirely and make all ships lock out shield-adding hullmods - but that wouldn't be too much of a complication

the problem is that it's such a core mechanic that if you're invested enough to be willing take the time to not only do this - or even turn it into a more basic shield-only system where it's just shield capacity and nothing else touches it - but rebalance the game entirely around making this still fair, you're probably fond enough that you'd realise ripping the flux system out would make it functionally an entirely different game because so much is tied into it in some way, and not want to do that

TLDR for the really lazy (it's like 2 half-size paragraphs, come on); it's not hard to do, but it's a lot of effort to do right, and at that point it isn't the same game, so why get invested enough in starsector to make it if your goal is to make it not starsector

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