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1

General Discussion / Re: Player AI ships

« on: December 08, 2024, 09:08:20 AM »

sounds like a case of your ship builds being weaker than the enemy and feeling outmatched

I mean, I don't think this should matter. If I give an explicit attack order, the ships should go and fight. If they are weaker, they should fight until they lose and die. Losing ships because you issued a bad order feels a lot less enraging than losing ships because they refuse to follow orders and run back until they are separated and can't do anything. There are so many battles I had where my fleet would have easily won if they just respected the orders and fought, instead of running away because the enemy officer is 2 levels higher.

It is very frustrating how entire fleet builds are unplayable simply because AI is too scared to play them properly. And yes, I've been playing for a while, I know the "intended" ways to build fleets, etc, etc. This doesn't make the AI any less frustrating. Trying to be smart should never come at the cost of ignoring player inputs. I know better than AI what is safe to engage and what isn't, and if I don't then just let me lose? It's not like the stupid "run away endlessly" ever actually helps, it either harms (fleet wipe when it was winnable) or the result is the same (fleet wipe when it was indeed unwinnable).

2

General Discussion / Re: Why do ships orbiting a colony planet use full supplies?

« on: December 01, 2024, 10:55:44 PM »

Because Alex doesn't want you to sit in place and skip forward time generating income instead of playing the game. Realism has nothing to do with it, it's a game design decision.

3

Suggestions / Re: Thoughts about starting in Corvus

« on: November 30, 2024, 09:06:27 PM »

Hmm, what frigates would work for this?

I think we had a topic like this before, and I suggested Omen. It's capable of taking on small pirate fleets solo (and in a very different way than Wolf), and is very noob-friendly (more so than Wolf, arguably).

4

General Discussion / Re: What would Hard difficulty in Starsector look like?

« on: November 24, 2024, 05:33:16 PM »

Ironman on + enemy fleets ramp up in difficulty with time passed + players are hounded by enemies actively searching for them, who also go up in difficulty with time. After some amount of time passes, some global crisis event happens that makes markets less useful, and adds even more enemies to hunt the player.

Basically, grow in strength fast enough, or lose and restart.

5

General Discussion / Re: Why, exactly, are Dragonfires so bad?

« on: November 04, 2024, 02:47:46 PM »

I think this is pretty much the problem though. DEMs are good when spammed, but not really worth using when you just need to fill some missile slots on your mix-and-match midgame fleet. Gazers are somewhat ok for that, which is why nobody really complains about them much compared to dragonfires.

6

Suggestions / Re: More converted ship types!

« on: November 04, 2024, 09:03:07 AM »

I'm fairly sure no ship in the game can ever gain more than 5 d-mods in vanilla - no skills required.

IIRC "default" d-mods (like the ones on pather ships or pirate ventures) don't count for the limit. And also, can't you still get structural damage when you already have 5 others?

7

General Discussion / Re: Are shields just too strong?

« on: November 03, 2024, 05:34:56 AM »

What this means is that, against many opponents the optimal play would be to not fire your own weapons at all, waiting until the enemy ship fluxes itself up by trying to get through your shield.

Conveniently ignoring the fact that firing guns generates soft flux, while tanking with shields - hard flux? You also brushed differences in flux capacity aside as something barely worth mentioning. Sorry, but overall the post seems a bit biased.

8

General Discussion / Re: Is Starsector ready for default Iron Mode?

« on: October 30, 2024, 02:59:36 PM »

Save scumming all-but-guarantees that the player isn't going to interact with the part of the game that involves recovering after a rough battle, dealing with a D-modded ship, or having to plan for contingencies while exploring. It takes significant inspiration from Roguelikes, in that sense - a lot of the game's fun comes from being able to handle anything it throws at you.

The problem is that there isn't, in fact, a part of the game that involves recovering after a rough battle. There's no clock, no enemy scaling with time, nothing to actually make the setback meaningful. The only punishment is more grind, and since credits can be farmed infinitely with zero risk via trading/smuggling/exploration, there's not even an incentive to take more risks to recover faster.

In proper ironman games, ther's a limit to how many mistakes you are allowed to make. Roguelikes have food clocks and/or limited XP for that reason. Games like x-com have enemies becoming stronger with time. If you suffer a setback, you now need to take more risks to get back on the schedule, or you will fall behind and lose. In starsector, you just need to mindlessly grind risk-free moneymaking missions more.

9

General Discussion / Re: How should tech-mining be improved?

« on: October 29, 2024, 03:44:25 PM »

If you found something omega-related in the techmines, that by itself retroactively means the planet used to be some TT blacksite. Marking such planets beforehand defeats the purpose.

Anyway, it doesn't have to be anything omega-related, just something on the same level of uniqueness.

10

General Discussion / Re: How should tech-mining be improved?

« on: October 29, 2024, 09:33:10 AM »

Make them drop something actually valuable. Right now even the best possible drops (AI cores and colony items) feel pretty lame, because you can get them more easily elsewhere and don't usually need more than one of each to begin with.

Right now techmining is basically gambling, but with the odds staked in your favor and no jackpot. On average it makes more money than any other industry, but there's nothing exciting about it. This is the exact opposite of how you make lootboxes in games.

If you could get something truly unique, like random no-skill-required automated ships, ships with s-mods that break normal limits, level 8 officers, omega weapons, etc, more people would bother.

11

General Discussion / Re: I wish pirates weren't just murderous

« on: October 27, 2024, 08:48:07 AM »

If you drop some cargo before the pirate fleet reaches you, they will go check it out instead of attacking you. The more valuable the drop, the better your chances to avoid combat.

No, the game never tells you about this.

12

Suggestions / Re: make an industry skill reduce refit costs in travel

« on: September 29, 2024, 10:20:09 PM »

From what I understand, the penalty exists to prevent players from swapping loadouts before every battle. If a skill that removes it were to be implemented, the optimal way to play the game would be tedious, and that's bad game design.

To not have this issue, it would have to be something that can only be used infrequently. Maybe once a month, or maybe only at derelict stations. So it would be more of a fleet-wide pit stop, and not swapping a single gun every time you find one.

13

Suggestions / Re: Buff Remenents

« on: September 23, 2024, 05:41:21 PM »

Remnant systems are leftovers from the first AI war, which happened a long time ago. Technology and industry decays more and more in the core worlds, Hegemony is much weaker now than it used to be.

14

Suggestions / Re: Buff Remenents

« on: September 21, 2024, 11:52:39 PM »

If a ship is flux limited and not slot limited, heavy blaster should be bad on it. The very purpose of this weapon is to be "3 guns in 1 slot" for ships that have the flux but not the mounts (Fury). Flux limited ships are supposed to use their slots on efficient but low-DPS weapons (pulse lasers).

The heavy blaster Fulgent, of course, flies anyway. Which just goes to show that theorycrafting in vacuum isn't very helpful.

15

General Discussion / Re: The Fearsome Buffalo Mk.II -- The King of the Early Game

« on: September 21, 2024, 11:43:18 PM »

I think since early game fleets tend to not be DP limited, it would be more fair to limit the credit cost of ships instead. This would be more representative of how people play the game. It would make CH fair game - it increases your DP, but DP doesn't matter yet, and it costs nothing extra.