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1

Suggestions / Recall device

« on: January 12, 2025, 07:52:28 AM »

Instead of a normal cooldown, allow the recall device to store up to 2 charges with the charge regeneration being the same as the current cooldown. It wouldn't be a huge buff, but it would make the ship a little more reliable. Plus, systems expertise would have a larger impact since it not only increases the recharge speed but it would also let it store up to 3 charges.

It turns out this change is easy enough that I can actually test it out. Feels nice, but it does make it really obvious that the AI is too conservative with the system. If a bomber dies and respawns, the AI will see that it still has one "armed" bomber and refuse to engage the system even when all the other bombers are way out at max range and trying to return. Although, the fact that it could be used much better in player hands may make it a more exciting flagship option if you grab systems expertise.

Here is a test of what it would look like under AI control (vs sim destroyers):

video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ46M-QkPFg

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An AI tweak that could work is whenever there is only 1-2 bombers still armed, it starts a 5 second countdown. At the end of the 5 seconds it uses recall device even if the bombers still have ammo.

2

Suggestions / Player Skills

« on: January 10, 2025, 06:00:20 AM »

I like the current skill system a lot. The only thing that bugs me is the extra s-mod from botb. I don't think it's a problem balance-wise, but thematically it feels like a bonus that should be in tech or industry. I understand the in-fiction explanation is supposed to be that you are good at recognizing talent so you promote the most qualified technicians and engineers, but that's just industry with extra steps, you know?

Something that would feel more in line with the theming of Leadership would be a bonus to ships with officers. It creates a nice contrast with the other option, support doctrine. Something simple like: ships with officers get 15% CR, and 50% reduced chance of malfunctions at low CR (this used to be part of elite sysex, but I think a small bonus in addition to the CR feels appropriate).

On top of that, instead of getting 10% of the battle size as if you control objectives, I think it should just always give you maximum deployment points even when you control no objectives. It's a much simpler explanation and I don't think it would be too powerful when most endgame fleets can easily find a way to grab 3 objectives at the start of a battle, even if it's something as simple as a couple of SO kites.

Obviously the next thing would be to give the extra s-mod to hull restoration instead of the CR bonus. In the same way that this version of botb mirrors support doctrine (officers vs no officers), this would make hull-resto mirror derelict ops (s-mods vs d-mods). Plus, the extra s-mod is just as useful on logistics ships as it is on combat ships, which feels more appropriate for the industry tree than leadership.



Other than that, only a couple other things feel off, but I don't think they're issues. The first is industrial planning, but I'm assuming that once colonies get fleshed out more this skill will be integrated with the new mechanics in a way that makes it more interesting. The second is crew training being too strong for how easy it is to get, but I've accepted that it's just part of the game. It's not flashy but it is effective, which fits perfectly with the skill's flavor text. Plus, getting cr from botb may displace crew training in some builds. If your ships need the extra longevity from combat endurance, then there's no reason to pick both botb and crew training.

And... that's it. Everything else feels perfectly fine to me. Lots of interesting choices to make.

3

Suggestions / Polarized armor

« on: January 09, 2025, 07:35:37 AM »

This skill is much better on larger ships than smaller ones, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the gap seems a bit too wide at the moment.

Something that could help without making the skill too powerful is letting the effect scale up faster on smaller hulls. For example, it could be that capitals get the full effect at 100% hard flux (in other words, unchanged), cruisers get it at 75% hard flux, destroyers at 50%, and frigates at 25%. While it would be even better on the dominator, it's not like the dominator is all that strong currently so I don't think it's an issue.

Polarized Armor:

• Maximum damage reduction by armor increased from 85% to 90%
• Up to +50% armor for damage reduction calculation only, based on current hard flux level
• EMP damage taken reduced by up to 50%, based on current hard flux level
• Full effect reached at (25%/50%/75%/100%) hard flux, based on ship size

?

How it feel to get an officer with polarized armor in the early game (you only have frigates)

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4

Suggestions / Weapon tweaks

« on: January 09, 2025, 05:39:10 AM »

I feel the weapon balance right now is really good overall, which I don't want to ruin it by introducing any drastic changes. I'd only suggest some relatively small buffs to a few weapons that I almost never find myself using, just to nudge them in the right direction. This list includes all the changes I'd suggest right now, not including any [super alabaster] weapons. Also the heavy burst laser is apparently getting buffed in some way so I didn't include it here. Same for the piranha wing.

Small weapons
PD laser
OP 4 -> 3
Range 400 -> 500

LR PD laser
Range 800 -> 1'000
Beam speed 3'600 -> 10'000

Light assault gun
Flux/shot 40 -> 36 [efficiency 1.0 -> 0.9]
Flux/second 160 -> 144

Medium weapons
Heavy mortar
Damage 110 -> 120 [efficiency 0.82 -> 0.75]

Gazer pod
OP 9 -> 8

Gorgon pod
Ammo 12 -> 14

Assault chaingun
Range 450 -> 600
*Admittedly, this one is a bit more experimental and may need to be reverted, but it feels fine so far.*

Ion beam
Flux/second 150 -> 120

Heavy blaster
Flux/shot 720 -> 700 [efficiency 1.44 -> 1.4]

Large weapons
Paladin
Flux/second 750 -> 250 [efficiency 0.75 -> 0.25]
*This is the change mentioned in the anubis blog post, which I fully endorse.*

Gigacannon
OP 25 -> 18

Gauss cannon
Flux/shot 1200 -> 1050 [efficiency 1.71 -> 1.5]
Flux/second 600 -> 525

Dragonfire pod
OP 28 -> 30
Ammo 5 -> 7

Fighter wings
Spark
Replacement time 10 -> 8 [total 50 -> 40]
+integrated point defense ai

Lux
Replacement time 12 -> 10 [total 48 -> 40]

5

Suggestions / IPDAI on sparks

« on: January 09, 2025, 03:16:40 AM »

Sparks feel pretty underwhelming, even when compared to wasps. Enemy fighters with flares will eat up all the pd charges on the sparks, leaving them with only the nerfed recharge rate of the slow burst laser. Wasp's pd lasers also get distracted by flares, but this often doesn't matter thanks to the stinger-class mines they drop.

Given that sparks are a remnant LPC, it would make sense for them to have "integrated point defense AI" built in. This would make them more effective in the interceptor role without bringing back the dreaded spark spam of older patches.

6

General Discussion / SO active ability

« on: January 07, 2025, 06:02:10 AM »

A lot of people have proposed a lot of different reworks for SO. I've heard that Alex is thinking about changing it to an activated ability using the V key, replacing active venting. This sounds really cool, and it's got me thinking about how exactly that would work. To avoid upsetting too many people, existing pather ships that have free SO could be grandfathered-in, where they keep the current version of SO. They are already balanced around it anyways.


Currently SO has a few effects:

• Double flux dissipation
• Reduced ppt down to 1/3
• The 0-flux boost is always active
• Range past 450 units is cut down by 75%
• An additional speed boost based on size class

For an active ability, this could cause a few issues. The first one is the dissipation: if you stack up enough weapons to actually use the double dissipation, then your ship is gonna be terrible whenever SO is on cooldown. A potential solution is to have SO double your weapon rate of fire on top of your dissipation. That way you can set up your flux usage based on your normal dissipation, and it will work just as well when SO is active.

For the ppt, I'd say it's better for the penalty to only be active when the ability is active. Instead of reducing the ppt outright, SO could accelerate the rate of ppt and cr degradation by around x4 during the active period.

The speed boost and range tradeoff is probably fine as is. If SO has a cooldown you are going to want an ITU to have reasonable range in between activations, but those points spent on the ITU aren't doing much when the ability is active. Seems like a fair cost for such a strong ability.

The last issue is that the AI may have trouble switching between a normal ranged weapon and the short-range you get during SO. Might need to have the AI's aggression level go up by 1 tier during the active period, so cautious would become steady, steady would become aggressive, and aggressive would become reckless.


Overall the new effects would look like this while it is active:

• Double flux dissipation
• Double weapon rate of fire
• PPT and CR degradation speed multiplied by 4
• The 0-flux boost is always active
• Range past 450 units is cut down by 75%
• An additional speed boost based on size class
• AI aggression increased by 1 tier

Also, it's probably not a good idea to have the ability grant the full effect instantly. Instead it could have something like a 1 second "wind up" period where all the effects scale up to their full values. Then something like a 15 second active period where you get the full bonus, and then a 4 second "wind down" period where the values scale back to normal. The AI aggression should return to normal as soon as the wind-down period starts to give them a chance to take some distance. After that a 20 second cooldown before it can be activated again would be reasonable.

I think this would not only open up some very interesting potential builds, but also free the assault chaingun. Currently its only purpose is as SO weapon, converting all that extra dissipation into dps. With the changes I listed above that simply wouldn't be necessary as all weapons would get their rate of fire doubled to match the extra dissipation. The ACG could be redesigned so that it is still good on the new SO, but actually has enough range and low enough flux cost that it has a use even when the ability is on cooldown.

7

General Discussion / Phaseless Afflictor

« on: January 04, 2025, 11:37:32 PM »

Imagine right clicking! Couldn't be me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs5hKlAueag

8

Bug Reports & Support / Phase frigates unphasing to shoot down termination sequence

« on: January 04, 2025, 03:54:49 AM »

It seems like the AI still treats terminator drones as fighters during terminator sequence, which results in phase frigates (armed with only light needlers and AMBs) to unphase and attempt to shoot down the drones with their needlers. Of course, they fail and just get hit by the drone.

9

General Discussion / Maximum Ground Defense

« on: January 03, 2025, 10:51:22 PM »

What do you think? Is it enough to cover early pirate raids?


I believe this is the maximum possible ground defense in vanilla.

Fortress World

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10

General Discussion / Phase ships

« on: December 31, 2024, 02:51:31 AM »

In recent memory there's been a few threads talking about nerfing phase ships in this way or that way. Playing both with and against all the phase ships recently, I have to say that changes to phase mechanics or phase ships in general are not necessary.

The only problem ship is the afflictor. People often extrapolate from this and assert that "phase frigates" are all too good, but they aren't. It's just the afflictor. Shades don't feel any stronger to use or fight against than other 8 dp frigates like the scarab. It's a similar story for gremlins at 6 dp.

You can't even tell me they're too strong in player hands because "a guy destroyed a star fortress with a gremlin!" That same guy destroyed a star fortress with a kite. Shades and gremlins feel fine even under player control. Once again, it's just the afflictor that stands out.

As enemies, the afflictor is also the hardest to pin down by far. Gremlins and shades are fairly easy to stick to while their flux goes up. No matter what angle I try to look at it from, I'm finding the phase ships all feel about as fair to use and to fight against as other similarly priced ships. It's just that the other phase ships are largely outclassed by the afflictor and pirate-afflictor, so the perception of phase ships as a whole is warped around that one hull.

*EDIT*
After some thought, my suggestions would be: change the small universal mounts on the afflictor into small missile mounts (REMINDER: it currently has 1 energy + 2 universal + 2 hybrid slots, so yes you would still be able to mount ballistics).

That, and increase the p-afflictor's dp to 8.

11

Suggestions / Colony stability should display when you go over 10

« on: December 29, 2024, 12:54:10 AM »

It'd nice to see how much "extra" stability you have without being forced to count it yourself. Something like this should still make it clear that for practical purposes you are capped at 10.

12

Suggestions / Topographic data

« on: December 27, 2024, 12:05:06 AM »

Getting topographic data after you've unlocked all the other abilities in "hyperspace topography" is very underwhelming. It's a minor cash reward you get much later after some game-changing abilities. It's a consolation prize you get when there's no more abilities to unlock, but it's completely unrelated to the others and nearly irrelevant by the time you get it.

I suggest giving the player topographic data at every milestone in hyperspace topography. This way you're always getting that data as a side bonus, which would make the repeatable data at the end feel less out of place compared to the other unlocks. The cash would also be more relevant at those early milestones.

13

Suggestions / Fog of war

« on: December 24, 2024, 07:03:17 PM »

The tactical map already has fog of war so it feels a bit like cheating when you use the camera feed and scroll around to see further. Maybe this would cause issues in combat with long range missiles popping out of the fog and surprising you, but I think this could be mitigated by giving the flagship increased vision range similar to the s-mod bonus for hi-res sensors. You can still move your camera around and see much further from your flagship, you just can't do that from the camera feed on your other ships now.

14

Modding / [0.97a RC-11] Big Brain Expansion 0.1

« on: December 23, 2024, 05:45:43 PM »

Big Brain Expansion

This mod is going to contain stuff I've made in the spirit of vanilla starsector. Right now it only contains one ship. Credit to mlllhild for the sprite.

Note: I've also applied the upcoming buff to the paladin, since it is intended to be viable on the Cyclops.

Ships

Images

Cyclops-class battlecarrier

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Download HERE

15

General Discussion / Theorycrafting Anubis loadouts

« on: December 20, 2024, 11:25:33 PM »

To start, I'll suggest something obvious: paladins in the side slots, and a gigacannon in the front slot. The most flux efficient options you could ask for on this ship (but it should be noted the gigacannon generates 3000 flux per shot here, which is a lot even if the sustained flux is still only 300). For the universals the heavy autocannon will *effectively* have 680 base range with the 15% range penalty, slightly shorter than the gigacannon but not really an issue because they are further forward in the hull. Each paladin will have a sustained cost of 100, so that's another 200. We're up at around 900 flux/second here, but that can be managed with ordnance expertise and elite EWM. Stabilized shields also looks pretty mandatory as it gives a much better value than vents on this ship.

When it come to caps vs hardened shields, the normal breakpoint for cruisers is 12k capacity. Due to "design compromises" this breakpoint is at 7200 for the anubis... which as it turns out is right where it starts. Always get hardened shields.

S-modded turret gyros seem really good, boosting paladin damage by 25% and helping it kill smaller ships. It also helps offset the turns speed penalty of advanced optics, which are another good option to boost the paladins.

S-modded magazines are tempting, but with how limited the flux stats are I'm not sure about it.

It has what appears to be 210 degree omni shields, so accelerated shields or frontal shield conversion are good ideas.

Fighter options are a bit weird. Normally a single fighter bay is best used for support fighters, but they have a lot less value when the ships already has incredible pd. Maybe DTA longbows or sarrissas for some additional kinetic damage.

Tangent:
Why is the gigacannon 25 op? Imagine if the hellbore was the same price as a mjolnir. You wouldn't use it, right? The gigacannon faces a similar issue, being the same price as a tachyon lance, but actually being a flux-efficient low-dps option. It should really be like 18 op.