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Topics - Sonlirain

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1
General Discussion / Some feedback and questions.
« on: July 20, 2017, 03:45:12 AM »
I've been playing the game on and off since 2012 here's a bunch of opinions after playing the current version after a year long.
Here's a couple suggestions/questions/opinions in no particular order.

1 - I like the idea of directly assigning craft to carriers and the fact they generally try to sync up their attacks (or at least it seems so) with stuff like broadswords coming up deploying chaff and plinking at the shield followed closely by the bombers dumping their payload but craft from different carriers seem to have issues with syncing up properly which is weird since officers seem to promote specializing carriers... except fighter only carriers seem to act a bit dumb and bomber only carriers appear to avoid attacking frigates (that includes the Khopesh)... meaning that gunships are probably the best bet for a 1 bay carrier

2 - The procurement missions still sometimes give you a procure cargo for the station giving the mission... cargo that's readily available on the station itself meaning the mission is basically free money.
Also the game could use specific delivery missions where you need to deliver cargo provided by the station (with monetary/reputation penalties for losing part of the cargo or selling it elsewhere.)

3 - Scan missions seem a bit OP for how easy it is to get to the fringe and back even with a small cheap tanker for a 50-70 thousand credit payout (especially since 1 mission basically buys you a cruiser and stripping derelicts refunds a good chunk of the travel expenses (and may even source weapons to outfit said cruiser) and while i think the fuel economy is fine as is the sector could use some more damaging hazards as the player gets further away from the core sectors. The fringe should be a hedgemaze of hazards you carefully move around not a place you sustained burn to and back in 2 minutes.

4 - Can the colorful Clowns in the beacon systems be reasoned with or is that not in this version just yet and they are there purely to be vanquished once you get your hands on a fancy Paragon/Onslaught?

2
Suggestions / Expending planetary warehouse functionality?
« on: April 28, 2016, 06:47:16 AM »
Ok so i played this game for the first time in... maybe a year now and like the addition of trade, CR ETC.
However the trading is kinda lacking due to not really allowing for trading in bulk outside of times when a planetary crisis of some kind takes place (Famine and food delivery of course).
But if i find a classic seemingly profitable trade route with a mining colony selling ore for 2c and refinery buying for 12c i can't take any advantage of that because the first price will start rising/dipping on a per unit basis (unlike X where the player can in buy and sell for one set price) so you likely won't make any profit past maybe the first 3 units traded because the prices will fluctuate immediately.

Now while that's more realistic economy wise compared to what X did it's still a trap for people who want to try trading.
A simple solution would be expanding the warehouse functionality by adding an automatic buy/sell functionality so i can tell my warehouse at the mining colony to buy ore whenever it's available for under 3c and my refinery warehouse to sell it as long as the price is above 10c (tariffs included).

Naturally if you try storing food on a planet prone to famine and set the selling price to 200+ (so it gets autosold when a famine event pops up) you will either anger the faction for hogging the food and being co-responsible for the famine or have an angry mod break into your storage and take what's theirs (possibly ending the famine as well if you had 1000 or more food there) without playing you a single credit (and angering the faction as well).

3
Modding / Can you use the shields as a weapon?
« on: October 06, 2013, 05:54:31 AM »
First of all... i'm not really a modder... i have some ideas i might use when i start however.

I was thinking for some time about the possibility of using the shields more as a weapon than a defensive mechanism by reducing the arc to like... 5 degrees, upping its efficiency by a LOT (i'm speaking about numbers like 0.01 flux per damage) while increasing the upkeep, range and rotation speed.
Think of it as neutrino corp on steroids.

Now the basic things like upkeep efficiency arc and rotation are easy (hell i could just copy paste neutrino corp and be done) BUT i want the shield to have decent range so it can act as a damaging repulsor beam of sorts.
My only idea would be increasing the ships size (while not making the sprite any larger) but wouldn't that mess with the AI too much?

4
Suggestions / Carrier flight deck size.
« on: June 19, 2013, 03:29:19 AM »
Pretty straightforward and in line with the upcoming changes.

Flight decks come in 3 differens sizes.

1 - small

Fighters like Talon, Broadsword, Thunder, Wasp

2 - medium

Bombers and heavy fighters like Piranha, Warthog, Gladius

3 - large

Small frigate like craft similar to Antediluvian* "fighters"...
Pretty much large gunships that are too small to be considered proper frigates but way bigger than the largest fighters.

http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=2381.0

5
Suggestions / Buff the Condor.
« on: June 08, 2013, 04:27:35 AM »
In the description it has a "respectable for its class weapons package".

BUT

The gemini packs the same # of flight decks (despite being a civilian freighter) and BETTER weaponry (allowing it to fit 2 flak cannons making it virtually immune to all but the largest missile barrage).

The condor is overall a MUCH weaker ship compared to gemini since its only upsodes are the missile reloader allowing it to continuously harass enemies at range with a barrage of quickly reloading LRMs and having more armor.

HOWEVER beyond the missile launcher it has only 2 small balistic hardpoints
TWO
SMALL balistic hardpoints.
And small balistic PD is probably the worst PD in the game unless you mass it so the poor thing will most likely get its ass handed to it by a gemini (a CIVILIAN freighter)

My suggestion?
Simply replace ONE of its hardpoints (the one with full 360 deg rotation) with a medium hardpoint so it han mount a flak cannon.
That's it. That's all this ship needs... a way to survive small time missile strikes.

6
Suggestions / 2 types of levels. Combat and Civilian.
« on: March 23, 2013, 12:14:13 PM »
The idea would be to split the character level into 2 cathegories.
Combat experience (and levels) would be earned by doing combat related activities while civilan exp would be given for trade, production ETC.

Now skills would be divided into combat skills and civilian skills where civilain points could only be used on (future) civilain skills while combat only on combat related skills.

My idea of skill division

Combat

Combat/combat - obvious.
Combat/civilian - As counterintuitive it might sound the skills are related to out of combat logistics. A militaryman is not going to turn those suplies into space parts for the shield generator.

Technology

Technology/combat - Focuses on upgrading the ships that influence their fighting prowess like more armor, extra flux dissipation ETC.
Technology/civilian - Focuses on less volatile things like larger cargo capacity, increased travel speed or production bonuses.

Leadership

Leadership/combat - More ships in fleet and in combat better CR in combat.
Leadership/civilian - Better logistics out of combat better CR regeneration out of combat due to better organization.

Industry

Industry/combat - Focuses on military construction, skills increase combat related stats on ships like armor or turning on ships created in your outposts.
Industry/civilian - Your typical skills related to industry. Better prices when trading, Better mining. More effecient construction.

What purpouse would it have?

Usually in a game like this (the closest comparison we have is mount and blade) playing a peacefull trader is nearly impossible since the bulk of your experience is earned by combat and if you want to RP as a trader then tough luck because you're going to be level 1 FOREVER and never upgrade any skills related to what you want to do unless you do the exact opposite and slaughter enemies for exp... to become better at trading!
It's obviously pure nonsense of the "I killed a dragon so i guess i'm no longer illitrate now" variety.

Now with this system in place a character would get better at doing peaceful things by doing peaceful things.
And ditto for the ones who want to play as a murderous fiend.
Sure he's going to become a more profecient killer with each level but killing traders alone won't give him any experience in things like mining.

7
General Discussion / Thunder MRM missiles. When do they launch them?
« on: December 09, 2012, 11:00:20 AM »
I often use thunders for their ability to do almost everything (they are kinda bad with PD but that's it).
They even act as ghetto bombers with their MRM missiles... well kinda beccause i see no rhyme nor reason as to when they decide to use them.

Obviously the AI in not spending them the second it sees a target but more ofthen than not i see them slam into a shield anyway.

8
Suggestions / Bomber AI
« on: December 03, 2012, 05:42:58 PM »
While bombers are powerful and all... i personally find them a bit impractical for several reasons.

Bombers approach their target and launch torps/bombs at the capship.
Then fly fight through the darn thing (that's where most of the guns are)
This is bad but there's more!
They turn around and do it again!
Why? Because Alzheimer 3 forgot about launching his torp so the entire dagger wing has to go back into PD (and every other gun including anti capship guns) hell again.

Obviously the life expectancy of bomber pilots is pretty darn low. Probably lower than Talon pilots.

Now my ideas to combat this suicidal behaviour would be:

1 - Upon selecting a strike target set where you want the bombers to hit it (Left/Right side, rear, or front) the bombers would then try to avoid enemy ships (pretty much like when returning for refit) and attack the target from the desired direction.
2 - Select the range at which the weapons get used (close, medium, far) medium being the current range close being 50% (mostly for killing blows) and far 150% (for maximum safety).
3 - Bombers can break formation when the option is selected (verying from stiff formations used now through slight changes to outright breaking off to attack from several angles) ordered so for example ALL daggers can launch their torps on any ship other than a conquest seen from the side instead of only 1 or 2 at a time.
4 - Bombers break off from the attack vector after all torps/bombs got released and head back instead of flying straight into enemy guns (something that rarely ends up well for them)

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