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1

Suggestions / Returning non-relaunched bombers should provide some benefit

« on: April 05, 2025, 01:25:26 PM »

That's right, yes! For replacement rate purposes, returning fighters/bombers count as being gone, because the fighter bays are already working to replace them. But when they do return, you get a very quick replacement (~1s?) for each one that does.

This applies if and only if the bomber wing isn't already full up. If the return is long enough, you can get the entire wing re-built before they get there - resulting in significant amounts of wasted replacement rate and possible player shenanigans like deliberately running away from your own fighters to save the quick replacement for when the currently active bombers have launched bombs.

So I'd suggest that a returning bomber should either get that quick re-launch, or, if the wing is full, provide some buff to the carrier - restoring lost replacement rate (X seconds of lost replacement rate, where X is the fighter's replacement time minus the relaunch time), or it grants the carrier a 'stockpiled' relaunch - if you can't put the returned fighter back on the field now, then maybe you can just store it until there's room in the wing and then launch it then?

Alternatively, do both, with restored replacement rate being the normal effect and the stockpile of quick relaunches replacing the current effects of the Drover's B-Deck built-in hullmod?

(Yes, this is a buff to bombers; that's actually secondary, though, compared to the intent of just making the mechanics overall cleaner... and (hopefully) removing the incentive to run away from your own returning fighters.)

2

Bug Reports & Support (modded) / Derelict Shrouded Maw?

« on: April 05, 2025, 12:54:07 PM »

Just... found one of these. Free-floating in hyperspace. Not even in the Abyss, just on my way back from it.

This is probably a vanilla bug, but I am running a few mods, so posting it over here just in case. (Well, that, and to communicate "I have a save file, but getting it to load in vanilla would take a bit of effort".)

It was not recoverable, but did give me 49 supplies, 48 fuel, 7 heavy machinery, and 99 metal.

3

Bug Reports & Support / Sentinel Cache non-automated ship recovered from debris [0.98-RC6]

« on: April 03, 2025, 09:43:00 PM »

As per title; ships recovered directly from the battle have the expected automated hullmod, s-mods, and tags; ships recovered from the debris field after the fight do not; they are not automated, have no s-mods, and can be restored.

4

Suggestions / Odd combat UI behavior on command-tab

« on: April 01, 2025, 10:13:53 PM »

So, tab on its own brings up or cancels the command UI.

If you're piloting your flagship, or on the command UI, pressing command-tab (specifically, press-and-hold command, then hit tab) will swap to a different program with no effect on Starsector. If you were viewing your flagship, you stay viewing your flagship. If you were on the command UI, you stay on the command UI.

So far so good.

However, if you're viewing another ship via show video feed, then command-tab will swap you to a different program and cancel the video feed, punting you back to the command UI. Which is highly inconvenient, and I'd appreciate if the game didn't do that.

5

Suggestions / Hypershunt location Intel should show if you've found them

« on: April 01, 2025, 04:17:59 PM »

Instead of only turning up if you've interacted with them.

Or at the very least they should show up in the Salvor's Tally, regardless of interaction level.

Not a huge deal now that I know about it, but I spent quite a while trying to track down where I'd found the things in my current game and going "I know there was supposed to be an intel item for this, where is it?" - and then it turned out that there wasn't an intel item because I hadn't bothered to e-burn through the corona when I knew my fleet wasn't up to taking one.

Once I did track down the map location, I was able to put a player-placed intel marker on it just fine, so that's going to be my workaround for now: just have to remember to mark the things when I find them.

6

Suggestions / AI should avoid firing very slow-firing weapons at phased-out ships

« on: March 29, 2025, 08:31:21 PM »

Observed with a phase-lance-equipped Tempest against a pirate Gremlin (and easily replicated in the simulator); the Tempest will cheerfully fire the phase lance at a half-flux phased-out Gremlin - which, with the nearly-six-second cycle time, means that the phase lance is then not available when its target finally does unphase.

Not a huge deal, overall, but it is a very obvious "the AI did something wrong" type thing, and it's something that could reasonably stand to be improved on.

(Probably the trickiest part of fixing this would be figuring out where the cutoff point is. A phase lance or a tachyon lance should definitely be held until the target exists in normal space. A burst PD or pulse laser definitely shouldn't. At some point in the middle there's going to be a grey zone, and I'm not sure where exactly it is. Perhaps this would be better addressed via a weapon tag, rather than as something the AI tries to work out from the gun's statline?)

7

Suggestions / Weird UI glitch-y looking behavior

« on: March 29, 2025, 06:52:09 PM »

At certain points during the UI for surveying a planet, there's a flicker of motion in the corner of the screen - the radar UI appearing for a brief moment, then moving down and off-screen.

This would probably look pretty good for cases where the radar UI had previously been visible, but... in this context, it wasn't, which makes the whole transition look wrong.

Sequence of events: Interact with planet. Radar UI is hidden. Select 'perform survey'; radar UI is very briefly un-hidden. Select 'leave [Q]' (instead of 'perform survey [G]'), and you're returned to the initial planet interaction - this transition works correctly, with no space UI flashing into existence. Select 'perform survey' again, and you can see the glitch again.

This also happens when going from planet interaction into looting ruins, though that particular transition can't be done more than once.

8

Bug Reports & Support / At The Gates minor bug [0.98a-RC5]

« on: March 29, 2025, 02:42:09 PM »

Got the credentials from Yaribay; still in-progress of gate scanning. Ran into a "Suspect Scavenger" orbiting a gate... but was able to scan the gate regardless.

I'm not sure if this applied to just this encounter, as - based on prior experience - I just approached & dealt with the first two orbiting fleets (bribed a TT fleet, blew up a pirate fleet) before even trying to interact with the gate; this time I was navigating to the gate on autopilot and the scavenger was orbiting through a nearby asteroid field (Yma star system's gate), so I didn't notice it until I was right there - and then I clicked on scan the gate anyway just for curiosity and, to my surprise, it worked.

Hegemony Special Task Force (in Aztlan) did properly block scanning the gate... but the fleet weirdly tried to run away from me when I went to talk to them. (Hegemony rep is 61/100, transponder was on, no commission; other Hegemony fleets in-system had the expected reaction of not caring about me one way or the other.) Aside from that unexpected skittishness, that encounter worked as expected.

I do not, unfortunately, have a conveniently timed save file to share.

9

General Discussion / Research Station Lore!

« on: March 28, 2025, 01:40:24 PM »

Just wanted to say that I really appreciate the new bits of lore that (can?) show up when salvaging an abandoned research station. I haven't (yet) seen any actual game-mechanical consequences... but it makes the place feel a lot more... I'd say 'alive' but that's kindof definitionally opposite, isn't it?

Anyway. Yay for the floating loot boxes having a bit more character. Much appreciated.

10

Suggestions / Pirate Wolves should not use high-tech weapon skins!

« on: March 27, 2025, 10:06:29 PM »

As per topic. A bright blue mining blaster does not fit with their red aesthetic. :-P

11

Bug Reports & Support / Weird sound issues [0.98a-RC5]

« on: March 27, 2025, 03:03:17 PM »

Running on macOS 11.7.10.

Under some circumstances - triggering effect not yet pinned down - sound goes glitchy: music stops playing, and UI sound effects come from a random 'direction'; i.e., one UI click will sound just in the left ear, another will sound in just the right ear, a third will come from both like it ought to; volume also varies somewhat randomly.

I noticed this while playing through the tutorial, a bit after fighting the fleets guarding the jump gate (but before reporting my success at Ancyra); I am not certain that that's exactly when it started, however.

This effect persists through returning to the main screen. It does not persist through restarting the game entirely.

12

Suggestions / Replace skill fleet limits with deployment limits

« on: March 24, 2025, 02:16:06 PM »

What bothers me about bonuses with low caps, such as Phase Coil Tuning, and the carrier skills (and what Tactical Drills used to be with +10% and a 120 OP limit) is not the distribution of the bonus across multiple hulls, but the lack of fine control. If these skills worked based on what you have deployed, that would be one thing, but having a situation where a ship is weaker because of the mere existence of another ship that's not even part of the battle... annoys me.

Edit: Like, say I'm cruising around with the Ziggurat as my flagship! I pick up Phase Coil Tuning, Elite Field Modulation, etcetera; really focus in on being the best phase ship pilot I can be. Now, what happens when I end up in a battle with some random dinky pirate fleet that really just isn't worth deploying the Zig? Well, obviously, I swap over to a cheap lesser ship. Thematically, this should be another phase ship; perhaps a Harbinger. Practically? I cannot afford to have another phase ship in my fleet, because that will weaken the Zig when I'm using it, and dramatically weaken said other phase ship when I'm using that instead of the Zig.

So I'm going to suggest that - where possible - these skills should be changed to be based on what you have deployed to battle, rather than what's in your fleet overall. As an added bonus, doing this would make it make sense to return Tactical Drills to its initial +10% damage at 120 DP.

Exceptions:
• Bulk Transport and the fuel/supply usage bonuses from Containment Procedures / Makeshift Equipment are entirely non-combat skill effects, and would make no sense to scale with anything other than your full fleet.
• The sensor bonus from Phase Coil Tuning is also a non-combat effect... but one that can be partially or completely 'lost' due to how sensor mechanics only consider the values from the top five ships. In short, this sort of bonus already has capped scaling from just how sensor mechanics work, and should not also scale down as your fleet grows to include more phase ships. I would suggest changing this to a flat +120 sensor strength bonus for the single highest sensor-strength phase ship in your fleet, with no DP-scaling involved.
• Field Repairs and the crew-loss reduction from Containment Procedures should simply work at their max effect. These are not highly-valued skills, so a small buff like this isn't a balance problem.
• Crew Training is the annoying one here - due to how max CR is implemented, it's not practical to have this depend on deployed forces rather than the entire fleet. I would greatly prefer if this skill just gave a flat +15% max CR to combat ships (or, perhaps, non-automated combat ships? That sort of limitation feels thematic, but would also require some re-balancing of the Automated Ships skill given how it uses CR limitations as an internal balancing factor). However, the skill's already over-budget for being a mere tier 1 skill, and just flat buffing it doesn't feel like the right call to me either. So... not sure what the right answer is here.

13

Bug Reports & Support (modded) / Recovered ships can lose tags.

« on: March 16, 2025, 03:05:58 PM »

So, I've been experimenting with some unique automated hulls.

I have a ship which has the "automated" hullmod built-in, and, in the ship_data.csv file, has the "no_auto_penalty" tag specified.

This worked fine until it got blown up in combat; when I recovered it, it had lost the "no_auto_penalty" tag. My current character does not have the Automated Ships skill, which resulted in it suddenly having a max CR of zero.

Now, it's possible that this is "not a bug" in some fashion (maybe I should be setting that tag somewhere else?), but I'd really expect that getting a ship blown up and then recovered wouldn't mess with its tags - especially when those tags are set as part of the base hull's specifications rather than applied later via code.

As an additional data point, blowing the ship up again after I manually re-applied the tag via console commands did not result in the tag getting stripped off.
Edit: Using, specifically, this code:

Code

runcode  ((FleetMemberAPI)Global.getSector().getPlayerFleet().getFleetData().getMembersListCopy().get(0)).getVariant().addTag( "no_auto_penalty" )

14

Suggestions / Fighter Demystification

« on: February 21, 2025, 04:15:00 PM »

So, there are a number of fighters where what you see is what you get: most bombers, most shielded fighters, that sort of thing.

...And then there are several fighters that are flux-limited in ways that aren't immediately apparent; most notably, the Broadsword and Gladius, whose weaponry is dramatically limited by the fighter's anemic flux dissipation.

A player looking at the listed stats for the Broadsword would expect it to put out ~300 kinetic DPS. In practice, it will do that for about two seconds, and then be capped out on flux and manage a sustained DPS of ~75.

I suggest that, instead of relying on opaque flux-based limitations, these fighters should instead mount unique ammo-based variants on their weapons. For example, a Broadsword mounting a pair of "LMG (Fighter)" with an ammo capacity of 10 and a suitable recharge rate would achieve roughly the same effect, but in a way that doesn't require the player to go digging through CSV files to find that "Oh, this fighter has a flux capacity of 80 and a dissipation of 10, and that's why its firepower is a quarter of what the UI claims it should be."

Now, this does get a little bit more complicated for the Gladius, where its current use of flux mechanics and mixed weapon types mean you can't quite get the same results from ammunition limitations as you can from flux... On the other hand, you can get fairly close, and I doubt anyone would complain if the Gladius ended up with a small buff out of this sort of change.

15

Suggestions / Neural Link minor UI suggestion

« on: February 19, 2025, 03:59:03 PM »

If the player has deployed their flagship, but not the other side of the link, there are two extra UI intries in the ship status display: "Neural Link Inactive / No Signal" and "Neural System Reset / No Signal". I think in this specific context, the entry for "Neural System Reset" is extraneous, and should probably not be displayed unless there actually is a ship to link with.