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1

Suggestions / Reflecting Damage

« on: November 02, 2024, 07:26:05 PM »

I don't play many mods (so this may exist somewhere) but even in vanilla, I'm surprised there isn't a reflect mechanic in the game. Thinking to other games, there's usually a "thorns" or reflect skill for melee classes that turn some of the enemy's own attacks against them. For Starsector, I'm thinking a ship system and/or special kind of shield that reflects projectiles back at the opposing ship.

The devil is in the details, of course, but off the top of my head, I'm thinking that any "leftover" range on the projectile is still in-play for the reflect mechanic. I.e. a 800 range HAC shot that is 500 su away from the reflecting surface still has 300 range left over to be reflected. That doesn't get it back to the original firing ship but if the reflecting ship is moving towards the firing ship, that difference might get made up. Such a mechanic would probably work best with ships that want to be up close anyway.

The first candidate I thought of for this was the Vanguard. As a Frigate, its Damper Field is a nice way to mitigate damage but it's also a shieldless(!) close-range brawler. If the (Modified) Damper Field also reflected enemy shots, it could use even its defensive system as an offensive weapon. For this case, in particular, the Damper Field still works as normal but shots that hit are reflected as described above. Of course, there would have to be limitations. Perhaps shots above a certain damage/shot are treated per usual (imagine Vanguards reflecting Gigacannon shots or Hellbores). Meanwhile, missiles with guidance systems and their own propulsion might bounce off but re-acquire the target (I have in my mind that any given projectile can only be reflected once). Unguided missiles, however, would be returned to sender! I'm not sure what to do with Beams because reflecting them would cause some strange visuals but perhaps some really fun positioning challenges (reflect that HIL at another ship)! What the Vanguard really brings to the table here is a very finite/limited use-case. It's a shieldless Frigate, and though tough for its size, it is not particularly tough in an absolute sense. It will still take damage while reflecting (we're just adding the reflect mechanic to its Damper Field) and will still go down under focused fire pretty quickly. I think this would allow it to compete well with other "elite" Frigates like the Scarab, Tempest, and Omen, which I find to be generally better.

Alternatively, build a ship around a shield/ship system that does this. Turn it on and it doubles the hard flux generated by weapon hits but reflects projectiles back with "extra mustard". Like 25% increased velocity and damage. Call it the Armadillo or Porcupine. Or maybe be a Pirate Monitor variant.

There's also the opposite: a shield that doesn't reflect but actually vacuums up nearby shots. I'm thinking of the Paragon and its Fortress Shield. Maybe that's why it is a giant donut: it creates a micro-singularity in the "donut hole" while the Fortres (Singularity?) Shield is up, sucking up nearby projectiles to hit on the near-impenetrable shield rather than squishier ships in the fleet. Basically a "taunt" or "goading" mechanic. Have some log function with ever-increasing acceleration toward the center of the Paragon via gravity well (max effect at 300? su from the shield, with a very strong effect by 100 su). Maybe it pulls Fighters that get that close, too, though anything even Frigate-sized is unaffected (in practice, it just reduces max speed of fighters by some amount relative to proximity to the center of the ship). Again, I can't imagine Beams being "bent" toward the Paragon (but that would look cool!), but while active, allied ships can huddle behind the behemoth and not worry about taking too many hits.

2

Suggestions / The Medium Assault Gun (attempt #422)

« on: October 07, 2024, 05:52:25 PM »

In the New Weapon Ideas thread, (yet) another 800 range HE weapon was proposed. The community's desire for this weapon has gone unabated for literally years and despite repeated proposals for a weapon that fits this niche, one still hasn't appeared from the ether.

Background: Why Not?

Those of us who have been around awhile know that the lack of this 800 range HE option has, thus far, been intentional. To quote Alex:

Another point to consider here is that 1) most ships have the option to mount some kind of missile weapon, and 2) many missile weapons fill the anti-armor role, moreso than e.g. the anti-shield role. So there's ... not really something I'd call a "gap" here, since there are some good options - but coverage is somewhat lighter because there's overlap elsewhere. The more of a wide range of HE options you provide for a ballistic slot, the more that devalues some of the missile options.

(And HE pairing with a Gauss... I mean, the Gauss doesn't need anti-armor help to begin with, and it's also kind of meant to be in its own class range-wise, so...)

A lot of 'true high end HE weapons' are recipes for making frigates utterly nonviable. That makes them kind of a questionable balance proposition; some of the more creative midrange HE weapons in mods (the Blackrock Sunfire PDE is one of my favorites) are designed the way they are to keep them from becoming vicious frigate-murderers.

And, yeah, that! The old Heavy Mauler was a bit too good at that, too, but something like the Heavy AC but HE would also be brutal.

In other words, Missiles fill the "gap" left by a generalist HE option not named the Hephaestus Assault Gun (which only gets by because it's a Large slot that few ships have). There's also another issue with another Medium HE option: role overlap. Most ideas that I have seen for a 800 range HE obsoletes an existing weapon, or comes close to it. The trickiest part of this is finding a niche that complements the current Medium HE options without overshadowing them: a "good at everything" weapon becomes optimal.

Click if you want read my design goals

My inspiration for this weapon came from an 90's movie: The Pentagon Wars. In it the Bradly Fighting Vehicle has a clear initial vision but due to design-by-committee, feature creep, and dueling egos/priorities, what was supposed to be a troop transport turns into a "do everything" vehicle that excels at nothing and doesn't even carry very many troops. The weapon I am proposing for the 800 HE role takes a page from that philosophy. It's as if some weapon engineers took a look at the existing Medium HE weapons (and also looked a little outside) and tried to make a one-size-fits-all weapon that, on paper, looks really good but in practice falls very short of being a great weapon. Perhaps this is a Lion's Guard weapon.

So, what does the Heavy Mauler have? Good range, fairly accurate, decent damage/shot. Check. Let's make sure this is 800 range, accurate, and though we can't have the same damage/shot, let's get close. What does the Heavy Mortar have? It's cheap with good sustained fire. Let's have some of that, too. The Assault Chaingun: man, if it had better range, it'd be incredible! Let's make this thing go full auto! etc. etc. etc.

What you end up getting is a slow-firing weapon that is clearly inferior to the Heavy Mauler for armor cracking, a weapon that doesn't have the sustained damage or is as brutally efficient as Heavy Mortar, can't compete with the Assault Chaingun for raw damage at any range, and feels more like a poor-man's HAG with severe limitations. Basically, you get a gun that is less than the sum of its parts and has a unique Achilles' Heel that the designers completely overlooked...

[close]

The Gun


(Ignore the placeholder Assault Chaingun sprite)

If you read my design goals, you'll see that I tried to mix-and-match some of the key features of the current Medium HE lineup to create a Frankenstein gun that excels at nothing and is individually worse at any given niche of its HE brethren. That said, it's not intentionally awful.

It features a "full-auto" mode that is activated when shields are down (it uses the "USE_LESS_VS_SHIELDS" tag). At full bore, it fires 3 times a second with roughly half the accuracy of the HAG: not great, not terrible (it's markedly better than the HAC). However, it has a tiny magazine, and 1 round/sec recharge. At baseline, it fires 14 times before it reverts to the sustained damage number. That means the 400 DPS on paper is only for brief moments but it does allow for some burst damage.

Most of the time, it will operate like an inferior pre-burst Heavy Mauler. 1 round/sec, accurate, but only 133 damage/shot and with 200 less range. In this mode, it is clearly worse than both the Heavy Mortar in both sustained damage and in flux efficiency and inferior to the Mauler due to it's lack of damage/shot and ability to put multiple shots on a single point. It also can't compete with the Assault Chaingun at all due to the low magazine size. What it can do, is outdamage the Heavy Mauler for short bursts, put more rounds on target than the Heavy Mortar, shoot further than the ACG, and act like a poor-man's HAG for about 3 seconds at a time.

One key feature that makes it lose some of its luster is that it can't take advantage of Accelerated Ammo Feeder. Because it is a charge-based weapon, AAF doesn't increase its reload speed. That makes this weapon somewhat lackluster on something like a Hammerhead or Eradicator. It can increase its usefulness via Expanded Magazines (and especially S-modding it), but that still doesn't help the AAF ships all that much. This is intentional because despite this being a fairly generalist weapon, it has clear weaknesses. What this (hopefully) avoids is making any existing Medium HE option obsolete or feel lacking in some way. I also don't see this thing erasing Frigates because it just doesn't have great sustained damage.

Because of these obvious drawbacks, it does seem somewhat fitting for this to be a Lion's Guard weapon, though I could make an argument that it's not quite that bad.

Playtesting

If you want to play around with this, I've included the stat line for the weapons_data file. Input the values over the Assault Chaingun line and give it a whirl. Personally, I find it in a no-mans land of lackluster, which is exactly where it needs to be. It pairs with the HAC pretty well (and isn't a flux hog) but its damage leaves a lot to be desired, even when it can use its burst.

Weapon Data

name   Assault Chaingun
id   chaingun
tier   1
rarity   
base value   1000
range   800
damage/second   
damage/shot   133.33
emp   
impact   5
turn rate   20
OPs   10
ammo   10
ammo/sec   1
reload size   
type   HIGH_EXPLOSIVE
energy/shot   133.33
energy/second   
chargeup   0
chargedown   0.3333
burst size   1
burst delay   
min spread   0
max spread   10
spread/shot   3
spread decay/sec   10
beam speed   
proj speed   800
launch speed   
flight time   
proj hitpoints   30
autofireAccBonus   
extraArcForAI   
hints   USE_LESS_VS_SHIELDS
tags   he15, SR, lowtech_bp, midline_bp, merc, ind
groupTag   
tech/manufacturer   
for weapon tooltip>>   
primaryRoleStr   Anti Armor
speedStr   
trackingStr   
turnRateStr   
accuracyStr   
customPrimary   
customPrimaryHL   
customAncillary   
customAncillaryHL   
noDPSInTooltip   
number   4.5

[close]

Feedback welcome.

3

Suggestions / Refit Screen and S-modded E. Mags

« on: September 14, 2024, 01:17:33 PM »

This has probably been asked before but it's been bothering me so I'm suggesting it (possibly again).

When you S-mod Expanded Magazines, the rate of charge regeneration is increased by 50%. That means the base sustained damage should go up by 50%, as well as flux usage on weapons that regenerate charges. However, this is not displayed anywhere in the Refit screen. If you really go whole hog with charge weapons, hundreds of flux/sec are not being factored into the overall weapon flux number. I've got a Paragon "missing" over 500 weapon flux/sec with a pair of Autopulses and a bunch of Burst Lasers. The same could also be said for the weapon cards and the DPS and flux/sec sustained (parenthesis numbers). That way you can compare apples to apples rather than doing the math in your head.

4

Suggestions / Hyperspace Combat

« on: August 17, 2024, 02:09:48 PM »

Not really a suggestion as much as a question in search of feedback: should battles in hyperspace have unique and/or different rules or features compared to real-space battles?

I was fighting in hyperspace against a merc group waiting by a slipstream and, of all things, an asteroid caused my flagship to not burn in the full way. My first thought was, "ugh" but my second was "why are there asteroids in hyperspace?" Which begs the question above. I've always figured that fights in hyperspace would eventually get differentiated from "normal" fights in some way. We have environmental conditions for fighting in corona but not hyperspace?

I'm not saying that hyperspace needs to be a chaotic cauldron (like The Warp in Warhammer 40k) but after all this time that it has existed, it really hasn't set itself apart in the combat arena. Yet, there are so many possibilities. Maybe deep hyperspace causes visibility to be much less than normal. Fighting near hyperspace storms creates environmental damage or reduces the size of the battlefield significantly. Maybe sensor ghosts interdict both side randomly or cause Derelicts/Remnants to invade (hostile to both sides). Or perhaps Hyperspace favors a certain ship size or type. Maybe Frigates and Destroyers have speed buffs, allowing better raiding. Maybe Phase Coils are more efficient. Maybe 0-flux Boosts are increased (or eliminated altogether).

I don't know. But I feel there's an opportunity here for strategic play. Due to whatever hyperspace does, maybe you want to lure a ship into it so you have an advantage. Or, if you're disadvantaged in the outer void, you want to lure a ship into a system to deal with them. Or, perhaps there is a gradient as you move away from the core worlds that causes hyperspace shenanigans to increase. In the core itself, hyperspace is calm enough you can't tell a difference. Out on the fringe, the probability for weirdness increases dramatically.

5

Suggestions / Colony Idea: Shipyard (Industry)

« on: August 10, 2024, 02:26:59 PM »

Background:

I'm in a late game run Ordo farming. The initial bum rush of hyper-aggressive Remnants can usually burst down one of my Cruisers fairly regularly which means D-mods on otherwise pristine, S-modded, ships. While I can afford to Restore these ships, I have a whole stable of craft in inventory that I tend to swap out rather than use the Restore function. So the thought occurred to me, if I wasn't flush with cash, but could afford to leave a damaged ship back "at home" for awhile, it would be nice to be able to get a D-modded ship restored more at the cost of time than credits.

Idea: The Shipyard.

This Industry adds a third tab in the Fleet screen for the "Shipyard." Ships placed in the Shipyard are "locked in" for 1 month but, in return, are completely repaired and returned to maximum CR and one D-Mod will be removed at random. The larger the colony, or via improvements/Alpha Cores, the more ship slots in the Shipyard tab become available for this service to be performed. The industry doesn't produce anything but does have resource demands and upkeep.

A Domain-era Colony item could also be found (at the same rarity of a Pristine Nanoforge or Synchrotron Core) that, when installed, allows the Shipyard to add/remove S-Mods at the cost of credits/time in lieu of Story Points. Ships must still remained drydocked for 1 month while the adjustments are made.

The Shipyard starts with 1 ship slot, adding 1 slot for each colony size. Story Point improvements, Alpha Cores, and Industrial Planning also add 1 slot. For example, a Size 4 colony with an Alpha Core admin would have 3 Shipyard slots. Adding an Alpha Core to the Shipyard itself would bump it up 4.

Rationale:

Hull Restoration is essentially doing this for free, so getting a Colony up, paying for the Industry itself (and the opportunity cost), and forcing the player to return back to the colony and drop off the ship for a month feels like a fair trade. But, for those that value pristine ships and don't want to take Hull Restoration, the cost might be worth it. More Shipyard slots means, theoretically, you can afford more attrition since long-term damage across even multiple ships will be fixed up in short order. Having this safety net would likely promote a more aggressive style of play. Since the player can choose which ships to drydock, it's more focused than Hull Restoration but the skill is still quite valuable on its own. It doesn't require a sacrifice of any kind and just works in the background without slowing you down.

The colony item is just a way to incorporate the oft-asked for mechanic of adjusting S-mods on ships. If limited to a rare item on a single world, it would just be another avenue vs. XP grinding. I don't think it would overpowered, albeit finding the item would be optimal. If a few Factions had a Shipyard with one of these items, using their facilities might be a perk of commissioning with them and having high rep.

My hope is that late game fights are still challenging enough that a Shipyard's primary function would still be valuable. Once you get Colonies printing hundreds of thousands of credits a month, Restoring isn't that much of a sacrifice but it does add up. Likewise, trying to restore the Zigg is quite expensive. I'd rather leave it drydock for 3-4 months.

My fear is that players would compelled to bring back every recoverable ship out there, restore them for cheap/free and sell them for a profit. That's tedious and not my intent, hence the limited number of Shipyard slots to begin with. Also, by the time you have a Colony and have a spare Industry slot that that is sort of a luxury (like Commerce), the return on investment for ship salvage probably isn't worth it. A Shipyard would give an opportunity for certain rare ships to be recovered and sold, however. If you find a Legion (XIV) out there with 2 D-mods, you might not want to put it your fleet but if you drag it to a Shipyard, you could theoretically sell it after some time for a pretty penny. Currently, salvaging ships really isn't an option (for good reason) but there are some exceptions maybe looking into.

Another fear is that it would become optimal to drop off ships, wait for a month with simulation sped up, and then collect them. That is also not the intent. The time cost is supposed to be somewhat prohibitive. Perhaps an "Expedite Repairs" button could be created that instantly fixes ships/1 D-mod but at a credit cost at some % of what it would take to do the same for every ship individually dependent on how long they've been in drydock. Let's make it 3.33% discount/day in drydock for easy math. You come back after 20 days but your ships aren't quite done? You can instantly restore them for only 1/3rd the price of normal. Or just wait it out, your call. 

Feedback welcome.

6

Suggestions / Shield Shunt perk

« on: August 06, 2024, 06:40:50 PM »

The Idea: Give Shield Shunt the old Damage Control Elite effect (reduces a single instance of huge damage by 60% every so often)

Why: It makes perfect sense with this playstyle, since, well...you can't avoid being hit.

To quote Alex via his blog post:

Damage Control is another skill with an elite effect that’s fun but requires you to be losing – if you take massive hull damage in a single hit, it gets reduced a lot. So if you play well and don’t make mistakes, you’re going to see no benefit from the skill, yay. Also if an enemy officer has it, you might be scratching your head when you torpedo their ship and it has way less impact than expected. (See: prior point about not really having that much latitude to go wild with these effects.)

I get his reasoning but since any ship could have Elite Damage Control, and some of them were safely tucked behind shields or extremely nimble, it really wasn't much of a benefit to those types of ships. However, all the Shield Shunted ships that actually want it are just big and slow Low Tech bricks.

For them, there's absolutely nothing stopping that Hellbore shot from ruining your day and the extra 200-ish armor that Shield Shunt provides really doesn't mitigate it. While in a lot of scenarios, having somewhere between 2500 and 3000 armor (and potentially "plussed-up" with Polarized Armor) negates a lot of even heavy shots, a single Reaper still blows a hole in your shell. A maxed out Onslaught XIV only needs 6 Hellbore shots to strip completely in one spot. Without a shield, you just have no way of really stopping these game enders.

Now that we've redefined and refocused the use-case scenario for this perk, the original objection of "you have to be losing to see a benefit" is partially negated. These ships 100% will take hits, and big hits at that. It doesn't stop the HIL from still being an existential threat but it would mitigate the lucky torpedo or Hellbore. Also, since shield shunted ships are pretty obvious by the lack of a shield, the other issue of not knowing why your torpedo did so little damage is also alleviated. (Note that a lot of ships that are just plain shield-less wouldn't see the effect anyways. The Invictus, which would love to have this, doesn't have a shield to give up and some of the unshielded Frigates just don't have the option either) Really, I see Shield Shunt as more akin to Safety Overrides: just a different style of play with its own benefits and disadvantages. Unlike SO, though, Shield Shunt only really benefits an already heavily armored ship.

So how to implement it? I could see it being part of the base package of the hullmod. After all, you are giving up your shield for what amounts to be 150-250 armor. Perhaps the S-mod effect improves the damage mitigation and/or how often it triggers. Also, since armor is sort of the lifeblood of a Shield Shunted ship, I'd suggest the perk affect the damage to armor, not hull. I suppose it could do both but that seems very strong to me.

Maybe something like:

Base effect:

• +15% armor
• Reduces the effect of damage on armor over 700 by 40% once every 6 seconds

S-Mod effect:

• An additional +15% armor
• Reduces the effect of damage on armor over 500 by 60% once every 4 seconds

Numbers can obviously be tweaked. Maybe the +Armor % is dropped to 10% or the perk is less frequent, or maybe the OP cost goes up. Overall, however, I think Shield Shunted ships are losing more than they gain currently. Yes, they can pump 100% of their flux into offense but being unable to flicker shields is a huge defensive step down. With something like this, they aren't quite as prone to getting ravaged by a single attack.

7

Suggestions / Brother Cotton's ship: The Tabula Rasa

« on: June 30, 2024, 07:10:42 PM »

Just a thought experiment for future end game shenanigans.

If the story actually goes this way, a mission arc leads to player hostilities with Brother Cotton and the Path. You ultimately face him (and his fleet) in a final showdown. As you suspected for some time, Brother Cotton is much more than meets the eye. As a fellow hearer of the music of the spheres, along with years of coercion of the faithful, under the table trades, and other subterfuge, he has "acquired" nothing less than a state-of-the-art craft named the Tabula Rasa. All evidence points to some familiarity with [SUPER REDACTED] tech.

An exotic Cruiser, the Tabula Rasa is built around a Large Universal turret with 4 hardpoint Small Universals facing forward that allow it to have virtually any loadout imaginable (hence the name "blank slate"). Inherently fast for its size, it also uses the Temporal Shell for a ship system. When first encountered, Brother Cotton uses an RNG assortment of Omega weapons to assist his (sizable) Pather Fleet. If defeated, the Tabula Rasa is always recoverable (like the Ziggurat), however none of the Omega weapons carry over. If recovered, it has the built-in hullmods "High Maintenance" and "Delicate Machinery" which doubles its maintenance profile and lowers its in-battle longevity after peak performance runs out.

Unlike other Pather ships, it does not have Safety Overrides but Temporal Shell allows it to move around the battlefield very fluidly. It has decent flux stats and armor with an Omni Shield and would generally be considered a glass cannon with a high skill ceiling. Depending on the loadout (which is purposely wide open), it can be just about anything offensively, though if caught out of position, it does not have the defenses to withstand heavy fire. It also does not have any dedicated defensive weaponry, as all of the Small Universals are forward facing hardpoints.

As a unique ship not intended to take on the player's fleet alone (unlike say the Zigg, the Guardian, or Tesseracts), it would be both a high-difficulty encounter to fight against and a powerful weapon in the player's hand (with notable drawbacks).

Hypothetical stats:

Hull Integrity: 10000
Armor: 1000
Flux Capacity: 10000
Flux Dissipation: 700
Top Speed: 70
Omni-Shield: 120 degrees, .8 efficiency
Ordinance Points: 150
Deployment Points: 25
Supplies/month: 50 (due to High Maintenance)
30% CR per deployment, 4% recovered/day
Fuel/ly: 3
Peak Performance Time: 480 seconds

(The whole idea came from the question "how would a Large Universal work in vanilla?" I figured it'd have to be a unicorn ship of some sort because of how hard to balance it would be but a near-Omega level ship, possibly built to fight them, kind of flowed naturally after going whole-hog with the idea of an all-Universal loadout.)

8

Suggestions / Hold Fire, PD, and 0-Flux Boost

« on: April 27, 2024, 07:06:11 PM »

Suggestion:

1. Hold Fire does not turn off PD when activated.
2. The 0-flux Boost bonus criteria ignores PD weapon flux as long as total flux doesn't exceed 1% or the ship has Elite Helmsmanship and uses Nu Hold Fire.
3. #2 is negated if shields are raised, regardless of flux level.

Reasons:

Hold Fire can be a poison pill because you also turn off your PD. However, Hold Fire is incentivized because it is the only way to get the 0-flux Boost while under any kind of attack. Elite Helmsmanship helps with getting the 0-Flux Boost at higher flux levels but firing PD of any kind negates it.

This is most aggravating when large, slow ships lose the 0-flux boost because they are using PD in a very normal and reasonable manner. An Onslaught or Paragon that are veritable fortresses are forced to lose 50 speed because a Kite with a Salamander makes a single Vulcan or PD laser to fire. They shouldn't be penalized for a gnat buzzing around them. PD uses so little flux and typically has short enough range that it should be exempt from both the Hold Fire and 0-flux Boost rules.

So, if a ship has its shields off and is using PD, it shouldn't lose the speed boost under normal circumstances. If a player wants to ensure this, Hold Fire should be altered to allow PD-tagged weapons to fire, as there is no downside for their continued use. If a ship has a bunch of PD weapons that does raise flux levels past a certain %, the boost should drop as to avoid exploiting the speed. Likewise, raising shields at any time will kill the boost.

The point of this suggestion is for larger ships trying to get around the battlefield to keep the 0-flux boost despite occasional harassment. No more, no less. This is slightly different than the previous Skill iterations where ships kept the boost at 5% and then 1% total flux. This would be default ship behavior, not locked behind a skill. If it only applied to Cruisers and Capitals, I wouldn't object but that would have to be communicated somehow, which gets tricky.

Alternatively...

Another hotkey is created that puts a ship into "Defensive" that holds all fire except PD. Ships no longer have access to the 0-flux boost but do gain a Defense Speed Boost of +25. Shields can be raised but shield upkeep generates hard flux. This can be toggled on/off at will (or perhaps there is a 5 second cooldown) and the speed bonus will work regardless of flux level. A ship in over its head can toggle on Defensive mode to backpedal with some additional speed while still shooting down missiles and fighters. Shields become a double-edged sword that can hurt as much as help.

The more I look at that the more it sounds like a bona fide ship system but I thought I'd throw it out there.

9

Suggestions / Built-in Drones should not be Fighter Wings

« on: March 02, 2024, 08:12:56 AM »

I mentioned this in the Termination Sequence thread but wanted to expand on it here.

I use Shepherds and Tempests in my fleet and am frequently annoyed that their paltry drone wings water down the effectiveness of Carrier skills on my true Fighters. I will see I have two Moras and a Drover and think "hey, I have 8 Wings" only to realize that the two Shepherds and Tempest further down in my fleet count as 3 against the soft cap. This means the true fighters in my fleet lose 14% of the skill effectiveness (21% if the carrier has an Officer). I use Shepherds for their salvage gantries and surveying equipment and Tempests are good Frigates. However, their built-in drone wings hurt my Carriers simply by existing.

Problem:

Shepherds, Ventures, Tempests and the Remnant Apex all have built-in drone wings. That isn't a problem in and of itself: in fact, I believe it adds some needed variety to ship hulls. However, all of these ships' fighter bays count against the Carrier skill soft cap of 8 when the drones they employ are either vastly inferior to any normal Fighter (Borer Drones), a 0-OP option (Mining Pods), or have a very controversial ship system that sacrifices the drone (Terminators). All are tied to their motherships and can't freely roam. All except Terminators are meant to be distractions or meat shields that are easily replaced. Carrier skills that do affect them are virtually lost on them, yet they water down the bonuses for true Fighters on Carriers.

Why not just remove the wings via Converted Fighter Bays if you don't want them to count against the skills? First and foremost, especially in the case of the Tempest, the built-in drones are a major feature of the hull. Shepherds without their drones have virtually no in-combat use (which was low to begin with!) and Tempests wouldn't even be able to use their ship system. Ventures can get by, sure, but the Mining Pods eat missiles and heavy shots as a form of ablative armor. Second, it costs OP and the benefit is purely logistical. I'm sacrificing in-combat performance for campaign-layer performance all so I don't penalize the Carriers in my fleet. It's counter-intuitive.

In short, I think built-in Drones should be treated differently than bona fide Fighters.

Proposed Solution:

Built-in Drone wings do not count against the Carrier skill 8-wing cap nor do they receive any bonuses from those skills.

Second, built-in drone wings always have 100% Replacement Rate or don't have a Replacement Rate at all. Drones simply have a static replacement rate not affected by their losses. For all except the Terminator, they exist to take hits for the mothership. Their offensive capabilities are virtually nil so improved replacement rate increases durability of the mothership, not firepower.

Third, they also would not have the Rearm/Engage toggle option, since they can't operate independently anyway. 0-Roam fighters do kill the 0-flux boost if given Engage orders. This prevents these hulls from even worrying about it.

This could all be communicated through a built-in Hullmod ("Automated Foundry" or some such). This would also explain why Wasps, Mining Drones, Remnant fighters, etc. on other Carriers, don't have these features but do benefit from Carrier skills.

Caveat:

I could make the case that Terminators should be counted as Fighters. They're much more powerful than Borer Drones or Mining Pods. However, adding the above to Tempests makes Termination Sequence a lot cleaner when replacement rates are static. 20 seconds is long enough as it is but then to have the Replacement Rate drop to like 70% after one drone loss makes replacing the Terminators that much longer.

There's also the argument for Terminators to be treated as built-in drones from internal consistency standpoint: why do the other built-in drone hulls have this property but not Tempests? If a hull is built around on-board drones, you'd think it would account for their manufacture in a purposeful way, hence the Automated Foundry hullmod suggestion. I think it would work for a Tempest as much as a Venture or Shepherd.  Meanwhile, true Carriers have to account for any number of Fighter LPCs, not just Drones, so they're not quite as specialized for that unique task. This is all handwave logic, I know, but some internal consistency is good.

10

Bug Reports & Support / F5 / F9 crash

« on: February 15, 2024, 05:11:20 AM »

I use quick save/reload pretty liberally right before and after a battle. Back in RC6, after fighting a named independent fleet bounty, the game would crash to desktop after I wrapped up the post-battle options and hit F5. This happened to me 3 times (having to re-fight the bounty each time). After the 4th attempt, I decided to let a little in-game time pass and left the system before saving via the menu. That worked.

I thought it may be related to a crash fixed in RC8 about pirates but after fighting the battle station at Culann (thinking it might impact the CC for TT and finding it didn’t), I hit F9 to return to the save prior to the fight and the game crashed again. Fortunately, reloading was my intent so everything was fine.

The only mods I have are Console Commands. It seems to be related to saving/reloading immediately after a battle but it’s only happened twice so I can’t reproduce it. I can work around it if it happens again but this is the first time I’ve ever encountered it. I don’t have the save anymore since I’ve played since but I thought I’d report it anyway.

11

Suggestions / Skills that promote SP expenditure should help to that end

« on: February 04, 2024, 08:09:47 PM »

This isn't technically a new issue but it was poignant in my most recent playthrough. There are three skills that promote Story Point expenditure: Best of the Best (+1 S-Mod), Officer Training (+1 Elite skill), and Cybernetic Augmentation (+1 Elite skill for Officers, incentivizes Elite skills for player). However, spending any points on S-Mods or Elite skills does not generate bonus XP and now you have potentially dozens of SP sinks created with a single click.

In short, while these skills allow for the opportunity to raise the ceiling of your fleet quite dramatically, actually realizing that ceiling is, generally speaking, not immediate. In fact, it's more likely an XP grind-fest to generate SPs and an opportunity cost for what those SPs could have been spent on. All this to say, all these skills require further investment using a limited commodity and the game does not compensate the choice to do the very thing the skill affords. And these are Level 3 and 4 skills!

My suggestion is that Officer Training and Best of the Best offset the initial SP cost with Elite Skill and S-mod "tokens", respectively, to be used exclusively used for that purpose. 3 for Officer Training and 5 for Best of the Best. First-time selection only. Unused tokens are removed if the skill is removed, with the remainder available if re-selected. This doesn't get every officer or ship in your fleet but it gives you an immediate boost in power. Quite frankly, BotB doesn't need buffed but you could theoretically be looking at 20+ ships that suddenly want an additional S-mod when you take the skill.

Cybernetic Augmentation give bonus 50% bonus XP when spending SPs on Elite Skills for both Officers and the player. It's not immediate like the Leadership tree but it will pay long-term dividends, especially if you get somewhat early.

12

Suggestions / Frontal Armor hullmod

« on: February 04, 2024, 07:19:01 PM »

While other shieldless/brawling ships have Ablative Armor (Invictus) or Damper Fields (Vanguard), the Grendel just has to avoid damage altogether. In my limited time playing it, I quickly found out that it only takes a single Reaper or a few Hammers to pacify it for the rest of the battle. Once the front armor is gone, trying to meaningfully engage in a straight fight is basically death by a thousand papercuts. All phase ships have this issue to some degree but the Grendel is obviously supposed to take some damage, that's why it has Rugged Construction and Distributed Fire Control.

My thought here is a built-in hullmod that doubles the armor for the armor calculation on the forward-most armor cells. That gives the base Grendel 2400 frontal armor and 1200 everywhere else and stacks with any additional armor. At its most extreme, Heavy Armor and Armored Weapon Mounts, you'd have a base armor of 1720 and frontal armor of 3440. That seems like a whole lot but the starting value will also drop twice as fast per each armor point lost. It still only delays the inevitable but it would be less reliant on defensive skills or Phase Anchor to make it a tanky enough to slug it out. It also makes the Grendel weaker on its sides and rear, relatively speaking, for opportunistic attacks.

This hullmod could also be put on a few other shieldless ships, like the Gremlin, Hound, and Cerberus. A really interesting wrinkle would be to put it on non-Frigate Derelict Drones.

13

Suggestions / Cruiser with a Turreted Large Ballistic

« on: January 02, 2024, 03:30:53 PM »

When the Eradicator was first talked about in a blog post in May 2021, Alex said:

What it doesn’t have is any large ballistic weapon slots. On the one hand, it’d be nice to add another ship where you can mount large ballistic weapons, since the opportunities to do so are currently pretty limited. On the other hand, it feels like adding a single large ballistic slot on this ship would make it the focus of outfitting the ship – and I’d much rather give an array of smaller weapons, and their various combinations, a chance to shine. Just having a ton of smaller guns unload on the enemy – especially with the ammo feeder turned on – is satisfying, and the range buff for some of the small ballistics opens up more options. And, well, another new ship can feature a large ballistic slot at some point, one designed around it.

To his credit, the Eradicator is a great ship and it's a fine addition, but where's our Turreted Large Ballistic Cruiser?

In brainstorming this thing, I had difficulty with coming up with a design that wasn't a:

a.) Ballistic version of the Champion (i.e. Large Ballistic with Large Missile)
b.) Stronger Eradicator (if the system was AAF), or better Dominator (i.e. 2 turreted Large Ballistics)
c.) Midline ship that's essentially a heavier Eagle (though I did playtest a Large Ballistic Eagle some time ago with a couple builds)
d.) Pather/Pirate joke ship (which, ultimately, I don't want and the Atlas Mk. II exists)

I think we can rule out a High Tech ship out of hand so we don't have to worry about a High Tech theme or playstyle. That leaves us with Midline and Low-Tech. A Midline ship with a Turreted Large Ballistic centerpiece would have to be backed up with some Energy weapons, decent flux stats and shield, and possibly a mobility system. This sounds a lot like an Eagle to me. You could change where the Energies are located, not make it a wedge, give it a few Medium Missiles, etc. but unless the ship system is novel, it's just going to be a "better" Eagle or some side-grade Champion. I just don't see the design space for it.

A Low-Tech Cruiser with a Turreted Large Ballistic centerpiece would essentially be a larger Manticore. I don't see this as a bad thing, necessarily. Where a Cruiser-Manticore could be very interesting is that it wouldn't have to rely on Cannister Flak for its PD (freeing up the ship system) and it could have a secondary battery of 2-3 Medium Ballistics, along with a strong Missile component (pair of Mediums and a few Smalls). Ballistic Rangefinder could be built-in and there would be some Smalls with generous arcs to cover the sides and rear. Ultimately, I feel like this ought to be a cast-off/archaic Luddic Church ship (who only have 2 cruisers currently) so it has to be different enough from the Eradicator.

The ship system is really where this could go off into a hundred directions.  I don't like Burn Drive for this one, but it's always a possibility. Giving it AAF is right out because of the overlap with the Eradicator but I really like the idea of some version of the LIDAR array. It would essentially be the Luddic Church's version of a sniper. Perhaps this ship is relatively fragile but packs enormous firepower in ideal conditions. Codename "Basilisk".

Alternatively, while the Luddic Church does have the Mora, it doesn't have a true anvil warship until the Invictus. A defensive ship system paired with the Large Ballistic Turret would make it a stronger line ship. Damper Field would, again, overlap too much but I could get behind some kind of special shield system that cuts shield damage by 50-60% but still allows guns to fire through. It would have charges, so sort of like Damper Field, but the caveat is that the shield system is a fixed 180 degrees and precludes any shield hullmods from being added to the ship. It doesn't take a lot of guesswork to realize why the Domain abandoned such a rigid system. Codename "Phalanx".

For the Basilisk, I could see it being 20 DP: a less expensive option than the Eradicator but far more specialized and fragile. The Phalanx might be closer to a Heavy Cruiser and be 25 DP.

Anyway, brainstorm away. Those are my thoughts and such a Cruiser doesn't have to follow my logic or constraints.

14

Suggestions / The Tac Laser

« on: December 16, 2023, 09:59:00 AM »

The Tac Laser is dead. Long live the Tac Laser. There was a time when it was a very normal beam that didn't do anything particularly well, and that was ok because beams in general didn't do anything particularly well. But now every beam does something and the bog-standard Tac Laser feels like a relic of bygone years. Even in its heyday, no one wanted to put a Tac Laser in a Small Energy slot, you just kind of settled for it. The flux wasn't enough to make a difference on shields and when it did hit armor/hull, it was only a minor annoyance unless you could mass 4+ on a target. The old wisdom is that beams like the Tac Laser are "pressure weapons": they forced the enemy to raise shields or risk death by a thousand paper cuts. They are long-range, perfectly accurate, and cheap in OP and flux cost. Low-risk, low-reward. In a word: boring.

Other Beams in the game have a similar problem but all are more specialized than the Tac Laser. The Graviton deals Kinetic damage, can deflect missiles, and now causes shields to take more damage. The Ion Beam is a pure support beam dealing shut-down EMP damage and can pierce shields at high flux levels. The HIL deals HE damage and crushes armor. The IR Autolance can shred unshielded fighters, deal very good burst hull damage, and doesn't even bother wasting flux on shields. The Phase Lance is short-ranged but deals good hull damage and the Tachyon Lance is a long-range nuke. Then you have the point-defense beams: the PD Laser, LRPD, and Burst Lasers. The LRPD is the primary offender here because it has 80% of the range and 67% of the damage for 50% of the flux cost. It tracks better, as well. Its only downside is it costs 1 more OP. The one thing the Tac Laser has going for it is that in a PD role, it passes through missiles but that is faint praise.

In short, the Tac Laser has been passed by in the meta. It just doesn't offer anything above and beyond what other beams can do and they're not competitive even in the pretty milquetoast Small Energy slot. To put it another way, how many of you use Tac Lasers on Centurion or Hammerhead Hybrid slots? How many Tac Lasers go on your Scarabs or Medusa's? Do you put Tac Lasers on Furies or Auroras? When is having just a single Tac Laser worth firing at range to keep an enemy's shields up (and worth giving up your own 0-flux boost)?

What is the best use-case for a Tac Laser? A long-range Eagle Build? Contributing to an all-or-none, Disco Ball Paragon build? You used to be able to use Tac Lasers in an IPDAI + Advanced Turret Gyros combination on larger ships but IPDAI now takes an S-mod. Even then, it wasn't that great.

So what to do with them? Since every other beam does something now, I don't see why the Tac Laser shouldn't either. (As an aside, I kind of hate that the IR Autolance exists because that style of beam mechanic would have been very good for the Tac Laser. Something a bit more opportunistic, a little stronger against hull, but still generally useful.) Without changing the actual mechanic of the beam, though, how do you incentivize shooting one of these at an enemy? How do you bump up the supportive fire role it has?

Suggestion 1: Ramping Damage

My first immediate thought was to ramp up the damage on armor/hull the longer the beam stays on target. If you played Starcraft 2, you know about the Protoss Void Ray. It doesn't deal a lot of damage at first, but if it can stay on one target long enough, it has three stages of damage that get increasingly more devastating. I'm not saying do anything to that extreme for the Tac Laser but what if it doubled its damage against armor/hull (but not shields!) over a few seconds of firing on one target?

For example, a Tac Laser does 75 DPS (though only half that for the armor calculation), but as soon as it contacts armor or hull, it increases 5% per tick up to a full 100%. IIRC, beam damage occurs ~10x a second, so it would take 2 seconds to get to full damage. Since all it takes is a shield flicker or stray fighter to get in the way of the beam, it has the potential to reset fairly often, but getting the full damage shouldn't take too long, either.

Suggestion 2: Angry Flashlights

I'm also a fan of Warhammer 40k and Imperial Guard Lasguns are sometimes called "angry flashlights." They are notoriously underpowered at the individual level but when you get 10,000 Guardsmen all firing at the same thing? 

If you can get multiple Tac Lasers pointed in the same general vicinity on a ship's armor (like within 10 su), they amplify all damage to that armor cell by a small percentage (3%). This effect is multiplied by 5 for other Tac Lasers. So, in the case of an Eagle with 3 Tac Lasers in the small slots, they add 9% to all weapons hitting that armor cell but add 45% for the Tac Lasers themselves (~109 DPS each). The upper limit is 5 instances (so +15%/75% for the Tac Lasers). The amplifying effect has no effect on shields.

Suggestion 3: "Pulse" Laser

I experimented with making the Tac Laser "pulse", but do more damage (this would cause confusion with the Pulse Laser, I know). The Tac Laser stays at 75 DPS/60 Flux but has a .3 second duration with a .15 second chargedown. The actual beam DPS is 213 (Burst Laser is 350, for reference) and I improved its beam speed to 6500 (about twice as fast but not instant). Interestingly, it's terrible once you add range upgrades because the beam spends most of its time traveling and deals diminished damage. Seeing these things strobe everywhere might cause issues to our epileptic friends, though! It's very effective against unshielded frigates and fighters. My impression playtesting this is that it's too strong and perhaps too busy, visually, but it is working "within the framework" without any extra gimmicks. It does step on the toes of the IR Autolance to some degree.

Overall

I'm not convinced any of the above are great and I'd love to hear other ideas. Maybe the Tac Laser should stay as a ho-hum pressure weapon because if it ain't broke, don't fix it but I do know I rarely use them currently. I'd like to have a reason to.

15

Suggestions / Fleet Cap Penalty

« on: November 24, 2023, 09:42:11 AM »

I'm trying a "Zerg" approach in my latest run using Derelict Operations and Support Doctrine and currently have 25 Destroyers, 3 Frigates, an Atlas and a Prometheus but have hit the Fleet Cap with only 182 DP worth of combat ships. I have some Enforcers at 5 DP and a few Manticores at 8, but most of my Hammerheads, Sunders , and Tarsii are 6-7. That leaves nearly 60 DP, or about another 9-10 Destroyers, off the table for engagements, unless I go over the cap.

The Problem

The problem with going over the cap isn't the logistical hit (+20% of total supply cost of the fleet, per ship), since all my ships have 4-5 D mods and Derelict Operations/Makeshift Equipment lower it even more dramatically, it's the Burn Speed reduction. Each ship over reduces the maximum speed by 6.66%, and since we're working with whole numbers, any portion less than whole rounds down. I'm usually Burn 10 with Destroyers + Navigation but the moment you get one ship over, it gest reduced to 9. With a second ship, it's down to 8. The 3rd ship is actually exactly 80% so you stay at 8. By the 4th ship, it's down to 7. This absolutely kills any advantage I had to try to engage or disengage with my purposely-built fast/numerous fleet.

Suggestion

Support Doctrine and Derelict Operations should have some counter-balance to the Fleet Cap penalties, since they both actively reduce deployment point cost.

*Support Doctrine would raise the fleet cap to 35.
 
*Derelict Operations would reduce the over-the-cap penalty by 75% (+5% fleet supply cost increase per ship and 1.66% reduction in maximum burn speed per ship over the cap). +1 Burn speed for Burn speed calculation only to offset the rounding down effect (or maybe it could just be +1 Burn, a la Navigation, since it's a capstone skill? )

Support Doctrine's way around the cap is straightforward: you get 5 additional ships before penalty, but afterwards would see full cap hits. Derelict Operations pays additional (minor) maintenance fees through ship 35 but could keep pushing it further and further out before it becomes unmanageable, which is sort of the point of the skill. Both Support Doctrine and Derelict Ops wouldn't see a drop in burn speed until ship 36 but Derelict Ops wouldn't see another drop until ship 42.

For example, by the 40th ship:
Support Doctrine - +100% fleet maintenance cost, 67% maximum Burn
Derelict Operations - +50% fleet maintenance cost, 83% maximum Burn (+1)

All told, a Support Doctrine fleet probably doesn't go beyond 35 ships. A Derelict Ops fleet might go as high as 41. With both, as high as 46, but to fill that up without going over 240 DP is only 6 DP per ship, counting some logistic ships in there. Possible, but all small ships. I'm aware there may technical limitations to this suggestion. Putting 40 ships on screen might slow some CPUs, so I understand if this is a concern.

Obviously, the situation I'm bringing up is an edge-case, but I think these capstone skills should accommodate the extra DP space they naturally provide. I have since added Capitals and Cruisers to my run because the DP is there, but it kind of goes against the scenario I was trying to achieve.