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Topics - Hiruma Kai

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1
So I've got a three colony system, one with farmland and mining (size 4), another with heavy industry and pristine nanoforge (size 3), and the third on a gas giant with a mine for volatiles with a plasma dynamo (size). All 3 have Alpha core administrators.

I noticed my Tri-tachyon colony threat seems to list ore twice in the expanded window, which strikes me as a bug.  I only have once source of ore with 5 production.  Although I do have 6 organics production on that same world and wondering if the 1st listing should be organics instead?  Or does Tri-tach not care?

2
Neural Integrator says the deployment cost should be increased by 20%, but on the refit screen, in simulation, and on the fleet screen which reports total combat ship DP (as well as Automated ship DP), this does not seem to be happening.  This is RC7.  Converted Hangar works fine and seems to report the increased DP cost.

3
In the patch note thread, which was getting a bit off topic of being about the patch notes and more about individual ship balance, such as for Falcons and Eagles.  This is a fairly common and heated discussion, see for example:

Clipped Wings - An Eagle Thread: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=24989.0
Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=25686.315

Anyways, in the interests of moving the balance discussion of ships out of the patch notes thread, I'm starting this one.

In any case, Thaago posted a build:
For my current game I'm running a high tech frigate pack (yes I know it is not an original idea, but I hardly ever do it) but got a Falcon from a contact for very cheap so decided to use it. 2x Heavy Needler, 2x phase lance, 4x burst pd (partially for pd but mainly to poke things), 2x reaper, itu, advanced optics, missile autoloader, 30 vents, 17 caps. The autoloader is probably not the best bang for buck option, but I'm trying autotloader on all ships it is "optimal" on, so tempests, omens, falcons, eagles, etc to see how it does. It gives the ship 7 more reapers, which is an acceptable firepower upgrade from 2. The ships is happily tangling with Remnant cruisers and hasn't died yet and is an absolute bully against anything smaller. It is consistently the second most damage in the fleet after me (which it should be because its the biggest ship).

Keeping in mind, this is from what I'd call an early to mid-game fleet, which has different needs from an end game Ordo grind fleet, I stole the build and stuck it into a test fleet I've been using for Dominators and Champions.  However, Falcons are way too cheap at 14 DP to have enough officers, so I changed the composition to:
1 Afflictor, 2 Exectuors, and 9 Falcons (with 1 mercenary officer for the last one), clocking in at 236 DP.

So I threw it at an Ordo.  I recorded my first attempt (literal first attempt, no practice runs or doing multiple runs and picking the best) and posted it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FABIjW9p6eI

I'm not going to say the Falcons had a strong performance, merely that it is good enough to get the job done.  Given the issues with Dragonfire beam damage reporting with the Detailed Combat Reports mod, I'm not exactly sure how much I can trust the damage numbers at the end, although in theory the probably should apply both to the Executors as well as the Falcons, given they're both using beams for armor/hull damage.  Although, one needs to keep in mind the Executors are 50 DP, while if add 4 Falcons together it just passes that value at 56 DP, so really should be looking at average performance of 100 DP of Executors vs 126 DP of Falcons.

Also, I really, really need to stop trying to take out capitals with an Afflictor without range bonuses. :)

Second attempt included 3 Novas with same fleet.  Also, I need to remember Termination Sequence is a thing.  I also attach its after action report, and can post the video if people really want.

My thoughts are this is more of an early game Falcon build.  I think I'd want a build with a bit more range, better shield tanking, and maybe Unstable Injector for a bit more speed if I was really focusing on Ordo work.

4
General Discussion / Dominator and Dragonfire fun
« on: January 20, 2024, 03:14:54 PM »
So the patch notes thread had an interesting discussion on Dominator balance, and Mishrak kindly put together a video showing off Dominators with an RTS playstyle.  Rather than continue the discussion there, I figured it was better to pull it out to its own thread.

I lied and decided to make a video before the weekend.  Honestly, I'm a little more impressed with them as time has gone on.  When properly escorted they handle fairly well.  Burn drive also does a pretty decent job.  But then, as you'll see, my playstyle is a little more RTS-like.  I think they'd struggle if the playstyle was just set and forget.

This is just a single Ordo, but I've had similar fights against most of the different single Ordo setups - double Nova, Nova + Radiant, Double Radiant.  Also keep in mind that all my officers are 6 skilled with 2 elites.  My frigates all have random aggressive/reckless mercs in them.  The only Dorito weapons this fleet uses are two Cryoblasters: two of the Medusas have one each.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ0_uBGE97o

I'm more of flagship flying player who tends to set and forget, so I thought I'd test the fire and forget hypothesis out.  While I was at, I haven't done any serious fleet Dragonfire torpedo tests, and as it was mentioned the Expanded Missile Racks + Missile Specialization is likely overkill on Reapers.  However, that same setup is basically mandatory for Dragonfire.   Plus I was curious if the range band on the Dragonfires better matched the Mark IV and Heavy Maulers. 

So I used Console Commands to magic up an end game Dominator XIV heavy fleet.  An Executor, 6 Dominators, 5 Omens, 10 level 6 officers (no mercenaries, so no officers for 2 of the omens).  And a 5 skill flagship Afflictor.  Ran through an Ordo system a few times to scale up the enemy fleets a bit, and did a few runs at Radiant + 2 Nova single Ordos real quick.  Embarrassingly got my flagship shot up twice on the earlier Ordos without capitals, but the fleet finished them no problem.  After the warm ups, I apparently played better as I didn't lose the Afflictor against the actual capital heavy fleets.

I recorded one of the fights, to show off my poor Afflictor decision making (and flagship centric playstyle), along with showing what the Dominators could do without being micromanaged, but initially setup on a battle line.

It can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FrS3a-vThU

As far as I can tell, I wouldn't want to take the Dragonfires into a double or more Ordo, due to lack of sustain, but for typical single fleet play, they seemed OK to me.  I may have been a bit too much focusing on ensuring kills with them when I linked all 3, as there were times when fewer probably would have been better, or arrived late.  Or I stole a kill in my Afflictor. :)

Dominators didn't seem to have too much issue and stayed lined up for most of the fight.  I'll note I didn't take Auxiliary Thrusters on them, but did have Elite Impact Mitigation.  I was again curious if only a +55-60% manuever bonus was that big of hinderance.  I also had half with Targeting Analysis, and the other half with Combat Endurance.  I was curious if the +0/+10/+15/+20% damage was better than the +5% across the board damage and -5% damage taken.  Randomness of combat ended up having a larger effect than the difference in the skills.

One fun fact was the Mark IVs on fixed mounts with Armored Weapon Mounts and Gunnery Implants have like no spread.  It is kind of impressive watching 4 hits lands on a frigate out beyond 1000 units.

As for overall balance, they seem to work okay?  Certainly playing to their strengths, setting up a firing line and keeping the enemy fleet from flanking with escorts worked, while not being very heavy handed with the orders most of the fight.  Only losses the entire test run was my Afflictor, so the Dominators kept the Omens quite safe, and vice versa.

Attached are the combat reports for the 2 capital heavy fights.

5
Suggestions / Neural Link brainstorming
« on: August 17, 2023, 11:52:12 AM »
So I wanted to discuss ideas about Neural link a bit further, but the low DP challenge thread is probably not the best place for the discussion.  I quote Alex's response here, removing the spoiler tags since it is relevant here.

One question I have for Alex, what are your thoughts on the power of Neural link (and the OP costs, especially for Neural Integrator) given highly skilled fleet focused players can pull off stuff like this?  Neural Link is only an advantage in the hands of a highly skilled combat ship pilot, so I think it might be a fair high end comparison to compare to what a highly skilled fleet commander can do.

NI is definitely over-priced on the Nova, and NL in general I feel like could be designed in some other way; as is it's too fiddly for me to be totally happy with it.

One thing I've been thinking about is having it provide substantial combat stat bonuses, possibly instead of the "resetting the ship system" mechanic. I don't feel like it works that well tactically - there's too much "fighting against what the AI will do the second you leave" which there's no real good way to avoid that comes to mind. So it might be better as something a little more pulled back where it's a way to project your personal control around the battlefield. Heck, I could even see changing how it works quite substantially, from "press T to switch" to "can be used on an unlimited number of ships and makes transferring command faster/possible for automated ships", or some such. Some downsides to that, too, though - don't really want it to devolve into "transfer command to order a vent".

I do wonder, is transfer your command to vent actually too much?  It is good on low tech armor bricks, but otherwise, safe venting windows can be small, also can depend on Reapers.  Without the ability to position properly, if the ship is already backing off, you're shaving some seconds off before re-engaging, but I'm not sure it is all that amazing. Also, the low tech venting in your face is dependent on the presence of Reapers.

Although, some thoughts to mitigate it if free transfer whenever is too strong:

1) Prevent the fast transfer if the ship is actively venting.  This will lock you into a ship that isn't doing anything for a bit.
2) Have the system have a cooldown, like ship systems. 1 quick transfer every X seconds.  So jumping to the ship means you are committed to the ship for at least 10 seconds or something.  So its not just venting, but committing to that particular ship for a bit of time.  Increase the cooldown for Automated ships if you want.
3) Charged system where you have a maximum of X charges, and recharges 1 charge every Y seconds.  Again potentially limiting the amount of spammed jumping around.  Automated ships use 2 charges or something to jump to.

Assuming we're still restricting to ships with hullmods, I suppose more generic combat bonuses while the player is piloting could be made to work.  Although, I really wish the hullmod wasn't so expensive generally.  If we are talking about adding combat bonuses, I'd rather the bonuses be smaller, and the hullmod simply straight up cheaper.  However, there is an elegance to the switch to any ship you want, decoupling bonuses from a hullmod, allowing you to leave an officer or core in the ship to get the usual benefits when you've transfered out.

You could also just drop the switching ships schtick, and turn it into some kind of end tier personal combat skill that AI fleets simply can't get.  You put the hullmod on, yes, and only if the player is personally piloting the ship, you gets some strong set of bonuses (+15% damage, -15% damage taken, +15% speed or something), although that becomes just generic and not playstyle defining.  Maybe install an AI core with the hullmod, that gives 1 or 2 selectable elite skills that are only active if piloted by the player, allowing for much easier ship style swapping and experimentation.

6
So I've run a couple campaigns at this point and wanted to share some thoughts on the colony side of things.  A number of ideas have already been expressed by others here on the forums, but I'm going to try to synthesize an overall game design concept.  With the caveat, I don't know what the plans are for end game, which might render some of this moot.

It appears to me, players like to be rewarded, and dislike being punished or at least the appearance of punishment, for what should be gameplay progressing actions. Going out and exploring should reward the player in some way.  Spending time and credits on colonies should reward the player in some way.

What are the possible exploration and colony playstyles?

For exploration, which can be mixed between the two:
1) Go explore and sell everything for credits and skip colonization.  Do the gameplay, get credits, spend credits on a better fleet, and done.
2) Go explore, find colony system(s), find planet improving items, colonize with said items.  Gain the benefits of a place to store your stuff, as well as credits and building ships to improve your fleet.

The first style is somewhat bland, although more interesting than straight up trading.  I would like to suggest to improve the first option, and perhaps make it more appealing while making all those spare exploration items more useful than just plain credits, is that having an option in addition to just selling, treat them more like cores.  Make it so you can interact with a faction planetary governor or commander, just like with cores, and that the player can get credits, reputation, or perhaps a potential contact if sufficiently valuable (like a Pristine Nanoforge for example) that way, and the item gets sent to a faction world that can actually benefit, if possible.  Although probably only one contact via this method per faction, otherwise you might "give" it to them, raid for it, and "give" it to them again.  If a planet killer device can get you a very high contact, why shouldn't handing a Pristine Nanoforge to the Diktat (for example) not do something similar?

When doing the second style, having a found a colony item and being simply unable to use it or seeing the penalty for using it feels worse than not using it, feels bad from a player perspective, even if it potentially gives more overall benefit than the negative (hostile activity tracker penalties).  You get the positive hit of having found something rare, and then the realization, that what could have been valuable is just some spare credits.  So this gets more deeply into the Hostile Activity tracker and colonization styles.

Colonization styles:
Case 1: Player doesn't interact with the system at all.  They don't create colonies.
Case 2: Player just colonies randomly a single or few planets as way points, and lets them grow naturally without any heavy investment.  Perhaps builds and abandons techmining outposts.
Case 3: Player stays within human administrator limits and keeps each colony off the Pather's hit list (i.e. under the 7 or 8 Pather interest) or at least keeps it under what they can offset with bonuses.
Case 4: Empire builder who finds the right system and just colonies all the planets with alpha core administrators and every single item they've found.  Either they eat the tracker penalties or use the quest options to eliminate them.

I would step back, and ask what should the game reward the player for doing?  Should the player who goes out and grabs all the alpha cores and explores the entire sector have better colonies than the player who just avoids Pather interest and simply doesn't interact much with the system?  If so, then how can we have the system provide a clear reward.

My suggestion would be to make Military Bases and High Command even more expensive to maintain but let them stack for the Hostile Tracker (and potentially new trackers).  Make the decision be either live with access and stability penalties from the hostile tracker(s) or go full on military powerhouse and instead of having penalties reducing monthly revenue have higher monthly credit costs.  Which gives incentive to the empire builder to be fully self-sufficient, cutting potential military base upkeep costs by half.  Also makes low hazard worlds more attractive from a defense perspective.  So instead of having a size 6 High command cost 28,000 per month, make it more like 280,000.  Bump a size 6 Military base up from 20,000 to 200,000.  Or something like that, the exact numbers need playtest.  Make it so you need a full economy behind it, and the opportunity cost not be just a single economic industry being missing, but essentially take the slot and cost the profit of a second economy building to maintain as well.  Increase the net cost to build the High Command to a million or two.  It is easy enough to argue that sustaining a military to rival the Hegemony should be really, really expensive.  On the other hand, if you are sustaining a military to rival the Hegemony in a single system, you shouldn't have any problems with Pirate or Pather fleets.

So instead of have some kind of interaction with Pathers like the Planet Killer quest, you also could let your actions and colony choices speak for you.  Millions for defense, but not one cent in tribute.

So working backwards from how much you'd like to see an end game colony setup making in profit, I'd suggest adjusting industry and military slot costs for building, upgrading, and maintenance, based on the various potential setups.  Pather interest under the radar, so hostile activity tracker stays low, but industries make less.  Perhaps a single high command in such a setup to handle pirates supported from 4 human administer colonies.  Huge investment into cores and colony items, but going all industry and minimal military to just maximize raw credits and just accept the accessibility penalties and attack fleets.  Huge investment into cores and colony items, but also a huge expenditure on the military which reduces overall profits (in the same way accessibility and stability penalties affect profits), but feels more like the player has agency, even if the end profits are essentially the same, or maybe even less than eating the penalties option.

I would also suggest letting the Military Base upgrade to different specialization options.  Imagine instead of just a High Command, you could also pick something like Internal Security Headquarters, which gives less help to Pirates, but much more effective against Pather Cells and Pather interest.  Maybe also stronger against Tri-tach.  Or a Merchant Marine Hub which increases the military strength of any trade fleet that either leaves or goes towards your faction's colonies, or perhaps just flatly reduces the penalties for destroyed trade fleets on the colony.  Also being stronger against Pirates, but less effective against Pathers.  High command could be stronger against more traditional faction hostile activity trackers like the Hegemony or Diktat. 

This way if you make a deal with Kanta, you could specialize towards focusing on Pathers.  Or vice versa.  And if you don't want to kneel to either, then be a stander and pay a million credits per month to have the strongest military in the sector.  Install all the Alpha cores and build all the Internal Security bases and have a dystopian society where non-human AI cores are always looking over your shoulder, rooting out Pather dissidents (and perhaps any threats to the AI themselves).  Your very own AI run Diktat.

I think long term, splitting the Hostile Activity Tracker into different independent trackers makes sense, allowing for the possibility of clear reputational interactions.  I'd suggest a tracker for each faction would be the way to go, which is also influenced by the various reputation.  If you're sitting at -25 (suspicious), I think a faction should be more willing to send clandestine raids than if you're sitting at +80 cooperative, which could be a montly plus or minus on such a tracker.  You could also have the tracker take into account cross reputations.  If Tri-tach is at war with Hegemony, and you're at a high reputation with Hegemony, then a Hostile Activity tracker for Tri-tach could be growing faster because of "ally of my enemy", which might be partially offset somewhat by a smaller "my ally" bonus since you might also have high Tri-tach reputation.  Commissions could also play a factor in the trackers.  Same goes with Pirate and Pather reputations.  This would naturally make being allied with the Pirates a negative as essentially all the major factions would have an inherent hostility tracker increase all the time since you'd be an "ally of my enemy".  Maybe a bonus "ally of pirates" increase as well.

If you go this route, a link to related hostile activity tracker from the Faction screen would be nice.

7
I think this may be a bug, but not positive.

Start with only a flagship and a neural linked ship.  Hit T to transfer control to neural linked ship.  Get the neural linked ship blown up, not the flagship.  Get a message to hit X to transfer command to selected ship.  Which I cannot, since the flagship is the Afflictor I believe.  However, I cannot transfer command back.  I'm left with a fight I can not control the last ship directly, which ironically is my flagship, which I didn't think is an intended game play state.

This was tested with a neural interface and phase anchor Afflictor and Shade.

8
I was using a Neural Linked Radiant, with Afflictor as the other neural linked ship.  Ordered a capture of far objective for the afflictor, hit T to switch to Radiant, then later after objective captured, ordered the Afflictor to escort my piloted Radiant.  Upon getting close, it decided to use its ship system on my flagship.

I appreciate trying to make it a fairer fight, but still, I don't think this is intended. :)

9
I've been playing around with Proximity Charge Launchers a fair bit lately and have noticed a behavior where when mounted on turreted missile slots, they sometimes fire off at nearly 90 degrees towards incoming missiles and end up hitting allies on the same firing line.  Given the relative speeds and directions of the incoming missiles, these have zero chance to actually intercept anything and tend to do damage to adjacent ships.  I feel like they are not properly checking their field of fire, unlike direct fire weapons like Flak, which don't seem to try to fire through allies (usually).  In the same situation, a Devastator wouldn't try to fire through a Legion to get at the MIRV missiles.

Given these are HE point defense, they hurt a lot when they hit allies.

Simple examples can be shown by placing PCLs on an Onslaught and using the sim to go up against a Conquest.  You can also deploy an allied capital, get them even, and then spawn the Conquest. Not sure if the check firing lanes logic can be improved, or maybe PCL should be designed to safely detonate before hitting allies, which would waste ammo but at least doesn't have a chance to flame out friendly adjacent capitals.

10
Suggestions / Hand designed high end faction bounty fleets
« on: February 21, 2023, 01:19:14 PM »
I wonder if in addition to the Omega + Remnant bounty, if there shouldn't be some high end, one of a kind bounty fleet for each faction.  With the bounty provided by military contacts of other factions (i.e. Tri-tach could give any high end bounty except the Tri-tach themed bounty fleet).  Imagine them as bounties being put on successful independent mercenaries that have been commissioned by a faction (or maybe just a part of the military that has plausible denability).  And once done, they don't repeat.

With said ships in these fleets not only getting s-mods, but also hand picked loadouts and officers for maximum synergy to produce something akin to an Ordo difficulty, at least for certain fleet types.  This is in contrast to most fleets which tend to have at least somewhat RNG loadouts and officers.  It would an interesting way to show off the variation one can get in the game in terms of player fleets. 

A Hegemony capital heavy fleet that is virtually immune to missiles and fighters through sheer density of Devastator Cannon, Flak and Proximity Charge Launchers.  A Persean Conquest, Gryphon, and Heron missile and fighter focused fleet that requires you to have decent PD or else drown in flux free damage boosted by officers.  A fast Tri-tach Safety Override fleet (with officers with Combat Endurance, Hardened Subsystems, and Wolf Pack tactics on top) that hit and run with the best of them.  A plausible deniability Sindarin Diktat Lion's Guard fleet with their experimental weapons on complementary Tri-tach hulls.  A Luddic path fleet with each ship having 5 hand picked d-mods, with a leader with derelict operation and support doctrine skills.

Being one offs and only available via contact would make them an optional challenge that could make for some interesting end game variety with already existing ships and fittings, so less need for development.

11
General Discussion / Best and Worst random sleeper pod officers
« on: October 22, 2022, 08:39:26 AM »
Anyone who does even a little bit of exploration has run across them, random level 5 officers in barely functioning sleeper pods, or if you are lucky, one of the at most two per campaign level 7 (with 5 elite skills) officers.

I'm really curious how many players end up keeping those officers?  I suppose if it's early game and I'm still filling out my officer corps, I'll often just keep them until I hit officer cap, then fire them when I find a level 1 with a skill I want.  Although there are XP arguments to be made that sub-optimal officers early game reduce the leveling speed of the main character.

Essentially, I typically find the random selection is much worse than a personally leveled and skill picked officer, which means the opportunity cost of keeping a randomly found officer is too high.

I personally have a number of "must have" skills on particular ship classes, since they provide outsized benefits, often more than 2 other less applicable skills:

Combat Endurance on frigates or SO ships (for being able to last an entire fight)
Ordinance Expertise on most low tech ships (high OP, low base flux makes for a large proportional increase, like 40% more flux dissipation on an Onslaught)
Field Modulation (Elite) for phase ships (33% more phase time and can significantly reduce damage taken when flickering in and out)
Missile Specialization (Elite) for missile ships (Gryphon, Legion XIV) (biggest DPS boost in the game with 50% multiplicative, and 10% additive)
System Expertise for Dooms and skimmer ships (triple dipping charge, recharge and range bonuses on strong abilities)

Honorable mentions:
Helmsmanship or Elite Impact Mitigation on capitals (typically combined with Auxiliary Thrusters, otherwise capitals just turn too slowly for my taste)
Target Analysis (+20% damage to the highest armor targets in the game)

So it's quite easy for me to have a built-up set of officers, find a random level 5 that has none of the key skills or perhaps has conflicting skills (Energy Weapon Mastery on a bunch of armor/hull tanking skills).

The level 7 officers always feel particularly weird.  They are rare (only 2 per game) which means in some campaigns I never see them.  I know in some runs I have found both, and fired both immediately upon discovery.  I think I've kept a grand total of one level 7 officer to end game across all my runs, when I was running officer management, as I think it was approximately worth a level 6 officer in the ship and I capped out at level 5s normally.

It's just weird finding one of the rarest things in the game and realizing it is kind a useless to you or worse, you have to rework your fleet to make use of them.  To take an example, my latest run is a Hegemony theme.  Grabbed the commission early, using mostly low tech, with a few midline ships like Hammerheads.  And then I find a steady level 7 officer with Elite Helmsmanship, Elite Impact Mitigation, Target Analysis, Elite Ballistic Mastery, Elite Systems Expertise, Elite Missile Specialization, and Energy Weapon Mastery.  So retraining for a story point can bump the Steady up to Aggressive if I want, along with reassigning some of the elite choices, but the skill spread is a bit eclectic.  Since I've got officer training, my end point comparison is a level 6 officers/2 elite skills, which is the opportunity cost he is being compared against.

Lack of Combat Endurance means frigates and SO ships are out.  Lack of Ordinance Expertise means low tech cruisers and capitals are out.  No Field Modulation means phase ships and dedicated shield tankers are out (so most of high tech).  He looks like it wants to be a fast armor tanker of some form, with a good ship system and all weapon types (if it doesn't use ballistics, missiles and energy weapons it might as well just be a level 6 officer).  I considered a Conquest, but that really wants Field Modulation (to help with it's terrible shield) and Gunnery Implants (to help capitalize on its range and speed).  So I think that just leaves a Champion (which is still a shield tanker but its base armor is higher than a Conquests), although even then I think I'd have preferred gunnery implants somewhere in the mix.  Longer range ballistics and wanting to be closer for the energy weapon mastery just don't mix well.

So some kind of Integrated Targeting Unit, Heavy Armor, Expanded Missile Racks, Unstable Injector, Heavy Autocannon or Needler + Plasma Cannon build with missile of choice?  Was originally aiming for 5 capitals (3 Onslaughts XIV, 2 Legions or Legion XIVs if I find them), 4 Enforcers XIVs, 2 unofficered SO+UI Kites.  Trying to wedge a Champion to take advantage of this officer means something like 2 Onslaught, 2 Legions, 2 Champions, 3 Enforcers I think, along with a kite I guess?  And means upping my exploration game to try to find two Legion XIVs to really start stacking large missiles in fleet.  And starting from scratch on a different officer to rank up another midline cruiser officer.

So what have people's luckiest rolled officers been?  And what's the best and worst level 7 officer you've seen?  Have you changed your fleet composition for a good level 7 officer, or end up just firing them?

Edit:  Just as I say I need to find Legion XIVs, literally next system over has a Legion XIV floating there.  I should complain more on the forums to improve my derelict finds. :)

[attachment deleted by admin]

12
Currently, the combat readiness mechanic (CR) has some non-intuitive effects.  Normally, having a low % CR reduction per deployment is a good thing, representing a rugged and reliable ship that is easy to maintain.  It means you can deploy more times consecutively.  However, this benefit gets turned into a disadvantage when a ship is destroyed.  By going directly to 0% CR, you essentially empty out the "supplies tank" of CR that you have stored.

If a ship loses 10% CR per deployment, and spend 4 supplies to restore that much, their CR tank effectively holds 40 supplies.  A ships that loses 20% CR per deployment and spend 4 supplies to restore that much has a CR tank that effectively hold 20 supplies.  Destruction hurts the 40 supply stored in CR ship more than the 20 supply stored in CR ship.  It also means that skills that increase maximum CR increase the amount of effective supplies stored in the CR tank, making it a disadvantage when destroyed.

A similar issue crops up with hull restoration.  If you have a high percent recovery rate of CR per day, such that it only take you 1.25 days to restore one deployment's worth of  CR, you'll be paying 80% of your deployment cost per day of hull repairs, even if your CR is at full.  If you have a low percent recovery rate of CR per day, such that it takes you 2 days to restore your CR, you'll be paying 50% of your deployment cost per day of hull repairs.  On a per deployment point basis, low tech ships are more expensive to repair than high tech ships - despite being expected to take more hull and armor damage even in successful fights.

A damaged Onslaught pays 10 supplies per day when restoring hull and armor.  An Odyssey pays 9 supplies per day to restore hull and armor, despite having a deployment cost 5 bigger.

So what if instead of having the penalty of having a hull transition from 1 to 0 be a dropping of CR to 0% no matter what it was, to be only dropping by one additional deployment's worth?  Mechanically, hull and CR are tracking two different things, otherwise being at 1% Hull and 90% Cr wouldn't make much sense.  This change makes the penalty proportional to deployment points directly, as opposed to also dependent on stats which are supposed to be beneficial, not harmful.

This eliminates the excessive penalty applied to ships are supposed to be rugged and easy to run, and puts them on the same playing field as other ships in their class, given the already flat time across class to restore hull from 0%.

One could also imagine having a repair cost per day separate from CR cost restoration per day, and using the higher value of either when both hull is damaged and CR is down.  So instead of paying 80% of the deployment cost per day when it takes 1.25 days to restore one deployment's worth of CR, it could be separated out to be, say, 50% of the deployment cost per day.  You spend 80% if you are doing both or just restoring CR, and 50% when just repairing.  Admittedly, this adds an additonal statistic, but it would be pretty straight forward to understand and does provide a meaningful mechanics difference.

The thing I like about this idea is it in fact makes it possible to have a ship be both easy to run and easy to repair, which is currently not possible due to how the various CR and restoration stats are linked.  Field repairs could change to have recovered ships restore their CR per deployment value, instead of the current minimum of 30-40%.

13
Suggestions / Super ping
« on: January 17, 2022, 12:40:46 PM »
Sometimes people have issues with finding mission or quest objects far out on the edge of a system, potentially spending far more real life time than is probably fun.  I'd like to propose an alternative usage mode for the neutrino detector skill.  Currently, we have a mode of operation where it costs a low amount of volatiles per day, and produces some ghost readings and very weak readings for very distant objects.

One could imagine instead of this low level passive operation, a high usage active mode that acts more like an extra strong sensor ping, briefly jumping sensor strength up to system wide, assuming it was activated at the center, with a much higher volatiles cost.  Say, something like 100 or 200 (equivalent to 25,000 to 50,000 credits, plus tax). 

If you want to severely limit it, you could instead (or in addition) make it cost a story point.

Essentially, provide a short cut, but at a significant in game cost.

If you want to still make some systems a mystery, you could require an interaction with a star (similar to how interacting with a star with an alpha core in the hold can generate a new stable point), making the star the source of the ping, which would allow systems without stars to still force players to do a manual search.  If tool tips indicated said detection skill had an interaction with a star, that might actually naturally lead players to realizing they have the ability to add a stable point as well.

14
I wanted to provide some feedback on the different campaigns I've done in 0.95.1a, each with a different skill focus.

Run number 1: Hyperions and the Personal Radiant Run (started prior to RC6, but continued through)
Combat 5: Combat Endurance, Impact Mitigation, Field Modulation, Target Analysis, Systems Expertise
Leadership 2: Wolfpack Tactics, Crew Training
Technology 8: Navigation, Gunnery Implants, Energy Weapon Mastery, Electronics Warfare, Flux Regulation, Cybernetic Augmentation, Neural Link, Automated Ships

End game fleet: Radiant (Flagship), Hyperion (Flagship), 2x Odyssey, 4x Hyperion, 3x Alpha Core Glimmer

Summary:  Doesn't really come together until level 13 (Systems Expertise + Neural Link + Automated Ships) but when it does, it feels totally worth it.  System Expertise Radiants are just that good.

"Long comments"
For 0.95.1a, for my first run, I decided on a general playthrough, going with the flow, but with the aim to try out at least one new mechanic.  Which I decided was going to be neural link plus Radiants.  Early on I found a Hyperion on sale, and shortly after, 2 more.  Eventually got a 300k ship building mission offer, and bought 3 more.  This was before the hotfix came through raising the prices, so they were 80k a pop at the double price.  The price increase definitely felt warranted.

So anyways, if the game hands you 6 super frigates, you go Wolfpack Tactics.  Started with a bit of exploring, a bit of Galatia missions, and bit of bounties.  Grabbed some Herons with Daggers to provide some extra HE oomph behind the 6 Hyperions.  Eventually took down a Paragon and salvaged it with 3 d-mods.  By this point was finishing up the Galatia story line, got the Zig and stashed it, and finally got the red planet mission.  Lucked out and salvaged the Radiant from that, and was off and running with a Neural Linked Radiant.  Which initially wasn't as awesome as I expected.  Colonized a cryosleeper system in the farthest corner of the sector (-28% isolation penalty, plus -13% for pirate/pather hostilities), and started to farm mid-tier bounties (200-300k).  Finally hit level 14 and System Expertise which started to make piloting the Radiant feel really good.  The extra speed and manueverability provided by more and faster charges makes it handle just about right to me.

Went through a number of fleet iterations, trying different combinations with the Radiant.  Paragon, Herons, Hyperions.  Swap in some Furies.  Swap in some Apogees.  Swap out Paragon and carriers for Odysseys.  Trade Hyperion for 3 alpha core Glimmers.  They were all Ordo capable, and values at least felt in the ballpark.  Things still might need some tweaking, but from a top level overview, overall DP valuations seem OK and not enough to prevent good performance in late game campaign fights.

By the way, Heavy Blaster SO Glimmers have a nasty damage output for their 5 DP (rivaling that of 15 DP Hyperions), but they do have a much higher rate of destruction than Hyperions, generally see one blown up each Ordo fight.  Did all the end game fights. While I took some losses against the Ordo + super redacted mission, I still felt comfortable in final margin of victory with the neural linked Radiant, 2 Odysseys, 5 Hyperions and 3 alpha Glimmers.  Basically the only order I gave during the fight was harass the super redacted ship.

Overall, despite the 50 OP neural integrator and two Tier 5 skill tax, the Radiant still felt worth it, and was typically dealing 40% of the fleet's damage, and more than triple an Odyssey's prorata DP contribution according to the Detailed Combat Results mod.
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Run number 2: Iron man spacer start with Hull Restoration and Best of the Best (aka "Who needs Technology and Combat Endurance?")
Combat 5: Impact Mitigation, Field Modulation, Target Analysis, Ballistic Mastery, Missile Specialization
Leadership 5: Tactical Drills, Crew Training, Carrier Group, Officer Training, Best of the Best
Industry 5: Field Repairs, Ordiance Expertise, Polarized Armor, Containment Procedures, Hull Restoration

End game fleet: 2x Onlsaught (XIV), 2x Legion (XIV), Eagle (XIV), Fury, Afflictor, 2x Scarab, 2x Omen (no officers)

Summary: Officers feel like level 7 or 8, getting +15% CR on top of an extra hullmod.  Ordinance Expertise on all officers is probably better than Flux Regulation.
Also, ballistics with +5+10+10+20=+45% damage against capitals feels nice.

"Long comments"
Next run was to test out the iron man spacer option and see if the Industry tree was up to the task of keeping me going.  First mission I took in my trusty kite (S) was a spy satelite mission offered in Corvus.  2 minutes later success earned me a high importance military contact on Jangala.  Prioritized them and kept stopping by for cheap ships.  Eventually got offered Dominator (XIV), Onslaught, and eventually an Onslaught (XIV) through them.  Best contact ever.

Unfortunately, early spending on "relatively cheap" capitals and maybe a mistake or two in a combat caused significant cash flow issues, so I had to sign up with a Hegemony commission for a time to make ends meet.  While the Field repairs plus Hull Restoration combination at level 5 helped a lot, it still didn't solve the issue of getting half your fleet blown up and paying for supplies and crew to get back up to nominal CR.  Normal game probably wouldn't have been an issue, but a difference of a free 15,000 credits a month versus a 30,000 credit debt per month (at mid levels) can be significant early on.

The eventual combination of Best of the Best, Hull Restoration, and Level 6 officers felt like level 7 or 8 officers because I was able to take Ordinance Expertise instead of Combat Endurance, plus the extra hull mod being worth something like a skill (Hardened Shields is like Field Modulation, Auxilliary Thrusters is like Helmsmanship for capitals ships, etc).  And the fact I didn't really care too much if a ship blew up let me play much looser and risky.  It still hit the wallet, but 20,000 credits to restore CR on an Onslaught (XIV) is a lot cheaper than 1,000,000 credits to restore d-mods.

Containment Procedures made adding a buch of Ox tugs to increase burn speed relatively painless, allowing me to compensate partly for the lack of Navigation.  The fleet sensor profile is crazy large by default, but even so was still able to separate Remnant fleets with the base 10 burn speed.  Also spending a few story points let me grab insulated engine assembly and efficiency overhaul on the tugs, which makes it about as bad as just having Capitals in general. 

Top end of the fleet ended up being two Onslaught (XIV) and two Legion (XIV), although the later took a bit of exploring though.  Was using basic Legions prior to those finds.  That combination seems to work well for me, and typically each is doing 15-18% of the damage dealt in the fleet, along with 13-20% of the prorata DP.  The Onslaught personally piloted was around 40% damage dealt.  Frigates used mostly have been Scarabs and Omens, along with a token Afflictor.  Middle of the grouping has been switched a lot, trying a Dominator (XIV), Eagles (XIV), Falcon (XIV), Furies, and Eradicators. 

This testing was post flux bump on the Eagles and Falcons, but still haven't really found a nice punchy build I'm happy with on them.  They can stall and distract with long range beams + hypervelocity + heavy mauler, but I generally feel that's better done by frigates.  Eradicators feel solid through the middle game, I think start to lose some of their shine when up against late game foes, which perhaps makes sense for a "light" low tech cruiser.  SO Furies still feel the same, if a bit more expensive.

Overall, I liked this run, and felt the synergy was cool and powerful, and happily proved Technology isn't a must have.
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Run number 3: Neural link test with  Afflictor and Onslaught
Combat 5: Combat Endurance, Impact Mitigation, Field Modulation, Target Analysis, Missile Specialization
Leadership 2: Wolfpack Tactics, Crew Training
Technology 5: Navigation, Gunnery Implants, Flux Regulation, Phase Coil Tuning, Neural Link
Industry 3: Field Repairs, Ordinance Expertise, Polarized Armor

Fleet: Afflictor (Flagship), Onslaught XIV (Flagship), Onslaught XIV, 2x Legion XIV, 2x Hyperion, 2x Medusa, 2x Scarab

Summary:  I wanted to like Neural link on it's own, but the skill is clearly a late addition to the game, and doesn't neatly fit into the overall game experience.  There are a host of minor but annoying interactions that keep it from being good, on top of what seems like penalities this skill has that no other skill does, presumably to keep it in check.  Overall, trying to use it in campaign actually feels like it makes the fleet weaker, as opposed to even simply doing no net harm and merely being a skill pick opportunity cost.

Side note: This was also my first run in 0.95.1a using Medusas, and realizing they may have been power crept by their nearest competitors.  I feel like 360 degree shield capable ships used to be speical back in the day, but now we've got Shrikes, Scarabs, Hyperions, Furies, Auroras, and Odysseys which are all fast with manueverability systems and can get 360 degree shields.  Omens, Apogees, Astrals, and Paragons naturally have 360 degree shields.  The only things in the high tech lineup that can't are Wolves, Tempests, and Medusa.  I wonder if the Tempests and Medusa might be due for a shield arc increase, especially now that AI controlled Tempests can throw away their PD.  Medusas do drop their shields when they skim, so I probably wouldn't go with a front shield on AI Medusas, but would it hurt to bump the Medusa's shield arc from 120 to 150 to match the rest of the line up these days?

"Long comments"
I went into this run wanting to try neural link by itself, and grabbed an afflictor early.  The problem was, I could really justify using neural link to switch to other frigates or destroyers early game.  And switching between two Afflictors didn't feel helpful because of the setup and positioning requirements.  Might as well just sit in one, and not bother spending the skill point and losing 600 flux capacity on two afflictors.

I will say I did use the new neural reset feature, but the times when a double burn drive on an Onslaught felt actually meaningful as opposed to simply amusing were few.  I mean, sure I could catch a fleeing frigate on occassion, but typically it's better simply to issue a Hyperion or Scarab an eliminate order, and focus the firepower of a capital on the front line.  You're still not winning any manueverability battles with an Onslaught.  As for the Afflictor, the anti-matter blasters and needing to vent in between each attack run set the cadence more so than the ability.  There were times when I'd switch in when the ability was already running, and need to vent to stop it (potentially while at high soft flux from the AI using the anti-matter blasters) and then switch out/in back again to do the reset in order to then use it on the target I wanted.  So I was able to use the reset in that case, but it wasn't quick.  When that happens, it kills any sense of responsive coordination.  Now this didn't happen every time, but it happened occasionally enough that it was a minor irritation.

Overall, it feels like the neural link skill and the nature of the game seem to be fighting:
1) I see no way to change the aggressiveness of the AI controlled neural linked ship.  Which I think means it defaults to steady, which makes it not a great choice for SO ships, for example, and tends to make it backoff where I'd want it to push forward.  Similarly, I typically prefer at least aggressive on my capital ships.  Despite being able to switch, I can't actually control both ships simultaneously.  If I try to switch rapidly to force both, I wind up with ships basically moving forwards (when I'm in control) and backwards when I'm trying to get the other ship into an too aggressive position for the AI.  It's even worse if my ships go over the 50 DP limit, at which point I can spend a variable number of seconds each transfer in control of neither ship.

Suggestion: Add an ability to set the player's autopilot aggressiveness on the officer screen, similar to how we choose officer aggressiveness.  Bonus if that same choose an aggressiveness screen also applies to alpha/beta/gamma core ships.

2) Different ship types want different skills, but it's hard to have enough points everywhere to pick optimal for distinctly different ships.  Afflictor and Onslaught are both armor tankers, and benefit from more flux, but I had to choose between Gunnery Implants (Onslaught) and Energy Weapon Mastery (Afflictor).  Similarly, Field Modulation is a must have for a phase ship, while I might have preferred Ballistic Mastery for the Onslaught (typically I'm maxing soft flux, not hard flux from the shield).  So peak capability for each ship is lowered compared to specializing in just one.

3) If the AI gets the other ship killed (generally the Afflictor) it feels *terrible*.  Now I'm stuck with an Onslaught which is down a hullmod, and no in battle benefit left.  And said loss of ability isn't even necessarily my fault (although it probably is).  I could pack additional ships with neural link, but then that means having excess over 240 DP in case a ship dies, diluting fleet skills, and it's a sub-optimal ship if I deploy it because some other ship got destroyed, since it's down a hull mod (or flux stats).

4) If I order the Afflictor to escort my Onslaught to keep it out of trouble, it does so, but when I take control of it, the AI will assign a different ship to escort, which is something I don't actually want.  And then when I switch back to the Onslaught from the Afflictor, the escorting ship (which likely didn't even reach me) will reverse direction and try to go back to what it was doing, which feels really inefficient.  And micromanaging the Afflictor/Onslaught combination with engage command points just feels unfun compared to my more hands off combat style.  It forces me to pause more and pay more attention to the command map, since if I don't, there's the posibility of the AI being way out of position when I want to use it.  It also eats command points rapidly.

5) Interaction with transfer command at the beginning of battle has anti-synergy, because now you've got ships with the inverse of best of the best (i.e. down a hull mod equivalent) applied but no compensating benefit.  Unlike any other skill in the game, this one doesn't transfer with you or apply to your whole fleet.  You have to pre-prepare at a dock (or else eat a bunch of CR hit, which is arguably just as big or even larger penalty right before combat).

6) If you are running iron man and actually lose a fight, and one of the neural linked ships goes down, you're out of luck on using your skill until you get back to dock, or take an even further CR hit to add the hullmod.  It's just extra penalty on top of the penalty of losing the ships in the first place.

7)I'm curious what the idea behind the switch delay for ship combinations over 50 DP is?  Encourage you to use small ships with the skill?  As it stands, if you're just using it for a spare officer, the jump delay doesn't really prevent that, and well, the steady AI typically prevents real close coordination for time sensitive combos.  It certainly kills any ability associated with the neural reset, as having zero player input for 10 seconds (from switch in and then out - or worse, the ability is in use so you have to switch two more times for like 20 seconds down time) feel like a way higher cost than reseting an ability on even a 60 second cooldown (like from a carrier).

I can solo some intel bounty fleets in an Odyssey for example, but I can't duo them with this skill.  The partner is just generally going to get killed, so I'm not seeing how this could have high end duo applications.  You're always going to need a fleet to help the AI of the ship you are not piloting at the moment, so it doesn't really push the boundries of what a "solo" player can do.  Chain deploying is going to be better.  Or maybe it requires a higher level of player skill than I can muster to get that benefit.

Overall, I don't see why the skill warrants say, losing 50 OP spread over two capitals and potentially negating the best part of the skill (neural reset) which isn't even that strong, when used with over 50 DP worth of ships.  With the improvements to mercenaries (1 story point every 2 years) and the fact that Automated ships is literally the other side of tier 5 technology selection which provides one or more elite level 8 officers on good to amazing ships, means the extra, potentially high level officer doesn't feel worth it assuming you don't bother switching.  Neither your neural linked ship, nor the cored ships help with officer DP determination at the start of combat, for example, so might as well go the automated ship route and grab an Alpha Radiant.

I'll also note you are incentivized to stick a Combat Endurance officer in the other neural linked ship, and pull them out every time you're about to enter combat because Combat Endurance from your character doesn't apply to that ship.
 
Perhaps others have had better results with it, but mostly it felt frustrating to try and leverage it to actually improve the strength of the fleet.  I like the concept, but I'm not sure how to make it actually work in such a way as to actually be a significant benefit.  I can't justify a 5-10% OP penalty on any ship you might even want to try to use it on, which is unlike any other skill in the game, since they don't actually cost power off of ships.  At worst, all other skills might take other resources (credits/story points) and raise the peak power of ships, but none of them actively require you to lower it.  The cost to even try to use it effectively a negative skill (5000 flux on an Onslaught is roughly the same as non-Elite field modulation in terms of damage absorption), which implies it needs to be at least twice as good as any personal skill - which it doesn't feel like to me.

Except maybe in the case of self piloting a Radiant, like my 1st play through.  But I feel a good skill should be able to stand on it's own merit.
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15
See attached images, but estimated recovery costs for individual hounds in this case, do not match the overall estimate.  21+13+13+19=66 versus 88.  Overall estimate matches what the fleet screen shows, and is close to what I'd expect the actual cost to be.  I'd expect overall cost to be 87 (30+19+19+19),but there might be some rounding in there going on.  Character had Crew Training and Support Doctrine skills, for a max 100% CR on most ships.  The character had no industry skills.

Secondly, all three of the hounds with d-mods should have the same recovery cost, but that is not reflected on the recovery screen, which reports 13, 13, and 19.  On the fleet screen, all 3 d-modded ones (both the 2 and 3 d-mod ships) had Increased maintenance dropping max CR to 95%, and reported 19 supplies needed to fully repair and restore.  So the pristine hound should have reported 30 supplies, or 21 if it doesn't take into account player skills.  The d-mod hounds should have reported either 19 (if it takes into account skills and d-mods), 14 (if it doesn't take into account skills or d-mods), or 13 (if it just takes into account d-mods).

It is weird that it is reporting both 13 and 19 for two ships with the same cost to recover on the fleet screen.

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