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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Topics - solardawning

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1
General Discussion / Love the Colony Crisis system!
« on: February 12, 2024, 11:36:34 AM »
I started playing Starsector in the release before colonization was added. The addition of colonies mechanically was great, but for several releases never felt like it had any presence in the world; it was just a base for the player and eventually a massive economy 'win condition' by giving you essentially unlimited income and production.

Things were toned down a bit with balancing changes and the size cap to 6, but colonies still stuck out to me even more as ill-fitting after more and more story elements have been added into the game; you're more a part of the world and factions, but they didn't react in any way to the fact that you were setting up an independent polity of your own (and one that, for that matter, grows quickly in power and resources!).

The new Crisis system really feels like it's addressed that, and in a spectacular way. These aren't about slowing or hindering the player (rather the opposite, since it seems that most of them give you a way to get permanent buffs for your colony!), instead they're about integrating your colonies into the story and achieving recognition from the existing factions.
This is exactly what colonies needed to feel natural.

So far I've played through Pirates, Pather, Tri-Tach, and Persean League crisis events.
I took Pirates the simple way- just defeated the attack head on. But knowing that I had other routes to deal with it (striking a deal with the station king? A deal with Kanta?) made this feel better than the prior pirate raid system did, which was much more endless.

Pathers felt like it had the highest stakes: this was the only one that can wipe a colony out? I started the Scythe of Orion quest and got the planetkiller as a backup; but then decided not to use it and took the fleets heads on. This was also great; in the prior release we only had the story option to give them the planetkiller to diffuse Pather presence, but now you can choose the climactic battle option if you feel ready for it.

Tri-Tach was the absolute best. It really punched up the feeling of options available; I love that the (best? out of many possible) answer is "teach them that if they mess with you, you'll mess back". It gave a strong reason to put together a small raiding fleet and blast in and disrupt industries on every TT market; and then pick up a deal from a position of strength.

As each of these happen, resolving it feels like you've earned permanent acknowledgement from the factions that you are part of Sector politics now. No longer just some random pile of markets serving purely as a player base due to mechanically needing one, but fully integrated into and acknowledged by the story.

This doesn't feel like a minor release to me- it really expands on the past few releases of story involvement and progression.

Nice work. :)

2
Comparing the Rift Lance/Beam/Rift Cascade line of Omega beam weapons:

Rift Beam triggers small 'Rifts' along the beam that deal 200 Energy damage in a small AoE.
Rift Cascade Emitter triggers similarly appearing rifts at the point of impact then wrapping around a target, dealing large Energy damage in a small AoE.
Rift Lance... visually, it has the same Rift effect occurring at the tip of the beam, however there's no energy AoE.

It's a neat visual, but appears as an inconsistency here since it doesn't have an actual effect.
Looking at the weapon files- it looks like it's set up in much the same way as the Rift Beam, with a 'minelayer' projectile to describe the rift itself, and that has its own entry in the weapon_data.csv; but changes made to those have no impact in game.

Just musing- is this something Alex thought about but either reverted or left unimplemented?

3
The 'Safeguard' ships are unique- with only one chance to acquire them during the game.
The Onslaught and Legion have 'Reinforced Bulkheads', ensuring they're recoverable by the player, but the other ships don't- leaving it up to a roll of the dice.

In practice, I'm finding that I'm saving before this battle... and then replaying it over and over until I have a 'satisfactory' amount of them recoverable. I'm seeing others on the Discord chatter about having the same habits.

Any time the player is presented with a special, unique thing that can only be acquired at one point in the game, but the acquisition is left up to chance (as recovery after combat is here), the game mechanics encourage the player to do something non-intuitive and unfun- namely, reload and replay the same battle over and over until they get 'lucky' enough and are satisfied.

I'd ask you to consider adding 'Reinforced Bulkheads' to the loadouts of each of these ships, so that players are likely to have all of them available without having to re-play the battle numerous times.

Thank you for your consideration!

4
Bug Reports & Support / Task Force (Spoiler) and Automated Ships
« on: May 07, 2023, 11:41:25 AM »
Spoiler
Possible Bug A:
The Task Force Safeguard Automated XIV ships are automated, with the Automated Ship hullmod; however despite the hullmod description, when recovered these ships do not require the Automated Ships player skill, are not affected by its CR limit, or factor into the Automated Ships fleet point limit for other (Remnant) Automated ships the player may have.

This feels like it may be intended- because this is a really neat and epic unique boss fight, and it makes these ships into a unique endgame reward in the same vein as the Ziggurat and Omega weapons. They wouldn't have nearly the same level of special feel and impact if they used the same mechanics.

If A is intended, and not a bug, then -
Bug B:
The Automated Ship hullmod's text describes the normal AI ship and fleet point mechanic, but it does not apply to these ships.

Suggestion- They could probably use a new version of the Automated Ships hullmod explaining that while they're automated, they don't require the same special expertise to maintain and operate that the AI Remnant ships do.

(My brain goes to something like a 'AI Retrofit' hullmod, explaining that while these ships have been retrofitted to remove crewed systems and be piloted by an AI core, the familiar and robust low-tech systems of the ships don't require special knowledge to maintain, unlike ships originally designed with/for AI use.)
[close]

5
After completing the tutorial, I went to Gilead (instead of straight to Corvus), visited the shrine, gained the notification/mission to visit all the shrines, then went to Jangala in Corvus. I believe I recall seeing the option to visit the shrine then- I either did not click it, or clicked it and then selected to leave and come back later.

Now, later- I've visited all five other shrines. Jangala is the only one listed as incomplete. I have no option to visit the shrine when docking at Jangala.

6
Suggestions / Switch between ships in refit screen w/ keyboard
« on: February 04, 2019, 03:53:34 PM »
I often find myself making small changes to many ships at a time, and wishing I could just swap to the next one in the list with down or up on the keyboard, or even PgUp & PgDn. Those keys aren't used for anything currently on the refit screen, so why not let them cycle through ships?

7


Image inline.
On the left is my fleet at a natural Burn 20, consuming 155 fuel/day.
On the right is the same fleet, moments later, right after touching a lightning strike.

The fuel counter continues going up with speed over 20.

I had assumed this was intended, but noticed that the 0.9 release notes state otherwise: "Speed beyond burn level 20 does not cost extra fuel"

8
When examining a ship in your fleet, the player can see discounts to monthly supply cost from the skill Fleet Logistics II, as well as the Efficiency Overhaul mod, if installed.
Similarly, fuel cost per lightyear shows a discount if Efficiency Overhaul is installed. However, it does not display a discount if the player has the Navigation II skill.

Expectation: Skills that affect fuel/LY on ships in the players' fleet should be reflected in the UI, and always show the final (current) value.

9
When you build an Orbital Station at a colony, the station is generated with the name "(Colony Name) Station"

If the player then changes the colony name, the station will keep it's old name, and they no longer match.
To fix this, you have to deconstruct and rebuild the station.

It'd be nice to be able to rename the station independently of the colony, anyways.

10
General Discussion / ECCM question:
« on: December 21, 2018, 01:44:34 PM »
If a carrier has ECCM installed, do fighters/bombers equipped on the carrier get the missile speed and maneuverability bonus from the carrier's ECCM modspec?

11
If you colonize a gas giant and rename it, the gravity well on the hyperspace map doesn't update to match the new name.

12
I just had a 10 minute nightmare combing Penelope's Star to find where the pirate base was hidden. There's worse systems it could happen in; when you get an utterly huge system, getting close enough to the base to find it can take ages and require a systematic search pattern.

Both for gameplay sanity's sake and sensible lore reasons, can starbases please pop on the map as soon as you enter their system? They're not exactly running silent- they're a nexus of smuggling and trade, or in the case of Luddic Path, military construction and armament. They're swarming with fleets and, presumably, radio chatter. Entering the star system should really be enough to locate them.

Edit to add:
I think the reason this feels bad is because there's no element of surprise or discovery to this search. You already know the base is in the system, because as soon as you entered you can see the Pirate (or LP) claimed nav beacons/etc. In a small system you'll locate the base right away, so there's no problem. But in extremely large systems... it's just a chore. A similar case is when you do a 'scan a derelect' mission, and it's one of the 'somewhere in the far reaches of the system', and you enter the system and it turns out to be a huge one... it's better just to give up then to keep going.

13
Suggestions / Allow player to write notes on the sector map
« on: December 03, 2018, 10:14:56 PM »
I regularly find myself wishing I could place down a map pin on a system with a note to myself.
Whenever I find a system with interesting habitable worlds, or an untapped Vast Ruins, I want to have an easy way inside the game to mark it.

Suggestion:
Give the player a method to place a pin on a star on the sector map. Ideally, there would be several different pin colors/shapes/icons to choose from.
Clicking on the pin would let the player add/edit a note (write whatever they like in), or remove the pin.

14
I stole an Onslaught XIV blueprint from the Hegemony on Chicomoztoc, right clicked it, got a message saying added, but it did not get added to the ship lists under either doctrine or custom production.

Successfully reproduced- I loaded and retried until I got it again, and verified it was not added to my list.
May be relevant when verifying: I already have a blueprint/entry for the regular Onslaught.

15
In the past week, I've extensively played through over ten new games in RC10.

I have a strong suspicion that Legion XIV Battlecarriers are, through whatever weighting system places wrecks in sector generation, much more highly weighted than any other capital ship. In each game now I've stumbled across several of them in fairly short order (always Legion XIV, never normal Legion). I just found three in three neighboring systems in my current game.

Watching a streamer today, he had found one. I also recall seeing discussion from other players remarking how they seemed more common.

I apologize if this is overly anecdotal, but it's probably worth double-checking whatever controls the spawn weights for capital ship wrecks.

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