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1

General Discussion / Re: [SPOILERS] What is the fastest way to finish the story line?

« on: March 29, 2024, 12:19:20 PM »

Oddly enough, a Bulk Transport skill + civilian Dram (so no SO fallback) at burn speed 11 can disengage from most frigate fleets, while a Militarized Dram with Navigation skill at burn speed 11 can't.  Not sure what the interaction there is.

Navigation doesn't increase your ships' burn speed; it gives you a +1 bonus to fleet burn speed, much like having an Ox in the fleet.

(Which is why the skill specifies that it gives you a second +1 in Sustained Burn.)

2

Suggestions / Re: Should Potential contacts be removed from Important by default?

« on: March 18, 2024, 06:56:04 PM »

I generally don't want most of my contacts in "Important," either.

3

General Discussion / Re: [Spoiler] Am I Kelisen't? Did I cut out an important piece of the storyline?

« on: March 14, 2024, 10:01:45 AM »

Be warned, the thing you're supposed to interact with is strong and you'll either need a powerful fleet or have a story point to disengage safely.

This isn't quite true; it follows the usual rules for disengaging, which is to say "you need all your fleet to be higher burn than it to disengage successfully."

It's just that the Hamatsu is a slow burn 7, and there's a very good chance you picked it up on the way in.

4

General Discussion / Re: Partial commentary of 0.97a

« on: February 27, 2024, 07:01:41 AM »

The issue is an inspection requires a certain amount of cores on one colony - more than one alpha, beta, and gamma core. (An alpha admin is enough to trigger it by itself.) So in your save, your colonies are all skating by under the threshold to cause an inspection, though the progress points still come in.

Hmm. It might be useful to signal that that's what's going on, in some way - perhaps a message when the reset happens that some higher priority has popped up, and the Heg buildup reoriented towards someone else, instead?

5

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.97a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: February 24, 2024, 02:46:47 PM »

And it has no upper limit if you don't notice for some reason, unlike capacity, which will naturally eat supplies to the point where you're back in capacity limits.  A new player can literally lose their fleet to supply loss if they don't notice they've got like 200 excess fuel (20 supplies per day is the equivalent of a 600 DP - aka 10 Paragons - fleet!).  That, personally, is the best reason to keep the current default behavior.  Settings or other options is a different matter, but I think this will improve the new player experience.

I strongly agree with this.

The other way around is only going to be helpful if I'm going to be jumping out immediately after looting the fuel, and setting aside the times when I'm running Sensors and haven't blitzed the main questline, that's still not that common a circumstance for me.

6

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.97a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: February 21, 2024, 07:37:12 AM »

Unless the player runs out of ships for some reason, the player will never be in that situation.

And even then, I assure you there are plenty of fleets to target that don't require s-modded fleets to beat.

And there are plenty of missions that hand out cash, no fleet required, if you've managed to run out of both ships and money.

Just... don't chuck SP down the endless hole that is colony upgrades. No game is required to make every decision you could ever make always be optimal; indeed, it's rather the opposite - knowing when an option is worth taking, and when it isn't, is where gameplay lies. So long as the answer isn't trivial.

7

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.97a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: February 20, 2024, 07:25:39 AM »

If people are trying to put together a "perfect" fleet before engaging in significant combat, that would certainly explain their trouble getting together enough SP.

It's ultimately the same problem as smuggling as a money-maker; Starsector gives players tools with which they can reach an end-game state without ever engaging with anything that feels risky, and so people optimize for low in-game risk at severe cost to their own time.

8

Suggestions / Re: Change the naming of High and Low tech.

« on: February 16, 2024, 06:27:32 AM »

If they ever do get renamed, it should probably be done by coming up with specific names for the schools of thought that their in-universe designers belonged to.

Midline can't be "Cruiser School," lest new players convince themselves every midline ship is a cruiser, but I'm sure fancy self-promoting names can be found if it's determined this is actually an important problem.

9

Suggestions / Re: Why does the Early Game Massively Penalize Not Immediately Taking a Commission?

« on: February 12, 2024, 01:31:25 PM »

When I feel like I want to take reputation hits with random factions for cash, I commit piracy.

It pays better.

10

General Discussion / Re: Escort package and RC8 escort order

« on: February 11, 2024, 05:31:53 AM »

I imagine it's possible to figure out some exceptions when it should ignore this concern and just focus-fire the same target as the escortee, but that's more complicated and a risky change, especially to make quickly.

Honestly, this is probably the job for the Eliminate order - just need to properly signal to players that they should be using it when this comes up.

Makes escorts more valuable for the playership rather than AI captains, but AI captains prioritizing survival over finishing their opponents off seems likely to be the right call more often then not.

11

General Discussion / Re: Being an officer with no combat skills

« on: February 10, 2024, 07:25:10 AM »

Is there any point in being an officer of any of your ships if you don't have any combat skills? It seems like this only increases the deployment points needed to deploy any ship you're captain of when you have Support Doctrine unlocked for no reason

If you've got the leadership skills that only apply to Captain'd ships, you still count as a captain.

Also, a not-inconsiderable part of captaining a ship is that you can apply your understanding of tactical and strategic circumstances to better effect than the AI can, at least if you're an experienced player, and while a heavily skilled up behemoth of a capital gives you a really big lever to apply, you can still do a lot with a smaller one.

Maybe consider taking direct charge of a carrier? They don't get nearly as much benefit from combat skills, and judging where to use their ability to concentrate firepower is something the AI isn't great at.

12

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.97a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: February 04, 2024, 02:28:17 PM »

Chiming in as well:

I've been getting - and still get - hullmod BPs for hullmods I've already got.

I seem to recall a conversation about whether or not the player should intentionally not learn certain high-priced hullmods in order to ensure they kept dropping, so I'd been under the impression this was intended behavior?

13

General Discussion / Re: Colony basics

« on: January 29, 2024, 01:01:13 PM »

(and why I think that C is a pretty bad planet; ultrarich ores blocks the farming item)

Eh. Only if you weren't planning on building mining at all.

2 units of food production isn't small, but it's worth a lot less than 3+population production of rare ore.

14

General Discussion / Re: Neutrino detector needs a rework or outright removal

« on: January 29, 2024, 07:02:55 AM »

That said, I think the skill is OK as is if you only have it from the Galatia Academy or the Sensors skill. If you have both (done the relevant mission and have the skill you should get an improved version.

Eeeeh, I'd be real hesitant to do that explicitly; a large part of granting Neutrino Detector as a quest reward is making sure players can go with either Navigation or Sensors and not worry about missing out on capabilities. (Or skip the Technology tree entirely.)

What I think would serve much better would be to give Neutrino Detector bonuses based on your fleet's Sensor Strength - which gives the player more reason to care about the various sensor boosting hullmods, and gives investing in the Sensors skill an implicit advantage when using Neutrino Detector.

15

General Discussion / Re: Another balance discussion (Falcons, Eagles and Ordos, oh my!)

« on: January 26, 2024, 04:26:43 PM »

Er, a Mjolnir has more than twice the (sustained) DPS of the TPC, with 60% more damage per shot and an EMP effect.

Slightly more than twice the DPS for slightly more than four times the flux, yes. Given the Conquest only has twice the flux of the Onslaught if neither invests in flux dissipation, that's not exactly a win.

You can't even argue that the Mjolnir has higher burst damage, given the TPC's magazine, so you're putting a lot of weight on that EMP and armor penetration.

... And that's all assuming no one builds in Expanded Mags. Not exactly a horrible call on an Onslaught, even before the Storm Needler and Thumper buffs.