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Suggestions / Re: A list of my suggestions
« on: Today at 04:55:59 AM »
How about no.
Fractal Softworks Forum
- December 10, 2024, 07:19:24 AM
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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Planet Search Overhaul (07/13/24)
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Mods / Re: [0.97a] LOST_SECTOR - Exploration and Quest content
« on: November 30, 2024, 07:19:12 PM »
Go back to the NPC after a month or so. The next quest becomes available only after waiting for some time.
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General Discussion / Re: Ships I don't like
« on: November 30, 2024, 02:05:19 PM »
Fury - It just needs a little buff to its shield efficiency and It would be in a decent spot.
Hammerhead - worst destroyer in the game by FAR. Completely outclassed in lategame by all other destroyers as an escort and it also doesn't work as an aggressive destroyer since it's made out of paper. The only build that works on it uses SO and yeah, not thanks, I'd rather have 3 LP Brawler instead of 2 SO Hammerheads. I really want to like the Hammerhead since I love its design but it's just trash.
All combat freighters (Mule, Venture, etc) - I like the idea of combat freighters, but they exist only for lore reasons. It's impossible to make a semi-viable fleet with them.
Tempest - It just needs to have its system AI fixed and it would be cool.
Odyssey - It's a strong ship, but 45 DP is too much. While its flux dissipation is impressive and allows it to mount flux-hungry weapons like Plasma Cannons, it has average shields (fair) and average flux capacity (also fair). It deserves to have its DP reduced to 40.
Dominator - Indirectly overnerfed with the recent nerf to Ordnance Expertise (which was totally deserved). It deserves to have its base flux capacity slightly raised. I'm not gonna use it anyway since it's a baby Onslaught and everything the Dominator does, the Onslaught also does it, but better. A single Onslaught is worth 2 Dominators at least.
Hammerhead - worst destroyer in the game by FAR. Completely outclassed in lategame by all other destroyers as an escort and it also doesn't work as an aggressive destroyer since it's made out of paper. The only build that works on it uses SO and yeah, not thanks, I'd rather have 3 LP Brawler instead of 2 SO Hammerheads. I really want to like the Hammerhead since I love its design but it's just trash.
All combat freighters (Mule, Venture, etc) - I like the idea of combat freighters, but they exist only for lore reasons. It's impossible to make a semi-viable fleet with them.
Tempest - It just needs to have its system AI fixed and it would be cool.
Odyssey - It's a strong ship, but 45 DP is too much. While its flux dissipation is impressive and allows it to mount flux-hungry weapons like Plasma Cannons, it has average shields (fair) and average flux capacity (also fair). It deserves to have its DP reduced to 40.
Dominator - Indirectly overnerfed with the recent nerf to Ordnance Expertise (which was totally deserved). It deserves to have its base flux capacity slightly raised. I'm not gonna use it anyway since it's a baby Onslaught and everything the Dominator does, the Onslaught also does it, but better. A single Onslaught is worth 2 Dominators at least.
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General Discussion / Re: Why, exactly, are Dragonfires so bad?
« on: November 05, 2024, 11:54:52 AM »I think that DEMs, especially the dragonfire, are really cool. But from what I've found, if you want to field the dragonfire you do have to build your fleet around the use of DEM missiles. They're bad as one-offs. Not only because it appears that you need to saturate enemy PD for them to be effective, but also because they're very demanding on OP otherwise. But yeah, build a fleet around it and it works well, I think.In my opinion, Dragonfires deserve to cost slightly less OP (25/10 for Large/Medium).When used on missile-specialised ships like the Gryphon their ammo seems fine to me. And decreasing their OP would make them better suited as options to put alongside other weapons, but to me it seems like that does de-emphasise the whole doctrinal package they come with, and I like the naval doctrines currently in the Sector so I'm somewhat against it.
They are already ammunition starved because they are more reliable than Reapers and other torpedoes. Adding extra OP to them is adding insult to injury.
All missiles seem fine on the Gryphon since it has the insanely powerful Missile Autoforge shipsystem.
I really don't see the doctrinal package you are talking about. Gorgons cost as much OP as Harpoons, almost have as much ammunitions (small Gorgons have 1 extra ammunition) and similar behaviour. And no one complains about them overshadowing Harpoons. Gazers even have MORE ammunitions and longer range and you seldom see them in player fleets.
The Dragonfire is the only DEM missile "punished" by a prohibiting OP cost on top of having super low ammunitions for unknown reasons.
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General Discussion / Re: Why, exactly, are Dragonfires so bad?
« on: November 04, 2024, 05:48:57 PM »
In my opinion, Dragonfires deserve to cost slightly less OP (25/10 for Large/Medium).
They are already ammunition starved because they are more reliable than Reapers and other torpedoes. Adding extra OP to them is adding insult to injury.
They are already ammunition starved because they are more reliable than Reapers and other torpedoes. Adding extra OP to them is adding insult to injury.
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General Discussion / Re: How to "actually" play the game?
« on: October 21, 2024, 03:25:34 PM »5) There is no "better" weapons. A weapon that costs a high number of Ordnance Points is not "better" than a weapon that costs a low number of Ordnance Points. It all depends on your loadout and what you want to do with them.Is there a "general" type of weapons that is good for all round? Like for an example the ship I started to really like is the Aurora, now, should I put 2 weapons for shield and 2 weapons for hull damage?
Energy weapons deal 100% damages to Shield, Armor and Hull.
However, they do sort of "pay" for this efficiency.
For example, a Pulse Laser (medium size weapon) only deals 100 Energy damage per shot. It's really not enough to get through tough, heavy armor. For example, the Heavy Mauler (medium size weapon) deals 200 high explosive damage per shot (= 400 damage against armor since HE damage deals 200% damages to armor).
On the other hand, the Phase Lance deals excellent damages and is an Energy weapon. But since it's a beam, it only deals "soft flux" against a target's shield (whereas the Pulse Laser deals "hard flux"). The Heavy Blaster deals extreme Energy damages, but it costs a LOT of flux.
Finding a balance between all of that is what ship building is. For your Aurora, do you want to put multiple Pulse Lasers on it which are quite flux efficient but make your Aurora take more time to kill its target ? Do you want to mix in it a Phase Lance at the cost of reduced effiency against a target's shield ? Or do you want to go EXTREME DAMAGES at the cost of being overfluxed by using Heavy Blaster(s) ?
Perhaps you could use a missile weapon designed to go through shields ... such as the Sabot Pod ? Hey, what do you know, it looks like the Aurora can mount several missiles on it
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General Discussion / Re: How to "actually" play the game?
« on: October 20, 2024, 10:54:53 AM »
My advice to beginners :
1) To destroy a ship, you need to get through its shield and its armor. As a result, you want to have a mix of weapons designed to go through shields and to destroy armor. Because of how armor works (it's explained IG in one of the "Refit" tab tooltip), you want to prioritize high damage per shot weapon instead.
2) This is tied to 1). Flux is very important. When a ship is at high flux, not only will it have to lower its shield to avoid overloading, but it will also prevent it from firing all of its weapons since both weapons and shield generate flux. As a result, when designing a ship loadout, you want to avoid making your ships way overfluxed unless they are insanely resilient and can afford lowering their shield in the middle of a battle (almost no ships can do that except some capital ships). Thus :
- Pay attention to how many flux your ship generate each second (weapons + shield) ;
- Try to not be overfluxed (meaning you generate more flux per second than you can dissipate, this is not always possible btw, but you should avoid being way overfluxed) ;
- Having good damages against shield will also help you defensively (the ennemy will not be able to fire all of its weapons when it is at high flux).
4) The AI struggles piloting a ship when there is a big range mismatch between its weapons (except for point-defense -PD- weapons). Pairing a weapon with 800 range with a weapon which has 700 range is fine. Pairing a 1000 range weapon with a 600 weapon range is not.
5) There is no "better" weapons. A weapon that costs a high number of Ordnance Points is not "better" than a weapon that costs a low number of Ordnance Points. It all depends on your loadout and what you want to do with them.
6) To get a better grasp of those things, I suggest that you first start by using the in-game variants of the ships. While they are not the most optimized loadouts, they are decent and by using them and studying them, you will increase your knowledge about how the game works.
7) Do not hesitate to recruit Officers. Officers provide a huge boost to a ship stats. They are cheap to recruit. Put Officers on your best ships. Also, READ what each personnality does. I suggest you stick with either Steady or Aggressive personnality for the time being and then you can start experimenting with the other personnalities.
8 ) Many new players tend to build their fleet like this => get a bunch of frigates => get a bunch of destroyers => get some cruisers => get capital ships. But very quickly, they start to face fleets which have 1 or 2 cruisers and get demolished. This is because frigates and destroyers need better knowledge and more optimized builds to work while most cruisers, with their superior stats, will effortlessly beat frigates and destroyers. Thus, I suggest you avoid this trap and to not hesitate to get cruisers when you can afford them, even in early game.
1) To destroy a ship, you need to get through its shield and its armor. As a result, you want to have a mix of weapons designed to go through shields and to destroy armor. Because of how armor works (it's explained IG in one of the "Refit" tab tooltip), you want to prioritize high damage per shot weapon instead.
2) This is tied to 1). Flux is very important. When a ship is at high flux, not only will it have to lower its shield to avoid overloading, but it will also prevent it from firing all of its weapons since both weapons and shield generate flux. As a result, when designing a ship loadout, you want to avoid making your ships way overfluxed unless they are insanely resilient and can afford lowering their shield in the middle of a battle (almost no ships can do that except some capital ships). Thus :
- Pay attention to how many flux your ship generate each second (weapons + shield) ;
- Try to not be overfluxed (meaning you generate more flux per second than you can dissipate, this is not always possible btw, but you should avoid being way overfluxed) ;
- Having good damages against shield will also help you defensively (the ennemy will not be able to fire all of its weapons when it is at high flux).
4) The AI struggles piloting a ship when there is a big range mismatch between its weapons (except for point-defense -PD- weapons). Pairing a weapon with 800 range with a weapon which has 700 range is fine. Pairing a 1000 range weapon with a 600 weapon range is not.
5) There is no "better" weapons. A weapon that costs a high number of Ordnance Points is not "better" than a weapon that costs a low number of Ordnance Points. It all depends on your loadout and what you want to do with them.
6) To get a better grasp of those things, I suggest that you first start by using the in-game variants of the ships. While they are not the most optimized loadouts, they are decent and by using them and studying them, you will increase your knowledge about how the game works.
7) Do not hesitate to recruit Officers. Officers provide a huge boost to a ship stats. They are cheap to recruit. Put Officers on your best ships. Also, READ what each personnality does. I suggest you stick with either Steady or Aggressive personnality for the time being and then you can start experimenting with the other personnalities.
8 ) Many new players tend to build their fleet like this => get a bunch of frigates => get a bunch of destroyers => get some cruisers => get capital ships. But very quickly, they start to face fleets which have 1 or 2 cruisers and get demolished. This is because frigates and destroyers need better knowledge and more optimized builds to work while most cruisers, with their superior stats, will effortlessly beat frigates and destroyers. Thus, I suggest you avoid this trap and to not hesitate to get cruisers when you can afford them, even in early game.
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Suggestions / Re: Maybe it's time to buff the armor?
« on: October 19, 2024, 03:20:43 PM »Quote
Especially with mods.
In vanilla or vanilla-adjacent games, low tech ships perform perfectly fine and you can beat all contents including the [SUPER ALABASTER] bounty with very little losses or no losses at all. For 2 Paragons that will crush the game's content, I can take 3 Onslaughts that will also crush the game's content. Or 2 Invictuses. You get the idea.
If a mod adds challenges that are so hard, weapons and ships that are so above vanilla stuff that they make low tech ships and armor bad, then the problem is neither armor nor low tech ships. It's the mods.
If that bothers you, I seriously suggest you to learn how to edit .csv files (it's very very easy) and either buff low tech ships or nerf the ships & weapons from the most problematic mods.
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Suggestions / Re: The Medium Assault Gun (attempt #422)
« on: October 15, 2024, 04:42:43 PM »
I did make by tweaking an existing mod a medium range chaingun and the results did not convince me.
75 damage per shot / 300 DPS (4 shots/sec) / 800 range / 75 shot flux per shot (300 flux/sec) / 10 OP / medium accuracy. It didn't really work on ships like the Hammerhead because it was too flux intensive. It didn't really work on the Dominator either because the ship struggled too hard to keep its targets in range. I didn't find myself wanting to use it on other ships. But oh boy it worked too well on the Eradicator and was vastly better than the Heavy Mortar ... but still crap against anything heavier than a destroyer.
I then added a magazine to the weapon and reduced a bit its flux/shot to make it more interesting on the Hammerhead. I gave it enough ammo regen so that if you s-mod Expanded Magazine it removes the magazine but I also gave it a big enough magazine so that you don't feel force to S-mod it. The goal was to nerf Accelerated Ammo Feeder.
Aaaand ... it didn't fix anything. Still too good on the Eradicator, still bad on the Hammerhead, still very meh on the other ships. I considered nerfing its accuracy / removing the magazine / reducing its RoF but then you just get a strange mix between a Heavy Mortar and a Chaingun. And it really felt to similar to the Chaingun or a bigger LAG.
75 damage per shot / 300 DPS (4 shots/sec) / 800 range / 75 shot flux per shot (300 flux/sec) / 10 OP / medium accuracy. It didn't really work on ships like the Hammerhead because it was too flux intensive. It didn't really work on the Dominator either because the ship struggled too hard to keep its targets in range. I didn't find myself wanting to use it on other ships. But oh boy it worked too well on the Eradicator and was vastly better than the Heavy Mortar ... but still crap against anything heavier than a destroyer.
I then added a magazine to the weapon and reduced a bit its flux/shot to make it more interesting on the Hammerhead. I gave it enough ammo regen so that if you s-mod Expanded Magazine it removes the magazine but I also gave it a big enough magazine so that you don't feel force to S-mod it. The goal was to nerf Accelerated Ammo Feeder.
Aaaand ... it didn't fix anything. Still too good on the Eradicator, still bad on the Hammerhead, still very meh on the other ships. I considered nerfing its accuracy / removing the magazine / reducing its RoF but then you just get a strange mix between a Heavy Mortar and a Chaingun. And it really felt to similar to the Chaingun or a bigger LAG.
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General Discussion / Re: Tridents still seem really bad. Are they? What could be done if they are?
« on: October 13, 2024, 02:45:06 PM »
Tridents are good with Defensive Targeting Array.
But beyond that ...
But beyond that ...
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Mods / Re: [0.97a] LOST_SECTOR - Exploration and Quest content
« on: October 08, 2024, 05:17:12 PM »Hello, i need some help with the "Hostile Takeover" mission on the kesvesten questline. The issue is no matter how many times i do the mission, the fleet im supposed to kill just never comes to the system where its supposed to go. I've done everything, like going to the system really quickly right after i get the information, i also search around the systems where it could've departed from and found nothing, i even tried using the lunalib debug menu to find the fleet and still couldnt find it. Is there something im missing, or is the mod just being funky?
I'll be honest : I've never encountered this problem thus I cannot say. I know that sometimes the fleet can be quite slow to reach its destination, but that's it.
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Suggestions / Re: New weapon ideas
« on: October 03, 2024, 01:55:19 PM »Quote
Twin Assault Gun: medium ballistic, 2x100 HE, 800 range, 180/180 dps/flux, medium accuracy, 7 OP.
That's OP.
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Mods / Re: [0.97a] D-MOD Services (v2.1.0)
« on: September 28, 2024, 09:26:35 AM »I guess I'm the one who don't understand why anyone need D-mods on their ships bcs as I know they give negatives and everyone trying to avoid/delete them.
Explain pls why it's needed?
The Derelict Operations skill encourages to field a D-mod infested fleet because each D-mod reduces the DP of a ship by 6% per D-mod (since you can have up to 5 D-mods on a ship, it means -30% DP for a ship, allowing you to field a huge armada, for example an Onslaught will only costs 28 DP to field instead of 40 DP). Derelict Operation is a very very powerful skill. In the modiverse, there's also HMI junker ships which get more "powerful" the more D-mods they have.
On top of that, some D-mods have very little consequences on the actual performances of a ship while others can be absolutely terrifying (the D-mod that reduces your PPT on a Safety Override ship for example). However, which D-mod you get is entirely random. If you are lucky, you can get 5 D-mods which will have little consequences on the performances of a ship but if you are unlucky, you can get 2-3 devastating D-mods.
In vanilla, you can circumvent this problem by "fishing" for "good" D-mod by restoring a ship, letting it die on purpose, checking its new D-mod, etc until you get 5 "good" D-mods. But it's expensive and very tedious to do.
This mod allows you to get the desired D-mods you want. If you don't like Derelict Operations fleets, you don't need it.
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Mods / Re: [0.97a] Ashes of The Domain
« on: September 18, 2024, 02:46:52 AM »
Damn. I'm also from Europe and the floods in Central Europe have been on the news for a few days now.
Stay safe !
Stay safe !
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Mods / Re: [0.97a] Pirate Mini Mod (1.7.6)
« on: September 17, 2024, 02:38:23 PM »
Hello ! It's been a long time (burned myself too much on Starsector and had to lay down for a while) 
1 bug report and 1 review !
1. Hammerhead (P) : it doesn't spawn in the game because there's a typo in its .skin file (see below) :
It should be :
Adding the missing "s" fixes it.
2. Prometheus MK.III (P) :
- Its large missile is actually a turret instead of a hardpoint according to the Ship Catalogue/variants Editor. It does a play a role because a hardpoint has twice the health of a turret and thus, is more resilient to damages/EMP ;
- I find the Prometheus MK.III to be pretty bad overall (I don't know what people managed to do with it on Discord so perhaps my builds are wrong). It is completely overfluxed even if you leave almost all small and medium mounts empty (which is fine !) and as a result, it desperately needs flux capacity to avoid overloading almost immediately after it starts firing its weapons. However, between its anemic base Flux Capacity, Pirate Modification that further reduces its base Flux Capacity, it's 1.2 shield efficiency and its lack of Ordnance Points because its "only" a 30 DP capital ship, it simply reaches max flux and overload way too much (you can hardly afford a healthy number of Flux Capacitors to mitigate this problem). Feel free to correct me, but I think giving it way more base Flux Capacity (something like 16000 or 17000 instead of 10 500 for example) would be enough to allow the Prometheus MK.III to fullfill its role without increasing its power too much in undesirable areas (such as more hullmods through increased OP, more flux dissipation, etc).
This lack of Flux Capacity is especially noticeable among AI fleets that can't downgrade weapons to a smaller size. As a result, Prometheus MK.III are almost harmless because they reach max flux capacity very quickly.
1 bug report and 1 review !
1. Hammerhead (P) : it doesn't spawn in the game because there's a typo in its .skin file (see below) :
Quote
"tags":["pirate","rare_bp"],
It should be :
Quote
"tags":["pirates","rare_bp"],
Adding the missing "s" fixes it.
2. Prometheus MK.III (P) :
- Its large missile is actually a turret instead of a hardpoint according to the Ship Catalogue/variants Editor. It does a play a role because a hardpoint has twice the health of a turret and thus, is more resilient to damages/EMP ;
- I find the Prometheus MK.III to be pretty bad overall (I don't know what people managed to do with it on Discord so perhaps my builds are wrong). It is completely overfluxed even if you leave almost all small and medium mounts empty (which is fine !) and as a result, it desperately needs flux capacity to avoid overloading almost immediately after it starts firing its weapons. However, between its anemic base Flux Capacity, Pirate Modification that further reduces its base Flux Capacity, it's 1.2 shield efficiency and its lack of Ordnance Points because its "only" a 30 DP capital ship, it simply reaches max flux and overload way too much (you can hardly afford a healthy number of Flux Capacitors to mitigate this problem). Feel free to correct me, but I think giving it way more base Flux Capacity (something like 16000 or 17000 instead of 10 500 for example) would be enough to allow the Prometheus MK.III to fullfill its role without increasing its power too much in undesirable areas (such as more hullmods through increased OP, more flux dissipation, etc).
This lack of Flux Capacity is especially noticeable among AI fleets that can't downgrade weapons to a smaller size. As a result, Prometheus MK.III are almost harmless because they reach max flux capacity very quickly.