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1

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: April 22, 2021, 08:34:22 AM »

• Tactical bombardments no longer count for "atrocities committed by player"

It's time to continue the orbital antimatter party.

2

General Discussion / Re: .95a feedback - fuel and supply

« on: April 04, 2021, 11:56:48 PM »

I think mission time limit should somewhat scale with distance. For example, 60 days base and +10 per ly.

I would second on that idea. There is just little incentive to go slow even with the Sensors perk to fly slow at higher burn speeds. I am still going cowboy rodeo on the hyperspace storms with a very small, but highly mobile object scanner fleet. It makes initial knowledge of planets worthwhile yet still able to evade most targets. I scout, scan, and identify potential colony candidates as I sweep for probes/derelicts for the mission.

I do miss the environmental damage protection as a skill. Makes suspended repairs even more useful in conserving supplies.

3

General Discussion / Re: Doom with skills: "I am growing stronger"

« on: April 04, 2021, 11:45:55 PM »

Yeah. It's my first time using Doom in years, so I sometimes get to close to exploding ships and blow myself up, too.

As a fellow Doom pilot, I know that feel. I have enjoyed a variety of runs, but none have given me the same intensity as a Phase Commando sowing chaos in battle while I give orders to the rest of the fleet and keep the developing situation in my favor.

As I am familiarizing to the new mechanics, I have yet to use my preferred tactic of putting an enemy ship between the phase mines and the Paragon with 2 Tachyon Lances pointed at it. I still use antimatter blasters despite being definitely caught in the blast radius of a capital.

4

General Discussion / Re: Any edits that let you force doctrines/remove blueprints from your faction?

« on: August 13, 2020, 10:28:07 AM »

Weapon and fighter priority applies not only to your patrols' ships, but also to your battlestations.

As someone who tried a modded run or two, those weapon priorities being reflected to stations can make battles quite interesting, especially picking the more appropriate weapons for fleets and stations alike.

5

General Discussion / Re: The most imba weapon?

« on: July 11, 2020, 01:19:03 PM »

I don't even know about the Thumper. Does it really shred hull compared to a Heavy Mortar?

It does when Thumper hits because shots are very fast (or very hard to see and try to dodge if the ship I am piloting is the target), while Mortar and Arbalest miss because they are slow and mildly inaccurate.  I have seen Thumper kill weakened ships multiple times early in the game.  Pirates has finished off my ships (flagship and AI alike) after they were severely injured.  I have used Thumper few times when I was frustrated with slow Arbalest and Mortar combo (especially before I get Gunnery Implants and Fleet Logistics 3), or when I needed to stretch my limited guns.  (I do not want to throw all of the kinetics on one or two ships and the rest have nothing.)

Early-game fights with pirates are unskilled or low-skilled, and the targets are flimsy.  Thumper is viable during this part of the game.

I do not disagree that Thumper is sub-par and it eventually becomes obsolete.  Mining Blaster is much the same way (since Hyperion is no longer an endgame asset).

Over all i think that Frag Damage for non-PD roles really suffers and should probably be taken out of the game

I make an exception with Locusts.  The damage is so overwhelming that it is often an unavoidable auto-kill against frigates, and even capitals lose a big enough chunk of hull if all of the missiles hit there.

Frags still have a place as finishers or dealing with ships of significantly smaller classes. Locusts are terrifying to face, especially when armor is already spent. Even if it runs out, the kill count is enough to turn the tables after the missiles are gone. Or just stick it to a Gryphon and turn it into a frigate/fighter sweeper.

6

General Discussion / Re: How do you get goods to a pirate in a hegemony planet

« on: July 11, 2020, 12:44:15 PM »

The problem with Sensors is that it is no help in a fight.  At best, it is a QoL skill like Navigation, but not as great.

Sensors 1 is almost mandatory for Neutrino Detector.  Rarely, there will be that <1% fiendishly hidden pirate base that will be too hard to find any other way.  (Spending thirty minutes in a huge system trying to find a base and failing despite exploiting every other trick that quickly finds most other bases is unacceptable, I do not have that kind of time to waste on frustration.)  I really dislike being forced to put a point here just to find that rare base that is too hard to find.  I also dislike hauling more junk cargo (volatiles) to use the detector.

Sensors 2 is fun for a pure phase fleet.  Great for stealing blueprints from Culann and Sindria.

Sensors is good before endgame when player is not a god of war.  Once he is a god, Sensors is useless (aside from Neutrino Detector) because player can just kill everything.  It is much like colony skills, great before player can farm cores.  But once he can grind for cores, he will bitterly weep at the end for wasted skill points.

Good before endgame? There will be a time when you need to recover CR before the next. And besides, Sensors 2 is more than just for stealth raids, and also for concealment when you need it most.

Going Dark in a debris field in remnant space can still be quite valuable to repair between fights.

Like this guy. He wised up and knows when to pick his battles.

I have used Sensors 2 even in a 30 Valkyrie fleet refitted with safety overrides, insulated engines, and efficiency overhaul for absolute stealth insertion.

7

General Discussion / Re: A weird mindset I've been seeing lately about game balance

« on: July 11, 2020, 12:36:59 PM »

My personal gripe against the Condor is its out of combat stats... why does it have such low cargo and fuel storage?

Lore. (Specifically implied lore.)
Condor is a converted Tarsus and the original conversion process is described as "involved and complex", with the implication that the ship in question has sacrificed almost all of its previous abilities in order to do something it was not originally intended to do.
The implication itself comes from the statement that the conversion process was originally created by scavangers and pirates looking for a way to field fighters. And neither group would have the means to perform such a conversion without some manner of significant compromise.
The process itself is no longer "complex" because of access to nanoforges, but there's nothing to say the process was improved in any way from the original.

This is also a partial explaination for the low speed.
Tarsus has a speed of 45. And Condor, which is basically a gutted Tarsus, has a speed of 40.

Personally, I don't see a problem with this. It's all fluff, but its consistent fluff.
Condor is "good enough" (for me) to use for a while, but its not something I'd want to use past a certain point if I had any other alternatives.

Yep, the Condor's conversion is a steep price, but if I want carriers for cheap, eh, not going to complain about that so long as I use the right LPCs as a force projector. I have considered the Tarsus for destroyer/cruiser speed fleets, but I use Pirate/Hegemony Buffalos because I don't expect to run from a battle. Pirate for shielded cargo holds, Hegemony for built in militarized subsystems and able to keep up to even frigate fleets with augmented drive field.

8

General Discussion / Re: 0.9.1a Balance Testing Case Study: Condor

« on: July 11, 2020, 12:27:06 PM »

: Takes copious notes :

I suspect that exact loadouts are going to make a big difference - in particular, with so many frigates any bomber other than a Dagger is dead weight.

In other news: in campaign last night the only medium missile I had around for the Condor was the medium Reaper. The AI will, on occasion, use its system to double tap enemy ships with 2 consecutive reapers. In this case 2x Thunder Condor, so the enemy was flamed out. I don't think this is an optimal build or anything, as the Reaper is almost always wasted, but its very gratifying when its not.

Reapers to force them to raise their shields, then either Longbow's sabots or Dagger's torpedoes to force an overload. That's a Condor's Gambit.

Of course the reapers are best when used on overloaded ships.

9

General Discussion / Re: Question about fleet size

« on: July 11, 2020, 12:19:42 PM »

surveying planets to choose where to settle, i didn't know that some colony gave you chips you can sell to factions... does this mean that the faction will try to settle there (if i sell them the info ?)

Currently, no. Factions don't have the ability to send colony fleets.

Makes things a lot easier when finding the right system to settle in, especially when one system has all of the needed raw materials to have overlapping patrol fleets. Especially at least Rich Ore/Rare/Volatiles that can be compensated with colony management skill for heavy industry and fuel production to be self-susustaining.

10

Modding / Re: [0.9.1a] Ill-Advised Modifications 1.12.1

« on: June 22, 2020, 07:36:44 PM »

make more serious stuff.

What the hell, in this universe, can theoretically be more serious than loaf-ship?



P.S. Joke, but not a sarcasm. Some sprites deserve to be saved.

You just had to remind me of the true baguette breadship I encountered by sheer chance in randomizer mission mode. Last month.

Either way, the world could use some more mad scientists. And space bakers.

11

Modding / Re: [0.9.1a] Aerial Combat Suit

« on: June 22, 2020, 07:27:35 PM »

EVA combat suits? Sounds pretty nice instead of deploying Talons if I want expendable pilots.

Of course if I want something more... tanky, I'd go to Diable's wanzers.

Mechs are just exosuits upscaled when you think about it, but there are two main disciplines in mech design: Eastern high mobility (Go Gundam, or be the Orbital Frame) vs Western high power (All the Dakka with Battletech and Mechwarrior).

Funny part is that we have Armored Core and Front Mission balancing mobility and firepower, while we got Metal Gear for the genes, memes, and scenes.

12

General Discussion / Re: What I've learned after my first 20 hours with the game

« on: June 22, 2020, 07:15:07 PM »

Phase ships require different strategies to take them down, as they are the U-Boats of Starsector. If you cannot down them reliably, you may not be able to handle faction mods that use them or even time-acceleration related things. DPS beam weapons are the best ones to defeat them, while assault fighters force flux pressure but susceptible to Doom's mines.

Ballistic PD is not to be discounted when Energy PD has trouble with any missiles that saturate PD coverage like the Hurricane MIRV or Locust, though Energy range and burst damage may be able to stop Sabots before they reach frag range. Ballistic PDs can make quick work of a good chunk of missiles or torpedoes, where even Flak and Devastator Cannons help sweeping missiles and fighters out through AoE damage. Paladin PD and Devastator sound like a waste of a large slot until you face bomber/missile happy fleets. Or Tri Tachyon fleets with lots of Dooms and bomber Astrals.

All-Kinetic Luddic Path Lasher is definitely dangerous in a flux fight, but can't punch against more armored targets, especially ones piloted by officers carrying armor-related skills that reduce armor damage to single digit damage and low DPS. Harpoons, maybe, but only has so few ammo to use.

13

General Discussion / Re: My current fleet, improvement ideas?

« on: June 22, 2020, 06:53:20 PM »

Sounds like it's time to raid for some blueprints.

May as well carry starliners and fill the space with marines for an efficient blueprint raid.

Or bomb the defenses to slag if you have fuel to even spare that much.

14

General Discussion / Re: Cursed builds

« on: June 22, 2020, 06:48:40 PM »

When you got few weapons / Odyssey

[close]

Never mind the Odyssey, it's the Buffalo Mk III I am looking it.

15

General Discussion / Re: very important question for all you starsector experts

« on: June 22, 2020, 06:43:23 PM »

Well I can give you off the top of my head for example a single good reason to not install Tyrador Safeguard Coalition... It isn't updated for the latest version of SS.

And as it didn't get update for 0.9.1a - its balance isn't up to date, 0.9.1a update also increased ship prices, so anything from Tyrador is way cheaper compared to vanilla or mods updated to 0.9.1a. Also it suffers from content bloat, it adds a lot of ships to vanilla factions, while nice they feel really common.

As for CMC - it's more of an example mod on how to mod AFAIK. I saw people using weapons from it due to them being pretty useful in some builds, but not the ships.

At least there's substance as to why CMC starts with just one system: their RnD into ballistic high-tech conversion of vanilla ships didn't do too well. Their weapons, on the other hand, is a testament of making do with ballistic weapon slots and give it the high-tech love.