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1

General Discussion / Re: I still don't know how to loadout a ship

« on: June 16, 2023, 10:39:00 AM »

The dominator has sabot pods.

Oh, man - I would never have guessed that from the graphics.  Thank you!

2

General Discussion / Re: I still don't know how to loadout a ship

« on: June 16, 2023, 09:37:30 AM »

You can use 2x Hephaestus or whichever big gun you want just fine, Devastators just happen to be great. You really just need a lot more kinetics. A Brilliant can tank 20k shield damage too so 2x HVD won't cut it. Small kinetics with BRF are best. If you don't use the missiles to deal damage then it's a deliberate challenge run but will likely still be workable. Storm needler is bad due to its short range, though, but the big slots are best spent on HE anyway since small ballistics are better than Mark IX and the Dom has tons of slots.

What is in the missile slot on that Dominator loadout?  I'm either not familiar with it or just can't make it out

I too struggle with loadouts, to the point where I just don't use some ships (Sunder - the only preload has 3 pulse lasers and it seems .. bad.)  So I really appreciate the advice in this thread!

3

Suggestions / Intel "Favorites"

« on: May 16, 2023, 08:02:32 AM »

I find myself frequently hunting through the intel filters for the particular ones I want - it's a minor thing, but annoying.  Would it be possible to "star" certain filters and have them show up in a quick list on the right side of the map, or something?  I'd love to have quick access to "Accepted", "Gates", "Colony Threats" and one or two others that I use all the time, and just going to the full list when I'm doing something more esoteric than normal operations.  Not sure the level of effort involved, but from my point of view it'd be a great interface QoL improvement!

4

General Discussion / Re: Built Heavy Industry, my fleets still have garbage ships.

« on: May 12, 2023, 11:33:21 AM »

Yeah I guess it's worth installing it even if it pollutes if that means much better ships!

Knowing my luck I probably won't find a pristine one. Although before I can raid the big guys, it'll take a lot of time. I still struggle against very large pirates fleets so... Yeah.

Took out a few REDACTED but they didn't have *that* ship with them so it wasn't that complicated.

I've been exploring for 9 some cycles - I'm not nearly as powerful as you are (can't beat REDACTED, raiding a major faction is a funny joke) but I've dug out a lot of stations and ruins.  Results have been:

5x corrupted nanoforge
2x catalytic core
2x fullerene spool
2x cryoarithmetic engine
2x plasma dynamo
1x orbital fusion lamp
1x autonomous mantle bore
1x fusion lamp

I'm using one corrupted forge and a spool.  More seems to be a very bad idea - disappointing!

Well you have much more stuff than me!

You're set to have a nice production with all that.

I still need to explore more. Mostly what I'm doing right now is, I explore systems I reach through bounties, or through the "blueprint location" NPC givers, where you spend a story point for some juicy blueprint.

Edit: I also explored around my two colonies. But yeah, mostly what I did was "shop around" for ships, weapons, etc... That's my favourite part of the game I think lol.

That is a very fun part!  I've got a huge stock of weapons and some hulls I want to use "some day" stashed at the Asharu terraforming station as god intended... some day when I have enough money for supplies and fuel I'll break some of them out!

Sadly I don't dare use any of the items apart from a fullerene spool and one forge because of colony aggression so all the exploring has been a bit moot.  It'd sure be nice to turn up a pristine forge though... the hunt continues!

5

General Discussion / Re: Colony Threat event

« on: May 12, 2023, 11:03:19 AM »

@Alex
I'm so glad I could be of some assistance!  After your kind efforts to offer advice, I did indeed stick with the playthrough and am a few cycles down the line.  Is the progress of any interest or use?  I can summarize if so.

Once again, thanks for your interest and the advice - and of course, the fantastic game.

Glad you stuck with it! Yeah, seeing it was just super helpful. I've already made a bunch of changes to Hostile Activity - that hopefully will address most of the concerns in this thread, yours included (for release in the quite near future) -  but I would love a brief summary, if you don't mind!

OK, here goes!

• I hadn't realized that I'd rescued another couple of administrators from derelicts - I got rid of them, and a couple of officers with what the community says are bad skill mixes.  Incidentally, I find so many officers that I've never hired and leveled one up - is that expected?  It's kind of fun to level them, but I can see if that's just a fallback for not finding enough, or only bad ones.
• I spent all my story points on the colonies - bought megaport upgrades at both, a stability upgrade at both, and upgrade Commerce at Garande (the terran one.)
• Uninstalled all colony items except the fullerene spool at Garande and the corrupted forge at Nagante.
• Reclaimed the comms array - I'd missed that the pirates had jacked it, argh!  I'm really kicking myself for not finding a system with a Domain array - I didn't realize how critical it was at the time.  (Also kicking myself for putting two colonies in the same system, I saw the good planets and was excited, not realizing how bad it'd screw me up.)
• I turned off free port at both colonies, now that I understand stability is the priority.
• I turned off hazard pay at Garande, which maintained enough growth to eventually cap out at size 6.
• I've been cycling hazard pay at Nagante on and off to keep it from shrinking (it's -2.33% without hazard pay and free port, +2.5% with hazard pay.)  I'm not sure what happens if it drops below 0% growth but I assume I lose an industry, or at least one becomes inactive?  It'd be nice to grow it for income but I guess otherwise pointless since I was planning on making fuel there for the last industry and I guess that raises interest too much?

With those changes, my income ended up at somewhere between -5k/+20k per month depending on whether I'm propping the industrial colony up with hazard pay - so much better!  (Except for the months when I have to come home for supplies and fuel, when it's -300k, ha.)  I've killed one small pirate base that popped up, and a Pather base that was supporting Nagante and Agreus - that one cost me half my fleet, but I ended up winning because I was hauling an Astral along to repair the d-mods.  The event capped out with an attack that I survived and dropped back to medium; with the stability penalty back to -2, I've got Nagante at 10 stability.  Garande is stuck at 8 (+5 base, +1 improvement, +2 domestic/luxury goods, +1 patrol HQ, +1 heavy batteries, +2 battlestation, +1 makeshift comm array, -3 commerce, -3 HA) so I'm not sure what to do there, and I expect as the event progresses again I'll start spiraling down a bit.

Event progress is down to +10:

• -5 patrol HQ
• +8 colony presence and instability
• +7 technology and AI core use (from the spool and corrupted nanoforge - they seemed worth keeping, but I guess I could drop those and have no tech/cores progress at all.)

Anyway, I've actually been able to progress some quest lines quite a bit and experiment with some different ships and such.  I'd originally planned to build a gas giant colony for volatiles but that's clearly out!

I'm still traveling around doing survey missions as I can - trying to do more steering in hyperspace now that I don't have to cram so many into one trip to stay above water.  I'm not yet sure whether the savings in supplies from avoiding most storms makes up for the extra fuel and daily supply burn - once the capitals are cleared of d-mods I'll drop the last one off (too pricey to operate for now!) and be back to a more familiar burn rate (both fleet speed and resource consumption!)

Thus continues my attempt as enthusiastic newbie.  Is there any other info that would be useful?  Hopefully I'm doing the right things - at least I'm not drowning anymore!

6

General Discussion / Re: Built Heavy Industry, my fleets still have garbage ships.

« on: May 12, 2023, 09:47:16 AM »

Yeah I guess it's worth installing it even if it pollutes if that means much better ships!

Knowing my luck I probably won't find a pristine one. Although before I can raid the big guys, it'll take a lot of time. I still struggle against very large pirates fleets so... Yeah.

Took out a few REDACTED but they didn't have *that* ship with them so it wasn't that complicated.

I've been exploring for 9 some cycles - I'm not nearly as powerful as you are (can't beat REDACTED, raiding a major faction is a funny joke) but I've dug out a lot of stations and ruins.  Results have been:

5x corrupted nanoforge
2x catalytic core
2x fullerene spool
2x cryoarithmetic engine
2x plasma dynamo
1x orbital fusion lamp
1x autonomous mantle bore
1x fusion lamp

I'm using one corrupted forge and a spool.  More seems to be a very bad idea - disappointing!

7

General Discussion / Re: Colony Threat event

« on: May 12, 2023, 09:37:40 AM »

@Alex - I'd be delighted, any chance to contribute in some way in return for all the fun is a privilege.  It'll be on its way momentarily! 

Edit - sent!  Let me know if it doesn't show up or if there's any other info/assistance I can provide.  Thanks so much!

Hmm, so I had a good look at this, and a few thoughts!

First off: HA is doing more damage to your income than I'd have expected, so, alright, that's definitely something that needs to be tuned.

A bit of advice, though, if you don't mind, which might help you recover that playthrough!
- Firing all but one of the admins will definitely increase your income; possibly firing all of them
- If you spend a few story points on improving your Megaports, that'll up the income a good bit
- Your comm relay is under pirate control, and that's hurting income because stability is <5
- You probably want to keep hazard pay on, but turning it off is like a 70,000 credit swing in income per month. It's not meant to be something you always keep on and don't worry about, and trying to stay above water while that's perma-on is really hurting

Doing all of these things (leaving 1 admin) takes your colony income from -30k to +110k, with an extra 20k for not having a 2nd admin, a swing of 160k credits per month. There's definitely some wiggle room left for leaving hazard pay on somewhere, not spending story points on improvements, etc.

Thank you again for sending me your file, that was *extremely* helpful to look through!

@Alex
I'm so glad I could be of some assistance!  After your kind efforts to offer advice, I did indeed stick with the playthrough and am a few cycles down the line.  Is the progress of any interest or use?  I can summarize if so.

Once again, thanks for your interest and the advice - and of course, the fantastic game.

8

Suggestions / Re: Monitor nerf

« on: May 11, 2023, 08:13:18 PM »

Ah, the same old. Gut it with a machate, eh?
The thing is, as it's built, the Monitor's infamy comes from the AI not being able to recognize it's not able to be a threat. Remove SO and you're just a bit too short to do anything besides absorbing Squall salvos. If anything, an AI redesign would be in order for how hostile Monitors are handled.

The problem isn't with the AI having monitors, the problem is the player driving a monitor and shoving it directly into the face of the nearest capital ship. Or ideally, multiple. Something has to give because a monitor should NOT be able to sit in a dorito's face and tank it indefinitely. Changing the AI does not change the fact that a dorito cannot kill a monitor. Changing the AI doesn't change the fact that the monitor has so much PPT that it can outlast nearly every ship in the battle and drain their CR to death at no danger to itself.

So the problem is some players, in a single player game, on their own computer, use a monitor in a very boring way and you personally don't like that they use it that way?

Isn't it more that by having something wildly out of balance, you make it so that players don't have other valid choices without intentionally gimping themselves?  It seems strange to argue against properly balancing the game.

9

General Discussion / Re: Colony Threat event

« on: May 10, 2023, 03:57:58 PM »

Perhaps this is the problem people have. Using no cores/items is fine because you at least get no problems. Using tons of cores/items is fine because you get so much money raids/sabotages don't matter. Trying to do the intuitive thing and be somewhere in the middle gets you destroyed.

That's what my thought process was in my playthrough. "Ok, It's early game and my first colony just got to size 4. I have 3 beta cores and some gammas. How much extra cash per month can those cores really earn me? A few thousand? Is that worth the 10-20+ luddic path threat I'm earning every month? No.Way."

I think it isn't quite as obvious that the items are bad, too.  The items are neat and seemed like a cool payoff for being an explorer - it seems a pity to me that all the searching and effort is just to enable another tradeoff, not a reward after all.

10

General Discussion / Re: Do you like traveling in the hyperspace?

« on: May 10, 2023, 03:39:41 PM »

I just set a course and hold down shift - is it supposed to be viable to go around the clouds?  Sustained burn makes turning too slow for that, and not using it takes forever.  Besides, I'd run out of fuel all the time - I figured the storms were just a tax on supplies to allow fuel to stretch further and get you across the map faster with the storm bounce.  I tend to hang around the core and pick a bunch of exploration missions that are close together/along a nice circuit, but I'd run out of time on all of them trying to go slow or go around.  I can't really pick a single mission and sneak my way out to it, because the pair of colonies I founded are costing me $40k-80k monthly and I have to keep up (more on that in the event thread...) 

I like the idea of riding streams, but rarely find one that goes to where my missions are - and unfortunately, most of the times when I did, they dumped me out onto a hostile fleet that wiped me out and I ended up having to load my game.  I just stay away from them now.

Press 1 when viewing the hyperspace map. It gives you a rough outline of where the clouds are, and where paths through them are. There tends to be long, straight, and thin lines going through clouds that are somewhat difficult to see on the map, but once you know what to look for, you'll be able to find them easily.

Well, darn - I totally missed that!  Going to make route planning more complicated and I guess I'll need more tankers... but I guess that's cheaper than supplies.  I wonder if I should be restarting a few times to find a good map... At any rate, thanks!  I'll see what the experience is like without the time lapse/storm bounce.

11

General Discussion / Re: Colony Threat event

« on: May 10, 2023, 02:54:05 PM »

@Alex - I'd be delighted, any chance to contribute in some way in return for all the fun is a privilege.  It'll be on its way momentarily! 

Edit - sent!  Let me know if it doesn't show up or if there's any other info/assistance I can provide.  Thanks so much!

12

General Discussion / Re: Do you like traveling in the hyperspace?

« on: May 10, 2023, 02:50:45 PM »

I just set a course and hold down shift - is it supposed to be viable to go around the clouds?  Sustained burn makes turning too slow for that, and not using it takes forever.  Besides, I'd run out of fuel all the time - I figured the storms were just a tax on supplies to allow fuel to stretch further and get you across the map faster with the storm bounce.  I tend to hang around the core and pick a bunch of exploration missions that are close together/along a nice circuit, but I'd run out of time on all of them trying to go slow or go around.  I can't really pick a single mission and sneak my way out to it, because the pair of colonies I founded are costing me $40k-80k monthly and I have to keep up (more on that in the event thread...) 

I like the idea of riding streams, but rarely find one that goes to where my missions are - and unfortunately, most of the times when I did, they dumped me out onto a hostile fleet that wiped me out and I ended up having to load my game.  I just stay away from them now.

13

General Discussion / Re: Colony Threat event

« on: May 10, 2023, 02:33:58 PM »

I'm abandoning my current play-through (first in a few years - so much added!) because I founded a couple of colonies and seem to be bleeding money and in a death spiral of hostile activity.  I picked what I thought were a pair of good worlds in a system far away (a 125% Terran and 225% with great mining.)  The Terran world was supposed to be mining, farming, light industry, and commerce, and I figured I could build a shipyard and fuel plant on the other one.  I used hazard pay and free port so they'd grow nicely, and installed the neat items I found while exploring.  I thought not using AI cores would keep me out of trouble with the Path or other factions... but now I'm over 300 progress into the hostile tracker, and spending all my time running around doing surveys and finding ships to run analyses on just to keep up with the -$120k a month the colonies (and all those officers that exploring netted me) are costing me.  I splatched the one pirate base that the game told me about and occasionally manage to stop by to blow my tiny savings on more fuel and supplies, but fighting a few tough battles against a bunch of heavy cruisers in the process doesn't seem to make any real difference.  It's mostly frustrating because I have no idea what I was SUPPOSED to do, what the critical numbers were (I was supposed to focus mainly on stability?  I guess?)  Nor did I have any idea what I was supposed to build first, what the effects would be, and why.  Both planets have upgraded orbital bases and ground batteries and a patrol HQ, which seems to do very little. 

It's all very confusing and I'm tired of scrambling around trying to find money to build an industry here and there on top of feeding the bottomless money pit.  I've found three corrupted forges, two refining items, a spool, a mining drill, two cryo engines I can't use because neither colony is hot, and two farming items I can't use because of rare ores.  And it turns out installing the ones I could actually use was BAD?  Argh!  I'm going to just start over and skip the colonies completely - building a capital ship or two rather than having to find one for sale seems like a pretty thin payoff for so much misery.

14

General Discussion / Re: why discarding crew members may be the logical thing to do

« on: May 10, 2015, 06:15:37 PM »

It basically comes down to this: is losing so many ships that the surviving crew completely overtaxes the remaining fleet capacity a losing condition for the player?  If so, just add another "lose" screen with different text and plunk him/her back into a starting ship.  If not, the fleet still needs to be able to move.  Dropping the player back into a situation where there is literally nothing he/she can do is just a design error.

15

Suggestions / Re: "Update Varient" Button in Refitting Screen

« on: April 20, 2015, 11:35:38 PM »

When you have a custom variant, and you make a small tweak, such as adding a flux point when you gain some tech ability, rather than having to go into the refit ship screen and delete, then replace a ship, or having to create a hole new variant "Variant II, III, IV" just have an update variant button that overiddes the variant with the new one

I'd like this quite a bit.  Sometimes I want to keep a previous version of a configuration, but usually I'm doing an edit because I have more OP or something, and there's no reason to keep the previous one around.