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

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Messages - The2nd

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1
Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Interstellar Imperium 2.5.2
« on: June 03, 2023, 11:24:55 PM »
Any success? I love this mod but got no modding knowledge.

Same  :D

Just edit the "mod_info.json" gameversion to 0.96a and it mostly works for now. It will crash if you mouse over II hull-mods and some custom II colony industries but is otherwise playable. At least from my experience playing with Nex and a few other mods atm.

2
Blog Posts / Re: Narrative in 0.96 aka Movie Night With David
« on: June 03, 2023, 07:09:57 AM »
I have really enjoyed your writing. People badly wanting conclusions to the existing story lines is a testament to its quality.

I love that you can skip parts of the main quest by brute forcing Kantas station. The writing of the marine raid and its fallout in context is one of my favorite pieces of writing in video games period. Actually surprising Zal is a bonus  ;D 

Please more of that, more player agency! And narrative consequences when you screw up! It would be, for example, very fitting when Macario would just "fire" you when you repeatedly fail and are obviously lying to him. Just strait up end the stotyline (or have an alternative path). For options to feel meaningful there needs to be a failure state.

Also a question: have you guys talked about/planned for an option to skip the main quest? It does get repetitive after a few playthroughs. Having an explicit option to skip it and still having an opportunity to get the Janus device would be nice. (maybe the story resolves after a certain time on its own, with the player getting the option to be able to buy the/a Janus device for a lot of cash etc.)     

 

3
Blog Posts / Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« on: May 04, 2022, 10:53:02 AM »
Right? Right???

Sorry to add to the 60% :D

It's all good, though; I'm not really that surprised by the reaction, and I understand it, but I think the reasons for doing it this way are good.

I think part of the reason why there is such a big reaction is that people (including me) really like the XVI hulls and the concept behind it. So it's a disappointment that the Lions Guard doesn't provide something similar. Although I have to say that subverting player expectations and creating gameplay driven wordbuilding is pretty neat.

What I would wish for are more faction themed special hulls. I think the reaction in this thread shows that I am not alone. If it's slightly worse than the base version it feels bad to use and if there is an slightly better version it feels good to have. Regardless of a theoretically very minor gameplay impact. So these hulls are a perfect player reward without compromising balance?

Like a premium line of Tri-Tachyon ships with very minor stat improvements which are rare and unreasonably expensive? They could be given as faction quest rewards or offered by contacts etc.

The only downside would be a bit of bloat.   


4
Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« on: December 06, 2021, 08:21:56 AM »
After a lot of testing, I found having accelerated shields greatly helped in catching shots when the Medusa teleported in to attack. Adding accelerated shields as a standard built-in hullmod to the Medusa would really help its survivability. And maybe a small increase in armor by 50 and hull by 500 for the occasional shots that do make it through.

I love the idea to buff the Medusa by giving it accelerated shields as a built-in hullmod !

Also I feel like it is too rare. This patch, I barley saw it, have never used it and I cant remember fighting against it.

5
It happens seemingly at random, most of the time in the intel screen or combat. I'm confused, does the fact that there are no errors in the log imply that the issue is with my PC rather than with the game? 

6
Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« on: March 22, 2021, 06:26:39 AM »
But seriously why do people still ask for a specific date when Alex never ever even gave a vague estimate other than various forms of soon, like very soon and soon-ish...

It has been said that every time some one asks for the release date Alex delays it for a bit.

In that spirit: release when?

I have a crucial deadline at the end of April and a new Starsector release would seriously impact my productivity. So I am grateful for everyone asking for a date. Collectively we might manage to delay it post April!


7
Blog Posts / Re: Writing Starsector
« on: December 22, 2020, 11:04:12 AM »
This is one of those things that would be super cool, but I don't think makes sense for an indie game of this size. With 40 skills in play, the development time cost vs. payoff in terms of how many players would see that content vs. putting that effort somewhere else doesn't make it worthwhile. In a project of a certain scale, maybe with 10+ developers you could probably assign writing these as someone's full time job for a couple months and make it really shine. Alas!

That sounds very much like the sensible choice. However since I really like these kind of mechanics I will just keep writing.

So... how about some purely flavorful dialogue changes depending on player status without any gameplay changes whatsoever? Contextual dialogue impact not only in terms of skills but possibly things like fleet size/ship types/current cargo/player colonies ect. Just something that acknowledges what you have been or are doing as a player. This can be very simple as in "you can't do that" -> "Tell that to my [insert capital ship name currently in player fleet]." (initiates combat)

Arguably these kind of flavor options are even less deserving of Dev time since there is no actual gameplay impact, but sometimes it's the little details which help to elevate the whole. Also when doing this you are not obliged to implement a whole system but can just add a little dialogue when it feels appropriate. Or not ;D   

8
Suggestions / Inspiration/theme
« on: August 04, 2020, 09:43:19 AM »
I wasn't sure where to post this but I guess in the end it's a suggestion. And maybe more for David than Alex.

It seems to me that the quest/story aspect of the game is going to see a lot more content the next update. And I have been listening to this album that has me thinking of Starsector constantly.

https://youtu.be/pc4i2cxEYGg

https://youtu.be/iLwpqv6hkds

https://youtu.be/yh5N7MPIdYk

The Persean Sector strikes me as a place with plenty of superstitious spacers. I'm sure during the frequent bar visits the player might hear a story or two about a ghost ship that tends to appear near a certain trade route, or a haunted space station.  ;D Might even lead to an encounter with *redacted*. One way or another.

The whole album is great, please listen in a bit and you might find some inspiration for a quest line or two. 

9
Blog Posts / Re: Raiding for Fun and Profit
« on: November 28, 2019, 05:20:09 AM »
A very welcome change!

Only caveat I have is the way unique items can be raided. While I agree with your rejection of a pure RNG system, the proposed one seems a bit weird. With X marines you cannot even try it but with X+5 you are guaranteed to have it?

Why not combine the two systems? Make a rather high required raid effectiveness threshold to even try it and then give it like a 25-75% chance depending on your effectiveness. And then add another threshold which gives a 100% chance of success.

That would keep it out of the early game. But at the mid game players can try for them. And in the end game players can come with overwhelming force for a guaranteed grab to avoid frustration due to bad luck.

10
General Discussion / Re: Help designing a pirate fleet?
« on: August 03, 2019, 04:21:11 AM »
I need ships that are bristling with weapons

As SCC said you can't be too picky, at least in the beginning. Invest some skillpoints in industry and recover the combat ships you destroy when you attack trade fleets. You will also need freighters to actually carry the loot. Later you can tailor your fleet more to your needs.

that are at least fast enough to outrun security patrols, and if there's some way to make them less detectable by sensors that would help as well.

Try to stay above burn 9, ideally burn 10. Your fleet burn speed is always the speed of your slowest ship so pay attention to that. That means mostly frigates for burn 10 and destroyers for burn 9. Also look for "light" classified ships. For example the Shrike is a light destroyer with burn 10 and the falcon is a light cruiser with burn 9. Another way to increase your speed is a skill in technology or the augmented engines hullmod. I like to run a burn 10 fleet with frigates a few shrikes and 2-3 cruisers with augmented engines for extra punch. When you take the skill that gives one more burn that takes you to 11 burn in total which makes you very slippery indeed.

As for sensory profile: install militarized subsystems on your civilian ships to both reduce sensor profile and increase burn speed. Work with nebulars, derbies and asteroid fields to hide. Some D-hullmods increase sensor profile so pay attention to that as well. Oh and take the skill that improves the "go dark" ability.

Install some comm snifters to get information about trade fleet departures. Check their cargo and destination, if valuable intercept and profit. Do this to certain trade routs frequently and profit of a shortage you caused yourself. Also you can hail traders and shake them down without actually fighting.

Happy hunting. 



11
Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] Interstellar Imperium 2.0.1
« on: July 02, 2019, 01:47:02 AM »
A reckless captain in a dictator with a targeting package, railguns, and a trio of linked annihilator pods is the one who knocks.

I like this ship.

Yeah I have two in my fleet which I use to break into enemy formations with an eliminate order. I am usually right behind exploiting the opening. 

@Dark.Revenant fantastic work with the update. I love the new optic and the way the 3 hull-mods work. It's the little things like that you can turn the combat freighter into an hybrid with them.

I have noticed that in the Imperial variants the armor package is always? combined with the heavy armor hull-mod. I assume there is very heavy synergy between the two? 

12
Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« on: May 24, 2019, 02:25:55 PM »
Am I just extremely unlucky or has the Odyssey become extremely rare? I am approaching the end of my vanilla run and I have never even seen one. No blueprint either. I have a collection of all other capitals by now including several Paragons. And yet I dearly miss that ship.  :'(

13
General Discussion / The Pirate Paragon
« on: May 13, 2019, 03:49:52 PM »
So I got very lucky on my first 0.9.1 vanilla run.

The second cluster I explored for bounty hunting, right next to the core worlds, had two good planets for colonization and several stations including a research station. And here I got a Paragon blueprint right at the start of the game. What to do?

Sell it to the Pirates to jump-start two colonies of course!  ;D I had already made good starting money by smuggling supplies and heavy armaments to Qaras and I found it fitting to continue my opportunistic anarchistic tendencies. It was very much a conscious decision, I wanted a challenge and was bored of the constant boring pirate grind from 0.9. Also the thought of Paragon pirate fleets was hilarious, especially from a lore perspective.

It was't as funny though when the FIRST pirate fleet to raid my undefended colonies looked like this while my fleet consisted of only a falcon and a few destroyers and frigates:
Spoiler
[close]

Turned out that it wasn't as bad as it looked. They had a Paragon but only had access to their very limited energy weapon selection. So with only 2 autopulse lasers it wasn't really a threat and got swarmed and killed eventually.

14
General Discussion / Re: What sector age to you usually play with?
« on: April 15, 2019, 02:19:12 PM »
Hah, as much as that sounds interesting, it also sounds like an amount of content work that would be more in tune with something like "an expansion" rather than "a Sector config setting" :)

... I do really like the idea of getting historical, though, hmm.

Oh yeah for sure! But you could look at it as a way to get a ton of fresh replayability for comparatively little new content required. It would require new descriptions, some tweaks to the core systems that could mostly be done using existing assets for the visuals, tweaks to the sector generation, and at least a few unique quests. Certainly not an insignificant amount of work, but I'd say it would be some very cost effective work in term of new gameplay offered.

If the changes are large enough, it would certain fit the bill for some post launch content.

Oh yes please, mark this somewhere with three red explanation marks for after 1.0 (if you plan post launch content at all ofc)

I love the idea. A combination of more refined player starting options together with sectors time/status options would be very neat indeed. With unique starts for certain time periods and maybe a different prevalence of certain ship types during different times ect.  ;D   


15
Suggestions / Re: Command & Fleet Deployment Issues
« on: February 25, 2019, 01:29:17 AM »
Since I don't want to make an extra thread and this topic is related I'm asking here:

I don't think I have ever seen this information ingame and since it's a rare situation I never really bothered to look it up. What about combat skills in an in battle transfer command situation? Do I retain my personal combat skills? Do they override officer skills if the piloted ship has an officer onboard? 



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