Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

1

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.96a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: May 15, 2023, 04:35:59 PM »

Is anyone using the Hephaestus Assault Gun on anything to good effect? Anything at all?

I've been using one on a Retribution with a pair of Mk9s in the other Large Ballistics, and it works quite well at chewing up pirates (which I end up fighting at least as often as everyone else). Definitely not an all-comers fit because it's still horrendous against heavy armor, but the HAG doesn't let up when my flux is near maximum and the Orion Device lets me flag down the faster and more fragile ships the the gun seems to be meant to engage. Still wouldn't put one on anything I expect to primarily engage cruisers or capitals though.

2

General Discussion / Re: Let's talk about xiv ships

« on: April 11, 2021, 09:13:08 PM »

XIV ships are great, with the exception of the Falcon which misses the point entirely. The Onslaught XIV is a straight upgrade over the normal one (don't even pretend like the speed penalty matters on something already that slow) and the Enforcer XIV is a brick shithouse of a destroyer that can withstand a ridiculous amount of punishment for its size class. Slap on some swarmers, flak, and an HVel or two and it makes for an excellent escort that can stay by heavier ships side in pitched battles providing great defense against fighters and missiles as well as decent long range shield pounding. XIV champ when?

3

Suggestions / Re: New Redacted BBs ought to swap power levels, and a rant about redsec systems

« on: November 28, 2018, 08:13:38 PM »

I don't have anything against Radiant itself(except un-capture-ability), but REDACTED fleets kind of do provoke officer-envy. Like whut? These guys can afford level 20 or so officers in like every single frigate, why am I limited to just 10 officers...

That's really the thing that makes fleets containing them such a slog. On paper the ship is "merely" very powerful, but on top of its impressive stats it's always accompanied by about a dozen other ships with LV15+ officers, and carrying one itself. Leads to frustratingly unpredictable fights where no two of the same ship class behave the same because of officer skills that as far as I'm aware you have no way of checking.

4

Suggestions / New Redacted BBs ought to swap power levels, and a rant about redsec systems

« on: November 28, 2018, 04:18:22 PM »

So 0.9 added some new toys to the AI factions, both of them possessing more large mounts than any vanilla playable ship.
One of them has all the mounts locked forward on wide wings that mean it won't be able to bring its full firepower to bear on anything smaller than a broadsiding Conquest; the other has three out of five of them on turrets, and the last two very tightly packed at the front that let all guns fire on the same point.
One of them has a clunky front shield generator, the other has a high-efficiency omni.
One of them can turn rather quickly to more easily expose its backside to the rest of your fleet, the other can instantly reposition, teleporting away from danger while simultaneously changing its facing
One of these ships appears only once in the entire sector (as far as I know), the other sometimes appears multiple times in the same fleet.

The Radiant was a nice wakeup call the first time I fought it as part of that one quest, and after the dust settled there was a cool reward at the end. But then, much later, I tried going into red security systems and encountered multiple per fleet, and it became an exercise in frustration. I get that the Radiant is supposed to be challenging and that redsec is supposed to be dangerous but this is all in a really annoying out of control cheese wheel sort of way. Like, of course 5 Tac Lances and 4 Sabot Pods is a challenge, but that doesn't mean it's fun to fight. Just reinforces the already stale fighter meta because any ship that doesn't have fortress shield is going to get instantly sunk the moment it draws the Radiant's ire. Even after defeating one Radiant and its fleet, once you're back on the overworld there's probably going to be another fleet converging on your position, possibly even with more than one Radiant present. At that point whether or not I even want to bother clearing out the system all comes down to the question of "Is this fight worth it? Because I'm not actually enjoying myself", and so far the answer is no. Red beacon systems simply have nothing to offer me at the stage of the game where I would actually consider myself "ready" to visit them. I have colonies already, so I'm not exactly looking to settle on new planets. Said colonies already have synchros and pristine nanoforges installed from salvaging and exploring ruins in other systems, so I don't need any more of those. And those colonies have banked me more than ten mil, and I would like to stay out of trouble with the Hegemony, so I couldn't care less about finding more alpha cores to turn in or install. All there is left that I can think of is the prospect of a fun but challenging fight, and the Radiant just doesn't deliver on the Fun front- at least, not in the quantities at which they are encountered.

Meanwhile, the Guardian was incredibly underwhelming for something I've only ever seen in one place, and completely alone at that. The only one I've ever fought, I destroyed before I could even really ascertain its threat level, because when I took a Dominator around behind it to shoot its engines, it activated plasma jets, turned to face me, and got it's unshielded aft section blasted to pieces by the rest of my fleet. Maybe there are more domain relic-related plans for the future where this thing can show up, but I feel like right now it is painfully underutilized. I really think it should be made tougher somehow, either in the form of altering the ship's stats or simply giving it some allies so I can't just immediately cheese it in 30 seconds by drawing its attention with a single ship and letting the rest of the fleet do all the work.

tl;dr In their roles as boss-level defenders of the colony growth modifier and the quest planet, these two ships are fine. But I think the Guardian doesn't show up enough to be appreciated fully, and the Radiant is way too ubiquitous where it does. Also what's the point of red beacon systems again?

5

Suggestions / Re: Raids are not legal grey areas

« on: November 24, 2018, 07:01:32 PM »

those rules of war you are talking about don't really exist senpai, the reason they exist is that if anyone breaks them they will be killed by the UN.

there is no UN in this setting. you are killing their citizens and servants, they don't like it, so they drop your rep.

they want you to die and you're being damn inconvenient by refusing :^)

Next time you try being smug make sure you aren't wrong first, atrocities and some degree war regulations obviously exist in the context of this universe too. Regardless of the nonexistence of a stellar UN, there are some actions a faction can take in the sector that are widely regarded as wrong- raiding fleets approaching with transponders off is a clear indicator that they are fully aware that they're up to no good, because once an actual war breaks out fleets keep their transponders on even though it would be to their advantage to keep them off; the fact the game mentions that legal gray areas even exist is a dead giveaway some kind of codified law exists, because if there was no law there would be no grey areas; saturation bombing markets is explicitly labeled as an atrocity and leads to instant hostilities with all civilized factions, etc.
You're missing the entire point of the post anyway, factions throwing hissy fits because you caught them red-handed doing things they weren't supposed to do makes it feel like this universe is populated with nine year olds and leads to a tiresome gameplay experience where you get unavoidably locked into hostilities with other factions.

6

Suggestions / Re: Raids are not legal grey areas

« on: November 24, 2018, 05:28:40 PM »

Uhh, I'm pretty sure this exact mechanic is the game saying you can repel the attackers without incurring reputation penalties.

Every single individual engagement you have in the defense of your colony incurs a 3 point penalty, the last time I got attacked the Perseans sent what must have been at least five fleets, and they seem to be attacking that colony at least three times a year. At this point they're pretty far beyond ever gaining favor with but it's still obnoxious. Sure I could go raid all their markets until they destabilize and just wipe the faction out entirely, but just killing all the other factions is a nice way to end up with a boring sector where nothing happens except pirate and pather bounties. Having to drop what you're doing to respond to an attack or potentially suffer the consequences of a raid should be penalty enough for contesting their market shares, not an endless stream of suicides that inevitably leads to a state of permanent hostilities.

I just reinforced a defense and only got a rep hit for running down the defeated fleet. I don't think you're getting a rep hit for defending yourself, you're getting a rep hit for murdering the merchant fleet supporting the (defeated) military raid. I think if you let the backliners run home w/o incident you don't get any hit

If vaping the poor sods in a retreat is what sets off the rep hit then that's still a problem, because when you get a warning that your system is under attack then the natural response is "well I better go break out the big guns then". But if you try to intercept the raider fleets with a big fleet of your own, they will always run away from you, which means any engagement you force with them will be a pursuit that drags the logistics ships into the fight. So what am I supposed to do then if killing the logistics ships is the problem? Bring a smaller fleet so they don't run away and up ganked by the four other task forces joining the battle when I make contact? Stand around and wait for them to engage the battlestation or my patrols? Neither option sounds fun. Besides:

Spoiler

[close]

Persean League Task Force attacks my station (after the popup has already listed the raid as "Defeated", mind you), I go to assist.

Spoiler

[close]

The Perseans are defeated, no pursuit is given, -3 rep.

Spoiler

[close]

Tritachyon raiders are engaged with my patrols, I go to assist.

Spoiler

[close]

The Tritachs are defeated, no pursuit is given, -3 rep.

7

Suggestions / Raids are not legal grey areas

« on: November 24, 2018, 03:07:11 PM »

Suggestion: get rid of this garbage for factional attack fleets. Bombarding planets and destroying infrastructure is not a legal grey area, it is an act of war, regardless of whether you're doing it with your transponder on or off. In fact, out here in the real world, attacking a polity without a formal declaration of war is far more akin to a war crime than a "legal grey area". Taking a diplomatic hit of any size for foiling a faction's attempt to disrupt or destroy your colonies is downright insulting, and with these attacks usually consisting of multiple fleets, I usually rack up enough disfavor to end up well on the way to "hostile" by the time the dust settles. Sure I could then go do missions for them to raise my reputation back up, but A) why would I ever do favors for people who just tried to ruin me, and B) by the time I've recovered the lost rep, they're likely about to start planning another raid. Factions should either nut up and make a formal wardec after a point, or the player shouldn't be penalized at all for defending their colonies.

8

Suggestions / Re: Independent territory claims

« on: November 23, 2018, 04:39:02 PM »

Seriously, can I at least raise my relations with them to a point where they'll knock it off? I don't want to have to depopulate Nortia because it's one of only two Independent Military markets in the entire sector.

ANCAPsmileythumbsup.gif

Spoiler

[close]

9

Suggestions / Independent territory claims

« on: November 23, 2018, 04:00:40 PM »

There is no logical reason for this to be repeatedly happening. Independents are, by the game's own description, not a unified faction; and I'm pretty sure Alex himself said that independent markets, traders, smugglers, mercenaries, etc are only lumped together as a convenience more than anything. They should not be massing genocide fleets several star systems away to enforce a claim to a system where they own fewer markets than I do. Any of the other factions? Absolutely. But not the indies.

10

Suggestions / Officer Management and Payrolls

« on: November 18, 2018, 10:45:52 PM »

In the current build, Officer Management seems to stick out as a somewhat redundant and uninteresting skill, as all it really does is permit you to hire more people. It doesn't do something like, reduce how much you have to pay them, increase their statistical bonuses to captained ships, give them an extra skill to pick from when leveling, or anything like that. Just lets you buy more. It's like if there was a skill that was simply "Able to command up to 35/40/45 ships in a fleet", potent but a bit dull.

Prior to 0.9, your officers worked for free, barring the initial hiring cost. Bringing significant attribute boosts to the ships they captain, they obviously ought to be limited in some way, lest the player simply amass a roster of 20 to 30 max-level captains and simply run over everything with nothing in the game left to provide a challenge. With the latest update though, you have to pay them a salary based on their level—in the current state of the game, up to 2500 credits per month for a level 20 officer—which makes me wonder why the Officer Management skill is really a necessity anymore. Couldn't the task of limiting the accessibility of officers be performed by having a large roster be a more significant drain on funds than going it with only a handful?

Spoiler

Besides, I've seen at least one instance where the game breaks its own rules and creates a fleet with fourteen officers. If I've got cash to spare, why can't I go over ten?

[close]

And on the note of salaries, have I just not played the new build long enough to find out where I can bench officers or is there no place to do that? I see that administrators who are without an assignment only get paid 10% of their salary, but officers get paid in full whether they're at the helm of a ship or unassigned for the entire month, and actually capitalizing on the Officer Management skill means you'll eventually be stuck with a permanent 25K credit penalty every pay period. Being able to drop them off someplace would be beneficial for those times where all I plan on doing for the next few months is taking on survey missions or just exploring outlying systems. And if the cap is going to be limited at ten active officers at any one time it would be nice if I could swap some out to accompany changing fleet compositions instead of having to fire a long term investment entirely to make room.

11

Suggestions / Re: Transponder checks outside of faction space

« on: September 03, 2018, 02:24:10 PM »

By "pirate controlled space", do you mean you were in a system with no markets except pirate ones, or that the planet you were mining was on the other side of the system from the Hegemony market?