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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 - Nanostrike

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1
Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.6a (In Development) Patch Notes
« on: August 20, 2013, 05:15:12 PM »
so considering their purpose does this make the tugs one of the fastest ships in the game currently? (not including strike craft)

No, they're on the lower end of the frigate class as far as speed, in both travel and combat. About the only frigate they might be hauling around is the Brawler.

Good to see that the Brawler is still more-or-less a slow-as-molasses joke ship.  My entire Starsector worldview was shaken when the Omen became viable.

I can just imagine the Brawler being towed around by Tugs, using up all that fuel, and STILL being unable to actually catch anything in battle that can't swat it down like a fly.

2
Suggestions / Re: Phase Ships... this may help
« on: July 30, 2013, 09:26:45 PM »
Quote
EDIT: Just thought of what would happen if they could fire missiles, torpedos, AM blasters, and bombs while cloaked. Probably a terrible idea. So maybe just allow anything but strike weapons/missiles?
This is one of the issues I keep seeing. 

If we want them to behave more like submarines (aside from the all-important being-invisible part) then we could give them the ability to fire weapons with a special flag, such as "can fire while phased". 

The weapons would only interact with n-space objects, and then they could be balanced, in terms of their usefulness.  Since the Phased ship can't be shot back, they'd have to produce enough Flux to make firing them a big choice- firing would reduce how long the ship could stay Phased.  But it'd be surprisingly-little Flux, I suspect, because of the way that Phase Cloak constantly does damage.

But if they cannot move faster than same-size ships, this isn't enough.  The Doom can't outrun other Cruisers, and can be boxed easily by Destroyers.  It's not a submarine; it's not an alpha-strike craft; it's a Cruiser with a huge hitbox, weak armor, smallish weapons loadout and a short time to Overload for its "shield". 

Again, I'm not saying that it can't kill stuff... but when I made the changes I've described, it made a huge difference.  Now the Doom is something I have to watch for and kill before it snuffs out my fleet, one alpha-strike at a time.  It makes them the "assassin class" of the game- great for backstabbing, poor for up-front fighting, but useful and dangerous in the hands of the AI.

I'd like specific phase-usable weaponry.



The current problem with the Phase Ships is that they don't know what they wanna be.  They're stuck somewhere in between the "Stay cloaked until it's time to strike" submarine style and the "Use the cloak as a short-term evasive tool" assassin style.  It kinda tries to be both right now and thus doesn't excel at any.


My little brother calls the Doom-Class Cruiser the "Suicide Box", because of it's slow speed, lack of shields, and HUGE, easy-to-hit, boxy shape.

3
Mods / Re: Blackrock Drive Yards - v0.30
« on: July 18, 2013, 02:37:48 PM »
Yeah, it's probably my second favorite faction in Excelerin (My favorite being the Valkyrians.  Dunno why, just like them!).

I love the burst maneuvering thrusters and a lot of the weapons.  Just needs more weapon variety, IMO.

4
Modding / Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« on: July 18, 2013, 02:36:11 PM »




That looks menacing as hell.  I think it'd look more menacing with all the weapon hardpoints filled, though.  LOL.

Now thats a gunship right there, cute little fella isn't he? ;)

One of the few gunships I've seen that I actually like and frequently use.  Maneuverable, fast, decent shields, small profile, and versatile Ballistic slots.  The Yuushan MK II, isn't it?  I usually play Valkyrians in Excelerin, but I've only been able to get the MK I.  Is there something special you have to do or is it luck?

I load that thing up with Needlers and Lancers and go to town, dodging missiles and sniping capital ships all day.  Usually the first thing I do is get one of 'em to the Omnifactory so I can start cranking out squadrons of them.


The only other real Gunship in the mod was the Blackrock Locust and the limited faction weapons kinda gimped it for me because I couldn't get an Energy Weapon that wasn't crappy for Blackrock and since the Locust has 2 energy slots, that kinda sucked...

5
Modding / Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« on: July 18, 2013, 11:03:22 AM »
I was looking to create a good Gunship for my game because, frankly, the Brawler sucks and most mods' "Gunships" are just "Ships with guns" instead of a helicopter-style Gunship.

I am confused.

Gunship: An airplane or a helicopter heavily armed with machine guns or with machine guns and cannon, providing air support for ground troops in combat.

What seems to be the general idea in Starsector about what a gunship exactly is?


Naval Gunship and Helicopter Gunship are two different things.  The Naval Gunship is basically a boat loaded up with guns.  Almost any boat can be a Gunship, technically.

Helicopter Gunships are maneuverable, durable ground-attack craft, typically with limited anti-aircraft abilities but superb ground-striking abilities with an emphasis on precision.


I was more referring to helicopter-styled in that it has a very slim, hard-to-hit-from-the-front profile, ideal for a gunship.  It can keep it's tightly-packed forward guns trained on a target while presenting it's target with a hard-to-hit opponent.

My cornerstones for Starsector Gunships are:

+Forward-facing Hardpoint Weapons as the main source of firepower.  No turrets or minimal turrets with VERY limited arcs.
+Efficient forward-locked shields.
+Good maneuverability and acceleration/deceleration, allowing it to strafe
+Decent speed (This is what KILLS the Brawler)
+A compact design, allowing more precise application of firepower and less "Wasted space" making the ship a bigger target.


I was trying to get some Apache or Cobra Helicopter sprites to mod up some other Gunships, but I can't find any decent ones that are top-down and don't have giant-ass rotors blocking most of the sprite.  I can't draw for crap, myself, so I haven't been able to whip up any decent sprites and almost any that I found besides Sprog's awesome work clashed with the vanilla look so hard that they looked to be a different game.  I could see Sprog's ship fitting in with any midline (Or even some Hegemony) fleets, so that's what I went with for looks.



I wish I could make my Cleaver sprite a bit less blurry, but upsizing it tends to do that.  I love how it handles in-game, though.  Easy to get into a capital ship's blind spots and hover there.  And the closely-packed guns let you easily focus your fire on a key engine or weapon system on the enemy ship.

But it's not great against Fightercraft, has to watch out for tail-seeking missiles, and in a fleet battle has to be aware that it's rear is wide-open.  And at only 150 max speed, a lot of the faster Tri-tach ships can still kite it pretty easily.



Also, I'd go with the Destroyer size too, Mendoza.  It looks a bit wide and bulky for a Frigate, but a bit on the small side for a Cruiser.

6
Mods / Re: Blackrock Drive Yards - v0.30
« on: July 18, 2013, 10:23:07 AM »
It's meant to be a good frigate against fighters as well as a good escort for bigger ships. If you want firepower there are two other frigates for you to use, the Scarab and Mantis.

Currently, you can probably get the most out of it by mixing weapons, but some weapons and rebalancing in the dev version might make it overall more interesting to use if you only stick to Blackrock content. I was thinking it could benefit from having a different ship system, but it's hard to figure out what that should be.

It's decent at chasing down fighters, but the Corvettes seem to be better at that.  The thing that really throws me off is it having 2 energy and 2 ballistic slots.  Shard Autocannons are no-brainers for the Ballistics, but I can't seem to find any effective Small Energy weapons in your faction weapons.  Any suggestions?

7
Modding / Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« on: July 18, 2013, 10:19:29 AM »
Hey Sprog...remember your Cleaver Gunship?

I was looking to create a good Gunship for my game because, frankly, the Brawler sucks and most mods' "Gunships" are just "Ships with guns" instead of a helicopter-style Gunship.

Your Gunship sprite was the best I've seen so far, so I enlarged it a bit, modded on some slightly larger weapon hardpoint areas, and gave it stats/loadouts.  Hope you don't mind.  I'm not using it for a big mod or anything, just my personal use in the campaign so far.  Anyway, this is the result:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6h1y6hvt5dbzsio/Cleaver%20Gunship.rar

In the "Tore Up Plenty" style, you'll start with it if you choose "Did something else" at character creation.  So far it does it's role excellently.  It's good against larger or slower targets due to it's slim profile, good forward shields, and forward-focused firepower, but a poor dogfighter due to those same reasons (And lack of Turrets).

Anyway, if anyone wants to use it, you can go right ahead.  I'm just sick of not having a decent Gunship in Starfarer.  I might also mod together a Greenback Gunship as well for high-tech fleets.


Also, I'd love to see some more Frigate-sized Gunships and possibly even some Destroyer-sized ones.  The Helicopter/VTOL style of ship is sorely under-represented in the game so far outside of Fighters.

8
If you want a different starting ship, Tore Up Plenty is compatible with most other mods and it allows you to pick something fresh and new right off the bat.

I second this one.  It's pretty fun to mix things up with.

9
I know how to use the Omnifactory and all that.  It's getting that first weapon (Or ship!) that tends to be the problem.

The "Only large ballistics in the shop, but Frigate needs Small Energy weapons" comes up a TON.  As does the problem of having only Kinetic or only HE weapons.

And the problem of needing Frigates/Destroyers, but only having Fighters, Cruisers, and Capital Ships.


It's actually stopped several of my games before they even begin, as my faction will get swarmed and wiped out while I'm stuck in the starter ship with no ability to really rearm it or buy additional Frigates for support.




I like the mod and love the large-scale battles, but this is a pretty constant source of frustration.

10
The ships do need a fair bit of balance however since most of the weapons are flat upgrades.

I agree.  They tend to steamroll pretty hard.

11
After playing the mod for a bit, I have one pretty large criticism:

Getting the needed weapons seems almost completely random and involves a ton of flying in circles or waiting at a planet and hoping a supply shipment gives them to you.

Depending on your faction and starting ship, with their default weapons and the possibility of not getting any weaponry you need to re-outfit your ship, you could be left nearly-useless.

Is there any way to make your faction get more of it's weapons faster or something?

12
Mods / Re: Blackrock Drive Yards - v0.30
« on: July 15, 2013, 10:21:00 PM »
I like the Locust, but with it's default loadout, it's pretty anemic on the damage front against anything but fighters.

Is it meant to mix vanilla weapons and blackrock ones to get the most effectiveness out of it?

13
Suggestions / Re: Impoving Armor
« on: July 13, 2013, 07:03:44 PM »
*snip*
wait for the enemy to run out of ammo on their powerful armor.

isn't one of the .6 changes going to be limitless ammo for ballistics as well? or did I mishear that?

A mod changed that.  1.6, if anything, is supposed to make the ammo situation worse by having Ballistic Weapons not even be fully loaded if your Combat Readiness is low.

14
Suggestions / Re: Beam Weapons
« on: July 13, 2013, 03:44:45 PM »
IMO, we just need a sort of middle-ground between low-damage constant Beams and high-damage Pulse Lasers.

A beam that does hard flux and decent damage but only stays on for a few seconds (And has a meaningful cooldown time) would probably go a long way towards filling out the energy arsenal.

Think Burst Lasers, but powerful enough to be main weapons.

15
General Discussion / Re: How did you come about Starfarer?
« on: July 13, 2013, 11:46:33 AM »
I saw some people playing an early build on Youtube and was immediately sold.

It was SPAZ with less arcadey spam and more tactics.

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