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16

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.6a (In Development) Patch Notes

« on: July 13, 2013, 11:43:52 AM »

I must've missed the whole "Frigates now lose CR after a certain period of time" thing.  I really don't like that idea.  I get that ti's to reduce the kiting BS that goes on, but I almost exclusively pilot Frigates and if they start to burn out in anything but a small-time, quick battle, then they might as well just be fighters that can't repair.

I could see this for a lot of Tri-Tachyon ships, as they'd need it.

But for a lot of slower Frigates like Lashers and Brawlers that aren't fast enough to really kite anyway and that rely on staying near more powerful ships in the fleet for the majority of the battle to survive, this will be very crippling.


How long are we talking, here?  Cuz if it's a really long time (Basically only coming into play when someone is taking forever trying to kite a huge fleet), it might not be too bad.

Will there be different timers for different ships?  Will there be skills to make it less impactful on a player's ship?


I need more info to really draw a judgement, but this one makes me feel really iffy.

17

General Discussion / Re: 1.6 Patch

« on: July 12, 2013, 08:39:06 AM »

Alas, when those wimpy laser bolts are mysteriously sparking lightning across your hull and making your weapons magically stop working, credit where credit is due, they're using your unshielded strengths against you. 

Nah, that's not the lasers doing it.  It's those stupid Green Recruits getting so bored by seeing the lasers harmlessly plink on the armor that they stop manning their weapons.

18

General Discussion / Re: 1.6 Patch

« on: July 11, 2013, 11:55:02 PM »

Then just don't use the Paragon. 
Go jump in an Aurora or a Medusa and stay in it.

High tech ships are easy-mode.

REAL MEN use low-tech ships with ridiculous amounts of ballistic firepower and heavy armor.  Not wimpy shields and lame new-age "Lasers".

19

Suggestions / Re: Beam Weapons

« on: July 11, 2013, 07:28:55 AM »

Missiles ARE primary weapons in some mods (Hiigarian Descendants have several large ships that use missile barrages as their main attack.  Very cool), and I'd like to see some of those "Spammable main weapon" missiles make an appearance in the vanilla game at some point.



I'd really like to see a specialized type of "Beam" that deals hard flux and is damaging, but is only on for a second or less (Think Burst Lasers that are actually damaging to stuff besides missiles/fighters).  Give them poor turn rates, decent range, and a cooldown of some sort and have them as a viable alternative between the Close-Range Spam that is Pulse Lasers and the mid-range constant damage that are the Beams.

20

Mods / Re: [0.54.1a] Exerelin - Dynamic System and Faction War - v0.55

« on: July 10, 2013, 11:21:30 PM »

So after playing the mod for a couple days off and on, it started inexplicably slowing the crap out of my computer until I restarted my system.

Is this a common thing?  Cuz I haven't had that with any other mods that I know of yet.

As in, slowed the computer down even after you exit starsector? That seems a bit strange.

I have left starsector+Exerelin running for multiple days without any issues, and it would be strange to affect your whole system, not just the starsector executable. I also normally play on a 2011 MacBook air so it's by no means a powerhouse computer

Has it happened just one or multiple times? If you haven't already, I would ensure you are running the latest java version.

So far just once.  But apparently Java was trying to update as I was playing so that probably caused some issues...

21

Suggestions / Re: Beam Weapons

« on: July 10, 2013, 08:36:35 PM »

I'll admit flat-out that I usually fly Frigates and Destroyers and my beam experience is limited to what I can do with beams on one of them.

So I'm not sure what you can do with massive capital ships packing multiple High Intensity Lasers.



But on Frigates and Destroyers, an all-beam setup usually ends up with fairly anemic damage potential.

22

Mods / Re: [0.54.1a] Exerelin - Dynamic System and Faction War - v0.55

« on: July 10, 2013, 08:33:16 PM »

So after playing the mod for a couple days off and on, it started inexplicably slowing the crap out of my computer until I restarted my system.

Is this a common thing?  Cuz I haven't had that with any other mods that I know of yet.

23

Blog Posts / Re: Fighter Update

« on: July 10, 2013, 08:31:00 PM »

That's assuming the Piranhas get close enough to an Onslaught to start dropping their payload. That's also assuming the Onslaught's PD doesn't just completely deny the Piranhas bombing attempts.

They're fond of running into the MAIN GUNS instead of going for the unshielded backside, so their lifespan is pretty much nil.

24

Blog Posts / Re: Fighter Update

« on: July 10, 2013, 09:57:10 AM »

So was playing a carrier fleet for funsies and preperation for this patch and was reminded just how huge the changes are, haha. Stupid kiting frigates. 

For me, it's more important because occasionally the Fighter and Bomber AI gets whole squads killed when it mysteriously decides that it would prefer to:

-Fly straight into an enemy's main guns, emptying all of their High Explosive ordinance into the enemy's 0-flux shields and dying instead of doing anything useful (Pirahanas are bad about this)
-Do the above, but with shields active so they get overloaded and can't even fire their ordinance (Tritons and Daggers are pros at this)
-Ignore how slow they are and end up floating in the middle of space, alone, being picked off by enemy missiles (This is a favorite of Warthogs and Mining Drones)
-Fire incredibly piddly weapons against a Flak-loaded side of an enemy capital ship (The preferred tactic of Wasps and Talons)
-Chase and be kited to death by Frigates with longer-ranged weapons (Broadswords and Gladius' are bad about this)

Made me giggle. Not sure if that was intended, but it did. 

You should try playing a fighter-centered fleet.  You get to see some hilariously stupid stuff from your fighters.

I forgot to mention that in a tightly-packed battle, I've actually had my Dagger Torpedo Bombers and Pirhana Bombers KILL FRIENDLY SHIPS with missed shots.

I about fell out of my chair laughing when I watched a Falcon activate it's maneuvering jets and completely sidestep a hail of bombs that wrecked a total of 3 friendly frigates and a friendly destroyer.

25

Mods / Re: Tore Up Plenty - Alternate Starting Ships

« on: July 09, 2013, 06:33:14 PM »

Well, since you want criticism and feedback, I'll give you my two-cents on the "Wrestler", since I love gunships.

First and foremost, I love the look and the fact that it's just so forward-focused that you can tell it's a killer ship.  The engines are also rather spread out which can minimize damage to them from missiles that get through.  So, here are my pros, cons, and advice on possible improvement.

PROS:
+The rear turret is a godsend for taking out Salamanders.  This, coupled with the wider engine spacing helps you avoid flameouts.
+Armor and maneuverability of the Brawler, two of it's best features are preserved.
+Kept the 2 Medium, 2 Small Ballistic hardpoint and Ammo Feeder setup, allowing for ridiculously good forward firepower.


CONS:
-Still really slow.  At 90 speed, even though it's an improvement, it can still be outrun easily by even Cruisers/Destroyers.  This makes it really necessary to put Augmented Engines/Unstable Accellerator in it, making it's rear-engine vulnerability more serious and potentially crippling.
-The front shield's arc is a bit small for as wide as the ship is.  Lots of things will clip your flanks as you turn.
-OP is somewhat low for something expected to mount so much firepower.  Especially when the Brawler tends to need a bunch of hull mods to make it viable as anything but an escort.
-Flux cap/vent rate is a bit low for something with so much firepower as well.
-This is the most important con, BY FAR.  It reverses one of the key features of the Brawler: Instead of having it's two powerful weapon mounts close together and right up front, with the weaker ones off to the side, it has it's two weaker mounts up front and it's powerful mounts off to the side.  While this looks incredibly cool, for practical purposes, it tends to space out the projectiles and make it very, very hard to hit smaller targets.  Coupled with the inaccuracy of a lot of Medium Ballistics, this hits it very hard.
-That Universal Turret with the 360 Arc just feels...off.  Aside from maybe an LR PD Laser, nothing you put there will have a long enough range to really do good PD work.  And you don't really have the OP on the ship to mount something really powerful like an Antimatter Blaster there.



Suggestions:
-Do something about the wide arc of the two Medium Mounts.  Perhaps swap them with the two Small Mounts and see how the ship looks/acts.  Maybe change their arc too, so that they arc IN more and OUT less, allowing them to hit smaller targets close up.
-Slightly widen shield arcs so they cover a bit of the flanks while you spin around (Which you do a LOT in this ship)
-Possibly increase speed.  Not too much, as it's still a variant of the slow-as-molasses Brawler, but at least a bit.
-Possible OP increase on the ship to allow for some better weapon mountings.
-Possible minor widening of the Rear Small Ballistic hardpoint's Arc so it can better hit missiles.  ESPECIALLY since it has a very short range.  This would be optional, however, as if you know what you're doing, you can get the Vulcan to take out Salamanders fairly well as it is.
-Possible tweaks to Flux Capacity/Flux Venting to help support it's weapons loadout.
-Maybe a name change to something more starship-ish?


Other than that, I'm loving it.  If these things were in Excelerin, I'd have a perfect mod setup for Starsector.

26

Suggestions / Re: Impoving Armor

« on: July 09, 2013, 08:51:49 AM »

To buff armor the best right now, I think some of the Armor-boosting Hull Mods need some tweaks.

1) The really good ones (Heavy Armor, Reinforced Bulkheads, ect) are fairly high-up on the tech tree, requiring a lot of investment to get.
2) They cost a good bit of OP and skill points while STILL having pretty big disadvantages (Heavy armor decreasing maneuverability, for example)
3) Some give too minor of a benefit for their OP cost, currently (Automated Repair Unit is a big offender here)


Tweaking some OP costs, putting some at lower skill ranks, and possibly taking out or reducing some of their disadvantages would be the way to go, IMO.  Regenerating armor should be ship-specific system, if anything.  Otherwise capital ships become ridiculous and could literally just wait for the enemy to run out of ammo on their powerful armor.

27

Blog Posts / Re: Fighter Update

« on: July 09, 2013, 08:47:39 AM »

So was playing a carrier fleet for funsies and preperation for this patch and was reminded just how huge the changes are, haha. Stupid kiting frigates. 

For me, it's more important because occasionally the Fighter and Bomber AI gets whole squads killed when it mysteriously decides that it would prefer to:

-Fly straight into an enemy's main guns, emptying all of their High Explosive ordinance into the enemy's 0-flux shields and dying instead of doing anything useful (Pirahanas are bad about this)
-Do the above, but with shields active so they get overloaded and can't even fire their ordinance (Tritons and Daggers are pros at this)
-Ignore how slow they are and end up floating in the middle of space, alone, being picked off by enemy missiles (This is a favorite of Warthogs and Mining Drones)
-Fire incredibly piddly weapons against a Flak-loaded side of an enemy capital ship (The preferred tactic of Wasps and Talons)
-Chase and be kited to death by Frigates with longer-ranged weapons (Broadswords and Gladius' are bad about this)



Having them be PERMANENTLY destroyed because of an AI oversight like they currently are is incredibly harsh and it'll be nice to have them still be alive after the battle even if they did go omega-level stupid and get killed.

28

Suggestions / Re: Beam Weapons

« on: July 09, 2013, 08:38:46 AM »

The problem is that unless you have a large fleet focusing on a single target, Beams will almost never get the shields of an enemy down because, generally, their Soft Flux buildup on an enemy's shields is equal or less to the enemy venting.  And even in a fleet with enough lasers to focus down enemy shields...the beams can't go through allies so it turns into a cluster**** with everyone blocking their allies' shots.

Or even if it's not, it's so little of a flux buildup that unless the enemy fires, they'll take forever to be overloaded.  It results in two ships just floating around starting at each other while one beams the other harmlessly.

It limits the viability of the energy weapon pool to basically Pulse Lasers and Blasters at low levels.

29

Mods / Re: [0.54.1a] Exerelin - Dynamic System and Faction War - v0.55

« on: July 09, 2013, 08:34:49 AM »

Any chance of getting the Tore Up Plenty ships put in as options to start with?

I'd love to use some of those instead of starting with a default Vanilla ship when I use a vanilla faction.

30

Mods / Re: Tore Up Plenty - Alternate Starting Ships

« on: July 08, 2013, 01:44:40 PM »

I like it so far, but I have one minor gripe.

Please change the upgraded Brawler's name from "Wrestler" to something like "Slugger" or "Pugilist".  Having a ship called the "Wrestler" just feels weird.

I like Pugilist. I was at the time also considering 'Rowdy', 'Scrapper' or 'Bantam'. Romper also comes to mind.

I like any of those alternate names.  They'd all work for a Gunship.

I just wish the default Brawler wasn't so terrible.  This upgraded one pretty much fixed it's weaknesses with just a couple of PD turrets...  And it looks like a beast, too!