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346

Suggestions / Re: Supercarriers able to Repair & Refit frigates

« on: March 11, 2012, 07:40:27 PM »

First off, to give the Astral a bit more of a use, make it give a MASSIVE boost to the out-of-battle repair speed of all fighters and frigates in the fleet.  It's a technological marvel with tons of space and should be able to do days worth of repairs in mere hours.  It's presence could also give a larger chance to be able to repair "Destroyed" fighters and frigates after the battle.




To keep it from being "Overpowered", limit it's in-battle repair/refit abilities quite a bit.

1) For starters, limit the repair.  Armor will be fully patched up (They just slap on more plates), but hull can't be repaired more than 50%.  Further repairs would require extended, out-of-battle repairing.

2) Also limit the ammo refills a bit.

-Only fill ballistic/energy ammo-using weapons to 50% of the max (Factoring in Expanded Magazines, of course!).
-Rockets and Rocket Pods would be filled 50%
-Missile "Pods" would be given two "Salvos" (4 missiles).
-3-shot" missiles to 1 missile per launcher with each reload (Two if they have Expanded Missile Racks).
-"Single Shot" missiles and torpedos would, of course, be fully reloaded, giving them a space-saving advantage, but making them highly dependent on a Reload-Capable ship.

3) If a Frigate is being repaired/refitted, it should count as having 2 Flight Decks "Taken".  This would mean that repairing Frigates would limit the Astral's fighter-refitting ability.

4) The repair/refit process should definitely take some time, but would vary depending on if it's just repairs, just refit, or both.  Refits should be relatively quick, but repairs should take a decent chunk of time.  It would make sending a Frigate for repair a significant investment of time.

347

Suggestions / Re: Beam Weapons

« on: March 11, 2012, 07:19:11 PM »

my problem with beam weapons is even more fundamental than this.

i find that all beam weapons are fundamentally worthless because no mater how much damage you put on the target if you hit there shields its all negated to 0 as long as they have enough vents to equal your damage which is not that hard for ships larger than frigate.

While this is true, they aren't dissipating any flux while those beams have them pinned in.  Like Alex said, they can be forced to choose between keeping their shields up and building flux quickly when firing weapons, or lowering their shields and taking armor damage while not having their flux dissipation crippled.

348

Suggestions / Re: Stock variants with the normal PD laser

« on: March 11, 2012, 07:11:50 PM »

the DPS is too low, and no hullmod exists yet that makes up for it

But what does "too low" even mean? Just because it's lower than everything else? Something has to be the lowest... 

did some math not but a few minutes ago for another thread. and thought i would re post it here... so to quote myself

Is LR PD laser really that bad compared to the others? Even to the normal PD laser?

pd laser

range :325
DPS: 75
turn rate: 75
flux per second: 50

LR PD laser

range 400
DPS:  50
turn rate: 50
flux per second: 40

lets take a look at missile speeds

50 speed missiles
phase charge launcher: hp 250 (3.3 seconds for pd to kill or about 165 range.) (5 seconds LR PD to kill or about 250 range.)

150 speed missiles
Atropos torpedo hp: 250 (3.3 seconds for pd to kill or about 495 range.) (5 seconds LR PD to kill or about 750 range.) ( i hope you have more than one hitting them LOL)
sabot SRM hp: 300 (4 seconds for pd to kill or about 600 range) (6 seconds LR PD to kill or about 900 range.) (again hope you are hitting it with more than one PD laser)

200 speed missile
pilum LRM hp: 75 (1 second for pd to kill or about 200 range) (1.5 seconds LR PD to kill or about 300 range)

250 speed missiles
swarmer SRM hp: 25 (0.3 seconds for pd to kill or about 83 range) (0.5 seconds for LR PD to kill or about 125 range)
annihilator rockets hp: 50 (0.6 seconds for pd to kill or about 150 range) (1 second for LR PD to kill or about 250 range)
hurricane MIRV (before split) hp: 200 (2.6 seconds for pd to kill or about 650 range) (4 seconds for LR PD to kill or about 1000 range)

300 speed missiles
reaper class torpedoes hp: 400 (5.3 seconds for pd to kill or about 1600 range) (8 seconds for LR PD to kill or about 2400 range) (i hope you can maneuver or put a lot of hurting on these things)
salamander MRM hp: 150 (2 seconds for pd to kill or about 600 range) (3 seconds for LR PD to kill or about 900 range)
harpoon MRM hp:100 (1.3 seconds for pd to kill or about 400 range) (2 seconds for LR PD to kill or about 600 range)

obviously some of these missiles split up or come in groups so... for those i hope you have serious area PD or your going to be takeing damage.

these numbers were taken from starfarer/starfarer-core/data/weapons/weapon_data

You think you could do that math again, with Vulcan Cannons?  They seem like MUCH better PD weapons and I'm curious as to if they mathematically are.  I know the Vulcan does Fragmentation damage and fires INCREDIBLY fast, so that might have something to do with it.


IMO, Vulcans are good, PD Lasers are...bleh.  And LR PD Lasers are total junk.

349

Suggestions / Re: PD weapon auto fire priority

« on: March 11, 2012, 07:04:44 PM »

What about additional options in the 'weapon groups' window before fights? It has been mentioned that this could be used to dictate initial autofire settings, we could throw in a 'force PD Only' setting too?

That would be good.  I DEFINITELY want to see my autofire preferences.  But like with autofire, let it be toggle-able in mid-battle.  When you want your Burst Lasers to pump out that extra bit of damage to finish off a ship, for example.

350

Suggestions / Re: Store Overcrowed

« on: March 11, 2012, 06:59:18 PM »

How about you just re-do the interface and sort the store into categories.

Cargo and Crew, Energy Weapons, Ballistic Weapons, and Missile Weapons.  Problem solved, IMO.

351

Suggestions / Re: Show other fleet's speeds

« on: March 11, 2012, 06:57:07 PM »

This really needs to be shown, IMO.  You'd figure that if you can DETECT the enemy fleet from far away, you could at least vaguely figure it's speed as well.

352

Suggestions / Re: AI problems (fixing the brawler)

« on: March 11, 2012, 06:48:44 PM »

The Brawler is a sad, sad ship.  And it really bums me out because I wanted it to be sweet.


It's absolutely useless against most Frigates and Fighters because it's incredibly slow, has all hardpoint weapons, and has front-locked shields.  All most Frigates need to do is hit it with Salamanders to cripple it's engines, then fly behind it and shoot it in the back.  It's tremendously slow speed and wide, easy-to-hit shape makes this easy.

And if you try to use it in a "Gunship" role, taking on Destroyers and such head-on like it's Frontal Shields and Hardpoints seem to suggest...it gets DESTROYED.  It simply doesn't have the firepower and armor to stand toe-to-toe with Destroyers.  And it doesn't quite have the speed to out-maneuver them.

So you basically have a ship that's near-useless against Frigates, but still can't hold it's own against larger ships.  It's pretty much a joke right now.


Ideally, I think they should boost it's speed by a lot.  Make it able to at least keep pace with Frigates.  Make it as fast as a Hyperion or something similar.  It should be that ship that can blitz you head-on and get in your face with a lot of firepower.  Make Brawlers feared ships that would have to be dealt with in their own way.

There's no other Frigate that almost exclusively front-locked shields AND firepower.  Give it at least average speed, keep it's maneuverability, and up it's flux-dissipation by a little.  The "High tech" ships have their shining stars, the Tempest and Hyperion.  The "Low Tech" should have the Brawler as theirs.  A ship with powerful frontal firepower and shields, but no rear defenses.

353

Suggestions / Re: One Shot Button and More Weapons Group

« on: March 11, 2012, 06:37:43 PM »

It needs a few things to make the current system ideal, IMO.

1) More weapon groups.  As someone said, six would be perfect (And there's nothing FORCING you to use all 6 if you don't like it).

2) A second (Maybe even 3rd?) auto-fire/hold fire system.  It'd be nice to be able to stop auto-firing your Pulse Lasers without stopping your Point Defense Lasers too.  Or to stop auto-firing your Needlers and start auto-firing your Assault Chainguns.

3) A "Point Defense ONLY for Point Defense" toggle.  This would stop Flak Cannons and Burst Lasers from targeting large ships nearby and ignoring fighters/missiles.

4) A SPECIAL control group called "Alpha Strike".  This control group can overlap with others, because it would be triggered differently.  By pressing a certain key (F would work nicely), every able-to-fire weapon in the Alpha Strike group fires.  This would let you dump all of your chosen weapons on an enemy at once (But would be HUGELY flux-generating and able to overload you easily if you don't plan properly!).

You'd be able to pick which weapons you want in this group so you don't have weapons you don't need (Like point defense/flak/missiles) firing off in all directions.  The "Alpha Strike" system would primarily help Strike Craft like the Hyperion and Medusa.  You could potentially be able to fire off two anti-matter cannons and a pair of torpedos at the same time...at point blank range!

354

Suggestions / Re: PD weapon auto fire priority

« on: March 11, 2012, 06:27:53 PM »

I posted about it in another topic, but I figure I'll repost it here.


Ideally, I'd like a way to make Point Defense weapons STRICTLY point-defense.  Perhaps a "PD Only" toggle.  Like the "Hold Fire", when it's on, Point Defense weapons will ONLY fire at Fighters and/or Missiles.

Part of it is a problem with the Hold Fire in general.  If I have Pulse Lasers that pump out the damage and PD Lasers that are keeping me alive, all on autofire and I have to shut off the flux-happy Pulse Lasers so I don't overload...my Point Defense is now offline too!  A separate "Auto-Fire/Hold Fire" set would fix this.  SHIFT+1 puts something on "Autofire 1" that you can stop by hitting X.  ALT+1 would put that same group on "Autofire 1" that you could stop by hitting Z.  Not only would this help with Point Defense, but it'd give more freedom in general of what weapons are firing when.

Might be nice to have a capital ship that can toggle Autofire separately for it's Anti-Shield and Anti-Armor weapons.



TL;DR, another auto-fire group and a "Point Defense only for Point Defense" toggle are sorely needed.

355

Announcements / Re: Starfarer 0.51a (Released) - Live Patch Notes

« on: March 11, 2012, 06:25:10 PM »

I think Point Defense has a trio of main problems, really:


1) They attack so much crap that ISN'T a missile/fighter that they forget to do their damn job.  I can't count how many times my Burst PD Lasers have fired at a Capital Ship I was strafing past instead of the missiles trailing behind me.  And when they finally turn to face the missile, they're in cooldown and the missiles hit me.

Ideally, I'd like a way to make Point Defense weapons STRICTLY point-defense.  Perhaps a "PD Only" toggle.  Like the "Hold Fire", when it's on, Point Defense weapons will ONLY fire at Fighters and/or Missiles.


2) Another problem I have is with the Hold Fire in general.  If I have Pulse Lasers that pump out the damage and PD Lasers that are keeping me alive, all on autofire and I have to shut off the flux-happy Pulse Lasers so I don't overload...my Point Defense is now offline too!  A separate "Auto-Fire/Hold Fire" set would fix this.  SHIFT+1 puts something on "Autofire 1" that you can stop by hitting X.  ALT+1 would put that same group on "Autofire 1" that you could stop by hitting Z.  Not only would this help with Point Defense, but it'd give more freedom in general of what weapons are firing when.

Might be nice to have a capital ship that can toggle Autofire separately for it's Anti-Shield and Anti-Armor weapons.


3) Energy PD weapons largely suck.  I would take a Vulcan Cannon over a PD Laser or a Flak Cannon over a Burst Laser any day.  First, the normal PD laser is so weak even with multiple lasers,  it's hard-pressed to take out a single missile.  And while the Burst PD lasers are good (Although the cooldown is a bit long), the issue in problem #1 kicks in: their long range makes them attack things that they shouldn't instead of fighter/missile threats.

This is compounded by the fact that they're all "Energy" and not "Fragmentation", and get no real advantage against fighters/missiles.  Maybe change certain PD Energy weapons to have Fragmentation damage.  The reasoning could be that they cause some sort of radiation, emit certain particles, or cause internal thermal damage.  All that would be largely blocked by armor/shields, but will devastate unshielded targets and small ships.

Also energy has no real AoE attacks that can swat down groups of missiles/fighters like Flak Cannons can.  Some sort of "Charge Launcher" or "Energy Mortar" that explodes on contact.

356

Announcements / Re: Starfarer 0.51a (Released) - Live Patch Notes

« on: March 09, 2012, 02:49:04 PM »

This patch made it almost like a new game and I'm pretty happy with it.  However, there are SOME things that need looked at and still a lot to add.  Here's my likes, dislikes, and suggestions.  Ones in bold are the ones I'd REALLY like to see addressed.

Stuff that is awesome:
-THREE.  FREAKING.  STATION.  All with different ships and weapons.  Not only is this awesome for organization's sake, but it means that you can potentially become a Tri-Tachyon fleet and fight the Hegemony instead of being forced to work with 'em because they have the only station.  Also, it means more convoys head in and potentially bring in more rare ships and equipment.
-Due to the increased stations, it's USUALLY possible to find whatever weapon you want, especially if it's supposed to be common.  And certain weapons seem rarer, like the Salamanders, because they aren't on sale everywhere.  Meanwhile, no longer are Tactical Lasers and Light Autocannons super-rare.
-More medium missile options.  This was sorely needed.
-No more Pirate Scout fleets everywhere.  Most Pirate fleets now have at least a couple of ships and put up a fight.
-Talons seem to actually survive now.  Sometimes.

Changes I'm not liking and/or need tweaking:
-Not liking the Wasps being "Green".  As someone said, it gives penalties to their default stats.  I haven't checked, but I think this applies to Mining Drones too.
-Not thrilled with the Augmented Engines and Advanced Optics changes.  AE is fine on SOME ships (Hounds are a good example), but on most that really need the speed, the 25% flux dissipation penalty is just insane.  And most Energy Weapons turn-rate penalty with AO more than kills the ranged benefits.
-The "Speed penalty" when you lose a battle needs looked at.  Particularly if you completely destroy the enemy fleet.  I think it should only be half the speed reduction and/or duration of usual if the entire enemy fleet is completely captured and/or scrapped.  It'd represent salvage time, yet not cripple you from further fights.  If the enemy fleet escapes/retreats, however, the speed penalty is definitely needed.
-Ballistic Weapons still tend to always run out of ammo in long battles.  I realize this is a weakness for them, but some way to address it would be nice.  See my suggestions on it for a couple ideas.
-Swarm SRMs seem far too slow and are regularly outrun by the Fighters and Frigates they're supposed to kill.
-The Annihilator Rocket Launcher still seems like crap.  I cannot use it well against anything.  This could potentially be a cool weapon (Maybe allow it to fire a burst of unguided missiles that head relatively straight in each shot?)
-In most fights, Tri-Tachyon tend to DESTROY both Pirates and Hegemony in battles pretty consistently, even with smaller fleets.  The "It costs more so it's balanced" argument doesn't seem to apply to them.

Suggestions:
-More Medium-sized missiles.  The pods are nice, but we need some actual bigger-sized, medium missiles like the Pilium.  Medium-sized Torpedos, anti-fighter missiles, and the like are all needed.  Medium/large sized BOMBS could be interesting.  Perhaps some missiles/torpedos that do AoE damage?  Or heavily-armored ones that can get past weaker Point Defense systems.
-On that note...Swarm SRM POD for my medium slots, please.  I would love to see a crapton of those things go flying out and decimate a frigate or fighter squadron.
-Make some (Albeit inconvenient) way for Ballistic ships to resupply ammo if they run completely out.  Two ideas are a resupply ship that can dock with them in battle and refill their ammo up to 25% (Both ships would be very vulnerable during this docking and it would take time.) or having the ship able to "Retreat for resupply", be gone for several minutes (While still taking up FP!), and able to come back with 50%-75% of their ammo.  For balance reasons, I think this should be limited to only ammo-using direct-fire weapons (So it would include the Anti-Matter cannon and the like) and not missiles.
-Brawler needs adjusting.  The poor thing is slow to the point of near-uselessness most of the time in the early-game.  If anything, make people not start the game in one with the terrible loadout of 2 Assault Chainguns and 2 Annihilator Rockets.
-I know this one may be hard, but...add in SOME way to lock Omni-Shields to one direction while you aim in a different direction.  My strafing in most ships with Omni shields is crippled because I can't keep the cursor forward so I face the enemy while keeping my shields behind me so a bunch of Salamander MRMs don't EMP me.  Meanwhile, the AI seems perfectly able to do so.
-Some weaker fighter types (Wasps, Talons, ect) need some AI tweaking so they don't fly straight at capital ships and get insta-killed by Flak Cannons.

357

Suggestions / Re: Fleet control system suggestions and feedback.

« on: February 24, 2012, 07:21:35 PM »

I think I already mentioned this - that's not how it works.

If you issue an intercept order on the enemy fighter, *one* of your nearby fighter wings (or fast frigates) will break off and go after it. If you need to beef if up, you could use a direct order to add another ship to the mix.

If the system worked that way, it'd be amazing.  But it doesn't, unfortunately.  The problem tends to arise when the AI makes really questionable decisions, forcing you to use your Command Points to correct AI oversights rather than to enhance your strategy.

Lets take the intercepting fighters example.  I've given my capture orders and such, everything in the fleet is moving.  But out of nowhere, a bomber wing appears on the left flank.  I give the Intercept order...and it assigns a seemingly random Frigate from across the map to intercept them.  I would much rather have my nearby Talon Wing or Point Defense Frigate do that, because they can certainly do it a hell of a lot better than my Brawler Gunship.

If you're gonna have the really general stuff, you need to tweak the AI, so that it realizes that Point Defense Frigates and Fighters are better interceptors than Assault Gunships.  Or that my Close Support Frigate would be better at striking a Carrier than my Point Defense Frigate.  IMO, the best way to do that would be to let the player add "Tags" to ships before a battle.  "Tag" a wing of fighters as Interceptors so they prioritize enemy fighters and bombers.  "Tag" a Frigate as Attack, Close Support, Assault, Point Defense, ect.  So the AI would know what it's best at when auto-assigning.

And, for the love of god, stop making AI-controlled Fighter Wings ignore Bombers/Torpedo Bombers and charge at Capital Ships that they can't hurt.


The Command Point limit is the biggest issue.  You can't correct bad AI decisions without wasting several Command Points.  I cringe when I see my Talon Wing targeting a capital ship, my Carrier trying to intercept a pack of Frigates, or my Pirhana Bombers trying to Intercept a wing of Broadswords...

Other issues that need addressed:

1) Damaged ships don't seem to know when they need to get out of the fight.  I frequently have to order Fighter Wings to manually Repair and Refit because they won't do it on their own when they're all almost dead.  They tend to wait until only 1 ship remains before repairing, even if all 3 ships have almost no hull left.  Crippled frigates have similar behavior.  I've never seen them retreat on their own.

2) Specific orders regarding Fighters.  "Fighter Screen" for capital ships instead of general Escort (Would make the assigned fighters prioritize enemy bombers and fighters attacking the ship they're screening over any other threats.), and "Intercept Strikecraft" or something similar would be good for telling available Fighters or Point Defense Ships to intercept instead of assigning a random ship.

3) Some sort of self-preservation setting for ships that are heavily damaged or crippled.  Or at least some notification that they're taking heavy damage.  Currently, you can manually retreat them, but I usually don't even notice they're in trouble until they're dead.

4) The Command Points seem really arbitrary.  If someone wants to play the Command System a ton to strategically win battles, he should be able to do that without having to work around the Command Point System.  It really feels like just tacked on difficulty.  A nice fix for this would be making Assign Task not cost Command Points.  You'd be able to bolster orders and specify what you want each ship to do.  And counteract bad AI choices (No, Talon Wing, you shouldn't intercept that Onslaught).  Hopefully officers and character skills should help that, but it definitely needs tweaked.

5) Once an order is completed (IE: A ship retreated, a fighter wing repaired, a target you specified is destroyed), getting the Command Point back after an order is successfully carried would be a nice way to ensure that you can keep assigning points.  Perhaps add some sort of Character-Based skill that does that if you design your character in that way?