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1

Suggestions / Re: Armor damage visualization should scale non-linearly

« on: March 14, 2024, 03:36:55 AM »

I find it quite visually pleasing that armor doesn't show damage immediately, makes it more satisfying (or horrifying when you are inside the armor) when it does finally "crack".

What I'd really like see is the shading representing absolute armor strength, so that weakly armored ships start of with a darker shade. It's cumbersome that you have to remember or look up armor values in a separate menu. Of course that would bring readability issues that had to be solved.

Maybe 1) making the absolute value per size class and 2) introducing some visual patterns in addition to the shading would be enough. Then an HA-Enforcer would have a, say, dotted armor grid while a shrike would have a half grayed out one.

Even half the idea would help, with just heavily armored ships getting a visual pattern on their grid.

2

Blog Posts / Re: Simulator Enhancements

« on: March 14, 2024, 03:15:31 AM »

I did not expect you to tackle the sim at this time Alex, but the changes sound really great! I see myself spending way to much time in there, and finally optimizing my fleet for specific factions. Codex next? It could use the same meta-progression unlock mechanics. Gotta Scan 'Em All!


Kinda tangentially related, but simulator enhancements make me think of this: It could be a nice immersion/QoL option to have an after-battle dialog option that pretends that the last battle was actually just a simulation. That would prevent the "need" for a reload when your fleet gets wiped, and enable you to either try again (this time for real!) or turn tail. It would of course cost a Story Point (0%).

Your forces have been defeated in the last encounter.

You decide to....

   1. Proceed

   2. Shut down the simulation. Good thing you ran it, now you know what not to do. [1 SP, 0% XP]

3

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.97a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: February 29, 2024, 03:19:38 AM »

Another way to develop Support Doctrine: make officers boost (i.e. transfer their skills partially to) allied ships that a near to them. That would turn officers into a kind of squadron leaders. And give more flexibility to the skill selection of Support Doctrine.

It could also be the foundation of an overall reduction of the amount of officers in the game, which in my opinion is inflationary high.

And it would be tactically interesting. Can you assassinate a squadron leader to significantly weaken the whole formation, or do you have to chip away at his support support craft?


I realize I didn't leave general feedback yet: This is a great release. The colony crisis is fantastic dynamic storytelling, it was really hectic and fun in my playtrough. Looking forward to encountering that whole part of the game again in my next playthrough.
The abyss  was tense and exciting, but a little too easy in my opinion. I kinda wish it would force me into a  smaller fleet. 

4

Suggestions / New Fire Mode "In Range"

« on: February 21, 2024, 02:28:26 AM »

It would be very useful to have a firing mode (besides Linked/Alternating) that enables weapons with different range to be in the same group. Pressing the trigger for such a group would simply just fire all the weapons in in that are currently in range of a target. So for example, I could put a Autopulse Laser (700 range) in the same group with a Ion Pulser (500 range). An enemy at 600 range is hit only with the APL, but when closing to 500 range I can unleash my full firepower on him - all without having to switch around my weapons groups or fiddling with autofire settings.

Currently I find it indeed quite fiddly to manage disparately ranged but otherwise synergetic weapon groups, especially for weapons that  I don't want on autofire because of limited ammo or high flux impact. In practice that leads to me either just leaving the shorter ranged weapon on autofire (so it often wastes shots or flux) or having it in the same group and accepting that it sometimes fires when out of range (that kinds works for rapidly firing short range weapons with slow firing long range weapons, e.g. Hellbore + Assault Chainguns.)

5

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.97a (In Development) Patch Notes

« on: January 20, 2024, 03:44:18 PM »

Speaking of QoL-features: Did you ever get around to cheking out if weapon ranges could be displayed in refit somehow, Alex?

6

Blog Posts / Re: Colony Crises

« on: November 28, 2023, 07:52:17 AM »

Interesting blog post, looking forward to founding my next colony. (I'm just skimming here to avoid spoilers.) I would be proper if the citizens of you colony would somehow react if you manage to solve some crisis, marking you as a good leader. I wouldn't mind a monument in the capitol, but a more friendly greeting by my patrol commanders would suffice
BTW, I think it would be cool if you could buy survey data (not just sell it) from other explorers instead of absolutely having to find a good colony world yourself - sometimes it just takes longer than is good for the flow of the game.

once you've dealt with all the crises, there are... no more crises to deal with

So my question is, if there are no more threats, aren't your defenses obsolete? Aside from the stability bonus, there's just no use for ground defenses, patrol HQs and space stations anymore, right? Seems a shame.

Except if Colony Crisis are actually intended as mid-game content and end-game threads will take their place 

7

Suggestions / If everybody is special, nobody is

« on: November 19, 2023, 10:50:45 AM »

I want to make some arguments to tone down the abundancy of officers in the game.

- The "combat skills conundrum" would be mostly solved by this. The reason players feel pressured into taking combat skills is that we need them not to stand out, but to keep up. A combat game where your avatar character is plain weaker than most enemies... not a fun concept. If there were rarely more than one or two enemy officers, you could still impact the fight without combat skills. As it is now, that seems impossible.

-  I don't usually like to deploy ships that have no officers, it feels like a inefficient use of DP and supplies. That effectively limits the size of my fleet and my deployment options, and makes different fights more samey.

- I personally think the power creep introduced by abundant officers (and other bonuses) has made the combat more action-focused and less tactical. I'd prefer more interesting combat decisions per minute over more explosions per minute, but that's just me.

- From a more emotional perspective, the abundance of officers really inflates their value and, as per the title, specialness. An enemy level 5 officer barely registers (past the very early game). It takes like a lvl 10 for me to go "Oh, who's that guy? What might his story be? Can I beat him?".

- From a storytelling perspective, the current amount and interchangeability of officers makes it impossible the give them a role in story, lore or dialog. That could change if we had fever, more curated officers. (Contacts as officers, anyone?)

I realize that reducing officer frequency would be a major balancing upheaval and that that's a lot to ask. Just wanted to make my points anyway, cause I think the game might be better for it.

8

Suggestions / Re: QoL request: Lose over-capacity fuel

« on: November 03, 2023, 02:07:43 PM »

Nice! 

9

Suggestions / QoL request: Lose over-capacity fuel

« on: November 03, 2023, 11:20:23 AM »

The extra supply cost for being over-capacity with fuel is not a problem from a gameplay perspective, but it can get quite a bit annoying from an UI/QoL point of view.
Once you are at max capacity, having to sort out fuel from loot every time, instead of just clicking "take all"... well, it gets tiresome fast. And sometimes you forget and pay an unnecessary supply fee. The only time when I actually want to pick up over-capacity fuel is when I'm close to a jump point and about to leave the system.

So I would suggest to just leak over-capacity fuel over time (and not make it cost supplies), so the problem takes care of itself. It works nicely for over-capacity supplies, after all.

Alternatively, "take all" could just not take fuel once your capacity is maxed out.

10

General Discussion / Re: UI Scale

« on: October 15, 2023, 03:51:06 PM »

Hi, welcome to the forum!

You can just hit "Options" directly in the launcher and use the UI scaler there.

11

Modding / MOVED: [096.RC10] Planetary Shield Replacer by ShogunTrooper

« on: October 13, 2023, 01:19:11 AM »

This topic has been moved to Mods.

https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=28142.0

12

Suggestions / Re: Debris could stand to be more easily breakable

« on: September 28, 2023, 01:27:01 PM »

Might be good if wrecks break into smaller chunk faster, and these chunks get quite a bit momentum away from the sprite center. So if you hit a wreck a few times its parts go flying of in all directions and make way for your shots. If only to show off the ship breaking system more^^

13

Suggestions / Re: Please add some kind of pre-battle tactical deployment system

« on: September 24, 2023, 12:59:20 AM »

Maybe ships could just deploy the way they are arranged in the fleet menu. Their position in that menu doesn't play much of another role anymore anyway.

14

Blog Posts / Re: Wormholes and Sundry - Getting Around the Sector

« on: September 17, 2023, 05:22:03 AM »

It’s unlocked by progress in the Hyperspace Topography “event”


Also unlocked by increasing Hyperspace Topography progress

I want to suggest to link these abilities also to active exploration success, not just Hyperspace Topography progress. While more content for the HT-progress is a good idea, exploration also needs more things to discover. And I think finding something and unlocking a new ability with it is way more exciting then just slowly working away on a progress bar. I'd suggest suggest that you need both the thing(s) and sufficient progress to unlock the new abilities.

The creation process of new slipstreams comes to mind as something you might interact with to unlock related abilities. But there are many strange things and loose threads in hyperspace that could lead to a discovery.

15

Blog Posts / Re: Wormholes and Sundry - Getting Around the Sector

« on: September 06, 2023, 12:39:30 AM »

Limiting it to Black holes and neutron stars seems more reasonable

If the current surge implementation turns out to not work well, this could be a good way to fine tune it's niche. If surges were more limited in origin, but even more powerful ... they would become a  imprecise "switch which side of the Sector you are in" tool. And thus have a very different niche than other travel methods.