Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Planet Search Overhaul (07/13/24)
Hi - thanks for the report! This actually isn't a bug; the Colossus Mk.III is flagged as a "combat" carrier, meaning it's willing to fight on the front line like the Mora or the Legion. That's possibly a questionable tactical choice, but it's a pirate vessel...Wouldn't questionable tactical choices be covered by the doctrine of the Pirates faction itself, as well as the Aggressive/Reckless personalities common to their Officers? It seems a bit unusual that a player fleet or steady Officer treats it like it's a real combat vessel and not a floating cardboard box.
Realized I never replied here - yeah, one thing I want to do is look at the DP of the larger drones. (The small ones are not going to be much good regardless.)Rugged Construction certainly fits their lore, but from testing I wouldn't say they're limited to a junker playstyle; I'd argue the Rampart is most usable with a build involving makeshift shield generator and hardened shields built-in, further boosted by an (Alpha) AI Core with Shield Modulation. I suspect a similar strategy would work for the Berserker, albeit held back by the inefficiency of 6 DP + 5/7/10 for the AI core meaning you'll have generally 2-4 of them in a fleet at best.
Adding "Rugged Construction" to them may be worth a look, too, since we're likely looking at a drone-junker style if these are involved.
I feel the primary issue with them is that they’re heavily overcost in terms of Deployment Points; you’re giving up a slot that a far, far better ship could have taken. If Derelict ships were assigned DP values closer to their actual performance, in conjunction with measures like Rugged Construction and perhaps a discount to the AI core assigned to them (maybe -2?), they’d be more competitive.I'm fine with them retaining their current sub-par DP and battle stats, if only because both SP and Cores can bring them more up to speed - and that using Automated Ships for having a lot of cheaper, sub-par ships with Officers compared to the intense quality of a couple Remnant vessels sounds fun. It wouldn't be far from the challenge of using Pirate vessels, or Pather vessels - sure, most of them suck anyways, but that doesn't discourage me from wanting to build a fleet of them.
Could some armor friendly hull mods get added that are geared to low tech? I mean we have a rather powerful mods to enhance shields on ships that already have the best shields. Give armor resistance traits or something. Some hull mods specifically designed to most benefit Low tech. Every hull mod seems to be Generalized or clearly just better for High tech and a lesser extent Midline.I do like the idea of having hullmods to better specialize what your armour protects against. Impact Mitigation before the last couple of hotfixes was very strong, but that was because it was extremely common on Officers and never had a cost for the ship. Hullmods that offer similar armour specialization would be pretty nice, doubly because using them would take away OP the ship might use elsewhere (and so likely wouldn't be ubiquitous picks).
I think that would clash with the way officers decide how large your DP share is at the start of a battle.This already happens with the second popular use of Automated Ships, spamming Gamma Core Glimmers.
Largely mirrors my thoughts, yeah. One thing I was thinking is perhaps AI cores could cost based on the cost of the ship they're in. The derelicts having no cost I think might just mean "you only use the largest one". Their impact on DP would need to be adjusted, though (which, I mean, fine - can't trust them for tactical advice!)Only using the largest one would still have the inherent limitation of Ramparts being all-around 'far worse Dominators' (point for point when deploying them in battle), off-set only by the power of whatever AI Core you install in them. Without Cores, they're really kind of bad. I really wouldn't mind if Derelicts being free to the AS limit came at the cost of Cores contributing less to battle DP, given that Automated Ships already somewhat treads on the value of Officer Management.
What if they all got... Rugged Construction built-in?This and the blueprint idea would both be cool!
In all seriousness, I am literally talking about atlas MK II which is the ship you mentioned as one you would want to buff with AS. I've tried to do that, but the issue is just that ship doesn't have enough OP, and burning 20% of it's OP just to leverage the skill with MS + assault package. Plus even with just one Atlas MK II, the AS bonus is already like only 150% which just kinda gets it back to normal capital stats, not even particularly good stats. The ships is still bad with AS, because it has awful dissipation and is super OP starved, and AS doesn't fix either of those problems. At least built in MS would help make your one altas MK II a bit better by freeing up 25 OP.I wouldn't be against Aux Support giving you an 'extra s-mod slot' available exclusively for Militarized Subsystems, but I disagree that an Atlas II is truly OP-starved. You just need to be a bit more focused in your build; be willing to sacrifice PD, the missiles, shields or anything your build 'won't need' to optimize the flux stats and more importantly optimize how your Officer will pilot it. It's a good gunship/missile boat/artillery platform for it's DP that can be built in a plethora of ways, you just need to specialize it for your fleet's needs.
2: Categorize skills not by aptitude but by epoch. Same mechanics, different themes: instead of the current Combat/Leadership/Technology/Industry it will be Core Epoch/Mastery Epoch/Expansion Epoch/Fall EpochThis wouldn't be very easy for a new player to understand (unless the codex had a history section and these skills had mouse-over lore panels), but it's a very interesting idea as far as flavour goes.
We're talking about the combat ships that you would specifically take that skill to benefit though? Like I can't imagine taking auxiliary support and then using a bunch of civilian military ships without trying to buff them with the skill. The skill also sucks too, you have to burn so many OP just to get the benefits of the skill, and most civilian ships don't have a ton of OP to begin with. The whole idea behind the skill doesn't really work IMO.To the contrary, no. You take the skill to generally benefit either a single large vessel like an Atlas II/Venture, or a few smaller vessels like Kites. Whatever you use it for precludes ever using ANY other militarized vessel in your fleet. As-is, the skill does work, it just has a very specialist-focused offering: Making a very, very small portion of your fleet more powerful. In a sense, it's akin to running Automated Ships - you do it with a very specific strategy in mind around a large vessel or a few smaller ones.
The capitals will single handedly ruin the sensor profile and burn of your fleet without MS. You have to invest tons of OP just to make them usable ships before you can even spend OP on combat related stuff. I think built in MS would be nice just to free up a bit of OP. I'll still never use them though. You're better off with some high end cruisers.I really hate the idea of ships with built-in Militarized Subsystems in this latest patch, given it makes those ships potentially worse than worthless for playing using the Auxiliary Support skill. It's for the same reason I despise every idea to do things like make the Mule a civ-grade with built-in militarized, as I'd just stop using the ship entirely. It's a cute thing for Hegemony Auxiliaries because it fits their theme (and is effectively a niche variant of the vessel), where they 'properly' militarize their civilian vessels instead of the Pirate way of jury-rigging and haphazard modifications.
