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16

Suggestions / Re: More restraints on s-mods for more interesting usage

« on: April 15, 2021, 11:28:19 PM »

In the last patch I honestly would not think to run hullmods like Heavy Armour as readily as I do now. It just isn't appealing to me if I'm paying the OP cost in most cases, given it's exorbitantly expensive.

If some form of limitation is instated, I'd likely just go back to never using it. This applies to other niche, weird and expensive hullmods that are opened up by the 'OP freedom' given by s-mods such as Augmented Field Drive and Operations Center.

I'm not going to pretend I'm any good at making my case here, I'd just be sad to see this feature in general nerfed and to lose the build variety it opens up.

I didn't play during this time, but I can readily see this point.

I pick out the hull mods that I most want on the ship, and choose the 2 most expensive ones, and make the rest work. Usually I end up with 4-5. It's rarely the same ones for each ship, and they're tailored around the pilot as well.

If I were instead limited, I doubt I'd use the feature. I don't even know what I'd use the majority of my story points for at all.

17

General Discussion / Re: How are you actually supposed to do 'Stealth' missions?

« on: April 15, 2021, 05:20:13 PM »

I got really good at stealth missions, as I did the entire story quest line without doing a single fight. Here was my process:

In hyperspace, remember fuel is used by distance, not time. Keep your fleet smaller:
1. Stick to deep hyperspace/storms while moving slow, and go dark if you suspect someone is going to hunt you.
2. If someone does start to hunt you, burst away towards the deepest part of the storms till you are far away, then go dark again, and go wide around them.
3. Use Transverse jump to enter in as close to your destination as possible.

In system, you have a smaller fleet, so you want few D-mods that increase sensor profile:
1. Stick to dust clouds or asteroid belts if you can. Be ready to burst away if seen.
2. If someone does see you, burst away but turn 90 degrees once you leave sight of them.
3. Return to dust clouds or asteroid belts as soon as possible, but go dark as soon as possible. Use your discretion when. You might need the extra speed of full burn to continue to evade them.

If your target is being guarded, which it often is, you may have to bait them off. This usually means moving a ways off in the asteroids, and sending out a sensor ping. This will make them see something in the asteroids. Immediately burst away and come back from a different angle. Hopefully they will take the bait.

When leaving, use transverse jump. Often you might want to use transverse jump from far off the edge of the system, as this will give you a head start in hyperspace if enemies are chasing you. If possible have them chase you off to the boonies first as well before you jump.

18

Suggestions / Re: More restraints on s-mods for more interesting usage

« on: April 15, 2021, 05:09:07 PM »

I would like to point out that I wouldn't build in a 15 point S-mod that had no purpose in my end build even if there were no 10+ S+mods I was intending to build in just to get a "free" mod.

Honestly, I don't see the OP's point in this thread. I'm not always building in the same S-mods on all my ships.

19

Suggestions / Re: List DP and hull size in ship tooltip

« on: April 15, 2021, 12:07:51 PM »

I know DP match the stats for maintenance and recovery but both of those can be modified so it can be annoying to read, plus new players may not know that those stats always match.

The hull size can be difficult to guess with a newly encountered ship, especially non-combat ones.

I do not know how to tell the DP by looking at maintenance and recovery as a new player. This should be shown explicitly please.

20

Suggestions / Re: Trade is brokenly unbalanced

« on: April 14, 2021, 12:34:02 PM »

Bad idea: you can only trade on the black market if you either have a contact at the world, or you sneak in without being detected.

...

The current system isn't that. The current system is either smuggling or nothing, with no room for an ethically-flexible band of gray-market misfits doing a mix of legit and questionable jobs as they come up.

Isn't this what contacts, bar missions, procurement missions, and shortages are? I get pop ups for jobs coming up pretty constantly.

Touche!

Here's my point: legit trade is unprofitable without a price differential of at least 86% + the cost of supplies and fuel. And the minute demand is met during a shortage, the price immediately drops from 50%-300% over market par to about 15% UNDER market par. Maybe I aided market saturation with my own colonies.

What's worse, often I've found shortage prices to be less than the 86% differential which means that - even on otherwise profitable jobs - the marginal profit becomes negative as you approach the demand limit. And it's difficult to tell at what point you're losing money without micromanaging your sales.

If you just get rid of the tariffs on purchases (like how tariffs work IRL), you make the whole situation a lot more manageable with a necessary price diff of 42.85%.

But that's besides the point: even the "right" kind of legit trading where you only are shipping from surplus to shortage is incredibly unprofitable. I understand that's kinda the point because you don't want players doing nothing but playing Drug Wars on their TI-86 calculators (I'm old).

My take is that trading being more unprofitable is lame and not fun (because it already is). Making trading more DANGEROUS and RISKY is a better alternative.

As it stands, legit trading may as well not even exist because it's so vestigial that there's no point in delivering desperately-needed goods to dying colonies except as charity.

The only place where trading remotely works right now is in running drugs, guns and mercs to pirates/pathers on the black market.

Please don't make that WORSE by making that unprofitable too. I'd rather you made everything else more profitable but also more dangerous.

Ideas:

• Adding more pirates to the hyperspace map
  Repurposing the space cop code you've already got to get them to do interactive shakedowns of passing traders instead of going straight to combat
  During wartime have dedicated faction privateer fleets to intercept hostile-nation traders
  Having MUCH HIGHER rep penalties for being caught with contraband - maybe even going straight to hostile

The X universe, if you don't mind me using it as an example, had freight scanners that were "illegal" for people to own that didn't have a police license in the sector they were in. Pirates would often use them to illegally scan freight to see if it was worthwhile to extort a trader for some of their goods.

If the game had some sort of mechanism like this, it'd help build on some of the realism of the game.

21

General Discussion / Re: The Frigate Bias

« on: April 11, 2021, 12:44:26 PM »

(The Tempest is basically just too good. I suspect it'll meet a nerf bat in a dark alley some day, and what comes out just won't be the same as what went in.)

...They're indeed head-and-shoulders above other conventional frigates, but they're expensive and rare enough that the player can't field them in meaningful number until late in the game...

Tell that to my factory. The historian told me where to find a blueprint almost immediately.

22

General Discussion / Re: What are everyone's thoughts about exploration loot density?

« on: April 10, 2021, 05:17:05 PM »

This update introduces intel from contacts and even bars that point to the blueprint locations.

The colony items on the other hand, really do need to be more localized within specific types of derelicts,  because the item pool for those basically exploded. I have 4 nanoforges and 6 sync-cores and no lamps.

I do wish that they would tell you whether or not you KNOW a blueprint when you get a historian or other mission, rather than make you reject it, go out to your list, find it if possible, and then go back and accept it if you don't have it. You know, give us at least that much quality of life.

23

General Discussion / Re: What are everyone's thoughts about exploration loot density?

« on: April 10, 2021, 03:42:20 PM »

In my last game in v0.9.1a, I raided the core worlds left-and-right for blueprints starting early in the game, and got them all by the end of the game.

This release, the marine threshold and lethality makes blueprint raiding hard to do until late in the game (at least not without Ground Operations).

I do plan to raid core worlds left and right for blueprints soon (instead of only supplies, fuel, and drugs), now that I have colonies and more than two million credits.

And I also plan to steal all the items away from the core worlds too.  Just swiped the nanoforge from Asher.

A streamer I was watching seemed to have an issue where he stopped getting blueprints entirely from them, despite not having their ships. I wish you luck that you don't encounter that issue.

24

General Discussion / Re: Help with story mission, impossible sneaking (spoilers)

« on: April 10, 2021, 03:15:29 PM »

That particular mission I've only accomplished 'legit' once - I hung around, lurking for an opportunity, and the fleet that permanently orbits the comm relay did a sensor ping. It noticed me, headed over that way, but I was far enough off to slip around it and get to the relay while it was looking around.

...Since then I've just resorted to the console commands' 'kill' option, though. I got it legit once, I don't need to waste time trying to replicate the precise circumstances.

Why waste time? You can do the ping yourself at any time you want. Pick the right moment.

25

General Discussion / Re: Help with story mission, impossible sneaking (spoilers)

« on: April 10, 2021, 03:12:01 PM »

I did this mission with a single fast ship. I first hacked their nav beacon for extra speed, then I hung out in an asteroid belt nearby, and let them see a blip. Then I jetted away while they investigated the blip and approached while dark from a different angle, and planted the computer virus.

26

General Discussion / Re: New skill system is a step backwards

« on: April 09, 2021, 03:26:50 AM »

Now that I think about the industry tree feels like a side grade tree for the other 3 trees rather then a stand alone. It clearly wasn't designed with a 10 point industry build in mind. Do any of the other trees trip over themselves like this?

Leadership also has non combat Tier 5 which has nothing to do with rest of the tree.

Though even more troublesome is the Tier 4 lock. If you take Leadership to 4 or 9, you are forever locked that way. Which is much worse than lock at T5, because at least tech tree is pretty much unconditionally good to have 5 points in.

My question is "Why is that lock there"? Seriously?

On one of the skills, I can sort of see why, but the other one has no reason at all to have a lock. Letting you use 10 officers in combat now, and later on, not letting you use 10 officers shouldn't be a problem. Just remove all of the officers from the ships when you reset your skills, and make you replace them.

27

General Discussion / Re: Is it possilbe to recovery a drone battleship?

« on: April 09, 2021, 12:43:00 AM »

No, Guardians are unrecoverable even with the skill. You can get a Radiant, if you want. It's also a capital-sized battleship.

Thanks, will be looking forward to that.
I hope there's in-game reference or lore to clarify drone battleships aren't recoverable (or the skill does not apply) so people won't get confused.

Be warned, that a Radiant with an Alpha core will have at most 50% Combat Readiness as it's 60 points of your 30 max.

It can be powerful though even at that, but keep that in mind.

28

General Discussion / Re: is there a way to quickly find a pirate base disrupting a colony?

« on: April 08, 2021, 11:51:25 PM »

Personally I've already scanned all the systems within 10 Ly of my systems due to the fact that I have cryosleepers there and want to know what other planets might benefit. Ducking in and out of those systems to find the pirates isn't hard at this point. It's only about 12 systems.

Heck, sometimes there's even a bounty on the station, even though a precise location isn't known.

29

General Discussion / Re: 0 sensor profile isn't actually 0 sensor profile.

« on: April 07, 2021, 09:51:05 PM »

I've gone through to the end of the Ziggarat quest line using nothing but stealth, and now I'm stuck because there's a fight now that I'm not equipped to deal with XD. Serves me right I guess.

Spoiler

I think most of the difficulty comes from the emp damage it spits out, using resistant flux conduits on your ship or other emp resist allows for much more consistent pressure to actually prevent recovering lfux

[close]

Most of the difficulty came from the fact that my ships were dead before they ever got close. D:<

Maybe I'll try your suggestion though later.

30

General Discussion / Re: 0 sensor profile isn't actually 0 sensor profile.

« on: April 07, 2021, 08:11:51 PM »

I actually managed to plant a bug on a com satellite by taking out a single phase frigate to do the job and that was it. I did it even with 2 patrols circling it. They never saw me.

Yeah, you have to pay attention to their sensor range plus your sensor profile. You can use things like asteroids to help hide from them, and if necessary you can ping them to send them off in wild goose chases if you're fast and clever.

I've gone through to the end of the Ziggarat quest line using nothing but stealth, and now I'm stuck because there's a fight now that I'm not equipped to deal with XD. Serves me right I guess.