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46

General Discussion / Re: The lack of midline capitals

« on: January 30, 2022, 09:58:00 AM »

It is usually better for a game to bend the lore around the gameplay instead of the reverse. If a Midline Capital improves gameplay, then it is a good idea regardless of whether the lore 'allows' for it.

That being said, the necessity of a new Midline Capital isn't immediately obvious. Midline is strongly oriented around the "Cruiser school", and the recently introduced Champion is a good example of that. The Champion could have been designed as a capital - high durability and forward-oriented Energy firepower contrast quite well with the Conquest - but it was added as a Cruiser, even though Midline already had the most Cruisers at the time. The second important design principle of Midline is having highly specialized ships, particularly with regard to weapon slots. That means a hypothetical new Midline Capital needs a specialized design that can fill a currently vacant niche without obsoleting any other Midline ship, particularly the Cruisers.

Now I love the idea of a new Midline Capital, so I'll gladly speculate about its design options 

> I'm not sold on the dedicated Carrier concept. For one, I think it is pretty hard to design a capital Carrier that has a substantial niche over both the Astral and Legion. And for another, Midline already has a great carrier with the Heron. (Which, as an aside, totally outclasses the Drover so if you want to improve Midline Carriers then fix the Drover, likely by making Reserve Deployment better.) And honestly a new carrier isn't that desperately needed, and even if it were I would suggest making it a High-Tech cruiser dedicated carrier with 4 bays and a new ship system favoring fighters.

> It needs to be defensively robust, with an emphasis on shields. Armor should be around 1400 or so, a step up from Conquest/Champion but sub-par compared to the Dominator and Paragon. The shields can be proper Midline-grade with 0.8 efficiency, likely with frontal orientation and a decently large arc.

> In terms of weapons, what no Midline ship currently has is turreted Large Ballistics with forward arc, so one or two of those is a good place to start. A good complement to that would be some small Hybrid turrets, which are also pretty rare. Then round it out with medium Energies. As for missiles: Midline already has 3 ships with Large missiles, so those are out. But a significant complement of medium missiles is a good option. In fact I would boldly suggest 6 medium missiles, divided over 2 broadside banks of 3 hardpoints each. That broadside configuration rules out pointing 6 reapers or annihilators at the same target, which would be overpowered.

> Then speed. With a mobility ship system like Maneuvering Jets, this capital would overshadow the Eagle and other slow cruisers too much. Besides, we have enough ships with mobility systems already. So those are out. But then the ship needs a decent base speed to achieve minimum acceptable battlefield mobility. At least 40 speed I think.

> Speaking of ship systems, what is a good choice? Existing options are fairly limited, so a fancy new system might be in order. However, there is one other system I think could use some love, and that is Fast Missile Racks. FMR pairs well with medium missile slots, so a capital with multiples of those would be quite impressive.

In summary: a sturdy Midline capital whose primary armaments are 1-2 large ballistics and two broadsides of 2-3 medium missiles each boosted by Fast Missile Racks.

47

Suggestions / Re: Make Mild Climate guaranted for Terran planets

« on: January 18, 2022, 12:09:25 PM »

Terran planets are fine. The main trouble is that they are rare, and Terran planets not ruined by decivilized or high hazard conditions are rarer still. A staggering proportion of seeds completely lacks a good Terran planet.


Modern-day Earth is actually rather cold compared to most of its history, having just come out of an ice age. A random Earth-like planet is quite likely to have a warmer climate than Earth itself. Earth also doesn't have Bountiful Farmland - it has Adequate Farmland at best. Partly as a result of the cold climate, partly as a result of low atmospheric C02 which inhibits plant growth, partly as a result of large areas being desert or arid land.

48

General Discussion / Re: Formations

« on: January 18, 2022, 11:18:22 AM »

The "old guard" harps on min/maxing your ships because ship loadout affects AI performance quite a lot, including how effectively the AI responds to certain orders. As others have said, each ship has only a few loadouts that are 'optimal' for AI use. The root cause of this issue is that the AI is not context-aware. It uses the same strategy regardless of whether the ship it is flying is a slow tank, a long-range support ship, a fast kite/strike ship, etc. So long as this is the case, ships need their loadouts optimized with the AI in mind, rather than with how you as a human would pilot the ship. One-dimensional AI means one-dimensional ship loadouts.

Note that the current AI is actually quite good at what it does. Very good in fact. A bit conservative with aggression and risk-taking, but that's better than AI that gets itself killed if you don't babysit it. The main limitation of the current AI is that it appears to be designed for fast and maneuverable ships that prefer shield-tanking to armor-tanking. In other words, High Tech ships. The AI does a mediocre job with slower ships or ships with weak shields, particularly slow capitals. Which is one of the reasons why High Tech fleets are so popular.

I think a lot of critique on the AI - including how it follows orders - stems from the fact that ships with different stats require widely different piloting strategies to perform optimally (particularly with respect to movement decisions and flux/shield management), but all ships are stuck with the same general-purpose AI (which isn't even general-purpose but, as stated, better for fast ships). It would be much better for the AI to adjust its behavior based on the stats of the ship it is flying. For example:
> Ships with high armor but weak shields need to be more willing to armor-tank light hits even at low flux, and be more willing to vent in range of enemy weapons (especially 'micro-venting' at low flux).
> Ships with poor shield/damage efficiency need to start shield-flickering at lower flux levels, to avoid getting flux-locked or overloaded.
> Ships should not attempt to pursue enemies that are faster than themselves, but should instead actively seek out slower targets (or follow hold/defend/move-to-waypoint orders).
> All ships, but particularly ships with hard-point weapons and slow turn rate, need to switch targets less often. Currently the AI mostly/always targets and attempts to face the nearest enemy ship. In the presence of multiple (often smaller) enemies darting in and out, that can result in a lot of changing targets. Which results in hard-point weapons pointing towards empty space a large portion of the time. And even with turreted weapons, constantly changing targets makes it a lot harder to punch through shields and do some actual permanent damage. A good baseline behavior would be "once a target is selected, stick to it until it gets outside weapon range".



In a nutshell: the AI (seemingly) assumes that (1) it can always catch up to a ship it attempts to chase, and (2) it is fast enough to retreat when it cannot win. I think the majority of complaints about the AI stem from situations where these assumptions are invalid, and bad things happen as a result.



As for practical advice regarding commands:
For your slow ships, by far the largest source of trouble is having them moving off alone chasing a random enemy, and then getting surrounded by faster enemies. The solution is making your slow ships stick together using escort or defend orders. Capitals and heavy cruisers should always have friends nearby.

For your faster ships, the main risk is getting too close to large dangerous enemy ships and getting alpha-striked before they can retreat successfully. The solution is putting avoid orders on the most dangerous enemy ships, combined with engage orders on more suitable targets (always combine avoid with engage orders). Then once the supporting ships are killed, you can remove the avoid orders and gang up on the enemy with your now superior numbers.

Also, bringing along carriers with Thunders or Sparks or Gladius and setting Fighter Strike orders on every enemy frigate is a good general strategy to prevent a lot of headaches.

Finally, in all but the easiest fights it pays to frequently pause and check the tactical map and adjust orders if necessary. You cannot expect your ships to always automatically do the right thing.

49

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: December 21, 2021, 09:55:13 AM »

That's an impressively good hotfix. I love it

• Combat Endurance: increased hull regen level to 50% (was: 25%)

That's beginning to look interesting... I might try it out now.

• Shield Shunt:
  • Reduced armor bonus to 15% (was: 25%)
  • Can no longer be built into a ship as an s-mod

Every time I try using shield shunt I end up in a situation where a shield would be really useful. Enemies with HIL for instance will hard counter a shieldless ship. Shield Shunt feels like a blunt instrument to fix AI behavior in heavily-armored ships. Directly changing the AI to be more willing to armor-tank light hits would be infinitely better. Though I understand how incredibly difficult AI programming can be, and how fine the line is between 'good armor tanking' and 'taking unnecessary damage'.

• Breach SRM: reduced armor damage to 250 (was: 300 in -RC5, 200 in 0.95a)

Yup. Breach SRM is the most consistently useful small missile. Good range, good HP, good ammo capacity, and the AI isn't as wasteful with these as it sometimes is with Harpoons.

• Light Dual AC: reduced range to 600 (was: 700)
  • Range of Light AC remains at 700
• Railgun: reduced ordnance point cost to 7 (was: 8)
• Ballistic Rangefinder: increased cost to 10/15/25 (was: 6/9/15)

Reasonable enough.
Funny thing about Ballistic Rangefinder: when combined with IPDAI it no longer buffs small ballistics, as IPDAI changes those to PD. At the same time, IPDAI + Elite Point Defense gives +200 range to all small ballistics, which is a bigger bonus than BRF on ships without Large mounts. Now that BRF is more expensive than IPDAI, and given how important PD is for Low Tech IMO, I can see myself preferring IPDAI + Elite Point Defense over Ballistic Rangefinder in like 90% of cases.

• Manticore: reduced flux dissipation to 250 (was: 300)

RIP Mjolnir Manticore lol. It makes sense though.

• Falcon:
  • Increased top speed to 80 (was: 75), improved acceleration/deceleration substantially
  • Reduced supplies/recover and supplies/month to 14 (was: 15)
  • Increased flux dissipation to 400 (was: 350)
• Eagle:
  • Increased flux dissipation to 600 (was: 525)
  • Increased flux capacity to 11000 (was: 10000)

THANK YOU!

• Fixed issue with gas giants not getting the "High Gravity" conditions as they should (fix only affects new games)

Good. Now we can finally play a proper game of 0.95.1


(Oh and Advanced Turret Gyros is totally useful. A default pick on any ship with Advanced Optics or turreted HVD/Mauler/Gauss.)

50

General Discussion / Re: Have the falcon and eagle been left behind?

« on: December 18, 2021, 09:03:45 AM »

Midline is my favorite tech. I did a Midline playthrough in 0.95a that worked really well. Haven't progressed in 0.95.1 far enough yet to use Falcon/Eagle in my fleet (been using Eradicators like everyone else) but here's my take on them.

Eagle:
One of my favorite Flagships in midgame was an Eagle (XIV) with Heavy Autocannons and 2x Phase Lance + Advanced Optics. Strong Kinetic pressure followed up by powerful anti-armor. 800 range Phase Lances are awesome, and quite good at sniping Frigates. The flux buildup is terrible though - hence 2x Phase Lance rather than 3x. Definitely a playership-only build.

Then one day I realized Eagle (XIV) has 46 base speed, which is only 1 (!) more than Conquest. And a Conquest brings a lot more firepower to the table.

As a playership, the Conquest is just better than Eagle. In a fleet, by DP you could have 2 Eagles against 1 Conquest which looks more even. In terms of firepower though, that single Conquest has some advantages. More range with Capital-grade ITU and Gauss Cannons instead of HVDs. And much more Killing power with 2 ECCMed Hurricane MIRV and 2x Harpoons. In the support role, Eagle faces stiff competiton from Conquest.

The one advantage of Eagle over Conquest is durability. Two Eagles can tank a lot more damage than one Conquest can. Enter the Champion, a ship with similar DP cost, similar flux stats, a good bit more armor, and much more devastating firepower with a large Energy + HEF and a large Missile. As a ship-of-the-line the Eagle is completely overshadowed by the Champion.

So yeah, the Eagle has been obsolete ever since 0.95 gave us the Champion.

>>> To make the Eagle relevant again, I say give it +10 base speed to reinforce its role as a Fire Support ship that is difficult to flank.


Falcon:
The Falcon attempts to fill two roles.
> One: an "Eagle-Light" that provides fire support with HVD/Mauler/Graviton Beams against enemy Cruisers and Capitals. The advantage of the Falcon over the Eagle is it has enough speed to keep its distance from enemy Cruisers, which can be very useful.
> Two: a hunter of Destroyers and (slow) Frigates. The Falcon can overpower any Destroyer in 1v1, and has just about enough speed with Maneuvering Jets to give chase.

Enter the Eradicator and its (P) variant.

An Eradicator with AAF and 2x HVD + Mauler provides more firepower than a Falcon can muster, and also has enough speed to keep its distance from enemy Cruisers. So it provides very stiff competition for the Falcon in role one.

The Eradicator (P) with cancellable Burn Drive can chase Destroyers and Frigates just as well as a Falcon can, while also having 50 more flux dissipation, much better weapon mounts and 25 more OP to fill those mounts. So it provides very stiff competition for the Falcon in role two.

Indeed, one could say the Eradicator has obsoleted the Falcon.

>>> To make the Falcon relevant again, the changes proposed by Alex seem reasonable.

51

General Discussion / Re: Small kinetics in 0.95.1a

« on: December 15, 2021, 07:02:12 AM »

Railgun has always been my favorite for its all-round superior performance. Range, accuracy, projectile speed, DPS, flux efficiency and enough damage/shot to punch through Frigate armor.

Now the Light Autocannon has the same range, better flux efficiency and more DPS per OP. That makes it a viable alternative to Railgun on ships with multiple small mounts like Vanguard and Eradicator. It doesn't completely obsolete the Railgun though. Railgun is still better vs Frigates and still gives much better performance per mount, which *is* important for many Destroyers (Hammerhead, Enforcer, Medusa, etc) as well as other ships. Legion with Railguns is something I'm eager to try out.

The light DUAL Autocannon trades accuracy and 1 extra OP for more DPS. Still not as much DPS as Railgun and with a significant gap in accuracy so it doesn't obsolete the Railgun, at least on paper. In practice there are many situations where the accuracy doesn't matter so much (hardpoint mounts, shooting at cruisers/Capitals) and in those situations the lower OP cost and better Flux efficiency make LDA better than Railgun. But there's also plenty of situations where accuracy does matter.

• Railgun: Not as well defined, but IMO could be more like HVD: relatively higher hit strength to discourage armor tanking, anti-shield vs cruisers/capitals.

No. Railgun has high accuracy and projectile speed, which is good for hitting smaller / faster targets. It is the best Kinetic gun for punching 'down'. And for that roles its hit strength is sufficient.

The funny thing is that the recent change to AWM/GI has already significantly increased opportunity cost for recoil reduction, and bias recoil reduction toward heavy low tech ships that also significantly benefit from the armor bonus. Ships like Lashers and high tech ships have a tough time justifying AWM and will most likely simply suffer worse recoil instead. On the other hand, heavy low tech ships like Onslaughts and Legions can (and based on Discord builds, currently are) readily spamming LDAC + Ballistic Rangefinder without being deterred by recoil since they're likely to be fighting large targets with easy to hit shield bubbles, plus they're also likely to already be picking up AWM anyway.

That's just it - people care more about performance vs big ships than performance vs small ships. And for that role LDA is indeed better than Railgun with its flux efficiency and low OP cost. Besides, accuracy doesn't matter so much vs small ships when sheer volume of fire is usually enough to kill them anyway. Particularly late-game, small ships aren't numerous enough or dangerous enough to spec against them specifically. And yet that is exactly where the Railgun shines.

As an aside: Ballistic Rangefinder seems undercosted given the ubiquity of small mounts and the impactful benefits, especially for larger ships. Most people I've seen consider it an absolute no-brainer at its current cost for almost any ship with small ballistics. In fact, there's a pretty good case for undermounting various medium ballistic mounts right now to take advantage of the low cost of both Ballistic Rangefinder and certain small ballistics, as well as due to the poor selection of 800-range medium ballistics.

Don't forget that Vulcan Cannons are the best PD and PD is important for Low Tech, but doesn't benefit from Ballistic Rangefinder. And 900 range small HE guns are overshadowed by medium/large HE guns on account of damage/shot. So it's not Ballistic Rangefinder that's the problem, it's small Kinetics in comparison to medium/Large kinetics.

Light/Heavy Needlers have a clearly defined niche that remains valid, so we can ignore them. Storm Needler is low range/good accuracy/good flux efficiency which is very different from other guns as well. Similarly, nobody disputes HVD and Gauss Cannon being useful. That leaves the Autocannon line and the Railgun. Of those the Railgun is the only gun with perfect accuracy so it already has a niche there. LAC also has decent accuracy, but all other Autocannons have bad accuracy. Then, flux efficiency. Here the HAC and Mark IX have the disadvantage. Finally, DPS per OP. Now it gets really interesting. From best to worst:
LDAC - 28.6
LAC - 25
HAC - 21.4
Railgun + Arbalest - 20.9
Mark IX - 19.3

The Mark IX comes out poorest in this comparison. Bad accuracy, bad flux efficiency, bad DPS per OP. Same story for the Heavy Autocannon. The Arbalest has the flux efficiency, but not the DPS per OP. It does have 200 damage/shot which gives it some usefulness, but it doesn't feel sufficient. Medium/large kinetics used to have the range advantage, but Ballistic Rangefinder throws that out of the window. Thus we're now in the situation that on ships with plenty of small/medium mounts, the best Ballistic weapon loadout is Large/medium HE guns supported by small Kinetics. (Or small Kinetics + Thumpers + Breach missiles)

Of the small kinetics, LDAC stands out with its massive DPS per OP. Combined with its 0.8 flux/efficiency it is clearly the most efficient kinetic weapon, at least if you don't care about accuracy. The LAC is also very efficient, but with only 100 DPS per mount it doesn't provide overwhelming firepower. The Railgun meanwhile has DPS per OP in the same range as Mark IX and HAC so doesn't obsolete them in that sense. Still, perfect accuracy and good turn rate are good benefits.

There are two ways to look at this balance situation. One way is to say small mount kinetics are too good, in particular the LDAC. I would suggest increasing its OP cost to 6 and maybe nerfing flux/damage to 0.9. The other way is to say that medium/large kinetics aren't good enough. The Mark IX, HAC and Arbalest could use a 10-15% DPS increase. That's power creep though which may not be the best solution.

52

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: December 12, 2021, 01:11:28 PM »

Some first impressions of the update after a few hours of play:

> Sensor Ghosts. Fun little faeries indeed.

> Also, slipstreams! Although my first impression on them is they change slightly too often.

> The Venture is surprisingly rare at Open Market shops. I've been trying to get one because it looks decent now with its stat buffs and with better Pilums to try out. Alas, haven't found one for sale so far. Am I looking in the wrong places?

> New Skills system is amazing. It just works - no more impossible choices between skills. The reworked skills themselves also look very good. I suspect my Officer corps will end up with more varied skillsets as a result of more skills being viable options now, which is good. And I'll be respeccing myself a fair few times...

> Funny thing: Polarized Armor buffs armor damage absorption based on *Hard* flux. And also unlocks the Shield Shunt hullmod, which removes shields and therefore makes it *impossible* to build up Hard flux! (Not a problem though, just funny)

> Somewhat less funny: Elite Combat Endurance. "When below 25% hull..." yeah you can stop it right there. My ships will not get to 25% hull very often. If that happens something has gone horribly wrong, and that ship should retreat immediately before it gets itself killed. If it even manages that - situations that get a ship to low hull tend to be situations that get a ship killed ery soon afterwards. So this Elite skill is looking kind of useless.

> Vanguard is true to its name: very powerful first-wave attacker with plenty of speed to catch Frigates and keep pressuring them, but sooner rather than later its armor is busted and it needs to retreat (which its speed lets it do, mostly).

> Manticore is my new favorite Destroyer. It actually has enough flux (esp. with Ordnance Expertise) to support a Mjolnir or Gauss Cannon, which is super neat. Also, twin medium missiles add a lot of punch - or two Pilums for support which seems to work well alongside Gauss Cannon. Canistar Flak is cute. Thank the light it regenerates charges - at first I was afraid it would be like the Flare Launcher (which should totally be given regen as well).

> Eradicator is a beast. Just recently I got my hands on an Eradicator (P), and SIM battle performance is amazing. Will have to see how a real battle goes. And that's without Ballistic Rangefinder so far. Burn Drive is actually good for catching fast Destroyers like Mules and chasing targets that like to flee. Along with the 5 DP reduction from the base model I think that balances out the lack of AAF quite well. My only concern is that the Eradicator is to the Enforcer what the Onslaught is to the Dominator: completely superior at the cost of more DP (and sllightly worse campaign stats). More speed, more armor, more flux, more weapons. There is nothing an Enforcer can do that an Eradicator (P) cannot do better.

> Ballistic Rangefinder is awesome, but I feel it lets down Medium Ballistic weapons, specifically the Arbalest, Heavy Mortar and Thumper. I was really hoping for 800 range Heavy Mortars, which have an important role to fill as high-DPS anti-armor against big targets, for which 700 base range isn't enough. But it turns out only ships with a Large ballistic mount get to have that. you know, the ships with access to Hellbore Cannon and Hephaestus Assault Gun which completely outclass the Heavy Mortar regardless of its range. Meanwhile, the many Cruisers and Destroyers who desperately want good medium ballistic weapons find these weapons don't benefit at all from the hullmod. The Enforcer is particularly a victim of this. One of its key advantages is having many turreted medium weapon slots. But Ballistic Rangefinder does nothing for these medium weapons! And then there's the fact that small Ballistics do always benefit, so weapons like Railgun and Light Assault Gun end up having 100 more range than the abovementioned medium weapons.
My conclusion is one of two things should happen: either let Ballistic Rangefinder buff Medium weapons to 800 range max in the absence of a large mount; or outright buff the Arbalest Cannon, Heavy Mortar and Thumper to 800 base range.

53

General Discussion / Re: Ships that could use a slight OP boost

« on: December 04, 2021, 04:07:21 AM »

Carriers always come up as the most OP-starved ships.

Aside from the already mentioned double OP tax of EDC + ITU, I think this is in part due to the super-high OP cost of Bomber wings compared to Fighter wings.  Bomber carriers will always be way more OP-starved than Fighter carriers. Yes, Bombers are generally more powerful than Fighters so they *should* cost more OP. But with how OP capacity is currently tuned, the shift from "cheap fighters" to "expensive bombers" is a shift from "just enough OP to squeeze in ITU + weapons" to "can't fit anything other than Bomber wings". And that just feels wrong.

Having said that, there are two carriers that have it significantly worse than others: the Condor and Colossus Mk. III. Particularly the Colossus Mk. III, which is the most OP-starved ship in the game by a wide margin. You could double its OP capacity from 55 to 110 and it would still feel tight.



Then there's Frigates. Loadout Optimization gives a flat +10 vents/caps to ships, which on paper looks like a doubling of max vents/caps for Frigates. However, finding 10-20 free OP to actually use those extra vents/caps on your frigates is next to impossible.

This, I think, illustrates a more general point which is that smaller ships tend to be more OP-starved than larger ships. Capitals have way more leftover OP for hullmods after fitting all weapon mounts with decent weapons than Frigates do. I'm not sure that's a good thing.



Another ship that needs some love is the Valkyrie. It has Frigate-tier DP cost, weapon slots and OP capacity, but Destroyer scaling on the cost of its hullmods, so it misses out. As it stands the Valkyrie isn't worth its 5 DP cost in combat. Yes one could argue it's a trade-off with its campaign value for crew transport/ground support. But the Valkyrie's sprite just looks like a combat-capable ship, so it should be!

54

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes

« on: November 28, 2021, 02:59:30 AM »

Another wonderful set of patch notes. The quality of these major updates continues to be awesome. It's quite amazing


About colonies: I think their profitability / return of investment is fine as it is, though I agree with nerfing Commerce. It is too much of a no-brainer in 0.95.

The biggest problem with colonies is that the game is currently too short to fully enjoy their monetary benefits. It takes time to survey planets to find good ones to develop, then it takes time for them to grow, then time to pay back the invested money. An experienced player will have already reached endgame by the time his colonies reach size 6, and at that point there is very little to spend all that money on. The solution to this is more end-game content / money sinks, which I'm sure we will see eventually

Are early colonies a good investment? Let's see. Pick a low-hazard world with farming and mining opportunities. These are the expenses you will want to make:
    - ~100k for crew, supplies and other materials to colonize and build a comm relay
    - ~100k to buy ships to transport the above (pair of nebula's and a freighter)
    - 75k to build Farming
    - 100k to build Mining
    - 100k to build Waystation, so you can resupply at the colony.
    - 250k to build an Orbital station, the most effective defense.
    - 150k to build Ground Defenses, for the stability bonus.
    - 300k for Patrol HQ, so you spawn some ships to deal with straggler pirate fleets, etc.
    - 5k/month for an Administrator with Industrial Planning. Pays for itself so it's a no-brainer.
    - 5-10k/month for Hazard Pay to grow to size 4.
Total: roughly 1.3 million credits all told.

How much money does this colony make? Depends on the quality of resources. Could be anything up to like 70k per month net profit. And that's after everything is build and colony population is at size 4, which could take over a cycle.
At 50k/month, the return of investment takes 26 months.
At 40k/month, it takes 32 months.
At 30k/month, it takes 43 months.

So altogether you're looking at 3-5 cycles before you see any actual profit. By that time an experienced player doing bounties will be lvl 15 and well into midgame. And that's just a basic colony. Further development with Megaport / Star Fortress / Military Base etc will cost millions more. So yeah, proper colonies are not an early-game thing, and fully developing 3-4 colonies isn't even a mid-game thing.

That doesn't mean early colonization can never work though. You could settle a bare-bones colony with only a single industry and no other structures: just Farming, Mining or Tech Mining. And skip Hazard Pay. Then the investment is only 200-300k. It's not something you'd do on just any world, but on a world with good resources like a Terran with Bountiful Farmland or a world with Vast Ruins, it can be worth it. Doubly so if you happen to have Soil Nanites or a Mantle Bore.

Bottom line: fully developed colonies are definitely an endgame thing, but that endgame lacks money sinks so it's mostly for bragging rights. For the time being, colonies themselves are the mid/late-game money sink. On the other hand, an early opportunistic colony can, under the right conditions, pay for itself and provide some benefit. So it's not like colonization is a completely wasted mechanic. I think it is fine.

55

Modding / Re: [0.95a] Better Ships v1.0

« on: June 15, 2021, 12:23:30 AM »

If you can point me to a good explanation of how scripting works then I might consider it.


Pather ships with build-in SO are balanced same as in Vanilla: by getting the Ill-advised Modifications mod. (which in its current form is actually too harsh, but that's another discussion)

56

General Discussion / Re: Exploring how to command the AI

« on: June 11, 2021, 04:40:57 AM »

These cases serve to highlight the main difficulty in interpreting the players intent in a system like this. There are rules and priorities at play that the player needs to learn in order to use the system effectively, but there isn't an easy way to teach the player the underlying rules. The player needs to observe a lot of scenarios play out in order to develop a mental model of how the system actually works. During this learning period the player forms assumptions about what the eliminate, escort, and avoid orders do based on their current need. The players then become prone to frustration when they discover that these orders play by their own rules. Rules which make a lot of sense in a lot of situations, but need to be hacked a bit to work in the current situation.

Which is why exploring AI responses to orders and maybe eventually writing an overview/guide on the topic is useful!


Added to Opening Post: Scenarios 1b on mixing long-range and short-range weapons, and scenario 2 exploring how the AI goes about defending strategic points.

Turns out it really is impossible to make AI ships sit tight in a particular location. They always get distracted by enemies.

57

General Discussion / Re: Exploring how to command the AI

« on: June 10, 2021, 01:35:04 AM »

Please test fleets not individual ships (It rarely has importance 1vs1 ship combat).

You're not wrong, but it's important to establish the baseline before considering more complex scenarios! First establish that a particular behavior is possible under ideal circumstances, then gradually add complications and see if the behavior holds up or breaks down. Makes it easier to pinpoint the cause of behavior failure (and therefore to find solutions).

Actually, what IS the default radius that ships avoid at for the avoid command, does anyone know? Is that in the game files somewhere?

I'm only guessing, but I'd imagine it's whatever the ship-to-avoid's weapon range is.

In the simple Enforcer vs Hammerhead scenario, Avoid on the Enforcer makes the Hammerhead run away much further than the Enforcer's weapon range. Even further than the Hammerhead's own superior weapon range. In fact it seems to run away until the Enforcer is outside its detection range (i.e. the non-obscured area on the command overlay).

Whether the Hammerhead would still run away that far if it had orders targeting something near the Enforcer remains to be seen.
Edit: when ordered to capture a Comm Relay while there's an Avoid order on the Enforcer, the Hammerhead will attempt to fly around the Enforcer towards the Relay, but backs away from the Relay if the Enforcer approaches it. All the while, the distance it maintains towards the Enforcer is larger than its own (superior!) weapon range. This is the same for Cautious/Steady/Aggressive/Reckless personalities.

58

Blog Posts / Re: A Tale of Two Tech Levels

« on: June 10, 2021, 12:33:05 AM »

Observation: Energy weapons are most effective against poorly shielded targets, as very few of them do kinetic damage but plenty of them are effective against armor. Same holds for Ion damage: most effective when enemy shields are hard-fluxed or down completely. Which ships tend to have poor shields? Low-Tech. Which ships use energy/Ion weapons the most? High-Tech. So in a way, High-Tech is set up to counter Low-Tech. Conversely, High-Tech powerful shields combined with relatively poor armor makes them vulnerable to Kinetic damage. Which ships use Kinetic weapons the most? Low-Tech. So in a way, Low-Tech is set up to counter High-Tech.

In this perspective, High-Tech and Low-Tech are each other's counters. Midline comes in as a mix between the two, with diverse weapon mounts to use each damage type, but neither the best shields nor the best armor. That sounds like it might be sort-of-balanced.

One place where this balance might break down, I think, is the following. When a High-Tech ship attacks a Low-Tech ship of similar strength, it often happens that the Low-Tech ship needs to drop its shields and take some armor/hull damage, while the High-Tech ship can usually retreat to safety before its shields need to be dropped, thanks to better mobility. The result is an asymmetric situation where High-Tech can steadily whittle away at Low-Tech's non-renewable hitpoints without receiving non-renewable damage in return.

To stop this being a problem, Low-Tech needs tools that help it mitigate High-Tech's ability to kite with superior mobility. Burn drive could be one such tool. Burst kinetic damage from Needlers/Sabots and the like could be another. As could generally longer range of ballistics compared to energy weapons. But I wonder if in the current state of the game these advantages are sufficient to level the playing field. They might not be.

59

General Discussion / Exploring how to command the AI

« on: June 09, 2021, 03:25:42 AM »

There have been some comments recently about how AI-controlled ships in the player's fleet appear to ignore orders, and how said orders might mean something different to the AI than what the player thinks they mean.


This sounds like the sort of thing that can be tested, so I want to go ahead and do that. Let's explore how controllable the AI is, and what the 'best' combinations of personalities and orders are to achieve particular behavior.

Method:
- Define a simple scenario where we want to see a certain behavior from a particular ship.
- Find a combination of personality and orders that achieves this behavior, if possible.
- Using FleetTester mod v1.0 and Starsector v0.95a-RC15.


Scenario #1a: Kiting a slower enemy with long-range weapons

Spoiler

Enemy: a lone Enforcer with 3x Light Autocannon, 2x Light Mortar, no missiles, and ITU. Steady personality.

Candidate ship: Hammerhead with 1x Hypervelocity Driver, 1x Heavy Mauler, 4x PD Laser, no missiles, and ITU.

>>> The Hammerhead outranges and outspeeds the Enforcer, which means it should be able to kite it without risk. Which combination of personality and orders achieves this?

> Steady without orders works.
> Steady + Engage works.
> Steady + Eliminate makes the Hammerhead close to minimum range.
> Steady + Search & Destroy works.
> Steady + Full Assault makes the Hammerhead close to minimum range.

> Aggressive without orders makes the Hammerhead close to minimum range.
> Aggressive + Engage, Eliminate, Search & Destroy OR Full Assault makes the Hammerhead close to minimum range.
> Aggressive + Avoid makes the Hammerhead run away like a scared chicken.
> Aggressive + Avoid + Search & Destroy still makes the Hammerhead run like a chicken.

> Cautious without orders works.
> Cautious + Engage works.
> Cautious + Eliminate makes the Hammerhead close to minimum range. Notably it retreats to vent flux quite soon as it builds up hard flux, something Steady didn't do nearly so much or so quickly.
> Cautious + Search & Destroy works.
> Cautious + Full Assault makes the Hammerhead close to Minimum range. Notably it does so more slowly than Steady, and also retreats much earlier as it builds up hard flux.

[close]

>>> Conclusion: Both Steady and Cautious AI are capable of kiting a slower enemy, keeping a steady pressure of weaponsfire until the target is destroyed. Both personalities can still be made to close the distance with specific orders. Aggressive AI is just too aggressive for kiting with long-range weapons, if the ship also has some shorter-range weapons like PD Lasers.
Scenario #1b: Kiting a slower enemy with a mix of short- and long-range weapons

Spoiler

Enemy: a lone Enforcer with 3x Light Autocannon, 2x Light Mortar and no other weapons. Steady personality.

Candidate ship: Hammerhead with 1x Hypervelocity Driver, 1x Heavy Mauler, 3x PD Laser and 1x Light Autocannon in one of the front smalls.

>>> The Hammerhead outspeeds the Enforcer, and outranges it with HVD/Mauler but also has a LAC with same range as the Enforcer's weapons. Will the AI opt to only use HVD/Mauler, or also try to use the LAC?

> No sense testing Aggressive: we already know it would close to PD Laser range in any case.

> Steady without orders makes the Hammerhead approach to LAC range.
> Steady + Engage OR Search & Destroy makes the Hammerhead approach to LAC range.
> Steady + Full Assault OR Eliminate makes the Hammerhead approach to PD Laser range.
> Steady + Avoid makes the Hammerhead run like a chicken.

> Cautious without orders works: the Hammerhead stays at HVD/Mauler range.
> Cautious + Engage OR Search & Destroy works as well.
> Cautious + Eliminate or Full Assault makes the Hammerhead approach to PD Laser range.

[close]

>>> Conclusion: When mixing weapons of different ranges, Steady AI chooses engagement range based on its shortest-range (non-PD) weapons, while Cautious AI chooses engagement ranged based on its longest-range (non-PD) weapons.

Scenario #2: Capturing and controlling strategic points / Rallying at a waypoint

Spoiler

Enemy: 2x Kite (A) with a Light Dual Autocannon, ITU, and no other weapons. Steady personality.

Candidate ship: Eagle with 3x Railgun, 3x Pulse Laser and 5x PD Laser, ITU, and no missiles.

Mission: capture and control/defend a Comm Relay in the center of the battlefield.

>>> Two lightly armed Kites are no match for this Eagle, but they are a lot faster. Is there a way to make the Eagle stay near the strategic point and hold it, or will it inevitably be distracted by a Kite? For reference: manually piloting the Eagle this mission is a breeze. Park the Eagle on the Comm Relay, set all weapons to autofire and just turn the ship with Maneuvering Jets towards the Kites. Easy.

> Steady + Capture + Control makes the Eagle get distracted by one Kite long enough for the other Kite to capture the Comm Relay. Subsequently the Eagle does re-capture it. The same pattern then repeats. Sometimes the Eagle even prioritizes fighting the Kites over re-capturing the Comm Relay.
> Steady + Assault + Defend still makes the Eagle get distracted long enough to lose the Comm Relay.
> Steady + Rally Task Force order on the Comm Relay (instead of Capture/Assault) is no different.

Observation: Enemy Kites often prioritize flanking the Eagle to shoot at its relatively unprotected rear over capturing the Comm Relay, even when the Eagle has wandered far enough away that one of the Kites could easily capture it.

> Aggressive + Capture + Control also makes the Eagle prone to getting distracted and losing the Comm Relay.
> Aggressive + Assault + Defend is no different.
> Aggressive + Rally Task Force order on the Comm Relay is no different.

> Cautious + Capture + Control is no different.
> Cautious + Assault + Defend is no different.
> Cautious + Rally Task Force on the Comm Relay is no different.

> Timid personality makes the Eagle actively back away from the Kites even if that means completely ignoring a Control, Defend or Rally order.

[close]

>>> Conclusion: Ship AI appears to prioritize engaging enemies over staying at an assigned strategic point or rally point. And there is no way for the player to override that behavior. Which is kind of disappointing.


More scenario's to follow in the future. No promises on how far in the future that will be. Leave your suggestions for scenarios to explore!

60

Modding / Re: [0.95a] Better Ships v1.0

« on: June 09, 2021, 01:13:26 AM »

Shouldn't clash with Rebalanced Doom, right? https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=21607.0

Nope, it's compatible

Also, you've leaked your whole `.git` folder in the release.

Yeah noticed that. Will fix in the next update. First time using Git to publish a mod 

Nice idea, also thanks for formula of OP calculation, useful if I want bring modded ships to same standard

I found some ships while being appealing but because of lacking OP unable to fit it somehow effective, I will try allying that formula, and look how it affects them. Also about Guardian you can also do version with reduced OP's, but make it with auto_rec tag, so player also can use them too.

Interesting idea about Guardian. Making it recoverable is something to think about. It would be a very powerful bonus ship, particularly in player hands even if it can't be piloted directly...

Guardian has no_autofit which I think means that its loadout variant isn't sanitized for things like exceeding the normal OP limit, or having S-mods and the like (yes you can specify S-mods in .variant files, but autofit removes them :/ ). So rebalancing its OP capacity without affecting the NPC version loadout might be possible.