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16

Blog Posts / Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2

« on: April 30, 2022, 04:13:19 PM »

Re: LG's d-mod - it's actually not a bad thing to have a low-impact d-mod (assuming it's less impact than other d-mods), since that's a buff for Derelict Operations. And it's no big deal to restore it off if it's unwanted. I do think full OP cost deduction for Solar Shielding is a bit unnecessarily harsh though - half price would make it more of a "bonus", especially compared to how good LP's free built-in SO is.

The Brilliant – the other cruiser – loses its fighter bay (so that not every Remnant cruiser is about drones or fighters in some way), but gets Plasma Burn (a mobility system) to help differentiate it more strongly from the Apex.

This is a badly needed buff, since the Brilliant compared quite poorly vs Champion and Apogee and was the worst Remnant ship on a per-DP basis. (I assume the Brilliant will also receive an OP buff as a refund on the OP tax for modular fighter bays?) It doesn't have quite the flux/speed as an Aurora but will have more punch, and I for one am looking forward to Remnants fleets having improved strike/flanking ability.

I do wonder if the remaining underpowered Remnant ships could receive a balance pass as well - namely, the Fulgent's poor flux, the Lumen's OP deficiency, and the Scintilla's mismatched ship system for Remnant LPC's.

Noticed that with Brilliant losing the fighter bay, only Scintillas will use and drop the Remnant fighter chips.

Yes - perhaps the Apex should have a single modular fighter bay mixed with their Terminators? It would still remain thematic as a heavy droneship, but also allows for more versatility and better build variety. It would be frustrating for LPC drops to be solely dependent on a single ship type.

17

General Discussion / Re: Why are the Remnants Fleets so busted this patch?

« on: April 27, 2022, 03:29:23 AM »

But man im still struggling fighting remnant fleets but the ziggurat is by far one of the best ways to counter them since the motes fry engines and weapons alike and add a ziggurat with omega weapons and they can dish out alot of damage pretty quickly

It's a bit underselling to "add" a Ziggurat with Omega weapons to a fleet: a Ziggurat with Omega weapons renders the rest of the player fleet completely unnecessary, and is capable of soloing at least the maximum number of Remnants allowed by the game's fleet auto-assist limit, without even taking any hull damage.

18

General Discussion / Re: Neural Link... again.

« on: April 16, 2022, 01:16:50 AM »

I had a similar thought: personally I'd swap Neural Link with Flux Regulation on the tiers, then rename/retheme Flux Regulation by adding a new additional capstone effect. Flux Regulation is currently an auto-pick if you've made it all the way up to tier 3 in Technology, and a case could be made for higher requirements (as well as higher opportunity cost for Automated Ships). Also, Technology currently doesn't have an actual fleetwide buff as a capstone, unlike Leadership and Industry.

Personally I'd like to see a new fleetwide buff that only applies to ships that are currently within their PPT - for example, +10% damage and a flat +10 speed. This limits over-buffing of SO-spam fleets that ride CR decay, and also gives more a reason to invest into Technology while using low tech ships since they have better PPT across the board. Further, this would counter-balance the fact that high tech ships disproportionately benefit from the +10% flux bonuses of the current Flux Regulation.

19

General Discussion / Re: What happened to AI?

« on: April 13, 2022, 08:28:19 AM »

As for proof, here you can see how i ordered my fleet. No matter if they followed one ship in groups of 2 to 3 or in picture case, everybody just one, you can see my 2 fast cruisers just buggering off all the way to the right for no reason.

I rest my case with game's AI. Something like this never happened prior to skills and story points overhaul.

First of all, this has nothing to do with skill and story points overhaul.

Secondly, you've issued a Defend order targeting your own ship. Prior to 0.95.1a (the latest major patch version), you couldn't assign a Defend order to a specific ship, only to a point. Previously when you "follow" a ship by clicking a group of ships onto one of your own ships, you were using the Escort order, which kept ships tightly together, but wouldn't spread out properly to engage an opposing fleet and instead clustered tightly together to defend the rear and flank of the target of the Escort order. This meant they easily allowed enemies to back off and escape since they rarely broke formation, and many players complained this was too "cowardly" or "passive" behavior.

With the Defend order, ships will actively spread out into more of a "battle line", and that means faster ships are more liable to be separated as they spread out to engage enemies, at whatever distance they feel comfortable with based on their officer personality. With low-aggression personalities, they might keep quite a distance from enemies and spread out quite a bit; in contrast, using Reckless officers with Defend will minimize their tendency to spread out (except to directly pursue fleeing enemies that have also broken formation). Thus, you can influence this behavior simply by making your officers more or less aggressive, and also by assigning fewer ships to a single Defend order.

If you want the old behavior where ships stay tightly clustered together, simply manually select "Escort" after selecting your ship to overwrite the "Defend" order, which is the new default when larger ships of ships are selected onto another ship. It won't cost any additional Command Points if issued while still paused.

I'll also note that there's a station in the battle, which can really throw off what distance ships want to maintain, especially with non-Reckless personalities: at Aggressive and below, the AI will consider enemy weapons range/size/count/etc. for engagement distance decisions, and stations can really skew those calculations. This is less of an issue with Escort because the Escort command prioritizes staying close to the ship being escorted, but it can be more of an issue with Defend. This is also not a new behavior, and can be avoided by using Reckless. For more details: https://starsector.fandom.com/wiki/AI_Behaviour

Further, the reason why "enemy AI goes as 100% efficency without any sort of damm issue" and "enemy AI who KNOWS when to retreat at what time" is because the enemy AI isn't simply issuing a single Defend or Escort order on their ships and then sitting on their hands the rest of the battle - they're actively issuing commands (identical in every way to player commands, down to command point usage) throughout the battle to dynamically respond. For example, you can easily pull your own ships out when they're in trouble by slapping an Avoid order on the ship that's overpowering your ship, and all your ships nearby will quickly retreat to safety so you can regroup. Both the player and enemy AI are using the exact same orders, and the ship AIs respond using the same AI rules - any variance in performance is purely due to difference in fleet composition (including ship loadouts and officer selection) and command usage. In short, if you feel enemy AI's commands are operating at 100% efficiency compared to yours, that's reflective that they're issuing the more suitable commands at better time compared to the player. There's a learning curve for ship loadouts and fleet composition - there's every expectation that there should be a similar learning curve for more or less effective command usage as well.

Finally, there are tons of video evidence on Youtube of people effectively ordering their fleets around during battle in the current patch. Perhaps that could be a starting point to help figure out why your experiences versus all of theirs (and many others who are successfully playing this game) are differing in this area. Recording and posting videos of your own battles would also help others better diagnose which behaviors might be considered unexpected.

20

General Discussion / Re: Should we make a new rule banning Youtube and Stream VODs?

« on: April 09, 2022, 01:31:11 PM »

I think the issue isn't the medium (Youtube etc) but rather the actual content - what's the intended topic of discussion? The threads on this subforum tend to be topic-driven: I feel that a Youtube video that illustrates a particular strategy/fleet comp to consider/analyze, a particular balance/gameplay issue to dissect, and so on would be fine and generate good discussion about aspects of the actual game. In contrast, a video that's a how-to of a simple mechanic or "here's me playing the game" would probably be less well-received here, unless it's a response that's specifically relevant to a topic that has already been started.

I also think people are also going to be quick to point out if something seems like blatant self-promotion on this subforum, since that's less relevant to the game itself and more about the content creator. As mentioned, there's a separate subforum specifically for fan media, which actually has a sticky thread for Stream VOD's.

21

General Discussion / Re: Afflictor and Doom

« on: April 01, 2022, 06:06:48 PM »

System Expertise helps the mines out a bit but they really are lackluster compared to Entropy Amplifier, The mines rarely land where you actually want them too and the AI is pretty incredible at dodging them by centimetres. I was hoping there was still a good build left for the Doom but I'm not sure there is, seems like the Afflictor is the only really good Phase ship left which I'm okay with. [...] It sort of feels like the Doom should be an upgrade or at the very least a sidegrade to an Afflictor but it's a straight downgrade which wouldn't be so bad but you're paying +25 DP for a worse ship overall. I'm aware they have different roles in a fleet setting but the Afflictor can almost do it all whereas the Doom can only burst. I'm not convinced the mines are worth 35 DP.

No offense, but it sounds like a case of skill issue, especially where it comes to mine use. I'm pretty sure that the current consensus (and rightfully so) is that the Doom and the Mike Strike system are broken-good in the hands of a competent player pilot, but it requires a higher skill ceiling than simply "here is the magic build, hold down W + mouse1 to win". Understanding how to manipulate AI shield/movement using mines, how to use enemy fighters/wreckage to instantly detonate mines at will, and how to use mine AOE to clear clustered ships/missiles and exploit shield gaps (especially against stations), all allow a competent Doom pilot to crush fleets, solo Tesseracts and Star Fortresses, which the Afflictor severely lacks the firepower (and AI manipulation) to achieve.

Doom fleet battle

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Solo Tesseract

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Solo Star Fortresses

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Mind you, the Afflictor is a great ship for its DP cost, and the Afflictor (P) much more so than the base Afflictor. However, in the hands of a skilled player pilot, the Doom has a far higher skill ceiling and capability to dominate the entire battle.

The Omega weapon builds are [...] more of something you mess around with towards the end of a run.

You can choose to deny yourself the use of Omega weapons until the end of a run, but that's purely a player decision and not a very optimal one, since Omega weapons can be easily acquired early on:

• The Galatia storyline doesn't require a fleet of any substance to complete, and the Ziggurat can even be reached in less than an hour of gameplay.
  
  How To Complete Story Quickly

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• The Ziggurat can also be defeated easily with a weak fleet, especially given the phase speed nerf preventing it from escaping to vent once fluxed. Here's Maddi from the Discord doing so using Enforcers, Sunders, and Mules, with no losses.
• The Hypershunts can be easily soloed using the Ziggurat: here's an example from last patch of someone showing how to do so, and it's far easier now since Ziggurat is much stronger with Phase Anchor than it used to be.
  
  Solo Hypershunt

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For me personally, I've always cleared the Hypershunts in every run before I've even established my first colony or built a non-Ziggurat capital ship fleet. Omega weapons are absolutely not end game.

22

General Discussion / Re: Afflictor and Doom

« on: March 31, 2022, 02:39:10 PM »

I think the most OP doom loadout is using the omega missiles. Both of them benefit massively from the cooldown reduction of phase anchor, and having 1000+ range damage that can pass over allies is incredibly strong.

Also, PD is not so important, you should be using your fast phase cloak cooldown to dodge most stuff. Having a burst PD or two can be nice so that you don't have as much downtime dodging homing missiles, but you really don't need to use all the small turrets.

23

General Discussion / Re: Is it just me, or are destryers the weakest hull size?

« on: March 30, 2022, 08:28:26 PM »

Fundamentally the problem with destroyers as a size class is that they combine the worst traits of frigates and cruisers. In terms of firepower and range (ITU = 10%/20%/40% for frigate/destroyer/cruiser) destroyers are closer to frigates, but in terms of speed/maneuverability/hitbox size they're closer to cruisers. This means that destroyers are more vulnerable to getting hit and not being able to respond/escape when flanked compared to frigates, but neither can they effectively shoot their way out of trouble like a cruiser. Similarly, most frigates will run circles around most destroyers, but most destroyers are also vulnerable to being chased down and bullied by fast cruisers (Falcons, Furies, Auroras, Eradicators, etc). As a result, in the current fleet context players are almost always better served using either frigates and/or fast cruisers for destroyer-suitable roles.

Given that light cruisers have dramatically proliferated since 0.95 (with introduction of Fury and Eradicator along with buffs to Falcon) combined with the effectiveness of frigates using Wolfpack Tactics, destroyers have been caught in no-man's land from both sides. IMO, destroyers need a similar adjustment as was made to Falcons given the current environment: minor speed increase and major maneuverability increase for the whole class so that they're better positioned between frigates and light cruisers. I also think that a minor increase in destroyer ITU from 20% to 25% would be a reasonable adjustment.

Edit: Now that I think about it, it probably makes more sense to give destroyers a Helmsmanship-like bonus in the Wolfpack Tactics skill (similar to Elite Impact Mitigation but a bit more skewed toward speed, something like +20% speed +30% maneuverability), to make it more worthwhile to "give up" an officer on a destroyer.

24

General Discussion / Re: Something I noticed with Ziggurat plus civilians only

« on: March 29, 2022, 12:13:11 PM »

I posted this issue in Suggestions a couple months back, with zero traction: [REDACTED] fleets should always assist each other. (Spoilers)

Right now I circumvent the issue by editing the Kite(S) with high FP values so that more fleets are baited into assisting, but in many cases this will also ruin XP gain, which is silly. As I said in the post - with the introduction of story point disengage there's no need for such anti-immersive guardrails any more, especially since players are incentivized to take on outnumbered fleets for XP gain.

Also: the combat AI will already adjust their deployment in-battle based on what the player has deployed.

25

General Discussion / Re: Best ship for missile spam?

« on: March 28, 2022, 12:38:33 PM »

My sense is that Alex intentionally allowed the power creep of missiles from 0.91a to 0.95a and now to 0.95.1a, since missiles favor low/mid tech over high tech.

Don't think it's that clear cut: Apogee has 1 L and 1 S for 18 DP, Odyssey had 1 L and 3 Ms for 45 and good mobility for torpedo/sabot, Fury only 2 Ms for 20 but it's fast/durable/has enough energy mounts so can use anything well.
Really depends on the exact setup you are going for.

I don't think it's necessarily an ironclad rule for every single ship, but it does seem fairly consistent that high tech has fewer missile mounts on average and Alex has stated that this is an intentional design choice. For example, from his "A Tale of Two Tech Levels" blog post:

As is fairly common for low tech ships, it also has an above-average complement of missiles, to help offset its middling flux stats.

Hence my earlier observation that missile power has steadily grown over the last couple of patches (from 0.91a to 0.95.1a) under the umbrella of helping the other tech levels close the gap with high tech, but now it's reached the point to where missile power has become a significant outlier compared to the other mount types (re: Gryphon, Falcon (P), etc).

26

General Discussion / Re: Skill system encouraging frequent respec is annoying when it is not cheap.

« on: March 27, 2022, 06:04:29 AM »

In other words, I am playing the game wrong because I dare to use a fleet that is comparable to an endgame bounty fleet instead of a solo Ziggurat or something less powerful for maximum xp gain.

There is absolutely no requirement that players bring a "comparable" fleet to take on enemy fleets, because fleets from an experienced player are many times stronger than enemy fleets on a per-DP basis, due to numerous advantages that all stack to multiply the disparity:

• Vastly superior loadouts and fleet design.
• Intelligent officer skill and personality selection.
• Far more fleetwide skills, including top tier skills.
• Far higher s-mod and far lower d-mod density in most cases.
• Better usage of fleet tactics and orders.
• The impact of the player piloting itself.

And so on. I haven't encountered a single battle in vanilla that required a 240+ DP fleet to defeat without losses, which is why I run with 120 DP of combat ships. And I've "only" been playing since 0.8 so I'm sure there are many better pilots out there.

There's very little correlation between fleet size for XP purposes and the amount of loot that can be carried. As was pointed out earlier in the thread, Atlas takes away very little for XP calc purposes because of low FP * 1/4 civilian hullmod reduction, so you could easily carry multiple Atlases for less than 10% of the FP value of Ziggurat + player levels.

If I solo with Ziggurat, I do not want my fleet to exceed 100 DP because doing so spawns a bigger map with objectives, and I dislike objectives, especially if my side cannot stop the enemy from taking the points.  I have 25 DP left for support ships.  I can take either Prometheus, Atlas, and an Ox; or one Revenant and two Oxen.

Also, bringing support ships eats a noticeable amount a bonus xp from named bounties.  Against a human endgame bounty fleet, having Revenant in my "fleet" reduces bonus xp by 12% or 13%.  Tugs reduce the bonus by 4% per tug.  If I did not need a hauler for fuel to reach systems with named bounties, I would consider bringing only Ziggurat for maximum xp.

It simply doesn't make much sense to drag Revenants around for that purpose. Revenants cost 15 DP compared to the Atlas's 10 DP, and lacks the Atlas's civilian hullmod for 1/4 XP impact. Using Revenants isn't just logistically expensive, but also XP/SP expensive as well. It seems unfair to make an inefficient choice and then blame the outcome on the game, instead of the choice.

The system rewards you for efficiency with fleet composition and battlefield performance, and it's something that players are incentivized to design for.

Unfortunately, I think the game "rewards" the player by being stingy with xp and story points, and money from non-contact bounties, unless the player utterly games the system by using only the strongest options available (which may not be available early).  In other words, Starsector punishes the player for playing the game wrong.  Currently, the game wants you to solo things if at all possible, like in pre-0.6a releases, which defeats the point of a fleet and fleet skills that need officers or more ships to work.  It seems like the only time a fleet is useful was when player fights more than one Ordos at a time, or when xp gain is not the goal (like smashing a planet's defenses before raiding it for items or sat bombing it to wipe it off the map).

First of all, fighting more than one Ordos at a time is far a more efficient use of the initial CR deployment cost, as long as you're not taking excessive CR loss or ship damage/loss. Earning much better XP is simply another bonus on top of that - another incentive to play the game more efficiently.

Secondly, there's a vast middle ground between "solo everything" and "matching comparable enemy fleet size" - it's simply designing and using a smaller, more efficient fleet for everything.

More importantly, you choose to negatively label making choices you don't like as "punishment", whereas I think it's more productive to view it in terms of which player actions are being incentivized. The old system of "lug around a bunch of undeployed Paragons for easy deployment advantage leading to easy XP gain" was ridiculous and incentivized undermining the combat layer using campaign layer cheese. The current system incentivizes player competence in designing and utilizing better and more efficient fleets, loadouts, and combat tactics to overcome initial deployment for better XP gain. To me, this is a far superior gameplay approach than the "punishment" of being obligated to fill up my fleet with junk Paragons to game the system.

And I do want the option of full switch without being heavily punished for it.

Considering that respec was previously not an option for... many patches, now that there's a respec is available it's suddenly a "punishment" because there's a tangible cost for using it? That doesn't seem like a very fair or reasonable assessment. At what point during the game's development was there an expectation or precedent established for unlimited free respecs?

FWIW, in my view respec costs in Starsector are pretty mild compared to other games, especially for those who are experienced with the combat layer of the game to be able to quickly and easily earn SP.

27

General Discussion / Re: Best ship for missile spam?

« on: March 27, 2022, 05:07:36 AM »

Squall ammo doesn't matter that much, it's only a limit for "normal" ships (L ammo in general is decent enough without forge).
Having >200 harpoons with 8 shots a pop is what makes Gryphon so strong.
[...]
Since they generally finish double Ordos with ~30/30 Harpoons left in the pods systems expertise doesn't change too much in most fights.
It's nice not having to worry about it, but autoforge with 1 charge is still silly strong.

Squalls are merely the most dramatic example - for the case of Harpoons and most other missiles, Gryphons still have 225% of ammo in 0.95.1a compared to where they were in 0.91a.

Of particular note is how s-mods have made stacking missile ammo far easier, since EMR used to be cost-prohibitive for most builds. Hence my earlier suggestion that EMR receive the Hardened Shields treatment to reduce the impact of s-modding.

My sense is that Alex intentionally allowed the power creep of missiles from 0.91a to 0.95a and now to 0.95.1a, since missiles favor low/mid tech over high tech. However, with so many changes that have knocked high tech off of its former lofty pedestal (tons of new ships, skills like Ordinance Expertise and Polarized Armor that explicitly favor low tech, buffs to ballistic weapons, etc), my view is that it no longer makes much sense to allow missile power to continue to spiral via ammo multiplication to the current levels. Gryphon's current situation is less indicative of the balance issues around the ship itself or the Autoforge system, and rather a symptom of the power creep of missiles as an entire weapon class across recent patches.

28

General Discussion / Re: Best ship for missile spam?

« on: March 26, 2022, 06:37:07 PM »

Is Gryphon overpowered because of the missiles only or is it because it has both Missile Specialization and Systems Expertise for enough to last?

I think it's clear that Gryphons have been the beneficiaries of disproportionate stacking of buffs from skill revamps and missile stat tweaks.

Consider:
Patch 0.91a Gryphons: Squalls = 100 ammo, EMR = +100%. Max ammo = 100*(200%)*2 = 400.
Patch 0.95.1a Gryphons: Squalls = 160 ammo, EMR = +100%, Missile Expertise = +100%, Systems Expertise = +1 charge. Max ammo = 160*(300%)*3 = 1440.

So Gryphons can pump out 360% as much Squalls as they used to be able to. Is that overpowered? That's ultimately for Alex to decide, but it would certainly be fair to say that increasing the total damage output of a specific ship/weapon combo (flux-free too) by that amount is far higher than just about any other buff in the game.

My personal opinion is that EMR should receive the Hardened Shields treatment: halve the effect to +50% along with an OP reduction so that it's not such a huge s-mod bait, along with ammo from Missile Expertise reduced to +50% as well but replaced with other buffs. (For example: reduce ECCM's OP and effect by 50% and add 50% of the ECCM bonus to Missile Expertise.) Right now Gryphon is simply the worst outlier of ammo stacking, but missiles in general are far more plentiful than they used to be, especially when stacked with various ammo-friendly changes (Squalls, Breaches, double smalls, etc).

This would also help reduce the disproportionate power of missile mounts - for example, Falcon (P) can be reduced in DP cost with these nerfs, since their current DP cost is a reflection of how multiple medium missile mounts are way more powerful than other medium mounts once you factor in excessive ammo stacking.

29

General Discussion / Re: Skill system encouraging frequent respec is annoying when it is not cheap.

« on: March 26, 2022, 12:44:19 AM »

On the other hand, if I solo the same fleet with Ziggurat (and bring very few support ships), I get +300% or more bonus xp, but I almost certainly cannot loot much (which hurts because a game like this thrives on loot).

There's very little correlation between fleet size for XP purposes and the amount of loot that can be carried. As was pointed out earlier in the thread, Atlas takes away very little for XP calc purposes because of low FP * 1/4 civilian hullmod reduction, so you could easily carry multiple Atlases for less than 10% of the FP value of Ziggurat + player levels.

Personally I carry 120 FP of combat ships in my fleet even into endgame when fighting multiple Ordos, and have zero problems with XP or SP - if anything, XP/SP gain is too easy when you're not carrying around a big bloated fleet, and can easily handle combat-heavy activities like bounties without losses instead of low-XP activities like trading. For example, you could quickly and easily max out your character to level 15 at the start of a run just by hunting large d-modded pirate fleets using a tiny fleet equipped with Alpha Site weapons and pure Combat skills, then respec your character to maxed out fleet skills and build a real fleet to take on factions/bounties. The system rewards you for efficiency with fleet composition and battlefield performance, and it's something that players are incentivized to design for.

30

Blog Posts / Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 1

« on: March 20, 2022, 05:31:30 AM »

I did not say that Paragon is obsolete after Invictus arrives. What i'm saying, that Invictus'es greater range does not make sense lore wise, since Invictus is supposed to be outdated, with inferior technological advancements. Perhaps even obsolete ones, compared to what is currently available in the Sector. Currently, Paragon is top-of-the-line, regarding technological advancements and is the only ship in game, that has the ATC, that provides +100% range to energy and ballistic weapons.

Lore wise, it doesn't make sense, that Luddic Church now gets a capital, that equals to the range bonus of ATC, while also providing additional bonuses, that ATC is not capable of, cooldown or not.

Once again - there's no lore equivalence between range and "technological advancements". Gauss has the longest base range of any non-missile weapon, and it's a ballistic weapon that can't be mounted on any high tech ships. And low tech ships generally have better range than high tech ships even though by lore they're less technologically advanced.

You're overgeneralizing and drawing erroneous conclusions based on a fixation with the Paragon, which is not uncommon among newer players. The Paragon is a unique ship that combines long range with on-demand damage mitigation. Rather than representing the pinnacle of high tech doctrine, it offers something quite uncharacteristic to high tech fleets - to help plug a weakness of high tech doctrine, if you will. Likewise, the Retribution appears to be the fastest capital from any tech doctrine, but again it would be equally a mistake to say it means that high speed is representative of low tech doctrine; rather, like the Paragon it provides something different to low tech fleets that would otherwise be lacking.

If anything, Invictus appears to be simply doubling down on the most common traits of low tech ships: long range, reliance on armor tanking, heavy PD, and being terribly overgunned/underfluxed. In many ways, Invictus is the most "low tech" ship and thus aligns well with existing lore.