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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Messages - smithney

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16
General Discussion / Re: Sensor UI and sensor burst question
« on: June 07, 2023, 11:22:38 AM »
Ah good to know, yeah the little sensor icon in the right hand corner. Wish there was a way to do the sensor burst from the minimap, now i'm wondering how much i missed because i wasn't opening the minimap when i did my bursts.
Unless I'm wrong about my terminology, minimap usually means a... mini-map on the player's UI, which in this case means the reticle in the bottom right corner, or the "little radar icon" as Arcagnello calls it. Anyway the game should give you a little audio cue, a little "tick", whenever a new sensor reading, i.e. an object or a fleet, enters you radar range. You can use that to tell when it's a good time to take a look at the UI reticle or perhaps open your map.

17
Thank you guys for your contributions, they are very appreciated :D Anyway only Histidine took my prompt to say something nice about someone else's description. Let me be a proper host then and fill that missing content in:

  • Brutus Network - Medal of Bravery/10; Thank you for being the first! Good job with the faction motto.
  • UI Spira - Askonia/10; That was brief, but thanks for trying!
  • Eastsector Company - stack of opium/10; Awesome flag! The theme is spot on!
  • Hegemony Eastern Command - 30%/10; Hegs and taxes go together like Scintilla and Luxes. You're right about it, brother, you can't have one without the other. :3

Now where was I? It's time for round two! Firstly something new from my latest adventures. But also something that predates New Canaan. But! Something to supplement my first entry, too, because no faction is complete without its warfleet:

Fleets of New Canaan
True to its Luddic Knight origins, the bulk of New Canaan’s starfleet consists of low tech hulls, namely the Eradicator. New Canaan’s military doctrine, however, differs greatly from its predecessor, putting a greater emphasis on survival. To achieve this, ideological influences are thrown out the window in favor of speedy midline cruisers like Heron and Falcon. Rather provocatively, the breakaway faction adopted some of the novel modifications Pirates made to the hulls, a thrifty but effective solution. As a result, Neocanaanite tactics involve using strike groups of cruisers to quickly break through enemy’s weak points before overwhelming the exposed core, all while ensuring the enemy doesn’t get a chance to strike back. Occasionally, a Paragon is seen at the core of an intersystemic task force, a showcase of New Canaan’s adept military diplomacy.
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18
I, for one, think sector layout is perfectly fine. It makes sense that the Core forms a hub, in that regard it serves a very important gameplay role. And the rest being a desert is justified. Though I wouldn't mind more far-off islands of life like Sentinel. For once it would make choosing a colony spot a bit more interesting by affecting the accessibility.

19
General Discussion / Re: Colony Threat event
« on: June 06, 2023, 12:24:44 PM »
Having finished a run on this patch that I'm confident to call "complete", my two cents with the Hostile Activity system is that it's fine overall, but at this moment it's not intuitive enough. "Playing the whack-a-mole" doesn't fell rewarding. Fighting small threats quickly gets tedious - it's something you have to go out of your way to deal with, but usually not something you want to do. However, it's also the most intuitive approach, especially when nailed down with the colony penalties. Some players might consider it optimal and scare themselves out of trying a more enjoyable solution. The "solve the problem indefinitely through unconventional means" approach is also currently undercooked, therefore unrewarding. I hope Alex has some medium-to-large sized storyline planned to make it work. Finally, "dealing with a boss fight once at a time" feels like the most sensible solution when you consider it's the one that distracts you the least from your game, but also presents the player with a fun challenge. The problem is you have to stomach waiting through cycles of colony nerfs if you are a moderately risk-averse kind of player like me, as in not engaging in AI-empire levels of gameplay.

If I were to suggest anything, I would throw the small-scale threat subtractions out of the window and simply let the progress tracker grow, increasing the power of mook threats rather than their quantity over time. At the same time, I would introduce expansive/difficult (as in Kanta's deal level of expansive, or at least battlestation-level difficult) options to: a) significantly pull back the progress of the tracker; and/or b) mitigate the damage dealt to your colonies. The intended result is that: a) combat junkies can deal with the drawbacks of the "once at a time" approach in a way they enjoy; b) lore nerds have options to slow down the progress until they are ready to fight; c) credit score freaks can find the optimal solution to saving their colonies without making Starsector another chore.

20
Last thing before I go back to work, I fully understand why the Radiant was (and still definetly is) the uncontested [Redacted] King but I think it's time for the venerable fleet deleter to get reined back in and everything else to be buffed, since at this point anything big enough to take the place of additional Radiants is a nerf to the fleet doctrine overall and it's just comical at this point.
I think the reason for things being like this is to not make [REDACTED] overwhelmingly hard for new players encountering low-to-medium-danger [REDACTED] fleets. While the fleet deleter is supposed to be the raidbossy centerpiece of high-danger fleets. The [REDACTED] are already more likely to score a takedown on player's ships than other factions.

21
General Discussion / Re: Storyline Feedback Thread [SPOILERS]
« on: June 05, 2023, 07:23:32 AM »
Spoiler
Pretty sure it's supposed to be the A.I. took over derelict Hegemony ships after the final fight, given all the derelict remnant ships floating around one of the jump points.
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Spoiler
*Closes the headcanon hatch to prevent damage to it* "The Hegint got into your head, too! There is no way those PK-wielding wackos didn't know!

Anyway, yeah, found that out after my second visit to the system. Turns out transverse jumping does have minor downsides like these.
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22
General Discussion / Re: Clipped Wings - An Eagle Thread
« on: June 03, 2023, 11:32:14 PM »
I have seen opinions that are all over the place about the current Eagle. Haven't tried it myself, but as an enemy it finally doesn't feel like free scrap anymore. The extra speed means that it doesn't get punished as much anymore for overextending. But Eagle works best as a line ship, especially a flank protector, and it just so happens that the fleets it appears in need exactly that.

I also have to congratulate the fact that Falcon finally feels more like the "light" version of Eagle rather than just the "more efficient" one.

Anyway, please, do share your Eagle builds. I am eager to try it out in my next run, perhaps all of the variants!

23
General Discussion / Re: Storyline Feedback Thread [SPOILERS]
« on: June 03, 2023, 01:35:58 PM »
Is there any quest line that are specifically for Tri-Tac or the Hegemony or just what we have with the Academy questline?
Well there is a couple of easter eggs for the Hegemony, but none exclusively for the Tri-Tach right now afaik.

Also I suggest you do check out the newest blog post for more insight into David's line of work ;)

24
Blog Posts / Re: Narrative in 0.96 aka Movie Night With David
« on: June 03, 2023, 01:22:28 PM »
Gender-specific: If you're asking for romance options, then probably not. I think the player is too blank-slate to make that really work, in my mind. ( -- Though you did get Princess of Persea!)

And generally, to the previous point about "anti-lore", answering questions about how gender is constructed/viewed/modified in various societies in the Persean Sector is... a huge project to take on. There are some small references, and maybe I'm happy to leave it at a point where it's pretty open-ended.
Thank you for the answer. What I had in mind with was more in the realm of easter eggs: Perhaps a player who got lucky charming a portmaster for an easy access to confidential information as a male character would wind up surprised by a reputation loss when they try it as a female. Romance might be an unnecessary feature, but seeing that a NP character tends to disproportionately pander to an enby PC might be an enlightening replay bonus, don't you think? Either way I fully support your principally anti-lore approach to gender, I'd agree it's the best one for Starsector.

More on Arroyo: He's certainly a character that reflects the depth of the game's setting. Seeing him more as a victim of circumstances rather than a simply offputting careerist is an eye-opening experience. It tells an observant player much more about the Tri-Tach than an obscene amount of lore dumps would. I hope you'll manage to replicate this with other characters, especially those who would be available as contacts.

Just one more thing: I greatly appreciate the effort you put into taking non-standard approaches into account. The Usurpers questline would be a perfect playground for them. I genuinely hope you will take guys like Gargoyle and Curate Standfast into account when finishing the storyline.

EDIT: Whoops! Looks like I missed out on the party of the decacycle! Definitely gonna look out for an exotic epilogue on Hegemony worlds now!

25
Blog Posts / Re: Narrative in 0.96 aka Movie Night With David
« on: June 03, 2023, 04:40:20 AM »
Weirdly enough, I've never caught onto the whole "Jaspis being the luddic equivalent of Provost Baird" thing.
That's because Starsec's female characters are well written. It's neat to see them in positions of power and not have them end up being just "masculine women". Even better, each of them feels like they wield their power differently. That said, I'm looking forward to the moment we meet Artemisia Sun to experience a truly convincing female character. I think you know very well what I'm hinting at.

Trolling Arroyo with the "special item" is a [something], that's for sure. ... and now I'm mildly disappointed about the lack of League turn-in option (in general, but also that we can't troll Siyavong in the same way).
I though l was going to love hating Arroyo after my first experience with him. Interestingly, he grew much more sympathetic as a character the moment I roleplayed a character that was taking advantage of him. Incidentally, do you have a plan to add some gender-specific dialogue in the future, David?

26
Blog Posts / Re: Narrative in 0.96 aka Movie Night With David
« on: June 02, 2023, 09:18:09 AM »
This just in from Volturn
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27
General Discussion / Storyline Feedback Thread [SPOILERS]
« on: June 01, 2023, 12:02:15 PM »
I'm genuinely missing some talk about the narrative. Sure, Alex's direction and mechanical content deserves the spotlight, but David's been busy this patch, too, and I'm of the opinion his work does deserve some praise as well. I've already voiced some of my opinions in the patch announcement thread, I'm going to dig deeper into individual storylines here:

The Shrines
What a lovely way to get introduced into the Church! I managed to get lucky and not only did my first visit to the Jangala shrine coincide with the protest event, I also nabbed a hitchhiker there on my way to Kumari Aru. All of the visits were memorable and together painted a pretty colorful picture of the Church, a "rainbow road" of sorts if the zealous pardon me. I honestly can't think of anything to improve, it's a neat and simple storyline for new players to pick up to get a good look at a major piece of the core worlds. The only piece it was missing was a peek at the dark side of the Church, which I hoped would be addressed in...
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The Knight Errant
...and it turns out I was right. Sorta. There is no denying that the Path is the dark side of the Church, but I have seen more evidence of the two sides of the Ludd's coin mingling in the Gates storyline through the encounters with Cotton and his knave of Ludd. Admittedly Jethro turning out to have pee'd his pants off to Mazalot was a funny, but ultimately anticlimactic ending, painting him in an arguably unflattering light. I'd have preferred if he ended up being a genuinely resourceful and influential personality active in some kind of an underground action on Mazalot. Perhaps he would end up being an agent of his own that would grow sympathetic to the Luddic radicals, but guilesome enough to influence them towards a more subtle and effective solution to their oppression. Then we could actually make an interesting decision whether to fulfill Jaspis' quest and weaken the faithful of Mazalot in favor of returning one of Gilead's greatest offstage minds home. Or show sympathy to his cause and perhaps eventually see the fruits of such character's efforts come true. I mean, perhaps we could supply him with weapons (or contacts!) if we could do that with...
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The Hood, the Boy and the Bot
..., err, I mean the Volturn Curate. And you might've just ended up puzzled what has the Volturn Padawan quest got to do with the previously mentioned questline. Nothing much except disappointment. I'm not going to write a rant about it again though, it's here for those who are curious. The quest is a fun nod and I appreciate it, but I hope in future it does become an introduction to Sindria's own Chekhov's bot-man.

...Sorry for not coming up with a better joke. But hey! At least it sounds like Batman!  ;D
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The Sentinel Island
IN SPACE!
Boy, is this joke getting old

Didn't arrive to this paragraph by a segue, but neither did I to Sentinel while playing. I mean I didn't encounter this one as fluidly as the other storylines. Which makes sense, the discovery of Sentinel's secret is meant to be sudden and shocking. And what a shocker it is! AI hardwired to Hegemony ships? I choose to read it less as an accident of necessity and more as another proof of Hegemony's hypocrisy. That said, I'm looking forward to see the repercussions of actually handing the PK to anyone in future patches. I'll be disappointed if it doesn't end up being abused by everyone possible. Power corrupts and so on...
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The Usurpers
Speaking of power, the Usurpers questline is steaming, but somewhat undercooked. But that's the cons of tasting the early access for you. On the other hand, the ingredients are amazing! Hyder and Macario are intriguing characters and I would love to see them at each other's throats in the future. I was a bit underwhelmed by Caden coming off as a straight-up idiot, but I suppose that's to be expected of the head of Lion's Guard. I might pretend it to be a case of obfuscating stupidity and perhaps he'll get a chance to show that in future patches. If he doesn't end up dying in a shootout with me over a single double agent, like this time. Either way it looks like Askonia's set up to be a political or even a literal battleground for the four big factions and I can't wait for the theater to start ^^
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All in all, I liked what you got, David. Good job! If you continue at this pace and manage to gently weave the storylines together then we're in for a proper space opera! And no opera would be complete without music, so shout-out to Stian for the new themes! Love the hint of the hyperspace theme in the League ones!

And what do you think, fellow starfarers?

28
General Discussion / Re: Alex Appreciation Thread
« on: May 31, 2023, 12:58:05 PM »
Having basically finished my first run of this patch I gotta tune in on the vibe and give huge props to Alex not only for releasing a grand patch of content but also for polishing all its rough edges right after its release. ^_^

For me personally it's the systemic things that deserve the spotlight: Firstly the Hyperspace Topography event spiced up the downtime in exploration quite a lot to make it more palatable in the early game. Secondly the S-mod changes really encourage experimentation a lot now. Thirdly the factions finally have fleshed-out identities and I'm looking forward to continue exploring their "souls" in David's upcoming stories. The Shrines and the Usurpers questlines were a great introduction to the Church and to the Diktat respectively and I'm hoping each faction will get a comparably good one, too.

edited

29
Not sure why this mentality started being so common.
Perhaps it's because more content has been added for players whose enjoyment doesn't come primarily from piloting. At the same time, there is really no necessity to learn piloting, so players like me just focus on the rest of the content. Piloting is hard and the combat can be fun even without it. At the same time, it feels intuitive to invest into fleetwide skills because they sound like force multipliers, while I can imagine a new player not wanting to multiply their own impact of they feel like it won't be significant enough.

30
General Discussion / Re: 5 Gigacannon 4 Kinetic Blaster Radiant
« on: May 15, 2023, 11:05:04 AM »
You say that like anybody wants a giga cannon.
What do you mean? Everybody wants the Gigacannon!
Spoiler
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