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1

Suggestions / Re: Minor Skill Tree Re-Work

« on: January 16, 2023, 12:35:30 AM »

Yeah, never got the industry combat skills exactly because having to take the relatively useless tier 1 fleetwides is too much of a tax. And as others pointed, it doesn't feel good to be inferior to officers that don't have such limitations.

2

Suggestions / Re: Afflictor AI

« on: January 14, 2023, 02:58:33 AM »

Avoiding large ship's death explosion is a skill that takes quite a bit of practice even for player.

Simply put, many capitals have larger death explosions than AM Afflictor's attack range. So you have to shoot at part of the target furthest from center, while on break-away trajectory yourself, so that by the time shots connect, you are even further away.

Avoiding Doom mines isn't trivial either. If a mine pops exactly in front (there is some random, as to where exactly it pops) of Afflictor going full speed, the only possible reaction is to instantly cloak - you don't have enough acceleration to course-correct. The counter is to slow down before exiting phase near a Doom. And just being in vicinity of allied fighters when enemy Doom is around is a death threat you need to avoid, because mines can pop these instantly.

Obviously AI doesn't even remotely consider any of these advanced points. Imo, Alex basically treats advanced phase ship maneuvers as exclusive toy for player. Which I'm not super happy about, but is better than brute-force removal of any mechanic interaction too complex for AI to figure out.

3

Suggestions / Re: Buff the Medium Energy Slot

« on: January 07, 2023, 01:47:05 PM »

Mining Blaster's niche was old Hyperion with unlimited teleportation. But since that ship doesn't exist anymore, MB is always a subpar option.

4

Suggestions / Re: Give the pulse laser a bonus vs shields

« on: January 03, 2023, 05:51:23 PM »

I'm unconvinced that the heavy blaster's dps actually mitigates its poor efficiency when it comes to anti-shield. The factors that make that true are niche: when I'm actually fielding the weapon I find it to be a poor shield breaker because the ships mounting it flux themselves out before breaking the shield unless they have very high flux stats (SO ships use it well for example).

Its a great weapon, but not very good vs shields.

It is, when player piloted.

You slowly build up shield flux on target (possible in multiple passes, venting close to enemy - AI almost never  counter-vents), then time it so that you have full flux capacity to dump when enemy is about to overload. This is what a HB Wolf has to do vs Enforcer, for example. Though in a better scenario, you build up flux mostly with other weapons, and use HB only for flux regen overflow, like 2 Railgun + 2 HB Medusa.

On the other hand there is nothing you could smartly exploit about Pulse Laser - it's lackluster through and through.

5

Suggestions / Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic

« on: November 23, 2022, 09:09:38 PM »

Apogee can get decent *soft flux* range. But it's pointless - with max stacked shield hullmods and flux regen Hammerhead out-regens it. The rest is just matter of intermittently holding fire to let flux build-up dissipate. And missiles can get baited, Hammerhead has enough PPT to afford such stalling tactics.

Do you mean phase lances? Because tachyon lance is a large energy and eagle only gets mediums.
Also please show me what kind of hammerhead variant can kill an apogee under AI control that isn't an SO build because I genuinely don't see one that could do it.

Phase Lance, right. AI can't, because it's too dumb. Even most idiot-proof Hammerhead build I tried just let Apogee corner it, although Hammerhead was slowly winning until that point (armor damage + missiles running out on Apogee, still enough PPT to finish on Hammerhead). But ship spec-wise it's trivial.

6

Suggestions / Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic

« on: November 23, 2022, 12:44:36 AM »

Just tried it in the simulator.. Apogee has no problem taking apart an Eagle.

Sim Eagle has incompetent loadout: 3 Heavy Mortars + 3 Gravitons. Gravitons are not shieldbreaking weapons - their role is flux debuff for enemy weapons. Useful, but doesn't actually win the flux war on their own. Eagle has to equip 2 or 3 kinetic weapons (with Tachyon Lances, if all 3. Though AI can't use lances due to too large flux spike).

7

Suggestions / Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic

« on: November 23, 2022, 12:08:27 AM »

Eagle has effective average speed close to 75 and better hard flux range. It totally dominates Apogee in 1v1 fight.

8

Suggestions / Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic

« on: November 22, 2022, 11:39:59 PM »

Apogee is slow and short ranged (aside from limited missiles that can be baited and soft flux HIL/TL that can be shield tanked). Eagle,Falcon or even Hammerhead can defeat it in completely one-sided manner, they just need to consistently maintain optimal range (which they easily can due to speed advantage). But AI doesn't do this, so to so many players Apogee seems stronger than it actually is.

Apogee can be a genuine threat with SO, but not in it's base state.

9

General Discussion / Re: What is your prefered piloted ship type?

« on: November 22, 2022, 01:32:06 AM »

Nothing is more satisfying than the good ol' fashioned 2x AM blaster afflictor

Blasphemy! it's 3 AM blasters early and 4 with fully leveled and optimized character.

I like the phase assassin playstyle, but AI totally doesn't understand it. Reminds me of good old Morrowind somewhat: AI thinks it plays an rpg, but you are playing an action/shooter, so any enemy is trivial to defeat by kiting. SS AI similarly doesn't understand the concept of shield bypass by maneuverable phase ships.

10

Suggestions / Re: AI slips thread part 2

« on: October 31, 2022, 09:24:13 PM »

You don't pilot a lot of broadside ships yourself, do you? Advancing towards target at about 45 degrees is pretty much optimal for Conquest, as long as target isn't few screens away. My issue would be that AI doesn't do it often or well enough (need to either accelerate forward then turn while drifting, or use system for acceleration). Optimal use of some builds of Odyssey goes into wonky territory - for example you time plasma cannon volley so that system accelerates your shots for extra range.

11

General Discussion / Re: Cruiser-class ship with a built-in fighter bay

« on: October 26, 2022, 01:38:51 AM »

One issue with combat ship + minor hangar type of arrangement is that AI is going to absolutely butcher it's zero flux boost by letting fighters Engage at inappropriate times. Unless you use bound fighters, but then there is pretty much no choice - Xyphos or Mining pods.

12

General Discussion / Re: What happened to Odyssey's?

« on: October 11, 2022, 11:32:22 PM »

I agree that Odyssey is way too rare in campaign. By the time I can get one, I don't really need it.

There is some rational for it not being too common in AI fleets though - AI can't pilot Odyssey competently anyway, both Paragon and Astral are safer bets in this regard.

13

Suggestions / Re: Reduce squall missile health

« on: October 10, 2022, 11:26:50 PM »

Imo, it's more about combination with Missile Spec skill. Even base squalls are very hard to stop. Extra rate of fire + missile health rule out any potential counters than flak Onslaught with PD skills/IPDAI, and the skill also gives +100% ammo on top.

14

Suggestions / Re: Shield activation input buffer after overload

« on: October 06, 2022, 10:53:13 PM »

Hold to only enable idea sounds good. Same hold behavior could be useful to phase exactly on cooldown, or any other condition that prevents you from activating shield/cloak right away.

15

Discussions / Re: Final Theory (tactical 4x-lite)

« on: August 15, 2022, 09:54:28 AM »

Post-mortem:

- Yeah, game gets repetitive soon enough. Which is only made worse by AI having very big and exploitable flaws. I have less than 10% of time logged in FT compared to BB, and have already explored everything there is to this game.
- I don't agree with 1-move-per-turn criticism though - that's a valid design choice, and works relatively well for the game. With that said, the game simply doesn't have much going in terms of strategic layer - other rebel AI aren't all that smart, and Empire AI that is actually your main opponent follows very simple rules.
- As for in-game animations taking too long - true, but fairly unimportant. You can always use cheat engine speedhack for stuff like that.