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46

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.9a (In-Dev) Patch Notes

« on: June 01, 2018, 04:39:07 PM »

Nice stuff. Honestly I didn't expect to see a low-tech phase frigate, so that's cool. It's weird because no matter how much stuff there is to dig into in these patch notes, I'm always excited to look for unannounced new ships and weapons the most.

47

General Discussion / Re: Vanilla Weapon Balance Sheet

« on: April 25, 2018, 09:46:02 AM »

So, in the interests of Science, I tested out your theory that putting these massively-powerful guns on a SO Medusa would turn it into a champ.


This was barely able to beat a stock Vanilla Enforcer, AI vs. AI.  And the weapon missed an Enforcer often enough that it was noticeable.  At 14 OPs, it's so expensive that it sucked up OPs that could've been used elsewhere more profitably; you can see that I didn't have any room for more gear without giving up gear I'd want in the campaign.  I would have preferred Pulse Lasers, honestly.

Well, given I can't tell if you're being disingenuous or not, I'll say that your science experiment here is a bit off the mark, since my argument was that 3op Scalarons are broken, and you did a test with 14 OP ones. Assuming you tested this loadout against one of the standard Enforcer variants, the Sabot-wielding Assault one would probably give it trouble, while the Outdated one would be a better target. Enforcers in general are not a good target for this weapon, given its poor performance against armor. An idea would be to put some anti-armor weapons instead of Railguns (not sure why they're there) or at the very least LMGs given the loadout's inherent focus on being in the target's face - better bang for your buck, less flux congestion and less OP strain. A Medusa can also do fine with 2 pd weapons, spread diagonally across the 4 small turrets, especially if you are doing an all-in loadout like this.

Now, if you put a Shard Cannon on the Universals, with the special mechanic it has... that's another story entirely, heh.  But don't try and tell me that's balanced, lol.

I won't tell you it's balanced because I actually don't care much what you think about my mod's balancing - you making an example out of it in this thread is something you decided to do on your own. I thought the idea of that weapon being worth 3 OP was weird enough to warrant commenting on.

48

General Discussion / Re: Vanilla Weapon Balance Sheet

« on: April 24, 2018, 01:16:18 PM »

I'm a bit puzzled as to how you concluded that the S. Repeater is worth 3 OP. It would be broken on any mobile ship that has access to medium energy mounts and decent flux stats. For instance imagine an SO Hayle, a Medusa, the works. All that's required is a bit of player thinking, such as using the right hullmods and OP budgeting. Player *thinking*, not necessarily player piloting.

Then you can hug enemy ships and hose them down with flux-positive energy damage. Add any recoil-reducing perk or hullmod and it gets even more disgusting. With SWP its actually trivial to narrow that weapon down to near-perfect accuracy with the Gunnery Implants perk and the Gunnery AI Core hullmod, which means you will be vomiting a stream of high-accuracy flux-positive damage far in excess of a Pulse Laser for less than a third of the OP cost. Specific scenario? If someone plays BRDY, they are likely to use SWP and Dynasector.

Anyway, my point is that I doubt your method will survive playtesting if it produces conclusions like that. I agree that the weapon could stand with some OP shaved simply because it needs a lot of assistance to truly shine in the form of support hullmods and specific hulls, though - but a baseline of 3 OP? That's pushing it.

Not to mention that lots of traits cannot be crunched down to an overall rating - take the simple interaction between a hose-type weapon (eg. the s. repeater) and any shield - the larger the shield is, the less bullets will miss and the more your effective conversion of your own soft flux into the target's hard flux will be. And that's just one example of the factors that determine the immediate utility of any given weapon.

You could say that arguing the above ignores the purpose of a spreadsheet, which is to provide a rough impression of the overall utility of any weapon in a vacuum, but even so, you cannot use those abstractions to solely inform design decisions.

49

Blog Posts / Re: Minefields

« on: March 25, 2018, 04:32:34 PM »

I'd like to see that system on a rare high firepower destroyer actually, it's very good at dealing with fast frigates and would be a good alternative to fighters in that role. We also don't have very many high tech destroyers.

Highly supportive of the addition of another high-tech destroyer, the Medusa is... well, it's the Medusa.

Could even make one that skirts the mid-high tech aesthetic with other weirdos such as the Odyssey.

50

Blog Posts / Re: Minefields

« on: March 25, 2018, 03:42:37 PM »

Very exciting stuff as always. I can imagine how this cranks up the ohsh*tfactor of the biggest station battles by an order of magnitude, not to mention how cool the new Doom is.

Now that the Doom's old shipsystem is available, you have the potential to stick it on an elusive frigate and create The Most Hated Ship...

51

Mods / Re: [0.8.1a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.9.1 (23.03.2018)

« on: March 23, 2018, 09:38:10 AM »

: )

It's not a super exciting update, but it should take care of some stuff that was rushed out when I was getting all the 0.8 update stuff out last year.

52

Mods / Re: [0.8.1a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.9.1 (23.03.2018)

« on: March 23, 2018, 08:11:32 AM »

Hey, it's been a while. Dropping a long-due fix/balance patch here - no new content, main changes are tweaks, balance, and a fix for the Version Checker file being bugged out by Dropbox's big change in 2017. Also, I went ahead and rehosted the pics in the OP.

DOWNLOAD
Mod version 0.9.1
Changelog:

Spoiler

0.9.1
- Fixed version file dependency
- Increased Hammerclaw engine burn time so it's less likely to whiff
- Reduced incidence of pirate BRDY ships in generic pirate fleets
- Bolide Heavy Artillery: Frag damage on hit to 200-400 (was 100-200), projectile speed very slightly increased
- Comet Light Artillery: Slight stat adjustments, Frag damage on hit to 75-150 (was 50-100)
- Taipan Heavy Interceptor: Focused Particle Lance EMP DPS to 200 (was 120), Armor to 150 (was 100), Hull to 400 (was 450), Accel/Decel slightly buffed
* OP cost reduced to 9 (was 10)
* Dart SRM Rack now shoots 1 additional missile per burst (the fighter specific Dart version)
- Nadir Defense Fighter: OP cost reduced to 13 (was 14), Tackler HAC proj speed increased to 750 (was 700)
- Serket Phase Fighter: Roam range normalized to 4000 (was 5000)
- Hawkmoth Heavy Tanker: Fuel Capacity reduced to 900 (was 1200), Cargo Capacity reduced to 175 (was 250), Turn Acceleration/Turn Rate reduced by a small but significant amount
- Krait Heavy Fighter:
* Stat adjustments: Speed decreased to 160 (was 175), no longer has Resistant Flux Conduits (more vulnerable to EMP)
* Replaced twin INM Assault Guns with a comparable built-in weapon with less range, more inaccuracy and smaller magazines
* OP Cost increased to 15 (was 14)
- Vespa Torpedo Bomber: OP cost increased to 20 (was 16), HP changed to 350 (was 450)
- Reduced the base credits value of most large weapons somewhat
- Gale Battery: Flux/shot to 450 from 500
- Burst Cannon: Base Range to 650 from 700
- Ferrocannon: Flux/shot to 750 from 800
- Kurmaraja: Shipsystem renamed to Brakefield Emitter
* Kurmaraja Acceleration and Deceleration lowered slightly
- Stenos: Shield Ratio to 0.8 from 0.85, Shield Upkeep to 0.55 from 0.50
- Eurypterus: Shield Radius to 120 from 90

[close]

53

Blog Posts / Re: Colony Management

« on: December 22, 2017, 02:22:13 AM »

I can now look back, reading this, and think about all the initial exploration I did when 0.8 had just come out and how satisfying it would be to tie it together through starting an outpost/faction. It makes me feel hyped up.

This is going in the right direction, for sure. I'm really curious as to how deep you are going to sink your fingers into the whole Nexerelin style "faction warfare" with this update, too. Stuff like random events and news between factions, faction alliances, factions invading markets and waging war, stuff like that.

54

Mods / Re: [0.8.1a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.9.0 (07.06.2017)

« on: June 16, 2017, 11:20:29 AM »

Nah that's my fault, dropbox's update to public folders *** it up and I haven't bothered finding a replacement yet.

55

Mods / Re: [0.8.1a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.9.0 (07.06.2017)

« on: June 14, 2017, 09:01:00 AM »

Sorry for not replying in detail here, I read everything though!

The Hawkmoth is a middling cruiser (think Venture), and its combat performance should not be compared to destroyers. Cruisers should almost always outmuscle destroyers pound-for-pound, but the Hawkmoth is still easy to take down given a destroyer that uses strike weapons. That said, I think its fuel capacity might be high given its combat performance (plus I keep underestimating just how good beefiness is post 0.8...) so I am going to take a closer look at that. I would rather downgrade its logistical impact than make it weaker, since there is a pretty delicate balance there - either you are too wary of risking an important logistical asset on the frontline, or it's a combat ship that happens to have a bunch of benefits attached to it for no real tradeoff. I have some good adjustments in mind.

Re: Kraits, they're taking a hit, and I'm doing a pass of all the fighters currently.

Re: Ship selection, I have not noticed anything abnormal with the Mantis myself, but markets can be fickle and you will see widely varying results from market to market or run to run sometimes.

56

Mods / Re: [0.8.1a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.9.0 (07.06.2017)

« on: June 12, 2017, 12:26:21 PM »

Glad to hear that : D

I'm reducing the incidence of pirate BRDY ships in an upcoming QoL/adjustment patch, among other things. Thanks for all the feedback so far.

Re: Vespas, their Furies are actually turreted to aid in aiming. In general, bomber aim is inherently imperfect with dumbfire weapons and that's just something I cannot fix if I want them to keep using Furies, which I do. As for Mosquitos, I have not noticed any buggy behavior related to landing on carriers, and if there was, it would not be related to speed (since their accel/decel is high)

I am going to do a pass of all the fighters based on feedback and my own playtesting.

57

General Discussion / Re: Learning to love playing with D-Mods

« on: June 12, 2017, 12:17:47 PM »

Honestly, I think D-mods are too good right now. Pristine ships should be something you covet, not an almost-sidegrade. I used an Onslaught-D with comp armor, powergrid and subsystems for a long time and I'd say there is no practical difference in terms of combat efficiency compared to a mint Onslaught, if you build smart. 20 supplies/deployment? Yes please.

58

Mods / Re: [0.8.1a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.9.0 (07.06.2017)

« on: June 08, 2017, 02:20:08 PM »

Whoa thanks for the feedback, nice and comprehensive : )

Re: Taipans, they are not intended as a bomber escort, but as a specialized option to tackle and cripple annoying targets like wolves and other high-end frigates, and to offer general support when mixed into a large fighter deployment. Although this leaves them with the same problem as the Thunder, I want to wait and see how they pan out (HEH)
While the beam deals soft flux, it is a constantly firing, more powerful Particle Lance so its effect can be deceptively strong.
Re: Kraits, yeah agree that they're strong, a small speed nerf should get them more in line
Re: Vespas, it's not hard to follow Alex's reasoning for why he did away with big unguided torpedoes on bombers in 0.8. But the Fury is kind of iconic to me on them so I wanted to keep it. Probably going to go with an OP increase on these so they remain powerful but becomes harder to get a premium escort for them.

59

Mods / Re: [0.8.1a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.9.0 (07.06.2017)

« on: June 08, 2017, 10:48:21 AM »

Yea I'm curious about how things pan out in the new ecosystem as my own time to campaign test has been incredibly limited. Also any feedback on the new fighters is very welcome!

60

Mods / Re: [0.8.1a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.9.0 (07.06.2017)

« on: June 07, 2017, 10:09:55 AM »

Alright, let's go.

DOWNLOAD BLACKROCK FOR STARSECTOR 0.8.1a!

Changelog here



Nexerelin compatibility is accounted for etc. Decided to release rather than sit and try to endlessly polish all the stuff I added, let me know if anything breaks horribly and have fun.