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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 - jupjupy

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16
Blog Posts / Re: Minefields
« on: March 27, 2018, 02:51:37 AM »
Hey, cool!

One thing - if we intend to have different 'tech' tiers of mines, will they work slightly differently?

It seems a little weird to have a low-tech phase mine just teleport in front of you, so maybe theyll appear at a further range or something, just an idea.

17
Suggestions / Re: Junk Stuff
« on: March 21, 2018, 01:42:30 AM »
I think its an interesting idea, but 0 OP seems a bit much. I agree with Meso in that the garbage-tier Reliant and its 1 OP brethren seem to be about the lowest we should have, and definitely crap that should be salvageable from like junkyards and be able to get scrapped together quickly.

I sort of like the idea of having incredibly cheap, barely-usable weapons, because that just feels right in a sector in its days of decline, shortages and all. But yes, nothing should really be 'free', else we'd be encouraging these weapons to get fitted into maximum-optimisation builds, which we really dont want.

18
Suggestions / Re: Grappling Harpoons and Tethering(NOT BOARDING)
« on: March 19, 2018, 09:26:25 PM »
A few mods used to (and I think some still do) have weapons with a tractor-beam like effect, where it simply slows the target down to a crawl, or even holds it completely stationary as long as the beam holds on them.

If those ever get put into vanilla proper, I could see harpoons as being a low-tech alternative that don't go through shields but cost very little flux.

19
General Discussion / Re: Your Scarab Is Loading
« on: March 19, 2018, 09:57:56 AM »
You know...

I support a new loading icon in this style.

20
Blog Posts / Re: Blueprints, Doctrine, and Production
« on: February 20, 2018, 11:09:42 PM »
Surprisingly, managed to miss out this post.

Another one very well done, though! And one I am certainly highly interested about.

Most of my questions have been answered by reading all 10 pages of this thread so far, but...

If colony/outpost capture will be in game, how will the production work in such a case? Will captured shipyards gain immediate access to the player's current blueprints but not those of the previous faction? Do non-player factions even use blueprints in the first place, or is it simply by faction 'ships' they have access to?

21
Modding / Re: Learning to Mod
« on: February 19, 2018, 04:36:38 AM »
King Alfonzo,

I'm no modder, but let me just say:

That was amazing, thank you very much for the time and dedication you took to put that together.

22
While this topic is here, I'm not quite sure why there is a player fleet size cap in the first place. What is the logic of capping the maximum number of ships a player can have at any one time? I mean, enemy fleets get gigantic (and, by the way, should get bigger, but obviously cant go too big right now because the player is stuck at like 30 ships), and we're capped?

I feel like it would have made more sense to go the unlimited route and just remove the player cap, but make the end game enemies significantly stronger themselves. It should feel like a real armada of ships that the player has to slam his face into, just, not with scaling involved, I think.

23
Suggestions / Re: All missiles should cost 0 ordnance points.
« on: November 23, 2017, 07:32:40 AM »
Once mods get included, all bets are off.  Blackrock has some nice regenerating missiles (that are not overpowered) - the sort of stuff I like to see in unmodded games.  Templar ships exploit typical AI swarm behavior (Priwen Burst nukes frigate swarms that destroy nearly every non-mod ship).

Of course, I'm not saying that the mods are how the game is by default, I'm simply quoting examples of how just changing stats -can- make a difference even without regenerating ammunition.

Pre-0.8 Missile Specialization was extremely powerful.  Without it, only Salamanders and 0.7.2 Atropos and maybe restored Sabots were useful.  With old Missile Specialization, missiles became deadly and worth using, especially Reapers and Harpoons, perhaps too hard to defend against.

IMO, missiles should be the deadliest things around, but with the option to be defended from within reason. And when you don't defend against them (or can't), you or your ships deserve to get violently deleted. The AI being unable to handle it back then seemed like a reason to improve it, not to downgrade missiles.

24
Suggestions / Re: All missiles should cost 0 ordnance points.
« on: November 22, 2017, 08:45:45 AM »
I actually had a bright idea to put the missile strategy to use by including some support ships in my fleet - those supports putting heavy emphasis on missile use. That strategy however did nothing but cost me money, as those missile ships were usually the first to die, usually by rushing at the enemy for no apparent reason and promptly getting torn to shreds, all the while my gun-only units and carriers were delivering a carnage.

I don't usually have a problem with this, probably because every ship in my fleet has an Officer on board with the relevant personality type - Missile Boats tend to end up being Cautious (or even Timid, should they be LRM Boats, but Pilums suck too much to ever have this see use). That being said, I have not played a true vanilla game in a long while, the filled-with-mods runs I do see missiles being used a lot, from the common Hornet to the Voidspear to the absolutely *** Clarent.

And no, upping the damage (or other stats) on missiles is not going to solve anything. It's the fact that they are ammo-limited weapons that have to compete over ordnance points with ammo-unlimited weapons. No matter how much you buff the damage, using missiles is still going to be a gamble.

I think it does. The Atrophos is a good example of this, back in the day at least. You used to get more mileage out of the dirt-cheap dual rack than from your increased, what, 4 vents?
The Templar Clarent is the other extreme. Impossible to shoot down, flies at the speed of light, cannot miss. Torpedo-level damage. I would not want something like that to be 0 (or cheaper, anyway) OP.

So perhaps all missiles should simply be unavoidable/invulnerable, but then they'd just be different versions of the original Ballistic weapons. Doesn't seem very fun to me.

It's not like I don't agree to an extent, I'd rather have sustained firepower than ammo-limited ones that I have to manage and choose when to fire. But I see the point of missiles. Lowering their costs in terms of OP would force a significant rebalancing between every ship (again, not that I am against this), as well as the missiles themselves.


25
Suggestions / Re: All missiles should cost 0 ordnance points.
« on: November 21, 2017, 07:34:08 PM »
I don't see why we have to go into the "0 OP" territory with every missile. Like, I personally think the big torpedo launchers like the Cyclone suck, and would never use missiles on my Astral, but at the same time, 0 OP Hurricanes/Squalls/Whatever would just encourage Astral/Mora/Legion spam even more than they do now.

The only 'free' weapon in the game right now is the Talon and Mining Pod. Mining Pod aside, the Talon is alright for a 0 OP fighter squadron, though your actual bill comes in the form of crew lost from all those dead fighters, as well as the opportunity cost of mounting something better in the first place.

I'd much rather the missiles themselves go back to basically removing everything in existence that they touched, with maybe a cap on their fire rate instead. I don't think you need to change Missile Spec as a skill, just up damage a little bit (just not for Sabots), travel speed, and turning. There was a time when the Reaper touched cruisers and they vanished into thin air. I'd like that time to come back.

26
Suggestions / Re: All missiles should cost 0 ordnance points.
« on: November 19, 2017, 08:13:34 AM »
Even IF missile weapons were bad - let's just assume for a second that they are, it would make no sense to make them 0 ordnance points.

Take some insanely *** weapons, for example, like, the Thumper or something. That gun is basically firing darts against starship armor and it still costs something to mount. Why would something like a torpedo that at least has some use be free in comparison to that?


Now, putting that argument aside, I find vanilla missiles rather annoying, though I do believe they're not nearly in the same boat as modded missiles. As a player, getting spammed by 300000 harpoons is stupid, and getting poked by sabots every 5 seconds is equally frustrating.

The underlying reason is this: maximisation of burst damage in Starsector tends to be more efficient than maximisation of sustained power. If each of my frigates has 6 sabots and can overload an enemy frigate 6 times, versus the enemies which have none, I'm going to be winning every fight that has this kind of match-up will be in my favor. It is not difficult at all to take a missile-heavy fleet into a fight far above its weight-class, dump all the missiles, retreat, and repeat, without losing any ships.

27
Suggestions / Re: Really serious about this!!!!
« on: November 08, 2017, 10:17:47 PM »
Just chiming in,

I don't think this is a bad idea at all, honestly. Like, I don't see any reason that we shouldn't have this, and its a nice little quality of life improvement.

28
Modding / Re: [WIP] United Aurora Federation
« on: October 15, 2017, 01:00:30 AM »
Man, the Nameless is such a cool name for a ship, though. Maybe we could have one in-lore as some kind of hero ship?

As for class names,

Hakobu
Rifuta
Morigana
Aliana
Kamotsu
Unso
Takiko
Arixis


29
Modding / Re: [WIP] United Aurora Federation
« on: October 11, 2017, 07:43:33 AM »
with a pinch of flak rounds. that's what the Reina PD's about. but if you feel like wanna have classic PDs, I better start making more sprites then.  :)

Is it difficult to reproduce a fast-firing flak gun?

Those effects certainly were really sleek though!

30
Mods / Re: [0.8.1a]STEELCLAD v0.7i ( 17.09.2017)
« on: September 17, 2017, 09:35:00 PM »
I've been doing my own basic playthroughs, but its rather difficult to test the weapons balance against each other with the vanilla factions running around in campaign.

As for the missions, the only thing I've seen so far that seems a bit overdone is the Barracuda, which has the bad habit of simply deleting the first 1-4 ships that an ISA fleet comes up against. To be fair, that seems like its intended role and maybe it should stay, but some of the ISA ships simply have too many medium missile hardpoints to make it fair. The Michigan, for example, really needs some backup weaponry but insists that it is half a missile boat.

Overall, the ballistic weapons feel a bit weaker than they should, though their flux generation is essentially negligible, their impact (or rather, their overall 'feel', inclusive of projectile size and color and their firing sounds) feel a bit low compared to missiles or energy weapons.


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