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61

Mods / Re: [0.65.1a] The Patrian Principate Alpha v2.1 - The Patrian Navy

« on: December 15, 2014, 11:11:13 AM »

I honestly always liked the contrast the vanilla weapon mounts gave.  Without them they looked really flat and dull. 

I'm not saying remove them, of course, just perhaps make a custom sprite for the mounts that fits more into the 'theme' of the ships. I'm no artist, but perhaps a dark grey, slightly shaded feel might be better?

That being said, I think the ship sprites themselves are a little flat. It might be the single color-or-so thing. Doesnt really highlight the nice details that many of your ship models have. The Danae, for example, just looks very... two-dimensional. I honestly think it'd look better in a sort of vertical-missile-launch mode, with little square pods for the missile launchers while the actual launcher sprite is fully hidden.

62

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes

« on: December 15, 2014, 11:04:08 AM »

Mmh.

Can't say I like the removal of the bonus flux, but I've never actually used it tactically, so I really can't complain. A flat 25% boost to my blaster and pulse laser damage is good, but doesnt this support vent spamming?

Agree with beam weapon changes. They were really bleh for me before.

Now ammo is where I disagree. While I cant really say anything final before playing it myself, I view ammo as a very strong component in choosing my weapon loadouts, and how it affects my playstyle in certain battles. For example, I deviate towards the ever-expensive Heavy Needler because it has staying power in long battles (also because I dislike the poof-poof-poof sound of the Heavy Autocannon). But this changes things.

The Gauss Cannon - one may argue it is ever unused because of its dreadfully low magazine size - is suddenly a better choice than the Storm Needler in most occasions. It costs 3 less OP, has 1.5x the range, and is much better against armor.

And yet, I place the Gauss Cannon on many of my support ships, simply because it has the longer range. The ammo was what defined it, it was what made me stop and think - Should I risk it? The removal of this entire mechanic (with a few exceptions) would, in my opinion, make ballistic weaponry ever similar to that of energy weaponry. The only difference now between my Heavy Blaster and an Arbalest is the fact that one deals kinetic damage and trades OP cost and flux for a far crappier damage number. You could say thats a lot already, but I dont think removal of features is the way to go.

I'd infact, argue that it IS a major balancing thing. For me, at least. I tend to shun ballistic weapons in favor of energy ones, because I dont have to worry about ammunition. My battles tend to be long, and I can easily run out. But thats the trade off - while a ballistic weapon would make it easy for me to manage my flux, I trade off worrying about ammunition for worrying about flux, which I can easily rectify. Take this out of the ball game, and I think I'll find myself deviating back to ballistics, because I wont have to worry about either in my Eagle.

63

Mods / Re: [0.65.1a] The Patrian Principate Alpha v2.1 - The Patrian Navy

« on: December 15, 2014, 09:33:59 AM »

Hmm, this is actually the first time I've seen this mod.

While I certainly like the designs and feel of the faction, I've got to say that I have a slight beef with the ships. The weapon mounts simply dont look right on a lot of the vessels, particularly because of the dark blue hull shade.

64

Suggestions / Re: Perk suggestions

« on: December 12, 2014, 07:54:34 AM »

Seconded.

Not that I actually take Advanced Tactics, I usually try kitting out my few AI ships to not... well, die like flies.

I'd also like to see fighter perks, perhaps decreasing respawn time from launch bays, making fighters a little faster (seeing as they dont have the 0-flux boost anymore), or something like that.

65

Mods / Re: [0.65.1a] Scy V0.86 (01/12) Hotfix

« on: December 11, 2014, 11:59:29 AM »

Ah, yes, the Hacking Commlink.

Never touched it.

Scy ships have too many ballistic slots, and I prefer to use the universal slots on Scy ships for some much needed burst lasers (Or e-Flak when I use SS+, those things are crazy). They also synchronize very nicely with the extended magazines that Scy ships basically need for any lengthy battle.

....

Okay, so I just gave it a whirl.

Uh... I dont see the point of it. Its like an Ion Cannon but... worse. It has literally no effect on shields (really, 7.5 damage per second against them), and fails to dissipate enough EMP to do anything really worthwhile. I had 4 of them on a Siren blasting away at a Hound... and it took a full 5 seconds just to short out its Assault Chaingun.

Okay, I guess its easier to aim. But still...

EDIT: Now I just thought about how one could go about expanding it. It would be kinda cool to have a large variant of it - since Scy ships like the Stenos have a Large Universal - that was considerably more powerful, or perhaps a dedicated Electronic Warfare ship with a large version built in. I'm not sure if this can be coded, but both the small and large variants could, instead of causing EMP and fragmentation damage, have some kind of special, random effect when projected against an unshielded target for long enough. Say, adding a certain amount of soft flux (hacking into a reactor feed), causing weapons around the area to spray wildly instead of aiming (hacking into targeting), making the enemy ship turn in a specific direction without their input (hacking maneuvering thrusters), or disabling systems, or whatever. Of course, the large variant would trigger such effects much faster, and small variants would stack their effects. Just my two cents on how to make it more interesting, seeing as we have all these really cool things like retractable armor already.

66

Mods / Re: [0.65.1a] The Knights Templar v0.9.3f

« on: December 10, 2014, 12:26:35 AM »

First of all, it's unfortunately not possible to give OP bonuses for missions.

Didnt you have the Shield Bypass in SS+? Couldnt you stick a variant of that - locked to the player/AI for normal campaign, of course, and maybe made so you cant put it on any other ship - that provides a negative OP cost without any other effects?

67

Mods / Re: [0.65.1a] Scy V0.86 (01/12) Hotfix

« on: December 10, 2014, 12:23:44 AM »

I personally preferred the old Focus Beam. The new one with its slow fire rate and low ammo count feels very.... slow.

Actually, I'm just gonna go through my thoughts of every weapon so far, because why not.

Small Nailer: Weak, but equivalent to like, the machine guns (not that I use them) from vanilla.
Medium Burst-Nailer: Still not worth a medium slot. However, it is far better compared to the old one at taking out shields, but still not really a PD weapon. The rounds tend to miss missiles completely sometimes.

Focus Beam: Now fires slowly, and isnt the old fighter and frigate killer it used to be. I struggle to find a niche for it in comparison to other weapons.
SCPB: Ammo runs out too fast to be of much use against anything moderately shielded. Also, 1500 flux/second is insane.

Energy Blaster: Awesome, great on the fast frigates that Scy has and fitting of their hit-and-run tactics.

Mortars: While I understand the point of these, I dont think they live up to expectations. They've got a high flux cost equivalent to most other SCY weapons, yet fail to deliver the punch that they're supposed to. The shells fly slowly, the damage isnt particularly spectacular, and theyre just kinda underwhelming all around.

Vibrating Beam: Eh... This thing is weird. While its theoretically a pretty good weapon, the way it forces itself to spread its damage in a cone means its worthless at taking out small targets or anything with real armor. Its beam nature makes it absolute *** against shields too.

Slasher Beam: Looks cool. But same with the Vibrating Beam, this thing is bad against heavily armored targets despite its high-explosive nature because it forces itself to spread the damage out. However, its better than the aforementioned because it can strip the armor of lowly-armored ships in one strike, but needs timing.

Small Kinetic Accelerator: Crap. The Vanilla Railgun is way better, and costs 1 less OP.
Medium KA: Range should be higher. Flux cost is too high for a low-ranged, low-dps kinetic weapon.
Heavy KA: Ok-ish. Range is still pretty low for a large mount weapon, and fires too slowly compared to the small and mediums, resulting in a sub-par DPS.

ORION: Cool on paper, but damage is really bad. For 28 OP and 600 flux/second, I kinda want something at least a little stronger.

Small Flak: Awesome. Use it a lot.
Light Minigun: Eh.. With the recent nerf (DOUBLE FLUX?!), suddenly not as good. Still pretty good, though. My biggest qualm is how it tends to fail utterly against some missiles by... I dunno. Not hitting them, or something.

Penetrator Railgun: Pretty okay. However, this thing only has 24 shots (120/5), resulting in a weapon that really doesnt serve any purpose in many fights. Loses out to the Hypervelocity Driver because of this. Ammo buff please XD.

Ricochet Gun: Fun to use, and powerful. Ability to skirt shields is a godsend. Well done with this one.

Area Scorcher: I dont see the point of this. Its not labelled as a PD, so the AI never uses this thing to shoot at missiles, has a pre-determined detonation range anyway, and does fragmentation damage. Utterly worthless against ships, and doesnt have the flak-effect that it needs to take out fighters and frigates.

Onto the missiles!

Singularity: Cool, I guess. Needs a special effect for the explosion though. Damage is a little sub-par, and it doesnt hold enough torpedoes (the Cyclone holds 20). Even the pull effect doesnt really cause anything major to happen, just a kinda displacement and maybe a bump here-or-there.

Heavy Swamer: Good for killing smaller ships, especially non-flak equipped ones.

Laser Torps: Fun to use, and good. Large one doesnt hold enough torpedoes, but eh.

Rocket Pods: Health of the rockets is way too low, especially considering the low ammunition count of these usually. I've never had mine really get to their destination.

Coasting Missiles: Good. Long range coupled with great tracking makes for a potent support weapon.

And thats about it! Might do one of these for Scy ships eventually, too.

68

Suggestions / Re: How to get a non-exploitable time pressure on combat

« on: December 08, 2014, 09:31:46 PM »

But as you lose the battle, don't you run the risk of your reserves being harried and losing CR? Or is the AI electing to stand down every time in these circumstances?

Interestingly, I have never been harried before. For the past few games I've run as a single Wolf (Or that ridiculously fast Brawler frigate from the Scy mod) and a few destroyers/cruisers, and whenever I come up against a big (BIG) fleet of pirates, I'll simply fly in with my frigate, do hit-and-runs against their frigates, fighter wings, destroyers, and the like, kill a few, and then do a full retreat. The AI always seems to fall back but not disengage completely. I don't know what the harry message looks like, but my ships dont appear to be losing CR.

Then I'll just re-engage them, this time with my full fleet, and usually have a more balanced fight because the opposing side just lost all their escorts.

69

General Discussion / Re: What Paragon-Class loadout do you use?

« on: December 04, 2014, 10:52:35 PM »

My Paragon loadouts all start the same.

Weapons: Heavy Needler x2, Phase Beam x4, Burst PD Laser (All small slots), Swarmer SRM x4
Hullmods: Auxiliary Thrusters, Augmented Engines, ITU, Accelerated Shields

Then, any choice of:
1.) Plasma Cannon x4
2.) Autopulse Laser x4
3.) Tachyon Lance x4
4.) OR Replace Phase Beam x4 for a total of Heavy Blaster x8

With differing amounts of capacitors and vents as I see fit.

x4 Plasma Cannon has always been my go-to flagship, because one-two bursts basically kills any ship that isnt another Paragon. (Or Monitors, god I hate those things)

70

Mods / Re: [0.65.1a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.2

« on: December 04, 2014, 11:24:37 AM »

300-400 credit supplies

Whoa. Where are you getting these? My supply costs especially in SS+ games range from like 30 (on a great day) to perhaps 150 in Jangala which for some *** reason always seems to have those prices. Unless you're buying these supplies during a trade disruption (which would be shown in the intel on your left side), prices should never rise this high.

boarding actions work because very often I will try to board and lose most or my entire fleet in the single boarding action. Why is boarding in the game if it can cost entire ships? Obviously I can use a crappy ship for the risk of boarding

You only need to use one ship, though more ships (I believe) make the chances higher. When I started SS (not SS+), it was easy just to use the free Hammerhead as a boarding ship, because it was unlikely to die from self-destructing ships. That being said, boarding is better done on a case-by-case basis. Many times it is simply unprofitable to board a ship, repair it, then sell it back to a station.

And again, there are some starting options that just don't make sense, and I'm not trying to reason that you need to change these ASAP because I totally understand that they are not game breaking. But there are SO many Alastor small fleets floating around, and even a couple of lashers can completely dominant an Afflictor Class upgraded frigate that you can choose to start with. Like I said in one of my older posts, it is not possible to uncloak within your own weapon's range without taking massive damage from the weapons of a ballistic based ship.

Forgive me for this, but I believe this is simply a result of bad flying. Afflictors are quite easy to use and can very easily disable any destroyer or frigate-class ship, with the exception of extremely fast ones (like the Hound) or high-tech ones (like the Tempest). You simply cloak up to them, uncloak when theyre in range of your Antimatter Blasters, quickly fire off two shots, and recloak. Done correctly, this happens fast enough that most ballistic weapon projectiles wont even have touched you by the time youve recloaked, after which you can either A) move out of range to vent, or B) stay decloaked if theyre overloaded and blast them with another round of Antimatter shots/missiles.

As for how the game is meant to be played... well, its a sandbox game, so you can play it however you want. Of course, there are a few easy routes, all of which overlap to some extent.
1) Bounty hunt enough enemies to earn lots of cash.
2) Take advantage of food shortages to earn lots of cash.
3) Any other method to earn lots of cash.
Then, use this cash to buy more ships. Rinse, repeat.

71

Mods / Re: [0.65.1a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.2

« on: December 02, 2014, 08:20:01 AM »

Theyre like submarines in most warship games. You hate them, you know theyre the bane of all surface vessels, and you cant seem to ever destroy one. Yet, at the same time, when you hop into one, all you face is death.

72

Mods / Re: [0.65.1a] Scy V0.86 (01/12) Hotfix

« on: December 01, 2014, 11:54:58 AM »

Really???

Hmm, this is certainly interesting. Might be because I was playing back when the pods were still weapons on the ship (ie without TwigLib). Dont know if it worked then, but since they used to be able to be repaired in-battle that might have been the reason.

73

Mods / Re: [0.65.1a] Scy V0.86 (01/12) Hotfix

« on: December 01, 2014, 07:17:14 AM »

Come to think of it, what do the Accelerator Pods do?

I keep getting them smashed to pieces when I deploy the Khal-really-long-name, but I dont see any obvious drop in the power of the laser.

74

Mods / Re: [0.65.1a] Scy V0.8 (12/11) Rearmored Update

« on: November 16, 2014, 05:17:07 AM »

Hmm, I dont think this is a bug per se, but I've just blasted the Scy battleship into oblivion with exactly 4 Reapers in the mission. I overloaded it with my guns, then fired a single salvo of torps into one of the armor slabs.

It was at full HP, and it just got instantly disabled. All the armor disappeared too. Might be something up with the armor plates exploding and dealing damage?

75

Bug Reports & Support / Re: Where is the Java that SS uses?

« on: November 16, 2014, 05:10:58 AM »

Ah, alright. Just wanted to know so I could swap out the 32bit version of Java that Alex said SS shipped with and replace it with the 64bit version.

Interestingly, it seems to work now.