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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 - Megas

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10561
General Discussion / Re: latest versions made game worse
« on: October 02, 2015, 10:56:50 AM »
Having more time to read and contemplate the OP, here goes:

Factions
So far, whether Alex likes it or not, factions are defined by the ships they use.  I agree that factions are too similar to each other, and it is glaringly obvious if I play Nexerelin and add a mod faction or two such as Blackrock.  Before 0.65, Hegemony and Pirates were low-tech, Tri-Tachyon was high-tech, and the rest were midline.  Now, all standard factions share most ships.  Tri-Tachyon use almost as much midline as high-tech, and they even use the low-tech Lasher.  Independents use everything.  Pirates use (D) ships and a few others.  The remaining factions share the same ships, which is a mix of low-tech and midline, plus the high-tech Wolf.

Reputation
So far, the problem is optimal play requires that you have unlimited access to all markets and merchandise.  For that, you need cooperative relations with all factions except Independents and Pirates.  Independents, due to lack of military market, only require minimum relations of Suspicious.  Pirates will trade as long as relations are not Vengeful.  The only way to get high relations with everyone who matters is to fight Pirates only.  Furthermore, you cannot pursue survivors when relations are below -70 because the -5 from pursuit will send relations to Vengeful, and that means permaban from that faction's market, and you have ruined, I repeat, RUINED your character.  Also, Valhalla is a trap.  Big system with puny markets, and doing anything useful there (except killing named Pirate bounties) will hurt your reputation with one of the factions.

Quest for supplies
The problem with this so far, combined with AI fleeing from large fleets, is it pushes the player into using small and elite fleets (and soloing battles with chain-flagships) for much of the game, if he wants to play optimally.  Combat will yield enough drops if you can solo fleets with a few frigates.  This is most easily achieved with an aggressive Combat and Technology focus.

Boarding is awful because it is too random and your best chance of success for boarding is under 50%.  Chance is low enough that even with save scumming, it is possible to have more than ten failures in a row before you succeed.  Such a worst-case scenario of fight-board-fail-reload will take more than hour.  So far, boarding is only useful for acquiring rare ships at the endgame.

Toll trolls are obnoxious.  For now, the most painless way to deal with them late in the game is to let them start a scan, then run away and take the -3 rep.

10562
General Discussion / Re: latest versions made game worse
« on: October 01, 2015, 08:17:30 AM »
I admit that I got Starfarer/Starsector mostly for the pure arcade combat experience, with the campaign as an excuse to powerup my ships and facilitate combat.  (I do not play missions anymore because no skills make ships too slow and too weak.)

This is why I loathed CR until it effectively became the new ammo count in the last release.  (It would be nice if high-tech ships cost less CR to deploy now that low-tech and midline ships effectively have more ammo than high-tech.)

10563
General Discussion / Re: latest versions made game worse
« on: October 01, 2015, 06:00:12 AM »
I usually cannot even have a second battle to get at the survivors because the -5 reputation from that sends reputation below -75 for Vengeful, and that results in permanent ban from markets, which is crippling, or at least irreparably harms your powergaming options.  There is a reason why I post "pursuit is obsolete" in 0.65.

10564
General Discussion / Re: Recommend similar games?
« on: October 01, 2015, 05:53:03 AM »
For Diablo in space, there is Transcendence.  The core game is free (but expansions are not).  Single-player only.

10565
General Discussion / Re: latest versions made game worse
« on: September 30, 2015, 12:46:05 PM »
In standard game, all named bounties are against Pirates, although end-game deserter fleets are only Pirates in name and allegiance.  General bounties can include non-pirate enemies of the faction issuing the bounty.  That said, losing 100+ reputation and more for mere chump change (by say, killing Tri-Tachyon ships for Hegemony in the Valhalla system) is idiotic.

10566
General Discussion / Re: latest versions made game worse
« on: September 30, 2015, 10:25:23 AM »
@ The Soldier: I usually refrain from food runs until about level 40.  Before then, I still build up Combat and Technology before getting Leadership.  Massive food runs for me are a late-game option.  Someone like the OP might not even get that far.

I understand some of the OP's grievances.  For me, addition of CR (until ammo became unlimited) was a major killjoy.  More comments from me may come later.

10567
Suggestions / Re: Inventory Management
« on: September 30, 2015, 08:26:42 AM »
I like to see the return of ship sort by class featured in pre-0.6 versions.  Some of my storage bases have a lot of ships, and it is annoying scrolling down pages to access my frigates and fighters.

10568
Some Charisma skill (political influence, diplomacy, whatever):  Reduces tariff % in markets.  Only problem, might make it an effective +XP% gained skill if trade remains the way to powerlevel.

10569
Mods / Re: [0.65.2a] The Knights Templar v0.9.4g
« on: September 22, 2015, 05:59:20 PM »
As long as the human brain has the capacity for religious experience, religions can exist. As long as we are creatures whose view of the world can be described by Plato's Cave Allegory, there will be a time and a place for philosophy and religion to explain the universe.

Actually this may be a good time to post the short story which we used as inspiration for the Templars.

If you don't want to read it, the theme is something like "religious experience can be induced, and how!"
The afterword appears to be inspired by Karl Marx.  "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

It makes the mistake assuming people made all religion.  God made people, but sinful people who reject God make their own religion of whatever.

10570
Blog Posts / Re: Hyperspace Terrain
« on: September 20, 2015, 04:50:08 PM »
Hopefully, "a complete overhaul of the 'food shortage' event" means that food gets treated like any other hot commodity in trade disruption, or least something less silly than a reputation trap for those who do not know how to game it.

10571
Quote
I'm actually relatively fine with IRPLs, after considering I use them everywhere; however, I only really use them because the only other hard flux energy weapon option for small slots that is not an AM blaster is the Ion Cannon...  I'd like some weapon variety here, or maybe even give beams a 25% hard flux damage.
This is why I post that small energy weapons are generally bad except as PD (anti-missile, anti-fighter, anti-low tech frigate).  I pick light ballistics over all of them, except maybe some beams for anti-fighter.

I would like beams to deal hard-flux, but the AI does not know how to deal with continuous damage sources (beams, shield ramming, etc.)  With the recent range extensions to most beams, beams dealing hard flux would make kiting for many ships too easy.

Since Ion Cannon did not get any damage boost to compensate no flux supercharge, it is worthless at killing things, good only for shorting out unprotected targets.

For AM Blaster, that should not be so expensive.  It is only good because of AI's... predictable flux management.  AM Blaster also has a lot of fade (presumably to make up for 400 range), which the AI is unaware of.  Also, ammo.  It should lose the ammo or some OP cost.

10572
General Discussion / Re: Starsector Ship Tiers
« on: September 17, 2015, 07:23:43 AM »
Same reason why I do not play Knights Templar or Neutrio Corp. despite being quality mods (and different in case of Templars), unless I really want to be drunk on power.  Once I get their weapons, they turn some of my ships into godships, and I reach a level of power not possible in unmodded Starsector.

10573
Suggestions / Re: Reduce Harpoon Pod Salvo Size
« on: September 16, 2015, 08:02:41 PM »
I almost never used missiles before 0.65.  Rare exceptions were Annihilators for low-tech ships, Cyclone Reaper on Aurora, MIRVs on Conquest, and free one-shots on everything else.

Now, I use any missile that regenerates, plus Reapers, Annihilators, and free one-shots.

Old Sabots were dangerous not because of damage they did to shields, but because damage they did to hull and thinly-armored frigates.  Before 0.65, Sabots were a more effective Harpoon than the Harpoon (mostly because PD cannot touch stage 2 Sabot).  It did not matter if AI lowered shields because they take a big fat 750 damage to hull.  Even 375 damage to armor is a big deal to weaker ships.

10574
General Discussion / Re: Starsector Ship Tiers
« on: September 16, 2015, 01:36:42 PM »
Tempest almost needs Extended Shields in big battles.  I use Extended Shields on Tempests unless they use a double blaster configuration (which is not AI friendly).

10575
Suggestions / Re: Reduce Harpoon Pod Salvo Size
« on: September 16, 2015, 01:32:19 PM »
For small mounts, I do not see why I need to pay 4 OP more for two additional Harpoons (or Sabots), when I can pay 0 or 1 OP for one or two missiles.  Anything not named Atropos is a better and/or more efficient alternative than a measly three shots on racks.  Harpoons are not that fearsome without Missile Specialization, especially against frigates where Harpoons can simply miss a totally still frigate due to sidewinding.  Currently, sabots are almost hopeless.

For medium mounts, alternatives provide more bang for the buck than Harpoons.

I do think the Harpoon/Sabot rack of three is so expensive and unreliable enough that I do think that no missiles is usually a better idea, if I had to choose between rack of three and no missiles.

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