Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Save/Load UI, Autosave, Intel Map Markers, and More (04/10/24)
The reason they make these videos is probably the same reason I like them... because a player showing off their piloting skills is less impressive/interesting to me than showing off a well designed fleet with good loadouts.For me, it is the opposite. I like to see flagship smash the enemy like a good old arcade shump. Something like SCC's solo phase ship builds or his recent Radiant flagship, or TaLaR's Afflictor shenanigans.
Wolfpack Tactics! Crew Training is also pretty good if you don't need a particular combat skill for a particular job (like EWM or Defensive Systems), and it helps it fits every ship you are going to pilot, anyway.Those are in the Leadership tree, not Combat, which sort of makes Brain's point.
People calling me dumb because I can skillfully pilot my flagship and actually make a difference in fights, today I have truly seen everything.Still does not take away from the fact that fleets that can kill the most Ordos are stronger than those that cannot.
And please drop the ridiculous notion of "unless it can beat 5 Ordos, it's bad", that's playing a completely different game and has no basis whatsoever in discussions unless the final mission of this game is going to be "kill 5 Ordos to get a You win screen". I won't be continuing this joke of a so called discussion when some have nothing to say except throw insults and do olympic mental gymnastics fit for a gold medal.
And finally, as someone who complained about a bajillion things on this forum, I can firmly say that the current skill system is far better than anything we had. Get your rose tinted glasses off, you're focusing on a single good thing in the past while there were 10 other issues you ignore. Can the skills be even further improved as of right now? Maybe. But I'm perfectly happy with them now, and would rather see the game improved in areas that it's lacking, rather than have a skill system rework #69.Does not mean I prefer combat of earlier releases despite other major flaws like combat autoresolve before 0.6a (most powerful Leadership/Tech powerleveling option), post-0.6a boarding, too rare ships and weapons, awful hyperspace storms that paralyzed the fleet and sucked out your supplies like a black hole, CP always costing one per order so you are out of CP when you order to capture all points.) The biggest flaw of old releases is less hulls and weapons (no Legion, no Pegasus, no automated ships, no to a bunch of hulls that did not exist; no large missiles aside from Hurricane and Cyclone, no to League specialities like DEMs and IRAL).
I agree when all of the best multi-Ordos killers seen are all no-flagship units builds. Your Radiant flagship took out four (I think), which is impressive, but not as much as the no-flagship units fleet (or at least fleet primary, flagship secondary) that kill five or more. I do consider Ordos killing a measure of strength because that is how player gets the story points and cores later in the game, and anything that can kill Remnants can kill nearly everything else, even if not the most efficient.Are you implying that all-officer focused playstyle is the best in the game? Because that's, uh, something.It is the strongest.
In my experience, it helps flagship and balanced playstyles get closer to the officer-focused playsyle power level.It looks like it, but player has to take Cybernetic Augmentation instead of Automated Ships unless player gets Neural Link too for flagship Radiant. I feel dumb if I take Automated Ships (instead of Cybernetic Augmentation) if I do not commit to flagship Radiant (either by wanting to use whatever random ships - both Remnant and Derelicts - I find and recover and/or not getting Neural Link to enable flagship Radiant).
What I saw recently was a number of people complaining that cybernetic augmentation was too strong. I don't think so, but I think it is good. Grabbing 5 in leadership and technology lets you grab almost all the best fleetwide skills, and at that point putting your last 5 into combat is the best option even if you went for automated ships.That is just it. Leadership and Technology feel mandatory this release (and the last two releases too). That leaves Combat and Industry optional. Pick one of those two to dump, either Combat for (no flagship) units play or Industry for flagship play. I feel like I shoot myself in the foot if I want Combat and Industry instead, then leave five left for either Leadership or Technology.
...Honestly, I'd be happy with nearly any mechanism for setting a floor for player combat skills. A max-level player - even one who's decided to go all-in on non-combat skills - should not be worse in battle than a basic level 5 officer.Yes. Right now, player has to put points in Combat just to have as many skills as a basic officer. Player can still get - and probably should - get a good fleet, if not going all-in for a specific high-powered hull. The choice is whether to buff the flagship through Combat or get Industry for QoL/capstone (or maybe more Leadership).
Honestly, I'm not a massive fan of the entire "skills" concept to begin with. What it functionally means is "X does not work correctly, often to the point of near complete uselessness, unless you take the relevant skill(s)", which means "don't even try to do X". This, in turn, discourages experimentation and variety, pigeonholing the player into a single role that he may not actually like because unless you've played through everything, how would you even know what it is you like? And yet the player ISN'T going to play through everything, because the system fundamentally discourages experimentation and branching out. If I take the Phase Ship skill, I am now essentially pigeonholed into flying phase ships and nothing else because my ability to fly anything else is now crippled. If I don't take the phase ship skill, I'm essentially unable to operate phase ships worth *** because of the penalties not doing so entails. These features may as well just be baked into the base statline of the ships. Others may as well just be ship mods. Heavy Armor + Heavy Armor Skill => Heavier Armor.And no story point refund for respec'ing hurts when I am not at late to endgame and able to farm Ordos for story points quickly.
