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706

General Discussion / Re: Im a noob and i want a noobish difficulty setting

« on: October 04, 2013, 01:20:09 PM »

I think the AI relies a lot more on crew experience. Elite frigates are really, really clever.

And yeah the start is way too tough for new players. Mount and Blade had the exact same problem - giant wall of difficulty you have to climb over but once you've won your first 2-3 battles suddenly it's a much better difficulty curve. It might be a lot easier to handle if the game started you off with a freighter in addition to your frigate so you don't lose most of the supplies you loot if you manage to win because you can't carry nearly that many.

707

General Discussion / Re: Increased Fire Rate's effect on Charge and Beam weapons

« on: October 04, 2013, 01:17:34 PM »

Let's not forget the most important thing:
If Beams got the appropriate bonuses from CR and skills that buff fire rate - they still wouldn't be better than ballistics. The ballistics are better than beams because they have limited ammo advantage is still preserved.

708

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.6.1a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: October 04, 2013, 10:49:43 AM »

Same here - Freighters and ships that I won't ever deploy to combat anyway get the burn upgrades. For combat ships it's entirely a tactical decision - most just don't have the points to spare for faster engines. As I understand it that's working as intended - which I personally like.

709

Suggestions / System-Map Stealth

« on: October 04, 2013, 10:44:49 AM »

Now I've been playing some Pirate runs recently and figured - hey, why I see where everyone is? And why can everyone see where I am? Wouldn't pirates get completely destroyed in a world where sensors cover the entire system and are unbeatable?

So I've come up with a potential system that will make playing a Pirate a little more interesting - and maybe even help out AI pirates:

Fleets that are static on the system map slowly accrue "stealth" points. Every fleet rolls a sensor check (or if you don't like randomness, a straight comparison check) when a fleet with stealth points comes within a certain distance of it. If they beat the stealth the static fleet is revealed, if they don't it stays hidden.

Now as long as moving doesn't instantly deplete your stealth points (you could have them vanish fairly quickly over the course of a few seconds) the ambushing fleet - if it guesses the intended victims course right and lays up ahead for long enough to become hidden - can quickly pounce on the unsuspecting fleet. This could give you a special pre-combat dialogue with a couple of extra options to take apart from the usual "engage, disengage, etc.". Maybe a special "ambush" battle option - similar to a Pursuit in that you can deploy frigates and fighters from several angles, maybe even with reduced CP for the enemy fleet to represent them having to suddenly scramble ships to respond.

The latter option especially would let smaller fleets defeat bigger fleets by ambushing - as long as they can inflict enough casualties in the opening battle (in which they've got a huge positional and numerical advantage) to make the follow up battle (which is back to the default battle options and thus more even) winnable.

Best of all this approach to stealth opens up some avenues for skills as well: Better sensors (isn't there already a sensor skill this could be added to?), faster stealth gain, slower stealth loss when moving.

And lastly the whole thing is very player skill based - you need to guess fairly well what approach the fleet you want to ambush is going to take. Although the ability to station-keep with orbital objects while remaining "static" would truly help if this system is adapted.

I've deliberately kept the numbers and stuff vague because that's all open for balance concerns - but basically: Less than total vision over the whole system at all times, more "kinds" of battles than just straight field battles and pursuits, deeper gameplay for pirates and blockades.

Thoughts?

710

General Discussion / Re: Increased Fire Rate's effect on Charge and Beam weapons

« on: October 03, 2013, 09:24:32 AM »

General buff skills that aren't weapon-type restricted (like the missile skills) need to work on everything not just everything except beams. If Fire-Rate buffs don't affect beams, there needs to be a second part to those skills and buffs that gives something to beams. Straight up extra damage, a little extra range, more flux efficiency, doesn't matter. But something has to be there.

711

General Discussion / Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..

« on: October 03, 2013, 09:20:44 AM »

You mean a Hound?

A Hound is clearly a combat vessel that happens to have above average cargo space. It's more like a mini buffalo 2 than a mini buffalo.

Freighters already decrease in per-supply efficiency as they get smaller - that's good. But the freighter progression stops at Buffalo/Gemini/Thatotherone. It should probably continue one size increment smaller with the appropriate reduction in efficiency and increase in speed.

712

General Discussion / Re: Are fighters supposed to be so costly?

« on: October 01, 2013, 04:12:36 PM »

Well Terminator Drones are more than a little absurd - they're tiny, have a teleporter, a phase cloak, two energy weapons and a frigate can replicate them during a fight.

713

General Discussion / Re: Are fighters supposed to be so costly?

« on: October 01, 2013, 01:38:10 PM »

This is a repost since I didn't find this thread when I wanted to post on the fighter CR/supply mechanics:

So after getting to the "endgame" a couple of times in 0.6a, I gotta say while most of the new CR/Supply/Carrier mechanics are great there's something off about fighter logistics and supply costs.

First of all one of the big problems is that fighters cost a lot of supplies - and it's based purely on wing-size which is weird as hell. Fighter types that are specifically intended to be fodder that swarms (the 6-per-wing Wasps, the 4-per-wing Mining Pods, the 4-per-wing-Talons) are more expensive, by a large margin, than elite super-high-tech fighters (2-per-wing Xyphos, 2-per-wing Tridents, etc.).

Then there's the fact that fighters tend to lose a lot more CR per deployment than other ships when they take casualties (which is the whole point of the new fighter mechanics! they are supposed to take casualties!) which drives the maintenance costs up even more.

I'm wondering if there shouldn't be some sort of benefit to carriers in general or flight decks in particular that gives you fighter wing supply/logistics discounts. Maybe even bring back the old Hangar stat on select destroyers and bigger. Something like a large decrease (50% at the least) or even a free maintenance for a wing of fighters per hangar would really help the swarming large-amount-per-wing fighters. Hell it'd be a great way to give an advantage to "true" carriers like the Condor (more hangars) compared to the combat carriers like the Venture (1 flight deck, but only a small amount of, maybe 1, hangar/s).
Plus it gives you a neat tool to bring the less-used capital ships up to spec.

If that's too radical even just a rebalance in fighter supply costs to make crap-but-swarming fighters not a gigantic waste of money would be really great. Especially the Mining Pods - I mean come on: They're supposed to be converted mining equipment, they shouldn't be more expensive than a freaking Xyphos Wing.

As an aside I wonder if we'll ever see a Phase-Fighter or Phase-Bomber wing. There's precedent with the Terminator Drone after all.

Thoughts?

Now that said, I guess we'll get reduced costs in the next patch. That's okay I suppose though a more in-depth mechanics solution would have been nice. Hell even just a fighter/carrier related skill in logistics would have been neat. "Experienced Flight Deck Supervisor" for more efficient strikecraft management?

714

General Discussion / Fighter Wing Supply Costs

« on: October 01, 2013, 12:49:36 PM »

So after getting to the "endgame" a couple of times in 0.6a, I gotta say while most of the new CR/Supply/Carrier mechanics are great there's something off about fighter logistics and supply costs.

First of all one of the big problems is that fighters cost a lot of supplies - and it's based purely on wing-size which is weird as hell. Fighter types that are specifically intended to be fodder that swarms (the 6-per-wing Wasps, the 4-per-wing Mining Pods, the 4-per-wing-Talons) are more expensive, by a large margin, than elite super-high-tech fighters (2-per-wing Xyphos, 2-per-wing Tridents, etc.).

Then there's the fact that fighters tend to lose a lot more CR per deployment than other ships when they take casualties (which is the whole point of the new fighter mechanics! they are supposed to take casualties!) which drives the maintenance costs up even more.

I'm wondering if there shouldn't be some sort of benefit to carriers in general or flight decks in particular that gives you fighter wing supply/logistics discounts. Maybe even bring back the old Hangar stat on select destroyers and bigger. Something like a large decrease (50% at the least) or even a free maintenance for a wing of fighters per hangar would really help the swarming large-amount-per-wing fighters. Hell it'd be a great way to give an advantage to "true" carriers like the Condor (more hangars) compared to the combat carriers like the Venture (1 flight deck, but only a small amount of, maybe 1, hangar/s).
Plus it gives you a neat tool to bring the less-used capital ships up to spec.

If that's too radical even just a rebalance in fighter supply costs to make crap-but-swarming fighters not a gigantic waste of money would be really great. Especially the Mining Pods - I mean come on: They're supposed to be converted mining equipment, they shouldn't be more expensive than a freaking Xyphos Wing.

As an aside I wonder if we'll ever see a Phase-Fighter or Phase-Bomber wing. There's precedent with the Terminator Drone after all.

Thoughts?

715

General Discussion / Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..

« on: October 01, 2013, 12:22:18 PM »

I'm loving the new system. It's a great way to balance hyper-powered ships like that teleporting frigate and the fact that a big fleet now needs freighters to gather up all the loot and provide supplies to keep everything running is awesome. I
t did however expose the lack of a fast freighter - something to keep up with a frigate wolfpack (maybe with a couple of tugs and a single fast cruiser flagship) and not slow it down. It might fit those burn-drive equipped freighters if they got a higher burn speed, or maybe it just needs a small fast freighter with appropriately smaller cargo space and supply cost.

716

Blog Posts / Re: Hyperspace

« on: August 03, 2013, 02:40:40 PM »

I wouldn't rule out some way of getting around quickly, should that become necessary. I just really doubt it's going to take the form of "let's just skip the travel bits". If possible, I'd rather go the route of making travel itself dangerous, and having costly options to avoid it - where you'd balance the cost of that against the cost/danger of a lengthy trip.

That said, we'll see.

How about attaching yourself to convoys as an escort (and get paid for it!) or member of the convoy (and pay for it, but have NPC escorts). Then you roll for encounters along the way that you can play out as normal combats. It skips the travel, but with a risk (or reward!) - without being perfect omnipresent quicktravel, because you can't choose where the convoy goes and there wouldn't be convoys to every destination going at all times.

717

Blog Posts / Re: Hyperspace

« on: July 27, 2013, 09:20:20 AM »

I think optimally there'd be a way to gather your own fuel from a Star. Not stock on every ship mind you, then there'd be no danger - but either a (unlockable?) hull modifier or as a special ability for certain ship types (solar-sail-equipped fuel processors? all or some of the tanker role ships?). Hell even as a buildable structure - sort of a solar refinery that slowly produces fuel. That would also nicely start the player off in the sector economy direction - if he decides to sell his fuel.

718

General Discussion / Re: AI Shielding too good?

« on: June 30, 2013, 11:57:59 AM »

Making shields have to drop at the same speed they deploy (or slower) would make dedicated anti-shield weapons with a travel time like Sabots much more useful. It'd also open up the possibility of a shield skill (and augment) that's more interesting than %upkeep reduction and %flux per damage. Perhaps even partly crew veterancy dependent.