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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 - SCC

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16
I didn't check it recently, but it definitely use to repair your ships when re-engaging. Combat Endurance elite effect does replenish, as does Missile Autoloader hullmod.
Re-engaging is more economical than burning through CR for basically all ships, except for those with SO.

17
General Discussion / Re: should we just nerf the Onslaught?
« on: March 18, 2024, 12:46:42 AM »
I'm laying low about the Conquest's abilities until I finish my playthrough and hope Alex doesn't notice how powerful it is.
It has definitely felt subpar ever since 0.95, so I would like to know what is the secret ingredient to making it good again.

18
Suggestions / Re: Hull restoration giving a 3rd s-mod instead of BOTB
« on: March 18, 2024, 12:45:50 AM »
The issue with BotB giving bonuses for flagship skills is that Leadership itself has no flagship skills and it doesn't have many skills that are useful for your flagship specifically (unlike Phase Coil Tuning or Neural Link). It might not matter much because of how powerful officers are for majority of playstyles, but it would suck to lose the one strong non-phase ship flagship playstyle we have now.

19
General Discussion / Re: should we just nerf the Onslaught?
« on: March 18, 2024, 12:34:06 AM »
We never saw 5 Conquests beat 5 ordos. Tragic.

20
Suggestions / Re: Tech Mining Commodity Supply
« on: March 14, 2024, 01:24:44 PM »
Especially now that you are less likely to be antagonised by major factions for a random reason.

21
Blog Posts / Re: Simulator Enhancements
« on: March 14, 2024, 12:17:31 PM »
Yep, I agree - I've got a TODO item to have a look at it; if it goes that way it'd also likely lose the no_sim tag. It could also go in the direction of becoming stronger/more special in some way, though.
I fought ordos with a Radiant and I fought ordos with a Guardian.
If I don't use Guardian's infinite missile reload, it doesn't strike me as very strong. In comparison to Radiant, it's slower (yes, really!), hard to control and fragile. Its long range is pretty neat, though. I don't think Guardian has to be as strong, though. Missile Autoforge really should go, but with ATC I'm more on the fence. I think the issue would be with slower enemies not exhibiting a proper amount of aggressiveness to catch up with Guardian. It is the best match up for Guardian. Remnants can catch up to Guardian perfectly fine, though. I'm not sure if that is enough to warrant removing ATC.

As is (except for missiles), it plays somewhat like a super Conquest. It provides good firepower, but anything more than a duel is going to prove an issue for Guardian. I don't think I would mind getting a Guardian upgrade, it's more that currently I don't think it's all that special.

22
Blog Posts / Re: Simulator Enhancements
« on: March 14, 2024, 11:12:16 AM »
I'm not sure if it needs it, really; there are already Implications. But we'll see.
It's more that I don't think there's a reason for it to keep its missile autoforge hullmod, nor be unrecoverable. It isn't even stronger than a Radiant, much less phase ships. Except for low-tech fleets, I suppose.

23
Blog Posts / Re: Simulator Enhancements
« on: March 14, 2024, 06:54:20 AM »
Will we be able to unlock the Ziggurat and Doritos?

Nope, and also not the Guardian. I think those are the only vanilla ships that are excluded.
Will Guardian tie into some more quests or lore in the future? I think it's a bit odd to leave it out, especially since it now spawns in generic derelict bounty fleets now (unless it was removed and I missed it).

24
General Discussion / Re: Phase + Fortress shields vs 3 Ordos
« on: March 13, 2024, 09:52:16 AM »
For reference, my 2 Radiant fleet has 8 hidden Prometheus Mk 2, to make sure ordos engage me. I use cheats to get around, so it didn't matter to me that it's not really feasible to do in normal gameplay. It's better than getting frustated not enough ordo attack you.
By the way, what's the point of deploying almost all the Afflictors immediately? Looking at post-battle results, they don't seem to have done much damage directly at all.

25
General Discussion / Re: Phase + Fortress shields vs 3 Ordos
« on: March 13, 2024, 09:37:13 AM »
For some reason, whenever I tried to combat more than 3 Ordos, only 3 joined in battles despite there being 4+ Ordos in vicinity.
It's because the AI doesn't consider your fleet threatening enough that it needs more than 3 ordos to deal with it. I recommend spamming Prometheus Mk 2. It's a combat ship that doesn't count towards any combat ship skills (e.g. Crew Training), because it has the Civilian Hull hullmod.

26
You don't need that to spend that much OP on vents, if you have Ordnance Expertise. You don't need that many backup ships, if your ships are individually stronger. So on, so forth. There is discussion about if certain skills or combinations are too strong, but choosing one bonus over another is the entire point of skills.

I haven't tested this in detail. BotB is probably stronger than Cyber Aug, because BotB buffs your fleet without other qualifiers, whereas Cyber Aug relies on you getting several other skills. The only fleet I tested extensively is the Radiant flagship one, and so far it generally appears inferior to officer-focused playstyles. There are also only two good compositions (2 Radiants + cheerleaders, or phase ships), as opposed to the variety of compositions available officer heavy playstyles. That has less to do with skills and more to do with officers being naturally strong (8 of them with 5 skills).

27
General Discussion / Re: Newbie with Balance Question
« on: March 12, 2024, 10:49:29 AM »
Currently you can do just fine without personally piloting ships.

28
Suggestions / Re: Carrier-Specific bonuses for elite skills
« on: March 10, 2024, 01:16:00 PM »
Shinr is spot on, that's definitely part of my thinking. It also makes balancing battlecarriers more tricky, but that's more of an issue with dedicated fighter skills. Putting their bonuses on elite skills is an interesting idea, though, hmm.
If you mean this...
But, unfortunately, Alex believes that the players will suffer FOMO from not using ALL of the skill bonuses and that they will be force funneled into a battlecarrier playstyle at the expense of other ways of playing, which is why many, many, many suggestions like this one were rejected/ignored.
Then players get FOMO either way. Fighter bonuses on combat skills? I better use a carrier. No fighter bonuses on combat skills? I better NOT use a carrier.
And as far as the general gameplay, I think a state where fighters are a little too weak is much, much preferable compared to the state where they can snowball like this. That *is* subjective to some degree, but I feel strongly that the gameplay with fighter-spam fleets is not particularly interesting, beyond the novelty factor.
I suppose it works. Complaints about fighters being weak are uncommon, and there are no complaints about fighters being overpowered. Fighters don't see much discussion in the first place.

Even taking this into account, Fighter Uplink could stand to get some better effects.

29
General Discussion / Re: Is the Hephaestus at a good spot?
« on: March 10, 2024, 11:37:27 AM »
A friend of mine rocks this fit on his Onslaught
[close]

30
Suggestions / Re: Carrier-Specific bonuses for elite skills
« on: March 10, 2024, 11:28:52 AM »
I think fighter buffs should be treated like buffs to ships. Just put them into various skills. Having fighter bonuses be the elite part of the skill means that the issue the current carriers have (there's like 3 skills for them) expands the choice marginally (3 skills + 1/2/3 elite picks that may or may not be the same as those 3 base skills) and may or may not be enough for them.

Carriers already sort of are pushed towards either of two extremes: Support Doctrine and/or Derelict Operations spam, or officered carriers (which are naturally limited to mostly 10). I think their competitiveness is best highlighted by how rarely carriers are mentioned in extreme compositions (vs 5 ordo or the like). Sure, fighters mayhaps don't need to be the most meta, but is their current power level enough for casual players? Looking at various examples of fleet screenshots, it appears the majority of them use 0 or 1 carriers in their fleet. If they do field carriers, they tend to be battlecarriers (Mora, Legion). Pure carriers don't seem to be popular. One of the more interesting things I saw was that even fleets with carriers don't tend to get the carrier skills.

What I would like to see is for most skills to gain fighter bonuses, whether as a part of the base skill, or as an elite. My picks would be...
Spoiler
Impact Mitigation: -50% damage received to weapons and engines (I think fighter weapons are invulnerable in the first place, but the engine part is important).
Damage Control: 50% faster weapon and engine repair (ditto).
elite Field Modulation: -50% overload duration (it's really annoying when a bomber gets overloaded and it won't fire its payload...).
elite Targeting Analysis: +100% damage dealt to weapons and engines.
Ballistic Mastery and Energy Weapons Mastery: I'm torn on these. On one hand, any fighter bonuses would encourage sticking to certain fighters, but on the other hand, maybe that's okay? I'm not sure. If I had to give fighters bonuses here, I would make them get +5% damage dealt by ballistic/energy weapons.
Tactical Drills: +5% damage.
Gunnery Implants: +10% fighter turn rate or something like that.
Flux Regulation: +10% flux capacity and dissipation (this is practically a 10% damage buff for non-bombers!).
[close]

For the rest of the skills:
Spoiler
Helmsmanship already benefits carriers enough not to warrant a fighter bonus
Combat Endurance already benefits fighters.
Point Defence already benefits fighters.
System Expertise can benefit fighters, if the carrier has a fighter-boosting system.
Missile Specialisation doesn't benefit fighters, but missiles can make a carrier useful despite or in addition to its fighters.
Coordinated Manoeuvres iirc already benefit fighters.
Wolfpack Tactics shouldn't affect fighters anyway.
Crew Training already benefits fighters.
Carrier Group already benefits fighters.
Fighter Uplink already benefits fighters... but it's a terrible skill.
Officer skills currently benefit warships more, because so do regular skills, but in this hypothetical scenario this would change.
Best of the Best and Support Doctrine don't discriminate against carriers.
Electronic Warfare affects carriers already.
Phase Coil Tuning shouldn't affect fighters anyway.
Neural Link doesn't discriminate against fighters.
I don't know if Cybernetic Augmentation benefits fighters.
Automated Ships doesn't buff any ships.
I don't know what bonuses could Ordnance Expertise and Polarised Armour get.
Hull Restoration and Derelict Operations don't discriminate against carriers.
[close]

Fighter Uplink needs a change. Fewer combat losses doesn't actually mean anything until combat ends. The target leading accuracy... I think it's a bit weird, because to me, all bonuses to target leading accuracy don't actually matter much, and it means this one doesn't matter, either. Maybe someone could pull up some example of what it actually does, because in my experience, AI target leading is always at least somewhat inaccurate for fast targets.

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