31
Lore, Fan Media & Fiction / Re: A few short Starsector stories.
« on: September 24, 2023, 12:12:26 PM »
Very nice, if you write more, I will read more. What do you figure is the true story of what happened at Groombridge?
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32
Discussions / Re: Now That's Entertainment!
« on: September 22, 2023, 09:56:53 AM »
Absolutely! The physical price was a mere sprinkling of organic circulatory fluid, a price I pay every time I trim holly hedges or put up a mile of five-strand Red Brand. Now I understand your unwritten concerns, or at least I think I do. This guy Dalj on another forum was telling me something similar, warning me about the unknown consequences, spiritual and otherwise, of messing with things I don't understand. I have a Ouija board and a hatchet used in a ritual to invoke Samedi literally hanging on the wall behind me as souvenirs, I'm not terribly worried about spiritual consequences any more than you personally would fear the wrath of the Scorekeeper or the Basilisk, fictional characters in made-up stories.
(edit) The North Wall Of Room Eighteen
(edit) The North Wall Of Room Eighteen
Spoiler
[close]
33
Discussions / The Cryptid Vs Tactical Thermonuclear Teabagging Man
« on: September 03, 2023, 03:53:00 PM »
For my next trick, well, I have been talking around corners in this topic about a couple of movies, but I intentionally never mentioned their titles. I'm going to go ahead and explain why I wanted barbed wire and a green umbrella now, that part of the contest is now invalid.
Every farmhand in the country has seen strange lights at night where there's nothing to make lights. Every farmhand in the country has seen... something moving above the trees at night that is not a bird, it is not a plane, and moves like no vehicle can move. Every farmhand knows about that one valley or stand of trees far away from any trails or power lines, where if you leave your 4x4 or golf cart out there overnight, in the morning the battery will be dead and if you leave your phone in the console the battery on that will be dead too. Every farm owner has had a horse or a cow or a sheep go missing and never find the carcass.
It wasn't until I saw the documentary film "Nope" that I realized that all of those phenomena are the same thing, and it's a critter. Hopefully, by now, you have figured out that this psycho thinks that he can fight a JEAN JACKET IN MELEE COMBAT and win with minor injuries. I'm going to use the barbed wire to make myself inedible and I'm going to use the green umbrella to pick a fight with it.
I can do it. That fellow Angel in that movie, he went into Jean Jacket's maw and the barb wire hurt him worse than the creature's digestion. Angel installed Cable TV for a living, I twist barbed wire for a living, the kinds of injuries barb wire does to me, I call that the cost of doing business. Furthermore, the movie showed Jean Jacket as being like 200 feet wide at least, in real life they're no more than 25-50 feet, at least the ones I've seen. In a rural area with more wild hogs than humans in the county, a dozen Jean Jackets (or Pork Jackets as I call the Panhandle morph of Occulonimbis Edoequus) could easily thrive, and nobody would ever notice.
Wednesday I have to go out to a place I have called "Stratocat Valley" ever since I noticed that there's ALWAYS EXACTLY ONE CLOUD hanging over the limestone wastes by the mill pond. I'm taking my rakes and shovels and trimmers, but I'm also taking my anti-tornado-assed-cloudsnake panoply. I'm gonna kill me a Pork Jacket, ride the corpse back to Earth in the Superhero Landing Pose, cut off a slice and cook it up. If they can eat us, we can eat them. Then I'm going to get some pictures and post them on here so you jokers will believe me. If I never post again after this Tuesday, then you will know (if not believe) why, I finally met an IRL boss fight I couldn't beat.
(edit) Welp, still here and sadly without any tasty UAP steaks. Stop me if you already heard this one, but the boss lady hired some other guys to do the south side hedge at the edge of the valley because I haven't been out there in a month since I was busy moving into my new place and most of my implements were in storage. I used to get 80 bucks for that hedge and it took me five or six hours. Now there's two guys that do it with a cherrypicker attachment and charge her 200 for the same job. I just pulled stumps and vines around her house all day. So unfortunately, I won't ever get another shot at that stratocat unless I trespass to do it. Heh heh. Did you hear that Tone? I said I'm not going to get another shot unless I trespass.
Every farmhand in the country has seen strange lights at night where there's nothing to make lights. Every farmhand in the country has seen... something moving above the trees at night that is not a bird, it is not a plane, and moves like no vehicle can move. Every farmhand knows about that one valley or stand of trees far away from any trails or power lines, where if you leave your 4x4 or golf cart out there overnight, in the morning the battery will be dead and if you leave your phone in the console the battery on that will be dead too. Every farm owner has had a horse or a cow or a sheep go missing and never find the carcass.
It wasn't until I saw the documentary film "Nope" that I realized that all of those phenomena are the same thing, and it's a critter. Hopefully, by now, you have figured out that this psycho thinks that he can fight a JEAN JACKET IN MELEE COMBAT and win with minor injuries. I'm going to use the barbed wire to make myself inedible and I'm going to use the green umbrella to pick a fight with it.
I can do it. That fellow Angel in that movie, he went into Jean Jacket's maw and the barb wire hurt him worse than the creature's digestion. Angel installed Cable TV for a living, I twist barbed wire for a living, the kinds of injuries barb wire does to me, I call that the cost of doing business. Furthermore, the movie showed Jean Jacket as being like 200 feet wide at least, in real life they're no more than 25-50 feet, at least the ones I've seen. In a rural area with more wild hogs than humans in the county, a dozen Jean Jackets (or Pork Jackets as I call the Panhandle morph of Occulonimbis Edoequus) could easily thrive, and nobody would ever notice.
Wednesday I have to go out to a place I have called "Stratocat Valley" ever since I noticed that there's ALWAYS EXACTLY ONE CLOUD hanging over the limestone wastes by the mill pond. I'm taking my rakes and shovels and trimmers, but I'm also taking my anti-tornado-assed-cloudsnake panoply. I'm gonna kill me a Pork Jacket, ride the corpse back to Earth in the Superhero Landing Pose, cut off a slice and cook it up. If they can eat us, we can eat them. Then I'm going to get some pictures and post them on here so you jokers will believe me. If I never post again after this Tuesday, then you will know (if not believe) why, I finally met an IRL boss fight I couldn't beat.
(edit) Welp, still here and sadly without any tasty UAP steaks. Stop me if you already heard this one, but the boss lady hired some other guys to do the south side hedge at the edge of the valley because I haven't been out there in a month since I was busy moving into my new place and most of my implements were in storage. I used to get 80 bucks for that hedge and it took me five or six hours. Now there's two guys that do it with a cherrypicker attachment and charge her 200 for the same job. I just pulled stumps and vines around her house all day. So unfortunately, I won't ever get another shot at that stratocat unless I trespass to do it. Heh heh. Did you hear that Tone? I said I'm not going to get another shot unless I trespass.
34
Discussions / Florida Man Sought For Questioning Regarding Jackson County Were Coyote Incident
« on: September 03, 2023, 03:22:12 PM »
Mortrag, it worked! I got a metal bucket and some gasoline and an ounce of my own blood and I did Ahab's harpoon baptism in the name of the Scorekeeper, may Her fangs never dry, and it REDACTing worked! Had to violate the laws of the land and the laws of the Above a little bit, but I finally scratched this score off my tally!
HORRIBLE taxidermy job, I don't think the guy knows what he's doing, pretty sure he's teaching himself taxidermy off YouTube, but the price was right, eighty dollars for the base and fifty dollars for the actual stuffing job. I had to creep through the woods four hours each way (dragging a dead were-coyote on the way out) and I didn't get no five hundred dollar bounty, I can't even really tell the story to anybody in real life because I don't work for that guy anymore and I didn't have permission to be on his land.
https://i.imgur.com/VxPJANe.gifv
(Literally figuratively me right now)
I don't even have room in my new apartment to KEEP the damned thing, I let my brother have it. I didn't get five hundred dollars, but I have five THOUSAND dollars' worth of satisfaction finally getting this REDACTer, a fight none of these Candyland-looking hicks ever won with all their fancy tactical assault rifles, and it was Your (not so) Humble Narrator that done it with a bolt action .22LR that you would buy for a kid that you wanted to teach firearm safety.
Evidence
HORRIBLE taxidermy job, I don't think the guy knows what he's doing, pretty sure he's teaching himself taxidermy off YouTube, but the price was right, eighty dollars for the base and fifty dollars for the actual stuffing job. I had to creep through the woods four hours each way (dragging a dead were-coyote on the way out) and I didn't get no five hundred dollar bounty, I can't even really tell the story to anybody in real life because I don't work for that guy anymore and I didn't have permission to be on his land.
[close]
(Literally figuratively me right now)
I don't even have room in my new apartment to KEEP the damned thing, I let my brother have it. I didn't get five hundred dollars, but I have five THOUSAND dollars' worth of satisfaction finally getting this REDACTer, a fight none of these Candyland-looking hicks ever won with all their fancy tactical assault rifles, and it was Your (not so) Humble Narrator that done it with a bolt action .22LR that you would buy for a kid that you wanted to teach firearm safety.
35
General Discussion / Re: Coming back after 2 years...
« on: September 03, 2023, 01:52:27 PM »
Lucky you. The main thing I'd look out as far as balance changes is the new S-Mod bonuses. You used to be able to use story points to permanently add hullmods to your ships, but some people felt that that was a waste of a point. Now all but the most expensive hullmods have bonuses that you get if you story point them in. This gives a wider variety of builds since it's no longer optimum to S-Mod the most point-expensive hull mods like Heavy Armor or Expanded Missile Racks on every ship. I'm a huge fan of combining Armored Weapon Mounts and Expanded Magazines on clip-based weapons.
Also energy weapons have gotten a lot more diverse. There's Kinetic and High Explosive options for energy weapons commonly available now.
Also energy weapons have gotten a lot more diverse. There's Kinetic and High Explosive options for energy weapons commonly available now.
36
Mods / Re: [0.96a] The Xhan Empire, version 2.51 Gramada
« on: August 21, 2023, 11:17:01 AM »
HELMUT, I'm nominating that post for the Comment of the Year Award.
37
Lore, Fan Media & Fiction / Re: Stories from the Sector - A fan fiction collection
« on: August 02, 2023, 09:53:33 PM »
Glad to see you're still going with these! You have my eyes, to paraphrase that famous dwarf.
38
Mods / Re: [0.96a] Hazard Mining Incorporated (New Version Ed., 0.3.5i)
« on: August 02, 2023, 05:10:49 PM »
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=27733.msg408635#msg408635
In the spirit of fair play, these haven't been addressed yet, although it's only the spoilered one that feels truly overpowered. I would like to see the Remnant weapons get a balance pass to be competitive sidegrades to their vanilla counterparts. It's gratifying to see somebody think that HMI content is vanilla because the descriptions are so well-written it looks like professional content.
In the spirit of fair play, these haven't been addressed yet, although it's only the spoilered one that feels truly overpowered. I would like to see the Remnant weapons get a balance pass to be competitive sidegrades to their vanilla counterparts. It's gratifying to see somebody think that HMI content is vanilla because the descriptions are so well-written it looks like professional content.
39
General Discussion / Re: Are [REDACTED] weapons useless ?
« on: August 02, 2023, 03:59:06 PM »
I know what you're talking about and there are a few HMI Redacted weapons that are worth using. The upgraded Heavy Blaster has a huge shot speed (and therefore effective range) increase over the vanilla Heavy Blaster. The Redacted Tachyon Lance can be useful if you really like shield penetration. Some of the light energy PD Redacted weapons ignore flares and are worth using if you can afford them. I don't think King Alfonzo has updated most of the Redacted weapons to keep up with the changes to the latest version of vanilla yet. The Redacted Dual Light Autocannon, for example, is clearly not remotely competitive with vanilla's version.
I assume King Alfonzo will balance these in a patch eventually but I'm enjoying them while they last.
overpowered Redacted weapon data
The true power of HMI Redacted weapons is the small weapon mount version of Burst PD. Burst Assault Laser I believe it is called, this is a Burst PD laser that ignores the capacitor mechanic but still benefits from the firing speed increase from S-Modded Armored Weapon Mounts. It's not a PD weapon, it's a heavy weapon like the Heavy Blaster on a light mount that benefits from beam upgrades. You can put together a truly ruthless Ionos build around Remnant weapons where the Burst Assault Lasers do most of the damage, if you have access to the Ionos. I believe it's in the HMI Supervillains pack these days.
[close]
I assume King Alfonzo will balance these in a patch eventually but I'm enjoying them while they last.
40
General Discussion / Thousand Eyes is watching you
« on: August 02, 2023, 11:15:00 AM »
Depending on what you're looking for, I have a couple of favorites from King Alfonzo's The Covenant Of Kemet mod. Talinoth already mentioned the Monjeau from Alfonzo's HMI mod, but there's a different mod that adds "the bad guys from Halo if they were human religious fanatics in the universe of StarSector" and they have some outliers that aren't really overpowered in the computer's control but are terrifying in a competent player's hands. For light craft, my favorite is the Nemty, a heavy destroyer with heavy firepower and incredible mobility. If you want something heavy, the Nepthys is a "battlecruiser" (really it's a battleship with the speed of a battlecruiser) that is my favorite endgame multi-Ordo-soloing device, it has incredible mobility, unbelievable firepower, decent durability, great shields, and unbelievable firepower. Yeah, I said unbelievable firepower twice. HMI also contains the Ionos, which is a battlecruiser with the Wolf's ship system, and therefore the Wolf's mobility.
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=23050.msg405613#msg405613
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13236.msg394085#msg394085
Also, in the Xhan mod, there's a super-powerful secret boss that uses all kinds of unfair mod BS against you, and if you beat him you get the ship with his crazy unfair mod powers intact.
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=23050.msg405613#msg405613
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13236.msg394085#msg394085
Also, in the Xhan mod, there's a super-powerful secret boss that uses all kinds of unfair mod BS against you, and if you beat him you get the ship with his crazy unfair mod powers intact.
41
General Discussion / Re: IR Autolance uses?
« on: July 27, 2023, 07:59:39 PM »The one place I love the new Autolance is in the right rear medium slot on my flagship Safety Overrides Aurora. I used to use the Graviton Beam or Heavy Burst Laser there, but with 360-degree shields killing missiles behind my ship isn't that high of a priority. The Autolance is competent at killing fighters, but where it really shines is destroying small frigates, particularly if I've already cracked their armor on a frontal approach and they try to swing around to flank me. No cruiser is a threat to a SO Aurora in a face-to-face knife fight, but three or four pirate Hounds can overload my shields. The Autolance stops that from happening, and unlike the Phase Lance, it's accurate (and flux-light enough) to work without manual aiming.
42
Suggestions / Re: Saving Builds In Missions / Testing OPs / Variant Limits
« on: July 24, 2023, 08:15:40 PM »
Regarding the third point, I definitely feel that there needs to be more room for variants. In the campaign, I might have three total loadouts for a particular ship, for support, frontline, and personal piloting. If we're supposed to take the default vanilla loadouts seriously, there needs to not be a huge incentive to immediately delete them the first time I get multiple copies of a particular hull. I don't even really look at them and consider how I could improve them for my own roles, I just delete at least two of them right away so I have room for my own builds.
43
General Discussion / Re: Whatever I do, bounty fleets are always bigger than my fleet?
« on: July 15, 2023, 01:55:09 PM »(The time-scaling component is quite small, just fyi.)
If they scale from defeating bounties as well as over time, maybe that's what I'm seeing. When I first get out of the tutorial at level 3, there's a selection of bounties that are reasonable fights for my fleet. Once I win all the fights I reasonably can, if I don't spend it all on upgrading my fleet and rush through the early game, the bounties always outpace my natural fleet growth. If I'm fighting bounties to finance surveying expeditions or colony growth, and not to finance growing my fleet to fight bigger bounties, the bounties always outpace me.
44
General Discussion / Re: Whatever I do, bounty fleets are always bigger than my fleet?
« on: July 15, 2023, 09:32:48 AM »Bounties scale faster than the player's fleet can keep up if he tries to fight bounties as his primary income. This used to not be the case in earlier releases of Starsector. They also do not pay enough if the fleet takes casualties. There is a massive spike from 100k to 150k and more spikes afterward.
I agree with this. Two cycles is too quick for the average player to max out their fleet power. I'd consider myself above average in experience (if not skill) and I can only keep up with bounties if I play the game as though I'm speedrunning. If I take my time completing random quests as they're offered to me or do any meaningful exploration/surveying, I will always fall behind the bounty power curve. I CAN race the invisible progress clock and stay with it, but it's not fun nor immersive from a roleplaying standpoint to think, "okay, it's almost December of the first cycle, I have to be in cruisers by the end of next month to keep up with the fleet growth clock".
Megas said, "they do not pay enough if the fleet takes casualties". I mostly agree with this. I have altered my playstyle so that it never matters, but it feels videogamey and immersion-breaking the way I can do it. I always get Hull Restoration as my Industry capstone so I don't care at all about losing ships since I will always recover and restore them, but the way I'd roleplay and the way I actually play are at odds. If I have my character build such that losing ships costs me the ships (and not just replacement crew and supplies for repairs) there's NO WAY to make a profit from any fair fight, if I don't steamroll a bounty flawlessly or have the ability to not care about casualties, any tough fight that I win with minor losses is a major setback. So I can either savescum until I win the fight with no losses, or else I lose and replace ships and the bounties get stronger while I have to struggle to stay in the same place like Alice and the Red Queen in a foot race.
45
Suggestions / Re: [0.96a-RC10] Autofire settings changed by Autopilot
« on: July 13, 2023, 02:42:34 PM »
I would like a "Hard Autofire" setting, so that you can set a particular group to ALWAYS stay on autofire, regardless of whether the AI thinks it should have that group on autofire or not.