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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 - Aeson

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16
the lack of food and organics is a dealbreaker.
How is the lack of food and organics a dealbreaker? There's little real benefit to having in-faction Food and Organics - even without using AI cores, you can import enough of either from the other factions to do anything except run a Cryorevival Facility at full capacity, so all you're really getting for having them in-faction is a small upkeep reduction - and Farming's usually the lowest-grossing industry, especially since it often cannot be boosted by Soil Nanites, so if you're optimizing a colony for income generation it's one of the least valuable things you can have on the planet once you start stacking multipliers.

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Proximity to the core worlds, meaning expeditions arrive very fast
So? Expeditions are not that problematic in the current version of the game, the Core's possibly the least inconvenient place to need to go in response to an expedition, and even if you can't intercept or receive the expedition despite the rather generous amounts of warning you get for them it's no great loss to have a small colony disrupted for a time.

Also, once you're a bit more established, expeditions targeting colonies in Penelope's Star have to face down the collected military might of up to nine colonies worth of Patrol HQs, Military Bases, and High Commands. It is very, very possible that you won't need to do anything at all in response to an expedition targeting a colony in a developed Penelope's Star system - they're just going to run into your patrol fleets and die without you needing to so much as lift a finger.

17
It's rare I actually colonize Penelope, as it is usually a terrible system.
Really? In my experience, Penelope's Star is usually a decent to good system - it has great accessibility by default; it's fairly likely to have decent sources of Ore, Rare Ore, and Volatiles since it's guaranteed to have a volcanic planet, a cryovolcanic planet, and two gas giants; it has three of the best airless rocks in the game for setting up Refining and Fuel Production, especially if you don't want to settle in a system already colonized by a major faction; it pretty much always has at least one decent or better site for any colony item other than Soil Nanites; and a number of the potential colonies will always be close to one another due to being planet/moon groups and thus are relatively convenient to visit or defend. About the only real downsides I can think of for Penelope's Star are that it doesn't usually have arable land or organics, is rarely within range of a hypershunt, and doesn't have a gate, and those aren't very significant downsides.

Also, with nine guaranteed planets and moons, including one Very Hot and three Hot, it's one of the best places to set up if you want to make extensive use of AI cores on your colonies and don't want to be constantly running back to deal with AI inspections - very few systems have greater, or even equivalent, potential for military infrastructure.

18
If you set up your colony in the Penelope star system, you will never have to worry about destroying pirate stations as they will spawn too far away to be counted towards HA.
This isn't actually true; sector generation can spawn stars close enough to Penelope's Star to host problematic pirate bases.

Also, I don't recall if it was in the current version or not, but I'm pretty sure I've seen pirate bases spawn in Duzahk once or twice.

19
Successful colonies can easily negate a vast majority of the challenges the game throws at us
So what? The thing that I, personally, want out of colonies is a stable source of income that will let me go off and do whatever without needing to worry about whether or not I'll be able to pay for fuel and supplies next time I come back to the Core or crew/officer wages while I'm out and about, not a chain tying me to a system or two that needs babysitting, because as things currently stand the thing I'm most likely to be doing if I'm worried about money is smuggling - bounty hunting doesn't offer a good enough risk-reward proposition to be worth it, bar/contact missions are very hit-or-miss (especially if you don't want to tick off major factions or often fail to find interesting missions due to character/fleet composition/economic reasons), exploration/surveying usually doesn't have a very good return-on-investment unless someone's paying you to do it, and legal commodities trading is almost always a losing proposition.

Colonies - especially well-established colonies - are a relatively late-game thing. It isn't a bad thing if having them frees the player from the sort of troubles that might trip them up in the early stages of the game and allows them to more easily recover from the kinds of disasters that may as well have you start over earlier in the game.

20
1) Accessibility:  Easy mechanic to implement.  Let nearby systems increase accessibility due to "spill over" traffic.  A colony could gain a bonus to accessibility if there is a nearby colony in another nearby system.  Perhaps +accessibility =  max colony size if within n light years or a flat bonus if a colony of size >= lightyears exists.  The in lore explanation is that as an area gets colonized there's synergistic trade ect.  Could also provide a growth boost.  I'd limit this to 1 neighboring system or maybe 2 with the second system granting a much smaller bonus.
Accessibility is already improved by proximity to other colonies, including your own, and you get 1 population growth point for every 10 points of accessibility.

21
Suggestions / Re: Remove LG Ships OP penalty, make Andrada non d-mod, etc.
« on: November 10, 2023, 11:34:26 AM »
Solar Shielding is something you mount on either logistic ships or LOW TECH warships that are expected to tank hits with their armor and hull
It's also something some of us at least sometimes like to have on our entire fleet, regardless of the tech levels of individual ships, to counteract environmental effects, because hyperstorm surfing and sundiving can otherwise be very expensive/annoying and fighting the Hypershunt guardians is hard enough without corona effects significantly reducing PPT.

Also, ship hulls that come standard with built-in hullmods don't lose a built-in slot when you spend story points on the hullmods that they came with. Paying a few OP and a story point to have the benefits of built-in Solar Shielding without needing to consume one of your two or three slots for built-in hullmods may not be the best deal in the world, but it's also not the worst, and in some cases it may even be a net gain.

Oh, and personally I'd say that whether or not you're putting Solar Shielding on your ships for the damage reduction effect has at least as much to do with who you expect to be fighting as with the tech level of the ships you're using - damage reduction against energy weapons is the next best thing to useless when fighting Pirate, Hegemony, Luddic Path, Luddic Church, and Domain derelict fleets, much more useful against Tri-Tachyon, Remnant, and Omega fleets, and somewhere in between against Persean League or Sindrian fleets.

22
Suggestions / Re: Increase Crew Costs 20 Times Fold
« on: November 07, 2023, 12:34:08 PM »
yeah, but we can also assume that 1 crew doesn't in actuality remember 1 crew, the same way 1 ship doesn't mean 1 ship.

When you look at Jangala, it is guarded by precisely 1 large fleet that would have a crew of (in-game units) like 1.5k people. That's very little. Jangala is a planet of millions and space security is considered most mattered security. The thing is that Jangala is also a military world. One of the strongest ones in the game. So it having that few people guarding it would be stupid.

I feel like the fleets that patrol are "gameplay representations", the same way how planets, stars, sold products aren't LITERAL. They're CONCEPTUAL. However, crew amounts seem to be in relative attunement with these aspects. A talon fighter is piloted by 1 individual. A trident is piloted by 2, a kite is piloted by like... 5... (can't check at the moment). It makes perfect sense that is the case.

But fleets in reality are probably ten times bigger than those we see in the game. And they are only simplified in amounts for gameplay reasons. When we see 2 Onslaughts and a Legion guarding Chicomoztoc by Coatl, the reality is that in the actual "non-simplified Starsector world", there are probably 5 Onslaughts, 2 Legions and 7 Eagles *** around among other things. The crew amounts is in perfect synergy. I believe it is fully believable that a Mora carrier for eg. only needs 200 people to be piloted. This is the future after all, and large ship designs. The so-called Wunderwaffe the Imperial Star Destroyers are are stupid, vulnerable and ridiculously expensive, mostly functioning as a scare tactic, rather than an actual viable strategy.
One, I think you grossly over-estimate the human resources available in the sector. The Core Worlds, taken as a whole, probably have a population comparable to the United States of America - excluding Sentinel, there are by my count three size-3, seventeen size-4, twenty-five size-5, five size-6, seven size-7, and one size-8 colonies, so we're looking at between about 170 million and 1.7 billion people, with a few hundred million probably being the most reasonable 'middle ground,' and Chicomoztoc by itself likely accounts for something like half of that. It wouldn't be terribly unreasonable for all the space navies in the Sector put together to have fewer than a million personnel all told, and a significant fraction of that would realistically be serving in relatively "unglamorous" roles - base personnel, crews of logistical ships, intelligence specialists, bureaucrats, instructors and administrators at boot camp / sea school / officer candidate school / naval war college equivalents, possibly Active Duty skeleton crews for ships that the various navies don't want or cannot afford to keep in active service but do want to be able to reactivate rapidly in the event of a war, et cetera - rather than on the combatants that make up the bulk of the system patrols and defense fleets.

Two, since you're on a kick about 'realism,' I'd point out that local population and base size/importance is not necessarily strictly correlated, and there are reasonable arguments that any or all of Citadel Arcadia, Sphinx, Ragnar Complex, Coatl, and Nachicheka should be more important bases than Jangala despite the smaller sizes of the colonies hosting them.

23
Suggestions / Re: Why is "Ground Support Package" a unremovable modifcation
« on: November 04, 2023, 02:09:58 PM »
If Ground Support Package were a regular hullmod, what would be the point of the Valkyrie? The Phantom's stealthier and has a better version of GSP, Nebula and especially Starliner have more room for troops, Colossus Mk.III more nearly approximates a useful space combatant, there's a number of logistical ships that could probably take GSP without giving up anything that really matters, and if you restricted GSP to ships with military/militarized hulls it'd have to be pretty cheap or it'd be almost worthless.

Also, as far as the in-universe logic for GSP only appearing on the Valkyrie and the Colossus Mk.III goes, I would say it's not terribly unlikely that GSP goes beyond just what's mentioned in the description - the Valkyrie is one of two dedicated assault dropships in the game (the other being the Phantom) and the Colossus Mk.III is a heavily-modified freighter adapted for raiding. Ships such as these being better suited to rapidly disembarking battle-ready infantry (and potentially also vehicles) in a combat environment and having a greater degree of rough-field landing capability than your typical space combatant or freighter while also being designed not just for aerial/orbital fire support but also to provide suppressing/covering fire while grounded and disgorging troops would not strike me as unreasonable.

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Big dishes for High-Resolution sensor, Or cranes survey equipment would have the same effect on armor integrity.
Debatable; a lot of that can just be superstructure, and while power/data/control signals probably would need to be routed through the armor somehow those don't necessarily need significantly larger or more numerous holes than already exist in the ship's standard configuration.

Of course, depending on how things were handled the close-support weapons and sensor/countermeasures packages of GSP might also be something that can be treated as superstructure. It might not be terribly popular with the crew, but as long as we're not talking about anything too heavy an unpowered external gun position with "some" local ammunition storage is plausibly adequate for providing fire support to infantry during landing operations, and if it can be manned by people in space suits or is only used in-atmosphere you may not even need to provide life support.

24
General Discussion / Re: Colonizing questions
« on: October 28, 2023, 12:23:56 PM »
Yes, you can create stable points at black holes. If you weren't already aware, be warned that black holes cause significant CR damage to unprotected ships.

25
General Discussion / Re: Need help planning empire
« on: October 03, 2023, 03:16:55 PM »
I see, so this system is missing Volitiles right? I'll keep an eye out for another system, if I can't find one though how would I make this one work?
If you want to colonize everything:
- Arid: Farming, Mining, Light Industry, Commerce
- Barren: Mining, Refining, Fuel Production, Commerce
- Deserts: Light Industry, Heavy Industry, Commerce, Military Base (probably upgrade one to High Command)
Set everything as Free Ports, install a useful industry item on each world, build orbital stations / battle stations / star fortresses and ground defenses as funds become available, maybe put Patrol HQs on the Arid and Barren worlds.

Honestly, though, I probably wouldn't bother colonizing the desert worlds unless perhaps I had a couple spare Biofactory Embryos and didn't mind becoming a drug lord; they don't have any particularly interesting resource deposits (the Barren world has mostly-better mineral resources and neither has Organics/Volatiles or better farmland than the Arid world), they can't make use of Fullerene Spools due to Extreme Weather, and as habitable worlds they're not the most valuable potential colonies to begin with since habitables are incompatible with most industry items, Farming is a low-grossing industry even when boosted with Soil Nanites or alpha cores, and Light Industry is only really good with Free Port. If you don't colonize the deserts, you ought to have at least a Patrol HQ on either the Barren or the Arid world and a Military Base somewhere once you have your first size-5 or larger colony.

Also, I agree with Nettle that getting all resources in a single system (or, for that matter, even within your empire) is overrated. The only thing that supplying most resources from within your empire gets you is upkeep reduction, but upkeep reduction is of very marginal value for worlds below about 200-250% hazard (maybe even more than that for low-upkeep industries like Mining) unless you're building more or less exclusively low-margin industries (Heavy Industry, non-Free Port Light Industry, maybe Fuel Production or Refining if it's unboosted and you have a few other producers in your empire competing for market share) or a lot of expensive military infrastructure (Star Fortresses, Military Bases, High Commands).

26
General Discussion / Re: Hypershunt Taps
« on: September 10, 2023, 01:15:44 PM »
Player takes penalties when he goes over the limit.
Seeing as you go from +2 stability at one colony to +0 at two, you take a penalty whenever you're at more than one PC-managed colony. If you don't want to take a penalty, you're limited to four colonies.

27
General Discussion / Re: Hypershunt Taps
« on: September 10, 2023, 11:57:58 AM »
It comes too late, even if colonies themselves take too long to take off.
Agreed, and as long as you more or less have to have a size-6 colony before you can actually use it I don't know that there's really any way that that'll change  even though you could theroetically rush finding and restoring a Hypershunt.

I already use two forges and a synchrotron on three of my five worlds (which I need to feed Military Base or High Command, the big resource hogs), so that leaves two worlds left for other items.
Six or seven colonies is well within reach using only the player character and hired administrators, and up to eleven without income penalties except during shortages is workable with enough care - colonies administered by hirelings are neither affected by nor count towards the mismanagement penalty, a fully-developed world can have up to +17 stability (+6 base, +2 Domain-era Comm Relay, +1 domestic goods, +1 luxury goods, +1 Ground Defenses, +2 Military Base or High Command, +3 Star Fortress, +1 Population & Infrastructure "improvements"), and pirate hostile activity only cares about the largest most stable colony while other stability-related penalties only come into play at less than 5 stability, so one hireling governing a size-6 planet neuters passive pirate hostile activity while the player character administers all other size-6 worlds and the other two hirelings manage developing worlds until the player character's mismanagement penalty becomes too high to add another size-6 world without reducing stability below 5, giving up to five colonies administered by the player character even with Commerce and Free Port or up to eight with neither Commerce nor Free Port. Dropping the Population & Infrastructure "improvements" and swapping the Domain-era Comm Relay for a Makeshift Comm Relay costs you a planet, but that still leaves you with four to seven colonies managed by the player character plus the three administered by hirelings before PC-governed colony stability drops unacceptably low.

Tap should give +4 interest like everything else.
Honestly, considering how thin the margins are on most industries when they're not being boosted by something, I'm not sure that it'd really be worth using even at +4 interest if you're trying to avoid generating Path cells; roughly doubling the gross income of an existing industry or increasing the colony income multiplier by 50 points looks far more appealing to me than adding another barely-profitable industry to the planet.

28
Suggestions / Re: Shield orientation in fleet refit
« on: September 09, 2023, 07:37:57 AM »
Honestly, while I don't have any particular objections to this, I also don't really see that it has all that much of a point in unmodded Starsector; there aren't any modular hulls, at least not that are available to the player, and about the only ships I can think of off the top of my head that might actually want to use something like this are Conquest and Odyssey, possibly Fury and Eradicator, and maybe Heron - but all of those already have Omni shields, all but Conquest have big enough shield arcs that Front Shield Conversion will cover pretty much anything you want to cover and isn't going to be much if any worse in general than a variant of it which can be configured to move the center of the shield away from the bow of the ship, and of these only Eradicator is all that likely to actually want to engage anything like a peer opponent without its shields up while boom-and-zoom is unnecessary when punching down.

What's wrong with Omni-shield conversion
Reduced shield arc, reduced shield deployment speed, and control limitations - omni shield orientation, active-group weapon aiming point, and camera are all controlled by cursor position.

29
General Discussion / Re: Finding the Apogee and Black Market Question
« on: August 28, 2023, 10:16:36 AM »
My experience largely matches Lawrence's - Apogees are usually quite difficult to find on the market or as derelicts. I'd say that if you don't have the ability to produce them yourself then bar encounters are probably the most reliable way to get them, either through custom production orders - though I think only high-value illegal arms dealers and independents can offer them - or occasionally through the 'steal military ship' event at an independent colony.

Apogees do sometimes show up in bounty-target fleets so you might also be able to obtain them that way, but that's obviously not reliable and by the time you can really do it it might be kind of too late for the Apogee to really be a valuable addition to the fleet.

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I really wish there was a set of purpose built explorer ships, the omen kinda fits the bill for frigates but i'd love a carrier and capital class support ship.
Shepherd, Venture, Apogee, Odyssey. All have above-average logistical statistics and at least one built-in hullmod useful in an exploratory fleet and three of them are at least carrier-adjacent.

The Omen may have High Resolution Sensors, but given its unremarkable logistical statistics as well as built-in ECM and ECCM packages I'd view that more as an AWACS or a radar picket than an exploration vessel.

30
If you can get to your world before the inspection arrives, a fourth option is to substitute lower-value cores for higher-value cores and a fifth option is to hide the cores until the inspector leaves - though be aware that the inspector can take cores from the targeted planet's storage, so if you want to hide the cores you should keep them with your fleet or put them on another planet, and be warned that the inspectors can be a bit... petulant... if they don't find any cores when they were expecting to find something.

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