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691

General Discussion / Re: Carriers

« on: October 27, 2019, 03:16:41 AM »

But isn't the point that it used to be a freighter, having lost it's storage space to make room for a fighter factory.

They are the quintessential makeshift warship.

Yep. Every Condor originally started out as a Tarsus. And eventually the conversion became so common Tarsus hulls were converted while still under construction essentially creating a new derived class.
This is why Condor has worst stats than the Tarsus for almost everything, it is sacrificing part of literally every ability in order to carry fighters in the same space that used to be cargo/engines/etc.

It's not supposed to be "good". It's supposed to be "good enough".
And the metric you're using to quantify that is; "can it get fighters into battle?"

692

Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] Boggled's Terraforming Mod (v0.9)

« on: October 26, 2019, 03:34:14 AM »

Something that might need looking at:

I started with a Tundra world with -1 farming.
I built the mirrors, and it upgraded the world to Terran while giving it +1 farming.
I then removed the mirrors just to see what would happen.
The planet stayed Terran while re-gaining it's previous cold condition. But lost it's farmland condition entirely.

Spoiler

[close]

And yet it's now producing 15 food as a size 5 colony.

Spoiler

[close]

Looks like the new conditions are being added whenever the mirror status changes, but the old ones are not being removed.
And the farmland is also being removed. (But still 'working'.)

Unrelated feedback/questions:
Possibly consider not changing the planet type, but improve the one that's already there. Having Terran planets potentially everywhere just doesn't "feel" right. (In this setting at least.)

Is everything in cat_barren completely untouched by these buildings?
Ie; Terraforming limited to already habitable planets.
(Fine with this btw.)

Possibly consider adding ability to frozen worlds to build Ismara's Sling.

Possibly consider adding information to the building tooltip when terraforming is stalled.

- Will this support Tart's unknown skies mod?

It would appear not. Possibly due to defing abilities by specific planet type, rather than by planet class.
Not a single US planet I tested with had the ability to build these buildings.

693

General Discussion / Re: Heron vs Mora

« on: October 26, 2019, 02:35:31 AM »

In my completely biased opinion Heron > Mora.
Heron is imo, the best general purpose carrier platform in the game.
Although its lack of OP makes for some interesting/painful choices, and the mediocre peak time often means it has to withdraw sooner than you'd like.

Mora is something I'd use more as a support element with long-range fighters, and missile artillery.
Doesn't matter how good your ship is at brawling if it's far behind the front line and struggling to keep up. Although I will admit this may be down to me preferring to deploy flagship only at first to draw the enemy into a favourable position.
Makes for a decent campaign support ship regardless though.

694

General Discussion / Re: Carriers

« on: October 26, 2019, 01:37:43 AM »

Condor is fine as it is. They're not meant to be "competitive", they are a fallback option for any faction that doesn't have access to industry. And an easily accessible (and ulitmately disposable) entry point into carriers for the player.
It's part of the base_bp package, so like every other ship in there it is lacking in some way.
Basically it's the bare minimum for getting fighters into combat, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Also, Herons are good.

695

Suggestions / Re: More Realistic

« on: October 25, 2019, 03:20:35 AM »

The principal of dispersing a laser by putting "stuff" in it's way would work. In theory. After all, lasers in atmosphere perform far worse than in vacuum.
Although you'd need something a little less prone to dissipating than a gas.
These things are called Sandcasters, and they're essentially giant shotguns that throw particles of matter into the path of incoming fire in an effort to diffract/diffuse/detonate whatever is approaching.
They appear in several works of fiction / settings.

How effective this would actually be is entirely guesswork though.

696

General Discussion / Re: Carriers

« on: October 25, 2019, 02:56:23 AM »

What is the best carrier?

The best carrier is the one you're happiest using. The one that fits with and compliments the way you play.

what are the best wing Load outs for them? Thanks.

This depends on what you have available, and what you like using.

Some suggestions (which may or may not align with your preference):

Condor
Bays: 2
OP: 45
Speed: 40
Deploy Cost: 10

Spoiler

Early game, this is all you'll have to work with. And Condor's lack of OP makes it really hard to fit bombers, because the carrier is so fragile it will definitely need bulkheads fitting to it so it can be recovered when it inevitably gets merked. (Early game loss avoidance.)
This means they'll almost always carry 2x fighters of some type. Broadsword/Talon is a perfectly good combination. Talon/Talon works.
Condor's low speed makes a Thunder/Thunder loadout attractive so it can still contribute while it lags behind everything else.
If you want to put bombers on a Condor, you'll need to compromise by removing something else. You can just about fit a Dagger/Talon loadout on it if you de-prioritise everything else.

[close]

Gemini
Bays: 1
OP: 55
Speed: 50
Deploy Cost: 9

Spoiler

A side-grade to the Condor, which may prove useful. Faster, can actually defend itself, and has more OP to use. The only downside is getting half the fighters for a similar deployment cost.
Gemini has the OP to fit most bombers fairly comfortably, and will likely be the first carrier you encounter which can do so. But it presents you with a problem - Gemini has the reserve deployment special, which only works with fighters, so putting bombers on it is a waste.
So it will always want to have fighters fitted to take advantage the extra firepower it provides, especially early game when you're likely to be using it.
Works well as a platform for support fighters like Xyphos.

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Drover
Bays: 2
OP: 70
Speed: 75
Deploy Cost: 12

Spoiler

This thing. It's like a clown car for angry bees.
Like the Gemini it has the reserve deployment special, so fitting bombers is borderline negligent. It almost doesn't matter what you put in the bays, so long as it's a fighter.
The only thing you want to avoid is combining support fighters with any other kind.
Broadsword/Talon is p. much the go-to combination. Although it's quite tempting to use wings with low numbers so you get a bigger increase.

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Heron
Bays: 3
OP: 100
Speed: 80
Deploy Cost: 20

Spoiler

Heron will probably be the first bomber focused carrier you encounter. Its targeting feed ability boosts the damage done by its fighters, so you'll want to make the most of this by specialising in bombers.
Although using fighters is not a total waste (like putting bombers on Drover), as they still see some improvement.
The only bomber you'll struggle to use here is the Trident, it requires giving up too much (imo). Anything else will work.
Dagger/Khopesh/Khopesh is a fairly solid general purpose loadout for 42 OP.
Cobra is very attractive here - Triple Cobra costs 45 OP and gives a maximum damage potential of 18000 per bombing run.
Triple Pirhana is hillarious, both for the obscene amount of damage it spews everywhere, and for the friendly fire clown show free floating ordnance creates.
Mixing an occasional Longbow in is also helpful.

[close]

Mora
Bays: 3
OP: 115
Speed: 46
Deploy Cost: 20

Spoiler

Mora has the distinction of being one of the most adaptable carriers available, and is happy in a variety of roles.
Triple Thunder turns it into an interdictor platform capable of exerting pressure over a wide area, which also makes its low speed less relevant.
Broadsword/Broadsword/Khopesh is an excellent close-in brawling setup - just remember to fit at least 1 non-PD weapon so the carrier will close on enemies.
Broadsword/Dagger/Dagger is a decent general purpose attack package.
Virtually any loadout will work here.

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Legion
Bays: 4
OP: 260
Speed: 30
Deploy Cost: 40

Spoiler

Basically a Mora+. The only real difference being the Legion being much more mobile and able to rush to the front line, so long range fighters are not so attractive.
Again, virtually any loadout will work. But since Legion is a close-in brawler, fitting things that help that will give better results.
It is impossible to go wrong with Broadswords (ever), so combining them with a bombers is always useful.
Double Broadsword/Double Khopesh would be a decent starting point for seeing what works for you.

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Astral
Bays: 6
OP: 230
Speed: 30
Deploy Cost: 45

Spoiler

This is a bomber only zone. If you are putting fighters in an Astral, first: Stop. Immediately. Second: Don't do that.
Astral's ability is the recall device, which is basically half the time required for reloads (by eliminating the return journey). Putting fighters on an Astral is a huge waste.
That being said, the first thing you should consider doing is putting Longbows in 2 of the bays, and just leaving them there forever.
And then fitting in whatever other bombers appeal to you. If you have any Trident LPCs, this is probably where they'll end up.
If I have any Cobras I'd prefer to put them on Herons for the damage boost, but they're fine here if you feel the need.
Using 6x Pirhana is.... Amusing.

[close]

697

Suggestions / Re: More Realistic

« on: October 24, 2019, 01:55:39 AM »

Heck, if you ask me salvaging is currently garbage. It is instant (instead of taking days, as it should), and no one bats an eye.

If salvaging is instant, why is there a cooldown for it?
It already takes several in-game days to pull salvage from debris. Why does that need to be increased?

As to why you get the "results" instantly - that's a gameplay abstraction. And a perfectly good one which is meant to help the game flow more smoothly.
This is a good thing because gameplay > realism.

698

Suggestions / Re: cruiser sized salvaging vessel

« on: October 24, 2019, 01:41:48 AM »

What if the Salvage Gantry was not a 'built in' mod?
Let's imagine that it's a standard hullmod.
You add this hullmod to a ship so you can get the salvage bonus, which is a campaign level boost. So this would have to be a dock-only mod.
A gantry would be quite OP expensive to fit, and might take 150/300/600/1200 'storage' per size to install.
So a frigate would get all it's cargo/fuel/crew storage zeroed, as would most destroyers. Pheaton would still be able to carry 300 fuel and Dram 150, but nothing else.
A cruiser might still be able to carry things - Colossus would still be able to carry 300 cargo, but nothing else.

The Salvage Rig could then be either depreciated, or given some means still make it attractive.

699

Suggestions / Re: Video added. We need some repairing modules for armor and hull.

« on: October 24, 2019, 01:22:28 AM »

Let's say you get slow hull (or armor) repair, but you have to loose 25% of your flux or 25% of your speed. Or both?
Now suddenly your ship is much more vulnerable to overloads and it's much harder to run away.

I've said this previously, but roll this ^ into the Automated Repair Unit hull mod.
Then your reparing ship is balanced by vulnerability in battle (flux/speed) and a less effective ship overall (OP cost).

700

General Discussion / Re: What is your favorite Aurora fit?

« on: October 23, 2019, 08:43:18 AM »

If you're letting the AI fly it, this ^

If you're going to fly it this.

701

Suggestions / Re: Gunnery Implant - gives additional weapons groups

« on: October 22, 2019, 11:21:33 AM »

Is there a concrete reason there is only 5 groups? Or is this Starsector's "640k should be enough for everybody" moment?

702

Suggestions / Re: Character's portrait should not be used for NPC's

« on: October 21, 2019, 10:25:39 AM »

If there were a mod or setting I could use that explicitly reserves a portrait for the player, I would jump on that in a heartbeat.

<snip>

The problem is, this doesn't solve the problem.
All defining your custom portrait in player.faction does is restrict that portrait to the players faction. So you will still see 'your' portrait in your NPC fleets and hireable officers on your colonies.

Also, don't mess with core files.
Make a mod. All you need is notepad.

703

General Discussion / Re: Battle Tactics

« on: October 21, 2019, 10:11:31 AM »

Another 'map edge' thing you can do is start the battle by deploying only your flagship. Then immediately stop and wait for the enemy to approach.
Once you have a decent group of enemies trying to fight you, drag them down toward to bottom edge whle picking off any ships you can without taking too much of a risk.
When you get the group down into the bottom row of map squares as near to the centre as possible, call in whichever ships you want to instantly surround them. At which point the AI gets really indecisive about which threat is more important and often makes some less than optimal choices.

704

General Discussion / Re: Stuck on the Odyssey

« on: October 15, 2019, 12:48:42 PM »

Odyssey doesn't have enough slots/flux dissipation to use soft flux pressure against anything significant. It can reasonably try to exploit hard flux from Longbows + missiles with it's TLs, but there is not much point in adding Tacs. In most cases Tacs will do exactly nothing to enemy (shields up with no soft flux and dissipation above Tacs damage output) while costing Odyssey a lot of flux thus reducing it's ability to fire TLs.

We each have our preferences.
Beams work well enough on a wide enough selection of things for me to consider them a preference.
And the lower flux profile is very noticable, especially compared to a plasma build. (The lower micromanagment requirement also helps.)
Not encountered the problems described.

For ref: I only play campaign with full fleet support etc. So if you're doing some min-max simulator thing, then I'll let you crack on with that in peace.

705

General Discussion / Re: Whats the best way to counter phase fleets

« on: October 13, 2019, 07:11:19 AM »

If you're going to use Pilum spam you need to fit literally everything that isn't the flagship with them.
If possible use Falcon (P). Put ECCM on it, plus converted hangar and a Thunder wing. Use command points to keep them away from battle, but close enough so the fighters can engage.

For that IBB mission, you really want fighters. And you want them hosted on platforms that are as mobile as possible. Herons are fairly good here as they're reasonably quick, and can mount tac lasers which will make phase ships a little more reluctant to close in.
Generally though, the more beams the better. Odyssey or Paragon flagship fitted with a full beam loadout would be ideal.
Personally I'd favour Odyssey for the mobility.

You can do it with just Pila, but it's boring. All that happens is the missiles 'deny' some space so the phase ships either back off or advance.
If they back off they reduce thier breathing room for the next wave until they can't go anywhere but forward. If they advance they get caught between two waves and get more pressured until they max out flux and start taking hits. Either way they waste flux and time and eventually fall to CR attrition and/or dumb descisions.

Adding fighters makes things much quicker/less dull.