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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 - sotanaht

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271
General Discussion / Re: "Combat" carriers with no "carrier" tag
« on: April 02, 2015, 07:03:21 PM »
If you don't want them to charge in then you can set a rally point for them (and for the carriers too if you would like, no need to use different ones).

That doesn't actually work.  I try all sorts of rally points, but then I find the ship halfway across the map chasing after something stupid.

272
General Discussion / "Combat" carriers with no "carrier" tag
« on: April 02, 2015, 11:14:08 AM »
A trend I'm pretty sure started in the base game with the Venture, most moderately-armed carriers lack the "Carrier" help tag.  This means that they cannot be given carrier waypoints, they charge into battle whether you want them to or not, and any mod functions that rely on the tag (expanded flight decks from SS+) don't work.

While the trend started with the base game, it can be found in most mod fleets.

In my opinion, Carriers should ALWAYS tend towards the edge of combat.  Heavily armed carriers can attempt to fight from the fringes, but no carrier should ever be in the middle of the fighting.  I personally want better armed carriers even at the edges so that they are better able to fight off any ships that come their way, while still not attempting to persue and risk their precious flight decks.

273
Is there a reason the Convergence-class isn't flagged as a carrier? As in it doesn't respond to Carrier Rally command points and cannot fit SS+'s Expanded Flightdecks hullmod. I assume it also means it's more willing to head into the battlecenter instead of skirting it in AI hands, though I haven't played with it enough yet to notice.

EDIT: A note to people directly updating saves; the High Maintenance hull mod will still be fitted to ships that previously had it, but can be removed in refit for free.

EDIT2: The BRDY Drive Conversion is not increasing burn speed on my Convergence.

I had the same problem with Shadowyard's Charybdis.  Is there any way to fix it myself?  No matter how heavily armed, I still want my carriers to stay on the edge of battle, plus that hullmod would really help.

274
Mods / Re: [0.65.2a] The Knights Templar v0.9.4b
« on: April 02, 2015, 01:37:40 AM »
I'm finding Templar ships to be EXTREMELY weak to the Tachyon Lance.

I'm not 100% clear on how the templar shields work with regards to damage types, but barring templar weapons, I've found that JUST Tachyon lances are extremely effective at killing templar ships.  Not just disabling like you would expect, but actually killing them.  

With 3 Tachyon lances on a Ravana (mayorate), I can solo any templar fleet.  They SHOULD surround and kill me, but they never do.  Considering how thoroughly templars wreck my AI fleets, this is pretty much how I've been fighting them.

275
Mods / Re: [0.65.2a] The Knights Templar v0.9.4b
« on: March 30, 2015, 07:22:49 PM »
double clarents + expanded missile racks + +1 missile.  6 of those on a single frigate (thanks to intersteller imperium), 24 clarents in rapid fire kills most battleships.  Of course the frigate is absolutely useless after that, so retreat, and call in another one.

Honestly I don't expect anything balanced from this mod.  The only reason I'm even playing with templar stuff is because they kept getting wiped out in my nexerelin game before I was strong enough to fight them, so now I'm building them up manually.

edit: the Arondight takes the cake for OP weapons though.  One shot disables destroyers one way or the other, 2 for crusers, and 3 for battleships.  Lucky the templar can't mount more than one at a time, the only way you can stop a ship with 3 of those is to swarm it, and with the range you can forget about doing that in a fleet setting.

276
Mods / Re: [0.65.2a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.7.2
« on: March 29, 2015, 07:12:30 PM »
The incompatibility with Nexerelin is already mentioned in the Nexerelin thread, as it should. There is no reason for having it in the SS+ thread since it doesn't concern this mod.

I know it's mentioned there, but if someone goes down the list and downloads everything here, they get a crash.  Then they have to track down the source of the crash.  It happened to me, I had to check my log file, noticed that Exigency was mentioned every time, and was able to track down the conflict from there.  Apparently I'm already smarter than the average forumer, since the Nexerelin thread has a debug help request that turns out to be the Exigency incompatibility almost every page.  I think it would help cut down on that sort of headache, and a little bit of redundancy doesn't hurt.

But I guess I'm not the one who has to help people troubleshoot, and I've already figured out the problem myself, so what's it matter to me right?

277
Mods / Re: [0.65.2a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.7.2
« on: March 29, 2015, 03:54:02 PM »
Please make a note of the current incompatibility between Nexerelin and Exigency in the first post.  Attempting to run them both WILL crash the game.  I think people are going through the original post here and downloading everything you recommend without really looking too closely at each mod.

278
So I had the bright idea to equip a Monolith with Ballista LRMs (from Interstellar Imperium).  It has earned the nickname "macross".  It's surprisingly effective even solo, actually beats a paragon in sim (autopilot) without sustaining significant damage, but in a fleet specialized in taking down shields it's absolutely devastating.

Spoiler




[close]

279
Mods / Re: [0.65.2a] Nexerelin v0.3.3 (update 2015-03-24)
« on: March 29, 2015, 03:08:19 AM »
What would really help is that if each faction got a "capital" world with very high defenses (and production/market size). For example, when you capture it it could only loose 1 point of stability, until there is none left, and a new defense fleet would be created.

I like the idea of a hard-to-capture capital, but you don't want to make it too tedious for the players either.  There should be a middle ground, even if it requires subjecting the NPCs to slightly different rules.

Allowing the player to resurrect a faction (join dead faction, capture planet(s), leave faction) should be a very easy to implement workaround for those of us who just want to play in a randomized persistent world rather than doing everything for the sole purpose of "winning" by conquering the galaxy.

280
Mods / Re: [0.65.2a] Nexerelin v0.3.3 (update 2015-03-24)
« on: March 28, 2015, 02:33:53 PM »
I've been finding the game moves a little too fast early on with this mod.  One or more factions is often completely eliminated before I can really even get off the ground.  Last game it was the templars, which made for a fairly boring late game without them to challenge me.

I think it would help if there were a way to bring factions back from the dead.  They could either revolt on their home planets and take them back over from within, or else you could let the player join a dead faction and re-establish it that way.  That, and it should probably be a lot harder for non-players to take over the strongest bases by themselves.

281
Mods / Re: [0.65.2a] Omnifactory v1.10c (released 2015-01-29)
« on: March 27, 2015, 07:22:46 AM »
If you sell a ship or weapon to the Omnifactory that it hasn't encountered before, it will destroy it and analyze it over time, creating a blueprint for it. Once analysis is complete the production phase starts and the factory will perpetually try to keep that good in stock.

The factory will produce an unlimited amount of goods, but it halts production of a good if there's a certain amount in cargo already (3/3/2/1/1 fighters/frigates/destroyers/cruisers/capitals, half a stack for weapons). In other words, if you sell it a Wolf it will try to always keep three Wolves in stock. If you sell it every ship in the game, it will still always try to keep three Wolves in stock.

The factory produces one of a good per production cycle, and production times vary based on the complexity of the blueprint. Ships use a formula based on fleet points and hullsize, so a Talon might take a day to analyze and three days to produce each wing, whereas something as complex as a Paragon might take 37 days to analyze and 75 days to produce each hull. Weapon production times are based solely on the size of the weapon.

Blueprints don't affect each other. The production time for an individual blueprint will remain constant no matter how many blueprints you have, and production is always active for any good that isn't at its limit.

Anything produced by the Omnifactory has a huge price markup as a pathetic pretense of balance (even with the downsides it's still basically a cheat mod).

TL;DR: yes, selling something to the Omnifactory will guarantee you always have a reliable (albeit expensive) source for it, given time.

Thank you for the response.  I was most worried that I would end up overloading the omnifactory only to find out 20 hours into the game and have to start all over in order to get some decent use out of it.

I wouldn't be so harsh as to call it a cheat mod though.  I fully expect a similar system to make its way into the base game, but likely integrated with faction shipyards and therefor requiring you to still maintain relations with each one.

282
Mods / Re: [0.65.2a] Omnifactory v1.10c (released 2015-01-29)
« on: March 27, 2015, 01:26:24 AM »
I'd like to know a bit more about how this mod works without going through multiple hours of gameplay to test out the features, so if anyone could explain a bit...

I sell a ship or weapon to the omnifactory, then I wait an unspecified length of time (DO NOT buy back immediately, correct?), then the omnifactory will be guaranteed to have that ship/weapon in stock when I return, correct so far?

If I were to collect a huge number of ship/weapon variants, the omnifactory would stock them all simultaneously (or at least reliably over whatever time period is required for restocking), correct?  I don't want to risk overloading my omnifactory by selling it mid-line ships and not be able to get the best ships from it later on.

How much is available from the omnifactory when it starts producing?  Are we talking one of each ship/weapon per month or does it just make infinite?

283
Quote
No weapon solves this.  In order to disable a ship, you must beat it into submission.  I want the ability to disable ships without destroying them.  A mechanic like this would make a lot of sense in lore, considering ships are supposed to be some rare commodity.
We do have such weapons, namely all of them that cause damage.  A kill disables, only overkill destroys.  (I know you mean something that disables without killing, but killing them works.)

This is why I write that the best support weapons are the ones that kill enemies the fastest, not gimmicks that inflict status conditions other than death.

Come to think of it, heavy energy weapons annoy me.  Heavy Blaster competes with the best of them, and for a ship with a large universal, Mjolnir and maybe other heavy ballistics beats all of them.
  • High intensity laser is weak, although at least it is cheap.  I only use it to force AI to keep its shields up beyond blaster range.
  • Autopulse laser gets outperformed by a heavy blaster if the fight drags on past six seconds.
  • Guardian PD is good - for a beam.  I only use it if I have nothing better available.
  • Plasma Cannon is overpriced, but only has 20% more DPS than heavy blaster.  Its main advantage is more range, but paying 16 or 18 more OP for it is usually not worth it.
  • Tachyon Lance is nothing more than an overpriced and overglorified long-range EMP cannon.  At least autozoom was gone - that made it unusable for player.

Also, when we kill ships and behold the glorious white flash and other explosion effects, I expect the ship to explode, with pieces flying outward.  That... does not happen.

I actually prefer Pulse to Heavy Blaster.  It's only got about half the DPS, but it's more flux efficient and has better range.  The rate of fire also keeps up more pressure.  Autopulses are by far my favorite heavies though.  They might be outperformed in sustained fire, but you don't want to sustain fire for that long or else you risk fluxing yourself out.

Support weapons's I'm dubious about.  The Tachyon Lance certainly wrecks my piloted ships, but AI are just too perfect about shielding them, plus it's virtually unusable by a player.  I'd like to run a sniper Apogee with that, but I can't get the AI to stay at 4000 range and actually shoot anything. 

EMP in general, if it hits, is great.  The main reason being that it can significantly weaken ships BEFORE I get their armor down.  Weapons or engines, doesn't matter.  Sure I would rather just kill the ship, but when it comes to cruisers and capitols it might take two or three passes to break through, and being able to stop their return fire makes that much easier to accomplish.

Beams are far too weak though.  There's not a single beam weapon that can overload the shields on a destroyer, let alone a cruiser/capitol, and they don't really do much to unshielded targets either.  With the beam's soft-flux gimmick they need some more punch.

284
Ah combat the AI works well but there are some issues, ships with warp or the ability to phase should really aim for the engines of ships not warp or phase into the front of the ship and eat a crap ton of ammo.

In the Project Ironclads mod, one of the alien ships uses it's phase teleporter so aggressively that it pretty much glues itself to your engines and never moves except to teleport away, vent in peace, then teleport back in. And if it wants to disengage, then it's gone, you ain't catching it. I assume the vanilla Hyperion is as aggressive. Unfortunately, ships that can blink around the map still suffer from grossly underestimating their enemy's at times. They just become speed bumps when they teleport to your side, fire their guns then get overloaded as all of yours fire back then promptly explode.

Ships with regular phase should probably move faster in phase than out because as it stands, they enter phase and lose their 0-flux speed bonus then turn into lumbering tanks that are readily suppressed by PD fire until they have to come up for breath, then they get gibbed. It makes smaller phase ships of mild concern if on even footing and if a fight is in favour of them, it really doesn't matter if they were a phase ship or not. Bigger phase ships like the Doom are just too clumsy. It's a cruiser, it's never gonna get on another cruiser or capital's flank unless that ship is already preoccupied and again, I'd argue that a ship like a Dominator would be more ruinous than a Doom in the same advantageous position. Auroras can mount multiple reapers too and Apogees can mount plasma cannons.


Also LOL overselling food to a starved market, "no we just need 1000 units of food to stop this famine you sold us 1001, you *** monster you shity profiter we are gonna report you now and blame you for this ***" you *** with the wrong people.

I still can't find the logic in this. If the idea was to punish flooding the market with multiple stacks of product and be all like hollahollagetdolla then make the prices adjust dynamically. So that with each item added to the pool, the price increments down. As stock lessens, price increments up as said stock gets harder to scrounge together. Then, you can satisfy a crisis and after doing so, stock prices rapidly descend back to normal pricing and dip down to say half price within a few hundred generic units of stock. In other words, sell for 150c, 150c, 150c, 150c, *crisis averted*, 150c, 145c, 135c, 115c, 90c, 70c, 45c, 25c, *entered usual price bracket*, 15c, 15c, 15c, 14c, 14c, 13c, 13c, 12c, *another hundred units or so later*, 7c, 7c, 7c, 7c. For bonus points, add a graph just below the shopping list that projects this to the player so they can see the dwindling or inflating prices as they flood the market with product or buy out the market of a certain product.



You underestimate phaseing.

The Doom can move THROUGH a cruiser/battleship while phased, in reverse, then immediately open fire on the engines with reapers.  With a dedicated loadout and the appropriate skills, you could drop 12 reapers on the enemies engines like that in under 2 seconds, no front shielded ship has a hope in hell of surviving that.  Of course that kind of loadout makes the doom completely worthless at doing anything else, but a more versatile loadout with typhoons and basically anything else but reapers on the universal slots works pretty well too.

As for AI, the main benefit to using phase ships is that they are virtually impossible to kill.  Doom takes forever to get through its flux reserve, and you have to do it two or three times to actually bring down its armor and hull.  Shades and Afflicters can stay in combat for ages and then pop off for a vent when they get low.  They might not be the strongest ships but they can buy you all the time you need to work your way through the enemy fleet with a Paragon that would just be surrounded and murdered if you went solo.

Does the Tach Lance not solve this, if you've ever seen one without mods? For a large slot burst beam weapon, it really doesn't do that much damage but will short circuit like half an unshielded capital.

No weapon solves this.  In order to disable a ship, you must beat it into submission.  I want the ability to disable ships without destroying them.  A mechanic like this would make a lot of sense in lore, considering ships are supposed to be some rare commodity.

I thought it was the BLUEPRINTS that were rare?  I'd still like options to disable ships for a better chance to capture them after the fight, I detailed some suggestions on that already on the suggestion forums.

285
Suggestions / Re: Navigation and Burn Speed
« on: March 26, 2015, 12:21:22 AM »
Reducing the difference between small and large ship burn speeds sounds like a very good idea. When my fleet is sufficiently large, I keep the fast-forward button held down almost all the time to counteract the painfully slow travel speed of capital ships. Frigates will still be faster than large ships and retain their ability to pick their battles, but slower ships will move between battles much more quickly.

The current system map speed scale, where frigates are two to three times faster than capital ships, doesn't make much sense to me. Frigates have excellent tactical speed, but I imagine their compact size leaves them with little room for interstellar travel drives. By contrast, slow capital ships would have powerful engines backed up by robust reactor cores that could accelerate to high burn levels outside of combat.

I've heard this sentiment echoed a lot, but I don't really understand it in practice.  I've run all-frigate fleets sure, but the difference between burn 11 (frigates without engine upgrade) and burn 6 (upgraded battleships) just doesn't really bother me in practice.  6 is fast enough to catch (or run from) most AI fleets, and at still over half speed it doesn't feel so painfully slow that I get board just waiting to travel from A to B, at least not enough more so that I would give up on larger ships.

If I'm hunting smugglers or just flying from station to station all across the sector, I might use smaller ships only, but that just makes sense.

As far as the engine upgrades go, I always want it on bigger ships both in and out of combat anyway.  The extra combat speed is essential to my ship designs which are almost always strike-oriented.  I want to catch up with the big ship, close to near melee range, and unleash hell.  Unstable injector costs the same, offers less speed, and adds a combat vulnerablilty, and its mutually exclusive with the engine upgrade.  I use it on some frigates though for the acceleration boost, which lets them dodge and weave insanely well.

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