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31

Discussions / Angels Fall First

« on: June 21, 2017, 12:25:05 PM »

What is Angels Fall First?
The quickest way to sum it up is this: Battlefield 2142, crossed with Battlefront II, crossed with Unreal Tournament's Assault gamemode. In other words, it's a Sci-Fi FPS and Space Combat hybrid, with objective-based gameplay, class and vehicle customisation, and just all-around cool stuff.


Gameplay
AFF is split into four gamemodes - First, Ground and Space battles, which are each divided into "Territories" and "Incursion". Territories plays out much like Battlefield's Conquest mode, or the ubiquitous Domination gamemode. Incursion, on the other hand, typically has one side attacking and the other defending. In ground incursions, the attackers must take over sets of control points, much like BFBC onwards' Rush gamemode, but also includes objectives such as opening a fortress' gates and taking over LZs as forward spawn-points. On some maps, both teams may have access to vehicles; Each has their own FAV, APC, Tank, Walker and Gunship. These are deployed periodically, typically being awarded to high-performing players and dropped on the battlefield, rather than spawning at CPs available for anyone to use.


In space, things get a little more interesting. On some maps, the attackers' first objectives might be space-based, while the next set may include boarding the defenders' space station and fighting it out as infantry, taking over CPs in the same fashion as the ground battles. Both teams have access to a wide array of strike craft filling different roles; Interceptors, bombers, brawlers, dropships - wait, dropships?

In much the same fashion as vehicles in ground battles, in space battles players may be awarded sub-capital ships; Corvettes, Frigates and Destroyers. Beyond that, certain stages of a given space incursion, or at predetermined times in Territories, one or both teams will deploy capital ships (Typically the attackers in Incursions). These capitals pack a serious array of weapons, and can be used to deny large areas of space. Not only that, but they serve as a forward spawn for its team, able to deploy strike craft. The best part? They're fully crewable by players, down to point-defence turrets.
But wait, it gets better - the enemy team can board them, if they can get a dropship through its fields of fire.

From there, boarders can spawn on the dropship if they weren't already onboard, until it's destroyed by enemy fighters. This allows them to wreak all kinds of havoc - disabling individual weapons systems, going for the shield generators, or straight for its reactor core, forcing its owners to fight in close-quarters if they want to hold on to their capital ship.

AFF has full bot support, being an Unreal Engine game. They can be a little dumb at times, but they're nice to shore up playercount.
All your individual weapons, vehicles and strike craft are fully customisable, with ammo types, attachments, different weapons and countermeasure loadouts, and in the latest updates, camouflage schemes and colours (There is also the option to disable this entirely client-side, if hot pink & yellow tanks aren't your thing).


I think that about covers it. A word of warning though, it is in Early Access. It's a little light on content and players, and is also somewhat unoptimised (Though I wouldn't know with my hardware, I get 20fps max in anything released post-2010). The playercount is down to the devs' decision not to advertise it until it's complete, or at least has had all its kinks worked out. That said, the bots provide plenty of meat for the grinder, you can even play offline if you choose to.

Steam page here:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/367270
Currently on sale for £13.37.

Edit: Sorry about the page-stretch. Also note, the screenshots in here are from an older version, using the old UI. The latest update released the other day contained a completely overhauled HUD, it's now a lot cleaner and more legible.

32

Bug Reports & Support (modded) / Crash after capturing market for Metelson (Nexerelin)

« on: June 21, 2017, 09:50:38 AM »

Last night, I attempted to invade Umbra for Metelson; I finished the battle, but the game crashed almost immediately after. Reloaded the save today, completed the battle and finished the invasion, and about a minute later got the same crash. "Fatal: Null", something along those lines.

Snippet of Starsector.log:

Code

749237 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NullPointerException
java.lang.NullPointerException
	at data.scripts.campaign.events.DS_PersonBountyEvent.spawnFleet(DS_PersonBountyEvent.java:1257)
	at data.scripts.campaign.events.DS_PersonBountyEvent.startEvent(DS_PersonBountyEvent.java:592)
	at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.events.CampaignEventManager.startEvent(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.events.CoreEventProbabilityManager.startPersonBountiesIfNeeded(CoreEventProbabilityManager.java:120)
	at com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.events.CoreEventProbabilityManager.advance(CoreEventProbabilityManager.java:109)
	at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignState.advance(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
	at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

Mods:
Lightshow for Ship/Weapon pack 1.32
Dynasector 1.21
BRDY 0.90
Common Radar 2.4c
Console Commands 3.0 WIP3
Dassault-Mikoyan 0.95c
Disassemble Reassemble 0.5
Interstellar Imperium 1.17.1
LazyLib 2.2
Leading Pip 1.81
Metelson Industries A3.00
Nexerelin 0.8.1
Portrait Pack 1.2.3
Save Transfer 1.11.0
Ship/Weapon Pack 1.20
Tore Up Plenty 0.81
Underworld 1.10
Version Checker 1.7c
AudioPlus 1.0.4
GraphicsLib 1.2.0
prv Starworks v1 RC5

I'd left a lot of those mods without updating them for the past few weeks. I'm going to update them all now that I have an excuse, but I'll leave this here just in case it's helpful

33

Suggestions / Adaptive and customisable cone-of-fire markers, and alternative in-battle cursor

« on: June 10, 2017, 01:16:44 PM »

I have no idea how technically feasible the first part of this suggestion is, but it goes like this: The brightness and colour of the cone-of-fire indicator will change depending on the background, and even better, dynamic elements like explosions, debris, asteroids and whatnot. Sometimes you'll get certain background or environmental effects that make them practically invisible. I doubt it's easy to implement though, so the next best thing is allowing the player to customise it, split into the inner "actual" cone, and the outer arc. Currently they're monotonous and it's hard to tell what the actual path of the projectile will be based on the inner cone.

The other half is a less obtrusive cursor for battles, something a little more symmetrical instead of the traditional cursor. Even better if it were split into two parts - one of which would extend out to a certain distance from the ship with the other acting as the "actual" cursor, so you can get better use it to index what's in your path or line of fire.

34

Suggestions / Radio chatter

« on: May 18, 2017, 11:58:24 PM »

I was thinking, "What do my other favourite space games have, that Starsector doesn't?". One of the answers to that is radio chatter, ie voiced lines. Homeworld is one of the best examples of this - the ships have lines for a lot of things that go overlooked in other games - When their ship's heavily damaged, when they're winning or losing a fight, even the harvesters have lines for when they're returning with resources, when there's no resources to be found or the current asteroids are almost depleted. It really adds a lot of character to the forces you're commanding where there'd otherwise be very little. I'd say the dryness of their delivery adds to credibility, the captains and pilots being very level-headed.

(Note, some lines were added by the mod this video's of, should be able to tell which ones)

Freelancer is another great example, with pilots of different factions having their own voice sets and such. In addition to background chatter from the enemies you're fighting, they'll sometimes talk directly to you, taunting and such.

(Skip to around 6m - prior to that it shows how you get missions, related discussion here)

So how would this fit into Starsector?
The first perk is dissemination of information, ie situational awareness - If you hear your ships' captains audibly complaining about how they're outmatched, or that they're wiping the floor with the enemy, or that their hull's getting ripped to shreds, the situation is overall a lot more readable on top of the resources already available. I'm not about to make assumptions, but it seems to me like the AI are robust enough to identify the key elements of a scenario, commenting on it isn't much of a stretch. This could also extend to fuel, supply and CR status outside of combat.

The seconds is, as mentioned, adding character. It's often easy to just see the battles as what they are - 2d sprites floating about throwing numbers at each others' numbers, rather than retain the impression they're a bunch of tin cans full of people trying to maneuver them to kill other tin cans full of people - it'd would help keep the player immersed and entertained, and help characterise your fleet/officers and the forces you fight against.

There are obviously some big concerns with adding such content though; The sheer workload to avoid excessive repetition of lines, and to have them in the first place for each event and scenario would be tremendous. Add in a few different voice sets for each faction and it's a mountain, requiring more than a handful of actors with a lot of time on their hands. I'm sure the community would be willing to pitch in, but that brings in problem #2 - consistency. From the technical side of things, there are a lot of variables to account for if voice acting were crowdsourced - different mike setups, levels of talent, and the character people are capable of adding will vary wildly. For such a niche community, controlling for these variables to ensure a level of consistency and professionalism would probably eliminate the majority of us from being able to contribute anything substantial - the alternatives are having every other voice line be too loud, the actor sounding bored and uninterested (Like one line in that Homeworld video, a pliot sounds more frustrated or bored than panicked about how his "ejector lever's stuck"), etc, or hiring professionals which probably isn't feasible. 
Then there's issue #3 - spacialisation and avoiding information overload. Again, Homeworld and Freelancer are excellent examples of how to deal with this, but they have the luxury of taking place in a 3d space, meaning you can more accurately tell which ship/squadron the comms are coming from, as the sounds have dynamics based on distance and position relative to the player. This means less important information isn't drowning out the urgent stuff. Of course, SS does have sound spacialisation already, but missing one dimension. So, it'd require a lot of work to first decide which snippets are critical, and then ensure that everything else is more or less background noise. It'd also be essential to control the pace of the lines' delivery, so as to not bombard the player and make sure you can still hear audio cues like weapons fire, hits, overloads etc.

So yeah, overall one of those things that'd be nice to have, but probably not worth it in terms of work - benefit. My question is, were this to be planned by either the dev team or modders, would you be willing and able to contribute? Does anyone have a professional-ish mike setup, and does anyone possess or the skills to edit the audio and ensure quality control?

35

General Discussion / Terminator Drones and Phase cloak - OP?

« on: May 11, 2017, 03:54:28 PM »

I find the two things named in the title to be nightmarish to fight. The terminator drone (Deployed from the Tempest frigate) has some incredible ability - It's at least as fast as any given fighter, is shielded and can take a good few square hits if you ever manage to get past it. It has an Ion Pulser which, combined with its mobility, allows it to flank any ship and disable its engines. This isn't an issue so much for destroyers and up that have omni-shields, but frigates are especially vulnerable. A single Tempest can punch well above its weight when you also consider that it's one of the fastest in its class, allowing it to kite any given ship, wait for the Terminator to disable its engines, then strike when they've exposed their rear by drifting, or even better, being well behind the line and having the fleet's other ships do it.
So my biggest complaint here is the Terminator drone - it's incredibly quick in both acceleration and top speed, meaning any non-beam weapon is likely to miss since it jinks about so much. The shield means if any of those shots do connect, they're likely to be inconsequential. One of these attributes needs to go in my opinion.

Likewise, I've always had difficulty fighting phase cloak-capable ships - they come into range, do their damage, then slip out without the target being able to return significant fire. I think flipping around the speed would be the best way to balance them - instead of being slow out of phase, and fast in phase, if it's the other way round it means they have to generate flux for longer as they escape the enemy's fields of fire, which may lead to an opportunity to trap it. Right now the only effective tactic I've had for fighting them is leaving them til last and absolutely overwhelming them with numbers - and preferably from all directions.
Their relatively short peak performance doesn't really factor in, unless you have a fleet resilient enough to withstand what damage and effects these ships have on yours. When balancing these things, I like to refer to CS' AWP - It has a slow refire and reload rate, and requires the shooter to be still to be accurate, but does this matter to the target if he dies in one shot?

So, what are your opinions? What tactics do you use for fighting these things? Do you enjoy doing so, or do you typically avoid/disengage from fleets containing them?

36

Suggestions / Salvage & Recovery takes time

« on: May 06, 2017, 07:51:51 AM »

To increase the risk factor versus the reward of salvaging and surveying, the action should take time in the same manner as installing a comm sniffer. Right now, you can instantly restore a derelict to functioning condition, instantly loot a debris field, and instantly survey a planet. This means for each of these actions, you're not sacrificing or risking anything beyond the materials it consumes (Supplies, Machinery, Crew). In "reality", these operations would take a hell of a lot of time. With derelicts for example, there's the act of assessing whether it's capable of being restored, what cargo, weapons and materials can be stripped from it. Whether you restore it or not, there's the act of deploying crew, drones or ships to perform the operation, and in the case of restoration, transferring crew to the ship, patching up and initialising any basic systems and refuelling it. You can imagine the similar processes for scavenging debris fields and performing planetary surveys, each of which would probably take a lot longer than dealing with a single entity in space as opposed to an entire planet's surface, or random bits of junk floating about. The point is, it should take "real" time for these actions to be completed. It adds a tradeoff of vulnerability and passive supply consumption, as well as the possibility of failure meaning you've potentially wasted those supplies and made yourself vulnerable for little to no gain.

Edit:
A few more ideas and suggestions have cropped up throughout the discussion.

Some factions could have differing policies on salvage. For example, authoritarian factions like the Hegemony could declare scavenging of ships in their own space illegal, and confiscate the contents/scuttle the ship it if you're caught in the act, in addition to reputation loss and/or a fine.

Other (scavenger and pirate) fleets should contest derelicts either directly (ie pirates setting up an ambush, scavengers fighting you over a powerful ship) or indirectly (simply being there first). This could be expressed as an event upon interacting with the derelict, or (preferably, imo) by those fleets actually being there and having salvaging be in their routine.

Below is the previously included suggestion on surveys, but it's much less relevant at this stage, and my own opinion on it has changed.

I think the team is probably well aware of how bland planetary surveying is at the moment. So long as you meet the skill and materials criteria, you're able to perform the survey at zero perceptible risk, some people have described them as money printers. In my opinion, it'd be more interesting to have to commit an entire ship (Or several, if you choose), its crew and materials to a planetary survey. The initial survey is performed from orbit, for example picking up likely signs of ore deposits or ruins, but to establish the exact location and nature of these elements, boots must be put on the ground. If those initial results aren't looking promising, you can choose to abandon the survey with the preliminary data in hand, which would go for low prices to at least recuperate some of the costs of having ventured out and spent the time doing so. The "actual" survey data you currently gain would be done by establishing sites planetside; The more points of interest you choose to investigate, the more crew, supplies and such you must commit for a lengthy period of time, perhaps even allowing you to depart or hold in orbit if you choose to do so. The risk comes from the planet's hazard rating, and salvaging can be tied into this too. If you send a ship down to a high-hazard planet, you stand to lose that ship, along with the resources committed to the survey. The more you commit, the less time it will take. However, this allows for the possibility of several specialised ships: Recovery vessels that can find the crash-site, possibly rescuing those resources and crew, or if it has the equipment, towing the crashed ship back to your fleet in orbit for restoration. Other ships could be specialised in design for carrying out these hazardous planetary landings in the first place. You could have multi-role ships capable of all these tasks, but expensive in terms of cost and upkeep. Essentially, the idea is to have the player invest in their ability to perform planetary surveys beyond the skill if they want to be able to reliably carry them out, instead of being able to roll out with an almost entirely combat fleet and perform them with the same efficiency.

37

Suggestions / Ability: Fleet Detachment

« on: May 04, 2017, 11:14:20 AM »

One thing that I always find grinding my gears is the constant cat-and-mouse between fleets of the same burn level. The idea here is that you're able to designate a number of ships within your fleet as a detachment. When the ability is activated, these ships will detach from the main fleet to "tackle" the fleeing target fleet, obviously they'll only be successful if they exceed the target's burn level (E-burn/S-burn notwithstanding). If successful, this initiates a battle, but any of your ships not part of the detachment cannot be deployed until a certain amount of time has passed (Distance between main fleet and detachment v main fleet max burn). This means if the detachment overextends, the enemy fleet may decide to stand their ground and possibly eliminate it before your main firepower can be brought to bear, enabling them to flee if so. The target fleet will however still take into account your entire fleet composition, so they may decide to disengage - the only pursuers you'd then have available is that detachment, which may not be sufficient to present an obstacle to the fleeing fleet before the rest of yours arrives. This extends the utility of frigates, and would lead to less AI fleets flying out to the edges of the map pursuing a target they'll never catch.
I also had a couple ideas kicking about on strategic weapons/abilities such as EM weapons and electronic warfare to serve the purpose of slowing down a target fleet, but idk.

38

Bug Reports & Support / Wolf (D) Restoration

« on: May 03, 2017, 06:46:10 AM »

Not so much a bug as an oversight - Restoring the Wolf (D)s used by pirates (And also generated post-combat) does not bring them up to spec - They're still down 10 OP and still lack two of the three small energy turrets (Despite the Destroyed Weapon Mounts hullmod being removed). Not sure if this is true of other (D) ships, but I thought the intent of restoration was to completely overhaul an otherwise degraded ship. I think the cause is quite obvious, with those (D) variants being their own ship rather than being generated through actual damage. I'm not sure if this is still intended with the way D-mods work now, but personally, I'd prefer to see them removed, with their skins being applied dynamically depending on degradation, and the D-mods being applied at random to pirate ships.

39

Suggestions / Shipyard hull stocks

« on: May 03, 2017, 05:35:05 AM »

I feel most stations don't carry enough of the each ship for sale. Take TriTac and the Wolf - Across their few stations, and a playthrough up to 209/04/03, I've seen one for sale. Considering their ubiquity amongst TriTac and Pirate fleets, I find it hard to believe they're manufacturing/selling only one each year.
The suggestion is that every hull manufactured or sold regularly by a given faction or station always has an entry in the ship store, with a given number in stock - dynamically fluctuating of course, to emulate other fleets buying these ships. Hulls non-standard to the faction would remain as one-off as in the current system.

40

Suggestions / Boarding/Salvage Mechanics

« on: January 17, 2017, 07:12:53 AM »

This is less about my own suggestion, more a prompt to discuss boarding and salvage in general, and how it's affected by combat. Don't worry, I'm not about to talk about boarding during battles or making it a mini-game, I'm more concerned with what defines the chance for a disabled ship to be boardable or recovered. As with everything, I'm not sure how 0.8's upcoming changes will affect any of this if at all, nor their practicality or feasibilty, but to get my suggestion out of the way:

Salvage, by default, occurs if a ship is disabled but not destroyed (regardless of whether it's enemy or friendly). There are two further variables: Whether the salvaged ship is recovered intact, or has sustained damage to critical systems - producing a (D) variant (In the case of modded ships or those currently without them, simply applying the hullmods - jumping ahead, how this would work with weapon mounts I don't know).
The type of damage sustained by the ship, and how often to what systems throughout the battle will determine these variables. For example, if it suffered a lot of EMP damage, it's almost guaranteed to have fried flux systems, possibly to the point of rendering all other systems inoperable.
If it had its engines damaged heavily, it's almost guaranteed to have degraded engines, if not destroyed engines which would necessitate a tug to get it anywhere.
 If a particular weapon mount were damaged repeatedly throughout a battle, it's likely to provide a malus to weapons mounted on them or disabled outright.
If it took tons of HE damage all over, it's likely to come back with compromised armour.
And so on.

Then comes the question, "What's the point of salvaging ships if they're just gonna be degraded afterwards?".
If you take care not to completely obliterate the ships you're fighting, you can take them more or less intact, though this'd be extremely rare unless you outfit your ships specifically for the purpose, but this'd come at the cost of the firepower needed to bring them down in the first place.

The next logical question is "Won't it be too easy to get new ships if it's easy enough to avoid doing too much damage?"
This is where Marines and surviving crew come in. The less overall damage the ship sustains, the more of its crew survive, meaning more Marines are needed to guarantee a successful boarding action. Surviving officers on board the ship could also give them a bonus (Depending on skills...?)

So you now have the ability to, damage dealt and marines spent notwithstanding, gain a ship (Or ideally, the option of attempting to board/recover all disabled ships) out of each battle. Where's the trade-off?

Recovery of any vessel, captured enemy or friendly, would necessitate the investment of heavy machinery and supplies to restore its basic functions, as well as time. If these are unavailable, they require a tug to tow them to a port that has the necessary facilities, or conversion of one of your operable ships into a tug with the Monofilament Cable hullmod, expending CR and supplies. If you don't have anything that can serve as a tug, it must be restored on the spot - this could be another utility for the construction rig, speeding up and possibly diminishing the costs of the process.

So, you got a crappy ship out of the battle that can't fire a Vulcan cannon without overloading. To go back to that first hypothetical question, "What's the point of salvaging ships if they're just gonna be degraded afterwards?", you'd also be able to restore these ships to their original states at certain ports - in order of cost, mostly through ones belonging to the faction the ship is from, but also through military markets you have access to and black markets. And costly it would be - each (D) hullmod you remove would cost somewhere around 1/3rd of the ship's value (Increasing the less friendly the port's faction is with the ship's originating faction, due to sourcing of parts), as well as further investment of supplies.

I think I covered the bases of cost/risk/reward, the hope would be that 95% of the potential salvages you simply disregard due to not investing into the logistical side of things, but when you encounter that one ship you really want for yourself you can take it, if you win and if you're careful about it.

And before I forget, the upcoming Salvage (Note, I wasn't referring to this when using the term "Salvage" before) mechanic, ie being able to visit the sites of past battles, could be another avenue for this, and a "career" option in its self - Invest enough into the logistics and you could go around picking up the husks from other battles, salvaging, recovering and restoring them, then selling them off. Both this and taking them as prizes from direct engagements are how I imagine the pirates getting the vast majority of their ships. There could be a couple skills in the Industry aptitude revolving around this.

41

Suggestions / Orderly Retreat

« on: January 17, 2017, 01:38:47 AM »

This is way simpler than the last suggestion I posted.
Simply put, Orderly Retreat would be similar to full retreat, in that all ships are ordered to retreat. However in this case, rather than the entire fleet retreating at once, they would retreat in order of damage/CR vs. speed. So, the fastest, least degraded and damaged ships will screen for and provide cover to the slower and more damaged ships to retreat.
Don't think there's much more explanation needed than that.

42

Suggestions / Combat Readiness Overhaul - Crew morale & Management

« on: January 17, 2017, 01:08:01 AM »

This is an extension of a post I made in another thread about CR.

Currently, Combat Readiness encompasses both how well the ships' systems are maintained, and the ability of their crews to maintain them. Thos is currently simulated with a flat timer, which in turn degrades Combat Readiness upon expiring, eventually leading to malfunctions.

The reason I see this as an issue is this is a poor emulation of the factors that actually feed into the effectiveness of any team in carrying out their respective tasks. Of course, spending any length of time in combat is going to be stressful, but the degree to which it is stressful, and to what degree that stress affects performance, will change throughout the course of any action and is based on innumerable factors.

The proposal is to separate Crew Morale from Combat Readiness, and make Combat Readiness a dynamic factor in combat, rather than a constantly degrading variable. This would result in CR being simply an aggregate of the following factors, and more than anything else, define the performance of, and chance of malfunctions on a given ship.

Let me preface this by saying I'm well aware of how game-changing this'd be, not to mention the effort it'd take to create or that there may be technical constraints making much of this unfeasible. This is just how it'd ideally go in my eyes, and as I've said before, ideas come cheap, so why not throw it out here?

So, without further ado, I'll break it down.

Crew Morale is defined by:
Crew Veterancy*
Crew Numbers ("Many hands make light work")
Officer Veterancy
Leadership Skills
Supply/Fuel status
Equipment (Eg. (D) ships have a negative effect)
Fleet Size
Time spent travelling without docking
Recent victories/losses

Crew Morale is affected in combat by events within combat, AKA Combat Stressors:
Incoming/outgoing fire
Maneuvering
Flux overloading
Hull Damage
Crew Deaths
Enemy vs Friendly fleet composition (Incl. Ship destruction/retreat)
Enemy fleet disposition (Ie Unprovoked attacks on neutral fleets would reduce morale)

Crew Morale defines Combat Performance (AkA CR), ie:
Speed of combat repairs
Weapon Fire Rate/Reload speed
Auto-fire weapon accuracy (Leading)
Maneuverability
Malfunction Chance

Combat Performance is affected in equal measure by Morale factors, and hull damage.
Furthermore, a fleet's overall Combat Performance will determine its likelihood of retreating or attempting to disengage to begin with

*Plainly, the morale of veteran crew members will be affected less by any factor, positive or negative. A green crew member on his first mission would be much more emboldened by the destruction of an enemy ship, for example, than the dusty old bastard who's seen it a million times before. In essence, the greener the crew, the more malleable their morale.

So, let's go with an example.

Your sizeable fleet's crew has high morale, as you're collectively well supplied, experienced and equipped, and have many ships in the fleet. They feel as though they can't be easily defeated, especially off the back of destroying several pirate fleets.
You enter an engagement with a slightly weaker enemy fleet. They have less, worse ships than your fleet, so your crew's morale is unaffected - The enemy fleet's green crews however are *** themselves - inexperienced and panicking, some of their ships already suffer the odd malfunction simply jockeying for position.

During the opening engagement of the battle, your ship is hit by a torpedo. This immediately kills some crew members, but since your crew are veterans of countless battles, this doesn't phase them too much - there is additional stress on the ship's systems however, due to the mere fact that there are less members to perform tasks. Malfunction chance increases slightly (On top of the large increase caused by severe hull damage), as does the time it will take to repair those malfunctions. More than enough crew remain at high enough morale to keep the ship functioning optimally however, so engine speed, weapon and flux efficiency are unaffected.
In turn, you destroy the frigate that fired the torpedo. All your fleet's crew gains a slight morale boost, but it is very slight as again, they're all veterans who've seen it all before. Furthermore, it is only the one ship out of the 30 fielded by the enemy in this battle.

It drags on for much longer than anticipated. After your fleet suffers a few losses of its own, the enemies are emboldened, gaining them some morale, while your ship and its crew have been slugging it out for a long time, with their morale diminished as they and the ship are pushed to their limits. You opt to pull away from the line, giving the crew some time to recover, during the course of which a further pair of enemy ships are destroyed.
After a minute, you join back in and help destroy the enemy's flagship. This breaks the enemy's morale and they retreat.

Fleetwide, the effect this battle had on morale is mixed. It was a protracted engagement which ultimately resulted in victory, but not a crushing one and losses were suffered. However after some time, morale returns to roughly the state it was in beforehand, as the factors that defined it at the start are more or less the same - You still have a large, well equipped and experienced force who are in good supply.

The bottom line is this would increase the risk/reward factor of both conservative and aggressive strategies, as well as lead to a more natural development of battles. In essence, your performance in a battle will define your ability to continue performing in a battle, rather than being forced to disengage because an arbitrary timer expired.

It'd also give utility to items like domestic/luxury goods and recreational drugs. The former are amenities that your crew could do without, but would probably prefer to have. The latter could be used for a short-term morale boost at the expense of degrading it over a long time.

43

Suggestions / AI-controlled omni-shields

« on: June 26, 2016, 12:01:24 PM »

This'll be my shortest post yet! I find omni-shields difficult to use; Unlike the AI, we're unable to orient the shield in a different direction to the one in which we're pointing our guns. Having a control to hand off... control of the shield's orientation to the AI would be a godsend. It could also be a hullmod but I'm torn on that idea.

44

Suggestions / Subsystems: Hull mods, ship systems, shields, sensors & comms

« on: June 26, 2016, 10:56:34 AM »

Another (relatively) short one: Communications, sensors and certain hullmods which add functionality (Eg. Dedicated targeting core) would be subject to malfunctions and disability in the same way as engines and weapons.
If communications are disabled, no orders can be given to that ship until they're back online - furthermore, any ship that can only be "seen" by one with disabled comms would not be shared with the rest of the team (ie player). If the player's ship's comms are disabled, it would prevent giving orders to any other ship.

When sensors are disabled, the afflicted ship is unable to target enemy ships, nor can it reveal enemies on the command map, ie use its sensors.

Shields is an iffy one, potentially messing with game balance a bit too much. It'd probably have to have an extremely low chance of being disabled, or repaired relatively quick.

Ship systems (ie phase skimmer/cloak, accelerated ammo feeder etc) is equally iffy, and would probably require delicate balancing for each.

As for hull mods, it's hard to list which ones would really fit with this. DTC/ITU, Advanced Optics, ECCM are the only ones I think would be logical.

All this would go towards making EMP weapons much more dangerous, mind, as well as combat in general and low CR.

45

Suggestions / Fighter movement

« on: June 26, 2016, 02:43:12 AM »

Not going to go too into detail with this one. I just don't feel fighters act naturally, part of the reason being that they can turn on the spot, reverse and strafe as every other ship can. The suggestion is this: Prevent them from strafing, reduce their turn speeds and only allow them to turn while moving forward. This should make their attacks appear more "dynamic" rather than just swarming around a target or staying at stand-off range until moving in to engage.