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16

Suggestions / Re: NPC fleets "taking" missions outside the core

« on: November 10, 2020, 10:07:44 PM »

Running into fleets that are going after the same objective as you, and the decision of whether to fight them over it would be cool. But a lot of the time going after bounties, probes etc is trying to locate the system and target - it could potentially lead to the AI snipping objectives well before the player's found the system and could be very frustrating. For it to be "fair" the AI would have to search themselves, but that's a lot of routines and resources to dedicate to something the player might not even engage with, and probably still be frustrating for the same reason.
 I like it in spirit, but I think implementation could be abstracted with scenarios, eg. you approach a probe and get a blurb about how some scavengers ran and went dark as you approached, and decide to ambush you after you've fought any automated defences. Alternatively if the player fleet severely outmatches them, it's a standard enemy-disengagement battle/option, their (and player's) transponder status and faction could also be variable factors.

17

Suggestions / Weapon group modes - Fire vs Select

« on: November 04, 2020, 04:50:35 AM »

An optional mode, allowing the player to fire a given weapon group by pressing its corresponding control(s). This is my preference for Mechwarrior games, as opposed to swapping between the groups then firing them individually, and I think the same would be true of Starsector. It feels faster and allows for simultaneous manual-fire of multiple weapons groups.
 

18

Suggestions / Re: Smaller fighters and friendly weapons bypass

« on: August 27, 2020, 11:33:57 AM »

Your points are kinda contradicting each other. You want the ships to have an easier time vs fighters but at the same time you want to make them smaller. Which isn't just a cosmetic change as you said, it's a balance one too, and a big one. The whole point of fighters having current size is so they can be hit with ship weapons easily. If they were smaller only beams would be able to hit them, or you'd need to rebalance every single weapon in the game which isn't happening.

They're not mutually exclusive.
I find Fighters' size too large too, since they can easily block missiles and heavy munitions not meant for them, often enough for it to be frustrating. Making them smaller makes them harder to hit, yes, but it also makes them less of an obstacle in firing at full-size ships. Depending on the degree of size reduction, this could balance out the suggested PD friendly-ship bypass and what I'm about to add.
A balance pass will need to be done at some point prior to full release, and it might be worth the effort if it mitigates the effectiveness of fighter swarms without nerfing them into oblivion. It also addresses the disbelievability of fighters attacking targets from behind another, yet the target not being able to hit back for risk of FF or otherwise wasting shots on wrecks, terrain etc.

With fighters vs full-size ships, I'd like further changes on top of those suggested in OP:
 Projectiles from large weapons punch-through fighters, dealing the projectile's full damage to the fighter but continuing on to hit what was behind.
IPDAI allows Medium weapons to bypass friendly ships when targeting fighters
Fighters deal reduced damage to full-size ships except dedicated anti-"capital" weapons - Ie. bombs, torpedoes and gunship "primary" armaments.

19

Suggestions / Re: Indicate overload duration with flux bar

« on: August 25, 2020, 03:34:59 AM »

This would be great

20

Suggestions / Re: Make fleets great again! (introducing ship class limits)

« on: August 25, 2020, 03:21:49 AM »

I agree that the distribution of ship classes amongst fleets is very top-heavy, but I don't believe arbitrary restrictions on the number of ships of each weight class is the way to go about addressing it.

In my opinion, Frigates, and maybe to a lesser degree Destroyers, need something extra to keep them not only viable but attractive up til end-game and help them stay competetive with the big bois.

For example, frigates and destroyers are almost universally able to replenish some CR and maybe some armour once per battle by temporarily retreating off-map - this could be enhanced by support ships with a specific hullmod. Or maybe this applies to all ships, just Frigates and Destroyers get exponentially more value out of it and take much less time to complete a mid-battle pit-stop - their speed is an inherent advantage in this regard.
But that's just one example off the top of my head, there are other ways to give especially Frigates more utility in combat without compromising how they fit into it directly.

I had another thought - How about giving larger ships less PPT instead of more (CR degradation unchanged)? = Frigates have longest PPT and potential for conserving CR, while captials still have the greatest overall length of CR to burn through?

21

Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] ScalarTech Solutions 0.2 - Now with some extra polish

« on: August 09, 2020, 02:56:44 PM »

Very cool designs, looking forwards to trying it out when I next play SS

22

Suggestions / Re: More Radio Chatter

« on: August 03, 2020, 04:07:52 AM »

I think it could work well as an audio-cue for close-by fleets. Different tones/types of chatter could be used to indicate their disposition, ie attacking/neutral/fleeing, whether they're running dark, transponder off etc. Alternatively or in addition, different factions could have their own chatter-type to further characterise them.

23

Suggestions / Re: Mid-End game threat of the galaxy: The Scorn

« on: July 31, 2020, 05:23:55 AM »

Love the concept. Infested tech and bio-ships are cool as ***. A lot of overhead on content creation, but would love to see it. And yeah, a "bigger threat" universal to all the in-game factions is a good way to keep escalating the action when NPCs can no longer pose a threat to the player.

The Scorn worlds could be retaken if successfuly invaded; it could function sorta like tech-mining, but requiring a large flow of pretty much every resource, to the point of being guaranteed unprofitable, barely sustainable until the clean-up is finished. A planet's resources would be reduced over time depending on how long it's been infested. This would allow the human factions to come back from the brink, with some effort, otherwise it'd probably be unwinnable and just a matter of how long you can defend the last few colonies.

24

Suggestions / More mount types

« on: June 01, 2020, 10:49:04 PM »

Weapon-mounts that imbue the mounted weapon with a given property or effect - some of these effects could be those of a weapon-related hullmod, or otherwise change its stats/behaviour.
The more interesting examples I can think of:
EMP-damage - Converts 5% of weapon's damage into EMP.
Ammo Reserve - Weapons mounted will have double missiles/charges/expanded magazines.
Twin-Link - The weapon is duplicated in an underside mount, increasing its OP-cost by 50% but reducing the weapons' flux/second by 33%.

25

Suggestions / Enemy AI fleets and retreating

« on: May 31, 2020, 12:33:59 AM »

Currently, enemy fleets will only ever retreat when the majority of their forces are wiped - essentially a rout.
I think it'd be not only more believable but also more forgiving at times, if NPC fleets were capable of recognising when a battle is in danger of being too costly for them.

 Say for example you're in a small fleet with a couple destroyers and a few frigates, and get caught by a large fleet. You manage to take out the majority of their frigates, a few destroyers and start eating into a capital or two. At this point, not all fleet captains and not all ship crews would realistically be willing to continue, even if they ultimately maintained an advantage.

Depending on the dispositions of both fleets, they may retreat off-map and re-deploy to regain initiative, or simply decide to cut their losses and fully disengage - giving the player the option of fighting a pursuit battle against them, and the chance to recover ships lost in a defensive fight.

This could be influenced by faction, the fleet's objective (ie. why are they fighting you), officers/personality/experience, whether you're in a system they have a market in or whether you're out in the middle of nowhere; the rapidity of enemy ships' destruction and their crew complements, remaining ships' CR - and more, probably.

In other words, players would more often be able to come out on top as the underdog in a given battle, depending on its context. It would result in situations where you might have taken heavy losses of your own but your fleet ultimately survived and recovered some of those casualties, without having necessarily won the battle decisively, or chosen to flee and fight a disengagement battle.
 Depending on the campaign situation, it might only amount to breathing room or it could be the chance to slip away - but the aim is to help reduce the incidence of situations where the player is so heavily outgunned that they can't "clean"-disengage without major losses, regardless of how much effort they put in.

I guess it's also another way of loosely simulating not only fleet-wide morale, but also the enemy's logistical and strategic concerns - to them, after losing so many ships, is wiping your fleet worth how many more you'll take with you?

26

Suggestions / Light Armour Hullmod

« on: May 30, 2020, 11:23:09 PM »

Speed/acceleration/maneuverability bonus for armour malus.

27

Suggestions / Ship Livery Editor

« on: May 30, 2020, 11:20:56 PM »

In its most basic form, the ability to change a sprite's hue and saturation on-the-fly. In other words, a simple in-game skin editor.
This would allow players to give their fleet/faction's ships their own more consistent identity, distinct from the rest of the sector.
Advanced functionality could include application of decals, and the ability to change engine trail colours. In theory it could even include kitbash bits, but that's probably too ambitious.
These custom sprites would be applicable to individual ships via the refit menu, and to Custom Production/Fleet Doctrine hull blueprints, and would be accessible across saves.

28

General Discussion / Re: Yet another fighter balance post

« on: May 29, 2020, 06:40:10 PM »

Posting in a fighters thread
I want to reiterate what I think might help balance fighters out and generally improve their effect on gameplay.
1) Only bomber primary weapons do 100% damage against full-size ships. Other fighter classes do roughly 25%, more for gunships. EMP weapons only have 10% effectiveness vs full-size, unless it's a bomber's primary weapon.
In other words, full-size ships should be able to largely ignore all but the strongest fighters/gunships unless they're severely damaged or very close to overload - while bombers retain the same threat level.

2) Reduce fighters' health/armor to the point that most 5OP+ ballistic/energy weapons can two-shot most of them, with some generally more resilient. Give them a probability of dodging hits. This would largely be an aesthetic change, it makes little visual sense for tiny fighters to stand up to as much fire as they can. The practical volume of fire required to kill them would be roughly the same, but it gives them a bonus against heavy single-shot weapons that aren't intended for combating fighters; It also means that fighters would less often block a high-power shot meant for a full-size target which is often frustrating.

3) Weapons targeting fighters (and missiles) can fire over friendly ships - maybe only for PD weapons/small weapons with IPDAI or small weapons in general. Fighters are more likely to take fire from multiple sources, PD-heavy ships can do a better job of covering their wingmates.

4) Fighters must dock to replenish their wing. Instead of steadily trickling out and being a near-constant annoyance, fighters can be more easily suppressed by whittling their numbers - Attacking in waves rather than maintaining a relatively consistent presence.

5) Tie replacement rate to carrier's CR - Replacing fighters diminishes the carrier's CR. Not too sure on this one.

29

Suggestions / Re: Crippling ships

« on: May 29, 2020, 05:34:22 PM »

Something that seems better than this that also works and is in the same vein.

When a ship retreats from the battlefield if that side loses the battle it can be in the recovered ships based on a percentage of its hull/CR left. Ships with less hull/CR would more likely to be recovered after a battle. When a player retreats from a battle they would have the option of of leaving ships behind in order to delay/prevent getting attacked.

The reason that this is better is that it doesn't require any more AI logic but still has the same effect in combat and strategy. Players want to retreat ships when they take hull damage anyway. It also has a bonus effect of not requiring the player destroy every ship they come in contact with if they want to have a chance a taking it.

I get what you're saying, but the main point is to give the player more insurance against losing ships completely. A situation I encounter often is ships still being killed by stray shots or a persistent fighter wing after making it half of the way to the retreat zone - In situations like this it'd give the ship an extra window to ultimately escape, but not without consequence on the campaign layer - right now it's a binary yes, it survived or no, diceroll for recovery; instead, your ships potentially escape with a d-mod or two as opposed to their recovery being solely determined by chance. Crippling or destroying the ship is still a victory for the enemy and loss for the player in the immediacy of battle, as crippling it renders it a non-threat and forces it off the playing-field.

As to AI, I doubt it's a particularly complex thing in that regard; they'd essentially behave as mothballed ships do, going straight for the retreat zone.

Moreover, I think it'd just be cool to see burning ships just barely limping away from the moshpits. The crippling of a ship would have to entail some explosions rippling across it.

30

Suggestions / Re: Crippling ships

« on: May 29, 2020, 05:11:21 PM »

Hmmm I think this really depends on the specifics and on the AI. Do you recover ships if you lose the battle? Will the AI keep shooting at the enemy 'hulks' that are slowly powering away? Would "overkilled" ships have lower recovery chances and more D mods than the current state, where a skilled player has a good chance of recovering their ships with minimal mods?

A lot of the time when allied ships die they are either overwhelmed or far enough away that I couldn't tell allies to go help anyways, so the hulk wouldn't survive long before exploding again and being put down for real, if the AI targets them. OTOH, if the AI is also "playing" at recovering enemy ships, then they'd have no reason to shoot hulks... same as the player really.

All good questions, some of which I thought to myself. As I envision it:

Do you recover ships if you lose the battle?

I'm torn. I think if you're fully wiped, you're fully wiped - those crippled ships that escaped the battle would be easy prey for the fleet(s) that you lost against. If you clean disengage, it wouldn't be unreasonable. In a disengagement battle they'd essentially be mothballed.
As for recovering enemy ships, it'd work the same as current. We can say their surviving crew scuttle the ship and the rest is left to RNG. That said, I can see the other side of it too, enabling the player more opportunities to gain rarer ships through salvage.

Would "overkilled" ships have lower recovery chances and more D mods than the current state

Yes and no, respectively. A diceroll for one D-mod extra, but recovery chances unchanged. Successfuly-retreated crippled ships would be guaranteed recoverable.

where a skilled player has a good chance of recovering their ships with minimal mods?

I don't have an answer I'm certain of, but the idea is to make the player more able to absorb casualties in battle, without necessarily being buggered for the campaign - particularly with regards to rare/unique ships. I think it'd make ironman gameplay a lot more attractive. So I'd err on the side of caution and say the recovery rate for destroyed ships remains the same.

Will the AI keep shooting at the enemy 'hulks' that are slowly powering away?

Yes, but will prioritise "live" enemy ships in range. I also see the benefit of having enemies ignore them completely, intending to salvage them for their own purposes, but I think there still needs to be a decent risk of their destruction.
I was thinking a crippled ship could have a chance of keeping a few weapons operational, PD especially.
Regarding the manner in which ships tend to die, that's something of an issue of its own - but this is an edge-case sort of thing. If those ships that are cut-off do die, there's still the chance of post-battle recovery.

There's also the question of whether crippled ships must be "recovered" post-battle, or go straight back into your fleet. I think the former would make most sense, incurring the supply cost, but the latter would be most convenient.