Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

16

Suggestions / Re: High Flux Increases Phase Cooldown

« on: May 05, 2021, 12:33:43 PM »

I did a bunch of other tests with the first mod with me piloting and missed the follow-up posts, but they just further confirmed that the first change was too much.

Reduced base phase cooldown from 2 to 1.5
Reduced max mult from 10 to 4 (6 seconds)
Reduced base from 2 to 1.01 (reduces the mult more when flux is low)
Changed flux percent mult to only consider hard flux

This feels better to play without skills, I think making it depend on hard flux only is mandatory, otherwise energy weapons are practically unusable. Keeping the maximum time down to 6 seconds or so is much better as well, it gets rid of the awful feeling from the first version that the right mouse button was basically a "give yourself an overload" button. In the AI's hands the doom can now beat some cruisers 1v1 (it can beat a fury and an eagle, though it usually loses to a champion or an aurora), and it usually loses to an astral (Alex wanted it to be able to beat an astral as a matter of balance last version, though things have changed). It also no longer dies quickly in fleet battles. So currently it is probably not worth 35 DP in the AI's hands, but it's not useless. I tried it with skills and smods and it's still incredibly strong. The phase cooldown just isn't the reason that it's so strong this version, the issue is skills. I do think that a relatively minor change to phase cooldown as above is a neat idea, and I like the idea of the cooldown being very fast at very low flux, but I don't think it's the right lever to balance the doom.


So much of the doom's current feeling of invincibility comes from the incredible speed that come from phase mastery. Mine strike also regens too fast, especially with systems expertise, but these things are easily changed. I don't think anything more extreme needs to be done than something like:

- some small change to phase cooldown like above that punishes phase ships for having high hard flux
- remove phase mastery or significantly reduce the phase mastery bonuses, maybe something like flat +30 speed and -20% phase cooldown
- cut the mine strike regen rate by 50% and charges to 3 or 4
- remove the range bonus from systems expertise

I think those changes would go a long way towards making the doom feel less silly, while letting it still be one of the best ships in the game (which I think it should be).

I also want to point out I don't really like Alex's idea of making phase ships into armor tanks, armor tanking with them just makes them feel like low-tech ships and reduces the gameplay variety. Phase ships should feel very different to play imo, and when I was armor tanking with them it felt just like armor tanking with a dominator or onslaught except flicking the phase to avoid torpedoes instead of flicking the shields.

17

Suggestions / Re: High Flux Increases Phase Cooldown

« on: May 05, 2021, 08:53:45 AM »

It seems to make phase ships into pushovers against fast ships or anything with torpedoes. With unskilled ships piloted by the AI in the simulator, a fury trivially beats a doom and so does 2 medusas, (its performance against hammerheads is similar, with 3 hammerheads winning in either case and 2 having a better chance with the mod) without the mod the doom wins both fights easily. In a fleet setting it's harder to measure, but with a little playing around in fleets I suspect that the problem would be even more significant. If a phase ship unphases with any flux at all near other ships, it is simply to easy a target for missiles and torpedoes. For example, I just did a small 120 DP midline vs hightech fleet, and the doom was the very first ship that died because it got smoked by a couple wings of khopeshes and there was nothing it could do.

If I'm the one piloting, it feels way too easy, even without skills. I can kill a doom in an unskilled medusa, in a fury it's a joke. When there are multiple ships around, it's even more of a joke. It just can't do anything about you hitting it with torpedoes. If a phase ship gets to even ~30% flux, it's dead. I didn't try piloting the phase ships myself too much but I can't imagine it not feeling bad to be unable to let your flux get high at all. I did try an afflictor a little and it's terrible, you can't use antimatter blasters at all.

I've said it a couple of times before, but I think one of the best changes in the game in 0.9 was the buffing of the doom and the addition of the radiant. Having those two incredibly strong ships means I have to be careful in battles against them. With this change, I know for sure I'd no longer worry about dooms at all, just more cannon fodder to mindlessly blow up. IMO it's an awful change that makes the game less challenging and less fun.

Edit: I just went back to the game and I was wrong about the doom dying first; it actually died second, after the shade lol.

18

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: May 03, 2021, 03:18:43 PM »

The only thing I have not done yet is develop a contact to spawn Tesseract bounties (for their weapons), but I do not feel like grinding for that.

I think this bounty only spawns once anyway, or at least that has been my experience and some people on discord agreed.

I think it's a little unfortunate and you should be able to do it multiple times, although I assume we're going to be seeing more of them at some point through some different mechanic.

19

Suggestions / Re: High Flux Increases Phase Cooldown

« on: May 03, 2021, 10:37:36 AM »

I agree that changing skills and systems - specifically phase mastery, systems expertise, mine strike and quantum disruptor - should be the approach, and I don't understand the appeal of nerfing anything good so hard that it becomes weak. The game is much better with the doom as a powerful ship than it was with the doom being useless prior to 0.9.

A small increase to phase cooldown as flux increases seems reasonable, but giving a 10-20 second cooldown as suggested is just outrageous. Do you really think the AI would be able to handle that? Phase ships would either be complete jokes that die the first time they unphased in every battle, or they'd be complete cowards unwilling to ever commit to an attack and just run away until they run out of PPT or retreat. Either way the game gets noticeably worse.

20

Suggestions / Re: Return building in SO with cost of 2 story points.

« on: April 29, 2021, 06:32:03 PM »

I will say there's one annoying thing about the current state of SO, which is that because the +10% OP skill was removed, even though ships have a lot more OP overall for hull mods, some ships now have a hard time fitting in SO + weapons + vents. So if you look at a SO dominator for example, while it's great that you can build in heavy armor and expanded missile racks, if you try to fit in high OP weapons - like storm needlers, which sucks because SO dominator was pretty much the only use for this gun in the game - then you don't have enough space to put in enough vents to make the SO worth it! I used to like a 2 storm needler 2 assault chaingun SO dominator but now I have to use Mark IXs instead.

This issue (which is not really a big deal) would be solved by making SO able to be built-in for 2 slots (which I like), or making story points give OP (which I kind of don't like because it gives the ships less individual character).

I would prefer an alternative system where hull mods take up their own slots, and hull mod slots are available on a case-by-case basis but generally with low-tech favoring lots of hull mod slots, and high tech favoring very few.

So for example, a low tech ship may have 6 slots to work with, a midtech may have 4, and a high tech may have 2.
Rather than paying an OP price for each hull mod, you can just put whatever hull mod you want.

I think this is a neat idea that partially deals with what I perceive as a growing difference in power between high-tech and low-tech, but it feels like such a big change, it would require completely rebalancing all the hull mods which is a lot to ask.

21

Suggestions / Re: More restraints on s-mods for more interesting usage

« on: April 15, 2021, 09:08:59 PM »

As for combat ship hull mods, I'm willing to bet the 90% most common hull mods come from a list of 14 or less - and thus we've already got ~50% hull mod diversity (your list of 6 + hardened subsystems).  You'd simply be pushing it to the other 7 or so other common combat hull mods.  I feel like the screen shot listing hull mods is very misleading in terms of "viable" hull mods.  I don't care if I can make it free, I'm not going to throw Additional Berthing or Surveying Equipment on a combat ship.  A number are straight up not possible (Militarized Subsystem, Makeshift shield generator, Escort Package, Assault Package, Converted Fighter bay) on typical combat ships either.

As an example, if I want my Paragon to have Hardened Shields, Stabilized Shields, Heavy Armor, Auxiliary Thrusters, Integrated Point Defense, and you tell me Hardened Shields and Heavy Armor are no go, I'll just apply it to two of the others.  Build is still the same, I'm just short 25 OP when comparing builds.  Guess I have 25 less capacitors on that particular Paragon.  Ship flies basically the same either way.

If you really cut down on the value of the OP saved per story point, I think the it is possible that less common hull mods are less likely to show up on ships at all, not more, since overall OP will be tighter, and so you ensure you have the critical needs first.

I agree completely with your whole post, I don't see how this change has any effect at all on how I make ships, other than to reduce the OP I have to work with. The variety of smods I use now is pretty much the same as the variety of mods I used in 0.9.1. If I wasn't using any of those mods before, why would I start using them now? I'd even go further than what you said about not building in logistic hull mods like additional berthing into a combat hull: I'm not going to waste a story point putting advanced turret gyros or automated repair unit or other incredibly marginal mods in a ship just because it's "free". If you want me to use those mods, they don't need to become cheaper, they need to be changed to be worth using. The reason people started using heavy armor this patch isn't just because of story points, it's also because the mod got a significant buff.

22

Modding / Re: Asking Alex for modding FEATURES too minor to warrant their own thread

« on: April 15, 2021, 02:58:06 PM »

An easy way to make it so that weapons are drawn under the ship sprite, so that you don't have to mess around with decorative weapons to do underslung guns. I think Alex made a tag in the .ship file to draw the engine glow under the ship, so something like that?

23

Suggestions / Re: Double the hypershunt tap range

« on: April 12, 2021, 03:48:09 PM »

I definitely get the impressions the coronal hypershunt is a teaser about the next update more than something intended to be used in this one.

Spoiler

and it has made me super excited! I just hope it doesn't take 2 years[/spoilers]

[close]

24

Suggestions / Re: Max out rep with low-importance contact -> get a new higher-level contact.

« on: April 11, 2021, 05:10:54 PM »

Alternatively, maybe there could be some way to upgrade an existing contact's importance, maybe by pulling off some really impressive job for them that advances their interests, or taking out a rival (especially for underworld contacts), etc.

I like this idea, it makes contacts less disposable, and you can imagine it fitting in with the faction questlines that have been mentioned as being maybe planned.

25

Suggestions / Re: SO nerf/rebalance

« on: April 11, 2021, 08:50:56 AM »

I've always been a safety override fan but if you want to nerf it you could always just make adding a story just give 10 ordinance point or something instead of giving a free hull mod because most of complaints seem to stem from making the most of building in hullmods to the most expensive option. Maybe 40 op to frigates, 30 to destroyers, 20 to cruisers and 10 to capitals or something

This is an interesting idea, and it definitely deals with the issue. One thing to note is that unlike the above idea of a separate built-in hullmod OP limit, this does remove one of the current downsides, which is that you're stuck with your choices. On the other hand, this feels like it's much better from a UI perspective, the built-in-hullmod-OP idea feels like it would be very awkward to implement.

26

Suggestions / Re: Phase ships

« on: April 11, 2021, 08:32:19 AM »

 

Doom was awful when it had Fast Missile Racks and when phase had no time shift.  (No time shift and no cooldown worked great on the frigates; they were ghost assault tanks the AI could use.)  Then in earlier 0.9 releases Doom hits like a capital, while having much less PPT and durability (if it took hits).  It was great as a 35 DP ship that is almost as costly as a capital.  If I pay that much, it better perform like a capital, and it delivered as advertised.  Even better, the AI could use it competently, unlike other phase ships at the time.

I agree, I thought the doom was trash right up until the mine system. It was way too slow and nowhere near worth its cost. I'm pretty sure everyone else did too which is why it kept getting buffed. Now I think it's fantastic. I actually never played a game where I piloted it in 0.9, but it was my favorite ship to see in an enemy fleet, it was pretty much the only ship where I knew I'd have to actually pay attention and play carefully.

In my first game in 0.95, I tried a phase ship only run (which I sort of abandoned, but still used phase ships), and spent a lot of time piloting the doom. Now I think it is one of the most fun ships both to fight against and to pilot. It's also probably the most offensively powerful ship in game, and particularly monstrous in the player's hands. I just don't see where this is a problem. Something has to be the strongest ship in the game, and I think its much better for it to be a fun, active and offensive ship like the doom over a boring beam boat like the paragon. Or do we need to nerf the paragon and radiant as well?

I thought it was a significant boost to the game when the doom was buffed and the remnant was added. The doom and the radiant are only two ships in the game* that, when I see them in the enemy fleet, I know I have to be play a little more carefully. Most of the combat in this game, at least once you've played it a bit, is just mindlessly smashing fleets that have no chance at scratching you. If the doom or radiant got nerfed, how would it make the game better to have it so I can steamroll even more enemy fleets without needing to pay attention? If anything the game needs more ships like the doom, not fewer.

*

Spoiler

other than the special spoiler ships that we'll be seeing more of in the future - and which are very fun to fight in my opinion

[close]

27

Suggestions / Re: Radical Neutrino Detector revamp

« on: April 07, 2021, 09:47:07 PM »

I have to say, I never ever use neutrino detector, and it's 100% because it uses volatiles. I just don't have enough opportunities to use it to bother carrying around volatiles all the time, so on the rare occasion I think to use it, I can't. I understand that making it use volatiles is more interesting from a fluff perspective or whatever, and I also understand that in theory, carrying around 20 volatiles all the time is trivially easy, but in actual practice I just don't, and it's a wasted game mechanic. If the goal is for me to actually use the gameplay mechanic, just make it use supplies or fuel.

Maybe I'm alone but this has been my experience since it was included in the game. 

28

Suggestions / Re: renewing merc officer contracts give no xp bonus

« on: April 07, 2021, 06:30:04 PM »

If AI does not drop s-mod ships at all, how can the player know that the enemy never used them or did use them but were removed after recovery just by playing the game?  Also (I have not tried this) but if enemy cannot drop s-mod ships, would that mean when player loses his s-mod ships in battle, his ships lose s-mods too when recovered?  If so, that would make preserving s-mod ships a frustrating experience and an obnoxious point sink (or a reload spree in my case).

I'm pretty confident the way it works is if you are recovering an enemy ship, they will not have their smods, but if you are recovering your own, they still will (plus new dmods).

29

Suggestions / Re: renewing merc officer contracts give no xp bonus

« on: April 07, 2021, 05:49:29 PM »

The player gets to build s-mods into their ships. I suppose that could be a way for top-end fleets to go, too, instead of overloading on officers quite as much. IIRC initially I didn't do that because then the player would just recover a bunch of ships with s-mods and building them in with story points would feel like a waste. But that was before s-mods were being stripped out of recovered enemy ships, so maybe that's something to revisit. In some cases it'd feel weird to have the ships be too high a quality, though... hm.

For me, I don't think it would make putting them in feel like a waste, because you're not going to pick up the perfect hull mods every time. I'd happily use some random smods for ships in my fleet, but for the ship(s) I'm flying I want to pick the exact smods myself and I'm more than happy to spend story points to do it. The advantage of being able to recover them is that as it stands, when I see a fleet full of green marks it feels like an added annoyance, if I could recover the smodded ships, it might seem like an annoyance and an opportunity.

One wrinkle is I can imagine a situation where I finally recover some ship I've been having trouble finding, and it has the wrong smods and it would actually be annoying! That would be pretty rare though.

I agree that having a bunch of ships with smods feels weird in some situations however, like if the fleet were pirates or explorarium ships.

30

Suggestions / Re: New bar missions and lack of clarity on which faction is targeted

« on: April 05, 2021, 02:41:57 PM »

I've seen this mentioned before, and I think it's a great idea. I've definitely had to quickly check to see what faction a market belongs to many times and it's a tiny bit annoying every time, this clears it up nicely.