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106

Bug Reports & Support (modded) / Re: [Important!] Modded System Requirements

« on: February 27, 2018, 11:59:45 AM »

Hm. The next resort is to ensure "show all file extensions" is turned on and rename the file to remove the extension (ignoring the dire warnings about changing extensions).

107

General Discussion / Re: Your opinion for best ballistic weapon

« on: February 22, 2018, 10:29:34 AM »

Been fighting a lot of enforcers lately--it is amazing what an HIL or two can do for you.

108

Blog Posts / Re: Blueprints, Doctrine, and Production

« on: February 20, 2018, 04:16:50 PM »

My biggest reason for not playing D-mod heavy is that Degraded Engines seems very common (almost every black-market D ship I have seen, and the majority of recovered ships), and it is a killer--the burn level reduction means that it is very awkward on ships not already above your target fleet burn level (requiring Augmented Drive Field), and the combat speed reduction is a big issue on many ships.

Is it actually that big a deal? I keep feeling like an extra level of burn here and there doesn't matter quite as much as I see players expressing they feel it does.

I mean, Sustained Burn and E-Burn almost qualitatively override it, and especially if AI fleets are also dealing with degraded engines in many of their fleets...

Granted, I have not been playing very long, but in my limited experience: emergency burn frequently cancels out--it can help catch or avoid a faster fleet if you catch them with it on cooldown, but in general I cannot reliably catch a fleet without a speed advantage or escape at a speed disadvantage. If you are hunting Luddic mining fleets, dropping a burn level is not a big deal; with a newish career trying to avoid fast destroyer fleets, dropping to 8 from picking up a destroyer with degraded engines definitely makes a difference.

Sustained burn (especially with the skill boost) does negate the travel-speed disadvantage, so if you never want to initiate combat and are strong enough to fight whomever catches you (plausible for mid/late game exploring) I agree it is not much of an issue.

109

Blog Posts / Re: Blueprints, Doctrine, and Production

« on: February 20, 2018, 11:44:24 AM »

My biggest reason for not playing D-mod heavy is that Degraded Engines seems very common (almost every black-market D ship I have seen, and the majority of recovered ships), and it is a killer--the burn level reduction means that it is very awkward on ships not already above your target fleet burn level (requiring Augmented Drive Field), and the combat speed reduction is a big issue on many ships.

110

Suggestions / Re: An idea for armor

« on: February 15, 2018, 02:15:37 PM »

I think high-tech should rarely have range--high-tech tends not to have large (relative to ship size, e.g. mediums on a frigate) ballistic or hybrid mounts, and ballistics normally have longer range than non-beam energy. This is important to balance--combining a speed advantage and hard-flux range advantage would allow kiting. But vanilla and well-balanced mods do not give that option.

Granted, having no shields at all is a critical vulnerability--without excellent PD you get toasted by MRMs, and even with excellent PD you are vulnerable to beams. But I cannot think of a serious low-tech combat ship with no shields, just improvised combat freighters.

To me, the difference is that as a player I expect to win battles, and so "difficulty" usually means not "how hard is it for me to win" but "how quickly/easily can I kill everything". In my hands, at least, low-tech is very powerful against an aggressive opponent but is often frustrating as faster opponents often just kite. I find it harder to keep the upper hand with ships in the high-tech style (fast, energy or DME's short-ranged ballistics) but less frustrating because I control pace.

111

Blog Posts / Re: Blueprints, Doctrine, and Production

« on: February 14, 2018, 10:23:59 AM »

For example:
Warships > Phase ships > Carriers > Warships.
Officer quality > Ship quality > More ships > Ship size > Officer quality.
Low tech > Midline > High tech > Low tech.

When 2 fleets auto resolve, it would tune the results to favor that relations graph above based upon ships present in fleet. (This could also be used in deciding war results between factions by simply comparing doctrines and tech type +possible modifiers players may or may not have ability to affect).

I'd rather have them auto-resolved as closely as possible to what actually fighting it out would produce. Last thing we need is auto-resolve that is wrong-by-design.
Disconnect between auto and happens when you join a fight would be totally immersion breaking. Like potential situation where your patrol is wiped by auto, but can easily win same fight if you just join and sit in the corner.

Would also lead to outfitting fleets in all kinds of weird ways (as long as I max out abstract bars that win over competition it does not matter that resulting fleet can't do anything in a real fight). So it becomes a question of how to get bars into position at minimum cost (if costs are involved at all).

Aye. Not to mention that RPS tends to be a terrible mechanic unless both sides have access to most or all of the options and some power to influence which matchups actually fight. For fleet composition, where all a side's fleets share strengths and weaknesses, I see this as either a slightly tedious "I win" mechanic for the player (if the AI never adjusts fleet composition, so the player just needs to adjust to whomever he is fighting at the time) or a source of endless frustration (if the AI does adjust to counter, requiring a constant cycle of updates).

112

Suggestions / Re: Flag captains

« on: February 13, 2018, 04:26:42 PM »

Nevermind, did not search well enough before posting: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12176.msg206956#msg206956. This can probably be closed (I cannot delete it myself).

113

Suggestions / Flag captains

« on: February 13, 2018, 04:21:47 PM »

I have been having similar frustrations with skills to those I have seen others talking about--I feel compelled to spend my points on fleet skills, and then find that I am sometimes best off delegating command of my highest-impact ships to officers with skills to get more out of them. (Particularly likely if your best ships are carriers.)

I propose allowing players to assign an AI officer to their flagship as "flag captain", providing his bonuses (and possibly his personality to autopilot behavior), and allowing the player to take campaign skills and still pilot whichever ship he prefers.

The big negative I can see is that it makes taking combat skills on the PC himself even less attractive (although not completely pointless, as using a flag captain uses an officer who could also be piloting his own ship).

114

Mods / Re: [0.8.1a] Shadowyards Reconstruction Authority 0.6.4b

« on: February 12, 2018, 09:37:55 PM »

Another balance nitpick: the Sargasso is essentially a better, cheaper Condor--both have a maintenance cost of 8, but the Sargasso has a deployment cost of 8 rather than 10, and 1.45 fuel use rather than 2. Meanwhile, I think the Sargasso is far more dangerous: 80 OP vs. 45 is huge for fitting expensive drones and hull mods, and 70 vs. 45 top speed gives the Sargasso much greater tactical flexibility. The Sargasso is substantially more fragile, but I find that rarely matters for a carrier--neither is really suited for close engagement, and I think the Sargasso's superior speed and shield more than compensate.

I do not think the ship itself is OP (although 80 OP is a lot for a fast carrier)--I think it is no better than the Drover, and worse in several respects. However, its cost of 8 should put it in the bottom-tier of destroyers, and I think its capabilities put it near the top. I would argue for either bumping its costs up to ~11, severely reducing its capabilities (if leaving both fighter bays untouched, something like dropping it down to 40-50 OP and downgrading the medium mount), or some compromise between the two.