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Modding / Re: Some fancy ships ;)
« on: January 12, 2022, 03:19:10 PM »
Oh my, I remember Ironclads from way back in the day. Nice to see you back, Okim!
Fractal Softworks Forum
- January 19, 2022, 11:50:07 AM
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Starsector 0.95.1a is out! (12/10/21); Blog post: Writing Starsector 2: Westernesse Boondoggle (01/19/22)
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General Discussion / Re: Why HE vs Armor, and Kinetic vs Shields?
« on: December 30, 2021, 01:41:59 AM »
It's more HEAT rather than HE. The Hephaestus Assault Gun also mentions "shaped charge shells", which is another term for HEAT ammunition. Also, HE is easier to say (and explain) than HEAT for people who aren't acquainted with the term.
So, if you look at tank armor vs ammunition, HEAT was the first one that started to really defeat armor. The M1 Bazooka, Panzerschreck, Panzerfaust all fired HEAT ammunition vs tanks. It was HEAT ammunition that caused a design shift in some tanks during the Cold War, where armor was almost entirely dispensed with in favor of firepower and maneuverability (see: Leopard 1). Once composite armors became widespread though, HEAT became generally less effective vs. tanks, but not any less devastating towards less well-armored targets.
Also, pretty much every missile fired today intended for anti-tank purposes uses a HEAT warhead. Missiles being missiles, they can be much larger in diameter (means better HEAT capabilities due to how the physics and mechanics work) and need a thinner case (doesn't need to survive the crushing G-force of being fired out of a barrel at the speed or sound or faster), and cannot achieve the velocity as a cannon, hence are much more suited for HEAT than kinetic penetrators.
I suppose it's worth mentioning that torpedoes tend to be nothing but gigantic bundles of high-explosive at the end of a tube containing some of the best guidance software available. No fancy HEAT, just HE. Underwater conditions tend to do that, what with buoyancy and lower velocities meaning you can make ridiculously large weapons. These things are designed to break a ship in twain through sheer force alone. One hole made using a HEAT warhead, however deep or however much damage it created, won't sink a ship. But, blowing a great big hole in the side with the force of 1000 pounds of high-explosive will. The physics wouldn't translate quite as well to space due to the lack of a medium (water vs. a vacuum), but there's no accounting for brute force through bigger torpedoes. As the saying goes, if brute force isn't working, you're not using enough.
So, if you look at tank armor vs ammunition, HEAT was the first one that started to really defeat armor. The M1 Bazooka, Panzerschreck, Panzerfaust all fired HEAT ammunition vs tanks. It was HEAT ammunition that caused a design shift in some tanks during the Cold War, where armor was almost entirely dispensed with in favor of firepower and maneuverability (see: Leopard 1). Once composite armors became widespread though, HEAT became generally less effective vs. tanks, but not any less devastating towards less well-armored targets.
Also, pretty much every missile fired today intended for anti-tank purposes uses a HEAT warhead. Missiles being missiles, they can be much larger in diameter (means better HEAT capabilities due to how the physics and mechanics work) and need a thinner case (doesn't need to survive the crushing G-force of being fired out of a barrel at the speed or sound or faster), and cannot achieve the velocity as a cannon, hence are much more suited for HEAT than kinetic penetrators.
I suppose it's worth mentioning that torpedoes tend to be nothing but gigantic bundles of high-explosive at the end of a tube containing some of the best guidance software available. No fancy HEAT, just HE. Underwater conditions tend to do that, what with buoyancy and lower velocities meaning you can make ridiculously large weapons. These things are designed to break a ship in twain through sheer force alone. One hole made using a HEAT warhead, however deep or however much damage it created, won't sink a ship. But, blowing a great big hole in the side with the force of 1000 pounds of high-explosive will. The physics wouldn't translate quite as well to space due to the lack of a medium (water vs. a vacuum), but there's no accounting for brute force through bigger torpedoes. As the saying goes, if brute force isn't working, you're not using enough.
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General Discussion / Re: Tips for Slipstream exits?
« on: December 19, 2021, 03:21:44 PM »
You can also find a place where the slipstream narrows and just fly through it regularly - you'll only get dragged a little ways when you pass through the center. No Emergency Burn necessary!
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Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« on: December 14, 2021, 03:10:56 PM »
New link! Should work now - and it really is pretty. Beautiful backdrop - and to think us crazies on the Discord thought the background was for a planet killer.
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Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« on: December 14, 2021, 03:03:52 PM »
I have not the words to express my surprise and joy at having found the new Price of Persia quest! This came right out of the blue with no warning or even mention in the patch notes, but it's got to be one of the most interesting and titillating parts of the update. I loved it, and I really look forward to seeing this turned into a larger quest line some day. 
I'll not say any more on it as not to spoil anyone, but what I will do is present a perfect looping GIF I found during some footage I recorded. If you haven't already finished the Price of Persia quest, I suggest keeping this spoiler'd for your own surprise.
I'll not say any more on it as not to spoil anyone, but what I will do is present a perfect looping GIF I found during some footage I recorded. If you haven't already finished the Price of Persia quest, I suggest keeping this spoiler'd for your own surprise.Spoiler
[close]
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Mods / Re: [0.95a] Magellan Protectorate v1.25a - New goodies, tweaks and fixes.
« on: November 21, 2021, 09:02:46 PM »
The Keu is on the OP, just expand The Ships. It's a phase cruiser with a bunch of missile racks, Fast Missile Racks, and a BFG up front to terrorize things with. Long phase cooldown though, so use wisely!
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Mods / Re: [0.95a] Magellan Protectorate v1.25a - New goodies, tweaks and fixes.
« on: November 21, 2021, 04:00:38 PM »On that note, I've never seen the Capella outside of preset salvage and Nex causing one to spawn in your starting fleet (So most 3 a playthrough with 1 blackcollar, unless the industrial overhaul mod is used.), and I've never seen the Keu.So, from experience, I've been able to find all the BCR ships in markets except for the BCR Sung, Capella, and Yeager. Theoretically they should appear in both fleets and markets, but with how Starsector handles prioritized ships, they'll almost never show up (put simply, if there's a priority list with a ship of similar fleet / combat role and this ship isn't on the priority list, the chances of it spawning are reduced massively). There is a slim opportunity acquire them through a Magellan contact's production order, but the mission is bugged where it only comes up once per contact, so pick wisely.
As in, ever. Pretty sure at least.
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Suggestions / Re: Salamander Type-2: Anti-Phase Missile
« on: September 23, 2021, 01:37:37 AM »The issue with pure anti-phase weapons will always be that having OP that is completely useless except against phase ships is hard to justify, and the weapons will have to be very effective to be worthwhile, but then they become oppressive for phase ships. I'm not sure if you can really strike a good balance there.
Who says the weapon has to be a purely anti-phase weapon? It could be multi-role.
Everyone here seems to be under the impression that an anti-phase missile would deal hull damage or cause flameouts. At least in real life, depth charges could do one of two things: either crack open the hull of the submarine, or damage it so much to force it to surface, at which point it would either surrender or get destroyed. Damage is clearly not favorable for gameplay here in Starsector, but you could force it to surface by having the missile detonate while over the phased ship and raise it's flux level. It harms the phase ship by reducing the amount of time it can loiter around (therefore, spend less time being a constant threat that can surface at any time) and, at the extreme end, force it to overload in a very vulnerable position. P-space disruption warhead with incidental real-space effects, maybe? Like I said, multi-role!
In a regular ship vs missile scenario, the target ship has a number of options: take the hit with shields, take the hit with your hull, shoot it down, or dodge. In the case of a phase ship vs anti-phase missile, the options are similar: take the hit with your flux pool, unphase and take the hit with your hull, unphase and shoot it down, or dodge. The middle two options are clearly the poorest choices, as unphasing takes time and opens up you up to hits, but phase ships make up for this in their ability to dodge due to exceptional speed and maneuverability while in phase because of time dilation. A missile with carefully designed maneuverability, damage, ammo, and fire rate could be a fairly balanced weapon against phase ships without being a hard counter.
As a couple of examples, maybe a missile with the maneuverability of a Harpoon that deals 500 energy damage to real-space targets, and 2500 damage directly to the flux pool of p-space targets. Most phase ships could probably dodge that unless pressed, at which point it's effectiveness jumps just like regular missiles being used on a vulnerable target. Or you could go with a system like Annihilator - the small one that fires a wide burst. You're not going to land the entire spread on target, but it denies an area to the phased ship that it can't enter without taking a flux hit. Works fine against real-space targets, too.
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General Discussion / Re: Atlas MK2 far better than dominator?
« on: August 21, 2021, 08:16:49 PM »
The Atlas Mk.II has the civilian hull debuff along with less flux dissipation and far less armor and hull than the Dominator. The Dominator is also slightly more maneuverable due to it being a cruiser rather than a capital. Installing Militarized Subsystems eats into OP (or eats a built-in slot) and requires about 200 more crew than the ship itself can contain, which tends to headbutt logistics when combined with carrying Marines until you can get a couple troopships.
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General Discussion / Re: How to accommodate carrier AI?
« on: August 17, 2021, 05:39:12 PM »
The point of having fighters along with your bombers it to provide more targets for PD to shoot at, in the form of more fighters and flares to distract PD from the real threat of the bomber's payload. See: Broadsword. You might lose strike potential by replacing a bomber with a fighter, but it should make up for it with reliability, depending on the number of fighter bays the carrier has.
People can get pedantic about how carriers can be fitted, so I'll keep it brief, but the way I see it is 2-bay carriers should have either two fighters/interceptors or two bombers, and 3-bay carriers can mix. You do indeed lose a lot of strike potential if you take one fighter and one bomber on 2-bay carriers.
Carriers work fine, don't know why anyone would avoid them. Always good to have some support that can be anywhere in the battlespace.
As for the Battlestar Galactica thing, fighters don't act independently in Starsector, they take commands from their carrier of origin and pretty much follow them to the T. And neither the player nor the AI can micromanage individual wings, so all wings follow the same Engage or Regroup order, and leads to certain inefficiencies on part of the AI.
People can get pedantic about how carriers can be fitted, so I'll keep it brief, but the way I see it is 2-bay carriers should have either two fighters/interceptors or two bombers, and 3-bay carriers can mix. You do indeed lose a lot of strike potential if you take one fighter and one bomber on 2-bay carriers.
Carriers work fine, don't know why anyone would avoid them. Always good to have some support that can be anywhere in the battlespace.
As for the Battlestar Galactica thing, fighters don't act independently in Starsector, they take commands from their carrier of origin and pretty much follow them to the T. And neither the player nor the AI can micromanage individual wings, so all wings follow the same Engage or Regroup order, and leads to certain inefficiencies on part of the AI.
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General Discussion / Re: How many units of heavy machinery do you carry?
« on: August 10, 2021, 01:07:34 AM »
You need at least 100 Heavy Machinery to salvage stations and other large derelicts, so bring around that at minimum and you won't lose anything. Surveying potentially can require much more, but various hullmods and character skills reduce that down to 5, so that isn't a problem past early game.
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Mods / Re: [0.95a] AdvancedGunneryControl 0.10.2
« on: July 30, 2021, 10:45:30 PM »
After playing around with the mod, I've noticed there's a couple issues. PD_ALSO weapons don't function correctly using the PD (Flux>50%) suffix - they work fine until reaching 50% flux, but they don't target anything once you go over 50% flux - neither ships nor missiles.
Also, weapons set to Opportunist (and by extension Conserve Ammo) seem to ignore both the ship's set Target as well as line of sight to whatever other target they have in mind - I've seen very often seen weapon groups set to this fire directly into destroyed ships trying to get at another ship, or more specifically the Vast Bulk central area of a station in attempts to hit another module, while weapon groups set to normal don't fire until they do have LoS. Most obvious with missiles.
Also, weapons set to Opportunist (and by extension Conserve Ammo) seem to ignore both the ship's set Target as well as line of sight to whatever other target they have in mind - I've seen very often seen weapon groups set to this fire directly into destroyed ships trying to get at another ship, or more specifically the Vast Bulk central area of a station in attempts to hit another module, while weapon groups set to normal don't fire until they do have LoS. Most obvious with missiles.
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Blog Posts / Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« on: July 04, 2021, 09:38:50 PM »(I need to look at the Drover, too; there's I think a bug involve in making it really underperform... hopefully the impression that carriers aren't good is not based on or at least heavily influenced by the Drover being weak now.)
I only use Drover for double Cobras. Rockets' red glare!Speaking of these two things, the Drover's Reserve Deployment makes it so specifically bombers don't redeploy after going in for a rearm while the ship system is active. A Drover might be able to launch 4 Cobras with Reapers all at once, but it won't actually be able to re-launch any bombers until the ship system expires. This, if anything, really kills it's performance.
Xyphos suck becauseUnfortunately the result of poor vanilla Support fighter behavior. Support fighters completely ignore the player's target (even when set to Engage), so trying to get them to shoot the right thing is like trying to herd cats. Hopefully this could be addressed...?
A. they don't obey your orders in any capacity and would shoot at random stuff instead of intended targets
B. they don't benefit from ITU of your own so they can't really have synergy unless you are already running short range weapons
It's really waste of OP to use converted hangar for Xyphos. I'd get broadsword or even long bow.
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Blog Posts / Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« on: July 02, 2021, 09:18:46 PM »Point Defense still applies. To be fair, though, I'm not sure how of a difference "an officer with 2 useful skills" vs "an officer with 1 useful" skill is - it's still a waste of more than half the officer - and besides, you could get Helmsmanship now (which you'd have a hard time getting alongside Strike Commander?) and that's a handy skill for carriers.Well, the bonuses from Point Defense and Missile Specialization along with the damage bonus from Strike Commander were enough to make a reasonably dedicated carrier officer, what with extra range, bonus damage vs fighters and destroyers+, and better missiles. With the removal of Strike Commander, it's really just not worth it anymore. If it was a bad idea to put an officer in a carrier before, now it's even more so. Feels weird to have an entire class of ship just be a no-go for officers, but if that's the intent, then alright.
And Helmsmanship good on carriers now? I'm guessing there are changes to how getting the skill's 0-flux boost works, because currently, that bonus gets removed when setting fighters to Engage.
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Blog Posts / Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« on: July 02, 2021, 08:21:20 PM »
So, with the removal of Strike Commander, will there be any point to putting an officer on a dedicated carrier anymore? Like a Heron or a Drover - their main weapons are their fighters, not their guns. From the looks of it, there's no officer skills that actually buff fighters, so there's little to no point to putting an officer on these ships.