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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Messages - Digganob

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16
Hey, why is there a pirate logo in the ships graphics folder?

Pirate skins for federation ships incoming?

"Perhaps"
[close]

RE: the boarding discourse,

I have concepts. I want to keep the uniqueness of their shipsystems without turning them into "Press F to Slightly Inconvenience". Probably has something to do with boarding pods which are fired like missiles, but are fighters with missile AIs. They'd temporarily lower CR when directly "hitting" hull or getting close enough to teleport a payload, which could theoretically bring a ship down to sub-30 CR and start critical malfunctions.

Those look really cool! I like how you're keeping the random stripes of paint from the FTL pirates, I always thought that slap-dash look was great for them, it really looks like they just boarded and captured the ships, and they're just painting them to make it clear they're pirates, not trying some silly design or pattern, just a trademark purple or red paint.

Also, boarding pods as a missile weapon would be so cool! I always thought combat boarding is one of the only things that Starsector was really missing in its combat, and it's so doable too! I'm glad that you're considering making something like that possible. The temporary lowering of CR is a really good idea, it utilizes an already-made game mechanic to get the desired effect. I suppose, maybe the CR decrease could depend on the number of boarding pods that "hit," versus the crew capacity of the enemy ship?

17
It wouldn’t be too hard to make a system that temporarily raises the chances of things like shield, weapon, or engine malfunctions; since that’s effectively what FTL boarders do, mess with a targeted ship’s systems.

Have the system pick which to mess with randomly on activation, increase the malfunction chance by X percent while active, then deactivate.

!

Great idea.

18
really like the mod so far but i have a suggestion for an ability change for the basilisk. give it a close range (500~) F ability called boarding teleporter allowing it to cause a slight amount of direct hull damage aswell as a moderate amount of emp damage through shields over its duration (lets say 10 seconds or so) perhaps at a cost to its own fire rate and repair speed. it would really give that mantis feel to it i think  ;D

I really like this idea. I think a simple EMP hit that goes through shields would do. Could be like an invisible projectile, if that's possible.

Although, the classic strat in FTL is to hit the shields immediately with boarders. Maybe it could have a shield-disabling ability? Perhaps that's too powerful.

19
Hold on, actually, would there be a simple way to implement some pirate skins for the federation faction ships? Cus' if you wouldn't want to, I'd be happy to add some of my own, just for myself, even if I'd have to go and make new skins. It should be fairly easy to make them, considering all I'd be doing is painting them in pirate colors.

20
Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Realistic Combat 1.11.0
« on: August 04, 2022, 01:50:14 AM »
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Ahhhh, sweet relief... your quotes are perfect!

That's good to hear!

Well, once I get a decent amount of free time, I'll see about making those changes I was talking about, I hope I can make something you and others find interesting or useful. *thumbs up*

Thank you for the help and patience.

21
Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Realistic Combat 1.11.0
« on: August 02, 2022, 07:54:24 PM »
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Sort of.  See the rest of this reply.

No, that could not be done with disabling weapon changes because 3D targeting doesn't even consider beam or projectile muzzle velocity to begin with.  It presumes projectile weapon range to equal projectile weapon muzzle velocity and multiplies projectile weapon range by the time the target would need to strafe off the path of a projectile fired at it.

You could remove the line that resets the ship-wide beam weapon range multiplier, though.  3D targeting used to adjust beam range, and I didn't even notice at first but had to add that line later because the API doesn't have a 'energyProjectileWeaponRangeMult'.  With that done, you can then write a script to modify the base ranges of all the beams to suit yourself.

Ah, so I got the order of operations wrong here?

Anyways, so I would have to find the bit of code you added to modify beams' base ranges, remove it, and that should cause beams to follow the same rules of range as other weapons in 3D targeting?

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Beam range is the point on a modified inverse-square diffraction curve DPS (plus/or EPS) falls below a threshold of flux-efficiency.  That curve is I(x) = I0 / (1 + (x/I0)^2)  If you want shorter-range beam weapons, then multiply their base damage by some factor less than one before their range is modified---but why would you want beam weapons to be the same range as projectile weapons, anyway?  Having different ranges for different weapon categories is interesting, and besides, that flux-efficiency threshold I mentioned is 1/10.   ;D

Oh, I think it's fairly cool how beams have infinite range (even if it gets cluttered with too many of them), but I would then have to go through the trouble of carefully balancing code I barely understand so they're balanced for vanilla-level ranges, and I'll probably run into lots of issues with that. I'm satisfied with vanilla beam mechanics, so I would rather not bother with those issues.

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Requesting features or worrying about bugs or problems that you would know didn't exist if you had played Realistic Combat, read the Field Manual, directly asking how the mod worked, or even opened the mod folder to find the source code instead of digging through a forum thread with many (usually resolved) complaints about old versions and then imagining what might be happening based on second-hand concerns has indeed annoyed me.  Speaking of etiquette, here's how to quote someone on the forum:

Code
[quote]
What they said.
[/quote]
Please use these keywords to break up the big, automatically-generated quote that appears at the top of your post when you click the Quote button on a post so the forum will automatically quote-box each part of the post you quote, and don't include the words that the other person quoted to avoid giant quote-ziggurats.

Still look forward to hearing from you, though!

Yeah, I apologize for my stumbling through my discovery and discussion of this mod. I had figured that I might be able to figure out what's going on with the game easier if I can figure out what's going on with the code and what others think of the balance of the mod.

And, even with your explanation of quoting, I can't figure how you've gotten your posts to look like how they do. I hope this looks fine. Sorry for the massive posts, I'll edit those in a bit.

Anyways, thanks much for the help! In my attempt to configure something useable and fun out a vanilla-ranged, short-beamed version of your mod, I'll be sure to come to you with any interesting discoveries. If I can make something useable and fun out of it, and if you agree that it is, then feel free to put it in the parent post as a "lite" version of your mod! Or don't. I'd mostly be making it for me, of course.

22
Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Realistic Combat 1.11.0
« on: August 02, 2022, 10:30:39 AM »
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Ok, so just 3D targeting?

Essentially, yes. Many of the UI changes I have found useful, though.

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Have you tried those mods and found them not to be compatible, or are you speculating?

Well, I think I heard as much from other users that there have been issues with other mods' weapons not being used as intended. Then again, I may be wrong to a large extent. You seem to be doing a good job of balancing it!

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I have enhanced cannon detection, so the weirdness of frag-autocannons becoming cannons should stop.

I may be wrong to a large extent. lol

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Do you mean that you found, for example, weapons that would have been classified as cannons to deal huge damage per shot?

Well, I found that the damage type armor thickness multipliers and damage multipliers after disabling weapon changes were still active, which I had thought was not intended. I may have been chasing a wild goose of a bug here, though.

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So, again, you want to run just the 3D targeting.

Yes, I was just explaining further why I think it's a good change, and the balancing that may need to be done to account for it.

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Anyway, in the next patch, you should be able to do just that by turning everything off.

Really? You mean that beams wouldn't have infinite range without weapon changes but with 3D targeting on? I'm confused.

I intend that while projectile weapons follow the 3D targeting system using their muzzle velocities to determine their range, beam weapons instead follow a standard "muzzle velocity" only for the purpose of 3D targeting range calculation, and multiplying the resulting range by their base range in their stats, keeping their relative range compared to other beam weapons the same, and keeping their range roughly in line with the projectile weapons.

Could that be done with disabling weapon changes, but keeping 3D targeting?

Looking into the rest of the mod folder, as you suggested, I have found how beam range is determined, and I have an idea of how it determines it, but I am not quite sure how to do what I had postulated, that being applying a standard "muzzle velocity" to beams in order to calculate their 3D range the same as projectile weapons, and multiplying the result by their range stats in the game.

I'm sorry if this is troublesome for you, but I ask that you point me at which file(s) in the src folder I must look at and modify in order to affect such a change, if such a change is viable. I am no modder, but I expect I can figure things out if you give me a rough outline of where beams' range is determined, and if I could modify just that, or if other parts would have to be modified to make the changes I wish to make.

To be specific, I believe weaponstats.java would be where most of the action is happening?

And, I know it's not realistic, but 3D targeting is, as I said, SUPER COOL, even if I cannot implement it in my game in a way I find most fun, while also keeping it realistic. If possible I would want to be able to play with it for every proceeding playthrough, and I think many others do too, but do not like the change in scale that the rest of your mod's changes create in the game.

Again, I'm sorry if I've been presumptuous, or troublesome for you.

23
Hey, why is there a pirate logo in the ships graphics folder?

Pirate skins for federation ships incoming?

24
Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Realistic Combat 1.11.0
« on: August 02, 2022, 12:49:24 AM »
Oh! BTW, I also like the additional "mission killing" mechanic, with CR being tied to hull damage, and retreats tied to CR. Would that be kept after toggling off the armor system, or is it integral to the mod?

25
Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Realistic Combat 1.11.0
« on: August 02, 2022, 12:22:43 AM »
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"I understand you to mean that you want the UI features (momentum indicators, indicator diamonds, projectile indicators) plus map (big map, no fog), to drop the the ship and fighter spec changes, and have Three Dimensional Targeting without any weapon stats changes."

Primarily I adore the 3D targeting system, while I appreciate some of the UI changes, I really would just like to keep the 3D targeting.

And indeed, you say that it would be broken, but I have seen no issues with it thus far. It seems to work just as intended, albeit with much shorter ranges due to the much lower velocities. It keeps things quite close to vanilla ranges with destroyers and cruisers generally, gets to knife fight range against frigates, and gets to 1500-2000 when fighting capitals like the Onslaught, all very comfortable. I think the acceleration changes with the smaller ships' maneuverability might be good to keep, as some of the faster frigates can get very close without being in range, but otherwise the 3D targeting appears to work perfectly fine so far as I've seen.

I'll tell you if anything weird happens with the system, with the bonus velocities set to 0, though!

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Damage system toggle is on the way.

Very good! I would love to play with many mods, and although I love the new armor system, I believe it is unlikely many mods would be very compatible with it, whereas with the 3D targeting it should remain fairly balanced (excepting some very high/low velocity weapons).

On that note, do you think it would be possible to have some sort of tag that players could add to various mod weapons, to classify them as either autocannons or cannons? This way if a player wanted to use a mod, and the modder will not add compatibility for realistic combat, the player could add the appropriate tag to the mod weapons.

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Note that increasing weapon range and projectile velocity is the core of projectile weapon modification: you might as well toggle "shouldModifyWeapons" off.

The most important kept change is that weapon damage is changed for cannons. This allows the weapons which would be classified as "cannons" to remain balanced even with the unchanged armor system.

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Read the field manual and settings.json, and you will find that weapons deal damage depending on their type.  The numbers are under "damageCalculationConstants".

The thing I found strange about this is that the damage type of the weapons affected the resulting compartment damage just as though the weapon changes were toggled on, which shouldn't be the case, right?

Maybe I just misunderstand what the purpose of each toggle is, still.

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It sounds like you're impressed that this mod was even possible but think it just isn't playable, balanced, or fun as-is and hope that might change.  Is that right?

Well, I can think it is very cool that you were able to make such significant and complex changes to the game, even if I would not want to play with all of them. And clearly, many think so as well, but do want to play with the changes the mod makes. I'm just hoping that you are able to bring the mod to a fully-balanced and satisfactory state, for the sake of all those who want to play such a state.

As I said before, I am really just intrigued by the 3D targeting system. I find it absolutely amazing, and as I said, can no longer play without it. The armor system, too, I find very cool, though it is highly incompatible with any content mods due to imbalance which cannot be easily rebalanced, and thus I'm afraid I will have to disable it.

The 3D targeting, though, really just feels like "common sense" realism. Like, why do capital ships out-range frigates for no reason? That is what 3D targeting fixes. Although, I suppose I ought to worry that the game will be less balanced if frigates have that sort of advantage, as I said, I will likely have to keep the acceleration changes to ships smaller than capitals.

Except for fighters, perhaps. I expect the massively increased acceleration of those is unnecessary due to the lower muzzle velocities of weapons.

Oh, and one more thing, perhaps a bit of a request: Would there be some way perhaps to bring beams more in line with the ranges of other weapons? That's the only issue I have found with 3D targeting enabled with vanilla muzzle velocities. Beam weapons simply outrange nearly everything, and are therefore much more effective than they are in vanilla.

Perhaps, I could have beam weapons' ranges be based on the maneuverability of the targeted ship, and set their "muzzle velocity" for use in the range calculation to be something around that of vanilla weapons? This way, their range would change depending on the target, just as other weapons do, instead of being based on damage.

I'm not asking you to program up something for me, but could you point me in the right direction of your mod's inner workings, so that I could try to program in such a change for myself? This is the only thing holding me back from being able to play a fairly balanced, normal playthrough using your 3D targeting system.

Again, sorry if my takes are very confusing, as you seem to be somewhat confused by me.

26
Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Realistic Combat 1.11.0
« on: August 01, 2022, 01:32:44 AM »
Alright, first impressions after finally getting to play the mod:

Very impressive, what you've been able to do with the game. I admire your dedication to this project, with the many updates I've seen to this in only one month. I find how angle changes armor penetration particularly interesting, and the ricochets are very fun to watch. :)

However, I do have some gripes, mostly due to personal taste. The game feels much more chaotic, most certainly, with this mod enabled. I can hardly tell what's going on, at least at first, during even somewhat larger battles. To some extent I like that, not knowing exactly what's going on makes the strategy much more difficult, and increases the possible skill ceiling, as you learn how the game works, and that's great. But with how much overlap with the massive ranges, and ludicrous projectile speeds, it almost feels like fights are pure slugfests, with little outmaneuvering possible. I'm sure that with enough experience I could find the subtle ways to maneuver and strategize in such a game, but it's very different from what I'm used to with vanilla, and I really liked how vanilla felt with how battle strategy worked, with its ship speeds and weapon ranges and scale.

Past the gripes, I am very, very much loving the way you changed range. Frigates being able to get much closer to larger ships is definitely how it should have been, but due to vanilla range, and with integrated targeting unit being essentially standard, that was hardly the case. With a very maneuverable frigate, you could maybe dodge some of the weapons of larger ships, and get into attack range, but this was a difficult and risky maneuver. In this mod, frigates are actually threatening to larger ships due to their evasiveness. However, this unfortunately largely goes unnoticed, if it even practically works out, due to the aforementioned chaos and overlapping ranges of larger battles.

So far, what I have found most fun for me, and I think for others overwhelmed by the chaos of this mod, is toggling off all ship, fighter, and weapon changes. It makes the game feel much more similar to vanilla in how the grander battle strategy and movement and such feel, while retaining the 3D targeting feature, which is honestly something I do not think I can go without at this point.

However, the issues with this are threefold:

1, The difference in weapon ranges is quite extreme with the 3D targeting system. This is a fairly minor issue, and may or not cause much actual imbalance. Honestly, this is the least of the problems we face with the changes toggling off your changes to weapons and ships causes.

2, This makes citadel hits extremely unlikely, essentially. As the cannon classification no longer exists, few weapons deal enough damage to get into the citadel layer of most ships' armor. This makes every ship quite bullet spongey, especially the bigger ones, as few weapons exist that can really deal with the sheer bulk of hull they bring to the table.

3, Again with weapon damage, is a very, very strange issue I have found, with a very easy fix, luckily:

I have found that with all three toggles set to false, the armor thickness modifiers for the three ballistic damage types still apply. I discovered this by testing the arbalest and the mauler, both weapons with 200 base damage, against an onslaught with ~2000 armor, and against an onslaught with ~2500 armor. The result was that the arbalest could pierce the compartment armor of both, whereas the mauler was only able to pierce the armor of the weaker onslaught's 2000 armor. Doing the math for what the armor thickness should be for both weapons against either onslaught, and factoring in the armor thickness modifiers for their damage types, it checks out that the heavy mauler could not pierce a ship with ~2500 armor.

However, the plot thickens. After these weapons pierce any ship's compartment armor, the arbalest deals anywhere from ~17-32~ damage to hull, and the mauler does anything from ~54-74~.

This would indicate that either that damage type damage modifiers from either vanilla or realistic combat are affecting the hull damage of these weapons after they pierce. Whether it's vanilla or the mod, or some other unknown factor in hull damage, I cannot tell, though, given that both weapons should deal 33 base damage to a compartment given that the compartment damage modifer is 1/6th. If the vanilla damage type damage modifiers were applying, or if the mod ones were applying, the damage of the arbalest should in both cases be around half of 33, so about 16-17, not going close to 33. The mauler's damage is much more expected for both damage modifiers.

I don't know enough about how damage is calculated in the base game or in this mod, so I can't figure out why these weapons behave this way exactly.

However, I know enough to see that something very odd is happening.

Regardless of the strangeness of this discovery, the solution for it, and for issue #2, is luckily very simple, that is to add a toggle for the new armor system.

I would be very saddened to have to go to such a length to preserve the overall strategic feel of vanilla starsector battles, but I do have another idea.

Besides a toggle for the armor system, which I think should be added anyways for those who do not like it, yet like the new range system, I do have an idea for players in my position, who like both:

After some testing, I have determined that ALL toggles can be turned to true, maintaining the same overall feel of the base game, making these specific changes:

 * All weapon velocity changes are set to 0, including that for missiles. This allows for the weapon damage changes to be kept, while reverting the rough scale of combat the same as is in vanilla starsector.
 * All ship movement is set back to factors of 1, so same as vanilla. This keeps the pace and flow of battles the same.

Overall, reverting these changes allows for the same general feel as vanilla starsector combat, while maintaining the new armor system, which is super cool.

No doubt some small changes could be made to improve balance from this starting point, but with these basic changes, I believe the game retains its original feel, with the still game-changing and very fun changes to the armor system and how ship size and acceleration affect range.

If this ends up introducing too many balance issues somehow, I think an armor toggle should be very doable, and just the 3D targeting system by itself is revolutionary, and, as I said, I do not think I can play without it.

Thank you very much for this mod. Keep up the hard work. I'm going to begin a campaign with my suggested changes soon, and see how it affects various content mods I want to play with. I hope I've helped with my suggestions and research. God bless you for this contribution to starsector modding, it's honestly the most significant project I've seen with how it changes the combat. Nothing comes close to it. I really hope you can get somewhere with it so that it's suitably stable and balanced, at least with vanilla. Even if you aren't, the fact you were able to get it to work to this extent is amazing.

Edit: I apologize for the messy post. I revised and edited it over the course of an hour and a half of focused testing of the mod in missions, and deep thought on the issues I saw with it.

27
Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Realistic Combat 1.11.0
« on: July 31, 2022, 12:03:36 PM »
Hey, could you please explain what parts of the mod exactly are toggled by the toggles you've added?

For instance, does "shouldModifyShips": true/false toggle the armor system, or max ship speed? Does "shouldModifyWeapons": true/false toggle the 3D targeting/jinking system, or just weapons stats like refire delay and such?

Alright nevermind, I've done some testing and I've determined what is changed with the toggles. I'm going to make a followup post with my first impressions.

28
Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Realistic Combat 1.9.0
« on: July 31, 2022, 12:34:46 AM »
Ah, regrettably I have not yet played, though I wish to very soon! I have been reading through these pages to get a decent understanding of how the mod works and the future plans for balancing and changes and additions, so that when I did play I'd have an idea of where the mod was headed, before I went ahead and made judgements. Though, it seems I already have made some, my mistake.

Now I understand.  I was confused because your suggestions sounded like balance or design decisions I had already made one way or the other.  By the way, did you watch the video before posting your comments?

Ah yes, I did watch the video, and I think a couple others that others have posted in this topic. Why do you ask? I apologize if I've sounded presumptuous with my suggestions and ideas.

29
Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Realistic Combat 1.8.0
« on: July 30, 2022, 01:32:25 AM »
Super cool ideas, this would be re-introduce armor damage into the game in a less-significant way, which is something I was concerned about. I always thought it was cool how high-damage weapons can "open the door" for less high damage weapons to start doing damage. I would be happy if this could be implemented.

The trouble I see with the idea is that a ship would have to survive multiple hits to its citadel and only then have less effective armor, and only on that one cell.  For example, the Hammerhead has 500 armor and 5,000 hull.  In just ten citadel hits, the Hammerhead would be destroyed, and the armor fatigue would be irrelevant.

Well, here's two thoughts:

1, addressing citadel hits:

Maybe this could be a high-difficulty maneuver. You have one reaper torpedo mounted on your frigate, and you manage to hit a capital ship with it! Citadel armor is massively fatigued, and now your smaller cannons can get hits in, but only in that one spot you hit it! This could be a very cool little tactical choice a player could have.

Of course, it would be less of big deal with less effective citadel hits, or more spread-out hits. Hitting a hammerhead five out of ten times in five different places may not make a difference in each of those places, but hitting that hammerhead five times in the same place would leave that spot very vulnerable.


2, addressing compartment hits:

Armor fatigue for compartment hits could still be very effectual. After all, to penetrate the citadel armor, you still need to get through the compartment armor, no? That's maybe about a ~16th of the total armor you're having to penetrate. If it was torn to shreds by a just-barely-too-weak cannon, maybe that cannon could just-barely begin to penetrate the citadel by riddling the compartment in front of it with armorless holes?


I think it would add a lot of great options for weaker weapon loadouts to be able to deal with stronger targets with such a mechanic. It wouldn't be as impactful as armor stripping is in vanilla, but for the desperate player fighting a desperate fight, it would be impactful enough.

It would also create interesting situations where a player ship has been hit on one side, breaching citadel armor, which would force the player to mainly show the other side of their ship to even somewhat weaker cannons, changing the tactical situation.

Edit: It seems I have finally made it to the end of these pages. Feels like I've been reading a book. At next opportunity, perhaps tomorrow, I'm going to download this mod and finally give it a try! And equipped with a decent idea of what is happening, too.

30
Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Realistic Combat 1.9.0
« on: July 30, 2022, 12:55:54 AM »
Oh, also, could I ask why many weapons are said to have a massively increased fire rate?

I haven't tested it so I might like that change, but in case I don't, or if it causes frame lag, is there some toggle for various features of this mod? I think I would like such toggles regardless for other features which I or others might find personally disagreeable.

EDIT: My mistake, I should have read through the whole topic first and changelog. I can see toggles are there.

However, I would still like to know the rationale behind increasing fire rate apparently so much?

Yay, another person playing and even commenting!  Weapon refire delay is unchanged, but burst fire autocannons have their bursts replaced with full-auto fire at the burst rate.

Could I ask what exactly you mean by refire delay and burst rate and full-auto fire? I don't quite know what they mean in terms of actual gameplay. Could you use light machine guns as an example?

For instance, would refire delay be the delay between the five-shot bursts of light machine gun, whereas the burst rate would be the delay between each of those five shots?

If I am correct here, would this mean that a light machine gun would then fire its five shot bursts with no delay between each burst?

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