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Messages - Locklave

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 43
1
General Discussion / Re: Is the Enforcer too slow?
« on: February 21, 2022, 02:53:41 PM »
Your posts really read like you just didn't give a decent run to slower ship...

I sure have a long post history focusing extremely heavily on them for someone that didn't give a decent run to slower ships.

I'm to take the word of all these people claiming they are great against my own actual experience with them? I'd wager they don't use them in their fleets after early-mid game. I honestly wish this game used data collection so we could see what people actually used. I suspect we'd find the people who always claim everything is fine don't use those ships.

I'm honestly regretful that there is no opt in for data collection, because data is far more honest then posts. If 90% of the players are using only 5-10% of the ships then those ships might need looking at. But I'm not in charge of that.

The game's design generally gives something to slower ships in return. Low tech gets long range ballistics and tons of armor.

I covered this, I'm not reposting it again. If you don't want to accept my reasoning then have the decency to simply say so.

Throwing big slabs of metal at doritos is one of the easier ways to kill them, plenty of people do that.

Your quality standard is fodder then.

2
General Discussion / Re: Is the Enforcer too slow?
« on: February 21, 2022, 06:50:31 AM »
I'd also like to add the Dominator to this line of thinking being 30 speed. Even the Onslaught speed should be reconsidered given the change in design concept for Low Tech.

I don't think the Eradicator, Manticore, and Vanguard were intended to redefine low tech, but simply expand options.

That entire patch was to refine Low Tech. To make it not "worst tech". The dev himself spoke about high cost high performance, as in fuel burning/high crew usage/high supplies/simple ships that get results.

I feel like he tacitly acknowledged that making all the low tech ships slower was crippling their performance, not only are they using inferior shields but those shields take more hits because the ships handle like a bathtub. "Eradicator, Manticore, and Vanguard" and including the Lasher because it was reworked into a very good low end ship.

I feel like Onslaught and Dominator being ultra slow is a throwback to before the current ship design principles were expanded.

Out of curiosity, have you tried modifying Enforcers locally with say, 80 or 90 speed?  How do they feel balance wise against Hammerheads and Medusa?  My guess is it'd be a bit much with their cruiser tier tankiness.  As it is, even with base 60 speed, if configured for it, an Enforcer can basically wipe any AI controlled destroyer in less than 10 seconds between flux free missiles and pursuit capability.

Do you understand why that is happening though? Without that speed the extra tankyness does little more then allow it to take more beatings for longer. That tankiness isn't increasing it's damage output. But it the ship is fast and tanky it can escape and recover, if it's slow any tanky then it just gets hammered to death.

Slow ships ironically make the absolute worst use of heavy armor. Slow ships also make the worse use of shields for the same reasons.

This games entire design rewards speed. Who dodged the reaper? Who retreated and recovered to reattack? Who skirted around the back and shredded the engines? Who has the most uptime and least downtime because of travel? The faster ship(s).

Those 3 ships are never doing those things. In many exchanges, not all, all that extra armor does if give you a slower death.

Anyways I'm not asking for specific number or suggesting nothing needs to be adjusted accordingly. If the Enforcer was faster it could have less armor and feel just as tanky because it could avoid having so many shield blowouts by avoiding and escaping attacks.

No one is investing heavy into armor hull mods to face Omega content. This is an example of why speed matters in general. I'm not saying that an enforcer should be doing that content, I'm saying it to highlight the importance speed plays on ships in an actual fight.

3
General Discussion / Re: Is the Enforcer too slow?
« on: February 20, 2022, 07:35:44 AM »
Clearly not an outlier considering the Dominator and Onslaught that you mention just after.

Those ships are slower then the smaller counterparts, so Enforcer is an outlier. I'm suggesting that the Dominator/Onslaught need to be looked at since the Low tech theme is High cost/High performance, which is a completely different aspect related to speed. Please don't conflate them.

Why does it being a destroyer imply that it should be faster? Small ships can be slower than bigger ships, there is no law that says otherwise.

It's a big fat escort/anchor destroyer with enough ballistic mounts that it can run two flaks with three offensive medium guns with a flurry of missiles on top. Its shield isn't even that bad anymore so it's a real tank of a ship too.
In all aspects of its design including visual design everything points to it being a small but though machine and the low speed fits. It has the "new" and improved Burn Drive for moving around the battlefield and chasing certain targets too so it's not actually a snail anymore.

I like it being slow.

The Eradicator the exact same type of ship except larger and tankier with an ammo feeder instead of a burn drive. I'm not going to humor you pretending that the Enforcer is filling a different role. Enforcer is inferior to Eradicator in filling the same role without an upside. The enforcer used to be fast relative to other low tech, then the rework came.

Fat Escort/Anchor is not a actual role. I will not pretend it is. Those are weaknesses.

Enforcer is ridiculously tanky for its size and cost, and then you have 4 small missile mounts that can fire at once along with ballistic package. That would be a pain if you have a swarm of them. Both Eradicator and Vanguard have their own weaknesses so I don't think it's fair to look at speed stats so simply. Enforcers are basically an early game check to see if your fleet has enough HE damage.

Eradicator has no weakness it's just a good ship that fills it's role well, so explain what you are talking about. I'd say the Eradicator is the most like the Enforcer in terms of how the ship fights and what it's expected job is in the fleet, I'm at a loss as to how anyone can't see it.

I made a thread about Vanguard being terrible, that ship has problems it shouldn't have, but the point is to make low tech not be worst tech. The old low tech ships need to be looked at the way the Lasher was.

4
General Discussion / Is the Enforcer too slow?
« on: February 20, 2022, 05:58:43 AM »
Before saying no please consider the recent changes and new ships added. Consider the Eradicator (a cruiser) speed 70 and Vanguard (a frigate) 135.

Shouldn't the Enforcer (a destroyer) be someplace between 70 and 135 instead of 60, 10 slower then the cruiser? Those overall ship designs follow a pattern but the Enforcers speed seems like an outlier.

If I'm overlooking something please fill me in.

I'd also like to add the Dominator to this line of thinking being 30 speed. Even the Onslaught speed should be reconsidered given the change in design concept for Low Tech.

5
General Discussion / Re: Vanguard is terrible
« on: February 19, 2022, 09:27:36 PM »
I feel like in the end that the design of this ship is so completely inflexible that there will literally be 1 or 2 best build for it with all other builds being clearly vastly inferior. The hull mods for it are set in stone. Is anyone imagining a unique variant of it without heavy armor or armored weapon mounts? Why aren't they built in if they are required? They are the primary form of survival for this ship, this isn't me turning the Onslaught into a armor tank with shunt shields. This is the primary form of the ship pre spending OP that are "non option" options.

Can anyone even think of a single ship in this game with such strict "pick this or be terrible" hull mods? There is a strong argument that can be made that those 2 hull mods aren't even the only set in stone ones for this ship and that 4-6 might realistically forced on us. Those hull mods nearly all being survival related.

This ship is like the Buffalo Mk II, it's a meme ship, minus the charm. Even if a perfect build is found it will still be overpriced and far to expensive to maintain and repair to justify it. It's not useless but it certainly isn't pulling it's weight.

6
General Discussion / Re: Wobbling Player AI
« on: February 16, 2022, 02:59:09 PM »
I think my issue is specific to Hellbore cannons and perhaps other weapons.

But I can say I've seen the issues with shieldless ships acting strange, specifically the Cerberus.

7
General Discussion / Re: Wobbling Player AI
« on: February 15, 2022, 01:22:51 PM »
Hellbore, Autocannons, Vulcans, Dual Flak. Just got it so I slapped on what they had. With rear/side guns on it still wobbles with shields.

Changed aggression to stead for doctrine, had no effect.

I'm gonna hire someone and toss them on it, I'm using support doctrine. I'm at a loss as to the cause and why specifically this problem can be so easily repeated in this case.

edit:
New captain had no impact. Only thing that stops the wobble is removing the side/rear guns. Oh it is a Fourteen Battlegroup. I shouldn't omit details that might matter.

edit 2:
Specifically removed both the hellbore side guns only but not the middle one and the wobble stops.

edit 3:
Specifically removed only one side hellbore, wobble stops. My head hurts.

8
General Discussion / Re: Wobbling Player AI
« on: February 15, 2022, 01:08:57 PM »
I'm going to remove all rear facing guns and test that. If that's the case then that is a hell of an AI issue.

edit:
Good call you are right, I removed all weapon facings that couldn't get a direct line of fire forward and it stopped the wobble. That is not how it should be working.

Yeah its weird, and it only started happening recently update wise. I think Alex borked something.
Try reducing the aggression of the officer and put the guns back on. I never tried but maybe its caused by the reckless officer wanting all guns in range?

I need to test those things too, see if it's something specifically causing this.

9
General Discussion / Re: Wobbling Player AI
« on: February 15, 2022, 01:07:00 PM »
There is 100% no wobble when the side and rear guns are removed, so it's not shifting for armor tanking. Maybe trying to broadside?

I wonder if it does this without the shunt.

10
General Discussion / Re: Wobbling Player AI
« on: February 15, 2022, 12:57:59 PM »
I'm going to remove all rear facing guns and test that. If that's the case then that is a hell of an AI issue.

edit:
Good call you are right, I removed all weapon facings that couldn't get a direct line of fire forward and it stopped the wobble. That is not how it should be working.

11
General Discussion / Wobbling Player AI
« on: February 15, 2022, 12:49:52 PM »
Slapped a shield shunt on a Onslaught, run a simulation against a Dominator with both under AI control. The player AI controlled Onslaught is flying like drunk, swinging back and forth failing to fire more then missiles and point defense. The other ship flies and fights normally.

Do the same thing again this time against another Onslaught. Again the Player controlled AI is drunk swinging wildly back and forth unable to center and fire on the enemy while the enemy AI sits head on and showers my drunk Player AI with death till it explodes.

I've seen this before with other big ships in real fights, 100% of the time when under player AI control, never seen it happen under enemy AI control. Never been able to identify or get it to repeat like this. Doctrine is set to reckless, Full assault On, Auto pilot engaged (no captain), if that matters. No mods installed and never had mods installed. Is this a bug or am I indirectly causing this somehow? Maybe a specific problem to Engage Auto pilot AI?

It reaches the engagement normally then the problem starts.

Just tested it 1v1 on a station and it tried, not for long, to wobble before getting wrecked. Does Shield Shunt alter AI behavior?

12
Because it's science "fiction" and not just science, because it's an experience and not just hard facts. Story points is the players ability to creatively solve problems and the points themselves are a limiter on how much of that they can do.

Story points are the moment in the TV show/movie where the main character gets a great idea, something games have a hard time adding and a worse time controlling. This added those moments/abilities to the player with a control system in place to limit how much of it they can get away with.

Your friend is nitpicking minor details.

13
I am mulling over not using officers at all and use Support Doctrine to uplift every ship in the fleet, aside from flagship.  The idea is I do not want to manage a bunch of officers (pay their upkeep, level them up, and pick their skills) and squeeze more ships within the 160 DP budget.

While officers are good, I find leveling them a pain, and I thought "why not just dump them all?" I suppose I can train eight of them then sideline them in case I reassign skills and need them later without Support Doctrine.

One problem with that I've found is you are forced to waste a skill point on fighters in the leadership tree, since the leader skills become void you need 4 in the first branch. Since I'd rather not use fighters.

The Exp difference is pretty noticeable and I was wondering why I was leveling so damn fast this play. Exp demands going up while I was at the same time stacking more leaders making the gain rate slower, I had no clue it had such a big impact.

14
General Discussion / Re: Vanguard is terrible
« on: January 27, 2022, 06:58:44 PM »
The AI 100% has no clue when it should use Dampener field on a shieldless ship so it just randomly uses it giving enemies the advantage. If someone mods this system off the ship it will instantly perform better.
I guess have Shield Shunt remove Damper Field too, although Shield Shunt needs to be more useful.

I suppose.

I'd still rather the built in system just not be another Drover situation where it's supposed to help but makes things worse. I guess this is just how it is for now.

15
General Discussion / Re: Vanguard is terrible
« on: January 26, 2022, 04:32:18 PM »
Just did 3 station battles in a row. Sat on the station view so I could watch closely. Pirates attacking said station.

The Vanguards, every single one did the same thing. Roll up to the station, fire a couple rounds while following the face they are targeting then dampener field spam till dead. They didn't try to run with dampener, they just sat there eating the stations firepower till dead.

Seriously watch how this ship fights, hammerhead rolls in and hits it. It turns to shoot back, it is already in firing range and has no flux buildup, then hits dampener field. It's the same thing.

The AI 100% has no clue when it should use Dampener field on a shieldless ship so it just randomly uses it giving enemies the advantage. If someone mods this system off the ship it will instantly perform better.

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