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1

General Discussion / Re: How does Ship Salvage/Restoration work?

« on: November 30, 2023, 09:31:33 AM »

Given that ships don't always break apart when disabled and this seems to affect the salvage chance, it would be cool if we could prune the salvage lists by purposely breaking up disabled ship hulks we don't want.

Deterministic gameplay is always pretty cool.  Take Battletech, for example.  If you just blast a mech, destroying weapons and knocking off limbs until its engine explodes, you get scraps.  On the other hand, if you knock its legs out and disable it, you get more choices from its parts or equipped weapons.  If you headshot it and kill the pilot directly, you can salvage pretty much the whole mech.

It's trickier in a real-time battle system with dozens of ships, but being able to directly influence our salvage by our combat methods would be cool.

2

General Discussion / Re: Is the new colony crises update going to punish players with successful colonies

« on: November 30, 2023, 09:25:22 AM »

You have to remember that once the game stops trying to beat us, it gets boring fast.  Successful colonies can easily negate a vast majority of the challenges the game throws at us, so colony-specific problems keep things from getting stale.

3

General Discussion / Re: I love the hephaestys assault cannon. Where can I use it?

« on: November 30, 2023, 09:22:41 AM »

The thing about high hit strength is that it's better against HIGH armor because it peels through that high damage reduction to reduce more armor which reduces damage reduction sooner.  Once you've stripped the armor though, higher ROF weapons are better for hammering home the damage without giving your opponent windows to turn, fire, flicker shields or retreat.  DPS calculations are all well and good, but don't forget your enemy's not going to just sit still and stuck his exposed hull out if he can help it.

Not all ships will find it practical but If I've got the OP and flux to support it, I'll take a Heph over a hellbore any day.

4

General Discussion / Re: Why do AI inspections always succeed.

« on: November 13, 2023, 09:45:02 AM »

It's also not impossible that your fleets were otherwise engaged by something else and the inspection fleet just snuck through.  I've had that happen.  It's infuriating, but legitimate.  That's why I prefer to settle in systems with multiple planets so I can have multiple bases stacking defense fleets.  Even if the don't clean house, they WILL catch whatever slips in, buying time.

And yeah, if you're not enemies with the hedgies, be sure to change your colony's orders so they don't just hand the cores over.

5

General Discussion / Re: Stations, Probes, Etc

« on: November 13, 2023, 09:38:24 AM »

It would make sense to me that on the first trip, your crew bring back things that aren't nailed down, like supplies, blueprints, fuel, food, volatiles; you know, things that are IN the derelicts.  The SECOND trip would be where you pick up things like the metals, the transplutonics, etc.  meaning the derelicts THEMSELVES.

'Hardspace: Shipbreaker' demonstrates my logic; FIRST you go in and take all the valuable stuff like electronics, possessions, key components out safely, THEN you tear the ship apart for scrap.

If all that's not worth the trouble, then yes, a single salvage trip makes the most sense to me.

6

General Discussion / Re: On SO Eradicators

« on: September 12, 2023, 10:47:01 PM »

The problem with pathers is that unlike the player, they don't give two thirds of a whole crap about losses.  You do.  They can absolutely afford to make every single ship SO and suicide bomb you because they suffer no consequences for losing.  The advantage is that, should the need arise, you can run out their PPT quite easily and watch them flop and flounder as their ships become dead weight.

But if you think they're scary now, try the luddic enhancement mods.  Their fuel tankers become actual, LITERAL suicide bomber ships.  There are few things that will put you on edge faster than seeing a Prometheus IED ship barreling towards you.

Good times!

7

General Discussion / Re: Manual Piloting vs. Autopilot

« on: September 12, 2023, 10:43:04 PM »

Watch the AI handle Gryphons with reapers and tell me how badly you wish you were the one in control after it pops your own frontliners.  No way in HELL am I letting the AI run around like a drunk cockroach piling up D-mods on my flagship.

8

General Discussion / Re: Tip for new players: Streamline your fleet for specific tasks.

« on: September 12, 2023, 10:39:35 PM »

My problem with swapping out to small fleets is that if I run into sweet, phat lewt on the way I have no way to bring it back and that is UNACCEPTABLE.  ALL LOOT BELONGS TO ME.  Besides, I ain't no yellow belly; some pirate or AI wants to chase me, I've got a whole fleet screen full of hands they can catch.  Which means EVEN MORE LOOT.  What's that?  I stumbled on an orbital habitat with tons of cash crops, sweet weapons and colony items?  You bet your ASS I've got cargo space for it!

9

General Discussion / Re: N00b questions

« on: August 19, 2023, 01:54:48 PM »

One good rule of thumb when supplying your fleet (for me, anyway) is to figure out how many supplies you need for roughly a hundred days.  Even when you count for the damage of hyperspace storms and possible encounters (which should provide SOME supplies in return, assuming you win) this should usually give you a few month's worth of endurance with room for error.  I usually try to make sure my fuel is about 90% full before I head out somewhere, so I'm good for a long trip yet have room for sudden fuel acquisition if/when it happens.  As for crew, I try to keep about 10-15% crew over my ships' needs to account for possible combat losses and unexpected ship recovery; bump that up another 15% or so if I'm using fighters that need pilots.

When fitting your logistics ships (fuel, cargo, transports) strip their weapons.  If your fuel and cargo ships end up in an actual engagement, you're probably already wiped anyway.  Just fit them with mods that make them cheaper to maintain and/or provide passive benefits to your fleet; then worry about making them faster and more durable.  S-mod in solar shielding to drastically reduce the supplies wasted by travel near stars and storms, especially if you're running Atlas or Prometheus for logistics.

Try to adjust your ships and skills to get up to an 18 sustained burn speed.  20 is cool if you really want it, but I find that 18 is sufficient to either match or outrun basically any fleet in the sector that you can't outfight.

When exploring, always look for planets with debris around them.  They have ruins...and ruins can mean major goodies.  If you see a mission to scan a research station, GRAB IT, faction rep be damned.  Research stations mean blueprints and mods.  ALSO note that, (unless I'm sorely mistaken) when a mission for some kind of derelict ship or station appears, even if the mission times out, the object in question remains; therefore if you make a note of where a target is located, you can still go salvage it if you fail the mission.

Speaking of missions, mission alerts travel to you in real time, NOT instantaneously, starting from their place of origin.  If you're constantly seeing missions get withdrawn just after you get them, it's because you're too far away from the source and getting the news too late.  Comm relays help; staying near a system with a relay can get you better picks of missions.

10

General Discussion / Re: MAY LUDD HAVE MERCY

« on: August 19, 2023, 01:08:12 PM »

BRING IT ON.

11

General Discussion / Re: When is Shield Shunt worth it?

« on: August 03, 2023, 08:46:30 AM »

If you have a combat ship that seems to rely too much on its shields when armor tanking would serve it better, try shunt.  If a ship has a weak shield generator and you'd rather use that flux for more bang-bang, try it.  If you're setting up a ship with an officer and S-mods that push its armor value into the stratosphere, give it a try and see if its worth the time saved from waiting for flux.  If you happen to have a ship with high flux capacity but bad venting it might also be a good idea because, again, more time shooting and less time shield flickering at max flux.

12

General Discussion / Re: A huge nerf to the missiles

« on: July 03, 2023, 09:17:33 AM »

I must be one of the outliers who don't really favor missiles.  If I get a battleship with lots of ballistics and missile slots, the missiles are the last thing I look at.  They're nice, don't get me wrong; if used at the right time, a missile can swing the battle...but then they get shot down and they run out.  Given some of the absolute GAUNTLETS I've found myself in over the years, I don't favor a weapon system that runs dry mid-battle, no matter how strong it might seem.

Some missile builds are fun.  Sometimes I'll run a falcon P with four atropos launchers for giggles instead of four pilums for carpeting.  If I don't have the hullmods to fill out a capital I might throw a hurricane on a missile slot.  To me they remain support weapons though and in truth, many of them are still better as bombers on carriers, since those DON'T run out.  I'm especially wary of unguided torpedoes; given how absolutely stupid the fleet AI can be at times, I do NOT trust ANY of my AI ships to run hammers or reapers, EVER.  I still shudder thinking of those days...so many battles, completely in the bag, absolutely ruined by one idiotic officer who couldn't stand to finish a battle with a reaper still in the tube...never again.

13

General Discussion / Re: Opinon needed on a system

« on: July 03, 2023, 09:04:19 AM »

A habitable world is nice for your first planet because it can be grown quickly and cheaply, letting you get defenses up and providing patrols and basic services faster.  Beyond that, I mainly just look for sheer number of planets in a system.  The more planets in a system and the bigger variety of planet types, the better you can stack fleets and the more industries, bars and ports you can plop down without having to burn fuel to go between them.

14

General Discussion / Re: Alex Appreciation Thread

« on: May 27, 2023, 08:17:43 AM »

You figured out what was fun about the game and leaned into it.  You haven't allowed the game to grow bloated with useless layers of complexity and monetization.  You've kept your user interface relatively clean and intuitive.  You've continued to add polish AND content with new mechanics that have real impact.  You've given your modding community space and respected that space.

In summary?  You're doing a lot right here, Alex.

15

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.96a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: May 10, 2023, 09:27:57 AM »

Wall of patch notes attacks!

CRIT!  9999 damage!