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

Author Topic: Couple of Questions for someone who recently purchased the game:)  (Read 6647 times)

grinningsphinx

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Ive read the manual and read the wikis and there still some stuff thats poorly explained:)

1   In the logistics branch, the skills that reduce Supply costs are only for monthly maintenance right? It doesnt reduce the supply costs of ships after battles and retreats?

2   What is weapon recoil and how does it effect firing ? Do beams or energy weapons even have recoil?

3   Im having a tough  time figuring out "maneuverability" of ships..is it tied to top speed or is this stat just hidden? If hidden, it should most definitely be listed under the ship stats along with top speed. The Castle was FAR more ponderous then i expected it to be.

4   Target Analysis  I dont understand what the base skill does at all, as its not a mechanic thats mentioned or explained anywhere.

5   Gunnery Implants  What is the difference between basic hud and advanced hud?

6    Advanced Tactics  seems pretty weak requiring significant investment in it to see any return.... I rarely use more then 3 or 4 command points in any battle...and the cancel orders doesnt always recover your points.

7   What are the differences in NPC captain stances?  Timid, Cautious, Steady and Aggressive?  Is there ever any reason to have a timid officer?

Im sure theres other things that ive forgotten but this will go a long way, thank you in advance!

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StarSchulz

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Re: Couple of Questions for someone who recently purchased the game:)
« Reply #1 on: January 08, 2016, 02:51:20 PM »

1 - Correct!

2 - It affects weapon spread, energy weapons are not effected.

3 - I think it is acceleration. there are stats for forward and turn acceleration, and maximum speed for both.

4 - I haven't figured that out yet, i think it has something to do with the calculation of armor damage reduction. IE, 500 armor vs 500 armor and 10% reduction.

5 - In basic, the targeting icon isn't very accurate, at advanced it is much more accurate and moves with the velocity of your ship etc.

6 - Can be useful in longer tactical battles, carrier fleets with bomber wings need many command points to have the bombers attack effectively, and deliver the bombs together

7 - Timid will stay away and nearly never engage, even if in a combat ship.
     Cautious will keep it's distance but will engage if it has long range weapons. it won't go near enemy ranges if it can avoid it.
     Standard is just the original AI that does it's best to change according to the situation
     Aggressive officers prefer to get ALL of their weapons in range to fire, and will pilot civilian ships the same as normal combat ships.


Hope that helps! if something i said doesn't make sense, feel free to ask away!

grinningsphinx

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Re: Couple of Questions for someone who recently purchased the game:)
« Reply #2 on: January 08, 2016, 03:26:19 PM »

Makes sense...



When you have high enough faction, what benefit does the "Secure Comms Channel" give you?
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StarSchulz

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Re: Couple of Questions for someone who recently purchased the game:)
« Reply #3 on: January 08, 2016, 03:36:07 PM »

So far i think it will only tell you when a food shortage is rumored to happen, so you can prepare with food earlier. I don't know what else, quite yet. Many mods make use of that feature though, for example: In Nexerelin if you are part of a faction they will put a notification on that comm line when they are preparing to invade somewhere else.

Megas

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Re: Couple of Questions for someone who recently purchased the game:)
« Reply #4 on: January 08, 2016, 03:51:52 PM »

Weapon recoil causes your weapon with less than "Perfect" accuracy to become progressively more inaccurate as it fires continuously.  For example, Heavy Autocannon is reasonably accurate at first, but has you fire it more, its accuracy degrades and becomes inaccurate.  Ceasing fire for a moment restores accuracy.  Gunnery Implants 10 halves the recoil, which makes your weapons more accurate.

All standard energy weapons except Autopulse Laser have perfect accuracy.  Gunnery Implants 10 will make Autopulse Laser more accurate.


Target Analysis 10 causes your target's armor to take double damage.  Similarly, Evasive Action 10 causes your target's armor to take half damage.  Big enemy ships with Evasive Action 10 have armor that is really hard to break.


Advanced Tactics is most useful for the Special Ops perk if you want to board ships.  Without it, you may need to bring about 500 marines to board a capital ship.  The extra CP does not hurt.  Actually, I spend extra CP on the Avoid order to mark various ships, because it make them visible on the map even beyond fog-of-war.  Useful when I solo enemy fleets with one ship.


StarSchulz explained the personalities.

As for the Timid question, use Timid officers on any of the following:  carriers, Vigilance armed with Pilums (for Pilum spam), or any fast combat ship (such as Hound or Tempest) to capture points yet avoid combat at all costs.
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Aeson

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Re: Couple of Questions for someone who recently purchased the game:)
« Reply #5 on: January 08, 2016, 04:04:39 PM »

Quote
3   Im having a tough  time figuring out "maneuverability" of ships..is it tied to top speed or is this stat just hidden? If hidden, it should most definitely be listed under the ship stats along with top speed. The Castle was FAR more ponderous then i expected it to be.
There are five maneuverability-related statistics for each ship in the game - a maximum linear speed, a maximum rotational speed, two linear accelerations, and a rotational acceleration. However, knowing the values probably isn't going to tell you how a ship 'feels;' it's one thing to know that the Onslaught has a turn rate of 4 degrees/s, a rotational acceleration of 4 degrees/s^2, a max speed of 25 distance/s, and both linear accelerations set to 10 distance/s^2, and another thing to know that the Onslaught and the Conquest, with its maximum turn rate of 6 degrees/s, turn acceleration of 4 degrees/s^2, maximum linear accelerations of 20 and 15 distance/s^2, and maximum speed of 45 distance/s - stats which don't look all that much better - feel quite different. Then compare that to a high-end frigate like the Tempest, with a maximum speed of 200 distance/s, maximum linear accelerations of 200 and 175 distance/s^2, maximum turn rate of 90 degrees/s, and rotational acceleration of 270 degrees/s^2. How well do the numbers convey the differences in maneuverability to you? My guess would be not that well; most people do not have a good sense of how numbers, especially accelerations, translate to reality (or, as in this case, a simulation).

In the end, you really just have to spend some time flying the ships to see how they feel and to see which ones you like to fly; the various missions are somewhat good for this (kind of, anyways; the character skills that mess with maneuverability can change how each ship feels), as they give you access to a wide variety of ships (though not, at present, all of them) to throw into the simulator and just fly around or fight simulated opponents or actually play through the mission and get a feel for how the ship flies.

Quote
4   Target Analysis  I dont understand what the base skill does at all, as its not a mechanic thats mentioned or explained anywhere.
Armor isn't just another HP pool; when a shot hits armor, the damage is reduced by a factor of [shot damage]/([armor] + [shot damage]) before damage is applied to the armor - i.e. actual damage to armor is [shot damage]^2 / ([armor] + [shot damage]). Target Analysis increases the the shot damage for the purpose of damage reduction, which probably means that if you have a bonus of +10% from Target Analysis then the formula is modified to 1.1 * [shot damage] / ([armor] + 1.1 * [shot damage]) for damage reduction, or 1.1 * [shot damage]^2 / ([armor] + [shot damage]); it's possible that the damage is (1.1 * [shot damage])^2 / ([armor] + 1.1 * [shot damage]), though I'd consider that doubtful since the skill specifies that the bonus is for the purpose of damage reduction only.

Quote
6    Advanced Tactics  seems pretty weak requiring significant investment in it to see any return.... I rarely use more then 3 or 4 command points in any battle...and the cancel orders doesnt always recover your points.
The value of Advanced Tactics is dependent upon how you play. Big carrier fleets, especially well-managed carrier fleets, really like to have command points to spend, mostly on grouping up the bombers before each run and for specifying the target of each run; four or five Dagger or Piranha squadrons striking a capital ship en masse, particularly from the right direction (i.e. somewhere on the rear half of an Onslaught, or on the side furthest from the shields of a distracted Conquest, or coming in from several angles at once on a Conquest that has no other major threats; if you want to overload rather than kill or cripple, then change the direction so the attack comes in over top of the probable location of the target's shields), are a lot more dangerous than the same four or five squadrons making piecemeal runs on targets of opportunity or as individual fighters finish rearming. Most other fleets can usually get away with just the basic number of command points plus the handful you gain through capturing, though you can usually find a use for spare command points even if you don't really need more.
« Last Edit: January 08, 2016, 04:06:55 PM by Aeson »
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grinningsphinx

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Re: Couple of Questions for someone who recently purchased the game:)
« Reply #6 on: January 09, 2016, 03:10:15 PM »

Thank you for the explanations! 

Ive found fighters to be mostly useless...to easily removed from play... The simplest bump would be to classify fighters the same way missiles are. Prevent direct attacks on them except for Point defenses or things classed as point defenses..this would give a good reason to get the ship system.

Also, have better bumps in the Logistics tree would make it more attractive in general....a lot of lvl 5 and 10 bumps are missing.  Science and combat are fleshed out pretty well.
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Megas

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Re: Couple of Questions for someone who recently purchased the game:)
« Reply #7 on: January 09, 2016, 03:46:04 PM »

Fighters are not power units.  They can do some damage, and Thunders are excellent support.  Fighters' main ability is immortality - they do not permanently die if you have a carrier.  But if you looking for the most powerful units to dominate combat in the endgame, fighters do not make the cut.

0.7 has made Leadership entirely optional.  Before 0.7, Fleet Logistics affected the size of your fleet you can support, instead of a hard limit of 25 ships.  (Without Leadership, you had enough Logistics to support one battlecruiser or a few frigates.  With max Logistics, you could support three battleships or forty frigates.)  Now, it reduces maintenance cost, which is peanuts compared to supplies consumed by repairs.  The most useful skill in Leadership is Advanced Tactics, and that is mostly for the Special Ops perk.  Command Experience 10 is useful if you want to train crew to elite then sell them.
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grinningsphinx

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Re: Couple of Questions for someone who recently purchased the game:)
« Reply #8 on: January 10, 2016, 04:24:20 PM »

Thank you for the response on fighters!

Using the mods contained within SS+ and the supported factions for Exerilin, ive finally found some decent fighters that actually DO something other then die lol:). yes, they are 20-35k, but at least i feel like they have an effect:_

Currently using the Shadowyards Charibdis class strike carrier(cruiser) to launch fighters with.
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Megas

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Re: Couple of Questions for someone who recently purchased the game:)
« Reply #9 on: January 10, 2016, 07:06:37 PM »

You can find much stronger fighters or other content from various mods.  One of the more notable mods is Knights Templar.  Smiter wings have crazy alpha strike potential with Clarents.
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grinningsphinx

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Re: Couple of Questions for someone who recently purchased the game:)
« Reply #10 on: January 12, 2016, 11:18:17 PM »

The only issue with Templars is that they are far out of whack from anything else lol, even the ORI get gibbed by templars.
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