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Author Topic: Starsector 0.7.2a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 355189 times)

Copperwire

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Re: Starsector 0.7.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #330 on: February 28, 2016, 05:51:21 AM »

Eagle vs Aurora is one comparison; the one that is not being made, and should, is Apogee vs. Aurora.

The math that has to be done is you have to add the cap/flux of the two drones (they shoot forever as far as I can tell so 120 vents and ??? cap) and the OP for 2 Ion Blasters (12 OP) to the Apogee.  Looking at it that way, the DP cost difference between the two is ugly.

Frankly, I think the Apogee needs a slightly higher CR/DP cost (I would lean 27+ because it is worth at least a wolf more then an eagle) .... and the Aurora needs to clearly shine.  How does not matter so much.

For the most part, ships seems to be "balanced" either based on "AI as pilot" or "Player as pilot".  I am not sure where to put the Aurora in this sense.  Maybe the answers are down that road.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2016, 05:57:17 AM by Copperwire »
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ANGRYABOUTELVES

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Re: Starsector 0.7.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #331 on: February 28, 2016, 05:53:33 AM »

Medium missile mounts are shiiiiiiiiit. The only good things you can stick in them are Harpoon Pods or Typhoons. I'm getting sick and tired of Harpoons and Typhoons are so rare in vanilla that you're more likely to find them from heading into Hegemony space and blowing up patrols with Vigilances than you are to find them on a market.

More to the point, the Aurora would then lose the ability to mount Swarmers, Annihilators, and Atropos torpedoes. Without a medium missile weapons expansion, replacing 4x small hardpoints with 2x medium hardpoints would severely reduce the number of viable builds.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2016, 05:56:35 AM by ANGRYABOUTELVES »
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.7.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #332 on: February 28, 2016, 06:00:36 AM »

If Aurora could mount a large energy weapon, I would have fun blasting things with plasma cannon or one of the powered-up large beams.  That reminds me...

* High Intensity Laser seems useful.  Still weak against shields but once they are out of the way, armor and hull melt quickly!  You cannot shrug the beam off and laugh at it anymore.  (Well, you can still shield tank HIL, but it is clear that it is a specialized anti-armor weapon.)  Sunder and Paragon can use it effectively.  Apogee and Odyssey will need another ship to take out shields for them - useless for them if soloing fleets.

* Tachyon Lance is more reasonable now.  OP cost is no longer absurd, and the other minor tweaks make it a solid weapon.

I think it'd be cool to give it more missile power. Several medium forward missile mounts for example. I've always found it a bit weird to use 4x small mounts.

3x medium energy work rather well, and putting Heavy Blasters here gives the Aurora its typical profile of high-damage, high-cost shots appropriate to its flux pool. I'm not sure the frontal loadout is any better now than it had been previously. They are both kind of weird. How about 1x large, 2x medium forward missile mounts? Is that too much?
If that means giving up the medium synergy, then Aurora reverts to high-tech Gryphon, and Eagle becomes the next upgrade from Medusa if player wants a big blaster boat.  Admittedly, for small energy (for synergy), the only useful options, if building for blasters, is one tactical laser to fool shield AI and three ion cannons to shut down targets for blaster smackdown.

I like the small synergies.  I can totally ignore missiles and focus on brawling.

If I want small missiles, Atropos spam is fun.

I would like a large mount for Aurora.

Quote
Eagle vs Aurora is one comparison; the one that is not being made, and should, is Apogee vs. Aurora.
When I play Aurora, I envy what Apogee has.  Lower costs, stronger shield, free 360 shield, large energy mount, more cargo capacity.  (Aurora used to have 360 shields for free, now it needs to pay an OP tax to get them back!)  Also, Apogee has High-Resolution Sensors.

Before, Aurora was the better ship only due to Reaper spam, which has now been taken away.
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Sy

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Re: Starsector 0.7.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #333 on: February 28, 2016, 06:01:43 AM »

I think it'd be cool to give it more missile power. Several medium forward missile mounts for example. I've always found it a bit weird to use 4x small mounts.
personally, i'd prefer a large mount over more medium missile capacity. synergy allows for more flexibility in loudout choice, and being able to mount a Squall, Tachyon Lance or High Intensity Laser should make a beam / long range Aurora really something to be feared, even by large ships or those with strong shields.

large mounts also carry a more distinct big-ship-feeling that can make a cruiser stand out, beyond simply increasing firepower by increasing the number of weapons.

Frankly, I think the Apogee needs a slightly higher CR/DP cost (I would lean 27-28) .... and the Aurora needs to clearly shine.  How does not matter so much.
Apogee also has a much more powerful shield than the Aurora, worthy of a high-tech cruiser. and, lorewise at least, i think the Apogee isn't even supposed to be a pure combat ship, but more of an armed exploration/science vessel.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.7.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #334 on: February 28, 2016, 06:25:26 AM »

Quote
For the most part, ships seems to be "balanced" either based on "AI as pilot" or "Player as pilot".  I am not sure where to put the Aurora in this sense.  Maybe the answers are down that road.
Aurora in prior versions was mediocre solo "AI as pilot" due to poor shot range.  AI would kite the Aurora and kill it.  Aurora would waste MIRVs and not use Reapers aggressively enough.  I had better results with Dominator or Eagle for "AI as pilot" ships.  Those have better shot range and are less squishy when shields come down.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.7.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #335 on: February 28, 2016, 07:26:17 AM »

Quote
Medium missile mounts are shiiiiiiiiit. The only good things you can stick in them are Harpoon Pods or Typhoons. I'm getting sick and tired of Harpoons and Typhoons are so rare in vanilla that you're more likely to find them from heading into Hegemony space and blowing up patrols with Vigilances than you are to find them on a market.
Actually, for endurance runs (or for simple Pilum oversaturation), medium mounts are great for being able to mount Pilums.  Almost every medium missile mount (and some large) my fleet has are stuffed with Pilums.  Pilums are the only unlimited missile that offer non-negligible damage.

For alpha strike, yeah, I see what you mean.  I probably would prefer two small missile mounts to one medium if I want to alpha strike or even mere Salamander annoyance.  For Salamanders, two small missiles are easier to use than one medium because single Salamanders are much more common than dual Salamanders, and dual Salamanders are rare.
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ANGRYABOUTELVES

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Re: Starsector 0.7.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #336 on: February 28, 2016, 08:59:07 AM »

I've tried using Pilums. They're annoying to use since you either need to time overloading the enemy with your Pilums arriving, or build your fleet around Pilum spam and ships that can effectively Pilum spam have their own issues, other than the Onslaught. They're good just because they're unlimited with decent damage, but crippled in other ways.

And I'm sure the Aurora would do really well as a Pilum platform. Great value for 35 deployment points.
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Cycerin

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Re: Starsector 0.7.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #337 on: February 28, 2016, 09:07:12 AM »

Medium missiles let you mount Annihilator Pods, which are great.

Re: Aurorachat, one of the strengths of the Aurora over the Eagle is defense. The Aurora can easily back off and reset flux thanks to its strong shield and passively good engine/movement stats, and it has unrivalled PD coverage. Its main weakness over the Eagle is having to use beams if range is desired, but the Aurora is much harder to flank or pin down than the Eagle, which needs to constantly mind its flanks. It actually makes for a better close combat ship than the Eagle.

They definitely do not do that. They used to a few versions back, but I remember fixing this. Just tested and it works the way it's intended, as far as I can tell. I.E. target one ship, fire MIRV, switch targets, observe MIRV split and fire submunitions at original target.

Still happens with the Achilles LRM, which uses vanilla behavior and AI for both missile stages. Could be due to the fact the stage 2 missiles are heatseekers.

What does minTimeToSplit do, by the way?

Also, had no idea about SplitRangeRange existing, but after setting it to 0, the missiles do mostly split at a consistent range where they merely waste submunitions from splitting too close, rather than failing to split at all. But some missiles still split way earlier than the others, at a desired range. Guess I'll bite the bullet and write a custom AI to mirv it manually. Either that or I'll make the missile split away instead of towards the target. Anyway this is bordering on off-topic now so nevermind all this.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2016, 09:29:42 AM by Cycerin »
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HELMUT

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Re: Starsector 0.7.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #338 on: February 28, 2016, 09:47:05 AM »

I played a bit the campaign, and it definitely feel more polished than before. My favourite change was the destination list on jump points, to avoid needless waste of fuel. Also, the intel screen is much cleaner, it wasn't that much of a problem with vanilla, but with mods it could rapidly become a mess. Also tried the new ships and weapons.

The Mudskipper MK.II is in the ultimate cannon fodder. It's cheaper than the gun it uses, and have a tendency for suicide (thanks ill-advised modification!). I'm not sure i would even uses one even for free, but they makes good target practice for early game.

The Wayfarer is a safe Cerberus, Their cargo stats are almost identical, but the Wayfarer is a tiny bit more expensive to deploy. Not the kind of vessel i'd use as a flagship but it can find its purpose as an early game wingman, a Kite with cargo in some way. I outfitted mine with a pair of frontal railguns, two sideways PDs for missile interception, and then a pair of Salamanders or even Swarmers on the rear for further fire-support despite their weird turrets arc.

The Centurion is a bit of an oddities, like a really tough Lasher, or a Monitor with a bite. It got a lot of small turrets, but the arcs prevent the Centurion to come even close to the Lasher in the offensive department. It's similar to the Monitor because it is really hard to kill, even if it relies more on armor than its shield. Like the Wayfarer, it can be a pretty good wingman ship early on, but thanks to its survivability, it can keep its job even during mid-game against destroyers and even some cruisers. My build didn't changed much, a PD/fire-support mix. Two railguns on the front, four PDs on the sides/rear, and a Salamander. Not the most existing ship, but at least i had some backup that stayed alive.

The Scarab was much more interesting. It worked for me like a high-tech Lasher, lot of small mounts that encouraged a very aggressive melee play-style. And because of the temporal shell and its really good shield, even the AI could get out of tricky situations. I used it as flagship for quite a while, and gave it 3 IR pulse on the front, coupled with a pair of Annihilators, and two PD lasers on the rear. The sideways mounts felt very superfluous to me, punishing arcs that can only mount more costly PDs that the Scarab doesn't even need, i left them always empty. Also, strapped SO and unstable injector on top of that, because with that much speed and temporal shell, the enemy can't even land a single hit. Later on, when i passed the Scarab to the AI, i replaced one IR for a ion cannon and removed SO. Not the greatest killer of our time, but it survived a lot of pirates.

The new Afflictor is really evil. It was already quite a beast before, but could only be used as a Striker or an un-catchable distraction. While the distraction Afflictor doesn't works as well, its new Quantum Disruptor can give it a role as an escort craft, as it can terrorize everything that rely on its shield or cloak. Most phase ships can fill that role with their respective "powers", but i found the Afflictor to be the dirtiest. Paragon hiding behind its fortress shield? Disrupted! Doom playing hide and seek in P-space? Disrupted! The biggest winner of the patch in my eyes, a must have in any fleets, either as a flagship or AI support.

The Harbinger is also a newcomer. It's monstrously expensive at 20 supplies per deployment, almost as much a an Eagle! But in some way, no other ships can back-stab someone with that many torpedoes. The triple Typhoon Harbinger is for me THE build, especially with the Entropy Amplifier that can boost the damage by 50%! Other build can works, like the new Ion Pulser, but i found the Harbinger to struggle a bit with the flux. Missiles are more convenient to its strained generator.

Didn't had the chance to play the Doom a lot  in the campaign, so not much to say about it. The Interdictor Array is fun against fighter swarms, watching the enemy fighters crashing helplessly against my ships.

The Aurora is better in my opinion, kinda, at least it feel less of a Gryphon variant and more as a proper High-tech cruiser. As debated above, the Striker Aurora isn't what it used to be, even though the new AM Blaster build offer similar capabilities but at higher risks. On the bright side, it can now Laser boat, Pulse boat, and more if you include mods. The new Aurora isn't strictly better than the old one, but it can try more diverse loadouts, some that works better with the AI. Still, it's the most expensive cruiser to deploy with the Doom, and as Megas noted, not exactly superior to the (much) cheaper Dominator. It might require some more testing, but i'm not opposed to that large hardpoint idea.

For the weapons, the Ion Beam is an interesting one, if very expensive (high OPs and flux/sec for insignificant damage). It works pretty well on a laser-boat Aurora, or even Paragon and Medusa (the only ships that can seriously try to use it). It was very rare in my campaign, so i couldn't use it that much, but it felt situational.

The Ion Pulser wasn't so interesting. Unlike ANGRYABOUTELVES, i found it to be a very good (well...) shield-breaking weapon, thanks to its very high-sustained DPS. Still, the 450 range is crippling, especially for a bigger ship, and the limited ammo means i have to dump OPs in the very situational Expanded magazines. I even tried to uses those in some kind of weird SO loadout, but the limited ammo was still a problem. In the end, if i needed to deal some EMP, a bunch of ion cannons can do the job without being as inconvenient as the Pulser. It probably could find its niche if it was cheaper i think but right now? Not a fan. Also, as said earlier, its sound effect is very underwhelming.

For the Tachyon lance, i expected this change to start the coronation of the Paragon as the absolute king of battleships. Fortunately, the shield bypass effect is very uncommon, even at higher flux, so not as much cheesing as i expected. Still, the cost reduction makes it more interesting to use now.

So yeah, other than the underwhelming Ion Pulser, i'm very happy with this patch.

Also, agreed with Cyc's argument over the whole missile power creep thing. I didn't felt as much the gentle caress of the Harpoons in this campaign because i spent most of my time in a P-space, but i clearly saw the results for my allied ships with shields. That guillotine effect when one overload is really merciless, even when playing carefully. The missile skill is part of the problem obviously, but i guess this will be resolved with the skills rework for the next patch.
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Sy

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Re: Starsector 0.7.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #339 on: February 28, 2016, 10:16:54 AM »

Re: Aurorachat, one of the strengths of the Aurora over the Eagle is defense. The Aurora can easily back off and reset flux thanks to its strong shield and passively good engine/movement stats, and it has unrivalled PD coverage.
the Aurora has better flux stats, but its shield by itself actually isn't any better than the Eagle's. they share a 0.8 efficiency, and the Aurora's shield actually has double the upkeep cost by default, due to it being an omni shield. the only real advantage is being able to achieve complete 360° coverage with Front Shield Emitter, whereas the Eagle will always have at least a small spot of vulnerability even with Extended Shields. and when shields go down, the Eagle has better armor below.

PD coverage actually isn't really better either. the Eagle has 2-3 small turrets covering all directions, except for two very small spots on the sides that have only 1. the Aurora also has 2-3 for most directions, but only 1 covering a good portion of its back. the only part where the Aurora has better coverage is its front left side, which doesn't seem like a meaninful advantage, especially considering that its primary firepower is from center front to rear right.
i suppose you could count the Aurora's rear medium turret for PD coverage, but that also means it will only have a single medium turret for offensive weaponry facing every side except the center front, much more limited than on the Eagle.

yes, the Aurora is faster (at least without Maneuvering Jets) but i don't think 20 more base speed and the higher flux stats justify 60% higher maintenance and deployment cost.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.7.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #340 on: February 28, 2016, 10:32:55 AM »

I've tried using Pilums. They're annoying to use since you either need to time overloading the enemy with your Pilums arriving, or build your fleet around Pilum spam and ships that can effectively Pilum spam have their own issues, other than the Onslaught. They're good just because they're unlimited with decent damage, but crippled in other ways.

And I'm sure the Aurora would do really well as a Pilum platform. Great value for 35 deployment points.
Pilums are annoying to use, but they work.  I do not use Dominator or a few other ships for Pilum spam, yet Pilums with max Missile Specialization kill things.  AI still manages to do dumb things and eat a stack a Pilums from time to time.  Dominator would not be able to solo the 0.7.1 simulator without them.

If Aurora had two medium missiles instead of four small missiles, I would use Pilums and let them do their thing.  If I could not be bothered with Pilums, I would downgrade to single Salamander or a one-shot missile, which two small mounts are better at than one medium, admittedly.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.7.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #341 on: February 28, 2016, 10:48:16 AM »

- Trying a Pirate playthrough, faction relations seem to develop very slowly given the small scale of procurement mission rewards and limited impact of selecting the relation boost. Selecting this new-game option seems to improve starting faction standing from (-65) to (-45), not enough to enable transponder-on docking, so open-market trading doesn't build much goodwill. Since they don't offer bounties, I'm having a hard time increasing relations to the point where I'm able to aid them in battle.

You can actually join to help them right off the bat, provided you're already hostile with whoever they're fighting. Basically, you just have to go all-in on being a pirate to be trusted enough to fight alongside.

- Really minor nit--this wasn't in the changelog, but was mentioned during discussion of .71--clicking a message popup still takes players to the last-viewed Intel screen rather than details of that item. It feels a bit clunky having to switch to the Log and change filters, then reset them next time you want to check prices or bounties on the map.

You know, let me just fix that up now. There, done.

- I was going to point out that I haven't run across any of the new ships yet, but it occurred to me that this playthrough has been spent almost wholly in Pirate / Hege space.

All of the new frigates are actually available through the various starting options.


Re: Aurora - appreciate all the feedback/discussion! Will keep that in mind and take a look at it, but not for the hotfix, which means next release, which does mean a while. Still, I don't want to knee-jerk balance things right off the bat.


@HELMUT: Thank you for the detailed feedback, really enjoyed reading it :) Nice to see you've had some success with an AI-controlled Scarab; I'd had trouble with that myself.

(Am I alone in really liking the Ion Pulser sound effect? Feels like the smoothness of it is a nice fit for the rapid fire/spinning barrel nature of it.)



Still happens with the Achilles LRM, which uses vanilla behavior and AI for both missile stages. Could be due to the fact the stage 2 missiles are heatseekers.

Ahh, that was it. Fixed so that any missile AI implementing GuidedMissileAI will now have its target properly set by the MirvAI.

What does minTimeToSplit do, by the way?

Minimum time from firing until split.

Also, had no idea about SplitRangeRange existing, but after setting it to 0,

Ahh, forgot that's not in the default hurrican config. Full list of mirv options:

Spoiler
Code: java
splitRange = (float) spec.getParams().getDouble("splitRange");
splitRangeRange = (float) spec.getParams().optDouble("splitRangeRange", 0);
minTimeToSplit = (float) spec.getParams().getDouble("minTimeToSplit");
arc = (float) spec.getParams().getDouble("arc");
hitpoints = (float) spec.getParams().getDouble("hitpoints");
spreadSpeed = (float) spec.getParams().getDouble("spreadSpeed");
spreadSpeedRange = (float) spec.getParams().optDouble("spreadSpeedRange", 0);
projectileRange = (float) spec.getParams().optDouble("projectileRange", 300);
damage = (float) spec.getParams().getDouble("damage");
impact = (float) spec.getParams().optDouble("impact", 1f);
emp = (float) spec.getParams().optDouble("emp", 0);
numShots = spec.getParams().getInt("numShots");
evenSpread = spec.getParams().optBoolean("evenSpread", false);
[close]
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Sy

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Re: Starsector 0.7.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #342 on: February 28, 2016, 11:05:25 AM »

If Aurora had two medium missiles instead of four small missiles, I would use Pilums and let them do their thing.  If I could not be bothered with Pilums, I would downgrade to single Salamander or a one-shot missile, which two small mounts are better at than one medium, admittedly.
that would only be possible if the mounts were missile-only though, as multi-type mounts like synergy do not allow downgrading to weapons of a smaller size-class.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.7.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #343 on: February 28, 2016, 11:16:20 AM »

@ Sy:  Yes, that is true.  Aurora would probably be best served with four small mounts if they remain synergy.

@ Alex: I have not tried any of the new weapons yet.  I am waiting for the hotfix before I start a new game.  Recently, I only playtested some things with my old saves, which will not have new stuff unless I wait a while (but not motivated to do so).

I am not sure which ship to start as.  After poking through some files, I noticed Scarab is a rare ship, almost as rare as Hyperion, and only Tri-Tachyon uses them.  I want to play as the Scarab (or at least get my guaranteed rare ship), but hostile to Tri-Tachyon hurts my plans for getting an early commission from them.  Hostile to Tri-Tachyon would not be bad if I wanted to sign up with anyone else but Tri-Tachyon.  (Low-tech is probably the most powerful epoch overall, so being Hegemony war dog would be a good idea.)  But it seems much of the new content seems high-tech focused, and that means if I want to buy it, I need to be friendly with Tri-Tachyon.
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Sy

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Re: Starsector 0.7.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #344 on: February 28, 2016, 11:26:54 AM »

(Am I alone in really liking the Ion Pulser sound effect? Feels like the smoothness of it is a nice fit for the rapid fire/spinning barrel nature of it.)
i think it's alright, but something with a bit more bang would probably better fit its high burst damage.

on that topic, i was also a little underwhelmed with the Ion Pulser's performance. i have only tried it on my Harbinger for now, though, so maybe it will work better on other ships. for the Harbinger specifically, its burst damage to burst flux build-up ratio seemed too poor to me. i use a loadout with three Phase Lances instead now, which works very well against all the poorly-shielded pirate ships. :]
i do want to try a Medusa with Ion Pulsers, backed up by some ballistic kinetic damage to soften up targets before the burst.

I want to play as the Scarab (or at least get my guaranteed rare ship), but hostile to Tri-Tachyon hurts my plans for getting an early commission from them.  Hostile to Tri-Tachyon would not be bad if I wanted to sign up with anyone else but Tri-Tachyon.  (Low-tech is probably the most powerful epoch overall, so being Hegemony war dog would be a good idea.)  But it seems much of the new content seems high-tech focused, and that means if I want to buy it, I need to be friendly with Tri-Tachyon.
i had the same problem. i really wanted to start with the Scarab, but i had also planned for some time to start a Tri-Tachyon playthrough with this new release, due to all the new high-tech toys.

but generally speaking, i think getting a rare and powerful ship from the start with the drawback of being immediately hostile to one of the major factions is interesting. i'd like to see more options that add some variety and character like that.
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