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[Midnight Kitsune]

If boarding is gone, are marines gonna just be another commodity for now (a few things current hint at ground/station based ops), or are they kaput entirely?

I'm 99% sure that boarding is still in the game

[Alex]

Very interesting, but I already maxed out my "looking forward to play this update" already... Oo

Fair

I have a couple of questions though:
Does construction rigs have any role regarding recovering ships during the battle? Or do they just stand back in a corner?

During battle, absolutely nothing. Post-battle, also nothing, but thinking through some possibilities (sort of as an on-demand Reinforced Bulkheads? but more to think through there).

And how does the variant auto outfit manages mods? If weapons have to mention what they are upgrade or downgrade of, it could represent several hundreds of weapons to check with all the currently active mods. What kind of tags can we expect to have?

It creates some halfway-sensible default tags if a weapon doesn't have any. Tags are stuff like "pd<number>" or "kinetic<number>" or "strike<number>". Higher <number> means "better at the role". There's also a "SR" tag that means something is short-range; what this does is make sure a long-range weapon doesn't get replaced with a short-range on unless it's PD.

Some weapons have multiple role tags, e.g. the Heavy MG has: "kinetic11, pd10, SR". Meaning it's considered primarily a kinetic weapon (so if one isn't available, the autofitter will look for a kinetic weapon to replace it first, *then* a PD weapon).

This is going to be... Interesting to do a D sprite version of every single ship in mods.

Ha - it's optional, btw. The game automatically creates a base (D) hull for everything using the normal sprite. This reminds me, there's a TODO item somewhere to allow for an optional alternate sprite for this auto-generation.

If boarding is gone, are marines gonna just be another commodity for now (a few things current hint at ground/station based ops), or are they kaput entirely?

For now, yeah, just a commodity.

What are the stats on the new D-mods anyhow? I mean, currently, its something like 30-50% reduction in whatever it effects. Guessing a 10-20%?

Glitched Sensor Array is -15% range; Compromised Structure is -25% armor and hull, Comromised Armor/Hull are -33%, it's all along these lines. Notably, the campaign sensor penalty of Degraded Engines is much less now, though it still has -1 burn.

  Will you be able to remove the (D) hullmods from Luddic Path ships?  If so, I would be willing to spend the credits and turn them into front line ships to hold the enemy back before my main fleet makes it to the middle of the map.

Hah, I was wondering if someone would ask that - yes! You can get a Luddic Path <whatever> with the built-in Safety Overrides and without the Ill-Advised Modifications. Can get a Mudskipper Mk.2 fixed up, too.

I'm 99% sure that boarding is still in the game

Pretty sure I mentioned explicitly that the ship recovery stuff replaces it, but if I didn't: it does

[Midnight Kitsune]

Wow, no more boarding is a surprise!
Oh and does SS now only use the generated D sprites or does it use the old, already made sprites? If it uses already made sprites then what about the new ships? Do they have new D sprites?

[Alex]

Wow, no more boarding is a surprise!

Weeell, I mean, "ship recovery" is basically just a different take on it.

Oh and does SS now only use the generated D sprites or does it use the old, already made sprites? If it uses already made sprites then what about the new ships? Do they have new D sprites?

It's a mix. It'll use (D) sprites for explicitly-defined (D) hulls, such as what the pirates use. But if you, say, recover a normal non-(D) Hound, it'll be a Hound (D) with the same sprite as a regular Hound. Might end up gradually adding custom (D) sprites for things, but it's not a super high priority and it comes with more loading time and video memory use etc.

[Spoorthuzad]

If you repair a (for example) pirate (d) hound would it keep the pirate sprite or would it change to a normal hound sprite.
I would love to make a pirate fleet that doesn't have all the (d)ownsides.

[Midnight Kitsune]

If you repair a (for example) pirate (d) hound would it keep the pirate sprite or would it change to a normal hound sprite.
I would love to make a pirate fleet that doesn't have all the (d)ownsides.

Heh, I remember making a custom wolf ship that used the red pirate wolf sprite

[ClosetGoth]

This is quite possibly the best balance game-changer in Starsector's history! I am really excited to not be so nervous about deploying or losing ships, as I never let my fleets get to more than 2-4 ships in combat at once, because I just couldn't handle the attrition costs.

As for construction rig ideas, if you haven't already thought of this, you could have them reduce the chance of d-mods when recovering, or even allow you to remove them outside of port. Actually, I think an interesting mechanic is where construction rigs could consume supplies to remove d-mods over time, like how your ships repair automatically. Having more rigs supports "de-downgrading" more ships at the same time.

[Wyvern]

Hm.  So if you grab a D-class Sunder, the central energy slot is stuck at medium size, isn't it?

[Alex]

If you repair a (for example) pirate (d) hound would it keep the pirate sprite or would it change to a normal hound sprite.
I would love to make a pirate fleet that doesn't have all the (d)ownsides.

It keeps the pirate sprite. On a related note, if you restore the pirate Wolf, it does *not* get its two missing turrets back. The flipside of this is the restored Mudskipper Mk.2 gets to keep its large weapon mount.

As for construction rig ideas, if you haven't already thought of this, you could have them reduce the chance of d-mods when recovering, or even allow you to remove them outside of port. Actually, I think an interesting mechanic is where construction rigs could consume supplies to remove d-mods over time, like how your ships repair automatically. Having more rigs supports "de-downgrading" more ships at the same time.

Yeah, I've thought about stuff like that. This sounds neat in theory, but then details. How would you even keep track? Can you order them to focus on specific ships? How do you manage this extra supply consumption? It quickly becomes too much for what it adds.

As for just reducing the number of d-mods, again, similar questions - can you pick which ships are affected? (Maybe "no" is an ok answer here.) It also steps on the toes of the Recovery Operations skill; if its effect for the final level can be achieved without skill point investment, then that's a wasted skill point.

Everything I've thought about so far feels like shoehorning Salvage Rigs in there just because it makes some thematic sense, and I don't want to do that.

Hm.  So if you grab a D-class Sunder, the central energy slot is stuck at medium size, isn't it?

Only if it started out as a (D)-class Sunder using that custom skin. If the Sunder started the battle as a regular Sunder, you'll get a different (D)-class with a large weapon mount.

[Dark.Revenant]

Autofit! Does that imply procedural variants on ships generated in the campaign as well?

Not for this release, but there's definitely the potential for it. Performance-wise, it's probably not good enough to do for every ship being created, so would have to be a bit more clever (e.g. outfit enemy ships when you encounter them), etc.

Performance being an issue is strange to me.  Dynasector's variant creator is by no means particularly well-optimized and it can handle even the worst spawning habits in the 0.7 campaign.  A lot of the trick is that it does a bunch of legwork at init, storing coefficients for all sorts of things in memory based on the calculations made then.  The actual outfitter just uses these coefficients in the end as part of its random picker.  It's O(n*m) where n is the number of slots and m is the number of weapons that can fit into each slot for that faction.

It also works similarly to your outfitter; I've essentially got a set of tags and faction-dependent weights for each weapon, and efficacy is sorted by OP and tier.  It doesn't try to match a specific variant, but it does try to fit a general theme/archetype and uses existing variants as raw data for coefficients (namely which roles to use in which slots).

Beyond that, there are a lot of assumptions that can be made when spawning variants from scratch, since limited supply of objects is not a factor.

[Alex]

Performance being an issue is strange to me.  Dynasector's variant creator is by no means particularly well-optimized and it can handle even the worst spawning habits in the 0.7 campaign.  A lot of the trick is that it does a bunch of legwork at init, storing coefficients for all sorts of things in memory based on the calculations made then.  The actual outfitter just uses these coefficients in the end as part of its random picker.  It's O(n*m) where n is the number of slots and m is the number of weapons that can fit into each slot for that faction.

It also works similarly to your outfitter; I've essentially got a set of tags and faction-dependent weights for each weapon, and efficacy is sorted by OP and tier.  It doesn't try to match a specific variant, but it does try to fit a general theme/archetype and uses existing variants as raw data for coefficients (namely which roles to use in which slots).

Beyond that, there are a lot of assumptions that can be made when spawning variants from scratch, since limited supply of objects is not a factor.

Well, yeah, but the bolded stuff is kind of significant I'm sure it could be optimized or adjusted to make use of various said assumptions; my point is that it isn't because that's not what it currently does, and so I wouldn't want to use it en masse in its current form; that's all I was saying, really, not that it's a qualitative problem.

Btw: the autofitter code is a plugin and can be provided by a mod on a per-fleet-member basis.

[FooF]

If I'm reading this correctly, there is still a significant RNG component to recovering ships: skewing much more favorably for the player if it's a.) for his/her own fleet ships being recovered and/or b.) if you invest in the specific Industry skills. I noticed that "base chance" is X (numbers may get tweaked) but is that across all ships or do certain hulls or classes of ships have modifiers to that base chance? I.e. a frigate is "easier" to recover than a destroyer (or vice versa) or a phase ship is harder to recover, etc.?

From the point-of-view of my own fleet, investing heavily in recovery skills means that roughly 2 out of 3 ships I lose will be recoverable and I can designate certain ships with hull mods or officers that guarantee their recovery. That's pretty awesome. I know that's been a common suggestion/complaint and it even though we'll have to spend money to get ships back to pristine condition, we're not losing high-value hulls left and right. I'm curious if during your play testing if "zerging" larger/better equipped fleets with tons of chaff ships is viable. Perhaps through attrition and re-deployments. It also begs the question if the 25 ship limit affects this kind of play style. I guess it also makes credits more valuable because recovering/fixing ships won't be cheap. This change has a lot of meta-gameplay implications!

Out of curiosity, does Reinforced Bulkheads continue to give +50% hull or has that been removed now that it's a "get out of jail free" card for ships?

[Gothars]

While I expected something like this, the implementation seems really very well rounded. I think this will be great for game flow. No more picking only easy fights, no more watching your AI comrades all the time, no more reloading after losing a single ship!

Couple comments:

d-mods reduce the amount of supplies it takes a ship to recover combat readiness lost from being deployed in battle

Oddly specific wording, does the game now differentiate between battle and environmental CR loss?

But if you, say, recover a normal non-(D) Hound, it'll be a Hound (D) with the same sprite as a regular Hound.

How about applying some of the visual damage layer to it permanently? You know, like the weapon impact craters and such. Maybe with some new textures that look more like rust, use and repairs. That would give (D) variants more individuality and would be nice for mod ships, too.


Spontaneous idea: Certain ships (e.g. passenger liner) can "cost" negative crew to recover, i.e. you gain crew from them. Of course all enthusiastic volunteers (after having had a chance to thoroughly inspect the airlocks).


Last but not least: Is 0.8a (big-) feature complete now?

[icepick37]

So it's all or nothing on removing (d) mods? Any thought to making that a choice of from 1-4?

All this sounds awesome! Yay new stuff!

[Histidine]

Wunderbar!

It's interesting to consider this in terms of comparison to Mount & Blade:

Spoiler

In M&B you have companions (named party members who can level up and gain aptitude/skill like you do) and generic soldiers (fixed stats and equipment, level up through a "tech tree" mechanic).

Generic soldiers are fairly straightforward to replace if you do lose them, just pick up some recruits from a nearby village and let them level up as they go along. Still annoying if you lose a top-level unit like a Swadian Knight or something, but eventually you'll get it replaced without having to do anything particular to that unit. You have plenty of other troops anyway.
Also, you can quickly get levelled units by: hiring mercs from taverns, freeing prisoners of enemy bands you beat, or (sometimes) persuading prisoners you capture to defect.

Companions just flat out don't have permadeath, although if they get knocked out in a fight they make take some time to recover. (They can also leave your party for other reasons, but they'll be available again eventually.)


Given the above, I wonder how viable it'd be to use SS's ship recovery as a source of semi-disposable cannon fodder, around a core of a few officered and well-maintained ships (the "companion" equivalent). If an individual ship ends up with too many D-hullmods after repeated deaths, just don't recover it, there's always more where it came from.
...I'd expect this'll use up crew at an unacceptable rate, and the player might also eventually run out of weapons to fit the cannon fodder ships. Oh well!

[close]

A couple of questions:
- Destroyed Weapon Mounts can't appear as a randomly added hullmod, right?
- For mods, does this mean we can attach arbitrary hullmods to FleetMembers that can't be removed from the refit screen? Can they be made so the restoration function won't remove them either?
- The "X ordnance points remaining" text kind of sticks out. It is something that should be drawn to the player's attention, but perhaps the font could be a bit smaller and the message moved to a corner of the ship's box?