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

Author Topic: niggles about 0.8  (Read 2115 times)

ChaseBears

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niggles about 0.8
« on: April 26, 2017, 09:45:01 AM »

I am greatly enjoying 0.8 thus far, but I do have some quibbles.

-The default command in map really should be lay course, not planet info.

-Would like some idea of a bounty fleets strength (other than generic identical text) before mustering for an expedition to go fight it.   There's a big difference between checking out the outskirts of Corvus and going 30ly into the unknown.

-Huge Salvage fleets ganking all the pirate bounties! Who even needs the Hegemony when dozens of ships arrive squash every pirate that ever lived?  (Salvage fleets should be unaggressive towards pirates if they are going to be so huge+common.) (EDIT: I mean the core sector bounties, not the fleets.)

-Speaking of Salvage, I'm unsure why i spent skill points in Salvage. I think literally 95% of the wrecks i've stumbled across have been salvage rating 0%.  I feel salvage rating is an underdeveloped mechanic on both the player/fleets end and the salvage targets end.  Perhaps salvage rating should be a cumulative rating of things like player skill, salvage rigs, mining pods, relevant hullmods, etc. versus a more dynamic targeting level dependent on many factors like chance, being located in a difficult environment, contamination, etcetera.  Or at the least, there should be a more apparent benefit to the salvage rating skill, like salvage amount increases at all levels.

-I don't feel ships are sufficiently specialized or capable at exploration.  Say you want to play Star Trek and venture into the unknown with a cruiser.   The three obvious candidates are the Apogee, the Venture, and the Doom - with 50, 40, and 50 light year ranges respectively. That isn't far enough to go anywhere interesting and back. Thus you are forced to bring a tanker.  The cruiser with the worst range is the Mora, only going 15ly.  With a Dram you get 90ly, compared to 150ly on the Apogee/Doom.  This is not a big difference considering the Mora is the worst in the game (although Dominator+Dram is also 90ly.)  Also consider that 90ly is enough to do most exploration.  

A ship designed for exploration like the Apogee should be self sufficient in this regard, even if it comes at the sacrifice of some other capability.   The Venture should be similarly capable at being a long range base ship.  Right now theres no decision making in having a tanker, they are just necessary.

The lack of differentiation with effective range is also apparent within the sector, since you basically do not need to worry about fuel as a small fleet; I usually salvage more than I can use for core-area travel.  Would also be a good way to differentiate some cargo vessels; right now all the cargo destroyers have literally 35-40 ly in range. I'd drop some to 20 so there's more decision making.


« Last Edit: April 26, 2017, 01:01:19 PM by ChaseBears »
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orost

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Re: niggles about 0.8
« Reply #1 on: April 26, 2017, 09:53:35 AM »

Quote
-Speaking of Salvage, I'm unsure why i spent skill points in Salvage. I think literally 95% of the wrecks i've stumbled across have been salvage rating 0%.

You haven't looked hard enough. There are plenty of salvageable objects with ratings at 25, 75 and 100%, with some extremely valuable rewards at the high end.
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ChaseBears

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Re: niggles about 0.8
« Reply #2 on: April 26, 2017, 09:56:37 AM »

I'm sure there are, but going in blind i spent points on salvage at the very start of the game and it took many hours and levels before i ever encountered a ship above salvage rating 0%.  I wasn't any better at being a professional salvager than anyone else - It felt totally wasted, I could have done it later. Hell, I could have floated points and just taken the skill when i ended up being able to use it.

Salvaging as a skill seems AFAICT oriented mostly towards exploration. 
« Last Edit: April 26, 2017, 09:59:11 AM by ChaseBears »
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Igncom1

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Re: niggles about 0.8
« Reply #3 on: April 26, 2017, 10:10:38 AM »

You can get ludicrous amounts of stuff from abandoned stations in low tier AI systems.

I recommend bringing a big cargo ship when you do however, as you can collect an unbelievable amount of supplies this way. If anything unexplored systems are the best thing ever, until their cleared.

Then you have no reason what so ever to go back there, as it's not like the factions use your survey data for anything, as cool as it would be for the factions to slowly re-expand across the whole sector.

Hell, I'd love to at least fix up the stargates enough that we get more secure intra-sector travel.
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xenoargh

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Re: niggles about 0.8
« Reply #4 on: April 26, 2017, 10:11:04 AM »

Quote
-The default command in map really should be lay course, not planet info.
+1000; this really irked me the first day of playing the new build, lol.
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Gothars

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Re: niggles about 0.8
« Reply #5 on: April 26, 2017, 10:12:11 AM »

Salvaging as a skill seems AFAICT oriented mostly towards exploration. 

That is correct, all the valuable hard-to-salvage things can be found only in the outskirts. But it doesn't have to take long, the first thing I did after the tutorial was mounting an expedition, I had use for the skill within 10 minutes.

A ship designed for exploration like the Apogee should be self sufficient in this regard, even if it comes at the sacrifice of some other capability.

I couldn't agree more. I had hoped that I could get the Enterprise feeling with 0.8, but none of the ships is really suitable for that. The other limiting factor besides range is availability, I don't want to wait till the endgame to venture into the unknown with a cool ship made for the task.

I also agree about the lack of bounty strength information being a problem.
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Death_Silence_66

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Re: niggles about 0.8
« Reply #6 on: April 26, 2017, 12:23:06 PM »

Bounties getting ganked by [REDACTED] is also pretty annoying.
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Igncom1

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Re: niggles about 0.8
« Reply #7 on: April 26, 2017, 12:35:43 PM »

Bounties getting ganked by [REDACTED] is also pretty annoying.

You would think that in that case you could just claim responsibility for 'causing' their death and collect the bounty that way.

Maybe after salvaging proof from the debris?
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