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Author Topic: About That Whole Salvaged-Hull Thing...  (Read 22685 times)

xenoargh

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About That Whole Salvaged-Hull Thing...
« on: April 26, 2017, 10:09:01 AM »

Basically... the idea was great, but, in practice, it's not working out and it needs work.

1.  (D) mods are so severe that they frequently make a ship really inferior in combat, not just "worth less".  But you still have to give them a full crew and lose a full crew when they (usually) die.

2.  Meanwhile, the (D) ships eat the full complement of Crew and aren't logistically superior-enough to justify keeping them around.

3.  (D) ships sell for so little that they're usually worth less than the Supplies and Heavy Machinery we'll get by scrapping them, which is a bit immersion-breaking.

4.  With 1, 2 and 3, the idea that we'd fly around in "junk fleets" as a motif seems not to work at all in practice.  I simply sell them, unless they're ultra-rares that I'm willing to pay ridiculous prices to restore.  There isn't a middle ground.

Ways to solve:

Nerf (D) mods.  Not in favor; their severity makes them a tough choice even if they're not terrible otherwise.

Increase sale prices of (D) ships, but leave the high premium on full repairs unchanged.  That would make looting them and Mothballing them worthwhile, at least.

Actually have the concept of "Skeleton Crew" vs. "Full Crew", like it works IRL.  In the real world, a "skeleton crew" or "prize crew" is the bare minimum needed to sail a ship to the nearest port where the ship can be sold off  The ship won't malfunction (i.e., CR won't go critical) but it'll stay lower than normal and recover much more slowly than normal. 

SS+ has a Hull Mod that somewhat simulates this ("Logistical Conservation", IIRC) but without the crew component. 

It just feels super-punishing to have to drag around extra crew all the time in the vague hope of recovering (D)'s; the last time capturing ships was a major thing, this didn't feel so bad, because you weren't dealing with (D) issues.
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CrashToDesktop

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Re: About That Whole Salvaged-Hull Thing...
« Reply #1 on: April 26, 2017, 10:46:19 AM »

Some of the D-mods do need to be reduced in severity, yea.  But do remember there's an Industry skill that reduces all the D-mod penalties by half at level 3, and that makes D-ships so much easier to use - that might need to get nerfed a bit.
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Sy

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Re: About That Whole Salvaged-Hull Thing...
« Reply #2 on: April 26, 2017, 11:05:03 AM »

hmm. can't say i agree with most of this.

1.  (D) mods are so severe that they frequently make a ship really inferior in combat, not just "worth less".
well, yeah. sorry if this question sounds rude, but: isn't that the point? most recoverable ships aren't meant to be worth using, unless you invest into the related industry skills that reduce the number and/or effect of d-mods. without those skills, most ships aren't worth using, although every now and then you'll still find one that is (because of having very few d-mods, or ones that don't have as much of an impact on that particular hull).

(i'm not entirely sure what you mean by "inferior, not just worthless" though. isn't "worthless" way below in usefulness to "inferior"?)

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But you still have to give them a full crew and lose a full crew when they (usually) die.
you do have to give them a full crew, yes, but you do not have to lose said full crew. the Blast Doors hullmod reduces all casualties to half all by itself already, and rank 1 of Safety Procedures reduces these by another 30% for the entire fleet. these stack additively btw, so in combination they will reduce casualties to just 20% of the base number. rank 1 of Damage Control also has a similar effect, though that requires the ship to be piloted by either yourself or an officer with that skill (and i'm not sure how it stacks with these other two modifiers).

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2.  Meanwhile, the (D) ships eat the full complement of Crew and aren't logistically superior-enough to justify keeping them around.
imo, crew requirement is usually not a particularly meaningful consideration for whether a ship is worth keeping and using, or at least not past the very-early-game where money is often really tight. and most ships (including d-ships) have significantly higher max crew than min crew anyway, so keeping a decent reserve of crew in case of losses isn't too difficult. and even a single passenger liner / troop transport will add a large amount of additional capacity, if needed.

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3.  (D) ships sell for so little that they're usually worth less than the Supplies and Heavy Machinery we'll get by scrapping them, which is a bit immersion-breaking.
while i do agree they currently sell for too little (see this thread), there's also a risk of making ship-selling too profitable. being able to get a good amount of money for hauling the occasional, well-preserved prize ship back to port would be nice, but constantly hauling around all (or even just a large portion of) the ships you're able to recover could very quickly become a chore. if a ship is too far gone, i'd say it only makes sense that it's better to just scuttle it right then and there for any still useable parts, rather than investing time into bringing it back to travel-worthy condition and selling the whole ship at the nearest market -- where it will most likely wander right into the trash compactor anyway.

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4.  With 1, 2 and 3, the idea that we'd fly around in "junk fleets" as a motif seems not to work at all in practice.  I simply sell them, unless they're ultra-rares that I'm willing to pay ridiculous prices to restore.  There isn't a middle ground.
i disagree. i do find the occasional ships worth using even without skills (especially combat-unworthy Cerberi for a bit of additional cargo space in the early-game). and with the skills, i believe building a fleet that uses recovered rust buckets for a large portion of its combat power can also be worthwhile (though i haven't been able to actually test this beyond the mid-game yet).

if way more recoverable ships were worth recovering to sell them, doing so could get boring rather quickly, i think. and if recovered d-ships used for battle were much closer in power to a new, undamaged hull, it would rather lessen the meaning of allowing for a different combat/fleet playstyle through the related industry skills.

i haven't had the chance to test everything related to this thoroughly yet. but from blog post, changelog, and my own experience so far, i believe the system is in a good spot. that's not to say it doesn't deserve any balance adjustments here and there, but i do quite like it, all in all. :]



Some of the D-mods do need to be reduced in severity, yea.  But do remember there's an Industry skill that reduces all the D-mod penalties by half at level 3, and that makes D-ships so much easier to use - that might need to get nerfed a bit.
yeah, i was thinking the same. -50% seems too much. in a large fleet with lots of floating rust buckets, i think -30% would already be quite worth the skillpoint.

the same goes for rank 2 of Field Repairs: half of all hull and armor damage repaired immediately after the battle, at no cost, for the entire fleet...? wow. o_o
i think it should either be something like 20-30%, or only repair hull damage, not armor.

the Damage Control rank 2 perk is also only 25%, and only for a single ship. it's probably meant more as a bonus to the main perk of increased weapon & engine repair speed, but that disparity still seems rather extreme to me.
« Last Edit: April 26, 2017, 11:12:43 AM by Sy »
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ChaseBears

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Re: About That Whole Salvaged-Hull Thing...
« Reply #3 on: April 26, 2017, 11:19:42 AM »

faulty power grid and degraded engines are just killer for me, that ship is toast for the most part.  I don't want to deal with sensor problems and decreased burn speeds.

Dmods could maybe emphasize combat readiness penalties more, it plugs them into an existing mechanic and gives a lot more value to things that reduce combat readiness penalties.

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Gothars

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Re: About That Whole Salvaged-Hull Thing...
« Reply #4 on: April 26, 2017, 11:22:46 AM »

Generally, I have to disagree on this one, too. The logistical advantage of Ds is significant. Up to 80% less deplyoment costs! The same for maintenance, with the right skill. The skills in the industry aptitude go a long way towards making the D-hull playstile very potent. And then, thanks to the low costs, you can overwhelm with numbers far better than with normal ships.

In my experience, the one thing that goes against this is not really crew, but fuel costs. Ds consume just as much fuel as regular ships, but you need more of them for the same combat strength. That makes them rather inefficient for an exploration focused playstile. Which is a shame, because the salvaging and surveying skills of the same aptitude are perfect for exploration.

I'd love it if there were some ways to make D-hulls more fuel efficient, like towing them (with some kind of malus on their max CR or hull).


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Sy

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Re: About That Whole Salvaged-Hull Thing...
« Reply #5 on: April 26, 2017, 11:43:55 AM »

Ds consume just as much fuel as regular ships, but you need more of them for the same combat strength. That makes them rather inefficient for an exploration focused playstile. Which is a shame, because the salvaging and surveying skills of the same aptitude are perfect for exploration.
agreed. the theme of exploring for lost and forgotten things to loot and salvage goes really well with the scavenger rust-bucket fleet-style as well, but the fuel costs make it a bad combination. :/

the -25% from Navigation rank 2 helps a bit, but it's minor compared to the supplies- and crew-related industry skill bonuses, not to mention the bonus isn't exclusive to fleets with a large number of d-ships.
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Alex

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Re: About That Whole Salvaged-Hull Thing...
« Reply #6 on: April 26, 2017, 11:57:49 AM »

You know, I'm really liking the idea of using Tugs to reduce fuel use. Going to look into that.

And yeah, fuel cost of "garbage ball" fleets (as they're affectionately known internally) are definitely at odds with the rest of industry encouraging exploration, which did come up in testing as well, but no obvious/clean solution presented itself. Using tugs here just might be that.
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ChaseBears

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Re: About That Whole Salvaged-Hull Thing...
« Reply #7 on: April 26, 2017, 12:06:45 PM »

Tugs stretch credulity just by existing as is, and their balance point is high fuel consumption.  Being more fuel efficient would raise the question of why ships even have their own damn engines at all.  Perhaps TriTach lost the war when Hegemony hit upon the secret weapon of towing their Onslaughts from battle to battle...

/my2c.
« Last Edit: April 26, 2017, 12:21:11 PM by ChaseBears »
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Sy

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Re: About That Whole Salvaged-Hull Thing...
« Reply #8 on: April 26, 2017, 12:09:57 PM »

"garbage ball" fleets (as they're affectionately known internally)
my little garbage ball OF DOOM AND DESTRUCTION!! ^_^
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nomadic_leader

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Re: About That Whole Salvaged-Hull Thing...
« Reply #9 on: April 26, 2017, 12:57:53 PM »

We could also have cryo pods generated by normal post-battle debris and salvage. Right now they only seem to be available as special drops. That would help with the crew losses.

The skeleton crew / prize crew thing also needs work. Starsector misuses the term skeleton crew and mothball in its navel context; basically it is wrong. You'll only find like 1 out of 100 citations of the words being used like Starsector uses them.

Mothball is when you have a ship in storage basically. They wouldn't be moving around with an active fleet usually. It's a term derived from these things called mothballs, which are a small chemical spheroid you put in the pockets of an old jacket when you put it in the closet for summer, so moths don't eat holes in it. Storage.

I think 'mothballing' as it is now should only be available for storing ships with 0 crew use.
Then there should be a mechanic called skeleton crew, which is like what we have now, but does require 1/10th crew or something.
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Megas

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Re: About That Whole Salvaged-Hull Thing...
« Reply #10 on: April 26, 2017, 01:03:35 PM »

I like the -50% bonus of that one perk, because it may still not be enough for me to get it.  (I am undecided on it.)  If it gets weakened, I am not sure that perk will be worth getting.  Currently, I am on the fence whether to rely on rust buckets or hold out that endgame money generation is high enough that I can afford to restore lost ships.

The majority of my current fleet is a bunch of rust-buckets (partially because commission locks me out of ships I want to buy), and I deploy them over the few undamaged vessels because of deployment costs (except my flagship - I want the best for myself).  They are also handy for auto-resolve.  Most ships are not that fast anymore and the few that are (and readily available - no Hyperions or phase ships), are weak enough to get blasted by one wrong move.  Just auto-resolve a pursuit with clunkers and take your freebies.

Tugs are obsolete with Sustained Burn, and with them consuming five fuel like a Dominator, it is too much fuel use for my current fleet.  Tugs acting as a weird tanker alternative sounds like a promising idea.

Speaking of tankers, they seem mandatory after a point, at least for those without the fuel savings perk from Navigation.  Wished warships have their old capacities back, so that tankers would be needed only for far-flung systems near the corners of the map.

Fuel consumption is my #1 nemesis right now.  Going more than 15 ly for whatever reason is a bit painful.
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Gothars

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Re: About That Whole Salvaged-Hull Thing...
« Reply #11 on: April 26, 2017, 01:44:41 PM »

You know, I'm really liking the idea of using Tugs to reduce fuel use. Going to look into that.

And yeah, fuel cost of "garbage ball" fleets (as they're affectionately known internally) are definitely at odds with the rest of industry encouraging exploration, which did come up in testing as well, but no obvious/clean solution presented itself. Using tugs here just might be that.


Cool. That might also be an indirect buff to salvage rigs, which up to now, I didn't find worth using (but maybe I'm wrong, it's hard to judge the difference when you don't see the alternative outcome).  Or salvage rigs could work as a small tug, capable of transporting one ship in their gantry, that would be nice. Just spitballing here.


Being more fuel efficient would raise the question of why ships even have their own damn engines at all. 

An answer could be that towing is not safe. Towed ships might lose CR/have lowered max CR. Or have a chance of generating accidents (a under-used mechanic). Or there might be a chance to collect additional d-mods.



It might also be cool if you were able to tow mothballed ships for cheap, and then restore them at your destination. That doesn't make economical sense yet though, with the cost of CR regeneration and whatnot. Mhhh.
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CrashToDesktop

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Re: About That Whole Salvaged-Hull Thing...
« Reply #12 on: April 26, 2017, 01:55:14 PM »

Fuel consumption is my #1 nemesis right now.  Going more than 15 ly for whatever reason is a bit painful.
You have noticed where virtually all the fuel in the system comes from, right?  Sindria has the cheapest fuel, anywhere, just like how Chickmontzec has the cheapest Supplies anywhere.  Just stock up on those from time to time, make a home base to store you stuff.  Jangala is nice and central, though you might want to change it as you explore different parts of the sector.
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nomadic_leader

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Re: About That Whole Salvaged-Hull Thing...
« Reply #13 on: April 26, 2017, 02:26:13 PM »

An answer could be that towing is not safe. Towed ships might lose CR/have lowered max CR. Or have a chance of generating accidents (a under-used mechanic). Or there might be a chance to collect additional d-mods.

The RNG of generating accidents is an unfun mechanic, that's why it's used judiciously.

These stretched lore justifications about tugs are not great. Has anyone ever seen a tugboat? They're for helping big ships maneuver in tricky/crowded areas. Not to make ships faster or more fuel efficient (quite the opposite).

So if you want to use tugs for fuel efficiency, rename that little guy to something else. But how would having another ship be MORE fuel efficient, without resorting to yet another "handwave for balance." Maybe make the tug something that is physically stuck to the back of the other ship (even in combat, lowering speed and vulnerable to destruction) and say it's some kind of Toyota Prius Hybrid engine/fuel recycle device?

But then why not just have it be a hullmod?

Or instead put a skill in the industry tree that unlocks a ram scoop hullmod that fills a large or medium weapons mount with a goofy radar-dish-looking thing and generates a little fuel in nebula?

Or a campaign ability something like this?

Or just don't go exploring with tonnes of fuel hog ships?

Or more weak, efficient ship types for exploration?
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Megas

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Re: About That Whole Salvaged-Hull Thing...
« Reply #14 on: April 26, 2017, 03:17:26 PM »

Fuel consumption is my #1 nemesis right now.  Going more than 15 ly for whatever reason is a bit painful.
You have noticed where virtually all the fuel in the system comes from, right?  Sindria has the cheapest fuel, anywhere, just like how Chickmontzec has the cheapest Supplies anywhere.  Just stock up on those from time to time, make a home base to store you stuff.  Jangala is nice and central, though you might want to change it as you explore different parts of the sector.
It is my nemesis not because I have problems finding and buying fuel, it is because my fleet burns so much after it grows big enough.  Bounties are growing big enough that I need a big fleet of my own, or my current way of fighting will not work for longer, it is near the point of paycheck-to-paycheck, and one wrong move will end in disaster.  So far, I downsized my fleet (put into storage) so I can do probe missions cheaply and build up more cash to afford the upgrades and commodities I need.  I do not want to throw my fleet into a meat-grinder and get pennies for profit because I spent much of it on supplies and fuel (and replacement if something goes horribly wrong).  Of course, there is Surverying 3, but I will not go down that dark path.

I know of Sindria, but they sometimes charge about as much as anywhere else for fuel, especially after tariffs (last time I checked Sindria, fuel was in the high-30's, not much better than 40's or low 50's elsewhere).  Maybe a little less, but not enough to matter too much.  I do shop at black markets of pirates or free ports, and fuel without tariffs is close enough.

My second and current base is at Nortia, the only military base I can buy stuff from without commission, plus Sindria is nearby in case I find cheap fuel there later.  I have a few good weapons left stored at my first and tutorial base at Galatia, which I will need to pick up eventually and move (because Galatia is a dump).  Even so, I generally do not go to bases often.  I just go to the nearest town system, preferably one with a free port, restock, see what I can do, then go back to dungeon.
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