Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[MesoTroniK]

So, many are frustrated with the state of the Interdiction Pulse ability... Why? It hits all fleets within range, thus will hit friendlies lowering your reputation with factions and such problems. It just is too indiscriminate, that same problem is there for NPCs as well (only without the rep issues).

So I been mulling over, how to improve IP to be less frustrating, more controlled and better overall and this is what I came up with.

- Add campaign layer fleet targeting function
- Interdiction Pulse is changed to only hit the target
- Indicator of some sort indicates if the player fleet is being targeted and what fleet is doing it

This new targeting function would also show some generally useful info such as:
- Distance
- Speed
- Last known location, heading, and speed if target leaves sensor range
- Faction, if known

Target displayed info would be added to the UI, somewhere probably at the bottom of the screen. And that area would list all the info, while the fleet if within the visible area of the camera, the radar, and the map would get a little locked indicator element pinned over it. If outside visible / radar range, then an arrow would be added to the edge of the screen and radar pointing in the target's direction.

So this would make the IP ability a bit more fine grained and controlled overall. While the new fleet target lock function would overall just be handy and provide lots of useful info and I feel like it really should have *always* been in the game.

[Midnight Kitsune]

I like this idea alot! It would make IP much less frustrating.
Another thing would also be to make IPs from small fleets not effect larger fleets. And while this suggestion would help with that, I feel like a 3 shuttle sized fleet should not be able to effect my level 40 end game, multi-cap ship fleet at all
Edit: Also, the targeting info would be great for all kinds of things and would also make some of the sensor stuff easier to work with

[Megas]

So, many are frustrated with the state of the Interdiction Pulse ability... Why? It hits all fleets within range, thus will hit friendlies lowering your reputation with factions and such problems. It just is too indiscriminate, that same problem is there for NPCs as well (only without the rep issues).

What I dislike about IP in NPC hands is they carelessly spam it and do not get penalized.  It is much like AI not caring about resource use because they know there are more (unlimited replacements) of them where they came from.

[Ranakastrasz]

Yea, it is really annoying. It kinda fixes the whole "Burn drive 100% of the time" but does it by adding a new problem.


Some thoughts
-Only effect hostiles.
-Remove rep damage.
-Only effect single target (Requires targeting scheme for abilities, something we really need)
   Which is what is being suggested here, admittedly.
-Only damage rep when it only effects allies. -This seems to be how the AI treats it now anyway. If you are frvilously using it, its decidely a problem. If used properly to stop enemies from escaping, its fine.


-Only effect fleets smaller than yourself, or with a chance. (50% chance +5% per fleet size difference) Because small fleets shouldn't be quite as capable of crippling larger fleets.

[nomadic_leader]

I thought the interdiction pulse's effect was already less if a small fleet did it to a bigger fleet?

Having it only effect hostiles, and dropping the rep penalties unbalance it. It's a weapon with specific use cases. Removing friendly fire is generally lame and unfun because it takes the tactical nuance out of the weapon. You'd just spam it all the time. At least other NPCs try and get out of the way so you won't get penalized as much.

But it does seem like an interdiction pulse would be a tightbeam radio emission aimed at the target to disrupt their navigation, rather than a 360° sphere in every direction.  In true starsector form, if this is implemented, I would expect the procedure and keyboard key for targeting in campaign to be totally different from combat's

But if we add targeting to campaign, then you're taking another step in the direction of having campaign and combat basically be different zoom levels of the same thing (e.g. where the game doesn't track armor decals, turrets etc at campaign zoom level). While true integration would have been a compelling design choice, and make combat feel less like mini-game identical pokemon matches, it's too late in the development cycle.

This issue is becoming more relevant though, given all the new mechanics and things to do in campaign, and hopefully the developers will find some way that's not too awkward or confusing. The whole "overworld" concept borrowed from RPGs is starting to strain.

[Megas]

I dislike using IP because it paralyzes my fleet for too long, and the delay is long enough that the enemy usually escapes.  Similarly, when I see an enemy use IP, I usually have more than enough time to dodge it.  IP is most annoying when friendlies use it, either while you chase an enemy or just in the way between your fleet and your destination (base or market).

The worst part of IP for me when I want to Salvage but hit IP instead due to default keys next to each other (then I promptly reload the game due to numerous -1s taken from the collateral reputation damage).

I still use Sustained Burn just as much as in 0.8, before IP was in, which is about 99+%.  The delay from toggling Sustained Burn is slightly longer than ideal, which can be a good thing because toggling Sustained Burn too soon wasted time too (due to fleet not slowing down enough and need to re-toggle Sustained Burn).

[Sy]

i agree with Meso. current IP can be frustrating in several ways, and fleets that were fully visible a second ago suddenly going back to "unidentified" grey blobs always annoyed me as well. this would solve both issues.

if the addition of the fleet targeting is absolutely unwanted, i think IP should at least be changed to not affect allied fleets (and allied fleets' IPs shouldn't affect the player), and the rep penalties removed. yes, it makes sense non-hostile NPCs don't like being hit by your pulse, but they sure don't seem to mind hitting you either. ^^

[SafariJohn]

This seems to me like a good change. Admittedly I haven't been playing this version much so I've hardly used or encountered Interdiction Pulse at all.

Fleet targeting is a great idea. IMO, the UI for fleets in the campaign could use a serious overhaul, although I guess it's not urgent.

[Megas]

Come to think it, the few times I used IP is to force an enemy fleet to back off from pursuing my fleet (since they try to avoid getting pulsed).  It is not very useful for catching enemy fleets due to being too slow and high risk of collateral reputation damage in core systems.  Even if I IP an enemy, I still need to close the distance, which means EB to suck up lots of supplies/fuel or SB which by the time it activates, the enemy often recovers in time and make no meaningful progress.