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

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Author Topic: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22  (Read 722218 times)

Morrokain

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just a heads up, the creator of boimancy made that mod open source, so if you want to add another threat alongside the redacted they are up for grabs!

i would love to see SOMEone do something with that body of work

I saw that yeah. I might pick it up after the beta is done. I've definitely been thinking about something along those lines and I thought that mod was cool back when it was available.
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6chad.noirlee9

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it would be great to have something similar to terraria where certain sections of the outer reaches have different threats
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Morrokain

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it would be great to have something similar to terraria where certain sections of the outer reaches have different threats

I agree that would be cool. It also reminds me of a really old Sega Dreamcast game called Armada.
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6chad.noirlee9

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never heard of it, wonder if youtube has a playthrough?

the answer is, kind of https://youtu.be/ijaDqaPtNTs
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Morrokain

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never heard of it
It was a pretty basic arcade-style space RPG. Addictingly fun though.

The part I'm talking about is that the game was an infinite (afaik) 2D grid where as you got further from 0,0 coordinates (starting point) the enemies grew in stat strength and for a limited portion of the grid, enemy type as well. I grinded a LOT at the time after I beat the story and couldn't ever find an ending point to the grid. The enemies just became too hard.

However, N.S.E.W and their respective diagonals would contain different enemy types as well. That was sort of like what you were talking about. So if you chose a specific direction to push the boundaries you'd be facing different types of threats - with a few universal ones.

Ah the nostalgia!  ;D Thanks for sharing the video.
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6chad.noirlee9

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hey im just here to make everyone have a good time
MAKE you
yes
have fun or DIE

......ahem sorry about that outburst
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Morrokain

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hey im just here to make everyone have a good time
MAKE you
yes
have fun or DIE

......ahem sorry about that outburst

 :D



Ok, I wanted to give a brief update blog on interceptor balance.

I will admit I was wrong with my earlier assessment that they were in a relatively good place. I think the carrier-centric wings are and I spent a lot of time testing those, but its possible I will have to spend some more time on them at some point in the future too. The reason for my poor judgement is simple: I was testing on ships with weapons and so those weapons were a large factor in weighing the relative balance.

Once you take the weapons away, it quickly becomes apparent that some interceptors did a much better job than others - sometimes for far less OP. Since I now have a relative control with mostly weaponless (single strike weapon for AI purposes) Legion variants, I can strike see how two interceptor swarms effect replacement rate against each other.

This won't really be practical in the grand scheme of things to be honest. Weapons are typically going to be on ships and interceptors mostly focus on ships when they get into range... so three things need to be used as levers alongside the general balance wing to wing when testing:
Spoiler

- initial contact effect when two wing waves meet

 - overall staying power and damage capability when targeting a ship

 - survivability to save time on replacement rate decay for waves that use strikes then regroup

Here's how it currently pans out in the dev version after 3ish days of running a bunch of simulations and generally testing out every interceptor's performance against just about every other interceptor:

Low Tech
 - Pretty straightforward. Good survivability. Decent replacement rate. Low initial contact impact. Interceptors like the Talon will have small downtime windows and can survive against ship weapons relatively well with a few exceptions. Losses will happen, but they will be replaced easily enough. Against other interceptors, they make great defenders and less great anti-wave strikers since they need time to utilize their defenses while wearing the other craft down.

Midline/Luddic
 - Starts to vary more by wing. For instance, the Gladius, Talon(H), Talon(L) (technically low tech for the Luddic variant but it fits better in this role description), etc, are essentially a slightly more expensive (build-wise) alternative to the Talon with varying additional perks such as slightly better survivability (Deflector Shell) and weapons that are better against ships compared to the Machine Gun. Alongside the additional build cost, they also replace slightly slower. So there are trade-offs. These types of wings are great defenders and also modestly useful against ships in large swarms or to pressure smaller hullsizes. The flip side is that they falter when facing large PD weapons and other hard counters and have a larger window of downtime before they are at full strength.
 - Other midline interceptors and anti-craft fighters and gunships like the Broadsword and Hydra focus more on initial contact prowess. These wings try to destroy as many wing members in a strike wave very quickly as they pass by on the way to attack an enemy ship/support the bombers/gunships there. Missiles are often the weapon of choice here. It should be noted that these types of wings also are decent at defending - or even better - assuming their anti-formation weapons are off cooldown. However, they replace pretty slowly and can leave the carrier/warship potentially vulnerable with a lot of pressure or after a few attack runs. Again the idea is for there to be build trade-offs that hopefully can synergize well with other wings and other carrier/warship builds.
- Then there is the Fang heavy interceptor and the Hellcat fighter. These fall under the category of fragile but easy to replace and hard hitting. Both of these wings have fast replacement times and ship systems that briefly increase their damage output. They can remain a threat even at low carrier replacement rates though they are less successful with at dealing their damage with any real resistance present. In short, they are sort of a "victory by attrition" kind of choice - whether fighting a ship or other enemy craft.

High Tech
 - These wings use can use any of the previously mentioned strategies and sometimes mix and match element so different ones. A good example is the Wasp. It is incredibly fragile, replaces really quickly to compensate for that a bit, and has good initial contact effectiveness due to its proximity mine - which has both a damage increase to make it feel less useless when it hits a ship and a loooong cooldown. The Spectre, on the other hand, replaces even faster (as in pretty much always at full wing strength after less then 10-15 seconds) but doesn't have much initial contact effectiveness and even worse survivability against ship weapons. Flak or large PD beams can murder the entire wing in practically one shot. It does, however, have slightly higher survivability against some weapons and craft since it can briefly phase to avoid damage.
 - Some high tech wings like the Retribution, Spark and Banshee focus more on survivability and initial contact damage. The Burst PD Beam of the first two are actually fairly good against ships with their shields down too, and the Banshee's smokescreen rockets are just as accurate but also have a relatively large AOE component. So, right, trade-offs again.
 - Finally, there are fighters like the Arcangel and Nightmare. The strategy behind these is that they are extremely tough but harder to replace. They probably have triple the effective health of other wings and can be a big threat to frigates and destroyers in large numbers by providing constant pressure - even though their damage is low in comparison to something like a gunship.

Speaking of frigates, I gave high tech frigates their 360 degree shields back in most cases too. They were incredibly weak to interceptor swarms without them. I made a few other changes here and there but this is getting too long as it is.

To finish this up, I still think that gunships and bombers should feel pretty balanced. They were the ones I spent a proportionately longer amount of time on before. Iirc, I haven't really touched them between the currently released version and the dev version. It will be interesting to see how mixing and matching the different wing strategies will feel. While these concepts aren't especially new in the TC, they have likely been a little more emphasized and easier to visually see.
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« Last Edit: July 26, 2021, 03:59:16 PM by Morrokain »
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6chad.noirlee9

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ok so ive got another personal wishlist sort of thing going on

the combat docking module makes saves unloadable

https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=20415.msg332991#msg332991
^this mod^

its almost essential to the new idea i have for a run which features heavy usage of retooled civvy ships using the mod that increases effectiveness of excort and assault packages (itd be cool to see more packages.  ill mention that in the main suggestions thread)

its a very cool mod that i think should be incorporated into archean if the original creator is cool with that (if somehow it could be changed so that only cruiser/capital can refit the flagged ships that would be flavorful)



also im very excited about the new release (both yours and the 95.1a; heres hoping it wont be too much of a step from the current version, in the interest of not making more headache and taking more time from hardcore dev of the mod



edit: id like to add (im sure youve seen) that dronelib looks like something that every modder in the sector should be playing with at some point!
« Last Edit: July 27, 2021, 08:27:23 AM by 6chad.noirlee9 »
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Albreo

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Quote
I will admit I was wrong with my earlier assessment that they were in a relatively good place. I think the carrier-centric wings are and I spent a lot of time testing those, but its possible I will have to spend some more time on them at some point in the future too. The reason for my poor judgement is simple: I was testing on ships with weapons and so those weapons were a large factor in weighing the relative balance.

When I did the test with Astral, I would just turn on the shield and let the enemy fighters come to me. My crafts would be in a defensive mode and only swarm around the ship.  Pretty useful in determining PD strength of the craft. My Astral would be bare with only 6 small burst beams just to simulate enough resistance.

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Morrokain

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ok so ive got another personal wishlist sort of thing going on

the combat docking module makes saves unloadable

its almost essential to the new idea i have for a run which features heavy usage of retooled civvy ships using the mod that increases effectiveness of excort and assault packages (itd be cool to see more packages.  ill mention that in the main suggestions thread)

its a very cool mod that i think should be incorporated into archean if the original creator is cool with that (if somehow it could be changed so that only cruiser/capital can refit the flagged ships that would be flavorful)

edit: id like to add (im sure youve seen) that dronelib looks like something that every modder in the sector should be playing with at some point!
As in it makes saves unloaded with the TC? That's odd I'd think it simply wouldn't work since the vanilla versions of these ships aren't available. Remind me after the next update to take a look.

I'm aware of and excited about dronelib. Just the idea of having a separate system is neat. Its on my radar, but I haven't dug into the toybox as of yet.

When I did the test with Astral, I would just turn on the shield and let the enemy fighters come to me. My crafts would be in a defensive mode and only swarm around the ship.  Pretty useful in determining PD strength of the craft. My Astral would be bare with only 6 small burst beams just to simulate enough resistance.
That definitely makes sense though it gives a defenders advantage - especially against craft meant to pack a powerful punch upon contact since a lot of the weapons will target the ship's shield at first.

I'm considering making a hullmod that sort of acts like that for both carriers and warships. It would set the wing range to 0. Presumably the AI would never issue the engage order that way. It would probably be more useful on warships than carriers since warships still engage their wings at about the same time they get within weapon range of an enemy target.
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6chad.noirlee9

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ok so no issues if the game loads with the mod in place, no issue loading saves with it activated, however when i install the hullmod, then save, it cant load the save
when i uninstall, save, then load it loads fine
it shows a null on loading with the hullmod active and it mentions fleetmember in the code so it definitely only causes issues when you actually use the hullmod

anyway, ill remind you after you finish the update
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Morrokain

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ok so no issues if the game loads with the mod in place, no issue loading saves with it activated, however when i install the hullmod, then save, it cant load the save
when i uninstall, save, then load it loads fine
it shows a null on loading with the hullmod active and it mentions fleetmember in the code so it definitely only causes issues when you actually use the hullmod

anyway, ill remind you after you finish the update

If you send me the log I'll take a look. It could potentially be something simple.
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6chad.noirlee9

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ok this is what i have; it doesnt seem to be showing up in the log file, and im on max resolution so im not sure if what you need to see is here

[attachment deleted by admin]
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Morrokain

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ok this is what i have; it doesnt seem to be showing up in the log file, and im on max resolution so im not sure if what you need to see is here
Looks like this was happening in the mod itself in version 004. I *think* the mod author attempted to fix it in 005 though he/she did not specifically say that - only that they reproduced the issue, so if you are on that version then I'd let him/her know it is not fixed just to make sure. I don't think it is related to this mod though - or at least I'm not seeing anything that would point to that. That being said, the code that is coming up with the error is not available to view so it is impossible to know for sure.

I double checked the FleetMemberAPI and FleetDataAPI for any info on readResolve() but there isn't anything.

Briefly looking through the mod's source, I'd guess:

ship.setCollisionClass(CollisionClass.FIGHTER);

Is causing an issue when readResolve() attempts to read the ship JSON and finds that the ship hullSize is FRIGATE and so should have CollisionClass.SHIP. Though both implementations of that are supposed to only occur when combat as running afaik. Its strange that it affects the campaign layer for loading a save. He/She might try setting the CollisionClass back to SHIP in applyEffectsBeforeShipCreation as a safeguard.

Nothing else seems to modify the ship's definition though merely by equipping the hullmod. I doubt that setting the ship's armor to 100% or reloading missiles would cause the save to break if it occurs in combat. At least, other things seem to do this and its fine.

That's about all the advice I could give on it though. I don't know what else readResolve() actually does. You'd have to ask Alex.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vppjmzyxnzozqqc/1234.PNG?dl=0
Hi, I found out if there is one ship installed this hullmod, the save will be broken. It is a serious bug so this mod cannot work at all.When you are trying to load that broken save, a message will shows "error loading saved game" with some debuging information following. It happend on both 0.91 and 0.95. I will post it in both versions so you may find out what's wrong.

Spoiler
(tested in 0.91a, lazylab 2.5)
---- Debugging information ----
message             : Failed calling method
cause-exception     : java.lang.NullPointerException
cause-message       : null
method              : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMember.readResolve()
class               : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMember
required-type       : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMember
converter-type      : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.ReflectionConverter
line number         : 9509
class[1]            : java.util.ArrayList
converter-type[1]   : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter
class[2]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetData
class[3]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.CampaignFleet
class[4]            : com.fs.util.container.repo.ObjectRepository
class[5]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem
class[6]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignPlanet
class[7]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CircularOrbit
class[8]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.econ.Market
class[9]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.econ.reach.ReachEconomy
class[10]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.econ.reach.ReachEconomyStepper
class[11]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.econ.Economy
class[12]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CustomCampaignEntity
class[13]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem$UpdateFromHyperspaceLocation
class[14]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation$LocationToken
class[15]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.Hyperspace
class[16]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine
converter-type[2]   : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.I
version             : not available



(tested in 0.95, lazylab 2.6)
com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.ConversionException: Failed calling method
---- Debugging information ----
message             : Failed calling method
cause-exception     : java.lang.NullPointerException
cause-message       : null
method              : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMember.readResolve()
class               : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMember
required-type       : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetMember
converter-type      : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.ReflectionConverter
line number         : 134974
class[1]            : java.util.ArrayList
converter-type[1]   : com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.collections.CollectionConverter
class[2]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.FleetData
class[3]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.fleet.CampaignFleet
class[4]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ai.NavigationModule$AvoidData
class[5]            : com.fs.starfarer.api.util.TimeoutTracker$ItemData
class[6]            : com.fs.starfarer.api.util.TimeoutTracker
class[7]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ai.NavigationModule
class[8]            : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ai.ModularFleetAI
class[9]            : com.fs.util.container.repo.ObjectRepository
class[10]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem
class[11]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignPlanet
class[12]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CircularOrbit
class[13]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.econ.Market
class[14]           : com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.fleets.RouteManager$RouteData
class[15]           : com.fs.starfarer.api.impl.campaign.fleets.RouteManager
class[16]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.econ.reach.ReachEconomy
class[17]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.econ.reach.ReachEconomyStepper
class[18]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.econ.Economy
class[19]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.StarSystem$UpdateFromHyperspaceLocation
class[20]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.BaseLocation$LocationToken
class[21]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.Hyperspace
class[22]           : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine
converter-type[2]   : com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.I
version             : not available

Complete starsector.log is here https://www.dropbox.com/s/6mrqjcjih2sy6kq/starsector.log?dl=0
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6chad.noirlee9

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simple fix is right lol i updated to 005 and now the saves load
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edit: edit: maybe were just falling with style LOL.  make a bubble, make the space in front of it smaller and just fall forward
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