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Author Topic: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22  (Read 722311 times)

Morrokain

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Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
« Reply #1680 on: January 16, 2022, 06:47:35 PM »

And considering some factions' Open market do not have any ships for sale, its stated in info as a bug from vanilla game? It will only be fixed by Alex at some later release?

Just to double check, are you on update 0.95.1a of Starsector? If so, what markets? Or is this more of a global economy issue? If it isn't Nex on random mode, then just give me the market names and I can double check them. The issue you were talking about should have been fixed in the current version but iirc it was the opposite (no military market ships) so I think this is unrelated or at least something additional to the last problem - like the faction doesn't know any basic ships and the market is small, etc. Also, if the market is very small then it can sometimes have a shortage of ships for sale - like only a small tanker or two or only shuttles. If there is literally nothing for sale, then that is likely more in the realm of a bug unless you have recently bought them all and it just hasn't been resupplied yet. Every market I checked while testing had ships for sale but I easily could have missed something.

hey i noticed in the main page that it says there are customs starts? one with pirates and wolf pack or a merc with a strong financial backer? are those still possible starts?
also love your mod! the changes make combat sooooo fun and i love carrier spams so

I'm glad you like the combat and as long as you aren't running Nex there are a couple of different starting conditions under "Faction Starts" or something like that when starting a new game. The merc starts are currently the vanilla ones under "Normal Starts" but you do start near a Trader Guilds outpost when you choose those so it simulates it to a certain degree. I haven't added the strong financial backer part though. It's planned as part of a lore update which has been slightly delayed with the latest Starsector release since I'm handling those changes and implementing the new stuff atm. You will, however, possibly get the galatia academy stipend with a normal start. I can't remember if I added that in or not though.
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Stroichik

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Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
« Reply #1681 on: January 17, 2022, 05:37:09 AM »

I use latest download 0.95.1a-RC6 and i started fresh game with TC + some minor mods like DIY planets (Grand colonies and like that), dont use Nexerelin.

Archean Order have no ships on Open market, and i think i saw other TC faction has same issue, but they do have ships in Military section and Black market. And i mean i visited 6 Archean planets, and all 6 of them have empty Open market for ships. I think a cycle passed in my game already, so traders should've brought ships to sell them, but its still empty.

I can try scouting all other factions to see if it happens everywhere, but i saw Hegemony is having no such issues, got ships in all 3 tabs - Open, Military, Black markets. So maybe issue is only with modded factions.

So i was just wondering if that issue is to be adressed or should've been fixed already.
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Stroichik

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Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
« Reply #1682 on: January 17, 2022, 06:00:35 AM »

2 Cycles passed in my game, so trade should've replenished markets.

Checking Factions:

Traders guild - have ships in Open.
Hegemony - have ships.
Independent - have ships.
Pirates - have ships.

Archean Order - no ships in Open on any planet.

Sindrian Diktat - have ships.
Tri-Tachyon - have ships.
Persean League - have ships.
Sci Corps - have ships.

Adamantium Consortium - can't check due to relations.
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Morrokain

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Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
« Reply #1683 on: January 17, 2022, 10:08:37 AM »

@Stroichik

Ah ok thanks - especially for the detail! Yeah that's a new thing probably due to the fact the the earlier issue was fixed. I'll take a look and it should be fixed in the next update.
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Radicaljack

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Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
« Reply #1684 on: January 17, 2022, 02:01:32 PM »

How well is this working with the new update? Spooling up another run and I always follow that up with a good ol AO run because it's just such a fantastic piece of work.
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Morrokain

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Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
« Reply #1685 on: January 18, 2022, 11:38:53 AM »

How well is this working with the new update? Spooling up another run and I always follow that up with a good ol AO run because it's just such a fantastic piece of work.

There is the minor issue of the empty open market for Archean Order and probably Adamantine Consortium, but other than that all the rest works afaik (or, rather, the other stuff that doesn't work I'm pretty sure hasn't ever worked and I'm just now finding out about it, hehe).

However, personally, I'd recommend you wait for the next update because I'm doing a second pass through of a couple of the skills' functionality and that could break saves. Its one of the reasons I've held off on releasing stuff because I figured I'd give some time for players to start playthroughs and potentially give feedback/bug reports - which has happened and has been very helpful.

I'm planning on the release to happen fairly soontm.

(Also thank you for the kind words!)
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Stroichik

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Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
« Reply #1686 on: January 18, 2022, 11:56:55 AM »

I also noticed, that sometimes my ships do not like to activate their shields, even when attacked by enemies and having low flux. I don't know if its some weird conflict between vanilla combat AI and new weapons being constantly used in battle, or if combat AI was somehow reworked in TC.
But after several dozen battles watched i still think that in vanilla ships were a bit more inclined to use shields to protect against enemy fire.

In vanilla, though, ships usually were dropping shields, when they were attacked by anti-shield weapons (probably to prevent excessive flux build-up), but engaged ships right after those weapons were no longer a threat (until next volley).

With so many new weapons, could it be that AI considers even smallest Anti-shield shots, from weakest weapons as a flag to drop shields temporarily, and due to a sustained fire by those weapons, AI almost never finds opportunity to raise shields again, even though he is being battered from all sides?

I was lucky to find a big Odyssey-class ship very early in game, so i was wondering why would it drop shields so often, and let itself get damaged by frigates and gunboats, instead of soaking dmg to shields. It shouldn't be any sort of malfunction too, since i could use manual control to raise and keep shields up.
Smaller ships seem to ok, but maybe they are just targeted by less amount of enemy ships for me to notice any real change in behaviour.
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Morrokain

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Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
« Reply #1687 on: January 18, 2022, 01:34:19 PM »

I also noticed, that sometimes my ships do not like to activate their shields, even when attacked by enemies and having low flux. I don't know if its some weird conflict between vanilla combat AI and new weapons being constantly used in battle, or if combat AI was somehow reworked in TC.
But after several dozen battles watched i still think that in vanilla ships were a bit more inclined to use shields to protect against enemy fire.

In vanilla, though, ships usually were dropping shields, when they were attacked by anti-shield weapons (probably to prevent excessive flux build-up), but engaged ships right after those weapons were no longer a threat (until next volley).

With so many new weapons, could it be that AI considers even smallest Anti-shield shots, from weakest weapons as a flag to drop shields temporarily, and due to a sustained fire by those weapons, AI almost never finds opportunity to raise shields again, even though he is being battered from all sides?

I was lucky to find a big Odyssey-class ship very early in game, so i was wondering why would it drop shields so often, and let itself get damaged by frigates and gunboats, instead of soaking dmg to shields. It shouldn't be any sort of malfunction too, since i could use manual control to raise and keep shields up.
Smaller ships seem to ok, but maybe they are just targeted by less amount of enemy ships for me to notice any real change in behaviour.

Yeah this is just an AI limitation. Its probably less noticeable in vanilla because the AI is tuned to vanilla standards and its seems like you've picked up on a few possible reasons. I don't replace the AI at all and only provide custom AI hooks in a few very limited cases (ironically to do just the opposite - trying to keep shields up 100% of the duration - and even that doesn't work 100% of the time) and the rest is just likely something the vanilla AI just can't handle well for whatever reason.

The best way to prevent this from happening is to attack in groups so the shielded ship can retreat while covered by an ally. The majority of the moments this seems to occur for me is when a ship is being attacked by more than one enemy, but it certainly isn't limited to that case either.

I don't think its necessarily because of kinetics though because it can happen with pure energy weapons too. I think it actually has something to do with venting being more time consuming in the TC and so the ship prioritizes low flux far too much instead of simply trying to survive until assistance arrives depending on the circumstance.

I've seriously seen a Paragon get destroyed by an Executor without getting a shot off because it refuses to raise shields and the Executor is faster but has a slightly longer range energy weapon. The Paragon really seemed to want to get the 0 flux boost or otherwise save flux and kept dropping shields as the shot was being fired and also seemed to have zero indication that it had zero flux weapons or that its armor would never hold out until it could escape - because it never actually could escape in the first place! Nevertheless, it kept trying to retreat and passively vent any shots it did shield tank - until it was destroyed. It was painful to watch.

While frustrating, there isn't much I can do about this and the best way to get around it is to try and avoid situations where the AI is tempted to do those kinds of things. I wish I had more detail as to how to do that, but when I test it seems to happen a lot less when I am tactically engaging the enemy with numbers rather than a 1v1 scenario and then reassigning targets, etc.
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Stroichik

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Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
« Reply #1688 on: January 18, 2022, 02:54:44 PM »

Yeah. I suspected it to be related to severely increased weapon types and roles. And it differs from battle to battle, due to different enemy speeds and weapons. At least its how i feel, when i watch battles. Improving my own weapons and fire range seems to help a bit, at least i`m shooting enemy more and have higher chance to kill them, before they get me.
« Last Edit: January 19, 2022, 06:52:36 AM by Stroichik »
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Morrokain

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Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
« Reply #1689 on: January 19, 2022, 06:53:11 AM »

Yeah. I suspected it to be related to severely increased weapon types and roles. And it differs from battle to battle, due to different enemy speeds and weapons. At least its how i feel, when i watch battles. Imporing my own weapons and fire range seems to help a bit, at least i`m shooting enemy more and have higher chance to kill them, before they get me.

I dont know this for sure since the AI isnt really exposed, but I dont think it has much to do with extra weapons or continuous fire or even a bunch of different weapon roles if I'm making an educated guess. The AI generally knows what to do with those and with the addition of 2 more possible weapon groups and recent improvements to autofire logic, that part of the AI is really good at what it does.

I really think it's more about dissipation rate and the AI wanting to flee rather than tank in most circumstances when being pressured. Since the 0 flux boost is often a crucial part of fleeing, the AI tries to keep flux as low as possible when in that mode. The reason it can sometimes be painful is that it goes into that mode during times it shouldn't- mostly during a 1v1 or 1vmultiple where it feels in danger but would be better off standing its ground.

The other thing that could possibly factor in is range. The enemy ship could be far enough away that the AI is not threatened when the weapons are actually in range. While it tries to passively vent it takes a hit, raises shields briefly but drops them again because it resets to the non threatened state because the circumstances are otherwise the same.

You'll probably notice that the issue happens less after hull damage is taken. That's probably because the AI feels more inclined to just tank at that point.

These are just observations based upon testing though. Only Alex knows for sure exactly how its operating.

What I do know for sure is that despite these flaws they can be worked around by builds and tactics, at least for the most part. Errors in AI judgement will still be made though as that's mostly unavoidable.
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Stroichik

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Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
« Reply #1690 on: January 19, 2022, 08:33:43 AM »

Is there Unknown shard vessels with weird weapons in vanilla and TC? They appear in Hypershunt.

If there is - they need some power boost, i think. In vanilla it was really hard to fight them with vanilla weapons. with TC weapons they are not really that dangerous.

If they are not part of vanilla or TC - forget it.
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Stroichik

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Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
« Reply #1691 on: January 19, 2022, 10:03:51 AM »

I also just noticed that Archean Order Military tab doesn't have any cruiser sized ships. Its only Capitals, frigates and destroyers. Not a single cruiser size anywhere.

However i just found an Archean Order Justicar blueprint in ruins. Its a cruiser, says its Archean Order design. But i have never seen in on sale anywhere, nor any other cruiser-sized vessels in Military of Archeans. I thought they didn't have cruiser-sized ships, but it seems they do, or at least they should have.

Also, i don't see any cruiser sized ships in Archean fleets too. Capitals, frigates and destroyers only.
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Morrokain

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Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
« Reply #1692 on: January 19, 2022, 06:22:41 PM »

Is there Unknown shard vessels with weird weapons in vanilla and TC? They appear in Hypershunt.

If there is - they need some power boost, i think. In vanilla it was really hard to fight them with vanilla weapons. with TC weapons they are not really that dangerous.

If they are not part of vanilla or TC - forget it.
They are vanilla and also rebalanced for the TC so the feedback is definitely relevant to the TC as a whole. What weapons seem strong against them? Their weapons should be relatively balanced since they do drop, but the vessels themselves should be fairly strong DP-wise when you consider pure stats. If they seem easy, I'm missing something that makes them hard in vanilla. Their weapons have different mechanics altogether but is it also an efficiency thing with flux? Or pure dps? What makes them harder?

I also just noticed that Archean Order Military tab doesn't have any cruiser sized ships. Its only Capitals, frigates and destroyers. Not a single cruiser size anywhere.

However i just found an Archean Order Justicar blueprint in ruins. Its a cruiser, says its Archean Order design. But i have never seen in on sale anywhere, nor any other cruiser-sized vessels in Military of Archeans. I thought they didn't have cruiser-sized ships, but it seems they do, or at least they should have.

Also, i don't see any cruiser sized ships in Archean fleets too. Capitals, frigates and destroyers only.
Hmm, I'll double check that I added the Justicar to their known ships. That could be an oversight.

I have a couple of off days coming up that I will try and tackle all the recent feedback! Thanks for all the reports!
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Stroichik

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Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
« Reply #1693 on: January 20, 2022, 01:01:52 AM »

In vanilla those ships had good range and were very agile, making it hard to hit them long enough to drop their shields, and they did constant dmg to me, since they had good range and unlimited energy rockets and torpedoes.

In TC, player can get weapons with range that is greater than vanilla allowed, plus ships generally have more weapon turrets and unlimited missiles too, some with good range. So, i feel like my ships were upgraded, but those enemy ships still use vanilla weapons, actually.
Also in TC player have a lot more fighters to fight NPC fighter-shards and a lot more PD weapons, and PD is generally more efficient than vanilla, so those fighter-shards are not as dangerous as in vanilla.

In vanilla i used Radiant (and Prometheus Mk2, Dominator and several other cruisers) with plasma throwers and rapid fire lasers against those NPC ships, and they almost killed my Radiant (which is strongest ship in vanilla). In TC NPC couldn't even make a dent in my armor (which is also a lot thicker than vanilla), although i haven't used Radiant. I used Tyrant, Megalith, Odyssey, Revenant and some cruisers, because i expected a real tough fight, so i threw everything i had at them.

I`d give them at least 25% more flux capacity, to hold shields against dmg, and maybe a unique hullmods for 15-30% weapon range. This way u wouldn't have to change their weapons directly, to prevent imbalance for player, but NPC could shoot farther and be generally more dangerous. Plus its only 2 ships, so if player uses TC values for fleet size and battle points, he still have a lot more weapons in battle compared to vanilla fleet, so maybe make them 3-4 ships, or even 5?
« Last Edit: January 20, 2022, 07:28:03 AM by Stroichik »
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Stroichik

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Re: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update 12/19/21
« Reply #1694 on: January 20, 2022, 12:14:10 PM »

If u gonna do some changes, can u look at Mine Strike ability? I got Tyrant-class Battleship and i see it makes those teleporting mines sometimes, but it spawns so far away from any ship that i haven't noticed it actually damaging anything. I`m not sure it can even damage fighters, to be honest. Maybe it needs bigger AOE radius.
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