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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: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 351693 times)

icepick37

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #450 on: May 13, 2019, 10:12:08 AM »

So I took a fairly long break from the game (mostly because I was stuck in a rut for a long time in how I play the game and needed a reset).

Wow. Just wow. So much fun new stuff. Especially the new ships. So many things to explore in the campaign that just wholesale didn't exist when last I played. Definitely a fun payoff for time-off.

I was sort of getting stuck in campaign but decided to take some risks and now I realize it's really easy to keep going and money up. I keep getting exciting colony related drops and need to start first colony somewhere. No idea where is good to do that yet, but I'm sure I'll figure it out.

I'm sort of shocked by how few non-degraded ships there are now. But then I just pick up a degraded ship and realize that in the whole of my fleet the individual restrictions aren't so noticeable. (not non-noticeable, though, just not game breaking). Though I did somehow find an undegraded hammerhead just drifting out in space. So it's not all bad news there.  ;D ;D

Anywho just wanted to drop in and express some appreciation. Such a fun game, and it's only getting better.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #451 on: May 13, 2019, 10:41:51 AM »

Thank you! Happy you're having fun with the new version :D
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Trylobot

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #452 on: May 13, 2019, 02:02:22 PM »

*** yeah alex \o/
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #453 on: May 13, 2019, 04:49:50 PM »

 ;D
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ANGRYABOUTELVES

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #454 on: May 13, 2019, 04:51:10 PM »

The ability to create a disengagement opportunity by destroying part of the enemy fleet is probably my favourite new feature. If you get jumped by a much bigger fleet, if you're fast and vicious enough you can make a clean getaway, even if you can't kill the big boy ships. It makes for much fewer forced reloads due to messing up the sensor game or having a pirate armada be hyperspace-storm ping-ponged into your small smuggling operation.

Burn 10 Shrike is the best, I love it. Trolling around with a burn 10 fleet of Omens, Tempests, and Shrikes makes for a great early-game smuggling/piracy experience. When you including the ship price changes, the Shrike now has a very well defined niche and role: biggest fish in the smallest pool. The Shrike (P) is just better than the regular Shrike for most purposes. The only thing it's worse at is the Heavy Blaster + Sabot Pod build. I think it needs more of a downside compared to the regular Shrike, maybe slightly reduced base flux stats or shield efficiency?

Hazard really doesn't matter anymore. The conditions that make a good colonization system have drastically changed; in 0.9.1 you wanted multiple low-hazard planets in one system, now you just want all resources in a system with as many planets as possible. Even 200% hazard no-resource rockballs can make good forge-worlds with heavy industry, refining, fuel production, and a military base, provided you have the in-faction resource supply to halve their upkeep costs. I like it; it now makes sense why Sindria exists, and the Dictat's choice to not just move the Synchrotron Core to Volturn is a reasonable one. The industry limit and high structure costs mean that vanilla markets make a lot more sense in general.

I'm not sure the AI core droprate from the Nexus are high enough. I've blown up 2 so far, one degraded, one full, and got 2 Alphas from the degraded, 1 Alpha 1 Beta from the full. Farming the infinite Remnant fleets is always going to be better value long-term, but you can get 1-2 cores from a single Ordo.

AI cores being way more common makes getting into the colony game without skills perhaps a bit too easy. On the other hand, you then have to deal with Pathers and AI inspection fleets in order to stay in the colony game. On the third hand, you're going to have to deal with Pathers either way, and building Combat rather than Industry makes dealing with both problems easier. Cores are great even if you invest heavily into colony skills, so you're tempted to deal with inspection fleets anyway.

The Prometheus Mk2's statcard says it has 3 medium ballistics, but it only has 2.

The Harbinger needed the nerf, and it's still amazing. 3 Phase Lance Harbinger is a terror to anything cruiser sized or below. Low tech gets ruined by pure soft flux pressure, mid-tech has less trouble with the amount of soft flux but also always has exposed engines, and nothing high-tech can deal with having their shields or phase system disabled for a triple phase lance burst straight to the hull. It's also really good for fighting high-tech stations, regular or remnant. A combat-specced Harbinger can take out a Remnant station shield module with 3 triple phase lance bursts, matching up nicely with the 3 stored charges of the QD system. 1 Heavy Blaster 2 Ion Pulser Harbinger can cripple any ship right through the shields, and still take out smaller threats and other phase ships with the Blaster.

If Commerce takes up an Industry slot, there's literally zero reason to ever build more than one of it. Maybe you build one just so you have a convenient place to dump all your salvage loot and survey data but that's not how you get the best money for it. If you actually care about getting money for your salvage, you sell it where there are shortages and mix in some black market trading. Maybe you build one so you can just buy tankers and freighters without having to custom order them, but that's still just a convenience thing. Commerce needs to do something else, something that the player needs or really wants, otherwise there's no reason to build it.
« Last Edit: May 13, 2019, 04:59:23 PM by ANGRYABOUTELVES »
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #455 on: May 13, 2019, 05:16:28 PM »

Thank you for your feedback! Definitely noted re: Commerce.

Nice catch on the Prometheus Mk.II - it doesn't seem to be hurting anything, so I'll leave it as is for now. There's a slight chance that fixing this could cause save incompatibility for some players, but I've made a note to fix this up after the hotfix.
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Thaago

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #456 on: May 13, 2019, 05:51:36 PM »

Agreed on commerce. Here's an idea: What if it provided a decent growth boost from people coming to trade and/or just some medium amount of pure income from taxes (in addition to making a market)? Still hard to justify as an industry slot, but at least it would be useful to colonies that don't want to attract attention with the splashier industries. It could also be a structure, but then it would just be a good idea to build it on every world like waystations.

Bit of feedback: I'm just starting to use a capital for special hard targets and have about half a dozen cruisers for normal bounties, so am just on the starting edge of late game. I feel like my colonies are just a bit under-developed; I haven't attracted any expeditions (only a very small pirate raid at destroyer level) despite not being careful, because of the time it takes to build industries vs the time it takes to amass a lot of profits from bounty hunting. My heavy industry just came online, so perhaps thats about to change! Anyhow, I think the colony build times are a bit too long, maybe by about 20%?
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #457 on: May 13, 2019, 06:02:03 PM »

Agreed on commerce. Here's an idea: What if it provided a decent growth boost from people coming to trade and/or just some medium amount of pure income from taxes (in addition to making a market)? Still hard to justify as an industry slot, but at least it would be useful to colonies that don't want to attract attention with the splashier industries. It could also be a structure, but then it would just be a good idea to build it on every world like waystations.

Hmm, I kind of like that - a "growth" industry, sort of like free port, but weaker in that regard, and without the same risks. Definitely beyond the scope of a hotfix, though.

Bit of feedback: I'm just starting to use a capital for special hard targets and have about half a dozen cruisers for normal bounties, so am just on the starting edge of late game. I feel like my colonies are just a bit under-developed; I haven't attracted any expeditions (only a very small pirate raid at destroyer level) despite not being careful, because of the time it takes to build industries vs the time it takes to amass a lot of profits from bounty hunting. My heavy industry just came online, so perhaps thats about to change! Anyhow, I think the colony build times are a bit too long, maybe by about 20%?

I'll keep this in mind, for sure. Generally, it seems impossible to have a clean sync-up of "how long it takes for colonies to really kick in" vs "how long it takes to get enough money to get everything building" since there are plenty of variables in both. Well, more in the latter, but I hope you know what I mean. Definitely not saying it's perfect as-is or anything, just don't want to knee-jerk "fix" it, especially  since much of the goal in .1 was to slow things down in this area - I'd like to see how it pans out in a bit more detail.
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Harmful Mechanic

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #458 on: May 13, 2019, 06:06:18 PM »

The Prometheus Mk2 also doesn't have launch bay locations specified correctly in the hull file - fighters launch from ship center with an awkward glow. I've fixed my own copy if you'd like the hull file.
« Last Edit: May 13, 2019, 06:55:04 PM by Soren »
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #459 on: May 13, 2019, 06:56:24 PM »

Thanks for letting me know, made a note! Will fix this on my end - there's a master file (from which the .ship file gets exported) that I would need to update anyway.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #460 on: May 14, 2019, 05:30:04 AM »

Re: Shrike
Honestly, just raise Shrike (P) OP to 80, and give the basic Shrike the hybrid mount (and maybe raise OP by 5 or 10 if it needs to be better than the pirate version) and call it a day.  After all, aren't some of the Pirate ships merely a paint job version of the originals like Enforcer and Cerberus?  If so, Shrike can join that club.

Shrike (P) joined my early game zombie fleet of Enforcers.

I mostly skipped proper destroyers by the time I had money to spare, after the difficulty spike.  I bought cruisers instead.

The time scaling seems to delay the early difficulty spike by three to six months.

Re: Colonies
Colony skills are must-have if player does not want to deal with Pathers.  I still have bad memories (from 0.9) flying my fleet out of the way and all over the place hunting Pathers, even if my fleet can chew them up and spit them out.

Re: Commerce
Commerce needs something beyond +1 stability and freeloaders' upkeep.  If I need to sell junk, I go to one of the hidden pop-up pirate bases that target my colony, first to sell junk at their Black Market (to avoid tariffs), then raid and kill it!  I notice some things are cheaper buying at Black Market (even at pop-up bases) than drawing commodities from my colony!

@ ANGRYABOUTELVES: Is the Quantum Disruptor opening longer?  I find it hard to get the full Phase Lance burst during that tiny window.  (Timing seems harder than landing Reapers.)  Might try AM Blasters (energy mounts take small weapons) when I get my hands on it.
« Last Edit: May 14, 2019, 05:32:02 AM by Megas »
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SCC

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #461 on: May 14, 2019, 05:40:14 AM »

I've noticed that there are fewer ships to salvage in this patch. Has something changed?
Shrike (P) is better than normal one, so I wouldn't mind bringing normal Shrike up to speed. Besides that, the other issue is that Tempests are so plentiful now, for some reason, that I grab one every time I visit an independent market...
Commerce is in a stupid spot where it does the same thing that ground defences, space station, Patrol HQ and its upgrades do, and only Military Base and High Command are industries like it.
Improved AI kicks ass. It's more challenging to fight against enemy and my ships can (sometimes) keep up with me and cover me. Frigates seem to be bashing against friendly ships more, but if that's what takes them to back off, then so be it.

Schwartz

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #462 on: May 14, 2019, 05:53:01 AM »

Yea commerce is currently nerfed hard by being an industry. I don't think it's awful, as selling stuff is always useful and stability is welcome. I think if its industry status was removed, that could work.

For me, High Command is mandatory on virtually all colonies as it informs fleet size (and the alpha core bonus is a great buff-atop-a-buff) and that helps deal with all kinds of problems. Commerce is currently the odd man out and I don't foresee I'll use it much or at all in 0.9.1.

I was wondering why the Remnants were tough cookies in this version. If that's the improved AI at work, great!
« Last Edit: May 14, 2019, 05:58:18 AM by Schwartz »
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #463 on: May 14, 2019, 05:57:23 AM »

Even if Commerce lost industry status, I probably still would not build it, except maybe one at a fringe colony.  (Almost 500k to build plus upkeep?  Not sure +1 stability would make up for that.)  Even so, Black Market at enemy pirate base is usually a better place for selling most things.
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SCC

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Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #464 on: May 14, 2019, 08:31:53 AM »

Is it possible to stand and fight in defence of a friendly fleet, even if it wants to attempt a retreat? Lost some supplies unnecessarily, as instead of just deploying my combat ships to defeat the enemy fleet I had to deploy everything.
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