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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: Late Game Pirate Spam  (Read 2941 times)

dead_hand

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Re: Late Game Pirate Spam
« Reply #15 on: May 07, 2020, 10:57:48 AM »

...
More resilient would be nice if it means pirates cannot rollover and consume worlds.  However, an extra fleet would not be enough - it is still less than three endgame expedition fleet gang against a player colony.  A player that can sat bomb worlds with their Ordos smasher fleet will probably be powerful enough to roll over that extra fleet without much trouble.

I don't want to go too much OT here (perhaps I'll refine my ideas and open a topic in suggestions) but while a detachment fleet is easy to blow up, and a starfortress on its own is also not too challenging, a fleet with extra and better officers that always stays in the starfortress range would mean that you'd have to fight the fortress and the fleet in the same battle. So I think that would be quite a different nut to crack, for a similar reason why you (normally) don't attack a nexus if an Ordo is still in its range... so the extra defenses together with the proposed +3 stability and +20% bonus for capital worlds would mean that places like Culann or Chicomoztoc would be very unlikely to deciv due to pirates

Right now you can just jump into a star system with transponder off, which causes the defense fleets to come suicide themselves at you, leaving the fortress exposed and alone. My solution would fix that, because this extra fleet would basically never give you chase, just circle around the fortress.

I destroy bases when the bounties pop up for income frequently , but I definitely don't kill them all (I generally explore and then kill any bounties that are nearby), and I've definitely never gone to a system to fight raiding forces. I see raids happen sometimes, but usually things just give some phat request missions and eventually recover. I still don't remember seeing more than 1-2 planets decivilize in any campaign. Maybe I killed enough bases to prevent that on my vanilla runs? Seems strange.

Depends on what system is being targeted... e.g. Askonia can fend for itself even against larger pirate fleets, so basically you can pretty much ignore it, or farm the bounty when posted, cause it isnt likely to deciv, while Galatia star system will get rekt pretty quickly.
« Last Edit: May 07, 2020, 11:02:02 AM by dead_hand »
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Megas

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Re: Late Game Pirate Spam
« Reply #16 on: May 07, 2020, 11:14:51 AM »

Detachment and Star Fortress is about as tough as it gets for human factions, which is still no harder than an Ordos with Radiants, or intercepting all three full powered endgame expedition fleets without backup from my battlestation.  Sometimes, I just attack the fleet and fortress together with my endgame fleet, and it is no harder than what Remnants can throw at the player.  (Radiant is overpowered.)  The only human fortress that is most difficult to defend against is the high-tech one (which only the TT capital world has) because of cheap mine spam.

As for pirates.  The one decivilization I had was in Corvus (Asharu).  Argeus in Arcadia looks like another problem child, small and with Pather cells (caused by tech mine, so you cannot remove it by stealing a nanoforge they do not have).  Hegemony there is not that large.
« Last Edit: May 07, 2020, 11:17:41 AM by Megas »
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dead_hand

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Re: Late Game Pirate Spam
« Reply #17 on: May 07, 2020, 11:23:58 AM »

Detachment and Star Fortress is about as tough as it gets for human factions, which is still no harder than an Ordos with Radiants, or intercepting all three full powered endgame expedition fleets without backup from my battlestation.  Sometimes, I just attack the fleet and fortress together with my endgame fleet, and it is no harder than what Remnants can throw at the player.  (Radiant is overpowered.)  The only human fortress that is most difficult to defend against is the high-tech one (which only the TT capital world has) because of cheap mine spam.

As for pirates.  The one decivilization I had was in Corvus (Asharu).  Argeus in Arcadia looks like another problem child, small and with Pather cells (caused by tech mine, so you cannot remove it by stealing a nanoforge they do not have).  Hegemony there is not that large.

I had no intention to make it harder than Ordo + Nexus. Just harder than it is now. Because now if you manage to get 2 Paragons, 2 lvl 20 officers, and the right weapons to equip, you can easily steamroll any of the factions with the exception of the Remnants ofc. My proposed change would at least make it such that the player needs a bit more effort than that, helps with the pirate issue, but also keeps the Remnants as the end-game content.
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atsjewell

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Re: Late Game Pirate Spam
« Reply #18 on: May 07, 2020, 11:25:36 AM »

You need to upgrade to high command and build heavy industry with nano-forges. Then you will get patrols full of pristine paragons. With 5 colones, if you have 2 military bases and the rest patrol HQs you should be completely safe from pirates without any player intervention. I believe the military base/high command influences the number of patrols as well as the patrol size, the heavy industry allows for blue prints to be used in patrols while the nano forge increases the quality of the ships. I'm not 100% sure but I think that's how it works.

This is what I'll try.  I got it into my head to specialize my colonies so I had only one guy set up with heavy industry.  I'll try adding one or two more and build them up with Military bases like you suggested.  Thank you.  And I'll dust off those Alpha Cores as was suggested as well. Thanks guys.

In terms of the actual battles, I'm struggling with the Deployment Point system as well. And to a certain extant the power disparity between the ships of different classes.  At some point you need a capital to be able to take an AI fleet containing capitals.  But the Caps consume so much DP that you can never deploy large numbers of ships, nor would you want to anyway because anything smaller than a cruiser is just sparklers for a lightshow once capitals are around.  Eventually, I'll try tweaking the configs to allow for more spectacular fights.
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dead_hand

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Re: Late Game Pirate Spam
« Reply #19 on: May 07, 2020, 11:30:44 AM »

You need to upgrade to high command and build heavy industry with nano-forges. Then you will get patrols full of pristine paragons. With 5 colones, if you have 2 military bases and the rest patrol HQs you should be completely safe from pirates without any player intervention. I believe the military base/high command influences the number of patrols as well as the patrol size, the heavy industry allows for blue prints to be used in patrols while the nano forge increases the quality of the ships. I'm not 100% sure but I think that's how it works.

This is what I'll try.  I got it into my head to specialize my colonies so I had only one guy set up with heavy industry.  I'll try adding one or two more and build them up with Military bases like you suggested.  Thank you.  And I'll dust off those Alpha Cores as was suggested as well. Thanks guys.

In terms of the actual battles, I'm struggling with the Deployment Point system as well. And to a certain extant the power disparity between the ships of different classes.  At some point you need a capital to be able to take an AI fleet containing capitals.  But the Caps consume so much DP that you can never deploy large numbers of ships, nor would you want to anyway because anything smaller than a cruiser is just sparklers for a lightshow once capitals are around.  Eventually, I'll try tweaking the configs to allow for more spectacular fights.

Late-Game battles are basically capital spams. You'll have several copies of the same capital, and just rotate them out when the Peak Performance Time is nearing its end. Even if you have less DP than your enemy, you can still win, it will just take longer and be more difficult. Actually, cruisers can be surprisingly good at disabling capital ships, it just depends on the match up. E.g. Auroras will make short work of Onslaughts and Legions, but not going to do much against Paragons or Conquests.
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Megas

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Re: Late Game Pirate Spam
« Reply #20 on: May 07, 2020, 12:25:47 PM »

Afflictors can punch very hard.  I keep three to five Reaper Afflictors in my endgame fleet for cheese kills against battlestations or large ships.
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SafariJohn

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Re: Late Game Pirate Spam
« Reply #21 on: May 07, 2020, 05:33:54 PM »

Alex has teased that top-of-the-line faction fleets in the next version will have officers on every ship. Top-end Remnants will probably be the same.
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Aereto

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Re: Late Game Pirate Spam
« Reply #22 on: May 08, 2020, 12:31:48 AM »

Alex has teased that top-of-the-line faction fleets in the next version will have officers on every ship. Top-end Remnants will probably be the same.
Every ship? As in more than 10/11 officers in a fleet at max level? I'd love to get some popcorn with that fireworks show.
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Megas

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Re: Late Game Pirate Spam
« Reply #23 on: May 08, 2020, 06:48:09 AM »

Yes, nearly every ship.  So instead of NPCs breaking the ship cap, they break the officer cap.  For player breaking the cap with mercs and cores, not sure if they are a permanent solution.  Do cores need that tier 5 Automated Ships skill to use?
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