In my recent campaign, i decided to include the SOTF mod. While i already knew of the bits and interesting parts the mod adds, it really require a full campaign to properly appreciate it. So, in this post i'll take about the tactical expansion provided by the new objectives types.
Long story short, i now consider Secrets of the Frontier to be part of my must have mods. The ones with a permanently checked box in the mod manager window.
Now, to understand why i think so, we have to look into vanilla first. The current objectives types in Starsector are the sensor jammer, the nav buoy and the comm relay. Sadly, both sensor jammer and nav buoy can be completely ignored if you have the proper skills and one or two ships with ECM package and Nav Relay. They tend to have no, or almost no impact whatsoever on the battle. Comm relay is more useful, as it increase the command point generation. Alas, asides of some Operation Center shenanigans, CPs aren't that useful either. Basically, a whole part of the base game doesn't even really work, and as a result, it's no fun.
The two new objectives added by the mod are much more interesting, and there are good reasons to interact with those. The defence emplacement adds either a turret, a launch bay or a mine layer that can be captured to fight by your side. Turrets do have targeting supercomputer, so they can assist from pretty far away. Getting a Gauss turret with increased range to back you up can be pretty useful up to mid-game if you can order your fleet around it. Same for the launch bay and mine layer. They unfortunately do not scale very well into late game though. Once i had capital ships, i usually ignored the points and steamrolled over those the enemy captured.
Fun fact, the defensive emplacements are not static like space stations, they can be bumped and moved around! So far i haven't tried tugging around a turret for anything else than fun, but it's possible. Unfortunately, it's also possible to "lose" it by accidentally pushing it too far from its original point.
The second combat objective, and the most useful, is the Hyperwave Transmitter. Once captured, it will call in reinforcement from either derelicts or remnants. Capturing several Hyperwave Transmitter will increase the number of ships coming to your aid.
In my campaign, i played a lot with those, but not too much that it became a "must capture at all cost".
In my post in the Legacy of Arkgneisis thread , i wrote about how i took on a pirate fleet much bigger than mine, and managed to sink their flagship by capturing the appropriate objectives.
This didn't happened in just one battle. More often than not, Ludd forgive me, my battles were fought side by side with derelicts and remnants. The Hyperwave Transmitter isn't guarded? Capture it! The enemy fleet is sitting on it? Let's ignore it for now. An allied AI craft is engaging the enemy's flagship, do i help it? Or do i sacrifice it to give me time to kill that isolated carrier over there? That derelict is trying to engage an Onslaught upfront, do i get behind it and advance while using its hull as a cover?
On the other hand, there were some occasions where my fleet was on the receiving end of a constant stream of flying toasters, charging me without regard for their safety, while i'm busy trying to handle the rest of the fleet.
Paradoxically, by "improving" the other combat objectives, the vanilla Comm Relay that increase CP generation became more attractive as well. Gotta need those CPs to capture and re-capture those objectives!
To summarise, it was fun, i enjoyed myself. I think SOTF is very important to Starsector in the same way that Combat Chatter, Nexerelin or Console command adds to the game. Those mods fills a hole in the base game, they bring something that Starsector should, but do not (yet?) have. In this case, interactive and interesting combat objectives. Still, SOTF is a pre-release, work in progress and all that, and it shows. I feel it could be much more. I have said earlier than Defensive emplacements tends to fall off later in the game, Hyperwave Transmitter too, although to a lesser extent. So it might all require some tweaking to make it work from the beginning to the end.
Here's some of the things i would like to see eventually :
- Reworked vanilla objectives. Maybe Alex will do it in the next release, maybe not. In the meantime, they don't really work all that well, and SOTF could change that.
- Skills affecting the new objectives. After all, why not? Plus it could be a way to make them scale better during late game too.
- Objectives that scale depending on the overall fleet point from both fleet? That way, the effects of the objectives can be directly tweaked depending on the number of ships, as to stay relevant for late game, but not too strong for early game.
- More objectives obviously! A large shield generator to cover a wide area, an automated supply depot to slow down the peak performance/CR degradation, pilum spawn from the nearby's planet defensive platforms... There are many possibilities to spice things up.
Yeah, i'm really liking this mod, i'm looking forward for what's next.
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Topic: [0.97a] Secrets of the Frontier (0.14.2c) - indev campaign mod (Read 387872 times)