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Author Topic: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry  (Read 10121 times)

Grievous69

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Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« on: August 27, 2019, 05:58:46 AM »

Playing more and more, it's really starting to bug me out how default fleets are so useless. For me it kinda feels too binary, either you have Venture/Shepherd fleets or best combat ships in the game. I get that not every colony needs a High Command, but currently there's no point in upgrading it if you're not gonna build a Heavy Industry too. I just wish we had more ''starting options'' other than mining ships, just to reduce the frustration of RNG blueprint runs.
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Megas

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #1 on: August 29, 2019, 07:50:24 AM »

It is annoying!  Another reason why low profile colonies are only a temporary band-aid before player is eventually forced to build-up all the way.

It is a reason why Orbital Station should be the very first thing your first colony should build (because pirates will raid in only a few months, and you need something to defend it while you are away).  Military Base is worthless without good ships, and you need Heavy Industry for that... which brings down the wrath of most major factions.  Patrol HQ is needed to maintain relay ownership.
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MajorTheRed

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #2 on: August 29, 2019, 09:19:28 AM »

That's one of the pit-trap of the current version. There is only two parts in the game: prior to colony building, and after the first colony. Most of the time I enjoy the first part where you explore systems to get a nice place to colonize.
Once you get a colony, you quickly want to build heavy industries, at least to get new weapons and/or ships and upgrade your defenses. But at this point your are falling in the not-so-interesting part of babysitting your colonies against pirates/pathers/jealous factions.
I  would like ships and weapons building to be in separate industries to get the feeling of a more progressive evolution in the game. It could also be interesting to be able to produce small ships at first to fit your current level of progress. For example, get a small colony only able to build destroyer and frigates, just to get access to this much need Valkyrie so you can raid others systems. Or to get an exploration ship. Etc...
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wtftucker

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #3 on: August 29, 2019, 09:38:20 AM »

Agreed.  I think there needs to be a much slower progression overall like a "Long war" mod that draws out everything.  Having more variance in what each industry produces or enables production of (this would be a significant change overall).  Maybe light industry allowing the production of frigates and destroyers or something along those lines. 

Currently there is only early game = making money in preparation for colony

and

Post-Colony = printing money.  If you have the starting capital (1 mil) you can essentially take a sub 200% planet with decent ores and turn it into a 150k to 350k profiting colony in under 8 months while still upgrading the port, GD, Orbital stations etc.  That's a very rapid change in  player income that snowballs in our favor too quickly imo.  I think a more practical expectation on a perfect planet would be more along the lines of 50% increase in revenue annually, not several thousand percent in a matter of months.  Maybe a more dynamic way of managing a colony is needed like assignment of population (colony size 3 gets 3 assigned personal to put in industry or construction of new structures) with each assigned personal modifying construction time, production, growth, etc.  Need a structure quickly, assign all three and stagnate your population growth and mining production but increase the construction time by 30% (not additive) for each colony personal assigned (3 personal = 50.9% increase for instance)

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Psigun

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #4 on: August 29, 2019, 09:42:20 AM »

that's probably the biggest part of the colony-building experience that could be smoothed out. a nice difficulty curve that pressures your colonies in a way that doesn't force you to go all-out 100% right from the jump rushing specific structures.

as it stands, i save up a few million credits and find a system with all the resources and start up several colonies concurrently. generally i look for a farming/organics world for ag and light industry, a ore/rare ore world for refining and heavy industry, and a volatiles world for fuel. lowest hazard rating and best modifiers possible. all that doesn't matter much though, what matters is having money for getting defensive structures spammed ASAP so you don't just deal with constant disruptions and raids, and for getting heavy industry up and running ASAP.

scrappy backwater colonies require an inordinate amount of player intervention from the jump barring spamming defenses and rushing heavy industry. i wouldn't be surprised to see this changed in new versions.
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Grievous69

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #5 on: August 29, 2019, 09:50:23 AM »

Post-Colony = printing money.  If you have the starting capital (1 mil) you can essentially take a sub 200% planet with decent ores and turn it into a 150k to 350k profiting colony in under 8 months while still upgrading the port, GD, Orbital stations etc.

Ok let's not exaggerate right now, what you said right there is impossible. The speed at which colonies grow is perfectly fine, anything slower than that and it would feel infuriating. Although I can see it seems way too fast for new people with posts everywhere saying ''I can't stop playing this, send help''. If I played 10 hours a day, I would also feel that late game comes quickly.
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Megas

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #6 on: August 29, 2019, 10:28:02 AM »

What would be nice is if you have a commission with a major faction, that faction's ships/weapons/fighters become available for importing for your patrols.

* * *

As for colonies, due to how expensive ships and colonies are, I find myself having to choose between upgrading my fleet (so it can kill ten capital death fleets more easily) or colonies during the transition from mid-game to late/endgame.

I personally prefer the power and convenience of the (late) colony game, but the constant babysitting needs to stop.

Speaking of babysitting, even if I have no colonies, I still need to babysit core worlds that are incapable of defending themselves from the zombie pirate horde that never stay dead for more than a day.  Easier to babysit while I have my own income and my own colonies to draw resources from.
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wtftucker

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #7 on: August 29, 2019, 10:31:11 AM »

Post-Colony = printing money.  If you have the starting capital (1 mil) you can essentially take a sub 200% planet with decent ores and turn it into a 150k to 350k profiting colony in under 8 months while still upgrading the port, GD, Orbital stations etc.

Ok let's not exaggerate right now, what you said right there is impossible. The speed at which colonies grow is perfectly fine, anything slower than that and it would feel infuriating. Although I can see it seems way too fast for new people with posts everywhere saying ''I can't stop playing this, send help''. If I played 10 hours a day, I would also feel that late game comes quickly.

That wasn't an exaggeration.  A 200% hazard cyro planey with +2 trans ore +0 ore +1 volatiles generates 30k as soon as your mining and starport are done.  That's 60 days.  With monderate attempts to make some income doing exploration missions while that builds you can easily have enough to build ground defenses and upgrade those, upgrade to megaport, and build refining and a waystation.  That puts you at 10 stability and depending on your access RNG from proximity to the core worlds 220k profit roughly a month after 8 months.  From that point on you can snowball additional colonies for exponential returns just running off the profits of the starter colony.  All of this is with a 200% Hazard planet, find a 75% or 100% with a special modifier for added growth, access, etc and it only gets better. 
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Grievous69

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #8 on: August 29, 2019, 10:46:42 AM »

JUST mining and refining on a colony that's been founded 8 months ago giving you 220k, negro what? Either I'm doing something wrong or you fiddled with some mods. Do you maybe have like 10 Alpha cores available or something?
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wtftucker

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #9 on: August 29, 2019, 11:09:53 AM »

JUST mining and refining on a colony that's been founded 8 months ago giving you 220k, negro what? Either I'm doing something wrong or you fiddled with some mods. Do you maybe have like 10 Alpha cores available or something?

That's with no cores and no modifications to any of the core files.  I'm playing on Nex but I don't believe that modifies anything with income levels from colonies.  After 8 months I have roughly 4% market hold on items produced by the Refinery.  This is on a planet 12ly away from the nearest core worlds which is something like 16% access bonus a far cry from what it could be if it was closer.  By the time your colony is level 4 and you build your second industry you should be making at least 200k easy. 
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SafariJohn

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #10 on: August 29, 2019, 11:15:24 AM »

Looking at the core worlds, 200k seems barely in the realm of plausibility. Transplutonics and volatiles are really valuable. Also, no orbital station, I think? That saves a lot of money/build time.

A screenshot would help back up your claims, wtftucker.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #11 on: August 29, 2019, 11:28:12 AM »

My size 7 cryovolcanic world (175% hazard, 14 ly from core) with +1 +1 +1 mining and refining makes a little less than 100k from ore/rare ore/volatiles and 70k income from metals/transplutonics (I took these straight from the income tab). It does have an access penalty from a pirate base right now, but it seems fairly implausible that a size 4 colony could be making more than that, even in optimal circumstances.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #12 on: August 29, 2019, 11:39:58 AM »

It occurs to me that playing with mods adds planets which should increase the total market value. I have 4 faction mods in my game, but I’ve also captured 4 AI worlds (two of them being very major worlds). Not sure exactly how that would compare to vanilla.
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wtftucker

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #13 on: August 29, 2019, 12:07:33 PM »

Now that's entirely possible that the increased number of planets might alter the income calculations. I'll be home in a little bit and can upload a screen of the colony.  Last I recall is that it was at like 65% population through level 4 just finished the refinery 2 months ago and is currently building an orbital station.  Right before bed I started a second colony with all structures still in construction, again a simple screen shot should be sufficient though. 

I also rush the stability perk in Leadership and the + Colony income/Colony upkeep perks which is a compounding benefit. 
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Megas

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #14 on: August 29, 2019, 01:17:35 PM »

I also rush the stability perk in Leadership and the + Colony income/Colony upkeep perks which is a compounding benefit.
Colony skills also mean fewer skill points for combat (or fleet or QoL) stuff.  This hurts once your fleet is powerful enough to kill Ordos fleet one after another for an alpha core drop about one every two fights.

I have buyer's remorse for spending nine points in Industry for colony skills.  I could have held off until I farmed enough alpha cores and have them run several or even dozens of colonies.
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