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Author Topic: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry  (Read 10129 times)

VoronJyl

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #15 on: August 29, 2019, 02:36:23 PM »

To come back to the original topic (As in, having a defense fleet without industry, which imply not having a full fledged economy) -And sorry if this is something already discussed somewhere else or in the game under another form, i'm a new player-, why not just being able to give ships to a colony ? Maybe in the form of another tab aside from storage, just like you'd allow a colony to take from their own stocks.

Is there any way to commission mercenaries ?
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TrashMan

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #16 on: August 29, 2019, 02:40:12 PM »

The entire colony gameplay mechanics is ... unsatisfactory, to say the least.
Too easy, too simplified, too binary.
I doesn't help the universe is static and the factions dumb.


I'd tie production (and ship size production) to colony size and completely re-do colony size designations, and make size growth MUCH slower without a patron faction.
Or tie ship production with upgrades to heavy industry/orbital works/shipyards. So a lvl 1 shipyard can only produce frigates. Lvl 2 can produce destroyers. and so on.

The fact that starships are spawned from thin air by everyone (your tiny colony that you just built that earns maybe 20k a month is pumping out starships worth millions).
There should be some system that simulates logistics, even if terribly simplified, and determines the number of ships and rate of ship/fleet replacement a faction can have (with special modifiers that can be applied in emergencies)
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Plantissue

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #17 on: August 29, 2019, 03:06:15 PM »

The fact that starships are spawned from thin air by everyone (your tiny colony that you just built that earns maybe 20k a month is pumping out starships worth millions).
No. It's 25k worth of production per Ship Hulls and Weapon commodity. Even a 10^4 colony can easily give 20k a month but will only give 50k worth of ships a month.

In fact to even achieve a ship output of a million a month you need to produce 40 Ship Hulls and Weapon commodity a month.
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AspirantEmperor

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #18 on: August 29, 2019, 03:14:57 PM »

I agree the game changes when you build a colony, though I suppose I never considered just building farming and then not caring if it got raided. The main reason I want a colony is the ability to make specific ship hulls and weapons to order, which requires heavy industry.

I think it's the cycle you get stuck in. If you want to advance your colony the limiting factor is money. But the easiest way to get money is from that same colony.

In my current run, I have one colony. I set it up with 1.8 million initial investment. I have all of the colony skills. The colony/planet is size 6, hazard 100%, +4% accessibility from distance to core worlds, no noteworthy resources.  And it's earning me 250K/month. It took a few in-game years to get this big, but the silly thing is that from the day I founded it, my only income has been those few credits you "recover from computers" after combat, and this colony. (no bounties, survey/analyze missions, salvage, trade, etc.)

Once I had the colony, the easiest way to get money was to sit back and wait. If I tried to leave and do something else, I would usually get a "pirates are attacking in 20 days" message that would force me to abandon whatever that was. I was raided because I built heavy industry. I built heavy industry because I wanted custom weapon orders. I then had to chose whether to put my money toward my fleet or my colony defenses. Because defenses are more cost effective, and because I know major factions would send forces before too long, I chose colony defenses. This meant I didn't have a strong enough fleet to go after the pirate base that kept sending the 20-day-notice attacks. And so, between them and at least one fleet from most major factions, the babysitting was more or less constant for a couple in-game years. I eventually dusted the pirate station around the same time my star fortress came online, and have yet to face a serious threat since, though more pirates have stated a new base somewhere else.

The babysitting is over. And I can now produce a new legion carrier every few months.

But all I had wanted at the start was a couple railguns to put on my new Hammerhead without having to search several markets to find them.

I feel like I skipped much of the game.
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Sarissofoi

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #19 on: August 29, 2019, 03:26:58 PM »

This meant I didn't have a strong enough fleet to go after the pirate base that kept sending the 20-day-notice attacks.

Even if you had(and level one bases are easy to drop dead) it would respawn in few days again.

AspirantEmperor

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #20 on: August 29, 2019, 03:37:57 PM »

I probably had a weaker fleet than most people would by the time they have a couple million credits. I focused my early game on trade and smuggling for profit and avoided most combat. When I set up the colony, I had 1 Falcon, 1 Hammerhead, 1 Tempest, 2 Centurions, and 3 Wolves, plus non-combat ships.

I also didn't realize at first that if you're not quick to destroy the base it gets much harder to do so.
« Last Edit: August 29, 2019, 03:44:14 PM by AspirantEmperor »
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Megas

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #21 on: August 29, 2019, 04:00:09 PM »

I do not have a fleet much better than that when I build my first colony.  I usually have one Apogee, and a bunch of damaged Enforcers, Mules, and Shrike (P)s taken from pirates.  The Apogee is one of the starter ships.
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Nysalor

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #22 on: August 29, 2019, 04:59:46 PM »

Uh. . . colony defense fleets seem to spawn just fine in systems without Heavy Industry? I mean, probably you need Heavy Industry in SOME colony, but I have a colony with no Heavy Infantry that's built a Patrol Base, and it spawned a Fast Picket fleet consisting of a Mora, a Drover, a Centurion, and two Vigilances plus five fighter wings. I have a highly productive colony elsewhere with Orbital Works and a Nanoforge which is fulfilling my colony's demand for Ship Hulls, which I think is what's relevant.
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Tackywheat1

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #23 on: August 29, 2019, 05:43:52 PM »

I created my first colony with one apogee, 4 destroyers and 2 frigates + 1 phaeton + 1 valkyrie + 1 Colossus(might've been something else)
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SCC

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #24 on: August 29, 2019, 11:49:31 PM »

Or tie ship production with upgrades to heavy industry/orbital works/shipyards. So a lvl 1 shipyard can only produce frigates. Lvl 2 can produce destroyers. and so on.
I really like this idea. In general industries could use having upgrades, but Heavy Industry is the only industry that doesn't just make money, so it's doubly important. Level 1 could make only frigates, weapons and "ship hulls commodity", level 2 could be destroyers, fighters and supplies, cruisers and heavy machinery for level 3 and finally heavy armaments and capitals only at level 4.

TrashMan

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #25 on: August 31, 2019, 09:47:46 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.

It's even worse when you play with Nexerelin, since factions do not build a new heavy industry/orbital works if they lose a planet with it, and thus die immediately.

It's just WAAAY to binary.
There should be more levels to it - to buildings and to fleet builds.
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Megas

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #26 on: August 31, 2019, 10:14:32 AM »

I mean, probably you need Heavy Industry in SOME colony
Not if my fleet is too weak to fight against endgame fleets even with battlestation help.  That is the point of low profile colonies, which is building the bare minimum for modest income and an orbital station plus some defenses to stop pirates from -1/-10% bases from raiding your base.

I only build heavy industry when either I can take on endgame fleets or if I let my colony grow to size 5 and cannot lower production or abandon it.  Heavy Industry produces enough to attract major factions, and I do not want that if my fleet is too weak to fight them.
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Nysalor

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #27 on: August 31, 2019, 10:50:10 AM »

I mean, probably you need Heavy Industry in SOME colony
Not if my fleet is too weak to fight against endgame fleets even with battlestation help.  That is the point of low profile colonies, which is building the bare minimum for modest income and an orbital station plus some defenses to stop pirates from -1/-10% bases from raiding your base.

I only build heavy industry when either I can take on endgame fleets or if I let my colony grow to size 5 and cannot lower production or abandon it.  Heavy Industry produces enough to attract major factions, and I do not want that if my fleet is too weak to fight them.

Ok, but that wasn't what I was saying. My point was, colonies without Heavy Industry can still spawn high-end defense fleets including advanced military ships; I've seen it happen plenty. You just need Heavy Industry SOMEWHERE in your empire, and the appropriate blueprints.

I currently have 8 colonies, all being supported by one highly developed colony with an Orbital Works with alpha core and pristine nanoforge - I'm in the process of building a second one now.
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Megas

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #28 on: August 31, 2019, 11:33:14 AM »

Sure, you only need one Heavy Industry (or other production industries like Farming, Mining, and the like) to support all of your colonies.  All more do is 1) redundancy in case one gets knocked out and 2) add to production limit (for Heavy Industry).  I like to build extra Heavy Industries just I so can crank production limit higher and build lots of stuff in a month.
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Innominandum

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Re: Colony defense fleets without Heavy Industry
« Reply #29 on: August 31, 2019, 01:00:56 PM »

Yeah the Colony management, the Fleet creation, the industrial sector and Economics in general need some serious additions and adjustments for the game to keep being interesting after the initial getting to know phase.

For those who haven't shot their gaming ring and still have the cpu power to handle massive cpu cycles i advise you to give x3 ap + Litcubes universe + Jourabes Mayhem overhaul for litcube a chance for the time being. It pretty much has all a lot of those features one would want to see in starsector (there is no colonization per se but you can claim sectors, build military bases, defense Platforms, Factories and supply chains, it even has a solid skill and research implementation not to mention a cool boarding and expedition system ... sigh) already.   

« Last Edit: August 31, 2019, 01:09:44 PM by Yog-Sothoth »
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