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News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Personal Contacts  (Read 27215 times)

Grievous69

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Re: Personal Contacts
« Reply #30 on: August 14, 2020, 12:50:04 AM »

Maybe I missed something in the blog post but what exactly is different with these ''special'' bounties? I see there are potential higher-end enemies that wouldn't show up in normal bounties but it seems you'll get these after you complete a bunch of normal ones. Mind you, I'm completely fine with the way they're gonna work but I'm just confused on the ''special'' part. Or are they just called that because complications may happen? Anyways a great blog post, looking forward to relearning the game.

HUZZAH patch notes! Ok but seriously, those are some fantasstic changes. The officers being what's important in counting DP makes way more sense than ''here's a bunch of capitals''. I'm not too affected by this since I already use mostly cruisers, but I'll guess even faster ships will be useful now.
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Originem

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Re: Personal Contacts
« Reply #31 on: August 14, 2020, 01:09:19 AM »

Well I am confused that if these scripts will affect the current intel codes...
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Gothars

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Re: Personal Contacts
« Reply #32 on: August 14, 2020, 01:23:39 AM »

Interesting blog post, I'm looking forward to all the official and modding content that this will make easier to implement:)

It might be cool if some contacts could turn into officers for hire, after you have build a rapport with them.

The question is how to "sell" a real-time conversation over hypercomm. It's all pretty vague about whether that's actually possible or not... and whatever solution there needs to be able to utilize the same exact interaction text; otherwise it's way too much work to be viable.

Maybe you could use an AI core to simulate a quest givers personality for a while. And since the personality copy was uploaded while at dock, it still believes itself to be there and thus gives you the same texts.


BTW, any chance for a blog post about the deployment system update? To me it's actually more exciting than the personal contacts topic^^"
« Last Edit: August 14, 2020, 05:12:25 AM by Gothars »
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Grievous69

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Re: Personal Contacts
« Reply #33 on: August 14, 2020, 01:28:49 AM »

BTW, any chance for a blog post about the deployment system update? To me it's actually more exciting than the personal contacts topic^^"
It certainly is more impactful. I was kinda surprised that such a big thing was casually mentioned in a thread dedicated to a completely different topic, not that I mind it tho. Not sure it could be made into an entire blog post, seems pretty straightforward to me.
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mendonca

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Re: Personal Contacts
« Reply #34 on: August 14, 2020, 02:29:20 AM »

Thanks Alex,

Really excited by the developments, as always.
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Amoebka

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Re: Personal Contacts
« Reply #35 on: August 14, 2020, 04:12:44 AM »

Do people you interact with when answering distress beacons become contacts when they get back to safety? That would be a cool reward for saving them.

Also, can't wait until some modder uses the new functionality to turn Starsector into an AI core dating sim.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2020, 04:15:43 AM by Amoebka »
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sqrt(-1)

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Re: Personal Contacts
« Reply #36 on: August 14, 2020, 04:22:00 AM »

Great news.

I hope that the mentioned mission difficulty scaling won't solely rely on larger fleets but include things like stealth missions where higher skills as a pilot are required.

Only indirectly related: Are there changes to the problem of random high value drops like nanoforges & alpha cores without challenges, which instantly shoot players into the late game?
« Last Edit: August 14, 2020, 04:40:06 AM by sqrt(-1) »
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DatonKallandor

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Re: Personal Contacts
« Reply #37 on: August 14, 2020, 04:22:10 AM »

You should look up Star Traders: Frontiers, Alex. It has a similar contacts system, though it's a lot more complex since the entire game is built around it. The contacts there are faction-based, and are mission dealers, contact providers, service providers, etc, and they interact with each other and other factions.

This looks like it's going to add a great deal of depth to the game!

The whole thing gives me big Star Traders Frontiers vibes too. They have missions and contacts figured out, so a good place to look for inspiration.
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FooF

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Re: Personal Contacts
« Reply #38 on: August 14, 2020, 05:48:11 AM »

Re: "Calling" Contacts

I also really like the idea of having to be at a system's hyper comm and potentially using up a Gamma Core. It's a non-trivial expense that saves you some time, especially if you're a well-developed player with your own faction at some distance from the Core Worlds. I guess if you're swimming in Gamma Cores, you can make use of such a system more often but I don't know how much, if any, the AI Cores have changed. Gamma Cores don't do a whole lot for Colonies in the current version and it's not uncommon for me to have 20+ stored up after going into a few Red Beacon [REDACTED] system.

Even if Gamma Cores are unchanged (i.e. relatively useless to me under normal circumstances), the choice I now have is to use them to call my contacts or to turn them in for credits/rep with factions. That they're used as a high-end form of "currency" either way makes them vastly more important to me than present. Heck, if that was the case, I'd like to see more ways AI Cores could be used as currency for other forms of trade/mechanics.

Re: Deployment changes

Yeah, that's a pretty big bombshell! But very cool, too. That does make smaller/faster craft much more valuable for both running interference and getting behind the enemy lines.

Somewhat off-topic but it's always bugged me that bigger ships don't capture points faster than smaller ships. Something about the opportunity cost of having a capital wait around to capture a point the same length as a frigate just hasn't sat well with me. (The capital being at full speed and passively capturing the point on the way notwithstanding!) I've always felt that there could be modifiers to the capture rate, either by ship size, by deployment point cost of the ship in question, by number of ships within the capture zone, etc. However, there's never been a reason to really dive into it because the objectives were never all that important.

Now, with this new system, capturing/holding will be more important and modifiers to capture rate may be worth looking into. Capture rate could be based on ships size, but perhaps the inverse of my original logic: Frigates capture the fastest to keep them useful later. Or perhaps there's a hull mod that increases capture rate so that you make certain ships in your fleet more specialized in this role. Just a thought.

@ Amoebka

I think that's a great way of making Distress Beacons more important/worthwhile. At a certain point in the game, answering Distress Beacons is never worth it from a cost/benefit perspective.
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Ryan390

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Re: Personal Contacts
« Reply #39 on: August 14, 2020, 06:50:41 AM »

Good stuff, nice to get an update on what's being worked on.. Thanks for that  :)
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Megas

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Re: Re.: Personal Contacts
« Reply #40 on: August 14, 2020, 07:43:20 AM »

Re: Objectives
Seems like a throwback to pre-0.6a combat in Starfarer.  Hopefully, it will not be as extreme as deploying two Hyperion to capture all the points, then send the advancing wall of ships to pick off enemy frigates then spawn camp at their side of the screen for an easy way.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Personal Contacts
« Reply #41 on: August 14, 2020, 08:28:30 AM »

Is the skill that lets you get extra officers being removed with he skill update? It seems like it would be 100% mandatory if officers also let you deploy more forces.

Also, gamma cores are useful for maintaining or repairing reputation with factions, and to me, they feel a bit too valuable for something as inconsequential as getting a few extra missions while out and about. It feels like it's something you would want to do all the time for convenience, but not something where it's actually necessary so that you feel like you need to use a very limited resource. I just can't imagine a scenario where I'm more desperate than normal to get missions so that I would think about burning AI cores instead of flying home and restocking. I would prefer basic resources like volatiles or supplies instead so that I could actually use the mechanic as a convenience outside of the time in the game where I'm farming red systems (tbh I don't even need missions anymore at that point).
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FooF

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Re: Personal Contacts
« Reply #42 on: August 14, 2020, 08:44:52 AM »

@ intrinsic_parity

If a call feature were implemented, I don't know if I'd use it until mid/late game anyway as a way to circumvent spending hundreds of fuel/supplies to visit a contact. Unless there's a way to quickly and easily swap out my end-game fleet with something that travels lighter, I don't want to spend the time dropping ships off in storage, just to retrieve them again. (I'm speaking mostly from the perspective that I'll be around my own colonies, not the Core Worlds).

I, personally, don't use Gamma Cores for anything right now, not even maintaining reputation. Perhaps I should, but even with that said, that's their only use right now (since their usefulness in colonies is marginal). I'm not disagreeing that a lesser form of commodity could be used. Alex seems concerned that such a feature should be used sparingly and Gamma Cores kind of fit the bill lore-wise.

Depending on how useful Contacts are late-game (I hope still very useful) and if the option is there, the question becomes, Do I want to spend the time/supplies/fuel to visit Contact X or do I want to go to the nearest System Comm and spend [insert commodity here]? Answering that question has a lot to do with where you are, what your fleet looks like, how much you have to spend, and what the opportunity cost of spending that commodity is. If it was a Gamma Core, I ask myself "Is it a single Gamma Core worth 1000 fuel, 150 supplies, and 2 weeks of travel (5 minutes of game time)?" It might be. But at least the option is there. At end game, I think I'd take the shortcut.
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Grievous69

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Re: Personal Contacts
« Reply #43 on: August 14, 2020, 08:47:08 AM »

Is the skill that lets you get extra officers being removed with he skill update? It seems like it would be 100% mandatory if officers also let you deploy more forces.
Base number of officers is now 8, but you'll still be able to get to 10 with a skill. So yes, it would seem it's gonna be ridiculously good.
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Personal Contacts
« Reply #44 on: August 14, 2020, 09:43:52 AM »

Given the new skill system, are all AI officers considered to be Max Level? Not that there's anything wrong with that.
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