Oh wow, % of battle size. So for those of us playing at 4-500, one of the minor objectives is enough for a cruiser, while a major objective is worth a capital. Thats pretty significant!
Yep! Kind of has to be, since the idea is you can balance the odds with a quick aggressive play at the start.
Hey Alex, I think it would be cool to spice up the rewards from these missions other than just cash.
Rewards could include a choice of ships, mid-level officers, a temporary (or potentially permanent) exemption from tarriffs from the local port or blueprints.
I would especially like to see blueprints here as its currently harder to get the blueprints of factions you are allied to, as raiding planets is a main way to reliably get blueprints.
obviously these would have to be scaled to fit the difficulty of the mission, but I think it would spice things up a bit from the usual cash and friendship reward.
Some of this is in, actually. Well, kind of. For example, one of the "military" rewards is being able to buy a good quality surplus military hull cheaply, whith a better relationship resulting in a better/bigger hull being offered.
... actually, this reminds me of something pretty big I *completely forgot* to talk about in the blog post! Another type of "mission" is a "custom production order" that you're able to give - using a screen that's much the same as the colony ship/weapon/fighter custom production screen. Higher importance/relationship increases the max value of the order, which is delivered to storage at the colony after a time.
You can pick either from your own blueprints, or from blueprints the contact has. Trade contacts don't have any, military contacts have their faction blueprints, and underworld arms dealers have the good stuff. The idea here is you can make intermittent use of blueprints you know before you have a colony up and running, and *also* it's a means to reliably get a hold of some stuff that's otherwise, for whatever reason, extremely rare.
(Modding note: no_drop, no_sell, and no_dealer blueprints are excluded from being available this way from the contact, unless the player knows them.)
Something else I think would be nice is to require a contact of the appropriate importance to vouch for you to progress in a faction from commission -> friendly -> cooperative.
I think it would add some barrier to entry and more nuance than just chucking over 50 ai cores to become fully allied to a faction
That could be interesting, yeah. I'm not really sure how much I want to expand commissions; there's a lot that couldbe done there but it's kind of... its own thing. We'll see, though. I guess what I'm saying more than anything is that "expanding commissions" would be its own effort and not "let's add some things to it while doing something else", if that makes sense.
Very exciting! Can't wait to play around with the new content.
Thanks!
Dunno if it was intentional but I really like how elegant that solution is at also getting the player to think about deployment. It's a neat system that feels completely overlooked as 90% of the playerbase likely just shows up in their initial fleet and begins chucking hulls at the enemy until there's nothing left.
Oh, hey, yeah! That's definitely true, since now you have to consider what you think you'll be able to capture, how much that gives you, what you can deploy as the 2nd wave if you succeed, what you need to deploy to capture it, and so on.
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!
Actually, the contacts thing IIRC was partly spurred on my someone making a related suggestion based on Star Traders! It makes sense that ST:F would be more all-in on that, though, at least given what little I know about the game (which seems very cool, btw).
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.
Hmm - I guess I wouldn't read too much into the word "special" - they're basically an alternate source of bounties that's more restricted, and considerably more varied and challenging. Does that make it "special"? Who's to say
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.
Since one of my concerns was whether officers counting for this "makes sense", I'm very happy to hear this!
Well I am confused that if these scripts will affect the current intel codes...
They won't, no. For example the vanilla Red Planet mission did not need any changes and works as-is.
Interesting blog post, I'm looking forward to all the official and modding content that this will make easier to implement:)
Hey - good to see you around!
Yeah, here's hoping this helps as far as modding in missions. That's very much a goal.
It might be cool if some contacts could turn into officers for hire, after you have build a rapport with them.
Hmm, perhaps! I'm not sure that it's a useful conversion, though - a contact is generally more valuable than an officer. And if a contact would become some kind of super-officer, then that might encourage farming up contacts for that, and that doesn't seem great.
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.
Have you been reading Alastair Reynolds recently?
The whole "beta personality simulation" thing and so on...
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.
Yeah, I'm not sure there's *that* much to talk about with that! It's impactful but what I wrote I think pretty much covers it. That said, happy to elaborate on any aspect!
Thanks Alex,
Really excited by the developments, as always.
(Also, hey!)
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.
Hmm. Another interesting idea, yeah. They don't - as I was saying earlier, getting contacts is pretty much a bar-only thing right now - but I wouldn't rule out a pass at some point for "other ways to get contacts", and that sort of thing would fit right in.
Also, can't wait until some modder uses the new functionality to turn Starsector into an AI core dating sim.
... don't give them ideas.
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.
It's specifically for these custom bounties, so stealth missions don't factor in directly. Aside from the need for stealth if, say, your target is a Pather fleet inside a system with a Pather base and a bunch of Holy Armadas.
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?
Hmm, I don't think this is a "problem". You get a drop like this, and it's a choice - do you sell it and spend the money for a boost now, or do you keep the rare item and use it to get more benefit out of it later? Presenting the player with that choice is an intentional thing the game does. That said, I've been meaning to look at and perhaps tone down the sell prices. I wouldn't say 300k or so catapults you into the endgame on its own, either - it's not enough to buy a Paragon (even if one is available), let alone outfit it. I mean, it's certainly a big step, but let's not overstate it - it's also what you'd get from doing a few midrange bounties, right.
(Also, there's *a lot* more special items, which I think increases their value since finding another is much less likely. E.G. where you might now find a nanoforge, it'll be one of... around 10 or so things, with their own unique and powerful effects.)
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.
One thing I completely forgot about is that a lot of the missions assume the player is physically present. Things like taking cargo on-board, buying a ship from the contact, etc. So that stuff would need to get filtered out, hmm...
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.
To me it feels like it's fast enough already that it wouldn't really matter, no? If you've got a capital ship there, chances are you've taken the objective by the time you're able to just move through it at the normal (i.e. slow) speed of the capital.
Good stuff, nice to get an update on what's being worked on.. Thanks for that
Thank you!
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).
Hmm, yeah, this is... a good point. Perhaps this could be a use for story points, actually, with full bonus XP granted so it's "eventually free, but not in the short term".
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.
Right! The alternate skill to "+2 officers" gives +1 to offcer level, and since officer level also factors in here, they're... not precisely equivalent, but close. I don't think it'll matter that much, anyway, since you're pretty likely to be at 40% deployment regarldess of which one you take when fighting the highest-tier enemies. So objectives will be the ticket - and taking on some additonal temporary mercenary officers, for anything that's too tough otherwise.
Given the new skill system, are all AI officers considered to be Max Level? Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Their actual level is used, if that's what you're asking.
Not in the patch notes, but needs to be dealt with: if objectives are being made more important again, the AI needs some improvements to being able to actually capture a node. For an example, if I give a capture order to a fast cruiser, and a couple of enemy frigates wander over to harass it, it should darned well sit on the node until it's captured it and only then start chasing after things that'll take it a while to catch. (For an example from a recent battle - I set a ship to capture a node... the enemy didn't even contest that node, but some of their ships happened to be going by at maybe 3000su away or so, and my ship wandered off-node towards them. Didn't even manage to get in range of anything, but it also wasn't capturing the node, either.)
Ah yeah - I actually did make some changes here, they were just in a different section of the patch notes and I didn't include them. It was more focused on frigates but I *think* it would also help in the scenario you describe. I'll have another look, though.
Also the declarative approach is good to see, though I have to ask: why not go even further and have declarative statements and maybe basic logic in non-Java files (like .ship files)? So that adding such content could be done without having to deal with Java.
I thought about it! Basically, what you're seeing as an upside - getting away from Java - is actually a downside
There'll always be something custom, even if it's minor like putting together a string or something. And being able to use a Java editor is extremely nice. For example, I can type in "trigger" and hit auto-complete and see the list of possible methods, instead of having to look up what's valid in this particular text file or whatever. And, the documentation for this gets generated automatically, so it's better for modders, too.
(Somewhat tangentially, that's what the "code is data" point is about... that there's not much conceptual difference between a data file and a file with code; what matters is the stuff around it that makes it easier or harder to work with.)
Agree with some comments here, the surprise/understated announcement above of deployment and battle related changes is as much if not more important (at least for existing players), because it touches existing core gameplay. So another blog post with a summary of it could be our next hype raising ticket, ha!