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

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Author Topic: [0.96a-RC10] The Star Federation v0.99-RC5 - Inspired by FTL (5/23/23)  (Read 325805 times)

Cyber Von Cyberus

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Hello, I love the mod, unfortunately it doesn't seem to have any options to get commissioned with the Federation, nor does it have any starting options with Nex. I'm not sure if this has been fixed yet since I haven't updated the mod.
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Diktat Admiral:"What do we have here ? A dissident ? A pirate ? Or maybe a degenerate ?"

Me:"Yes, I'm all of those."

FasterThanSleepyfish

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Hello, I love the mod, unfortunately it doesn't seem to have any options to get commissioned with the Federation, nor does it have any starting options with Nex. I'm not sure if this has been fixed yet since I haven't updated the mod.

You definitely need to update, and preferably delete the old mod before moving the new one in. It will likely not be save compatible, otherwise starting a new campaign is advisable.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2020, 03:55:29 AM by Sleepyfish »
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Cyber Von Cyberus

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Ah yes, my bad. Thanks for the fix.
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NGTM-1R

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This is a wonderful little mod and I look forward to seeing it grow.

I would also like to state that Bytes with officers are adorable little free-range murderblenders, perfect for herding enemy frigate swarms or picking off flanker frigates going after Ospreys and Kestrels, but vastly better balanced than other ships I'd normally suggest for the role. Bytes have the right blend of mobility and firepower, but will actually regret picking fights with two or three frigates that are focused on them or anything much bigger, and I feel a lot less like I'm cheating because of it.

I'm just not entirely sure where the officer sits given the lack of crew on a Byte, and kind of envision them at the back of my flagship bridge commanding their Byte from a TriPad.
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Coward

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I would also like to state that Bytes with officers are adorable little free-range murderblenders, perfect for herding enemy frigate swarms or picking off flanker frigates going after Ospreys and Kestrels, but vastly better balanced than other ships I'd normally suggest for the role. Bytes have the right blend of mobility and firepower, but will actually regret picking fights with two or three frigates that are focused on them or anything much bigger, and I feel a lot less like I'm cheating because of it.

I'm just not entirely sure where the officer sits given the lack of crew on a Byte, and kind of envision them at the back of my flagship bridge commanding their Byte from a TriPad.

Really? I've always had trouble getting Bytes to stay alive, even with an officer I always find them overextending and then getting wasted after flaming out in front of a Shrike or Enforcer.

Personally, I've never considered ship captains to be part of the crew requirement, since destroyed ships always recover the captain anyway. I'd guess the Byte has only a captain's seat and they pilot it like an oversized fighter. A remote-controlled frigate sounds awfully close to heresy...
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IonDragonX

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@Sleepyfish
There's a SWP called Missing ships that also has a Pelican but its a carrier version of Conquerer.
I just thought you should be aware of the name conflict.
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KazaaakplethKilik

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Re: [0.9.1a] The Star Federation (Based on FTL) - v0.5
« Reply #51 on: January 05, 2021, 12:28:24 PM »


yes yes yeS YES YES YES YES YES

I played FTL for years and years before discovering Starsector. I am immensely excited to see this.

Admittedly, I played FTL Captain's Edition for so long that I no longer remember what's Vanilla FTL and what's not. So, question then; will you be doing any of the stuff from CE?
I was thinking about snatching a little shuttlecraft from a different mod to fill out the frigate roster. But those CE designs do seem somewhat interesting! We'll see!
Ah yes, my time has come. There have been many-a rants on why CE isn't actually that great, and here is one of them. point 2 being a key point for this topic. https://docs.google.com/document/d/17Nt8U3sPU-FfazD7GYM2L2IBMtfYrO9ZfR_zwZLKNvQ/edit
I don't remember everything, as CE conversations few and far between, but little effort was put into crediting those that wanted their art in the overhaul. Most things that were given credit are at the bottom of the CE forum page an never mentioned again, which is better than nothing, but the key words being "that were given credit". And some of the ships being "borrowed" with their alt-colors just being poorly recolored
All my homies don't like CE
Multiverse is where it's at
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I kind of like the Mantis ships

Retry

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Just before I start my TIM run, I'd like to write down a few random thoughts I had on this mod after playing for about a week.

Weapons

The Fed PD guns (Chisel and, uh, the other one) are very flux inefficient for frag PD guns on top of unimpressive damage output, and operating them is very expensive and possibly more dangerous to the ship it's trying to defend than the missiles due to that.  I'd strongly recommend setting their flux efficiency to ~0.2 to start and iterating from there.

Letos are kind of a funny missile, quite fast for such a cheap thing but also amazingly inaccurate, making huge sinusoidal weaves that usually misses the target.  That's not too bad, but that combines with the fact that its sustained damage is very poor, even before considering it's frag damage type, and because it's charge-based it doesn't synergize well with either FMR or Missile Forge.  At only 3 OP, at least I don't feel too bad about mounting it.  Still, a heftier missile (for instance, 750 frag- a Frag Harpoon), and perhaps reworking the charge system to synergize with FMR would go a long way to make Letos feel more useful than window dressing without making it high-end.

The medium-size Swarm missile suffers from the "Thumper Effect", in that low-damage frag weapons tend to have their damage absolutely mauled by the residual armor mechanic, dramatically reducing their effective damage even in their home environment (bare hull) compared to other damage types like energy and especially HE.  It's a pretty unfortunate scenario, and it hits the Swarm really hard.  There's not a ton that can be done for a missile like that, as-is it's probably not worth more than 7 OP, if that.

The Scrapshot guns are quite nice weapons with a fairly unique place in the modiverse.  The Light 9OP one I feel is a bit crowded out by both the longer-range 15OP Heavy, and vanilla weaponry around that OP range (800 range HACs and whatnot), but it's by no means unusable.  The Large-size Scrapshot is a bit spooky at 1100 range and good flux efficiency, but perhaps it's evened out by its inability to cause real armor damage.  Unfortunately, I haven't had to chance to try it out.

I quite like the large energy projectile weapon the mod, seems to be around the right place for a gun of its type and range.  Only thing I might recommend looking at is (slightly) enhancing sustained damage and (slightly) reducing flux inefficiency to make it slightly less "extreme" in terms of range-to-efficiency and minimum sustained DPS, if that makes sense.

Overall, I'm quite impressed with the weapon artwork.  There's a few FTL weapons I recognize, and others that appear to be entirely new for Star Sector.  The Fed seems to make heavy use of weapon charge mechanics, and generally benefit a lot from Expanded Magazines as a result.

Capital Ships

Unfortunately, I was unable to sufficiently test Cruisers and smaller, so I'll only be able to make comments on the Capital ships.

The Rebellion-class, clearly based on the iconic Rebel Flagship.  As it turns out, a powerful Battleship in Star Sector as well, if only in one direction.  Making the limited-traverse turrets Synergies instead of the frontal hardpoints is an interesting design decision, as is the rear-facing Paladin.  Ship system feels like a more clumsy version of Maneuvering Jets, though that might be better for balance, I don't know.  Overall, a pretty fun ship.

The Union-class Battlecarrier turned out to be a really fun ship to outfit and fight with, despite limited modularity in its carrier slots.  It's my favorite among the 3 Fed caps name-wise and aesthetically, and carries a competent weapon loadout for its weight class.  The built-in Pilums seems like an unusual choice, though.

The Accordant-class Battlecruiser is kind of unusual aesthetically.  Armament is similar to the Union-class, but replaces the 4 fighter bays with another Large Missile.  I'd almost describe it as a foward-facing Conquest, though it does have energy broadsides that... don't seem to contribute much?  It's also more expensive than the Union-class in terms of DP, IIRC.  I feel this cap needs the most work put into it, out of the three

I'd strongly recommend increasing the burn speed of both the Accordant-class and Union-class to 8, to match fast caps like the Conquest and Odyssey (in addition to other mod Caps).

Unsolicited Suggestions

In the unlikely chance you're open to random ideas of things that could be implemented from FTL, here's a few ideas I've had:

Boarding Drone "missiles": A utility weapon mounted in missile slots (probably small, *maybe* medium), small amount of Frag damage, with additional enduring effects if the "missile" is lucky enough to impact the armor/hull, for a long (but probably not infinite) period of time, say a minute or so.  Effects could include periodic EMP bursts generating on the ship (EMP drones), increased weapon repair times due to boarding action, random malfunctions similar to that experienced at low CR, or a combination of these effects.

Hacking Drone System: Built-in system, similar to the Boarding Drone missile but activated by systems (and as such, non-modular).  Similar effects if the system hits the target ship's exposed hull: big EMP bursts when activated, random malfunctions, or both.  Probably needs a limited number of uses until you need to send the drone again to prevent you from endlessly sabotaging the same ship.

Boarding Teleporter: Built-in system.  Sends a boarding party to sabotage a target ship within range, causing effects over time similar to the Boarding Drone but without having to land a hit on the hull.  Likely the easiest to implement out of the three.

Drone Control Hullmod + LPC-ifying drones: As a nod to FTL's federation's usage of drones, a Drone Control built-in hullmod would provide additional enhancement to 0-crew fighters (aka Drones), such as OP cost reductions or other bonuses, without stopping Carriers from using manned craft if they so choose.  The built-in drones on current ships are neat, but (IMO) I kind of like the flexibility of modular equipment, so I'd greatly appreciate if the Federation received a drone LPC or 2 for installation on these or non-Fed ships.

Secondary Shield faction hullmod: A hullmod for cruiser-grade and capital-grade Federation ships.  Adds a secondary shield if there are none, or enhances an existing secondary shield (arc coverage, absorptive capacity & dissipation, etc).  Understandably wouldn't be the easiest thing to implement, if it's possible.  Might be possible using a system similar to how Interstellar Imperium does their specialty package, switching out a base ship to a similar skin with different charracterristics?
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FasterThanSleepyfish

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Re: [0.9.1a] The Star Federation v0.7.2a (Inspired by FTL)
« Reply #53 on: January 26, 2021, 08:19:59 PM »

Thanks for all of the feedback! This update is pretty much on Retry's behalf. Presenting...



Probably save compatible, but your loadouts on the reworked ships will be broken. The rarity of guns was changed, so it's probably best to start a new campaign anyway.


Click the image to download! 0.7.2a as of 1/26/2021
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Senya_in_Space

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Re: [0.9.1a] The Star Federation v0.7.2a (Inspired by FTL)
« Reply #54 on: January 27, 2021, 02:40:39 PM »

I love the look and mechanics of the mod. One problem, though. For some reason it won't work on Linux. When I boot up the game with the mod installed and enabled, it says that it can't load anything from the mod directory. Here's the error it gives me:


[attachment deleted by admin]
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Nick XR

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Re: [0.9.1a] The Star Federation v0.7.2a (Inspired by FTL)
« Reply #55 on: January 27, 2021, 03:58:53 PM »

I love the look and mechanics of the mod. One problem, though. For some reason it won't work on Linux. When I boot up the game with the mod installed and enabled, it says that it can't load anything from the mod directory. Here's the error it gives me:

With one of my mods I had an issue where I was using the built in PowerShell command to compress which doesn't actually do it right, but it only shows up as broken on Linux.  FWIW I used the 7zip powershell plugin and it works fine now.

fu12

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Re: [0.9.1a] The Star Federation v0.7.2a (Inspired by FTL)
« Reply #56 on: January 28, 2021, 09:52:20 AM »

Pretty sure its not exactly priority, but I tried to cheatyface an accordant with "fed_flagship_assault" and just got a Union instead.
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FlyingFlip

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Re: [0.9.1a] The Star Federation v0.7.2a (Inspired by FTL)
« Reply #57 on: January 31, 2021, 11:46:10 AM »

Hi there, relatively new to Starsector but your work has been quite amazing - I've always loved FTL and seeing it here is somewhat fitting. It's inspired me to give it a shot myself, more for myself to get practise in painting but also perhaps contribute to something.


The Mantis Cruiser

Those are just some hardpoint ideas too. I realise the smaller details don't pop out as much as they should do so I'll probably revise it and try other mantis/engi ship too.

I know you're focusing on Federation at the moment and that definitely makes sense. I'll probably try creating more ships from FTL but I won't be using them in a mod myself. I'm not much of a programmer nor artist and even though I've my own personal faction project on the backburner whilst I learn, if you need help testing or painting I'd love to contribute :)

I'll probably do some proper testing later but on that note, I did notice the Nesasio hardpoint angles aren't entirely symmetrical:

« Last Edit: January 31, 2021, 12:05:27 PM by FlyingFlip »
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IonDragonX

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Re: [0.9.1a] The Star Federation v0.7.2a (Inspired by FTL)
« Reply #58 on: January 31, 2021, 02:08:28 PM »

Those are just some hardpoint ideas too. I realise the smaller details don't pop out as much as they should do so I'll probably revise it and try other mantis/engi ship too.
I like it! However, the hardpoints on the back half look like they should be angled out a bit. Right now, it looks like it would clip the 'fins'.
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FasterThanSleepyfish

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Re: [0.9.1a] The Star Federation v0.7.2a (Inspired by FTL)
« Reply #59 on: January 31, 2021, 06:14:45 PM »

Hi there, relatively new to Starsector but your work has been quite amazing - I've always loved FTL and seeing it here is somewhat fitting. It's inspired me to give it a shot myself, more for myself to get practise in painting but also perhaps contribute to something.


The Mantis Cruiser

Those are just some hardpoint ideas too. I realise the smaller details don't pop out as much as they should do so I'll probably revise it and try other mantis/engi ship too.

I know you're focusing on Federation at the moment and that definitely makes sense. I'll probably try creating more ships from FTL but I won't be using them in a mod myself. I'm not much of a programmer nor artist and even though I've my own personal faction project on the backburner whilst I learn, if you need help testing or painting I'd love to contribute :)

I'll probably do some proper testing later but on that note, I did notice the Nesasio hardpoint angles aren't entirely symmetrical:


Wow, that's really good work! Just a few issues with the lighting, but hey if that isn't an eternal struggle. I would gladly accept your help in making these sprites - you seem to have a great eye for them. Check your PMs :)
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