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Author Topic: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 599343 times)

Voxette

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1485 on: April 05, 2021, 11:07:08 PM »

More feedback: I feel like the missions I've been offered so far pay ridiculously little, to the point where they are not worth it.

Let's see, do I do a raid mission and make 37,000 credits? Or raid a convoy or just do some trading to a place that has shortages and clear 500,000 easy?

Edit: I'm also finding it astoundingly hard to find Vulcan Cannons.
« Last Edit: April 06, 2021, 12:43:58 AM by Voxette »
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GenericGoose

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1486 on: April 06, 2021, 01:46:36 AM »

Why is capital and escort ai so bad? Ive been using 2 onslaughts and a paragon with some cruisers like eagles, falcons and auroras. At best, 2 of the capitals are fighting the enemy, while the 3rd one is just sitting behind them. On top of that, they always seem to turn their flank to the core of enemy fleet to shoot some frigate (and fail because they can't hit it). The escorts also just sit behind the ship they're supposed to support and do absolutely nothing while it's getting dogpiled. But only when they aren't getting in front of the capital to block it's line of fire and get killed. The ai is so poor and the DP cost is so high that unless you're piloting them yourself these capitals can't do anything. I imagine I'd get better results with Odyssey or Conquest or a fleet of cruisers.
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Flet

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1487 on: April 06, 2021, 03:22:50 AM »

Why is capital and escort ai so bad?
Ive heard some explanation for this. I dont know if its right but its the only explanation ive heard so far: A combination of ai tweaks and enemy fleet composition changes conspiring to create a lot of circumstances where your fleet defaults to defensive behavior and refuses to do anything but an anemic fighting retreat. Apparently your ai will change its behavior to timid if it judges the enemy fleet to be stronger than its fleet, and this seems to be based on number of officers present in each fleet and the comparative weapons ranges. Because there are many situations where the enemy has more officers than you, and situations where even if you are fully specialized towards ecm you will still get out-ecmd, there are many opportunities for your ai to see itself in a losing condition even if it could win if it would just act normally.

After hearing the above explanation ive taken to trying to pay close attention to when and how my ai does things that make me say "what are you doing?" out loud in frustration. Sometimes certainly ai seems to behave normally and ive even had a few enjoyable situations that make me smile when a particular ship goes on a rampage. Im trying to see if i can detect any trends.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1488 on: April 06, 2021, 06:01:32 AM »

More feedback: I feel like the missions I've been offered so far pay ridiculously little, to the point where they are not worth it.

Let's see, do I do a raid mission and make 37,000 credits? Or raid a convoy or just do some trading to a place that has shortages and clear 500,000 easy?
Worse, doing those raid missions may send a revenge fleet after you even if you stealth raided the place.  If they do not know for certain who did it, why should they send a fleet after you?  Said fleet was close to 200k bounty strength.  I tried to kill it but my fleet could not win in a fair fight without taking too many casualties (not waiting a year to clean up new d-mods when I already have other d-mod ships to fix).  Eventually, I led it to my colony where it got totally crushed and humiliated by my orbital station for easy flawless victory.

Basically, now I know to skip those missions unless my fleet is endgame strong because of the risk of having a high-powered headhunter fleet after you.  Better to raid zombie pirates for supplies or drugs and sell them elsewhere for better profit and no chance of revenge fleets.


@ Farlarzia:  All star fortresses had mines since v0.9a.  High-tech just spawns more of them than midline.  Low-tech do not mine strike the same way the other two do.
« Last Edit: April 06, 2021, 06:05:48 AM by Megas »
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Sutopia

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1489 on: April 06, 2021, 06:25:49 AM »

More feedback: I feel like the missions I've been offered so far pay ridiculously little, to the point where they are not worth it.

Let's see, do I do a raid mission and make 37,000 credits? Or raid a convoy or just do some trading to a place that has shortages and clear 500,000 easy?
Worse, doing those raid missions may send a revenge fleet after you even if you stealth raided the place.  If they do not know for certain who did it, why should they send a fleet after you?  Said fleet was close to 200k bounty strength.  I tried to kill it but my fleet could not win in a fair fight without taking too many casualties (not waiting a year to clean up new d-mods when I already have other d-mod ships to fix).  Eventually, I led it to my colony where it got totally crushed and humiliated by my orbital station for easy flawless victory.

Basically, now I know to skip those missions unless my fleet is endgame strong because of the risk of having a high-powered headhunter fleet after you.  Better to raid zombie pirates for supplies or drugs and sell them elsewhere for better profit and no chance of revenge fleets.


@ Farlarzia:  All star fortresses had mines since v0.9a.  High-tech just spawns more of them than midline.  Low-tech do not mine strike the same way the other two do.

Aren’t headhunters all just trash fleet pirates that you tank 100 DP with 6 and win easily?
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1490 on: April 06, 2021, 06:28:40 AM »

The revenge fleet after me was a pristine Indie fleet of primarily high-tech ships, about 180k to 200k bounty strength, full of level 6 officers.  Basically a mini-version of the infamous capital and officer spam endgame fleet.  My fleet was roughly the same size, but most of my skills were campaign QoL, and my officers were not max level.  Also had ECM disadvantage.
« Last Edit: April 06, 2021, 06:31:14 AM by Megas »
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TerranEmpire

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1491 on: April 06, 2021, 07:18:18 AM »

Please make the DP less officer-dependent. It's very frustrating that I can't even deploy a full battle line of low-tech capitals. I think I'm not the only one here, who doesn't want to actively participate in every battle...
I would rather concentrate on managing my fleet instead of playing rambo with my ship since I'm not a terribly good pilot. The current version amplifies your piloting skills both by reducing the overall DP and creating many disadvantageous situations where you have comparatively less DP and the enemy has way more officers.
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TerranEmpire

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1492 on: April 06, 2021, 07:21:35 AM »

Just to clarify. I think in the last version combat was too easy, but in this version, it's very frustrating. Even if the battle is not particularly hard to win, it's still frustrating because of the changes.
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Farlarzia

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1493 on: April 06, 2021, 09:05:13 AM »

For the transplutonics: You need a planet that has +1 (or 2) bonus to transplutonics production.
I think you're confusing the unrefined ore with the refined metal?


Oops, I sure am!
I've done that quite a few times with procurement missions in the campaign too  :-X


@ Farlarzia:  All star fortresses had mines since v0.9a.  High-tech just spawns more of them than midline.  Low-tech do not mine strike the same way the other two do.

Welp! Another silly mistake on my part, not sure how I never noticed this, I played the hell out of 0.9a as well  :-\
« Last Edit: April 06, 2021, 09:07:32 AM by Farlarzia »
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1494 on: April 06, 2021, 09:08:37 AM »

Read everything, thank you everyone for the feedback! Made a few notes regarding the bugs reported. Just a few quick specific responses:


For lore reasons, I suppose it's also reasonable to ask why the magfield doesn't also deflect the corona on the campaign map.  Might be nice for it to act like a planet in that fashion, stopping the corona in the area behind it.  Would make getting to somewhat easier, too.  Tough fight, and going in with less CR (from getting lightly toasted by the corona, emergency burn, or both) kinda hurts.

It does protect you from the corona in the campaign as long as your fleet circle is touching it, IIRC.

Ive heard some explanation for this. I dont know if its right but its the only explanation ive heard so far:
...
Apparently your ai will change its behavior to timid if it judges the enemy fleet to be stronger than its fleet, and this seems to be based on number of officers present in each fleet and the comparative weapons ranges. Because there are many situations where the enemy has more officers than you, and situations where even if you are fully specialized towards ecm you will still get out-ecmd, there are many opportunities for your ai to see itself in a losing condition even if it could win if it would just act normally.

(Ah - I have no idea where you got this information, but this has absolutely zero basis in reality. There's nothing even remotely similar to that going on.)


On top of that, they always seem to turn their flank to the core of enemy fleet to shoot some frigate...

Hmm - do you happen to have a save handy where I can directly observe the behaviors you're describing? That'd be very helpful.
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GenericGoose

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1495 on: April 06, 2021, 09:30:30 AM »

On top of that, they always seem to turn their flank to the core of enemy fleet to shoot some frigate...
Hmm - do you happen to have a save handy where I can directly observe the behaviors you're describing? That'd be very helpful.
It's nice that you are reading feedback.
Unfortunately, no. It may have been a slight exaggeration, but I can be a bit more specific. I've observed this sort of behavior a few times. I had a smaller fleet of bigger ships (2-3 capitals and cruisers) vs big enemy fleets of close to 30 ships. I group all my ships together and wait for the enemy blob to come. What happened fairly often is 2 capitals would fight the blob, sometimes the third one too, but instead of shooting into the blob, they would try to shoot single ships that split off from it to flank, usually smaller ships, but sometimes bigger ones. The issue is that it enabled the blobs to concentrate fire onto the capitals, while taking no return fire, as they're facing the other way, which is naturally way worse than a single ship trying to flank. All of the officers were steady. But yeah, essentially, the entire fight they would face away from the main force and try to very slowly pick off separating ships.
Even more specific information if you want to try and recreate the fight:
Spoiler
400 battle size, had to cap 2 points to deploy all that.
My fleet: 1 paragon with 2 tach lances and 2 autopulses, 2 14th onslaughts, 2 auroras, an SO harbinger. Auroras escort onslaughts. Steady lvl5-6 officers.
Enemy fleet: 2 guardians, about 14 ramparts, 13 smaller drone ships. 2-5 dmods and red officers in each. (a rare bounty, I assume).
Maybe I deployed them wrong, but pretty much always the auroras would sit behind the ships they're guardiang, doing seemingly nothing. One of the onslaughts would also remain behind between the 2 other capitals, seemingly not even trying to engage.
[close]
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1496 on: April 06, 2021, 09:38:17 AM »

Thank you for the added info! Could you clarify on the exact order setup you have to make them "blob"?

(One thing worth mentioning, btw - just in general regarding aggressiveness - is that the "aggressiveness" setting in your faction doctrine will apply to ships without officers. Doesn't sound like it's factoring in here at all, but just good to be aware of.)
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BGrey

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1497 on: April 06, 2021, 09:49:33 AM »

Ive heard some explanation for this. I dont know if its right but its the only explanation ive heard so far:
...
Apparently your ai will change its behavior to timid if it judges the enemy fleet to be stronger than its fleet, and this seems to be based on number of officers present in each fleet and the comparative weapons ranges. Because there are many situations where the enemy has more officers than you, and situations where even if you are fully specialized towards ecm you will still get out-ecmd, there are many opportunities for your ai to see itself in a losing condition even if it could win if it would just act normally.

(Ah - I have no idea where you got this information, but this has absolutely zero basis in reality. There's nothing even remotely similar to that going on.)

In a general sense I did feel like things behave that way. The AI seems to get scared off by larger fleets and basically fails to engage. I ran across a large domain drone fleet and my ships were basically not doing anything until I hit full assault which resulted in a fast win with no losses.

Could this just be from individual ships judging that they are unsafe to attack based on multiple nearby enemies rather than some overall behavior calculation?
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Maethendias

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1498 on: April 06, 2021, 10:11:20 AM »


Apparently your ai will change its behavior to timid if it judges the enemy fleet to be stronger than its fleet
[/quote]

that actually explains SO MUCH, cause this only seem to happen in large battles

you know, when you ACUTALLY NEED your fleets to be agressive and divide and conquer the enemy out of their doomstack

this HAS to go ASAP, because this is the single reason why paragon /onslaught only fleets become mandatory endgame

because those are the ships that can at least withstand multifleet focus fire for a while

(not to mention combat ai being the worst part of the game right now by a massive margain, thanks comando points for not even giving us a manual option either)
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Radicaljack

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1499 on: April 06, 2021, 10:14:51 AM »

I hope the officer DP stuff is sorted out in the next RC, playing a late game it's ten times worse than the capital spam because the above instances of defensive behavior only make winning those fights with capitals that can tank a few waves impossible. Also CR on capitals is still as punishing, and the second you retreat one if you had a cap the enemy will rush you like mad to take the cap and then you have NO dp. Hate this DP calc more than anything in this update, have to restart any game that gets to late stages.
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