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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: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 595904 times)

Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #30 on: October 16, 2020, 04:24:29 PM »

Ah, ok, I see what you're saying now! Seems like maybe too minor a thing to make a detour for (or maybe I'm not in the right headspace for it; trying to be more focused on what *has* to get done, etc), but I get where you're coming from now. This was kind of supposed to be a thing for the Sindrian Diktat, btw, what with access to Solar Shielding and Sindria being almost in the corona, but it's more of a backstory-level thing at the moment than something that's strongly represented in-game.
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RustyCabbage

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #31 on: October 16, 2020, 04:33:27 PM »

Really interesting patch notes!!

One question: from what I can tell the Buffalo got some significant stat increases while the Tarsus, which in the current version is effectively equivalent, got an increased fuel/LY nerf.
It looks like
Buffalo: 400 capacity, 2 fuel/LY
Tarsus: 300 capacity, 3 fuel/LY

Is this what the stats should look like at this point?

Edit: also, does the Atlas Mk.II still have the 10 fuel/LY, or was the Atlas reduction to 6 also meant to apply to it?

Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #32 on: October 16, 2020, 04:38:55 PM »

One question: from what I can tell the Buffalo got some significant stat increases while the Tarsus, which in the current version is effectively equivalent, got an increased fuel/LY nerf.
It looks like
Buffalo: 400 capacity, 2 fuel/LY
Tarsus: 300 capacity, 3 fuel/LY

Is this what the stats should look like at this point?

Edit: also, does the Atlas Mk.II still have the 10 fuel/LY, or was the Atlas reduction to 6 also meant to apply to it?

Correct on both counts! The Mk.II has 10 fuel/LY.

Re: Buffalo and Tarsus, it's meant to reflect that the Tarsus is a lot safer should it ever need to run away, where the Buffalo basically stands no chance in that kind of situation. Their supplies/month cost is the same at 3, though.

(Edit: ahh, I see now, two conflicting entries in the notes for the Buffalo; cleaned that up.)
« Last Edit: October 16, 2020, 04:42:04 PM by Alex »
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #33 on: October 16, 2020, 04:39:42 PM »

Will there be another Damper Field-equipped ship?
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #34 on: October 16, 2020, 04:42:41 PM »

There's already a couple, so I'm not sure what you mean.
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Goumindong

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #35 on: October 16, 2020, 04:43:03 PM »

Quote
Brawler:

    Changed ship system to Maneuvering Jets (was: Damper Field)
    Increased shield arc to 270 (was: 150)
    Increased supply cost to 6 (was: 4)
    Increased flux dissipation and capacity (200 -> 250, 2500 -> 3000)

That is a pretty big supply cost increase. How does this work for the Brawler Variants?

I'm not sure what you mean. Ahh - do you mean the Pather variants? They're just, well, more expensive. I don't think this really changes much, and they're frankly quite scary at times, so it might not be unwarranted.

The pather variants but also the TT variant. Which loses a good deal of value here. it has plasma jets(and IEM built in) which are better than maneuvering. But its still running the same (well new)flux stats with medium energy weapons instead of being able to use ballistic. Its not gaining +50% flux/capacity after fitting and its not like the Brawler is particularly mobile as it is, at 100 base speed (150 for the wolf, 120 for the lasher)

The Pather variant probably could use to be more expensive but i am more OK with a harder to obtain variant being overly strong than i am with a base ship being lackluster.

Quote
Sure. Size is logarithmic and at some point the ability of immigration to produce new colonists is exhausted in favor of natural growth. Which is much slower. Size 6 is 1 million to 10 million and size 7 is 10 million to 100million.

Maybe you could make growth slow down to like 2% per year(or lower) but this effectively caps growth at size 7 since it would take 35 years to grow from 6 to 7 and 7 to 8.

Hmm - yeah, but then you know someone will feel forced to do it, and I don't want to have that on my conscience :)

Yea i was just giving a reason. Also i only doubled pop in my examination if growth is 2% year it would take 116 years to go from size 6 to 7. 231 years at 1% growth and 461 years at .05% growth. Might as well just cut it off... Though super projects (or bonuses from having particularly low hazard rating and some extra stability penalties for being big might be fun so that not all colonies cap at the same size(but also that its unfeasible to have more than one out there? Maybe let you designate one place as your faction capital that ignores size growth limits)
Will there be another Damper Field-equipped ship?

The centurion has damper field (and 500 armor) its probably the superior damper field ship anyway due to its less forward focused design and higher speed edit: and 5 extra OP edit: and higher armor
« Last Edit: October 16, 2020, 04:46:25 PM by Goumindong »
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CoverdInBees

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #36 on: October 16, 2020, 04:48:14 PM »

Nice, lots of stuff in there that wasn't hinted at before either, as far as i'm aware. Consider me hyped.

Tons of QoL improvements. I'm surprised by the "Move slowly" function but think it's a good addition. Also a (very welcome) surprise is the "historian." That's just a neat touch.

For what it's worth, move slowly is already a thing in the current version. Makes you travel at the same speed as go dark right now, i think. Hold S to "activate" it.
IIRC the main use i get out of it is when hiding from a pulsar behind a small planet, where doing nothing makes you enter orbit and moving at normal speed increases the chance of misclicking/moving out of your cover.
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AcaMetis

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #37 on: October 16, 2020, 04:53:29 PM »

Sure. Size is logarithmic and at some point the ability of immigration to produce new colonists is exhausted in favor of natural growth. Which is much slower. Size 6 is 1 million to 10 million and size 7 is 10 million to 100million.

Maybe you could make growth slow down to like 2% per year(or lower) but this effectively caps growth at size 7 since it would take 35 years to grow from 6 to 7 and 7 to 8.
I'd be fine with very slow growth, even if it's to the point where it's effectively soft capped. But what I'm imagining (and which obviously might not be accurate to how it actually is ingame) is that my colony will grow to size 6 and then just...stop. Population growth stuck at 0% forever no matter how many decades pass or what happens in those decades. It'd just look off.

Actually, as far as ideas to make very large colonies possible to get but limited/hard/expensive/etc., what about Cryosleepers? New colonies without a Cryosleeper can only get so much growth from natural population growth and immigration before even Chico on it's worst day is able to make much of a dent, but Cryosleepers (optional: and an AI Core/Story Point to speed up the process) can push a colony to size 7/8/9/10/whatever makes the most sense?
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #38 on: October 16, 2020, 04:55:35 PM »

The pather variants but also the TT variant. Which loses a good deal of value here. it has plasma jets(and IEM built in) which are better than maneuvering. But its still running the same (well new)flux stats with medium energy weapons instead of being able to use ballistic. Its not gaining +50% flux/capacity after fitting and its not like the Brawler is particularly mobile as it is, at 100 base speed (150 for the wolf, 120 for the lasher)

Ah, Brawler (TT); wasn't really thinking about it. Hmm. It might be ok, actually, with some of the buffs to energy weapons, and with the possibility of getting the high-flux bonus to energy weapons. And it did technically get the same buffs as the base Brawler, though I get what you're saying about the relative utility of those being somewhat less there.

For what it's worth, move slowly is already a thing in the current version. Makes you travel at the same speed as go dark right now, i think. Hold S to "activate" it.
IIRC the main use i get out of it is when hiding from a pulsar behind a small planet, where doing nothing makes you enter orbit and moving at normal speed increases the chance of misclicking/moving out of your cover.

"Move slowly" is pretty bugged in the current version, iirc. Also, it's slower than "go dark"; having "go dark" make the fleet "move slowly" is new, and also "move slowly" is faster.

(Brain's a bit of a mush right now, so maybe I'm not making too much sense.)

One of the things I'm happy with here is at Tech 1, you pick Sensors vs Navigation, and the Sensors skill gives you a burn bonus to "moving slowly". So you can pick to either be a bit faster overall, or to be significantly faster while sneaking, which I think is a more interesting choice than "move faster" and "don't move faster", since we know how that one would go.
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Arakasi

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #39 on: October 16, 2020, 04:56:18 PM »

Amazing stuff! I am really looking forward to this update.

Now that these are added (I believe in-part due to a conversation we had):
Ships/systems:
  • Added Phantom-class phase troop transport
  • Added Revenant-class phase hybrid freighter/tanker
Are you considering increasing the sensor range of [REDACTED] fleets to make sneak salvaging in those systems more difficult? (I have been personally modding my game so that their burn level is increased by 2 to make them more punishing, since they don't have a burn drive ability).
« Last Edit: October 16, 2020, 04:58:36 PM by Arakasi »
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CoverdInBees

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #40 on: October 16, 2020, 04:57:01 PM »

Heh, i don't think the Cryosleepers are supposed to be big enough to make that much of an impact, lore-wise. (i.e. outside of gameplay mechanics there would be a moment where they run out due to everyone being awakened.)
Remember that size 9 means billions of people and size 10 between 10 and 100 billion.


"Move slowly" is pretty bugged in the current version, iirc. Also, it's slower than "go dark"; having "go dark" make the fleet "move slowly" is new, and also "move slowly" is faster.

(Brain's a bit of a mush right now, so maybe I'm not making too much sense.)

One of the things I'm happy with here is at Tech 1, you pick Sensors vs Navigation, and the Sensors skill gives you a burn bonus to "moving slowly". So you can pick to either be a bit faster overall, or to be significantly faster while sneaking, which I think is a more interesting choice than "move faster" and "don't move faster", since we know how that one would go.

Ah yeah it was clear from the patch notes that the functionality in the next version will change.
As to how it works right now (bugged or not), and how that relates to "go dark", i wouldn't be able to tell, considering how limited my use of it is.
« Last Edit: October 16, 2020, 05:04:58 PM by CoverdInBees »
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Ishman

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #41 on: October 16, 2020, 05:01:00 PM »

Thanks for the patch notes Alex, and g'luck on assembling everything together for this release!

I imagine you must be itching to get the post-patch bug fixes out of the way too, lol.

Also I just wanted to say I'm excited you've thrown me a bone with the megastructure stuff in this release, and I can't wait to engage with what's there in the release, and to see more in future versions. Also, I don't know if David or you are doing the story elements/descriptions for them, but don't forget to check out Charles Sheffield's work - his novels (Summertide) partly inspired my lifelong fascination with them (and the ideas in Jack McDevitt's stuff, even if I found all his novels dry as a desert).

The first thing I'm doing is still changing the Apogee's shield efficiency back to .6 though, the suspiciously combat effective long-range exploration vessel checks every one of my favorite science fiction tropes, and I love her so much.
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bananana

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #42 on: October 16, 2020, 05:01:13 PM »

still no way to restrict maximum AI fleet power?
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fighting a fleet with 10+carriers is not fun, it just turns game into a turn based strategy
« Last Edit: October 16, 2020, 05:03:42 PM by passwalker »
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AsterPiano

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #43 on: October 16, 2020, 05:03:38 PM »

The addition of phase logistics ships makes me very happy, and the changes to Phase Field and High Resolution Sensors, the Go Dark ability and the Sensors skill, along with the addition of "Salvaging and Scavenging now briefly increase the fleet's sensor profile by 1000 units" sound like a really well thought out combination.
In the current version I'm a fan of sensor strength/profile focused exploration fleets and I imagine this is going to make for some dynamic gameplay, forcing you to choose between what to salvage and what to leave behind.. I guess generally this is going to create a sort of hard cap for how close to enemy fleets you can sneakily salvage stuff, but improve your ability to be undetected in other situations. I never thought about it, but it definitely makes more sense this way, since it's weird that an enemy fleet could detect something like a derelict ship, but not think something's off when that derelict ship suddenly turns into a debris field.

Quote
Scarab:
Increased flux dissipation to 250 (was: 150)
Increased flux capacity to 2500 (was: 2000)
Removed the two less than optimally placed weapon slots
It makes me happy to see the most (?) underwhelming ship in the game to get a nice buff. Also another feasible ship for slamming beams onto..

Quote
Paladin PD System
Burst PD Laser
Heavy Burst Laser
Mining Laser
The changes make me very happy. I still have a gut feeling that with these changes the Heavy Burst Laser will end up being underwhelming for its cost compared to the small Burst PD and the Paladin PD, but it's been some time since I last looked at the stats. And also a buff to some beam based weaponry makes me happy, goes well with that improvement of the Scarab ;)

Quote
Ion Pulser:
Increased range to 500 (was: 450)
Increased damage to 100 (was: 75)
Increased emp damage to 600 (was: 400)
I'm surprised about these changes, I've always thought the Ion Pulser was one of the most effective energy weapons (and also a lot of fun to use).
This change along with the decrease in OP for the Light Needler makes me wonder if you want to promote the use of more burst weapons, or if the reasons for the changes are completely something else.

Quote
Heavy Armor: reduced maneuver penalty to 10%, moderately increased armor bonus
As I was saying with burst weapons.. seems suspicious :P (but nice to see :D)
This is a juicy sounding buff, I'm excited to build some loadouts around these changes. Also becomes a more attractive choice for insurance to save AI pilots from their own mistakes.

Quote
All types of contacts allow you to order ships/weapons/fighters, without having a colony
Trade: use your own blueprints only
Military: use own, or faction's blueprints
Underworld: order good stuff regardless of blueprint availability; more expensive
Underworld contact functions as "arms dealer"; not selling production capacity
Is a way to get access to rare ships/items that might otherwise be too hard to find

Especially being someone that is unnecessarily picky about picking a colony spot and end up spending way too long deciding on a good system, I think that after the Skill System revamp and everything to do with Story Points, this is the most interesting addition for me. Being able to use your blueprints early on like that really opens up some nice options, like if you found a Buffalo (M) blueprint (did that even have a blueprint or am I making stuff up?) but you're having trouble finding good freighters for sale. Ahh that's going to be helpful,
And then the Military and Underworld options sound even more exciting on top of that... I'm curious, is this also going to mean that we don't need to be commissioned + high relations with a faction if we want to buy their good weapons or even ships?

Quote
Increased XP gain from fighting more challenging battles

Does this mean challenging in the sense of really high end late game battles, or challenging in the sense of battles against fleets much bigger/higher tier relative to your fleet? If it's the latter then that sounds really exciting and a lot of fun :D, a really nice boost for the early game and a satisfying reward for spending the time to load out a fleet efficiently, and not as many downsides to keeping a small fleet.
Also if it's the latter, does it take into account both fleets' officer levels? I wonder, would it also take into account the player's combat skills level?
« Last Edit: October 16, 2020, 05:05:26 PM by TheLochNessCheeseBurger »
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #44 on: October 16, 2020, 05:15:10 PM »

Can you talk a bit more about the reasoning behind increasing the growth penalties for hazard rating? It already felt to me like it could be hard to justify trying to make a colony on high hazard worlds. I noticed that the synchrotron requires no atmosphere, are there other new industry boosters with similar requirements that incentivize high hazard colonies, or are they just becoming even less desirable in the next release?
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