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[Goumindong]

If I want to compare a heavy kinetic with HVD, I would use Gauss Cannon, not Mark IX.  Mark IX is clearly an autocannon relative for the heavy mount.  I do not use HVDs on anything that is not a dedicated sniper because it lacks damage and efficiency, not to mention that HVD fires slowly enough for AI to shield flicker against it.

The point isn’t that mark IX is an HVD equivalent but that HVD are good and Mark IX is also good and clearly has advantages to one of the premier line weapons in the game. 

Also on like... your line ships that do not line break you should be using HVD. They’re fantastic. Their minimum armor dmg point is 779(and they have EMP!). Which means that they do appreciable dmg to ships of all but the largest sizes while having a 200+ range advantage over HN/HAC. They should be your go-to weapon for ships like eagle and falcon once you advance to battleships and I would bet that they’re pretty dope on Dominators too.

You don’t have to be a dedicated sniper to get a tonne of use out of HVD.

[CoverdInBees]

Gotcha, yeah. And very much agree on not enough being there at that point; that entire state is a rough edge that will eventually connect to the proper endgame.

Sounds to me like you're already making large strides in that direction with this update. Even though there might not be that much in it that's technically "end game stuff" it seems there are lots of things to diversify both the current "end game" and the journey towards it.
All the contact missions. Items to hunt down for your colonies. Industry upgrades for increasing numbers of story points (which in a way is a more active replacement for colony growth beyond size 6/7, i guess. In that both that growth and upgrading your last industry might be an extravagance, but at least story points are something you actively work towards instead of just waiting for time to pass while periodically filling up the growth incentives bar). Etc.

[Megas]

Oh heck yes. Pumped for the story missions, new threats and mega-structures. Still share a bit of concern about the colonial size cap, I get the limit but I don't see why 10^7 or even 10^8 is a stretch given appropriate time, nurturing, funds, Domain-Era tech and maybe lots of story points.

Same here, at least for 10^7.

Idea:  Let player pick one world to be a capital world, or it could be the first one the player owns that grows to 10^7.  That one world is the player's capital world, and no others can exceed 10^6 once that first world reaches 10^7.  Maybe have a special upgrade to Population and Infrastructure that adds a palace and crowns that world as the capital.

On the other hand, having one at 10^7 while the rest stuck at 10^6 are not may not be as good as it sounds because demand for some industries may be too hard to satisfy.

Also on like... your line ships that do not line break you should be using HVD. They’re fantastic. Their minimum armor dmg point is 779(and they have EMP!). Which means that they do appreciable dmg to ships of all but the largest sizes while having a 200+ range advantage over HN/HAC. They should be your go-to weapon for ships like eagle and falcon once you advance to battleships and I would bet that they’re pretty dope on Dominators too.

You don’t have to be a dedicated sniper to get a tonne of use out of HVD.

I tried that.  It used to be great in pre-0.8a releases.  Now, if I use it against a strong enemy like Ordos, they keep advancing then outgun my ships.  After switching from HVD to needlers (and sometimes Mauler to Heavy Mortar), the tables get turned and the enemy gets outgunned more often instead.

Today, I get the most use from HVDs when I mount it on a 4x lance Paragon flagship.  With that, just about anything short of Radiants die from long-range unblockable damage.  (Radiants need a different loadout to deal with.)

[Thaago]

I'd forgotten that the addition text is a whole novel's worth! Hype increasing!

Efficiency:

Spoiler

“But the HN is super more efficient!” You say. And that only matters if we’re shooting exactly at (or under but close to) our flux dissipation... which we don’t want to be doing, we want to be shooting over our flux dissipation with both of these guns. And we want to be shooting as much over as we can in general with both of those guns

This is false. Efficiency is critical when firing over dissipation because it determines how much damage the ship can output before fluxing itself out. Onslaughts don't have infinite flux and will usually be near max flux by the time they finish off a significant enemy. Not only that, but the AI behavior of switching off weapon groups depending on the ship's flux level means that the AI will turn off weapons sooner with less efficient weapons because they have driven the flux up faster. Less efficient = less damage dealt until the weapons turn off because of the flux load.

If the ship can destroy the enemy completely before that happens, then the net flux advantage of flux dealt to enemy vs flux dealt to self is all that matters. Onslaught vs destroyers can do that, and maybe Onslaught vs poorly shielded cruisers. But that just isn't the case with any of these ships vs big enemies.

The net flux analysis (which is deeply flawed anyways, see below) of HN vs Mk IX is to me not a point in the Mk IX's favor. They have equivalent net flux change between the firing ship and the target... if the target has 1.0 shields, which is only a subset of enemies. And the Mk IX's reduce the firing ship's remaining flux pool 200 flux/s faster per gun(important!!). And the Mk IX's take 3 more OP each. And they take large slots that could be mounting Hellbores or Hephaestus. And this is assuming the Mk IX has equivalent accuracy to a HN (which again I don't have hard numbers for, but I doubt).

For completeness, here's the net flux analysis for good shields:

Examining the Mk IX vs good shields (.6). It does 350 DPS, IE 2*350*.6 = 420 flux/s to the target. It costs 400 flux to the firing ship. If we are talking about firing over dissipation, IE converting flux pools, then the gun barely helps the firing ship, giving a net flux advantage of 20/s, and large well shielded enemies may have deeper flux pools than the Onslaught/Dominator, making firing this gun near worthless (which is not true in practice, see assumptions below).

Under the same conditions, a HN does 250 DPS: 2*250*.6 = 300 flux/sec to the enemy while costing the firing ship 200 flux/second. A 100 flux/second advantage per gun, and a 1.5:1 ratio in terms of flux pool trading (which is not true in practice both because of dissipation and because of other guns firing that compete for the flux pool less efficiently).

I'll make the assumptions of this very clear: firing high over dissipation so that this is comparing the firing ship's flux pool vs the targets (which is always a false assumption, but is at least the limiting case for analysis purposes), against a .6 shielded enemy (not all enemies, but also not uncommon, including the nastiest enemies (Paragons and Radiants)), with all shots hitting (false), and having no incoming fire/armor tanking so that the firing ship does not build up flux from damage (false again).

There's a lot of false assumptions going into the above, which is readily apparent because in actual play because yes its worth it to fire Mk IX's into good shields because dissipation exists, but it both shows how important efficiency is for shield breaking when we talk about firing over max dissipation.... and also shows that this analysis is woefully simplistic to the point of being misleading.

Here is my best attempt at a not misleading piece of analysis:
For a given flux budget, whether that is capacity based OR dissipation based, HN's do 43% more shield damage, given full accuracy. That is not the complete picture because other facts matter, but it is a true statement. Does this statement matter? Not always. Its only an important statement if a ship is constrained by its flux more than it is constrained by other factors. I contend that the Dominator and Onslaught (but not the Conquest!) are constrained by their flux budgets more than any other factor, in both capacity and dissipation. If so, the above statement is important for the Dominator and Onslaught (but not for the Conquest).

The Mk IX's performance against 150 armor for skilled enemies (turns out the skill and base hull don't stack, which I didn't know until the recent testing in a thread) is a point in its favor for doing hull damage. But that makes it a weapon with a decent secondary role (hull damage) that is outcompeted in its primary role (shield damage).

[close]

[Alex]

Edit: alex if you move mark IX to 1.0 efficiency please do so by lowering flux use and not by increasing DPS.

That's what I'm thinking, yeah. Going to have a closer look, though...

• Emergency Burn no longer makes the fleet ignore terrain penalties

Does this means there's now no way to protect the fleet against CR degradation caused by terrain?  Also how does this affect fleet maneuverability in terrains that pushes/pulls the fleet (namely pulsar and black holes)?  They're extremely difficult to navigate without E-Burn cancelling out the external forces, without that it might be close to impossible to escape an event horizon without losing basically all supplies.  And if that's the case, Research Stations within event horizons will likely never get salvaged.

Ah, that was a bit unclear - it no longer makes the fleet ignore burn-level penalties from terrain. Black holes etc don't do that so these interactions aren't affected.

It never protected against CR degradation from terrain, btw. What it does is stop CR from regenerating while the ability is active, so supply use goes down, but the terrain CR damage still applies and has to be repaired after the ability ends.

I think the commerce instability penalty is also steep, maybe have the Alpha AI cut it down a notch?

Ah - it's less steep than you think, because - due to not providing an income bonus - having super-high stability is less important now

Orbital solar Arrays are great, but one question: Is that a tied to a planet randomly or something we can build? If it is a build able industry does it take up a slot? Is more fleshed out Terraforming coming down the line? I have so many questions. The Cryo-sleeper AoE is a great touch though.

You can't build them, no. They're basically like a special planetary condition with some extra visuals. Definitely not looking at terraforming; something along those lines may or may not happen, but it's not a "goal".

Overall some great additions and changes across the board I feel. Can't wait to dive in to a new sector!

Thank you!

Sounds to me like you're already making large strides in that direction with this update. Even though there might not be that much in it that's technically "end game stuff" it seems there are lots of things to diversify both the current "end game" and the journey towards it.
All the contact missions. Items to hunt down for your colonies. Industry upgrades for increasing numbers of story points (which in a way is a more active replacement for colony growth beyond size 6/7, i guess. In that both that growth and upgrading your last industry might be an extravagance, but at least story points are something you actively work towards instead of just waiting for time to pass while periodically filling up the growth incentives bar). Etc.

I'd say that's about right, yeah. Colonies are still a "tool without a task", but all the other stuff is more fleshed out.

[Goumindong]

For a given flux budget, whether that is capacity based OR dissipation based, HN's do 43% more shield damage, given full accuracy

But flux budgets are not fixed because damage tends to be incoming as well as outgoing. And doing damage faster removes the flux budget of the enemy to do damage to you faster.

It’s true that HN are more efficient and this matters for highly efficient shields. But it’s also true that the extra range matters as well. The idea that HN is just better is false.

Seriously try fitting them. They work surprisingly well.

[pairedeciseaux]

For damaging shields, a HN gives 43.75% more damage for the same flux invested, assuming all Mk IX and all HN shots hit*. There is a DPS penalty (250 vs 350), but that can be overcome by using more mounts. In terms of lowering enemy shields while not driving up the firing ship's flux, its shockingly better.

Assuming all Mark IX and all HN shots hit shield.

I'm not sure the comparison between both guns is that relevant, but here we go:

Spoiler

Mark IX shoots one volley every 2.3 seconds, delivering 800 damage for 920 flux cost.

HN shoots one volley every 6 seconds, delivering 1500 damage for 1200 flux cost.

So a single volley from HN does much more damage than one Mark IX volley, almost double. The big burst is the reason why you use LN and HN in the first place. On the other hand it means the minimum flux cost is higher for HN at 1200 vs 920 for Mark IX.

And Mark IX has the time to shoot a second volley if so desired while HN is reloading, giving a total of 1600 damage for 1840 flux cost in a 4.6 seconds cycle.

And you know what? Mark IX has the time to shoot a third volley, giving a total of 2400 damage for 2760 flux cost.

So this is where LN/HN have a risk/reward thing. If the first volley hits shield, you win or are instantly in a good position. If the first volley hits armor or miss, it is a big waste and it might put the host ship in danger.

If firing during 138 seconds ( ), the theoretical results are:

Mark IX: 48000 damage, 55200 flux cost
HN: 34500 damage, 27600 flux cost

Mark IX has exactly double flux cost of HN, but you already knew this reading the flux / seconds stats.

(looking at those figures, one should have in mind the flux available on intended host ship and also others flux-eating things)

[close]

Anyways so far I haven't seen a single argument on why it's actually a good weapon, without the person ignoring one crucial thing about it.

Agree with you, it is a good weapon.    Sorry.

Edit: alex if you move mark IX to 1.0 efficiency please do so by lowering flux use and not by increasing DPS. If you increase DPS the mark IX will be obscene. If you lower flux it will merely be exceptional

Lowering the flux cost to 200 per-projectile would mean 800 per-volley instead of the current 920 per-volley. It is not that significant on large ships. Though admittedly for sustained use of 2 Mark IX on Dominator, sure 348 flux/sec per gun preferable than 400 flux/sec.

[Megas]

Ah - it's less steep than you think, because - due to not providing an income bonus - having super-high stability is less important now

I don't know for non-income purposes.  Stability is useful for more than that, with colony fleets and ship quality being the big one.  If stability affects fleets much, then high stability may still be (too) useful just so colony patrols can kill invaders while player is away.  Especially now that player colonies are down to 10^6.  (Hmmm, I guess if I want core worlds alive, I better sat bomb some of the bigger ones a little bit so their expeditions are not so big.)

Also, Pathers!  If stability 10 is enough to keep Pathers at bay most of the time, then maybe keeping stability at 10 while Pathers hammer away for a long time may be the way to go if I want to attempt the full sector colonization game with alpha cores.  I certainly do not want to play whack-a-mole Pathers.  Once per year is only good if I can synch all cells to one base.  Otherwise, it is whack-a-mole Pathers time.

[Goumindong]

So a single volley from HN does much more damage than one Mark IX volley, almost double. The big burst is the reason why you use LN and HN in the first place. On the other hand it means the minimum flux cost is higher for HN at 1200 vs 920 for Mark IX.

And Mark IX has the time to shoot a second volley if so desired while HN is reloading, giving a total of 1600 damage for 1840 flux cost in a 4.6 seconds cycle.

And you know what? Mark IX has the time to shoot a third volley, giving a total of 2400 damage for 2760 flux cost.

So this is where LN/HN have a risk/reward thing. If the first volley hits shield, you win or are instantly in a good position. If the first volley hits armor or miss, it is a big waste and it might put the host ship in danger.

Do note that the mark IX shoots 160 to 140 / speed differential sooner. Either because they want to back away from you or you want to back away from them. If they have a speed advantage of 20 and want close this is almost 7 seconds.

[pairedeciseaux]

Do note that the mark IX shoots 160 to 140 / speed differential sooner.

Do you mean effective Mark IX range advantage compared to 800-range medium kinetic guns, when using ITU on capital and cruiser? If so, that's quite important, I agree. Quoting myself from earlier today:

Mark IX Autocannon has longer range: with ITU on capitals, that’s 1440 vs 1280, 160 more, so Mark IX will always fire at least one volley before HAC fires its first volley.

Either because they want to back away from you or you want to back away from them. If they have a speed advantage of 20 and want close this is almost 7 seconds.

Hmm, in this situation Mark IX has the time to fire 3 volleys while a 800-range gun would still be in standby. In battle you can't ignore that kind of difference.

Let's start a Mark IX fan club after the next release - provided changes don't break the nice package, which is very unlikely. I will celebrate by launching in battle my first three Mark IX Onslaught.

[Gothars]

If it were me, colonies would also start smaller and slower - not with a spaceport and "population&infrastructure" but with landing pads and homesteads.

Hmm, you know, I rather like that concept. Needs a lot of details etc, bu just starting out as a "size 2" colony or something (maybe even size 1), and then needing to do... something, to make it grow beyond that - and then once at size 3, it takes off on its own. That could be quite cool.

Oh, that would be lovely. Think of the vibe that remote frontier planets in shows like Firefly or The Mandalorian have, at the moment no Starsector planet is at that low (and adventurous) level.
Here's some inspiration :

Spoiler

[close]

Personally I wouldn't  mind my first colony being my main quest provider for some time. You might have to fend of local threads, ship in food, survey nearby systems, set up trade contacts with friendly neighbors... and your fledgling colony would basically pay you in growth percentage points. But maybe once you have established a faction all this would be done by them (i.e. automated) for your next colony.

Hmm. Well, it seems a bit... I don't know. I guess both a bit redundant (there's plenty of planets!) and complicated (where can you put a good mining station? how does it roll Ore conditions? how do you know ahead of time what the conditions will be? where/how can you build them? Etc). But there's also a "this would be cool" aspect to it which might make it worthwhile regardless, but... there's just a lot that would have to happen to make it work.

My, they could be an planetary industry (asteroid mining) that you build on planets which have little ore, but which are in a system with asteroid fields of some kind. And then the industry auto-builds a mining station somewhere in that system. That way no new UI is necessary.
And if you settle a system with an ancient station, repossessing it to give the asteroid mining industry a boost seems like an option.

Also, AI run stations seem like a great target for raids, and disabling them a new way to weaken enemies that you can't attack directly. And on the other hand, the vulnerability of your stations would guarantee that planetside mining would remain the more desirable option.

[Xeno056]

I don't know for non-income purposes.  Stability is useful for more than that, with colony fleets and ship quality being the big one.  If stability affects fleets much, then high stability may still be (too) useful just so colony patrols can kill invaders while player is away.  Especially now that player colonies are down to 10^6.  (Hmmm, I guess if I want core worlds alive, I better sat bomb some of the bigger ones a little bit so their expeditions are not so big.)

Also, Pathers!  If stability 10 is enough to keep Pathers at bay most of the time, then maybe keeping stability at 10 while Pathers hammer away for a long time may be the way to go if I want to attempt the full sector colonization game with alpha cores.  I certainly do not want to play whack-a-mole Pathers.  Once per year is only good if I can synch all cells to one base.  Otherwise, it is whack-a-mole Pathers time.

My thoughts precisely. Pathers are the big issue since they tend to show up on planets with Heavy Industry affecting ship quality and the like. Guess you can just, you know, build it elsewhere (like on the garden planet) but the hit is still something. Unless it is, you know, a LOT of credits and the amount is affected by industries on planet. Maybe not so much now that I look at all the sources of stability on the wiki now, but I guess I won't know until I play the update.

Orbital solar Arrays are great, but one question: Is that a tied to a planet randomly or something we can build? If it is a build able industry does it take up a slot? Is more fleshed out Terraforming coming down the line? I have so many questions. The Cryo-sleeper AoE is a great touch though.

You can't build them, no. They're basically like a special planetary condition with some extra visuals. Definitely not looking at terraforming; something along those lines may or may not happen, but it's not a "goal".

Aw. Well, still glad to have it. Hope we get more of the cool planetary anomalies along those lines down the road. Also shout out to boggled for his superb work on the Terraforming and Stations mod.

[AcaMetis]

If it were me, colonies would also start smaller and slower - not with a spaceport and "population&infrastructure" but with landing pads and homesteads.

Hmm, you know, I rather like that concept. Needs a lot of details etc, bu just starting out as a "size 2" colony or something (maybe even size 1), and then needing to do... something, to make it grow beyond that - and then once at size 3, it takes off on its own. That could be quite cool.

Oh, that would be lovely. Think of the vibe that remote frontier planets in shows like Firefly or The Mandalorian have, at the moment no Starsector planet is at that low (and adventurous) level.
Here's some inspiration :

Spoiler

[close]

Personally I wouldn't  mind my first colony being my main quest provider for some time. You might have to fend of local threads, ship in food, survey nearby systems, set up trade contacts with friendly neighbors... and your fledgling colony would basically pay you in growth percentage points. But maybe once you have established a faction all this would be done by them (i.e. automated) for your next colony.

Very simple idea: Colonies start at size 2 and automatically start building the Population And Infrastructure "building". Once this is build the colony is sufficiently developed ("tamed", "civilized", whichever word works best) to start taking in the waves of immigrants that make up the bulk of a colony's population growth, and so it'll start growing. Building a Spaceport next is technically optional at this point, but would obviously be very helpful to increase the colony's accessibility (and ability to bring in these immigrants).

I actually do like the idea of colonies not instantly going from a barren rock with 1K people and a dream in orbit around it to building a spaceport. Obviously some concerns that the idea will add to the mandatory babysitting problem, but I'm hoping those could be worked out.

[Morrokain]

Finally got through all the notes. Wow! I'm super excited for the new story content. Lots of quality of life improvements too.

Do the new enemies represent the intended pinnacle of enemy difficulty or are there more intended tiers coming after? (Being only a *hint* of end game after all)

The new fighter AI tags are interesting! What inspired those for vanilla? Or are they more for modders?

Also, does the CONSERVE_FOR_ANTI_ARMOR hint mean the weapon isn't used on shields?

[Alex]

Oh, that would be lovely. Think of the vibe that remote frontier planets in shows like Firefly or The Mandalorian have, at the moment no Starsector planet is at that low (and adventurous) level.
Here's some inspiration :

Spoiler

[close]

Personally I wouldn't  mind my first colony being my main quest provider for some time. You might have to fend of local threads, ship in food, survey nearby systems, set up trade contacts with friendly neighbors... and your fledgling colony would basically pay you in growth percentage points. But maybe once you have established a faction all this would be done by them (i.e. automated) for your next colony.

Yeah, I like this in general. Sort of, spread out the "acquire enough stuff to start a colony" phase into "actually just start one, and then do some stuff to build it up".

My, they could be an planetary industry (asteroid mining) that you build on planets which have little ore, but which are in a system with asteroid fields of some kind. And then the industry auto-builds a mining station somewhere in that system. That way no new UI is necessary.
And if you settle a system with an ancient station, repossessing it to give the asteroid mining industry a boost seems like an option.

Also, AI run stations seem like a great target for raids, and disabling them a new way to weaken enemies that you can't attack directly. And on the other hand, the vulnerability of your stations would guarantee that planetside mining would remain the more desirable option.

Ah, hmm, that could be very interesting, yeah. (Though I shudder to think of adjusting the raiding AI to handle this...)

Very simple idea: Colonies start at size 2 and automatically start building the Population And Infrastructure "building". Once this is build the colony is sufficiently developed ("tamed", "civilized", whichever word works best) to start taking in the waves of immigrants that make up the bulk of a colony's population growth, and so it'll start growing. Building a Spaceport next is technically optional at this point, but would obviously be very helpful to increase the colony's accessibility (and ability to bring in these immigrants).

Right, yeah, that seems like a pretty natural way to go about it!

Obviously some concerns that the idea will add to the mandatory babysitting problem, but I'm hoping those could be worked out.

I think "babysitting" only really applies to things that "just happen" at some random time, rather than things you basically explicitly signed up for doing.

Do the new enemies represent the intended pinnacle of enemy difficulty or are there more intended tiers coming after? (Being only a *hint* of end game after all)

Imagine if the endgame enemy was the Hegemony, and you were facing a couple of Lashers. Maybe with a pre-buff Enforcer thrown in there, to make it a challenge.

(It's possible I'm exaggerating a bit for dramatic effect...)

The new fighter AI tags are interesting! What inspired those for vanilla? Or are they more for modders?

Also, does the CONSERVE_FOR_ANTI_ARMOR hint mean the weapon isn't used on shields?

IIRC not generally, and unless the ship is panic-firing. But e.g. it might fire them at a high-flux enemy to force them into a tough choice, etc, so it's not a cut-and-dry binary thing.