Regarding the "new, very rare, and powerful enemy:"
Of course, you can't say much but will this enemy type just be roaming about in the wild or will there be specific steps that have to take place to trigger them? On the one hand, I would a "There be dragons" part of the map or some kind of event that keeps the player humble while on the other hand, I would hate for a new player to get stomped prematurely. At least the [REDACTED] have warning beacons.
Yes.
(... sorry!
)
Also, if current threats are "a couple of Lashers/Enforcers" and what is planned is "the whole Hegemony," (even withe hyperbole)...that sounds both terrifying and exciting. I have my theories but I do hope that the player isn't the only one invested in stopping the existential threat.
Yeah, just...
as expected
Apologies for being so predictable
Will planets with disruoted spaceports still generate procurement missions? The "Donn raid-and-trait" strategy makes getting credits too easy.
Keep in mind that disrupting a spaceport causes much less of a penalty to accessibility now.
Just as it is with XP currently, which really peters out above level 70 if you have levels unlocked
(I mean, same exacty deal here, if you super want to, you can change the size limit.)
The idea is to stop people from forcing themselves into gameplay that is not fun, because they feel they have to play "optimally" or "max out everything". If just some people who really want to hang around in a save for 50 years were to see the colonies grow to size 7, that would not be a problem. But if people hang around in the game, actually bored out of their mind, just to see that number change from 6 to 7, that's bad game design.
Exactly this, yes!
Personally, I feel like capping colony size is just a solution looking for a problem. Essentially, the only problems of large Colony sizes that I can see, are the lore conflict, the lack of "realism", and the thematic issues, all things you've previously said should move out of the way for game mechanics. Those three things could be more easily 'fixed' just by reducing the population number of each colony size, or giving certain core worlds specific conditions that, for lore-reasons just state they have larger populations than what their size would otherwise state.
Let's flip that around: most of the concern regarding colony size seems to be motivated by "feel", not mechnical issues. And there are some mechanical concerns, which are fair, but not directly related to the colony size number being smaller, but rather to the current tuning of some values that might be based off that.
And, something I should've mentioned earlier, but frankly it slipped my mind - one of the reasons for smaller colonies is indeed mechanical. You can then have items that have a significant impact, and don't end up with those same items on size-9 colonies that completely overwhelm anything the core has. Basically, "items to specialize + smaller colonies" is more interesting than just "bigger colonies", and "items to specialize + bigger colonies" is not a great mix because it limits what you can do with items, design-wise.
Basically, you are never going to get 'high-hazard small mining colonies' organically. Unless you hamfist it in some way, it's just not happening. It just doesn't work with the mechanics. The only option I can think of is either a fundamental change to the mining system so that more population doesn't improve goods produced, a massive increase to mining profitability just for having the industry, or effectively some kind of 'mining colony' button that limits the colony growth, but gives massive bonuses to accessibility and production (and either prevents or doesn't benefit volatiles, farming, refineries, etc).
I mean, you're pointing out several reasonable ways to do it, right after saying it can't be done
There are more things that could be done, too.
As for requiring items to bring income up to pre-nerf, or rather '0.95' levels, once again, it feels more like a solution looking for a problem. While currently colonies can quickly make money a non-issue, that's not because they're unbalanced but because the game has a fundamental lack of resource sinks in end game.
Agree about the endgame; as I mentioned, colonies are a tool without a task right now; while I have some fairly specific ideas about their final role, right now there isn't anything. So the focus on optimizing colonies - while understandable right now - is also not something I'm super concerned about, if that makes sense.
Regarding items; see above. Their goal isn't to bring colonies back up to previous production levels (though they do do that), but to introduce more variety to playthroughs and more considerations for where to colonize.
A fundament problem with the system is that there will always be a 'best' skill out of every choice. You can get those skills infinitely close, but you can never truly make them equal. Because of this, there will always be a 'best' build, and players will always gravitate towards it.
To give an example, let's take that navigation skill example. The one that increases overall speed is better. Why? Because it's an overall speed boost, vs making up for a penalty. I can just limit the times when I need to 'slow-move', which I will be used to anyway beforehand. In contrast, the slow-move buff only helps in situations that are sub-optimal to begin with, and no matter how fast you go when slow-moving, I assume it's never going to overtake someone going normal speed. The choice is between lessening a penalty that happens when you essentially screw up positioning in the map, or buffing everything else. It's especially egregious because neither really defines your gameplay, it's not a meaningful choice, it's a nobrainer.
If you really, absolutely, want to provoke different builds, in my opinion, the only real option is to make it so either each choice has nothing to do with each other, or fundamentally changes the way you play the game.
Again, I generally agree! Skills are indeed mostly paired in an apples/oranges way, for the reasons you describe. The exceptions are usually skills that would scale multiplicatively with each other to where you're feel forced to take both of them, and even then it's not a straight number-crunching to see what's better.
Regarding navigation/sensors, it's also an apples/oranges thing; I don't think the way you're looking at it is entirely correct. E.G. being able to go *significantly* faster while going dark isn't making up for a penalty - rather, it's making the "sneaking around" playstyle a lot better. And there are lots of things you can do sneaking around - from salaging in REDACTED systems, to smuggling, to performing stealth raids on core worlds, to doing contact missions. Even just exploring, if you can do an Active Sensor Burst (which makes you "move slowly" now), the Sensors skill may be worth more than navigation in terms of speed if you're exploring a new system, for example. And the Sensors skill also gives a bonus to sensor range/reduction of the sensor profile, making it even better for sneaking around.
What's more, it's more than likely, that the industry/general/utility skills will be, once again prioritized over the combat skills because as always, generally speaking, it's not the player's combat performance that matters most. That's... one more thing that's sort of fundamental to the game as well.
I think that's something that seems like it's numerically correct but actually generally isn't, not if your personal piloting is reasonably good. Even in the currently-out version, combat skills are I think way better than common wisdom gives them credit for. In the next release, with Elite skills, you'll have even more personal impact (compared to an officer which will have very limited access to Elite skills). Plus, every aptitude but leadership has some (thematic to the aptitude) combat skills, so you'd pick some up regardless.
Regardless, I hope my comments don't come off as... pushy or demanding. I believe that I don't necessarily disagree with what you're trying to accomplish. It's just that I think the way you're going about it won't get the results you want. While I certainly have my own desires for what I would 'like' from the game and perhaps I'm projecting my own desires onto you, I'm trying to go on what you've said in the past.
In the end, I'm an opinionated person, and as I write things like this, I tend to get defensive as I pick holes in my own comments. Also its been a few days since I've checked the patch notes or followed the conversation, so maybe some of these have been addressed, or are misunderstandings. I apologize in advance if this is the case.
Have a nice day.
No worries! I feel like you're seeing valid problems, but then maybe assuming that I haven't also seen them but instead did, like, the worst possible thing for no reason
Which, I mean, it's entirely possible/likely that I did miss some things, so I don't mind you bringing these things up! Fortunately, it does seem like the things here *did* get considered. Whether the solutions are adequate etc, time will tell!
Hope you have a nice day, too!
What would force players to sit around for 20-30 ingame years to watch colonies grow from size 6 to size 7? It's not a requirement to unlock the super secret final boss (I'm assuming), all it does is make a few numbers bigger.
Some kind of internal compulsion? I mean, people do the boringest things for achievements etc. I'm not saying *everyone* would feel compelled to do it, but some people certainly would. And even people that wouldn't, seeing something you *can* do and then going "well, that's too boring, I'm not doing *that*" still feels bad! Like, you feel that you've been cut off from some aspect or some power level in the game because you're not willing to waste your time on something boring.
Is it possible to make the move slowly key a toggle on? Maybe by a setting?
Well, if you want to move slowly for a length of time where a toggle is more convenient then holding the key down, then chances are you actually want "Go Dark" instead. Even moving through hyperstorms slowly, for example, you could do that, since no-one's going to stop you for Transponder Crimes in hyperspace...
I think making the Light Needler 7 OP is a mistake. It still won't be useful for ships that want more sustained kinetic pressure, and on ships that can fully utilize the burst like the Sunder or Doom it'll be undercosted. The Railgun nerf is appropriate, though.
FWIW, I've just about come around to making it cost 8 OP.
I really love game devs like you. You give just enough info to make me get really excited about what's next, but you don't give any big spoilers. I really can't wait for the new raiding mechanics and story content!
Also, completly off-topic, but are there any mods that interest you content or gameplay wise?
Thank you! <3
Re: mods - I don't actually play with mods very much. By the time I'd have time to (and they're updated for the new version), there's usually some minor incompatibilities that make it a pain to use with the in-dev version. Plus I'd feel extra-bad about stealing all the ship names if I knew I was doing it ahead of time
Given the easy to modify nature of the game, I think as a core vanilla limit, size 6 is fine, and if someone wants their "Long war" mod that lets you play with interesting game play for decades and eventually become as large as the Hegemony, then the subset of players interested in it will grab that mod. Presumably Alex can make that number easy to change, and given the fact NPC worlds larger exist, should work naturally.
Indeed, and it's trivially modifiable!
It makes no gameplay difference where the cap is set, since the factions and core are static/scripted so that they can be balanced with whatever the player is allowed to do. Colony size has no significance other than income in the current game, and since income can be independently tuned, it's actually just a matter of 'feeling' which is totally subjective.
(Yep!)
Hi!
I'm new here and to the game.
I wish to ask, is there a way to make the "Shift" key sticky or toggleable in combat so I wouldn't have to keep holding it down?
Thank you for the responses in advance.
Very exciting news, and interesting discussions.
Glad to be a part of it.
Thank you for developing StarSector.
It is truly amazing.
English is not my native language. I apologize.
Hi! Not quite, but if you go to gameplay settings (a tab in the "Settings" menu), there's a setting to invert the behavior, so that ships will face the mouse by default, and holding shift will temporarily stop it. Not sure if that'll be useful to you; depends on exactly what you're looking for. (As far as an extra control, well, running a bit short on buttons! Not a fan of using caps lock for things, since it has side effects...)
Happy you're into the game otherwise