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Author Topic: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 596117 times)

Toxcity

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #345 on: October 22, 2020, 08:54:39 AM »

The thing with Pirates as starting enemies is that you have easy access to them, while often having access to a station to repair or refit. Pirate ships are also recoverable letting you build up a small (if faulty) fleet early on.

EDIT: When you hit the level cap, does the experience needed to get Story Points level out? Or does the exp needed still increase?
« Last Edit: October 22, 2020, 09:01:16 AM by Toxcity »
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #346 on: October 22, 2020, 09:01:51 AM »

EXP levels out.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #347 on: October 22, 2020, 09:15:48 AM »

That is the problem.
Black market is all profit and almost zero risks.
I do not understand your opposition to allowing players making money from legal trade.
The problems are that the black market isn't risky enough and players aren't rewarded enough for being really friendly with a faction.

Agreed. Transponder-off smuggling is more exciting, but there's too little reason to do so, because transponder-on black market trade is so safe. Sometimes I wish it wasn't accessible at all with your transponders on.
But there are softer options. If, in case of high suspicion, your ships would get physically searched (causing disruption and lowering CR) instead of just scanned, that would up the stakes. Or if suspicious factions would continuously shadow you with some picket ships while you're in system, that could hinder your operations quite a bit. (Until you lure those watchdogs into a passing pirate fleet, of course.)

Right, yeah - if that's the issue, I think the better solution would be to make it more dangerous, not to make the other alternative more equivalent to it - that seems less interesting. The "physical search" idea - with the option to refuse, of course - sounds interesting!


If you scale to 200% (or 300%), there's no need for anti-aliasing - it already looks good, because it's double the amount of pixels, so the scaling algorithm has an easier time. For example, a line that's 1 pixel wide becomes 2 pixels wide, etc. If you scale to, say, 180%, a line 1 pixel wide becomes 1.8 pixels wide - which, of course, isn't a thing - and antialiasing is required to make that look reasonably good.

Just to make sure: What keeps me from scaling to 200% (if my screen resolution is smaller than that) is that it would cut off the UI at the top and bottom, because it doesn't move, right?

Yeah. The way scaling works is it well, scales the screen by that amount. So if you were to scale 1440 by 2x, you'd get 720 - which is below the minimal-supported 768p.


@Alex

I would like to weigh in on the colony size discussion.

First of all, I completely understand, that the changes won't really affect the mechanics and the balance of power. So I'm not very interested in changing your mind at all.

However, I think many commentators simply don't understand why some players complain about this change, including maybe you. They don't necessarily complain about the change in the balance of power. Many of them see this limit (^6) doesn't make sense in-fiction-wise. Although for you, it makes the world more believable, for them it makes it less believable.

I think I can see the reason. Because it's on the edge of being possible/impossible.
...

I see what you're saying, yeah. My counter-point is that for me, 10^6 is very much already stretching the bounds of believability, especially in the timeframes involved.

Domain Derelicts would be much better early game zombie-like enemies than pirates, IMO. Track them back to their spawners (probes), nests (survey ships), and finally to the origins (motherships), eliminating the threat.

Mechanically, sure! But that has a very different feel ("fight off a von neumann swarm") from the very start of the game that colors the entire experience and backstory in ways I don't like. And, really, pirates could function much the same way; there's nothing stopping that, I don't think? And they already to do some extent; bases etc.

EDIT: When you hit the level cap, does the experience needed to get Story Points level out? Or does the exp needed still increase?
EXP levels out.

(Yep, correct!)
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #348 on: October 22, 2020, 09:20:18 AM »

Alex, please add more ballistics with ammo and a kinetic torpedo.
And a midline carrier capital.

What is the new Missile Specialization like?
« Last Edit: October 22, 2020, 09:23:48 AM by SonnaBanana »
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Melanoc3tus II

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #349 on: October 22, 2020, 09:28:34 AM »

I don't think that the magnitude of the world population is a good indicator here.
Most of that population was not even close to technology levels capable of intercontinental travel or had no hope at all to make the journey (from China or British India for eg).
AFAIK that's not the case in SS.

Even if that is the case, the desperation level is more relevant. And IMO the desperation level in the Sector is very-very high, like Irish immigration levels high.

I don't want to say, it's plausible, but I think it's wrong to say, that it's implausible.

Why would they want to be in some backwards colony instead?

And population is low because birth control in advanced societies, and because the population had to grow from a few small colonies in a desolate sector to billions in massive city worlds, in less than a thousand years.
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Melanoc3tus II

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #350 on: October 22, 2020, 09:35:02 AM »

Domain Derelicts would be much better early game zombie-like enemies than pirates, IMO. Track them back to their spawners (probes), nests (survey ships), and finally to the origins (motherships), eliminating the threat.

Mechanically, sure! But that has a very different feel ("fight off a von neumann swarm") from the very start of the game that colors the entire experience and backstory in ways I don't like. And, really, pirates could function much the same way; there's nothing stopping that, I don't think? And they already to do some extent; bases etc.

A basic sense of realism, perhaps? It's not like you'd be fighting an encroaching swarm, you'd be exploring uncivilised space, strewn with the remains of ancient survey flotillas, fighting rusty defence drones in a search for relics of a lost age. That does fit the Persian sector, imo.
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Melanoc3tus II

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #351 on: October 22, 2020, 09:37:33 AM »

The thing with Pirates as starting enemies is that you have easy access to them, while often having access to a station to repair or refit. Pirate ships are also recoverable letting you build up a small (if faulty) fleet early on.

EDIT: When you hit the level cap, does the experience needed to get Story Points level out? Or does the exp needed still increase?

I have literally never taken ships from the pirates. Anything with defects is automatic trash, and you get enough money in the first thirty minutes of a game to finance a small carrier fleet.
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TerranEmpire

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #352 on: October 22, 2020, 09:41:58 AM »


Why would they want to be in some backwards colony instead?

And population is low because birth control in advanced societies, and because the population had to grow from a few small colonies in a desolate sector to billions in massive city worlds, in less than a thousand years.

Please consult the settlers of the New World, and I'm pretty sure you'll have your answer :)
« Last Edit: October 22, 2020, 09:45:20 AM by TerranEmpire »
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CoverdInBees

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #353 on: October 22, 2020, 10:06:23 AM »


It is strange that the population of the entire sector is less than earth in the 1800s. I've always felt like all of the scripted worlds should have population increased by 1-2 orders of magnitude. In that case, the player could have 10^7 colonies while still being firmly behind the scripted worlds.

They've had one devastating war after the other since the collapse, after already struggling with remaining self sufficient after that event itself. Ruins in the core worlds, some lore about planets that got "planet busted" (sat bombed, nuked, idk), etc.

Who knows how large the population was at the time of the collapse (persean sector was *relatively* new and backwater afaik but that could mean anything), but i don't get the impression that the 200 years since then have seen the same demographic changes we've seen on Earth since the 1800s. (Even all the massacres of Nazism and Communism have only been a blip when you clinically compare it to total population after all)

Having said that, you could indeed easily increase all the populations by 2 orders of magnitudes (so Chico is 10^10) and it would be just as believable, just saying that considering the sector history the way it currently is also seems to make sense.
« Last Edit: October 22, 2020, 10:09:26 AM by CoverdInBees »
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Melanoc3tus II

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #354 on: October 22, 2020, 10:30:26 AM »


Why would they want to be in some backwards colony instead?

And population is low because birth control in advanced societies, and because the population had to grow from a few small colonies in a desolate sector to billions in massive city worlds, in less than a thousand years.

Please consult the settlers of the New World, and I'm pretty sure you'll have your answer :)

Did I stutter?
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Gothars

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #355 on: October 22, 2020, 11:01:14 AM »

Another thing.
This, to be honest, is B.S. of the highest order.

Did I stutter?

This is not appropriate language for the forum. Please choose your words more carefully.
« Last Edit: October 22, 2020, 12:58:02 PM by Gothars »
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The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

Arranging holidays in an embrace with the Starsector is priceless.

IronBorn

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #356 on: October 22, 2020, 11:48:07 AM »

The thing with Pirates as starting enemies is that you have easy access to them, while often having access to a station to repair or refit. Pirate ships are also recoverable letting you build up a small (if faulty) fleet early on.

EDIT: When you hit the level cap, does the experience needed to get Story Points level out? Or does the exp needed still increase?

I have literally never taken ships from the pirates. Anything with defects is automatic trash, and you get enough money in the first thirty minutes of a game to finance a small carrier fleet.

I love me a good d-Mod fleet! In fact, I would like to see more d-Mod ships! I think pristine ships should be extremely rare. Would be cool if ships degraded over time, gaining d-Mods, and also could get d-Mods from taking hull damage in combat. D-mod everything!
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sqrt(-1)

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #357 on: October 22, 2020, 12:35:50 PM »

I see what you're saying, yeah. My counter-point is that for me, 10^6 is very much already stretching the bounds of believability, especially in the timeframes involved.

Real-life migrations, like the one caused by the Syrian civil war, already are on the magnitude of beyond 10^6 today. Tens of millions were displaced within a few years during WW2.
So when assuming future technology for automated construction, 10^7 sounds reasonable to me.
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Ascent

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #358 on: October 22, 2020, 12:51:35 PM »

If a core world somehow drops to or below 10^6 (I forget if this is possible in vanilla), is it "allowed" to go above it again? If so, is there something that clearly distinguishes planets with and without this permission to exceed the cap?
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TerranEmpire

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #359 on: October 22, 2020, 12:54:51 PM »

The more we talk about, the more believable it becomes, that ^7 is achievable in ~25 cycles, IF you are the island of tranquility in the ocean of madness...
It means nothing more, just that roughly 5-10% of the Sector's total population chooses your New World instead of the declining Core Worlds.

@Alex

What is less believable?
Becoming the safe heaven in 25 cycles, attracting the 1/10th of the Sector's population, or creating a fleet that could wipe out the Core Worlds...?
Because the latter is very much possible in 10-15 cycles...
I would rather have size 7 in 25 cycles, than a fleet (and the necessary supporting economy) that could wipe out everything, without any intervention or effective resistance in 15 cycles.

It's not my intention to attack your work, just I think this is a far greater believability problem compared to the size 7 colonies...
« Last Edit: October 22, 2020, 12:56:23 PM by TerranEmpire »
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