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[Silveressa]

Nope, sorry! It's not in an enjoyably playable state, anyway; you'd be surprised at how late in the dev cycle everything actually comes together to the degree that it makes any sense to have someone outside the dev team play it.

That's completely understandable, thanks for the swift reply,  Is there a rough release date on the horizon for 9.5? (As in before xmas, sometime 1Q 2021 etc..)

[Alex]

Sorry to keep saying no, but - it's strictly on a "when it's ready" basis Basically, it's hard to estimate right, and if I don't, then there'll be pressure on me to release earlier than I'm comfortable with (that is, before it's quite there), and that's just not a road I want to go down. I get that some people would understand that it's just an estimate (present company included etc), but if a date got out, it'd spread around and become "the date" without any nuance. (Also, internally, there isn't a date! See: it being hard to accurately estimate.)

[Silveressa]

Sorry to keep saying no, but - it's strictly on a "when it's ready" basis

Thanks for the in depth explanation, I see how it turning into a pressure to release could lead to rushed bug hunting and a hot mess of an update, you're right it's a smart move keeping it open ended. The new update looks great, one of the main things I ran into in previous play throughs was a lack of stuff to do once I hit end game, the new storyline additions should certainly help out a lot with that, really looking forward to it!

[Alex]

Thank you for understanding!

[Arcagnello]

I've noticed that enemy fighter LPCs on carriers with the Reserve Deployment ability do not self-destruct as the mothership retreats from the battlefield, leading to some rather annoying time after all enemy ships retreated, like in this case:

Spoiler

[close]

You guys might want to look into that as you nerf Reserve Deplyment (unless you've already fixed it and I did not spot it in the patch notes). I've also had it happen with a Drover using Broadswords and a modder (SafariJohn) confirmed it seems to be originating from Vanilla. It should be fairly easy to reproduce in a real battle scenario.

I'm sorry if I missed any reply to this Alex, but have you seen this error with reserve Deployment carriers?

[Mordodrukow]

Imagine exploring distant part of the sector and getting a message about inspection and needing to travel 40ly+ just to ask your contact about where the inspection is going. That would be super annoying.

What a surprise. You already need to travel 40ly+ to remove cores if you get a message about inspection. And yes, it is super annoying. So, i dont see big difference.

Tbh, i just forgot that contacts need you to visit them.

Also... it will be very cool and funny if everybody here destroy Heg just to get some quality of life increase, and then boom: endgame crysis appears and you cant resist it without Hegemony help. Even more: endgame crysis comes from AI cores, and you made it worse, because you used them. What an irony.

[FreonRu]

I apologize in advance for using google translate.

Alex, good day. I really like the Starsector and have been playing it regularly since version 0.65. You have already been asked many times in the comments, but let me clarify the question a little. How many chances are there that the patch will be released before the new year? Arranging holidays in an embrace with the Starsector is priceless.

[Arcagnello]

Arranging holidays in an embrace with the Starsector is priceless.

I am stealing this statement.

[Gothars]

I've thought about the gameplay implications of these notes a bit more, focused around this change

Increased XP gain from fighting more challenging battles; up to 500% more XP gained

more than before you're discouraged from going after easy targets, and encouraged to go after larger targets where you can make full use of all of your combat ships.

This was the reason I kicked of the discussion that lead to the bonus XP change, but...

These changes definitely encourage players to try maximising the efficiency of a smaller fleet through carefully designed fleet strategy and loadouts in order to fight bigger fleets

Combat vs Logistics by asking Combat-focused fleets the question "Do you want to focus on Combat XP, or do you want more space for Salvage?", which adds extra playstyle options even among Combat focused fleets.

...I hadn't fully thought through these implications, so - thank you! I think these are great dynamics. It also makes the new auxiliary fleet skill ("which lets the player make a limited number of civilian ships very combat-effective") quite an interesting choice!

Cargo Pods: cheaper to stabilize, stabilization adds 400 days (was: 150)

This also supports the idea of removing cargo ships to increase combat efficiency to some extent

This, however, has me slightly worried. I hope it doesn't encourage a playstile where you go out hunting with a pure combat fleet to get all those sweet XP, stabilize your cargo, and then later have to come back with a cargo fleet to make a tedious pick up cruise. But I guess in the time that would take you could just fight more targets and get overall more XP that way...

Maximum level is 15


You get 4 story points per level. Or maybe 2. Point being, you get more of them than you get skill points, so they keep things flowing between level-ups. You also keep gaining story points after reaching the maximum level, so there’s progression beyond that.

This makes me wonder: If the story points are all given at level up, and you have good reason to either spend them all at once to maximise their efficiency, or to hold on to them until you are in real big trouble - that doesn't really help to "keep things flowing", does it? It still leaves you stranded in the (presumably) long intervals between level ups.

Mh. How about doling out some of the story points at half or quarter level intervals?

(You could get more fancy and link the timing of SP distribution to outstanding player actions. Basically, you earn the right to a story point at level up, but you only get it after fighting that big battle, progressing that storyline,  founding that colony...
I just like the idea of story points not just shaping your story, but also your story influencing your SP.)


Another point - if lvl. ups are now rare and far apart, how about celebrating them a bit more? A fanfare, some fireworks? At the moment I often miss it completely when I just leveled up.

[SafariJohn]

depends on the AI. They are "smarter" than humans because they can learn in simulations ultra fast. But you tell an combat trained AI that you plucked from a spaceship and tell it to govern millions of people it might not be so smart then.

if that what he meant, it still doesnt make sense

The descriptions say the AIs are straight up better than humans. The facts are that humans can outperform the top AIs. Yet you still believe the descriptions.

[AcaMetis]

Any chance that there'll be a way to administrate more colonies without having to resort to AI cores at some relatively quick point? I get that colonizing isn't the intended end goal and all ...

I can't really see doing that, no. As you say, that's not an intended goal, so I don't see a reason to develop in that direction only to need to cut it back down at some point. I mean, had to do that with colony size (pretty much knowing initially that size 10 would never stay as the limit), and look how much discussion that caused. Ha!

Yeah, point definitely taken on the discussions it'd cause . It is unfortunate that playing colony tycoon basically requires resorting to Alpha Cores, though. No way to colonize like crazy while roleplaying as a Luddite or...Hegemon? Eh, whatever the word for a follower of the Hegemony is.

... but it never struck me as sensible that some AI colonies can be administrated by a blank portrait saying "no one of particular note" (or some such) whereas your colonies not only must be administrated by someone

The "blank portrait" is more or less equivalent to the "no skills admin" you can hire, so at most that's a UI issue

Ah, got it. Any chance that bug will be fixed in the upcoming patch, than? I mean I get it's not a high priority, but, you know. Attention to the fine details.

... but that (given enough skill points invested) four of them can simultaneously be administrated as well as an Alpha Core - and only an Alpha Core -  can administrate one planet, by someone exploring the galaxy on the other end of the sector.

Consider that with an Alpha Core, there's a question of trust. There's the core, giving instructions for the optimal and perfect running of a colony, probably. And there's the human overseers, trying to figure out which of the core's instruction *may*, in roundabout and entirely unexpected ways, lead to Bad Things.

Here's to hoping that idea gets expanded on at some point. Because while on one side it'd be very obnoxious if using admin Alpha Cores (AI cores in general, for that matter) caused some kind of unavoidable and permanent problems, because you have to use them in order to put down more than one medium-sized system worth of self-sufficient colonies, on the other side I'd very much like to eventually out-Tri-Tachyon the Tri-Tachyon in terms of AI core usage and research. And that'd just make the Hegemony and Luddites both look like cranky old codgers overdue for a transfer to the nearest retirement home if that didn't result in something going spectacularly wrong .

[SCC]

I think your worries about optimising experience bonus from strength difference are unwarranted. Currently, it's cheaper to go full combat and not get any officers, but do people do that very often? In the next patch, it will be more risky to use smaller force, but also more rewarding, but I doubt the bonus to experience is going to be significant enough that people are going to change their playstyle. Not to mention that this basic desire (to get more, using less) is already present, yet it doesn't break the game in any way — not to mention that it's to preserve resources like credits, supplies, ships, that you can gain or lose, unlike XP, which can only be gained. And there's no time limit on the players yet to rush for XP.

This makes me wonder: If the story points are all given at level up, and you have good reason to either spend them all at once to maximise their efficiency, or to hold on to them until you are in real big trouble - that doesn't really help to "keep things flowing", does it? It still leaves you stranded in the (presumably) long intervals between level ups.

Mh. How about doling out some of the story points at half or quarter level intervals?

From Alex's wording I got the impression that story points are awarded as you earn them (at, say, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of progress towards the next level), not all at once when you level up. They wouldn't "keep things flowing between level-ups", if you earned them only at level-ups, no?

[Zaizai]

The post about stabilizing cargo and the possibility of people going full combat fleet for the exp bonus, and then going back with the haulers to pick up everything in a huge waste of time... 
Wouldn't it be possible to have a secondary fleet? maybe heavily limit it to only be able to have max 5-6 ships, only haulers or civilian ships etc (so you can't effectively use it to defend your colony effectively). 
This means that you literally make your haulers vulnerable to attacks so they don't hinder your strike fleet, it also means that you actually get to use your haulers to try and escape from fights instead of almost never seeing them, combat haulers would also get taken more into consideration and why not, even strange and fun builds made entirely with combat haulers. 
You could have the second fleet in tow at either the same speed or lagging behind, meaning that escaping from an unfavorable fight, means they would target your haulers instead (if they are closeby). 
Of course a hauler only fleet would be targeted more heavily by NPCs, reducing its overall effectiveness

[SonnaBanana]

The post about stabilizing cargo and the possibility of people going full combat fleet for the exp bonus, and then going back with the haulers to pick up everything in a huge waste of time... 
Wouldn't it be possible to have a secondary fleet? maybe heavily limit it to only be able to have max 5-6 ships, only haulers or civilian ships etc (so you can't effectively use it to defend your colony effectively). 
This means that you literally make your haulers vulnerable to attacks so they don't hinder your strike fleet, it also means that you actually get to use your haulers to try and escape from fights instead of almost never seeing them, combat haulers would also get taken more into consideration and why not, even strange and fun builds made entirely with combat haulers. 
You could have the second fleet in tow at either the same speed or lagging behind, meaning that escaping from an unfavorable fight, means they would target your haulers instead (if they are closeby). 
Of course a hauler only fleet would be targeted more heavily by NPCs, reducing its overall effectiveness

An interesting idea, but Alex isn't going to add fleet functionality in this update.

[Attroc]

(Officers that aren't assigned to a ship still count, since otherwise you'd be encouraged to unassign officers you're not planning to use in the fight... made that change just now, actually, since wasn't thinking about that aspect of it before.)

But that makes no sense. Just because you have them the campaign isn't necessarily easier. They should only factor into a battle if they are deployed to a fight.