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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 595919 times)

Rain

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1470 on: April 05, 2021, 12:36:26 PM »

Assorted and mostly-disorganized bits and bobs of feedback after way too many hours in way too few days, and having ran through the story twice. I'm not necessarily very in touch with balance, but this is more of a commentary on the feels-good/feels-bad of the game now:

- Enemies getting to harass you when you use the disengage SP has a bit of a potential strange feel to it. As an RP thing it makes total sense to me, if for no other reason than your fancy maneuvers could also put some stress on your ships (and is obviously still way preferable to just getting caught and wrecked). I do lean heavily towards "RP and verisimilitude" as high priorities, perhaps more than most, but I could also see new players finding it a bit of a wth-moment about the mechanics to spend one of those relatively-scarce points and still having to pay the supply-price. No right answer, I think, but a thought that dawned on me.
- In my last game I got a pirate station spawned in Duzhak, and I think it was trying to orbit around Aka Mainyu, causing pirate fleets to keep bouncing against the star next to it as the station got squished in between the gas giant and the star. A very minor issue, all things considered, but looks kinda funky and maybe it's worth failsafing by not letting pirate bases spawn that close to stars?
- I'm a bit on the fence about raiding; on the one hand it's kind of trivial to just run around raiding pirate planets and stations, but on the other it does come with the cost of maintaining and keeping a marine squad so it's not really just "free stuff", even if it feels like it is in the moment. Right now it feels too easy but it may be a perception thing rather than a real issue. I ended up feeling like something like the vengeance fleet mechanic from I think it's Nexerelin could fit in there. Say, if you don't hide your tracks with the SP option, repeatedly preying on a faction makes it end up sending bounty hunting fleets after you eventually? That brings some more of the core combat into the raiding loop, too, which at present it tends to miss, particularly in the core worlds. Otherwise, it's pretty slick and elegant to divide forces between what you want to steal. 
- Ships on personal contact elite bounties not salvaging with their built-ins is a bit of a FeelsBad. I can see the reasons, and it's not inexplicable but one of the charms I've felt of the game is that whenever you encounter something you think is BS you can generally salvage, turn around and use it yourself in some capacity; this is perhaps now a (not necessarily THE biggest, but a) contributing factor to the enemy officer spam kinda feeling bad as well. Minor story thing:
Spoiler
Especially given you can salvage the Ziggurat.
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Maybe allow elite ships to be salvaged with their built-ins, but force difficult recoveries for such ships when they're taken from NPC fleets, so you have to pay something of the appropriate resource, but get a discount for it being on a ship you might not necessarily want and/or be hullmods you're not ordinarily interested in? At least they do pay pretty well, which leads me to...
- Most Contact Bounties feel underpaid for the risk/reward, plus all the travel costs involved when they're placed far out. Maybe they could reward other stuff next time you visit, like some supplies/fuel, repairs, introduce you to possible (mercenary?) officer candidates... Say after you build some rep and you do a bounty for someone, come back, accept another bounty and then they go "hey I got something for ya before you go...", maybe some extra credits if you lost ship(s) in a previous bounty you did for them? There's something to be said for the simplicity of getting paid only in credits, but it's not necessarily how a world works?
- It's still somewhat unclear to me what the Importance of contacts actually does. That might be a me thing though, and it being a little vague might just be a good thing.
- The Fury is really fun to play and has enough punch to really play to high-tech's hit-and-run nature even against big and nasty stuff. This is probably to be expected from someone who already likes the Shrike (but finds it a bit under-armed) and Odyssey as well as the sort of "light destroyer/cruiser/capital" 'subclass' of ships.

Feedback that touch on story elements and other minor spoiler things:
Spoiler
- Generally I found the story quite fun, especially the current finale part(?) (at least I've not found anywhere it'd continue after Scylla and Elissa bugger off). "Baird always gets her way", right? :)
- I really did enjoy the little glimpses into the workings of the world. The little headbutting between Laicaille/Kazeron, the seeming-anarchists at Fikenhild, the little events with PL/TT/Heg agents coming to say hi at the bars/in fleets... The Interfactional Dispute Council line came a bit out of nowhere and opens up a lot of questions, but maybe that's one of those "explaining the mystery takes the fun out of it" things in the end. What is it, what does it actually do, who's on it, is it anything more than a token formality entity, etc etc etc.
- The Gates ending up being used as a fast travel system is neat. I keep messing it up and underestimating the fuel use, but that's a me problem.
- The Ziggurat's threat assessment may be a little undertuned? Then again, it might make sense given it's supposed to be something completely new and unfamiliar. I *think* I could've beaten it the first time I encountered it and it assessed as two-star (it wrecked me and my whole fleet, after I'd already lost most of my previous fleet and all its story point investments to the Tri-Tach phase squad) if I'd treated it more aggressively and didn't let it do the phase ship dodgyness, but that might be overclownfidence. When I came back later and it assessed as a one star and I fought it much more aggressively it still disabled two cruisers which isn't what I'd expect from such an assessment.
[close]
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Ishman

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1471 on: April 05, 2021, 01:07:56 PM »

Well, after spending two hours trying to legitimately beat that tri-tach phase fleet, and giving up and just moving on, I've now gotten my first run in with the
Spoiler
ziggy
[close]

A visual feast to fight it - but it was quite easy, the only ship to have more than the paint scratched was the harbinger (which did work till it got to high flux, whence it hugged it at point blank in phase till it fluxed out and died, I presume it's AI couldn't handle the missiles still tracking it in phase, and realize it should retreat through an allied ship to vent).
« Last Edit: April 05, 2021, 01:09:32 PM by Ishman »
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Radicaljack

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1472 on: April 05, 2021, 02:12:32 PM »

Is there a reason to fight the phase fleet? I left after trying a few times and getting annoyed by the millions of mines being spammed.
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ANGRYABOUTELVES

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1473 on: April 05, 2021, 05:57:33 PM »

If you reduce the Orbital Fusion Lamp's demand to 9 Volatiles with a gamma core you still get a 5% increase in hazard from not supplying 10 Volatiles.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1474 on: April 05, 2021, 06:09:28 PM »

If you reduce the transplutonics demand of a flux shunt tap to 9, it does not work. I also don't think it's possible to get 10 transplutonics. I believe it's base 4 production for a size 6 colony +1 from admin + 2 from item + 1 from alpha core + 1 from story points is 9 total. Unless I'm missing a boost I could apply? Pretty disappointing tbh after all the effort I went through to get there.
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Sutopia

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1475 on: April 05, 2021, 06:17:09 PM »

If you reduce the transplutonics demand of a flux shunt tap to 9, it does not work. I also don't think it's possible to get 10 transplutonics. I believe it's base 4 production for a size 6 colony +1 from admin + 2 from item + 1 from alpha core + 1 from story points is 9 total. Unless I'm missing a boost I could apply? Pretty disappointing tbh after all the effort I went through to get there.
Simply pile up like 10k into storage and flip the switch to use storage while shortage. 0 production needed.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1476 on: April 05, 2021, 06:28:23 PM »

If you reduce the transplutonics demand of a flux shunt tap to 9, it does not work. I also don't think it's possible to get 10 transplutonics. I believe it's base 4 production for a size 6 colony +1 from admin + 2 from item + 1 from alpha core + 1 from story points is 9 total. Unless I'm missing a boost I could apply? Pretty disappointing tbh after all the effort I went through to get there.
Simply pile up like 10k into storage and flip the switch to use storage while shortage. 0 production needed.
That's even worse than it not working. I have to play supply mule now?

Also, it makes no sense that satisfying 9 demand and using a beta core to reduce required demand, but not using the beta core and putting resources in storage does work.

I'm also not convinced that there are enough transplutonics in the sector supply even one of the 4 taps I found, and I have no desire to spend hours flying around buying it. I just checked and transplutonics drain faster than they are supplied by my 9 production refining world due to one tap installed on that world (with 9 demand met).
« Last Edit: April 05, 2021, 06:44:50 PM by intrinsic_parity »
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Retry

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1477 on: April 05, 2021, 06:59:01 PM »

I'm like 90% certain my new Refinery colony has 4 Transplutonics at size 3, with only the Item currently buffing it.  At size 6 that should be 7, +1 from admin, +1 from alpha core, +1 from story point for the full 10.  In that case, it's feasible

Of course, that still means you have to spec into T5 Industry (unless you just so happen to find an Administrator with it, but finding skilled admins at all is a crapshoot), a special refinery item, spend at minimum 2 skill points, get on the Hegemony's bad side (AI core), clobber the end-game threat at the superstructure, and acquire and invest twelve and a half Atlas's worth of raw material at the superstructure (in one bulk payment, no less), just to have the opportunity to make use of another item which unlocks the ability for one colony to acquire one extra industry.

That's a lot of investment, and I don't really see me ever going on a run long enough to actually be able to make use of it.  Special items are also really rare and I doubt either of the required items are guaranteed to spawn, so I'd imagine it's not just a question of when, but if.
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HiddenPorpoise

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1478 on: April 05, 2021, 07:06:02 PM »

Extremely minor story bug:
When Siyavong's fleet intercepts you after you become Yaribay's envoy you can call back after the conversation ends. The Navarch pouts and restarts the conversation tree. I was able to read every option doing this. The standing improvement path is repeatable
[close]
« Last Edit: April 05, 2021, 07:07:39 PM by HiddenPorpoise »
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1479 on: April 05, 2021, 08:02:11 PM »

I'm like 90% certain my new Refinery colony has 4 Transplutonics at size 3, with only the Item currently buffing it.  At size 6 that should be 7, +1 from admin, +1 from alpha core, +1 from story point for the full 10.  In that case, it's feasible

Of course, that still means you have to spec into T5 Industry (unless you just so happen to find an Administrator with it, but finding skilled admins at all is a crapshoot), a special refinery item, spend at minimum 2 skill points, get on the Hegemony's bad side (AI core), clobber the end-game threat at the superstructure, and acquire and invest twelve and a half Atlas's worth of raw material at the superstructure (in one bulk payment, no less), just to have the opportunity to make use of another item which unlocks the ability for one colony to acquire one extra industry.

That's a lot of investment, and I don't really see me ever going on a run long enough to actually be able to make use of it.  Special items are also really rare and I doubt either of the required items are guaranteed to spawn, so I'd imagine it's not just a question of when, but if.
I have a size 6 colony with refining and it only produces 4 base (I have the screen open while writing this). I don't know of any reason why that would be different from your game, so I think you might be misremembering.  I have an admin with +1 resources, the +2 refining item installed, an alpha core in refining (+1) and 2 story points invested (+1). That leaves me at 9. It is not possible unless there is another buff that I have not just listed.
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Farlarzia

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1480 on: April 05, 2021, 08:30:56 PM »

For the transplutonics: You need a planet that has +1 (or 2) bonus to transplutonics production.

And for Alex: Even more things!

Finally found another instance of misgendering in dialog, hope this helps.
img:
Spoiler
[close]

Horus Yaribay doesn't have a contact specialty, unlike every other contact I've seen.

AI wise, the AI seems to *massively* overreact to targets on its flank. The player can definitely use this to abuse the AI, and its very powerful in doing so. Going behind any ship with a phase ship (I use an afflictor, but I've had people report this even works with an unarmed kite), even if the ship is in phase, and its got a cruiser shooting it from the front (or even if its overloaded that cruiser, and its the easiest kill in the world), the ship you're behind will freak out and lose all focus on the ship, completely swinging around to focus on the ship behind. I used this extensively against the BIG SPOILER
Spoiler
Tesseract boss, to very easily force them to disengage from my ships, when they could have easily killed my the ship it was previously focused on in mere moments. An example, it was 1v1ing my Aurora, no other ships nearby, it overloaded it, and instead of giving it the 1 second of focus it'd take to finish it, it goes after the ship behind it instead.
[close]
TL,DR:  Ships seem to give too high a priority to ships behind them in curcumstances they should be (somewhat) ignoring them.

Strange dialog number labelling bug in the interaction with the
Spoiler
suspicious scavenger fleet, during the scan the gates story mission
[close]
img:
Spoiler
[close]

Although you fixed the adjusted weapons stats when they were being affected by skills or hullmods being reflected on the weapon cards, I think being able to see these numbers reflected on the cards is actually very useful (much like you can see the effect of hullmods and skills on ship cards).

The changes to low and midtech stations, to also give them a mine based ability seems strange to me - having mines was previously the identity of the high techs, and although its still a lot more powerful on hightech, it definitely feels like low and midtech have somewhat infringed on its station indentity with the addition of mines.

When you fight the
Spoiler
Tesseracts
[close]
, despite the location being inside a stars corona, the battlefield conditions are normal, although this is probably intentional.

As a general quality of life, it'd be super useful to be able to install cores or upgrades into colony buildings from anywhere, as long as those objects are already in storage there, after all, you can already order the construction and destruction of said buildings from anywhere.

For some reason, the skill that lets you have an AI ship isn't permanent - doesn't this mean you could get an AI ship, then respec and keep it?

I've noticed that although being able to pay for bar events you can't afford has been fixed, the same issue still occurs with bar missions that require you to contact someone elsewhere for surplus materials - you can pay for them without actually having enough.
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Wyvern

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1481 on: April 05, 2021, 08:35:25 PM »

For the transplutonics: You need a planet that has +1 (or 2) bonus to transplutonics production.
I think you're confusing the unrefined ore with the refined metal?

For some reason, the skill that lets you have an AI ship isn't permanent - doesn't this mean you could get an AI ship, then respec and keep it?
You're missing the not-clarified-in-the-skill built-in hullmod 'Automated Ship' that reduces the ship's maximum CR by 100%. The base 100% bonus from the skill counteracts that exactly, leaving you at the regular +70% CR. Lose the skill and max CR goes to zero or less. (Well, I guess maybe you could manage up to 15% with all the CR-boosting skills including derelict contingent. But that's not really useful.)
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Wyvern is 100% correct about the math.

intrinsic_parity

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1482 on: April 05, 2021, 08:53:04 PM »

Yes the shunt requires refined metal from a refinery not transplutonic ore from mining. I'm not aware of any planet conditions that would give a boost to refining, but it's possible I suppose. There's not one in my sector though, I've explored pretty much every planet.
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CrashToDesktop

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1483 on: April 05, 2021, 09:29:25 PM »

despite the location being inside a stars corona, the battlefield conditions are normal, although this is probably intentional.
For what it's worth, it is stated to be intentional when you Explore the structure - your tactical officer explains the magnetic field generated by the structure deflects the star's corona, and that you should be able to fight unaffected by it.

For lore reasons, I suppose it's also reasonable to ask why the magfield doesn't also deflect the corona on the campaign map.  Might be nice for it to act like a planet in that fashion, stopping the corona in the area behind it.  Would make getting to somewhat easier, too.  Tough fight, and going in with less CR (from getting lightly toasted by the corona, emergency burn, or both) kinda hurts.
« Last Edit: April 05, 2021, 09:31:10 PM by The Soldier »
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Retry

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1484 on: April 05, 2021, 10:30:20 PM »

I'm like 90% certain my new Refinery colony has 4 Transplutonics at size 3, with only the Item currently buffing it.  At size 6 that should be 7, +1 from admin, +1 from alpha core, +1 from story point for the full 10.  In that case, it's feasible

Of course, that still means you have to spec into T5 Industry (unless you just so happen to find an Administrator with it, but finding skilled admins at all is a crapshoot), a special refinery item, spend at minimum 2 skill points, get on the Hegemony's bad side (AI core), clobber the end-game threat at the superstructure, and acquire and invest twelve and a half Atlas's worth of raw material at the superstructure (in one bulk payment, no less), just to have the opportunity to make use of another item which unlocks the ability for one colony to acquire one extra industry.

That's a lot of investment, and I don't really see me ever going on a run long enough to actually be able to make use of it.  Special items are also really rare and I doubt either of the required items are guaranteed to spawn, so I'd imagine it's not just a question of when, but if.
I have a size 6 colony with refining and it only produces 4 base (I have the screen open while writing this). I don't know of any reason why that would be different from your game, so I think you might be misremembering.  I have an admin with +1 resources, the +2 refining item installed, an alpha core in refining (+1) and 2 story points invested (+1). That leaves me at 9. It is not possible unless there is another buff that I have not just listed.
Ah, you're right.  I forgot that I had +1 from the admin skill, and was effectively counting it twice.  In that case, it really is impossible to get enough production to run the tap....
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