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[TerranEmpire]

The capital spam was only unpleasant. You could always have parity DP-wise if you had a capital heavy fleet too. So while the fleet composition was unrealistic the battle was manageable.

[Alex]

Could this just be from individual ships judging that they are unsafe to attack based on multiple nearby enemies rather than some overall behavior calculation?

Yeah, that's quite possible; they generally speaking try to avoid getting flanked since that's how ships get destroyed.

Apparently your ai will change its behavior to timid if it judges the enemy fleet to be stronger than its fleet

that actually explains SO MUCH, cause this only seem to happen in large battles

(... except that it's definitely not a thing! I'm not saying nothing is happening, but that specific explanation - re officers etc - is flat-out wrong.)

I'd really love to get my hands on a save where this is easy to reproduce. So far I'm just seeing this sentiment, but not seeing the actual behaviors described in my testing.

[intrinsic_parity]

@Alex, can you please clarify if there is a way to get 10 transplutonics production in vanilla? I found that the best I can do is 4 base from size 6 colony +2 from item +1 from admin +1 from alpha core +1 from story points which only give 9, i.e. not enough to run the flux shunt tap. Is there some other super rare item or condition to buff refining, or is it actually impossible to use the flux shunt without manually refilling storage with transplutonics to cover the shortage (or is the intended way to use it with a beta core to reduce demand and that is bugged or something)?

[Alex]

There's a bug here - getting minus one to the requirements should lower them but doesn't, actually, so it's not usable. Well, without putting transplutonics into the stockpile, but that's... not a good way to do it.

(Similar issue affects the Fusion Lamp, though there at least you can use it, just with the hazard penalty.)

[intrinsic_parity]

It feels like I should be able to hit 10 transplutonics with a story point invested, would you consider buffing the item or the the base value for all colonies (and reducing the market share value if that's necessary to keep things balanced)?

[Alex]

Hmm, I'll have a look when I get to it. Why does it feel that way - just for "pleasing number" reasons, or?

[Megas]

There's a bug here - getting minus one to the requirements should lower them but doesn't, actually, so it's not usable. Well, without putting transplutonics into the stockpile, but that's... not a good way to do it.

(Similar issue affects the Fusion Lamp, though there at least you can use it, just with the hazard penalty.)

I happened to set my first colony within max distance of the Omega station (found it by chance much later after building colonies).  If meeting the threshold is currently impossible, at least I do not need to try to meet the requirements.

(On the other hand, the only red system in the game is also close to Omega system and my colonies.)

It feels like I should be able to hit 10 transplutonics with a story point invested, would you consider buffing the item or the the base value for all colonies (and reducing the market share value if that's necessary to keep things balanced)?

Player already needs to spend (at least) two story points to boost production of a refinery (if that's its improvement).

[Drazhya]

I had an event recently where I sent a Paragon escorted by two Champions against a fleet of... something-or-other. Can't remember if it was remnant or pirates, just that it was a couple cruisers and a bunch of destroyers and frigates. Anyway, the Champions hung back, off to the side, outside their own weapon ranges, fluxless while the Paragon was getting torn up. They were ordered to escort the Paragon and all officers were either steady or aggressive. Current biggest example of AI stupidity I've seen so far, and usually doesn't happen. Usually, the Champions properly support their capital ship.
I'll try to get a save if it happens again, but I've got nothing right now.

[Maethendias]

Could this just be from individual ships judging that they are unsafe to attack based on multiple nearby enemies rather than some overall behavior calculation?

Yeah, that's quite possible; they generally speaking try to avoid getting flanked since that's how ships get destroyed.

Apparently your ai will change its behavior to timid if it judges the enemy fleet to be stronger than its fleet

that actually explains SO MUCH, cause this only seem to happen in large battles

(... except that it's definitely not a thing! I'm not saying nothing is happening, but that specific explanation - re officers etc - is flat-out wrong.)

I'd really love to get my hands on a save where this is easy to reproduce. So far I'm just seeing this sentiment, but not seeing the actual behaviors described in my testing.

if thats not a thing then all is well, still, big battles ARE very frustrating, especially thanks to the command limit

[Alex]

Yep, I've got a note to look at escort behavior specifically. But ships on an escort assignment behave very differently than when not, so - likely to be different issues.

if thats not a thing then all is well, still, big battles ARE very frustrating, especially thanks to the command limit

(Fair enough - I mean, definitely not saying there's no issue, just that this specific thing isn't it!)

[Alex]

Was just talking to Thaago and he mentioned ECM as being a possible contributing factor to ship passivity. I think that actually nails it - I remember some feedback in the last version that winning the ECM battle was making fights trivial by making enemy ships act too passively. So now this is flipped around and the player is on the receiving end more often than not.

So, reining in enemy ECM - and perhaps reducing the maximum penalty some, as well - should not only fix that issue, but improve AI behavior, as well.

[intrinsic_parity]

Hmm, I'll have a look when I get to it. Why does it feel that way - just for "pleasing number" reasons, or?

I guess it feels nice to meet the requirement directly and gives a little wiggle room, i.e. I can choose between not use an alpha core, or story points, or an admin with the bonus and still meet the requirement.

[Voxette]

I just want to say: I have always really liked the asymmetric warfare aspect and appreciate the changes to make smaller ships better.

It feels more appropriate to me that I can't go toe-to-toe with the Hegemony and win a "fair fight"; that I have to employ tactics and guile.

But because of that playstyle, I haven't tried running big capital-ship fleets in the new update. Actually, I haven't gone bigger than destroyers so far.

[TerranEmpire]

Just to mention. I'm very pleased with my colony defenses during raids. I've just seen, that during a Persean League raid all of my fleets quickly pulled together and swarmed the 3 attacking fleets. It was a very pleasant surprise.

As for the ECCM debate, I've observed this with the previous version. If I had longe range weapons and range bonus the enemy fleet was very wary of me. So deploying 4-5 Onslaughts with Gauss canons was surprisingly discouraging for the enemy. So I suspect Alex is right about this one.

[Voxette]

I also just want to say: I would really appreciate a hard mode for the game. The normal difficulty is fine starting out, but it's just not very challenging economically.

While searching, I found this good post on the subject from someone in 2019:

As much as I'd love to sink another 100 hours into the game, the meta is just too easy. 2h in everything seems to lose purpose as your power level just explodes.
Hyperspace travel is essentially hassle-free. The factions are either not aggressive enough or they don't have enough fleets overall ( and I'm on negative with all but Hegemony ). The only hassle is the annoyance of navigating the "storms" and occasionally avoiding the very few stronger faction fleets. Avoiding the fleets is fairly easy as the strong ones are generally much slower.

The skill-driven power explosion was unsatisfactory as well. Overall skills feel meaningless when you get so many so quickly.

The stipend + commission down-right break the already fragile economy.
By fragile I mean:
 The over-supply of ships ( they are more common than ore or basic supplies .... )
 The ship prices are ludicrously low. Even at 2x their current cost they would still be ridiculously low. ( I had an Onslaught with 1D 4h in, did not break the bank either )
 Trade routes are way too easy to abuse ( it's worse than in the usual grind-trading systems since your viable options are actually lower but the payouts much higher )
 Rewards are way too big for non-combat "quests". ( to be read as those without a cost sink )
 Basic supplies are way too cheap and abundant.
 I have more weapons than storage slots to put them in ( from salvage ). Granted, they are not rare but nor did I ever feel the need for rare weapons or stronger ships ( 7h in this run ).
 
To make things worse, the faction standings are too easy to recover from and overall feel very artificial. They switch and change too often and easily, making them lose substance.
IMHO accepting a comission should be a big, game-changing thing, not just an easy way into cash.

The explosion of skills has been addressed, but that's pretty much it.

I suppose I can look into making a "hard mode" mod myself. I've never done any modding before, but I really like this game in every other respect.

One of the biggest issues to me is that it feels like the actual fun parts are quite separated from how to make money. If I want to make money, I do a bunch of trading. Then, with that nest egg, I can go around having fights. But fighting because you're some leisure-class dilettante who wants to hunt the "most dangerous game" is very different from the idea in the lore of struggling to survive. Fighting, exploring... these are money losers (certainly when you look at the opportunity cost).