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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 595796 times)

Lucky33

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1665 on: April 15, 2021, 04:44:32 PM »

AI cored ships do not count toward officer limit. You can have up to 10 human officers. And about five gamma cores in frigates with some combat worthy CR left. If you go full support that means +50 ECM rating. Where was a fuss about ECM wars and how you win them. This is how.
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RedHellion

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1666 on: April 15, 2021, 05:53:46 PM »

AI cored ships do not count toward officer limit. You can have up to 10 human officers. And about five gamma cores in frigates with some combat worthy CR left. If you go full support that means +50 ECM rating. Where was a fuss about ECM wars and how you win them. This is how.

When I can do the same thing by taking and holding points on the map and just having normal ships in play do the same thing (hell, I could use the extra hullmod from Specialized Modifications to build in an extra ECM hullmod to most of my capitals and cruisers if I really wanted), I don't consider that an overwhelming argument against it. Plus there are more interesting/fun things to do with [REDACTED] ships than deploying 5 frigates for ridiculous ECM ratings by stacking the maximum number of "officers" possible (especially if you're not playing a "wolf pack" style fleet). This is just as undesirable IMO as the other meta being "get and deploy a [REDACTED] battleship with an Alpha Core and nothing else matters". To me that sounds more like the "DP cost" of cores for the Automated Ships skill needs to be reconsidered, or have a separate limit on AI cores used as officers (e.g. 1 base, 3 by making the skill Elite with a story point) or something.
« Last Edit: April 15, 2021, 05:55:21 PM by RedHellion »
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1667 on: April 15, 2021, 06:31:26 PM »

At least Radiant is fun to watch because it is a really big hammer that kills almost everything in its path.  I do not want several Lumen/Glimmer if I have a Radiant because they are not as fun to watch as a Radiant tearing almost everything near it to shreds.
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Radicaljack

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1668 on: April 15, 2021, 06:46:05 PM »

The DP calc and ECM wars stuff is the worst part of this update, if it's not balanced out I'm gonna have to learn to modify the settings to fix it, because it's so boring and unengaging.
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Lucky33

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1669 on: April 15, 2021, 10:00:29 PM »

AI cored ships do not count toward officer limit. You can have up to 10 human officers. And about five gamma cores in frigates with some combat worthy CR left. If you go full support that means +50 ECM rating. Where was a fuss about ECM wars and how you win them. This is how.

When I can do the same thing by taking and holding points on the map and just having normal ships in play do the same thing (hell, I could use the extra hullmod from Specialized Modifications to build in an extra ECM hullmod to most of my capitals and cruisers if I really wanted), I don't consider that an overwhelming argument against it. Plus there are more interesting/fun things to do with [REDACTED] ships than deploying 5 frigates for ridiculous ECM ratings by stacking the maximum number of "officers" possible (especially if you're not playing a "wolf pack" style fleet). This is just as undesirable IMO as the other meta being "get and deploy a [REDACTED] battleship with an Alpha Core and nothing else matters". To me that sounds more like the "DP cost" of cores for the Automated Ships skill needs to be reconsidered, or have a separate limit on AI cores used as officers (e.g. 1 base, 3 by making the skill Elite with a story point) or something.

You get the ECM advantage prior to battle to win the battle. You cant spawn your ships on a ECM point.

ECM module on a capital gives you only +5 ECM. On a frigate +8 (mod itself + core). Cheapest capital platform is 10 DP (Atlas) and it is not even combat ship.

"Interesting" is a subjective. I enjoy the numbers game just as much as I enjoy personally piloting frigates or capitals.

The question was that the skill in question "has way too little of an impact compared to the alternative". Now we are debating two meta things about it. One is that it allows you to turn the ECM war the other way around and provide the option to achieve  -20 to range against any fleet you encounter. And the other is the overpowered battleship "tearing almost everything near it to shreds". How is that "too little of an impact" compared to a third SP mod and 10 caps and vents as a permanent choice?
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TuxedoCatfish

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1670 on: April 15, 2021, 11:02:51 PM »

The ECM war kind of sucks because when you're at a disadvantage it's incredibly grueling and punishing, your AI-controlled ships either accomplish nothing or get murdered, and it's basically a grind to pick off enemy officers until you get back to zero, but when you're winning a 20% range advantage means the opposite -- fleet tactics barely matter and you pretty much steamroll over everything without even really needing the player to break the stalemate via good piloting or good use of commands.

I'm not completely opposed to getting a leg up in combat through good decisions made beforehand (that's what all ship fitting and fleet composition does, after all) but ECM just completely overshadows everything else, including many systems/decisions that are much more complex and rewarding to master.

I'm looking forward to it being capped at +/-10% in the next patch and I'll reserve judgement until I've actually played with those values, but I'm starting to think the problem might just be the concept itself.
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RedHellion

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1671 on: April 15, 2021, 11:52:26 PM »

The question was that the skill in question "has way too little of an impact compared to the alternative". Now we are debating two meta things about it. One is that it allows you to turn the ECM war the other way around and provide the option to achieve  -20 to range against any fleet you encounter. And the other is the overpowered battleship "tearing almost everything near it to shreds". How is that "too little of an impact" compared to a third SP mod and 10 caps and vents as a permanent choice?

I guess my point was that I don't find deploying a bunch of frigates with "officers" (cores) for the sole point up upping your ECM score (basically turning [REDACTED] and the Automated Ships skill into a vehicle to jsut deploy more officers at once) to be an interesting or imo intended use of that skill. At least having an "overpowered battleship tearing almost everything near it to shreds" is basically the intended use of the skill, as far as I would assume. I realize that might just be a gameplay style difference, but I don't find that to be an interesting impact compared to [REDACTED] and I don't think the skill should be balanced around that. As I said, if anything that means the ability to mount as many cores as you want or the ECM war mechanics (or total potential bonuses) need tweaking.

So I suppose ultimately, yes it has just as much of an impact - if you use it for what I believe is a loophole and not the intended purpose, and one which I (personally) find less interesting/fun for the investment I put into that skill. I want [REDACTED] ships in my fleet to do work in combat, not load up as many frigates as possible with cores and just group them all at the back of my fleet during combat so they don't get blown up (since they're hard to replace) by enemy frigates. Plus Tempests and even Wolves (and potentially other Sector frigates) can 1:1 outfight [REDACTED] frigates when equipped decently.
« Last Edit: April 15, 2021, 11:56:17 PM by RedHellion »
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Lucky33

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1672 on: April 16, 2021, 12:00:08 AM »

2 TuxedoCatfish

I start almost every battle in a single phase ship. Hence at max possible ECM disadvantage the enemy can provide. It doesn't really matter. This is that I call the subjectivity of the opinion. Play styles are different. I myself adapted to the new system without problems. However, other players, like yourself, tend to advice to change the game according to their desired play styles.

Limiting ECM will make it utterly useless. No pronounced effect on the tactic = no reason to spend limited resources on it. But as of right now, winning the ECM game is one of the major option for the "fleet deployer" type of players. In previous version, their success was based on several things (among some cheese spam options):

1) Using only best of the best capitals.
2) Providing optimized loadouts.
3) Hand-picking officers.

It worked because:

1) AI fleet composition was doctrinal based and thus limited to certain ships and fleet compositions resulting in wastage of DP.
2) AI ship loadouts were awful. You can still see them in the sim. It was easy to produce a much more advanced variant without troubles. Typical optimized build was x 2-3 times stronger even without taking officers into account.
3) Low number of the officers and random skill distribution. Resulting in a situation when only about single officer from the AI fleet of some factions was comparable to the player's hand picked ones.

It no longer the case because:

1) Mechanics were reworked so they suit doctrinal based fleet composition. Frigates are no longer a waste of DP.
2) Advanced ai loadouts are much better now than before. You can no longer make a noticeably better variant just by filling up the vent/cap limit. Bizarre ai variants are rare in the end-game fleets. So, in general, you can have some advantage but it requires actual optimization against given target.
3) AI have much more officers and while skill distribution still random where is much higher chances to meet the actual combat worthy ones.

And this is the reason for the critics whose old approaches to the game no longer work. And the ECM is the only thing that currently can mess up the AI really bad.
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TuxedoCatfish

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1673 on: April 16, 2021, 12:06:33 AM »

Optimized loadouts and officers being the key to winning fleet battles is better than ECM being the key. Figuring out optimized loadouts is a fairly deep skill; you need to understand your options and the enemy you're up against and plan accordingly. ECM is just "get bigger number and you win."

I don't really care if limiting ECM makes it useless. ECM isn't interesting in the first place.
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Lucky33

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1674 on: April 16, 2021, 12:07:21 AM »

2 RedHellion

You didn't find it. You was told by me. And if, for some reason, Starsector would be a game with the rail-fixed mechanics when any given skill or game feature was supposed to be used in a given manner, we would't be talking right here. Because I wouldn't even buy the game in the first place.
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Lucky33

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1675 on: April 16, 2021, 12:19:42 AM »

Optimized loadouts and officers being the key to winning fleet battles is better than ECM being the key. Figuring out optimized loadouts is a fairly deep skill; you need to understand your options and the enemy you're up against and plan accordingly. ECM is just "get bigger number and you win."

I don't really care if limiting ECM makes it useless. ECM isn't interesting in the first place.

As I said, it was the key because ai was gimped. And now, when it less gimped (but still is), it requires the actual effort to out-fit it. For some obscure reasons players are struggling to produce it. For myself I explain it by the fact that it requires advanced understanding of the game mechanics. Too advanced for the average player. ECM is the same. Previously player could outrange almost anything simply because all its ships had ITUs and officers. ECM was an overkill. Now it is not and is a fair game but almost nobody want to use it. However they do want the game to get back to the shooting gallery stage with gimped targets in it.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2021, 12:22:29 AM by Lucky33 »
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TuxedoCatfish

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1676 on: April 16, 2021, 12:22:22 AM »

You don't have to be "advanced" to understand that putting ECM mods on your ships or taking the "+2% ECM for each deployed ship" skill are good ideas. Both are extremely simple decisions. They're simpler decisions than almost anything else you could do to get an advantage, in fact.
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Lucky33

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1677 on: April 16, 2021, 12:27:21 AM »

You don't have to be "advanced" to understand that putting ECM mods on your ships or taking the "+2% ECM for each deployed ship" skill are good ideas. Both are extremely simple decisions. They're simpler decisions than almost anything else you could do to get an advantage, in fact.

Putting ECM mods on all your ships doesn't really win the ECM game. Neither picking Electronic Warfare.

Single 40 DP capital w. ECM and EW produces only +7. Five frigates for the same 40 DP produce +50. Guess who will have -20% to range.
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TuxedoCatfish

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1678 on: April 16, 2021, 12:33:54 AM »

Okay? That doesn't really have anything to do with what I'm saying.

The problem is not that people can't adapt or don't understand. You complained earlier about people being able to just auto-win by slapping an ITU on everything; if you're able to understand why that's bad, it shouldn't be hard to understand why auto-winning by getting a 20% range advantage is also bad. It's the exact same thing, the only thing that's been shuffled around a little is how you get there.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2021, 12:36:36 AM by TuxedoCatfish »
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Lucky33

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Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #1679 on: April 16, 2021, 12:43:09 AM »

Okay? That doesn't really have anything to do with what I'm saying.

The problem is not that people can't adapt or don't understand. You complained earlier about people being able to just auto-win by slapping an ITU on everything; if you're able to understand why that's bad, it shouldn't be hard to understand why auto-winning by getting a 20% range advantage is also bad. It's the exact same thing, the only thing that's been shuffled around a little is how you get there.

No. I was saying that right now people can no longer auto win. The most critic came in the "I'm always at -20% range disadvantage so nerf the ECM" form. Not the other way around. It happened to be too difficult to devise the particular set of skills and fleet composition to auto-win the ECM game.
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