Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Pages: 1 ... 139 140 [141] 142 143 ... 146

Author Topic: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 595959 times)

SCC

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 4112
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #2100 on: August 26, 2021, 07:22:40 AM »

He probably wants a large empire at least the size of Hegemony or League.  Today, that is not really possible without core abuse, which leads to perpetual harassment from zombie Pather cells (if worlds grow to size 4+) and Hegemony (if not wiped off the map).

Game mechanics is less of concern.  I want a big empire because I do not want my character to be a big stupid dog completely reliant on the largesse from his masters.  I want my guy to be in charge, keeping my bases healthy and producing everything my fleet needs to function.
In this respect, nothing has changed between versions, you are limited by planet limit and administrators either way.

Default ship controls are still A-D to turn, right? It's almost impossible to play that way; turn-to-cursor should be the default.
For most omni-shielded ships, it's good to at least occasionally rely on tank controls to control movement and shields independently. I do this even on Tempest, sometimes.

I imagine it would be a gameplay shift, likely a good one.
I imagine that this precisely is the reason for Alex not to do it, since this means he has to make another game again... It's probably also why he's so against letting you control other fleets, unfortunately.

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12118
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #2101 on: August 26, 2021, 07:57:45 AM »

He probably wants a large empire at least the size of Hegemony or League.  Today, that is not really possible without core abuse, which leads to perpetual harassment from zombie Pather cells (if worlds grow to size 4+) and Hegemony (if not wiped off the map).

Game mechanics is less of concern.  I want a big empire because I do not want my character to be a big stupid dog completely reliant on the largesse from his masters.  I want my guy to be in charge, keeping my bases healthy and producing everything my fleet needs to function.
In this respect, nothing has changed between versions, you are limited by planet limit and administrators either way.
Not exactly.  Last release, you could get up to seven with Industry alone, maybe eight with Ground Ops too.  That did not take all of your points.

Today, you need to spend ten points in Industry to get both colony skills for six planets and IP, and the last five go into one of the colony skills in Leadership (say Ground Ops).  Getting Leadership 5 for colony skill means you are locked into it since Leadership 4 are permanent skills.  Getting Industry 10 for colony skills means player gets Field Repairs and Derelict Contingent, and DC is ruined by Field Repairs.

It is impossible to get all of the colony skills in this release, and you get less.  Last release, player could get all colony skills, and while it was costly, it did not cost everything and lock the player into a single path like today.  (Last release I could not get the armor skills that made ships beefy tanks or carrier skills for maximum Drover and Sparks power because they went into Industry for colony power.)

Building a empire close to size of Hegemony or League was possible with skills alone last release, and if that was not enough, Pather bug and easy Hegemony money bribes made alpha cores painless to use and full Sector colonization and conquest an option.  (It also made colony skills pointless, but that was okay if I meant I get full combat power AND a big empire.)  Today, the drawbacks caused by alpha core use cannot be completely ignored.

I imagine it would be a gameplay shift, likely a good one.
I imagine that this precisely is the reason for Alex not to do it, since this means he has to make another game again... It's probably also why he's so against letting you control other fleets, unfortunately.
Gameplay may not need to change too much.  But it could evolve into more than just cowardly AI duels with bigger numbers and/or cheap gimmicks for bosses.

I do not want an RTS, but it would be nice if the player did more than play the dumb merc for hire or play more or less the same from beginning to end.
Logged

SafariJohn

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3010
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #2102 on: August 26, 2021, 09:57:29 AM »

Default ship controls are still A-D to turn, right? It's almost impossible to play that way; turn-to-cursor should be the default.
For most omni-shielded ships, it's good to at least occasionally rely on tank controls to control movement and shields independently. I do this even on Tempest, sometimes.

Yeah, I do that too, but for me it is more of a "keep ship facing same direction while I block something" switch.


I could play using tank controls. It would suck, but I could do it. That's not the problem, the problem I see is it's the default. How many new players are being lost because they don't realize turn-to-cursor is an option?

I don't know how you would even find that out. Sending a survey to people who ask for a refund might catch some, but not many.  You could survey people a couple weeks after they register the game, I guess, but there are a ton of caveats on that. The forum/Discord/Reddit/4chan are all biased towards people who love/hate the game, not people who gave up on it. Meh.
Logged

I thought it was an RTS

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 9
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #2103 on: August 26, 2021, 11:06:12 AM »

Default ship controls are still A-D to turn, right? It's almost impossible to play that way; turn-to-cursor should be the default.
For most omni-shielded ships, it's good to at least occasionally rely on tank controls to control movement and shields independently. I do this even on Tempest, sometimes.

I could play using tank controls. It would suck, but I could do it. That's not the problem, the problem I see is it's the default. How many new players are being lost because they don't realize turn-to-cursor is an option?

To be fair tho, I skipped the tutorial lol that's on me. They felt natural to me, like an FPS. Although I couldn't figure out how to do a lot of things on my own (Like the teleporting thing the autopilot would do for me). And I always found the autopilot/ai always managed the flux better than I could.... It could teleport away and vent, but I never did figure out how to do that. Beyond just the teleporting, I always felt slower than the same ship on autopilot... Especially if I had to rapidly change course, it felt like I was stopping a train.

You can't please everyone 'cause if you made even a basic tutorial mandatory, people would likely complain about that instead lol. I'm really impressed with the balance this game strikes, 'cause I never felt punished for playing the way I played.

To put my play experience another way... I don't think the controls are an issue per se, but a lot of the other mechanics make a lot more sense now. It's a major perspective shift, though.. Some players will have a player-centric perspective so the ships in their fleet and even their ship itself is to aid the player. I guess the rest all flows from that naturally, too (The limitations on your colony's ability to become fully self-sufficient and grow without limitation etc... As it would render a player-centric perspective moot).

But I had the perspective from the tactical map, with my ship on autopilot. The ship meant nothing to me, it was just another ship in my fleet lol. So then you see the game from a very different perspective (Ships are just meta at this point, right? All I cared about were very specific stats like the ship's deployment points, movement speed (To quickly take the beacons for more deployment points lol), time to kill and combat rating (If their combat rating's too low, the ttk drops off a cliff very quickly in large battles and esp. in repeated battles).

My ultimate goal was always to increase my ability to produce ships. More ships & better ships. I wanted to make my own ships, weapons, drones, supplies & fuel to keep the war going.... 'cause from my perspective I thought for sure the game designer wanted me to conquer the core worlds haha. In fact, I was so sure of this it's what pushed me to explore the entire galaxy... I thought there must be a "perfect sector" out there somewhere that would make everything easier for my empire.

Even my preferred/favorite ships are different. So many people on this forum talk about the Paragons and I didn't (at the time) understand why. They didn't fit my ship meta at all haha (Too slow and their deployment points are way too high. You burn all your dp with only 2-3 paragons I think (Can't remember exactly, but it seemed like a laughably low amount compared to the huge Wolf/Tempest/Fury fleets I could deploy). I initially settled on the Wolfs. An entire fleet of wolfs that I mostly scavenged and bought (With 1 Superfreighter for cargo and 1 giant fuel ship for range). Wolf's are great in the beginning... Very fast, very low deployment points and they have a low time-to-kill. The issue I had was that due to their combat rating (I think?), their ttk very quickly falls off a cliff as the battle drags on. I later experimented with a Medusa fleet ('cause their ttk doesn't drop off as quickly as the Wolfs), but they didn't have the teleportation ability and their deployment points made the actual combat fleet much smaller. I couldn't make Tempests at the time, and I avoided using ships I couldn't make myself (Buying ships from your enemy is a pretty terrible idea right? I had to be able to make them myself)... So then I experimented with and fell in love with the Fury. Absolutely perfect ship for my play style. I stomped all over the entire galaxy with them, including those 2 angry ships :P

So yeah, that was my experience/perspective. Like I said I had a blast so hopefully it doesn't sound like a complaint ;)
Logged

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23987
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #2104 on: August 26, 2021, 11:13:57 AM »

So yeah, that was my experience/perspective. Like I said I had a blast so hopefully it doesn't sound like a complaint ;)

Not at all! This was a really interesting read, and I appreciate you sharing your perspective. Also, I'm happy that it's possible to play (and enjoy) the game this way, even if it's not specifically built towards that :)
Logged

SCC

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 4112
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #2105 on: August 26, 2021, 01:25:45 PM »

Some players will have a player-centric perspective so the ships in their fleet and even their ship itself is to aid the player. I guess the rest all flows from that naturally, too (The limitations on your colony's ability to become fully self-sufficient and grow without limitation etc... As it would render a player-centric perspective moot).
Player-centric playstyle is pretty viable, since AI isn't good at pushing aggerssively and assessing risk, whereas the player can be. If you capitalise on that with some powerful ship, you can either finish off enemies your ships have been bothering the entire fight, or you can make your ships follow you and make your seemingly suicidal charges quite unsuccessful at killing yourself.

So then you see the game from a very different perspective (Ships are just meta at this point, right? All I cared about were very specific stats like the ship's deployment points, movement speed (To quickly take the beacons for more deployment points lol), time to kill and combat rating (If their combat rating's too low, the ttk drops off a cliff very quickly in large battles and esp. in repeated battles).
Considering having AI ships in your fleet isn't optional (or wasn't, until Phase Mastery and System Expertise...), I imagine most people think about ships in terms of what they can do for your fleet, though perhaps with different priorities (such as survivability - I don't babysit my ships).

I later experimented with a Medusa fleet ('cause their ttk doesn't drop off as quickly as the Wolfs), but they didn't have the teleportation ability and their deployment points made the actual combat fleet much smaller.
Wolf and Medusa have the exact same ship system. Maybe you mistook Shrike for Medusa? Shrike has the plasma burn ability, which AI won't use for anything but going forwards.

Dri

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1403
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #2106 on: August 27, 2021, 05:56:19 PM »

Aren't the .1 patches mostly just balance tweaks and QoL changes? What be the hold up, bub?
Logged

FooF

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1378
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #2107 on: August 27, 2021, 06:15:34 PM »

Aren't the .1 patches mostly just balance tweaks and QoL changes? What be the hold up, bub?

Not to speak for Alex but skill re-vamp (which should be enough said but...), new ships, looks like some new visual stuff, balance tweaks, new autofit for Remnants, QoL stuff...

Seems like he might have hit some feature-creep but think of this way: this is what we're going to have for the foreseeable future. Once the next development cycle starts, anything that was close-but-not-quite has to wait another who knows how long. You have to put the kibosh on it somewhere but I don't mind waiting a little longer if it means I have more to play with it once .95 is done.
Logged

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23987
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #2108 on: August 27, 2021, 06:33:41 PM »

Yeah, let's just say that this .1 is going to have stuff that's a good bit meatier than the usual .1 fare. I'm not sure I'd call it "feature creep", since it's all stuff that I'd like to be in the game eventually - but I suppose strictly in the context of a .1, one might reasonably see it as that. I'd rather look at it as me taking an opportunity to sneak some fun stuff in that I'm super excited about, though :)

(On a related note, I'd love to do another blog post in the near-ish future...)

(And I'm kind of debating whether to call it .1 or .96 at this point.)
Logged

SonnaBanana

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 867
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #2109 on: August 27, 2021, 06:56:50 PM »

Yeah, let's just say that this .1 is going to have stuff that's a good bit meatier than the usual .1 fare. I'm not sure I'd call it "feature creep", since it's all stuff that I'd like to be in the game eventually - but I suppose strictly in the context of a .1, one might reasonably see it as that. I'd rather look at it as me taking an opportunity to sneak some fun stuff in that I'm super excited about, though :)

(On a related note, I'd love to do another blog post in the near-ish future...)

(And I'm kind of debating whether to call it .1 or .96 at this point.)
Yes please, we all would like to see whatever you're planning.
Logged
I'm not going to check but you should feel bad :( - Alex

SCC

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 4112
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #2110 on: August 28, 2021, 01:06:17 AM »

(And I'm kind of debating whether to call it .1 or .96 at this point.)
98. Then ME.

hydremajor

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 461
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #2111 on: August 28, 2021, 01:25:28 AM »

(And I'm kind of debating whether to call it .1 or .96 at this point.)

you could always just call it .5 or some bigger number and call it a day

in fact if you were to call it "95.69 cocobongo edition" nobody'd get a say in it....
Logged

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23987
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #2112 on: August 28, 2021, 08:39:18 AM »

98. Then ME.

... this has a certain appeal.
Logged

Timid

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 640
  • Personal Text
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #2113 on: August 28, 2021, 08:39:42 AM »

(And I'm kind of debating whether to call it .1 or .96 at this point.)

Just say not save-game compatible (sorry!)

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23987
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector 0.95a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #2114 on: August 28, 2021, 08:45:38 AM »

Ah, but I'm bending every effort to make sure it is :)
Logged
Pages: 1 ... 139 140 [141] 142 143 ... 146