Re: the OP
I could take or leave #1 as playing against anything above/below 70 CR isn't all that common. I don't want to fight against handicapped opponents and the small bonuses that 100 CR gives isn't typically a game-changer. Would it be nice? Sure, but it's not a big deal to me.
Points 2 and 3, I'm just about in full agreement with. The caveat with point 2 is that I don't care so much about importing my loadouts so much as I am concerned with fighting actual loadouts I could be facing. Or in other words, RNG loadouts that the game may generate against me. Ideally, it would be both/and: I could designate a loadout or have a "real-world" RNG loadout based on certain parameters (i.e. fighting a Sindrian Diktat ship).
I, too, have suggested adding officers to sim ships because as the game progresses, un-officer'd ships become less and less of a threat. They no longer represent a "real" enemy you'll be fighting. I don't think it needs to go into great detail: just an option that throws an RNG officer at a certain level against you. That way, you'll have a better sense of how your current ship/loadout does against a true threat.
The "test drive" function of point 4 is tricky to me. I've flown just about every ship in Vanilla (except some obviously bad flagships) and I think if I had the option to test drive any ship, I might get stuck in the simulator min/maxing instead of playing the campaign. I kind of do that already with the current simulator. I don't think it takes away from the experience, per se, but it does lessen the carrot-on-a-stick to continue to advance. The whole "whoa, I want that!" when you encounter a new/bigger ship can be the impetus to find where to get it, fight for it, etc. Basically, I can see both sides and I'm not sure what side I fall on but I can justify them both.
Hey thanks for the reply! Sorry it took a while for me to answer!
I might be a hopeless minmaxer myself but I actually find the CR bonuses to be very strong. Better weapon tracking, ability, less damage taken and faster fighter refit times are all widely useful bonuses to get.
I personally did not care much about them either until I forced myself to play a campaign without officers and max CR increases, they truly are that kind of buff that may look trivial until you don't have it.
The sadistic part of me actually desires the new skill system to also introduce enemy "fleet commanding officers" that come with an expanded set of skills to closely match the player and apply fleet wide buffs, but that's for another suggestion thread entirely.
I originally wrote point 2 and 3 since I also noticed the simulation loadouts did not in any way represent what you just find in the campaign. Simulation ship loadouts are obviously man-made and not autogenerated, but they are nowhere near as optimized as one would think leading to potentially very skewed comparison material. Being able to upload my own ship variants in the simulator and test them against the ships in my current fleet would just be amazing.
Don't need to add much to your comment about officers. Randomized officers to choose from based on their level would be more than enough.
I'll agree on test driving ships before buying them being questionable, wich is why the test itself should be very limited in it's capabilities and also come with a credit fee for even using it.
A part of me would actually be both impressed and satisfied with an overly corny sub 20 second ad for a ship next to its pricetag. I mean whoever built said ship is surely hoping for someone buy it right? And what would be better than an overdramatic (and possibly slightly too optimistic) 15-20 second mini-video showing the ship kicking ass and chewing bubblegum?
@Arcagnello
Please refer to the forum rules regarding sexual content and refrain from referencing it.
I'd like there to be the option to do simulator battles with anything that the player has discovered. It would ruin the surprise of fighting the Guardian or a Radiant if it was in the sim menu from the very beginning, but afterwards it would be fun to fight against at will.
I've given that a read, I'll try to not be as rauchy (is that even the correct word?) in the future
Hasn't Alex recently alluded to expanding the Codex in the 0.95a patchnotes thread? (I may edit this if I find the actual reply). And here I thought my Pokemon references were out of place!
Wait. Could Starsector just be Pokemon in space? I mean you've got team Rocket and even the starter ships! Now, if the Hammerhead is Charmender and the Shrike is Squirtle, what ship is Bulbasaur?
Holy crap it all makes sense now. The Onslaught is Charizard, the Paragon is Blastoise and The Legion is Venusaur, wich means that the Condor/Drover could be Bulbasaur!
I'll stop now, but it would be the funny if it was actually one of the main inspirational sources for the game
Edit: Found Alex's mention of the Codex since it currently is the last reply to that thread:
13 new special weapons specific to this enemy
Random thought - are these weapons going to be hidden from the out-of-campaign missions (unlike say, Sparks and other [REDACTED] fighters)? I'd hate to accidentally spoil myself if I decided to jump in there for whatever reason.
Oh, hey, that's a great point! They definitely shouldn't show up there (and already don't show in the codex), but I forgot about the missions aspect of it. Done.
Perhaps there could be a variable check based on whether or not the player has a save file where they have encountered anything [REDACTED] in the campaign, and only what they have seen of the [REDACTED] in the campaign appears in not just the missions, but also the codex.
That might make sense, yeah - I'll have to take another look at this when I finally get around to updating the Codex! I wouldn't want to do anything halfbaked about it now since it'd likely be wasted effort in the long term.
We might just get a Simulation/Codex merge in the future. I'll wait with crossed fingers