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 2 [3] 4 5 ... 7

Author Topic: SO nerf/rebalance  (Read 14873 times)

Harmful Mechanic

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1340
  • On break.
    • View Profile
Re: SO nerf/rebalance
« Reply #30 on: April 03, 2021, 10:57:42 PM »

Another option would be to have SO periodically (timed by # of deployments, not time passing on the campaign layer) install a D-mod on the ship it's mounted to, simulating degradation of the ship's systems and requiring a serious refit from running with all the safeties disabled. Have it pull from a list of D-mods that accurately represent the kind of long-term damage overclocking your ship's everything would do to it.

I think that would work a lot better than built-in Ill-Advised Modifications on ship skins; instead of 'pay once to remove downsides' on captured Pather ships, this version of SO makes the ships it's mounted on more expensive to keep running in top condition (if they're unique), more disposable (if they're not), and removes the issues with building it in; you can build SO into a hull, but it's going to periodically develop horrible problems that degrade the ship.
Logged

Dex

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 168
    • View Profile
Re: SO nerf/rebalance
« Reply #31 on: April 04, 2021, 04:34:42 AM »

Another option would be to have SO periodically (timed by # of deployments, not time passing on the campaign layer) install a D-mod on the ship it's mounted to, simulating degradation of the ship's systems and requiring a serious refit from running with all the safeties disabled. Have it pull from a list of D-mods that accurately represent the kind of long-term damage overclocking your ship's everything would do to it.

I think that would work a lot better than built-in Ill-Advised Modifications on ship skins; instead of 'pay once to remove downsides' on captured Pather ships, this version of SO makes the ships it's mounted on more expensive to keep running in top condition (if they're unique), more disposable (if they're not), and removes the issues with building it in; you can build SO into a hull, but it's going to periodically develop horrible problems that degrade the ship.

I do like this idea, in essence, but it doesnt solve the massive chunk of OP you get for free. ALSO, D- mods arent really as potent as they used to be and in many ways are actually desired depending on your skills. Might make SO even more powerful
Logged

Arcagnello

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1011
  • Arguably Heretical, Definetly Insane
    • View Profile
Re: SO nerf/rebalance
« Reply #32 on: April 04, 2021, 06:25:09 AM »

I currently have 15 combat ships in my high tech fleet. Any ship that is not a battleship or a battlecruiser has Safety Overrides as a built in mod, plus of course Hardened shields and/or Expanded missile Racks.

I do not see safety Overrides as a nice side-grade option on cruisers and destroyers anymore. It is an UPGRADE that boosts the ship's combat effectiveness almost two fold for the inherent fact they get twice the flux dissipation and double the speed (in the case you also install unstable injector, wich is usually what I do anyway).

Give me the name of anything that can install Safety Overrides in the vanilla game and I can realistically provide you with a setup that beats the same ship without it given he same amount of integrated hullmods and an officer with the same level.

Also take into consideration the fact Safety Overrides cuts the Peak Performance Time by a factor of three, but the new officer and charachter skills more often than not add PPT in an ADDITIVE way, completely circumventing it.

As an example, the Aurora class cruiser has a stock Peak Performance Time of 420(blaze it) seconds, or 7 minutes.
Installing safety Overrides would cut your PPT down to 140 seconds but thru the help of Hardened Subsystems, an officer with Reliability Engineering and the Crew Training Skill the ACTUAL PPT of my Aurora is 232 seconds, wich is 65% MORE.

And it does not end there, oh no. This meager 65% extra PPT is not nearly close to what you can actually get. Crew Training starts getting diminishing returns when your combat ship recovery cost goes above 180 and I have 465, I have not yet given any of my overridden ship officers the elite status of System Expertise wich would also give 30 seconds of extra PPT. So it would not be disingenuous to state that you can easily double the PPT of an overridden ship with minimal effort.

And, AND I have not even yet covered the fact an Officered , Overridden ship usually has between 90 and 100% combat readiness at the start of the battle. Do you know how long a ship with a CR that high takes to go into malfunction territory with Hardened Subsystems?

Too long for every single enemy capital to not get a surprise,Heavy blaster-and Ion Cannon based colonoscopy, I'll tell you that much.

I agree with everything Dex is proposing here, as much as it pains me to potentially hurt my oh so dear crack&cocaine addicted horde of Overridden squirrels and badgers that is my fleet.

I will even go a step further with the side effects of using SO: in addition to have long term chances of gaining Dmods when a ship is deployed and overstays its welcome with Safety Overrides on, I would also add a much more likely chance of having the SO ships take light to moderate damage after battle if they have the Hullmod installed, wich would get even higher if said ships have not retreated and have their CR degrading as the battle ends.
« Last Edit: April 04, 2021, 06:30:17 AM by Arcagnello »
Logged
Arranging holidays in an embrace with the Starsector is priceless.
The therapist removed my F5 key.

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12118
    • View Profile
Re: SO nerf/rebalance
« Reply #33 on: April 04, 2021, 08:50:25 AM »

If there must be additional penalty, then instead of d-mods, how about doubling the CR cost of deploying the ship (while increasing recovery to fully or partially offset the increased deployment cost).  Turn them into hangar queens like Hyperion.

D-mods hurt (with no easy way to remove them) unless player is going for Derelict Contingent build.

P.S.  If there will be permanent d-mods that cannot be removed, they probably should be colored red instead of orange.
« Last Edit: April 04, 2021, 08:52:07 AM by Megas »
Logged

Dex

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 168
    • View Profile
Re: SO nerf/rebalance
« Reply #34 on: April 04, 2021, 09:21:05 AM »

Reducing max OP gets annoying UI-wise. All of a sudden you can't build-in SO unless you have OP room, that sort of thing. And while it might do the job mechanically, I think it'd feel kind of weird


I jusr re-read this and i may have mis understood, but just to clarify-

I meant that as a standard, when you try and attach SO, say it costs 30 OP, interface looks for 30 OP but actually subtracts 15 from total OP and add 15 OP to count. This is a net 0 change to SO as far as we are concerned.

If SO is built IN then it must already be attached to the ship and the OP must already be allocated. Upon building SO in instead of 30 OP gain, you gain 15 as your max OP has already been reduced by 15.

This means the interface wont ever require you to have extra OP available for you to 'build in' OS.

I dont know if im confused, or i confused the explanation with my 'efficient' use of words.
« Last Edit: April 04, 2021, 10:05:35 AM by Dex »
Logged

Sly

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 109
  • Afflicionado
    • View Profile
Re: SO nerf/rebalance
« Reply #35 on: April 04, 2021, 10:49:56 AM »

Forcing "Ill-Advised Modifications" onto a ship for building-in SO as a hullmod isn't a good idea. Taking control away from the player on a dice roll is never a good idea. I'd go so far as to say that "Ill-Advised Modifications" in general is due for an overhaul, and the new function of it should be what's suggested here: it randomly adds D-mods to a ship over time, rather than cause crippling malfunctions and rendering ships helpless. It might even be interesting to use it more frequently as a caveat in wrecks with built-in hullmods you find while exploring, or other custom variants that might pop up in the future.

Even after parsing the other options in the thread, I'm still adamant that the best option here is to gimp shield strength when SO is equipped. Even with reduced shield capacity, ships with SO are fast and have fantastic offensive potential. You could still tank fragmentation, high explosive, and the lighter energy weapons with no problem. A skilled pilot can dodge or armor tank a lot of kinetic weapons fire or circumvent it entirely.

I think it has been mentioned before that ships with SO are the candle that burn twice as bright. Well, in this way, you wouldn't just burn PPT faster - you'd need to burn your armor and potentially hull faster as well.

More risk, more reward.
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12118
    • View Profile
Re: SO nerf/rebalance
« Reply #36 on: April 04, 2021, 11:02:05 AM »

I would not use any ship with Ill-Advised Mods if it added d-mods after every fight unless I built for Derelict Contingent cheese.  d-mods are too hard or expensive to remove now, unlike last release when such ships could be replaced cheaply by building your own.
Logged

Dex

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 168
    • View Profile
Re: SO nerf/rebalance
« Reply #37 on: April 04, 2021, 11:08:10 AM »

Really, Megas? Id argue D-mods are much easier to remove. Of course it depends on your skills, but the fact remains there are more options now.
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12118
    • View Profile
Re: SO nerf/rebalance
« Reply #38 on: April 04, 2021, 11:13:45 AM »

The only new option is Field Repairs, which works way too slowly for more than one or two d-mods over months.

Restore is still very expensive, just like last release.  Usually a non-option.

If you had s-mods on the old ship, then if you replace it by buying or building a new one, that new ship does not have the s-mods from the old ship, and player will need to spend two or three more story points adding the s-mods back on the new ship.  Last release, there were no s-mods, so building new ships back then was effectively a much cheaper Restore.  Today, not anymore.
Logged

Sly

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 109
  • Afflicionado
    • View Profile
Re: SO nerf/rebalance
« Reply #39 on: April 04, 2021, 11:16:43 AM »

I'd rather that the D-mod wasn't applied by chance or a certainty after every battle. I would suggest that if a ship's hull reaches a certain threshold of damage, say 25-50%, there would then be a chance of a D-mod being applied to a ship. In this way, the player's performance is the deciding factor.
Logged

Dex

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 168
    • View Profile
Re: SO nerf/rebalance
« Reply #40 on: April 04, 2021, 12:10:31 PM »

Ah I see. Then it that case i agree with you, though i consider the s-modded ships not so much as things to be replaced if lost, but a shattered emotional investment.

RIP Feersum Endjinn you had the shiniest shine.

Though, this factor alone would be a way to discourage s-modding of SO, yes?

Truthfully, i never use SO as i like the joust, retreat, vent of standard combat. And as a big fan of piloting frigates and destroyers, short PPT is as standard.
Logged

FooF

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1378
    • View Profile
Re: SO nerf/rebalance
« Reply #41 on: April 04, 2021, 01:00:34 PM »

Ill-advised Modifications does make in-universe sense but it is extremely punishing if so.

Alternatively, I sort of like the idea of ships building-in SO being two seconds away from catastrophic meltdown. Perhaps the malus should be that if you build-in SO, the ship would become flat-out unrecoverable in the event of being disabled in battle? Kind of a high-risk, high-reward kind of thing? (It would probably just lead to save-scumming but a red-text warning that building-in SO will result in permanent loss of a ship if destroyed is pretty dire.)

I agree that SO itself isn't the issue. It's getting the OP to spend on top of SO's bonuses.
Logged

Thaago

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 7174
  • Harpoon Affectionado
    • View Profile
Re: SO nerf/rebalance
« Reply #42 on: April 04, 2021, 01:11:44 PM »

How about SO removes shields? Though for low tech ships that can be a buff so maybe not. But one of the huge issues with SO is that the ships are suddenly immune to beams and regenerate shield hitpoints so much faster. EG: centurion with SO, it hits the damper field and its essentially got the whole flux bar back by the time the damper is done.
Logged

Dex

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 168
    • View Profile
Re: SO nerf/rebalance
« Reply #43 on: April 04, 2021, 01:21:12 PM »

Jumping on the back of Thaago, figuratively

SO currently increases dissipation which impacts shield effectiveness. Perhaps drop the dissipation increase completely (somewhat?) and reduce all weapon flux generation to a, i dunno, 25%? You get mega shooty and more glass cannony. Keep the speed.

I feel like this probably has been mentioned somewhen before.
« Last Edit: April 04, 2021, 01:23:44 PM by Dex »
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12118
    • View Profile
Re: SO nerf/rebalance
« Reply #44 on: April 04, 2021, 01:25:59 PM »

No shields would make SO ships easier to use.  I usually drop shields by venting, which SO blocks.  It is such an annoyance that I usually refuse to pilot SO ships unless I have hard-flux dissipation from the shield skill.  I max flux bar, try to vent, but fail, waste a few seconds remembering to right-click the mouse to drop shields, then let the ship dissipate.  Annoying.

Of course, if SO takes away shields, then it should buff other defenses too.
Logged
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 ... 7