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

Author Topic: Re: Player controlled phase ships, not a bit unfair, but extremely unfair  (Read 1458 times)

Badger

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Just want to add to the 'anti phase ship' contingent.

I didn't bother using them because they seem overpowered. Got the Ziggurat and gave it a try. It's a cool ship and all but extremely broken and makes the game a snoozefest. Uncloak, fire, cloak, recharge, uncloak, fire, cloak, recharge...

I realize the Zigg is the 'super' cloaky ship with a very low cooldown but the phase mechanic just seems cheesy in general. There is no real counter and you are 100% safe in phase.

Going to leave it in the hanger and as a previous poster said continue playing the game as if phase ships didn't exist.
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Retry

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This thread was three years ago.  Two updates ago...
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Vextor

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There is no real counter and you are 100% safe in phase.
Yeah, situations where the entire map is dotted with pilums. 3 frigates and a few swarms of fighters are chasing you totally don't exist.
Also if you haven't found the weakness of Zigg just proves you haven't actually got into real trouble.

Cheesing and minmaxing should be present in all singleplayer games, but it's senseless to pretend it ruins the game since nobody is forcing anybody to cheese and minmax. So yeah, leave it in your hangar and quit asking for nerfs. Go play low tech.
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Badger

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There is no real counter and you are 100% safe in phase.
Yeah, situations where the entire map is dotted with pilums. 3 frigates and a few swarms of fighters are chasing you totally don't exist.

Yeah, they totally don't  ;D. And if trying to think of farfetched possible scenarios where the Ziggurat wouldn't be ideal and failing doesn't show that it is broken I don't know what would. Jeez frigates and fighters pop like corn in front of the Zigg. It is not prohibited from having PD and other ships in the fleet you may have noticed?

Yeah after soloing several fleets including the 'end bosses' and mod content having not flown any phase ship before I can safely say I have not run into 'real trouble' yet.

It seems I hit a sore spot. I'm sorry to have to point out your favorite no-skill-required toy is unbalanced but there you go, deal with it. Not sure why the attitude but here is some back.

Cheesing and minmaxing should be present in all singleplayer games, but it's senseless to pretend it ruins the game since nobody is forcing anybody to cheese and minmax.

This is a nonsense argument refuted 1000 times that no longer needs a response.

This thread was three years ago.  Two updates ago...

And what has changed since?

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Vextor

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Yeah, they totally don't  ;D. And if trying to think of farfetched possible scenarios where the Ziggurat wouldn't be ideal and failing doesn't show that it is broken I don't know what would. Jeez frigates and fighters pop like corn in front of the Zigg. It is not prohibited from having PD and other ships in the fleet you may have noticed?

Yeah after soloing several fleets including the 'end bosses' and mod content having not flown any phase ship before I can safely say I have not run into 'real trouble' yet.

It seems I hit a sore spot. I'm sorry to have to point out your favorite no-skill-required toy is unbalanced but there you go, deal with it. Not sure why the attitude but here is some back.
Some? The way you cranked it up to 11, it seems it's I who seems to have hit a sore spot. Nerfs tend to have a snowball effect, so I'm against all nerfs usually, but especially in SP games.
And by the way, I only used Zigg once, then I put it in the hangar. I don't use phase ships.

This is a nonsense argument refuted 1000 times that no longer needs a response.
I gladly accept your concession.
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Thaago

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I split the thread off: for this forum, please start new topics instead of posting in old ones if the topic is more than a year without posts (no necroing). If you want to refer to old posts, the "Insert Quote" button will generate a quoted text block (with link) that you can then copy paste into the new post.
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Badger

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Yeah, they totally don't  ;D. And if trying to think of farfetched possible scenarios where the Ziggurat wouldn't be ideal and failing doesn't show that it is broken I don't know what would. Jeez frigates and fighters pop like corn in front of the Zigg. It is not prohibited from having PD and other ships in the fleet you may have noticed?

Yeah after soloing several fleets including the 'end bosses' and mod content having not flown any phase ship before I can safely say I have not run into 'real trouble' yet.

It seems I hit a sore spot. I'm sorry to have to point out your favorite no-skill-required toy is unbalanced but there you go, deal with it. Not sure why the attitude but here is some back.
Some? The way you cranked it up to 11, it seems it's I who seems to have hit a sore spot. Nerfs tend to have a snowball effect, so I'm against all nerfs usually, but especially in SP games.
And by the way, I only used Zigg once, then I put it in the hangar. I don't use phase ships.

This is a nonsense argument refuted 1000 times that no longer needs a response.
I gladly accept your concession.


Your post was 'No nerfs, go play low-tech'. This is not a serious response.

Being 'against nerfs' doesn't have any game design consequences. It is like being for good things and against bad things.

'Balance doesn't matter in single-player games, you can just ignore the unbalanced aspects' is a bad and lazy argument. Balance very obviously does matter. Why are there no popular single player games, or popular mods for single player games, that add an easily obtainable weapon that does 4 billion damage and deletes everything hostile on the screen with no cooldown and no other drawbacks? Because that would be unbalanced and make the game less fun. It undermines directly what makes the game fun - varying strategies without one being obviously superior i.e. giving the player interesting decisions i.e. balance.

'Just don't use it' would not be a useful response to the existence of such a weapon in a base game (it would be a better response to its inclusion in a mod - 'Just don't install it', and nobody would, except 8 year olds for 5 minutes).

Popular and good single player games are always well balanced. Poorly balanced games fade into obscurity quickly. Starsector isn't any different, it's a good game and needs to be kept good through, yes, nerfing overpowered mechanics.

« Last Edit: May 23, 2021, 06:46:19 PM by Badger »
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KDR_11k

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The Zig is a deliberately overpowered superweapon. Of course all your base are belong to it.
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SCC

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You don't even need Ziggurat, Doom is enough to kill everything.

Badger

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Yes the point of the original thread was the phase mechanic in general. I commented on the Zigg because it is the only one I have tried but there is plenty of discussion there re Doom, Harbinger etc.

The phase mechanic providing complete invulnerability is the root of the issue I think. This can be exacerbated by other things like low cooldown or systems like Harbinger's unavoidable stun but the phasing itself is suspect. It's always difficult to incorporate cloaking and make it interesting while not uncounterable.

I'm sure many here will have played Starfleet Command. There you also can still see the ships (cloaky outline), but cloaked ships are slower (from lack of power), not faster. They cannot be targeted by seeking weapons, but do take a minimal amount of damage from direct fire, and can be 'flashed' by mines detonated in the vicinity, revealing them for a moment and making them vulnerable.

I'm not suggesting copy/pasting mechanics but it's just an example of how cloaking can be implemented without it being so different from the other game rules it's like playing something else. This is an issue for the AI also, they happily fire away at phase ships they cannot damage while building up flux.

Phased ships taking some kind of minimal soft-flux damage, as if they were using very efficient 360 degree shields while phased, might be an option and there were suggestions to this effect in the original thread. I am not sure on solutions and there may be much better ones, just don't think the current phasing is very interesting personally.
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