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Author Topic: Skill Changes, Part 1  (Read 29141 times)

Megas

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #45 on: July 02, 2021, 07:19:58 PM »

For me, the biggest draw of Neural Link is the combination with Automated Ships, making NPC ships (especially Radiant) fully playable.  Not sure I want to sink that many points for that.

The capstone I am most interested in is Hull Restoration.  Looks like a buffed version of current Field Repairs, with faster d-mod removal, less chance of d-mod acquisition, and more max CR per s-mod.  If this changes acceptable casualties from none or minimal to half a fleet wipe, this would be a huge QoL feature (no need to reload if a two s-mod capital dies and acquires two or more d-mods that costs close to a million credits to restore).  Who needs flawless victories to profit if player can laugh off minor to moderate casualties and fully resurrect after battle?

The other skill I would still have great interest in is Automated Ships because I feel compelled to capture AI ships, but that is only possible with Automated Ships.
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Mordodrukow

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #46 on: July 02, 2021, 07:48:27 PM »

I like the changes, but i have some questions:
1) will my alter-ship (i m talking about Neural link, ofc) act like regular ally while i am piloting first one?
2) is it possible to add an order specially for alter-ship "stay exactly where i leave you, just keep shields up and fire at everything that moves"?
3) will enemy have any of top tier skills? I hope not, because i m pretty tired of enemies (especially Alphas) having literally every skill that matters in combat and infinite money/supplies.

IMO:
Neural link just great.
And yes, i ll vent em, because come on! He can fly circles completely hidden behind your shield for almost a minute and then be like "hey! I can vent!" And few minutes after: "I have 30% flux, lets eat that reaper!" Jesus Christ...

Best of the best is... well... best of the best now? +1 S mod was good enough, and now you giving me 10% extra dp? But yes, it mostly depends on the quality of low-tier leadership skills. Entire Tech line was great. Leadership... old one was not that appealing for me.

Hull restoration literally gives you 10% bonus CR. 15% sometimes. Thats it. Quality of life is good, but why build around taking losses if you can invest points into another skills and dont take losses? My endgame in last playthrough was like: deploy Odyssey or Paragon, solo them all. Sometimes deploy few support ships at the end of the fight. Now i can use two ships, so...

Other skills less appealing for me, so, i dont know what to say about them. Just wanna see how Derelict Operations will interact with Ship&Weapon pack mod's special bounties. Like 8 D-mods per ship...  ;D
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #47 on: July 02, 2021, 07:54:50 PM »

What about new strikecraft skills?
Anyway, what will take up Strike Commander's bonuses?
« Last Edit: July 02, 2021, 08:08:51 PM by SonnaBanana »
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Alex

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #48 on: July 02, 2021, 08:12:06 PM »

The capstone I am most interested in is Hull Restoration.  Looks like a buffed version of current Field Repairs, with faster d-mod removal, less chance of d-mod acquisition, and more max CR per s-mod.  If this changes acceptable casualties from none or minimal to half a fleet wipe, this would be a huge QoL feature (no need to reload if a two s-mod capital dies and acquires two or more d-mods that costs close to a million credits to restore).  Who needs flawless victories to profit if player can laugh off minor to moderate casualties and fully resurrect after battle?

Indeed!

1) will my alter-ship (i m talking about Neural link, ofc) act like regular ally while i am piloting first one?

Yep.

2) is it possible to add an order specially for alter-ship "stay exactly where i leave you, just keep shields up and fire at everything that moves"?

You could right-click it onto a "rally task force" or give it an escort order or some such.

3) will enemy have any of top tier skills? I hope not, because i m pretty tired of enemies (especially Alphas) having literally every skill that matters in combat and infinite money/supplies.

Some/sometimes. In particular Hegemony commanders can have Support Doctrine; at this point I think that's all of it, but that might change.

Best of the best is... well... best of the best now? +1 S mod was good enough, and now you giving me 10% extra dp?

Well, it's not quite an extra 10% - you could get that from capturing a pair of objectives. You just get it faster - i.e. instantly - this way.

Hull restoration literally gives you 10% bonus CR. 15% sometimes. Thats it. Quality of life is good, but why build around taking losses if you can invest points into another skills and dont take losses?

Conversely, why *not* build around it and have more resilience, if the losses don't matter much? You could do different things with the ships, much more aggressive strategies/builds/etc. I can definitely see why it looks this way - like a QoL skill that makes you lose less and why lose at all when you don't have to? - but I think it actually enables different strategies that might be more effective but commonly discounted because they can lead to more losses than is normally considered acceptable.


What about new strikecraft skills?
Anyway, what will take up Strike Commander's bonuses?

*crickets*

(IIRC part of the bonus moved to Fighter Uplink...)
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CrashToDesktop

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #49 on: July 02, 2021, 08:21:20 PM »

So, with the removal of Strike Commander, will there be any point to putting an officer on a dedicated carrier anymore? Like a Heron or a Drover - their main weapons are their fighters, not their guns. From the looks of it, there's no officer skills that actually buff fighters, so there's little to no point to putting an officer on these ships.
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #50 on: July 02, 2021, 08:26:05 PM »

If strikecraft get bonuses from Weapon Drills now, I'm happy.
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Megas

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #51 on: July 02, 2021, 08:36:58 PM »

Quote
I can definitely see why it looks this way - like a QoL skill that makes you lose less and why lose at all when you don't have to?
Because when player fights as a fleet, it is not always possible for everyone (you or AI) to play perfectly and win flawlessly.  If a single casualty (caused by dumb AI or pilot error) results in a pyrrhic victory, such that the player must spend more money than the reward, then it is effectively a loss and a reload.  If that happens often (because the enemy levels up faster than you can and you are forced to fight at a disadvantage, or you fight overpowered enemies like Radiants or Tesseracts), it gets frustrating.  However, if the player can fight, die, and shrug off and recover from several casualties at negligible cost, then the pressure for perfect play becomes much less or gone altogether, and reloading after a casualty or two is no longer necessary.

And cheap and easy recovery is very useful for unique or limited ships like Ziggurat.  Player must kill it first then recover it.  If player wants to restore it normally at a dock, it costs over 1.5M credits for the job.  No way I am paying that much!  I will take the skill the removes d-mods and repair Z for free.
« Last Edit: July 02, 2021, 08:40:50 PM by Megas »
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FooF

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #52 on: July 02, 2021, 08:39:03 PM »

Every blog post is a gem. Just FYI :)

A lot to digest here!

Overall: What I really like is the hybrid approach (i.e. broad choices of .9 and Tiered & either/or of .95) but not only that, each Tree tier is as independent as it needs to be to make the choices meaningful. Combat having 8 skills to start is needed. Some people will value one thing over another based both on personal preference and flagship choice. The binary system we have currently had meaningful choice but they were, as mentioned in the blog post, arbitrarily restrictive. Having the Top Tier choices play well with one another is an interesting design choice and I like how you started with a 'baseline' of "Extra S-Mod" (which is great) or "Alpha-Cored Radiant" (god-like). That makes every aptitude capstone (except Combat) feel like a true payoff. But then you went a step further and thought "But's lets synergize the cap stones!" and it went off the rails, in a good way!

Of the Top Tier choices right now, the only one that seems "less than" is Hull Restoration and only because it seems the primary boon is inverted relative to the difficulty curve. When I *want* the skill is early game when I don't have money, generally have more D-mods I'd love to get rid of, and need to squeeze a little extra juice out of my clunkers (via CR boost). It also allows my inferior fleet to take losses and I don't feel like I'm unduly punished. Now, granted, I want that also once I get my fleet in tip-top shape but unless I'm fighting full Ordos or multiple $300k bounties simultaneously (like I just did last night)...I don't tend to lose many ships. The primary benefit of the skill is greatly reduced once I'm at end-game. Now if I bee-line for it, I could probably get 5 skill points before I leave Corvus but that means I don't have any other skills outside of Industry and I don't know if Hull Restoration is worth that much. It's one of those skills that pays the most dividends if taken early and is used throughout the playthrough, not as a capstone. Contrast this to Automated Ships where you probably wouldn't even want the skill all that early because there won't be any Remnats or Derelicts to use it on until late.

I think the same could also be said of Derelict Operations because if you're going to go the "junk fleet" route, you'd probably want to make that decision early. Up until you get that particular skill, d-mods are almost a complete liability and the player is incentivized to avoid them when possible. Now an early/small fleet won't see a great benefit from the lowered deployment costs, true, but you won't be penalized along the way if that's the goal you're shooting for from the beginning. As it is, you have to roll with your junk fleet until you hit 5 skill points in Industry and all of a sudden you can deploy 50% more of them.

Strangely, I almost feel like the Top Tier Industry skills ought to be more of an early game pick than late. That also might make Industry more enticing if the Top Tier skills were somehow available earlier than the other aptitudes. (Maybe a "loan" system where you can take them whenever but you have to pay back the skill point "debt" in a prescribed manner like forced Industry picks at least every other skill point choice). Maybe I'm making much ado of nothing but those are very interesting skills that seem more tailor-made for the early game rather than late. But I digress...

Neural Link is bonkers. Just straight-up, bonkers. I saw the Twitter and thought "wtf" but now that it's explained, it's even more crazy than I imagined. It does reward Combat skills and that I can 100% get behind. I think Combat needed some more synergy with the other trees. Is it as powerful as having an Alpha-Core Radiant in your fleet (which is 60 DP now! Much-needed)? With my current piloting (which is pretty good but not Helmut), I think I could take advantage of the skill but I go to other forums and I can't tell you how many people leave their piloting to the AI. This skill will have little/no use for the player who tends to watch the battles and direct vs. directly pilot. For me personally, I think this is a cool and, again, bonkers skill but I know there will be some that immediately pass on it because they don't feel they have the skill to exploit it.

Best of the Best is probably the "safest" choice of the bunch. As long as Story Points flow like water early (and are you happy with the rate of their acquisition or is that also changing?) and players horde them, dumping 3 points into flagships and officered ships will seem like a logical choice to maximize combat effectiveness. Now that it's in Leadership (not Tech), that makes it a bit different but there's a ton of good offerings in Leadership along the way so I don't have an issue with that particular change.

Finally, Support Doctrine is the one that probably intrigues me the most because I usually run pretty lean on un-officered ships but the ones I do use are usually higher end frigates or support Destroyers like Sunders. By end-game, I might have an unofficered Cruiser or two. This skill boosts their effectiveness a little but it also gives me reason to pack more of my fleet with support craft, in general (hence the name). Bringing more along will help even the fight when I'm outnumbered and yes, if it means I can deploy an extra Cruiser and Destroyer due to the savings, that is kind of a big deal. I don't know if I'd ever un-officer a Capital just to switch to it and game the system but I like that's where your mind went!

Really good stuff. I'm also curious about what wasn't talked about...but all in due time I'm sure.

« Last Edit: July 02, 2021, 08:41:03 PM by FooF »
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Rojnaz

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #53 on: July 02, 2021, 08:41:17 PM »

Derelict Operations sounds like fun!

Is there a way to reduce the negative effect of D-mods on a desired ship?
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Alex

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #54 on: July 02, 2021, 09:02:09 PM »

So, with the removal of Strike Commander, will there be any point to putting an officer on a dedicated carrier anymore? Like a Heron or a Drover - their main weapons are their fighters, not their guns. From the looks of it, there's no officer skills that actually buff fighters, so there's little to no point to putting an officer on these ships.

Point Defense still applies. To be fair, though, I'm not sure how of a difference "an officer with 2 useful skills" vs "an officer with 1 useful" skill is - it's still a waste of more than half the officer - and besides, you could get Helmsmanship now (which you'd have a hard time getting alongside Strike Commander?) and that's a handy skill for carriers.

If strikecraft get bonuses from Weapon Drills now, I'm happy.

They don't! General-purpose fleetwide buffs don't apply to fighters unless they specifically say they do.

Quote
I can definitely see why it looks this way - like a QoL skill that makes you lose less and why lose at all when you don't have to?
Because when player fights as a fleet, it is not always possible for everyone (you or AI) to play perfectly and win flawlessly.  If a single casualty (caused by dumb AI or pilot error) results in a pyrrhic victory, such that the player must spend more money than the reward, then it is effectively a loss and a reload.  If that happens often (because the enemy levels up faster than you can and you are forced to fight at a disadvantage, or you fight overpowered enemies like Radiants or Tesseracts), it gets frustrating.  However, if the player can fight, die, and shrug off and recover from several casualties at negligible cost, then the pressure for perfect play becomes much less or gone altogether, and reloading after a casualty or two is no longer necessary.

That's absolutely true too, yeah. But nonetheless, skills that require you to plan for some degree of failure are psychologically often a harder sell.


Every blog post is a gem. Just FYI :)

Ahh, thank you so much! <3


Of the Top Tier choices right now, the only one that seems "less than" is Hull Restoration and only because it seems the primary boon is inverted relative to the difficulty curve. When I *want* the skill is early game when I don't have money, generally have more D-mods I'd love to get rid of, and need to squeeze a little extra juice out of my clunkers (via CR boost). It also allows my inferior fleet to take losses and I don't feel like I'm unduly punished. Now, granted, I want that also once I get my fleet in tip-top shape but unless I'm fighting full Ordos or multiple $300k bounties simultaneously (like I just did last night)...I don't tend to lose many ships. The primary benefit of the skill is greatly reduced once I'm at end-game. Now if I bee-line for it, I could probably get 5 skill points before I leave Corvus but that means I don't have any other skills outside of Industry and I don't know if Hull Restoration is worth that much. It's one of those skills that pays the most dividends if taken early and is used throughout the playthrough, not as a capstone. Contrast this to Automated Ships where you probably wouldn't even want the skill all that early because there won't be any Remnats or Derelicts to use it on until late.

I think the same could also be said of Derelict Operations because if you're going to go the "junk fleet" route, you'd probably want to make that decision early. Up until you get that particular skill, d-mods are almost a complete liability and the player is incentivized to avoid them when possible. Now an early/small fleet won't see a great benefit from the lowered deployment costs, true, but you won't be penalized along the way if that's the goal you're shooting for from the beginning. As it is, you have to roll with your junk fleet until you hit 5 skill points in Industry and all of a sudden you can deploy 50% more of them.

Strangely, I almost feel like the Top Tier Industry skills ought to be more of an early game pick than late. That also might make Industry more enticing if the Top Tier skills were somehow available earlier than the other aptitudes. (Maybe a "loan" system where you can take them whenever but you have to pay back the skill point "debt" in a prescribed manner like forced Industry picks at least every other skill point choice). Maybe I'm making much ado of nothing but those are very interesting skills that seem more tailor-made for the early game rather than late. But I digress...

Hmm. As I touched on a couple of posts ago, I think an "active" but non-obvious strength of Hull Restoration is enabling riskier strategies that may also be more effective. And for Derelict Operations, having more DP is such a huge deal late-game! So I think this is more a case of both of those skills *also* being really appealing early on. Which - I mean, I think Industry is a pretty good tree to beeline early! Ramp up your salvage and ship recovery, get some decent combat skills, improve your fleet's efficiency (fuel, supplies, or both), and by that point you can pick the top-tier skill.

Neural Link is bonkers. Just straight-up, bonkers. I saw the Twitter and thought "wtf" but now that it's explained, it's even more crazy than I imagined. It does reward Combat skills and that I can 100% get behind. I think Combat needed some more synergy with the other trees. Is it as powerful as having an Alpha-Core Radiant in your fleet (which is 60 DP now! Much-needed)? With my current piloting (which is pretty good but not Helmut), I think I could take advantage of the skill but I go to other forums and I can't tell you how many people leave their piloting to the AI. This skill will have little/no use for the player who tends to watch the battles and direct vs. directly pilot. For me personally, I think this is a cool and, again, bonkers skill but I know there will be some that immediately pass on it because they don't feel they have the skill to exploit it.

Yeah, I hear you. I think it might still have some appeal with a safer two-capital approach? But, yeah, an Alpha Radiant is probably better in that kind of scenario.


Best of the Best is probably the "safest" choice of the bunch. As long as Story Points flow like water early (and are you happy with the rate of their acquisition or is that also changing?)

I've increased the XP to get from level 1 to 5 a decent amount, and from 5 to 10 by a smaller amount. Nothing drastic, though. Oh, also - only of interest for modded games, but raising the level cap will no longer mess with the SP gain rate once you reach max level.


Finally, Support Doctrine is the one that probably intrigues me the most because I usually run pretty lean on un-officered ships but the ones I do use are usually higher end frigates or support Destroyers like Sunders. By end-game, I might have an unofficered Cruiser or two. This skill boosts their effectiveness a little but it also gives me reason to pack more of my fleet with support craft, in general (hence the name). Bringing more along will help even the fight when I'm outnumbered and yes, if it means I can deploy an extra Cruiser and Destroyer due to the savings, that is kind of a big deal. I don't know if I'd ever un-officer a Capital just to switch to it and game the system but I like that's where your mind went!

(I so used to be that type of player, as far as going for the optimal/exploity things. Still am to some degree, I suppose :) )

Really good stuff. I'm also curious about what wasn't talked about...but all in due time I'm sure.

Part to is more of an, ah, smorgasbord, though about the same length.


Derelict Operations sounds like fun!

Is there a way to reduce the negative effect of D-mods on a desired ship?

Well - you can restore the ship and remove the d-mods :) More seriously, though, no - I think combined with Derelict Operations, that would be too strong. It's a conscious choice for that skill to enable "more worse ships" and I don't want to take away from that.
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CrashToDesktop

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #55 on: July 02, 2021, 09:18:46 PM »

Point Defense still applies. To be fair, though, I'm not sure how of a difference "an officer with 2 useful skills" vs "an officer with 1 useful" skill is - it's still a waste of more than half the officer - and besides, you could get Helmsmanship now (which you'd have a hard time getting alongside Strike Commander?) and that's a handy skill for carriers.
Well, the bonuses from Point Defense and Missile Specialization along with the damage bonus from Strike Commander were enough to make a reasonably dedicated carrier officer, what with extra range, bonus damage vs fighters and destroyers+, and better missiles. With the removal of Strike Commander, it's really just not worth it anymore. If it was a bad idea to put an officer in a carrier before, now it's even more so. Feels weird to have an entire class of ship just be a no-go for officers, but if that's the intent, then alright.

And Helmsmanship good on carriers now? I'm guessing there are changes to how getting the skill's 0-flux boost works, because currently, that bonus gets removed when setting fighters to Engage.
« Last Edit: July 02, 2021, 09:23:39 PM by The Soldier »
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Cathair

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #56 on: July 02, 2021, 11:08:23 PM »

That's a really interesting way to look at it! And a neat categorization/split. But, does it actually hold up? If we consider "making a ship the best it can be" to mean "if you take it and put into a fleet without the same commander skills, it'll still be better" then I think Special Modifications is literally the only skill that fits the bill. I'm having a hard time seeing how one could come up with a reasonable definition of this that would somehow make skills liks Crew Training, Carrier Group, Fighter Uplink, Flux Regulation, and Phase Corps qualitatively different.

I *think* the way you're thinking about this might be largely driven by the existence of Special Modifications and where it currently is.

Hmmm. I admit, skills like Weapon Drills or Carrier Group could be made Technology skills, and Electronic Warfare could be made a Leadership skill, with nothing but a change of flavor text. They aren't qualitatively different. However, most of these skills have an additional component that seems to fit a common theme for their tree- like Wolfpack Tactics' damage bonus being conditional on such a high level of abstraction that it seems easier to explain as the result of crew tactics, rather than an immutable property of the machine; or Phase Corps having a flux generation reduction that seems more like a product of per-ship tweaking than something a crew could do with sheer operational skill.

I think the way I look at this is driven by the trees in 0.8 and 0.9, where Tech was "where you go for more vents, caps, and ordnance points"- the stuff that would make ships better even without the same commander skills, as you say. While 0.9.5 has made the distinction muddier, to me it felt like it maintained the same spirit, with Special Modifications being the prime example. It's less that my biases were formed by Special Modifications, and more that Special Modifications being where it is reinforced my existing bias from years of playing the older versions.

I'm not saying that redefining the trees by a more strictly game-mechanics-driven meta-organization is wrong or anything, I just don't like it as much as what we're used to. I suspect that Technology will still be the player's first stop if they want to make their ships into hotrods (now that I'm thinking about it, will Tech still have a +10/10 vents/caps skill?), and having the ultimate hotrod skill in a different tree, one that feels less focused on this kind of tweaking, seems pretty weird when you're not looking at it in relation to the whole design philosophy.


But in general, the idea is that you *are* mostly using officer'ed ships, with non-officered ones thrown in for special purposes. So it's less of a band-aid for and issue an more just things working as intended.

(Yes, I'm probably trying to have my cake and eat it too, here - "you can use unofficered ships!" and "it's fine if they aren't any good". Uh, sorry.)

Well, that's kinda what I was getting at, trying to determine just how much officerless ships are supposed to be worth. "Speedbump" may be overly dismissive, but what I mean is, I find them good only for delaying the enemy while my "real" ships finish whatever else they're doing, and they often get chewed up while doing so. I do use some un-officered ships out of necessity (not just Omens, haha), but the few times I've been desperate enough to expect them to actually kill anything, it's been pretty rough.

That's fine if it's supposed to be this way, but with the sheer number of enemies (in the case of high-end bounties) or overpowered officer swarms (in the case of Remnants) we can get thrown at us now, it leads to wondering whether I'm supposed to be getting more help from them than I am. And when there's a single option to make the support fodder actually effective at being support fodder, it seems like the kind of thing that I'll either always take, or else learn to cope without and never take, in favor of other top-tiers that open up new playstyles instead of salvaging questionable existing mechanics.

One other thing that I dislike about the current officer dominance is how it gravitates naturally toward running multiple capital ships. It seems like everyone who's serious about getting things done in "endgame" is running three or four or more, and it makes sense as the objective best choice for maximizing your gain from each limited officer slot, while still having some left over for Wolfpack Tactics frigates or whatever. I like a capital anchor or two but I prefer smaller ships, and I'm only hampering myself with that idiosyncrasy. Is it okay to need a top-tier skill just to effectively go wide instead of tall? I don't know.


Hmm, I think what you're saying you'd want to use Neural Link for is the sort of micromanagement that I super don't want it to be used for :) Like, if we're not careful with it, it becomes a "cycle through your ships and tell them to vent" sort of skill and that doesn't sound like much fun.

Ah, I should've noted in my hypothetical rework that I'm fine with the limited target numbers as stated. As a player, I like having micro options a lot more than you do as a designer, but even so, feeling like I'm not getting the most out of my fleet if I'm not giving myself whiplash seems exhausting. I'm okay with switching between two, or at most, three ships.

When I wrote that about getting ships out of trouble, I had missed the part where the switching requires a hullmod (not sure how, not like it wasn't clear), and was under the impression that you would just select any officer-less ship on the field, but wouldn't be able to make a third ship switchable after making your choice for that engagement. So my thoughts about wanting to micromanage officered ships with it don't make much sense; there wouldn't be much reason to keep an officer in a ship that you're modding for this beforehand.


Hah! I need to play more of that game. Just couldn't get into it using a mouse, though...

It's comfortable to play on a gamepad, but my ability to aim with a thumbstick has deteriorated so much since the old days of Xbox Halo that even with aim assist, I end up falling back to the mouse for the harder challenges. :P
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Mordodrukow

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #57 on: July 02, 2021, 11:42:27 PM »

Quote
You could right-click it onto a "rally task force" or give it an escort order or some such.
*Sad solo player noices*
Quote
I think it actually enables different strategies that might be more effective but commonly discounted because they can lead to more losses than is normally considered acceptable
I guess, you are right. It might work for a fleets of many small ships.

Also i noticed... I never used 3rd S-mod on Paragon. The only (useful) 40-point mod left was Heavy armor, and i was not quite sure i will not want to remove it. So, may be Best of the best is not an autopick...

Need to wait till all skills will be revealed.

P.S. Hope Systems spec will remain the same (or become better). It is pretty good on Odyssey and Fury. Maybe on some other ships too, idk  ;D
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Vanshilar

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #58 on: July 03, 2021, 12:45:53 AM »

Some notes/analysis on the blog post:

* With the change to the skill system, from a design perspective, it also means that now there's no need to keep each aptitude at 10 skills each. You certainly can, for symmetry purposes, but might be something to keep in mind if you're having trouble trying to balance out all the different aptitudes.

* Combat tree: Interesting that it is just 2 tiers. I think though that it may be necessary to cater to as many different player playstyles for their flagship as possible, to have so many skills as tier 1 -- so that there are as few restrictions as practical.

* Best of the Best: For late-game battles (or where I'm farming for that +500% XP), generally my fleet is 40% of battlesize with the enemy at 60%, then I grab some objectives early to get an additional +15% so I'm at 55% of battlesize (I find that planning around getting the full +20% is usually too difficult). So this means that it'll now be that I start with 50% of battlesize and just need another 10% to get the full 60%. So this should make the endgame easier; I can size my fleet knowing I can deploy 60% to their 60%, instead of my 55% to their 60% of battlesize.

This, combined with Radiants having their DP increased to 60 DP, might actually make endgame fights too trivial.

To give a concrete example: Currently, I size my fleet so that the Remnants can have at most 4 Radiants on the battlefield at one time. Thus, 60% of battlesize < 200 DP (the cost of 5 Radiants), so battlesize max is 330, so my fleet, at 55% of that, can have at most 182 DP. So 2 Dooms and 7 Furies (175 DP) fit the bill, and is enough to handle 2 Ordos fairly easily and 3 Ordos fleets with some difficulty (no real need to do 3 at once, since I max out the +500% XP bonus with 2 Ordos fleets, this is simply what it's capable of). With the new changes, including that a Radiant costs 60 DP, then I could theoretically set the battlesize up to 490 (I know, it's capped at 400), and have a fleet of up to 294 DP, and still only deal with 4 Radiants at once. Or more likely, I change the battlesize to 290 (so that they're limited to 2 Radiants at once), and use this same fleet except probably change a Fury out for something cheaper or have one be unofficered, and use this same fleet. It'll steamroll through 2 simultaneous Radiants easily when it can currently handle 4 -- so the endgame fight will become much easier.

* Hull Restoration vs Derelict Operations: Both are interesting; would there be a way to disable Hull Restoration's d-mod-repairing ability? Since not all d-mods are terrible; so I could see some advantage to ships having d-mods "on purpose" to reduce their deployment cost, plus with s-mods for the extra CR. After all, not all d-mods are debilitating. (My flagship having Compromised Hull is something I don't mind, since if I'm taking hull damage then I'm likely doing something wrong in the first place.) Or I don't know if this is intentionally closed off as a fleet composition trick.

* What will happen in terms of enemy fleet commanders having the same skills? For example if they have Support Doctrine and/or Derelict Operations, then they can potentially actually deploy more ships than they can now.

If you put a Neural Interface on a ship module (on a ship added by a mod, presumably, since there are no player-ownable ships with modules in the base game), will you be able to control that module directly?

Oh, huh, neat question! I *think* so? That's kind of cool, actually, if that works, I can see being a "gunner" be a fun alternate take on things.

Actually, I think a concern may be -- which may crash the game if it's not coded around -- what happens if some mod author puts Neural Interface on a module for a station? But yes, if it ends up on a ship's module, then would the ship still be piloted by the AI yet the human controlling the guns, etc. Haha there may be all sorts of potential crash issues if this isn't planned for in the code.

But limiting it to non-officered ships nixes most of its defensive potential, that of repositioning your most important ships to get them out of trouble, since anything really important is going to have an officer in it.

Keep in mind that that the other ship also has all your combat skills, so it's effectively a "super officer ship" just like your flagship (i.e. in that the player character can get a lot more combat skills than regular officers), just that it's under AI control while you're not controlling it. Hopefully the game allows for selecting the personality of this ship while it's under AI control (maybe via your fleet doctrine tab?).

Well, that's kinda what I was getting at, trying to determine just how much officerless ships are supposed to be worth. "Speedbump" may be overly dismissive, but what I mean is, I find them good only for delaying the enemy while my "real" ships finish whatever else they're doing, and they often get chewed up while doing so. I do use some un-officered ships out of necessity (not just Omens, haha), but the few times I've been desperate enough to expect them to actually kill anything, it's been pretty rough.

In which case this will make them worth a lot more, since all these skills (Helmsmanship, Damage Control, Combat Endurance) affect their "tankiness". Having more distractions on your side means it splits up the enemy fleet more, allowing your "real" ships to dispatch them more easily.

One other thing that I dislike about the current officer dominance is how it gravitates naturally toward running multiple capital ships. It seems like everyone who's serious about getting things done in "endgame" is running three or four or more, and it makes sense as the objective best choice for maximizing your gain from each limited officer slot, while still having some left over for Wolfpack Tactics frigates or whatever. I like a capital anchor or two but I prefer smaller ships, and I'm only hampering myself with that idiosyncrasy. Is it okay to need a top-tier skill just to effectively go wide instead of tall? I don't know.

I've never found it necessary to spam capitals or even use capitals at all. In 0.9.1a of course it was all Drovers except my flagship (which was either Aurora, the boss Medusa from the Ship & Weapon Pack, or the superfrigate Brave Blade from DME). Currently my fleet is 2 Dooms and 7 Furies. There are lots of other fleet compositions that work well, which don't use any capital ships (nor frigates).

Capital ships get surrounded easily, especially versus Remnants. They're nice against paper tissue fleets like pirates, where they can kill ships as they close in, but falter against more hardy fleets. They have a low flux per DP ratio -- meaningful for both offensive and defensive power. I've found it much better to use destroyers or cruisers in combat than frigates or capital ships, because frigates are generally too weak to pack a punch, and capital ships are generally too expensive. Under the current system, my combat fleet ends up being 9 cruisers, which sounds about right. The Furies are basically light cruisers, good for chasing down frigates and destroyers. (Falcon P's punch up better, but Remnant fleets throw a lot of trash, and my flagship handles a lot of the major threats.) While a capital or two might be useful to center the fleet around, I don't see it as being necessary.
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Kohlenstoff

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 1
« Reply #59 on: July 03, 2021, 02:03:35 AM »

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Hmm. Let me take a look - I might've mixed up some numbers or just mis-remembered exactly where it's at in 0.95a. ... yeah, let me just raise the threshold to 120 points, at least - so that it's at 50% and out of debuff range.

(You do have the option of giving it an extra 10% (or even 15%) CR, though 10% involves going up into Industry, and making that 15% involves going all the way up into Leadership, as well.)

This gives a wayyyy better feeling. Thanks for considering the change.

Now i discovered Neural Link:
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This obviously synergizes very well with taking a bunch of Combat skills, so that both ships are great – it’s a multiplier on the return you get for Combat skills. I also had to make a decision about whether the Neural Interface hullmod would be able to be installed on automated ship, finally letting you pilot these yourself. On the one hand, this goes against the general idea of not having top-tier skills in the same aptitude work too well together. On the other hand, it’s just too cool not to do, so that won out.

This will give an enormous boost in own strength! Having a fleet of two piloted ships could become really cheesy. But no matter, which cheese can be found in abusing this skill, i will try my very best to find and abuse the living S*** out of it.  ;D
« Last Edit: July 03, 2021, 03:20:54 AM by Kohlenstoff »
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