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Author Topic: Skill Changes, Part 2  (Read 24392 times)

Yunru

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 2
« Reply #120 on: July 18, 2021, 03:31:47 PM »

But the missile reloading is the only part that makes the Guardian cool and fun to use?

Wyvern

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 2
« Reply #121 on: July 18, 2021, 05:54:46 PM »

...On the phase ships thing, I'll just say that the current phase mastery elite bonus is very much a quality-of-life thing for me; I don't like playing phase ships without that because the fastest way to travel is using phase... and that costs you your zero flux speed boost, making it feel slow. Losing that will be annoying.

Yeah, I get that. I mean, you could get Phase Coil Tuning for half that bonus, and Unstable Injector is there, etc, but yeah. That one stings a bit but I don't think there's any good way around that.
Actually, there are some good ways around that... but the easy one requires changing the helmsmanship elite skill bonus.

Which I think ought to be changed anyway; the current implementation of it is simultaneously annoying and locks out a lot of options for mods.

Annoying, in that it takes what was previously correct behavior (hit vent when you've finished off all nearby enemies) into incorrect behavior; without that perk, you want to get to zero flux ASAP; with the perk, you want to not vent, and it's annoying to un-learn what I've gotten used to.

And as for locked out options - with the skill as it is, you have to be really careful about anything that boosts the zero flux speed bonus.  Cut that out, and you could, for example, just give phase ships enough of a zero flux boost that they're actually better off not using phasing for travel - which should play better.  With the skill in the game, though, you can't do things like give a battlecruiser a significant bonus to zero-flux speed, because it'll compound badly with elite helmsmanship.

I'd prefer an elite helmsmanship bonus that's either just a zero flux speed boost increase - or just a literal "shield maintenance costs no longer disrupt the zero flux boost".  (...Honestly, I did like the old less-than-5% thing, because that meant a normally-designed ship variant could operate both shields and PD without losing the zero flux boost... but I get that it was problematic and abusable via, say, beam-heavy loadouts.)
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 2
« Reply #122 on: July 18, 2021, 07:08:06 PM »

Alex, what are your thoughts modifying the following skills to affect fighters: Ballistic Mastery, Energy Weapons Mastery, Missile Specialisation, Ordnance Expertise, Best of the Best, Support Doctrine, Cybernetic Augmentation
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 2
« Reply #123 on: July 18, 2021, 07:58:13 PM »

If dissipation was active while phased, then soft flux would be completely over-powered. All you would need would be dissipation>cloak cost and you would be able to stay phased indefinitely while you dissipated all flux. If dissipation was not active during cloak (I assume this what megas is referring to), then phase ships would be really bad.

I think the way it is now is better than either of those possibilities. 
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Deshara

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 2
« Reply #124 on: July 18, 2021, 08:15:50 PM »

i think... i think ur in the wrong thread?
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 2
« Reply #125 on: July 18, 2021, 08:46:07 PM »

Yep
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Shinr

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 2
« Reply #126 on: July 18, 2021, 10:35:03 PM »

So there's only three fighters-affecting skills (Point Defense, Carrier Group, Fighter Uplink) in total now?

Right.

Does that mean that since of out those the officers have access only to Point Defense AFAIK, assigning officers to carriers is basically an inferior choice at best, newbie trap at worst?
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Amoebka

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 2
« Reply #127 on: July 18, 2021, 11:58:17 PM »

+15% CR skill still exists and is good on carriers. Defensive skills matter for carriers. System Expertise can be great depending on the carrier. Same for missile spec.

Imo it's better than having the same few dedicated carrier skills on every carrier officer you have.
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Sutopia

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 2
« Reply #128 on: July 19, 2021, 05:12:40 AM »

+15% CR skill still exists and is good on carriers. Defensive skills matter for carriers. System Expertise can be great depending on the carrier. Same for missile spec.

Imo it's better than having the same few dedicated carrier skills on every carrier officer you have.
Energy weapons get EWM, ballistic weapons now get BM, missiles get MS.
Fighters? They aint get nothing.
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ubuntufreakdragon

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 2
« Reply #129 on: July 19, 2021, 06:53:18 AM »

I typically take phase ship in my fleet to perform nasty things without loosing too much rep, but the Ziggurat with the highest sneak buff can't be used for this.
Would be nice to have a less unique phase capital, even if it's much weaker.

A Missile based point defence option would be cool, e.g.
small 3op active flare launcer against missiles only
small 5op regenerating Locust SRM clone against figthers

Sabots could use a charge up timer, to be less instant on short ranges.
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SCC

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 2
« Reply #130 on: July 19, 2021, 07:21:39 AM »

Phase ships are supposed to be as good as ships one size bigger, so phase capitals would be like normal supercapitals - one-off unique ship kind of thing.

Alex, what are your thoughts modifying the following skills to affect fighters: Ballistic Mastery, Energy Weapons Mastery, Missile Specialisation, Ordnance Expertise, Best of the Best, Support Doctrine, Cybernetic Augmentation
I bet he's thinking "where's the suggestion in this post?"

(...Honestly, I did like the old less-than-5% thing, because that meant a normally-designed ship variant could operate both shields and PD without losing the zero flux boost... but I get that it was problematic and abusable via, say, beam-heavy loadouts.)
I liked the whatever% thing not because it's any good, but because it makes AI stop shooting itself in the foot in pursuits and the like.

Alex

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 2
« Reply #131 on: July 19, 2021, 08:54:12 AM »

Spoiler
Personally, I've always seen Reaper as armor crackers primarily.  Which the Damage Control skill doesn't change at all.  A fully skilled Onslaught XIV with heavy armor and armored mounts is still going to have 0 armor in a spot hit by a reaper with Elite Damage Control or without.  So the primary use, to open a hole that your other weapons can exploit is still there.  Sure, you can use them to wipe out hull, but that's always struck me as inefficient compared to using other weapons, especially when factoring misses in.

To be honest, I'd be worried that the skill is too narrow, not that it is too strong against reapers.  It really only comes into play under some very narrow circumstances, which the player doesn't control - namely what weapons the enemy is equipped with.  And even then might affect only a single attack depending on how much incoming alpha there is (overkill harpoon swarms come to mind).  And I'd argue for the majority of fleets and majority of ships (although not all), sabots are scarier than reapers.  You need to win the flux war before you need to concern yourself with how fast you're dealing hull damage.  At the point you're taking hull damage, all other defenses have failed. Range, speed, shields, armor.

For example, I don't think I'd ever consider making it elite on an officer, for example, even if I did take damage control for the officer.  Especially with a 2 second cooldown.  Whatever the field modulation elite effect for shields is likely to prevent more meaningful damage and potentially change the fate of the ship.  Or the elite Combat Endurance if you really are relying on hull tanking - that works against small weapons better which tend to be more common.  If an enemy officer has this as elite as opposed to something else more useful, I'll probably just be glad and most likely won't notice a difference than if they didn't have any elite skill in terms of outcome. 

At best it's going to be a minor perk for Brilliants and Radiant's with AI cores installed.  And you're already better of going kinetic DPS instead of large single shot HE heavy against those ships anyways, and Reapers will open up 1500 armor on a Radiant for kinetics to do hull damage just fine if necessary.

Of course, I'd like to get to play with it first, just to see how much of a difference it really does make, but for a lot of my fleet configurations, just based on their weapon loadouts, it is not going to be noticeable.
[close]

(Not much to say other than I think it sounds like a good analysis. Though you probably wouldn't get Combat Endurance *at all* on a ship that relies on hull tanking... And, also, there'll be some circumstances where you have access to more elite skills on officers than currently.)

And as for locked out options - with the skill as it is, you have to be really careful about anything that boosts the zero flux speed bonus.  Cut that out, and you could, for example, just give phase ships enough of a zero flux boost that they're actually better off not using phasing for travel - which should play better.  With the skill in the game, though, you can't do things like give a battlecruiser a significant bonus to zero-flux speed, because it'll compound badly with elite helmsmanship.

I'd prefer an elite helmsmanship bonus that's either just a zero flux speed boost increase - or just a literal "shield maintenance costs no longer disrupt the zero flux boost".  (...Honestly, I did like the old less-than-5% thing, because that meant a normally-designed ship variant could operate both shields and PD without losing the zero flux boost... but I get that it was problematic and abusable via, say, beam-heavy loadouts.)

Hmm, interesting! I'll mull this over.


Alex, what are your thoughts modifying the following skills to affect fighters: Ballistic Mastery, Energy Weapons Mastery, Missile Specialisation, Ordnance Expertise, Best of the Best, Support Doctrine, Cybernetic Augmentation

My thoughts are "but why?" :)


Does that mean that since of out those the officers have access only to Point Defense AFAIK, assigning officers to carriers is basically an inferior choice at best, newbie trap at worst?

Generally speaking, yeah, though I think that calling this a newbie trap would be a bit of a stretch. I mean, almost anything you can do sub-optimally could be called that, in some sense, but if the definition is too wide it stops being a very useful term...

+15% CR skill still exists and is good on carriers. Defensive skills matter for carriers. System Expertise can be great depending on the carrier. Same for missile spec.

There's also that, yeah!

Energy weapons get EWM, ballistic weapons now get BM, missiles get MS.
Fighters? They aint get nothing.

The thing is, all of those other skills impact a wide enough range of ships that locking yourself into using those for a playthrough, or a large portion of a playthrough, feels fine. This isn't the case with fighters; just by nature the more interesting carriers tend to be battle-carriers, and I don't think those should feel like they *need* the pilot to have carrier-specific skills. (This came up a bit earlier in either this thread or the Part 1 one, basically... a bit of a conversation about battlecarrier balance as it relates to skills.)



A Missile based point defence option would be cool, e.g.
small 3op active flare launcer against missiles only
small 5op regenerating Locust SRM clone against figthers

Hmm - just in general, I don't think every slot type should be able to do everything. As for anti-fighter, Swarmer is kind of that, though of course not regenerating. But regenerating missiles that deal meaningful damage... well, there's one in the game, and it's special. (I don't think Pilums should count here, since they don't generally hit, even when employed effectively...)
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 2
« Reply #132 on: July 19, 2021, 09:01:26 AM »



Alex, what are your thoughts modifying the following skills to affect fighters: Ballistic Mastery, Energy Weapons Mastery, Missile Specialisation, Ordnance Expertise, Best of the Best, Support Doctrine, Cybernetic Augmentation

My thoughts are "but why?" :)
For adding more bonus effects for fighters without adding more skills.
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Alex

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 2
« Reply #133 on: July 19, 2021, 09:38:06 AM »

I think this came up earlier in the Part 1 thread - it's an interesting idea, but I think it'd make you feel forced to use ships with fighters just to make the most out of the bonuses. And that'd likely be the "optimal" way to go.
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Deshara

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Re: Skill Changes, Part 2
« Reply #134 on: July 19, 2021, 09:44:54 AM »

it definitely does, i literally wont take an officer on who has any carrier skills just bc i dont want to pigeon-hole myself into always having to have a carrier. if some combat skills gave a benefit to a combat ship and also gave a benefit to fighters, it would be great.
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