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[Alex]

Mauler is. It pairs well with both HVD due to range-matching and similar constant pressure and HAC due to equally benefiting from Gunnery Implants. I really don't see any need to change the Mauler at all, it's a great gun thanks to excellent range, decent enough accuracy and solid HE alpha. It can be on a long range pressure loadout with HVDs or a mid-range loadout with HACs where it's accuracy is improved due to shorter engagement range.

Your suggested Mauler change also sounds a lot like a 3-round burst HE medium I have in one of my mods and for that thing to be balanced I had to give it worse recoil than the HAC. That gun actually has less alpha than the proposed Mauler change which just seems laughably OP with good accuracy and 1k range (Mine is 800 range and horrendous recoil)

Hmm - did your HE have really poor DPS and a high cycle time, as well? Right now the Mauler is at 120 dps and 5 seconds total per burst, which goes a long way to not making it feel overpowered, at least so far. But maybe I'm missing some combination where it really shines? In testing so far it just feels solid - hurts when it hits, but there's ample opportunity to avoid getting hit, too.

[MesoTroniK]

Personally I'm really not feeling these Heavy Mauler changes (unlike pretty much everything else in the log), if anything I could see the old version just being slightly more accurate and calling it a day. A burst like that on the Nu-Mauler, even with low DPS is really punishing especially since medium slots are so common and spammable. Is exactly the sort of weapon a few mods have done over the years, and usually end up getting removed or reworked.

I have always generally read the lack of any ballistic alpha / burst weapons that are not KE not existing for ballistic slots except for larges as an intentional design decision and a good one at that. While energy gets alpha / burst at every size which segues with the ships that use them.

I'm getting terror images in my head, of Heavy Mauler spam... And every time a ship overloads or vents, it instantly gets tens of shells dumped at it at long range and armor stripped instantly. And unlike missiles, or say Hellbores, good luck really even trying doing anything about it during the moment.

[Jonlissla]

Starfarersector patch notes are the best notes. Everything looks awesome, but is....

Star system that becomes permanently inaccessible REDACTED will now become accessible again after around a cycle

... this a reference to something new or something already in the game?

[SonnaBanana]

Starfarersector patch notes are the best notes. Everything looks awesome, but is....

Star system that becomes permanently inaccessible REDACTED will now become accessible again after around a cycle

... this a reference to something new or something already in the game?

Old, story stuff.

[deoxyribonucleicacid]

i like all the QoL changes especially the raiding and salvage ones.

unfortunately, colony management overall felt like it got a nerf but not too bad, it just became less profitable. honestly, i really wanna have a hopium that makes colonies in future updates have more interesting to do other than spend more to get more in any case i guess they will just stay as a sugar mommy/daddy who pays for your bills.

other than that...

WE SLIPSTREAMING BOYSSSSS!!!!!

[JUDGE! slowpersun]

That change makes me sad, actually.  I would love for different admins to be, well, different, so there's some excitement in finding particularly good ones.  But that means having lots of different skills (less powerful and more specific than current ones).  Going to no skills except one is a bit disappointing, so all admins are totally generic.

Obviously I don't know, but this could just be placeholder until some more interesting Admin skills are cooked up. Might not have been worth the Dev time this pass.

I'll just say that this is something we've talked about internally - but, don't want to go into details in case nothing comes of it. But I also don't think that having a 3 skills total is *that* much more interesting, given that the skills are all fairly general-purpose boosts anyway.

I was going to make basically this exact point, but it would appear that others have beaten me to it.  However, it does beg a few further questions regarding implementation/patching.  Is the current code/colony skills going to be kept in the code as legacy in case someone wants to mod admin skills back in for admins while waiting for whatever the eventual decision is/next patch?

Also, how is/which current admins will get/keep the only skill (Industrial Planning) still available?  Admins that already have the skill, or just any two skill admin?  I only ask 'cuz I recently started a new run to hopefully update to the new patch with no/few issues, and am already dragging around some found admins while looking for that optimal colony location, need to decide which ones to fire and which to keep... and I double-checked your July blog post regarding this, it seems pretty ambiguous regarding who keeps what (maybe it was answered in the blog forum thread somewhere, not gonna reread that entire thing if I can just ask here).

Does any here believe that fighter/carriers will be less viable than before?

Prolly not less viable, but kinda hard to tell with the giant info dump, including changes to fighters/fighter weapons, skills, ships, etc.  However, the PD weapon range nerf seems like it will definitely help make carriers more viable again.  Plus the additional command option for escorting ships should help with better protecting carriers, don't just have to rely on xyphos anymore...

The only thing i dont get: were energy weapons OP? Why so much buffs for ballistics? I mean: ok, plasma was good. But what else? I understand the asymmetric balance conception, but anyway...

The changes to High Scatter Amplifier have plenty of new ramifications to energy weapons. I think both weapon types were buffed and it will take a lot of data to show which came out on top. Even missiles got a teeny buff with the elite MS skill.

Spoiler

NEW High Scatter Amplifier

• Reduces the base range of beam weapons to 500/600/700 on frigates/destroyers/larger ships.
• Beams deal +10% damage.
• Beams deal hard flux damage to shields.

It perfectly synergizes with EWM skill now.
On paper, it terrifies me to think about an SO Sunder with HSA, 2 Graviton Beams and a HIL

[close]

Finally, I will say that the changes to the High Scatter Amplifier are extremely interesting, basically splits energy weapons into two categories via absence or presence of a single hull mod (beams doing hard vs soft flux damage to shields, but basically inversely proportional to energy weapon range).  Are there a bunch of code tags/hints to modify ships AI behavior when High Scatter Amplifier present/used vs. when not?  Seems like ship/energy weapon AI might still end up being too timid otherwise (although this prolly also may vary due to officer temperament).

[SonnaBanana]

Please increase minimum and maximum bar events, some of us know where the settings are located but there are many more players who don't and might be irritated by the current amount of available events.

Also, maybe some sort of minor crew/marine-related fleetwide bonus on Cybernetic Augmentation please?

[Shinr]

So What happens to the packages then? Are they removed or untouched then? If the latter, that would make them only slightly more useful than something like recovery shuttles.

They're technically still in the game (for save compatibility) but there's no way to actually get them in a new game.

I had runs where I purchased Assault/Escort Packages from the markets and used them with no problems even before I could invest into/when I ignored the Auxiliary Support skill (Could have been a mod, though?), so why not let them to be purchased and usable, even if they would not be as effective?

[Gothars]

You know, now that I actively think about starting a new game soon, I kinda wish there were a random starter frigate option. The random fleet option is fun, but it's also always a fast start with lots of playstile options. Having a single random frigate would force you to adapt to its specific strenghts and get to know it like you never could in a fleet context.

[Mayu]

Aptitudes whose skill has an "npc_only" tag will no longer be shown in the character screen

Oh no, is it possible for you to add another type of tag that allows a custom skill to be shown in character screen? I've made several obtainable unique skills from a quest and it would be great if custom skills can still be viewed in character screen. Thank you!

[Maethendias]

"It's replaced there by the Fury; I think it makes more sense to have a general-purpose combat cruiser in the package than a more specialized exploration ship."

the thing is tho, the apogee is the only high tech cruiser with staying power, taking that out would make the whole skirmishing of high tech fleets alot less... well, effective, since without an anchor to bind the enemy fleets you really cant flank them with other ships

not to mention the apogee being the only reliable high tech missile plattform... and that large energy slot really should not be underestimated

even as a "specialized" exlporation cruiser the apogee is anything but a halpless science vessel, and has very strong damage output while still being exceptionally tanky, so arguably the apogee is exactly that, a general purpose combat ship that can be specialized in many diffrent ways

meanwhile, the fury is just a light version of the aurora

[hypocrisy-aeron]

Are there any plans on releasing a CrewAPI/MarinesAPI in the next update?

[Drazan]

Nice and important changes, the reworking of the skill system and the phase ships was absolutely neccesary.
And is love the new stuff being added in, but i feel like a few important changes shoud have benn made in their place. (if it is the dev time that is liminting the number of changes we get )

First, a nerf/rebalance is long overdue for the Safety Override hullmod. It just gives you too much extra flux and the extra speed you get totally offsets the drawbacks of the range reduction. Please please change it.

Secound, carriers are really in a bad place right now, and with the ballistic weapon buff they are getting even worse by comparison. Some drastic changes are needed. (Personally i would like if we could control the attack craft more directly, but if thats too much...) Just some upgrade statwise would be nice as well.

Both things are highly south after in the community, so some changes would be appreciated.

[Nia Tahl]

Mauler is. It pairs well with both HVD due to range-matching and similar constant pressure and HAC due to equally benefiting from Gunnery Implants. I really don't see any need to change the Mauler at all, it's a great gun thanks to excellent range, decent enough accuracy and solid HE alpha. It can be on a long range pressure loadout with HVDs or a mid-range loadout with HACs where it's accuracy is improved due to shorter engagement range.

Your suggested Mauler change also sounds a lot like a 3-round burst HE medium I have in one of my mods and for that thing to be balanced I had to give it worse recoil than the HAC. That gun actually has less alpha than the proposed Mauler change which just seems laughably OP with good accuracy and 1k range (Mine is 800 range and horrendous recoil)

Hmm - did your HE have really poor DPS and a high cycle time, as well? Right now the Mauler is at 120 dps and 5 seconds total per burst, which goes a long way to not making it feel overpowered, at least so far. But maybe I'm missing some combination where it really shines? In testing so far it just feels solid - hurts when it hits, but there's ample opportunity to avoid getting hit, too.

Fair, that is a considerably slower burst burst than I expected with 2.5s between shots, so it's barely even a burst from the sound of it. Or do you mean time between bursts here?

[Megas]

Might as well be 700 to match light and storm needlers.  It could not combo very well except with 700 energy weapons like plasma cannon (on Paragon and Ziggurat).  800 range needler would combo well with 900 range ballistics on something like Conquest, but not 750 range needlers - not enough range.

 

I heavily disagree, the heavy needler combos well with heavy mortars and Light assault guns in addition to 600-700 range energies.  The 150 range gap is not big enough of a deal breaker to not use it in combination with a hellbore. If anything, the problem is a lack of another 700-800 anti armor ballistic medium. So it just makes you go "Why dont I just get the op and just combo this 900 range large with an HVD/Heavy mauler instead". Which actually begs a question about range hullmods in the future

Yes, needlers and mortars combo alright on the ships that would use it, although such ships (destroyers, falcon) do not have much OP to spare for heavy needlers.  The bigger ships with heavy and medium mounts were what I had in mind because they do not have 800 or 900 range medium HE to mix with inaccurate Mark IX.  (I tend to use Arbalest or Railguns on the smaller ships because they are relatively cheap and disposable.)

150 range gap (between heavy needler and large ballistics) breaks Steady Conquest.  100 range did not.  I tried.  I replaced the needlers with heavy ACs to make the older loadouts with 800 range kinetics and 900 range heavy weapons work.  (And such a Conquest needs Gunnery Implants so that the ACs are accurate enough.)

apogee no longer available from high tech blueprint, but why?

It's replaced there by the Fury; I think it makes more sense to have a general-purpose combat cruiser in the package than a more specialized exploration ship.

Apogee seems too powerful to be a "specialized exploration ship".  If anything, it feels more like a mini-Paragon or a Sunder with a much stronger shield.  It is a great bargain as a full-blown combat ship at 18 DP.

Be nice if high-tech pack had more ships like the low-tech and midline packs.  High-tech pack is a bit of a letdown.  I hoped the pack would get more ships.  Even four (with Wolf, Shrike, Apogee, and Fury) is less than the other two packs, and still no carriers in the pack.

That said, Fury seems to be a more typical specimen of high-tech than Apogee.