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Author Topic: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 248921 times)

Maethendias

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #75 on: November 06, 2021, 11:10:15 AM »

it is always so weird so see someone compare aurora and dominator next to each other, but yeah, they are BOTH cruisers arent they lol

its just funny how far apart both are from each other lol
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Grievous69

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #76 on: November 06, 2021, 11:13:32 AM »

Oh wow just because they're a different colour smh some people nowadays...

But for real now the comparison is fair, they're both heavy cruisers (different role tho obviously).
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Shinr

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #77 on: November 06, 2021, 11:26:13 AM »

Alex, how do you feel about me bringing up officer skills for carriers again? (I drafted a post some time back, but didn't submit it because meh)

Well, you're always welcome to bring stuff up! But as far as likelihood-of-me-doing-something, it's fairly low, though it depends on the specifics. I'm not a fan of bringing back carrier-only skills; the new skill system (for 0.95.1a) is a deliberate step away from skills locking the player into a too-small set of ships. Yeah, ballistic and energy masteries do that to some extent, but the range of interesting ships that these benefit is broad.

Carrier skills, there aren't that many interesting ships to pilot - Astral, Legion, Heron. Maybe the Odyssey. But combining carrier skill effects with non-carrier effects seems like it would still incentivize you to pilot a subset of these ships due to them benefitting from both the carrier and combat aspects of the hypothetical skill. So it seems like a tricky design problem. That would be less of an issue for officer skill picks - if you have a dedicated carrier officer, that's fine - but since those come from the same skill pool...

Overall, I'm happier with the skill system now that it doesn't have these (well, almost - Point Defense, still) and the carrier effects are fleetwides-only.

I think you're really overestimating things here.

Only the small minority of min-maxers would agonize over wasted bonuses. The non-carrier players (or at least those who don't personally pilot them) would simply ignore them either because it is irrelevant to their play-style or found that trying to squeeze fighters into non-carrier ships for the sake of utilizing those bonuses more trouble than it was worth.

Meanwhile, giving carrier/fighter exclusive bonuses to existing skills would help the Carriers get out of their current bad standing.

Besides, what options do you have? You have said that Carrier exclusive skills are not an option, and yet at the same time you consider adding carrier/fighter bonuses to existing skills as some kind of design sin that will ruin everything.

So besides leaving them in the rut, that leaves either designing a whole separate (sub)-system for the Carriers/Fighters (And if the debacle behind the Colony system is any indication, this is not your preference)... or removing them all together to prevent obviously inferior newbie trap options.
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Ishman

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #78 on: November 06, 2021, 11:30:58 AM »

Ah - the reality disruptor is seen widely as an enormous waste of OP and a valuable energy slot - the bolts it fires are just the equivalent of launching an omen overtop something, and besides the enormously undercosted radiant, I'm not aware of any ship where that's a DP efficient use of a large energy, much better to just have the actual tanky omen to soak more attention and flux from things, while the energy mount is put to better use with a tach lance, plasma cannon, rift torpedo, or whatever.

I guess there's a few people who enjoy it as is - but I don't believe I've ever seen anyone use them more than once.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #79 on: November 06, 2021, 11:42:46 AM »

Go back into late 0.5 or early 0.6, cruisers were Venture, Dominator, Falcon, Eagle, Apogee, and Aurora (and Aurora was basically high-tech Champion with heavy missile and HEF).  Dominator, Eagle, and Aurora were competitors.  Venture was the only cruiser-sized carrier, and it was a solid combat ship back in the day.  Falcon and Apogee were atypical.

Heron, Mora, Gryphon, Champion, variants like Falcon-P and Eagle14, and the new ships to come, did not exist years ago.

Quote
So besides leaving them in the rut, that leaves either designing a whole separate (sub)-system for the Carriers/Fighters (And if the debacle behind the Colony system is any indication, this is not your preference)... or removing them all together to prevent obviously inferior newbie trap options.
There is buffing unskilled fighter use good enough to be worth using, or at least sturdy enough to last at least as long as Locusts with Expanded Missile Racks.  Right now, Locusts and ECCM'ed MIRVs do a better job of fighter-ing than fighters, and the mothership with Locusts and MIRV fighters missiles still have enough weapons to be a useful warship.

Ah - the reality disruptor is seen widely as an enormous waste of OP and a valuable energy slot - the bolts it fires are just the equivalent of launching an omen overtop something, and besides the enormously undercosted radiant, I'm not aware of any ship where that's a DP efficient use of a large energy, much better to just have the actual tanky omen to soak more attention and flux from things, while the energy mount is put to better use with a tach lance, plasma cannon, rift torpedo, or whatever.

I guess there's a few people who enjoy it as is - but I don't believe I've ever seen anyone use them more than once.
Speaking of Omega weapons... kind of disappointed Rift Cascade Emitter has not been changed.  Maybe it will be a killer weapon with High Scatter Amplifer (or not, just get Plasma Cannon), but as it is, RCE is just an overpriced and inefficient lance knockoff with conflicting design goals.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #80 on: November 06, 2021, 12:02:50 PM »

I think you're really overestimating things here.

Only the small minority of min-maxers would agonize over wasted bonuses.

I mean, that's true to some extent, but non-minimaxers are also affect to some extent, too. A lot of learning a game is figuring out what works well; you can't help but be affected by the game's rules/what options the game offers, and what direction they pull your playstyle towards. Any individual thing may be not that big a deal on its own, but that doesn't mean that when looked at as a whole, these things don't matter.

Besides, what options do you have? You have said that Carrier exclusive skills are not an option, and yet at the same time you consider adding carrier/fighter bonuses to existing skills as some kind of design sin that will ruin everything.

So besides leaving them in the rut, that leaves either designing a whole separate (sub)-system for the Carriers/Fighters (And if the debacle behind the Colony system is any indication, this is not your preference)... or removing them all together to prevent obviously inferior newbie trap options.

Well - it also leaves the option of not having personal carrier skills and balancing them around that, and the possible presence of fleetwide carrier skills, which is both easier and doesn't clog up the skill tree with carrier skills :)

Ah - the reality disruptor is seen widely as an enormous waste of OP and a valuable energy slot - the bolts it fires are just the equivalent of launching an omen overtop something, and besides the enormously undercosted radiant, I'm not aware of any ship where that's a DP efficient use of a large energy, much better to just have the actual tanky omen to soak more attention and flux from things, while the energy mount is put to better use with a tach lance, plasma cannon, rift torpedo, or whatever.

I guess there's a few people who enjoy it as is - but I don't believe I've ever seen anyone use them more than once.

Hmm, interesting - thank you for the info! I'll have to have another look at it and maybe try out some more builds.

(... I mean, being able to launch an Omen at something seems like it'd be worth a large energy slot, no? ... hm.)


Speaking of Omega weapons... kind of disappointed Rift Cascade Emitter has not been changed.  Maybe it will be a killer weapon with High Scatter Amplifer (or not, just get Plasma Cannon), but as it is, RCE is just an overpriced and inefficient lance knockoff with conflicting design goals.

I think comparing RCE to the Tachyon Lance (if that's what you meant by "lance knockoff"?) misses the point - it's supposed to be largely a short-range weapon. There are no conflicting design goals there, the design is explicitly and intentionally a weapon that's more and more effective at shorter ranges. That said, it might still be a bit weak - in fact, it likely is.

I wonder if making the rifts stronger at shorter ranger might not be a fun way to address this, as well as make its design intentions more clear.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #81 on: November 06, 2021, 12:17:25 PM »

I agree that dedicated carrier skills are not a good idea. My issue is that it rarely feels worth having an officered carrier because they don't really leverage skills very well IMO, and the officers would just do more on a combat ship. Unofficered carriers however feel really weak/squishy like every unofficered ship, so I end up in a place where I just don't want to use carriers. It would be nice if there were carrier specific buffs built into existing skills similar to how phase skills were reworked, so that I could build a good carrier officer. Something like adding bomber damage boosts to missile spec, fighter damage buffs to some existing damage skills, fighter survivability buffs to existing survivability skills etc.
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AcaMetis

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #82 on: November 06, 2021, 12:24:08 PM »

Quote
Carrier skills, there aren't that many interesting ships to pilot - Astral, Legion, Heron.
To me this feels like confirmation that Converted Hangers is in need of a buff, TBH. I'd like to use it, but I've yet to find a ship where the OP cost is worth the investment.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #83 on: November 06, 2021, 12:44:17 PM »

Speaking of Omega weapons... kind of disappointed Rift Cascade Emitter has not been changed.  Maybe it will be a killer weapon with High Scatter Amplifer (or not, just get Plasma Cannon), but as it is, RCE is just an overpriced and inefficient lance knockoff with conflicting design goals.

I think comparing RCE to the Tachyon Lance (if that's what you meant by "lance knockoff"?) misses the point - it's supposed to be largely a short-range weapon. There are no conflicting design goals there, the design is explicitly and intentionally a weapon that's more and more effective at shorter ranges. That said, it might still be a bit weak - in fact, it likely is.

I wonder if making the rifts stronger at shorter ranger might not be a fun way to address this, as well as make its design intentions more clear.
At the ranges where RCE might outperform Tachyon Lance, plasma cannon beats both, and since RCE has no significant special abilities (the explosions rarely sidestep around shields to hit unshielded sections), I want plasma cannon every time I want a high-end medium-range brawling energy weapon (unless I want to stack a bunch of autopulses for some reason).  I want to mount RCE because (at its 30 OP) I expected it to be a super Tachyon Lance, trading efficiency and (shield-piercing) EMP for more long-range damage, like various overpowered beam weapons from something like Knights Templar or old Neutrino mods.  But it does not do that.  RCE has no niche where I want it over either plasma cannon or tachyon lance.

I guess a question would be, is RCE meant to be a swiss-army knife weapon that is strong like plasma close but can snipe like a lance at long range in a pinch?

Now if RCE has a significant special ability, like its explosions partially ignoring shields (or adding significant hard flux), or had some advantage over normal weapons, I would desire it.  But right now, RCE looks like something I would only use if need a tachyon lance, but do not have one, but I have an RCE laying around at hand.

RCE is not a bad weapon per se, just underperforming for the OP and flux cost my ship pays to use it (not to mention rarity), when compared to more common alternatives.
« Last Edit: November 06, 2021, 12:53:17 PM by Megas »
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #84 on: November 06, 2021, 12:56:05 PM »

Also, I'm a bit concerned that the scarab and hyperion nerfs are unwarranted in the context of the rest of the patch. I'm a bit worried about balance whiplash where they become second rate because too many small factors swing away from them. Most of the changes I see either benefit ships that they will compete with, or directly hurt them: the addition of new low-tech ships that will compete for the same elite frigate/destroyer role, new skill options that benefit those new ships (ballistic weapon mastery), buffs to armor skills and the new polarized armor skill, buffs to ballistic weapons, nerfs to shield/flux related skills and hull mods, nerf to wolfpack tactics that hurts frigates in general etc. None of those things are massive factors, but I think they all stack up against high tech frigates.

I actually think the hyperion might be back to unusable status particularly because of the wolf pack changes in addition to the hefty DP nerf. It really needs SO to be good (I think non-SO builds are mediocre at best currently, even with officer skill support) and the wolf pack change loses 40 seconds of PPT on the SO build which is really painful, plus it costs an extra 5 DP which means an extra 10 supplies per month with higher maintenance. It costs as many supplies as a capital ship now... I really can't imagine using it when the best build is nerfed and the logistics are much worse, not to mention all the other changes that aren't really huge, but mostly stack up against it. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't use non-SO hyperion on the current patch with just the +5 DP nerf, and there are so many other factors that pile up on top of that.

With regards to the scarab, I also just hate OP nerfs on ships that already feel tight on OP. It makes outfitting them just feel really bad, I would rather see other balance changes if necessary. I honestly don't think the scarab is that out of line currently, and I think it would be fine without a nerf in the context of the rest of the patch.
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braciszek

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #85 on: November 06, 2021, 01:19:07 PM »

RCE is not a bad weapon per se, just underperforming for the OP and flux cost my ship pays to use it (not to mention rarity), when compared to more common alternatives.

Besides a weapon too similar to something you can get many of without much difficulty (that is to say, I don't find the RCE worthy of being used as an omega weapon), another issue is that one of the most dissatisfying aspects of Omega weapons is when you get the "wrong" Omega weapon. Which makes it easier to find some of them underwhelming compared to others. I can make use of a volatile particle driver. Reality Disrupter? 35 DP for something which seems to have no purpose and is on a competitive mount and has spawned in place of a large Omega weapon you would have preferred to use.
« Last Edit: November 06, 2021, 01:25:04 PM by braciszek »
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FooF

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #86 on: November 06, 2021, 01:47:44 PM »

I actually think the hyperion might be back to unusable status particularly because of the wolf pack changes in addition to the hefty DP nerf. It really needs SO to be good (I think non-SO builds are mediocre at best currently, even with officer skill support) and the wolf pack change loses 40 seconds of PPT on the SO build which is really painful, plus it costs an extra 5 DP which means an extra 10 supplies per month with higher maintenance. It costs as many supplies as a capital ship now... I really can't imagine using it when the best build is nerfed and the logistics are much worse, not to mention all the other changes that aren't really huge, but mostly stack up against it. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't use non-SO hyperion on the current patch with just the +5 DP nerf, and there are so many other factors that pile up on top of that.

I already voiced my opinion on the matter earlier but I agree with all of the above. I totally forgot about High Maintenance: it will cost as much as a capital to maintain! Yikes...
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TaLaR

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #87 on: November 06, 2021, 01:58:44 PM »

New Heavy Mauler seems extremely weak, it's too easy to shield flicker against and AI already can exploit this weakness somewhat decently when at high flux (but doesn't try to apply this tactic to conserve flux for offense, the way a player would).
I suspect that an Eagle with it will just get cornered and slaughtered in AI vs AI sim fight by almost same build, but using Heavy Mortars instead.
« Last Edit: November 06, 2021, 02:03:46 PM by TaLaR »
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RustyCabbage

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #88 on: November 06, 2021, 02:23:38 PM »

Glad to see these changes (making the shock repeater a premium PD/EMP assault combo is great), but as noted by others here and on the discord, you might also consider taking a look at the reality disruptor.
Ah - the reality disruptor is seen widely as an enormous waste of OP and a valuable energy slot - the bolts it fires are just the equivalent of launching an omen overtop something, and besides the enormously undercosted radiant, I'm not aware of any ship where that's a DP efficient use of a large energy, much better to just have the actual tanky omen to soak more attention and flux from things, while the energy mount is put to better use with a tach lance, plasma cannon, rift torpedo, or whatever.

I guess there's a few people who enjoy it as is - but I don't believe I've ever seen anyone use them more than once.

Hmm, interesting - thank you for the info! I'll have to have another look at it and maybe try out some more builds.

(... I mean, being able to launch an Omen at something seems like it'd be worth a large energy slot, no? ... hm.)
I guess since it's my discord post being quoted I'll pitch in that I actually do like the Reality Disruptor a lot, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone else praise it ever. I guess most people strongly disagree with the thought of paying premium OP for support weapons, however specialized (I imagine the same line of thinking is part of what leads people to dismiss the Proximity Charge Launcher).
Anyways, despite me liking it lots, I guess it could use some buffs to make it more attractive to use - any combination of lower OP, slightly higher range, perhaps even shield piercing arcs so it has non-zero utility against 360 degree shields.



Lovely set of patch notes; I'll enjoy messing around with all the balance changes and new stuff. Especially very curious about the new Proximity Charge Launchers. They look like nice changes, but with the refire rate change they'll run out of ammo even more quickly than before, so I'm unsure how that'll play out.

Other thoughts in no particular order:

I feel like bumping the Hyperion up to 20 DP hurts the non-SO variant excessively, which feels acceptable at its current cost. An SO-specific nerf like giving Phase Teleporter a cooldown/charges would be far more preferable, even if it'd look less awesome for the gifs :p
(also would make SO Hyperions less annoying to fight, which a DP shift doesn't do, if that's a consideration)

Scarab feels like it got drive-by hit for no reason :< just as it was finally finding its legs!

The hit to Hardened Shields is pretty heavy, with a 40% decrease in effectiveness but only a 33/17/17/17% decrease in cost (and it's also now out of automatic s-modding range). New breakeven (vs capacitor) values of 4533/11333/17000/28333 capacity are unattainable for the vast majority of ships. I'm leaning towards thinking this is probably too excessive compared to something like a 4/8/12/20 OP cost, but maybe reduced EMP pierce and vent time will carry the difference?

At a glance the new Cryoblaster looks like it'll become worse than the Heavy Blaster. The current iteration is excessively strong, but it seems like it should have a slight flux cost reduction to go along with this change.

Also I guess the elephant in the room when it comes to weapon balance is still Sabots; the Pods in particular are still far and away the best medium missile (and probably best non-Omega weapon in general). Penny for your thoughts on its current state? I still find suggested changes like removing the arcing effect or the EMP effect entirely to be pertinent.

Edit: also I forgot to mention, but I see that Ordnance Expertise got its effect slashed in half. Was it really excessive in testing? The current Elite effect especially seems extremely underwhelming, probably amounting to less than 2000 additional capacity on even an Onslaught.

Maethendias

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #89 on: November 06, 2021, 02:33:30 PM »

Oh wow just because they're a different colour smh some people nowadays...

But for real now the comparison is fair, they're both heavy cruisers (different role tho obviously).

oh dont mistake me, that wasnt a jab, its just hilarious how they both function so completly diffrent from each other, one being an anchor, and the other being an acutal skirmisher darting around like a wolf
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