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Author Topic: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 248898 times)

Gothars

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #120 on: November 07, 2021, 08:42:33 AM »

If you are deploying civ ships with the expectation of losing some, you are already desperate - losing extra supplies after the battle seems irrelevant.

Right, but it's more about making this desperate deployment more useful, while still keeping it a bad idea in non-desparate situations.

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Wyvern

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #121 on: November 07, 2021, 08:48:52 AM »

Maybe someone should just make a mod that upgrades every freighter into being a combat freighter? You'd still be better off deploying dedicated combat ships, but, say, a Colossus with two fighter wings, combat-destroyer level flux stats, and expanded turret arcs would be something you could reasonably put on the field in an emergency.

And it's not like giving logistic ships more ordnance points is going to break anything - their logistic-ness is limited more by the two hullmod limit than ordnance points anyway.
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Yubbin

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #122 on: November 07, 2021, 09:14:48 AM »

Just to jump in about sabots, they are still the best missile, and it's been said a million times, the situation is damned if you shield damned if you don't. So I agree with rubi, nerf it's effectiveness against armor/hull. If you want a good anti shield missile, then it also shouldn't be great against not-shields
« Last Edit: November 07, 2021, 09:17:12 AM by Yubbin »
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Timid

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #123 on: November 07, 2021, 09:23:28 AM »

have there been any changes to the Contacts so far? Cross-mod contact compatibility seems to be quite an issue such as...

- disabling certain missions from appearing in other factions' bar events.
- enabling certain missions from appearing in other factions' bar events.
- missions not allowing certain factions (only luddic church, path, and hegemony can give you remnant military bounties but what about the other factions?)
and so much more in the later era which I will clarify later in a future thread.

Otherwise, it's a cool mod feature so far, just afraid this problem will come up later on. I've been using it with partial success.

It seems like much of that should be doable by adjusting the mission spec tags; SettingsAPI.getAllMissionSpecs() gives you access to all the mission specs. Or by putting the right tags into person_missions.csv, if the only missions one wants to change are from their mod.

Perhaps worth noting: the various "tag" columns in person_missions can accept a faction id. So if "tagsNotAny" contains "hegemony", that mission won't be offered by a hegemony contact, etc.

Since there is little documentation, I'd like to make a guide for it now (instead of a criticism) but I have a hard time finding the src code for these columns so.. correct me if I'm mistaken.

While we're on the same step here what does bar_events.csv's tags imply? Can I enter in faction id to make them require certain faction id just like the person_missions.csv?

person_id means only the person with this id can hand out this mission, does this include multiple person_id? Meaning that I can add sebestyen and someone else into a mission and ONLY both of them will give out this mission?
tagsAll seems like an "AND" condition as in I need all the tags for this to spawn?
tagsAny seems like an "OR" condition as in I can have any of these tags for this to spawn?
tagsNotAny seems like a NOT condition as in any tags will prevent this mission from spawning?
freq seems understandable, just a weighted random picker.
min/max timeout.. do they count down after the mission is accepted or after the mission is completed?
min/max rep do they accept float as well (can i put in 0.24 instead of WELCOMING) instead of just the reputation string level
importance I'm guessing importance requirement level, does "prioritizing a contact" help ease into this requirement? As in prioritizing a medium contact can make "tabo" mission available?
reqMissionAny/reqMissionAll/reqMissionNone Assuming that they're like OR, AND, and NOT conditions respectively. Are these for like missions completed before? Or missions in progress? Or how do they actually check?

Most importantly, are there any other tags that are made that hasn't been explicitly stated like

  • priority (i imagine this one spawns very often as soon as possible)
  • non_repeatable (can only do once)
  • factionid (so any faction id even modded ones, I hope)

Anything else aside from those 3?

Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #124 on: November 07, 2021, 09:51:35 AM »

I like Sabots as they are.  They work and can be counted on (if only the AI would use them more optimally).  Medium missiles are generally a pile of yawn... except Sabots.  My only gripe with Sabots is they do not last long enough like some of the large missiles, but at least Sabots are reliable.  It is also good for high-tech ships (like standard Shrike) that have no good anti-shield options and need sabots to not lose the flux war.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #125 on: November 07, 2021, 10:28:42 AM »

I appreciate all the feedback here! Going to respond where I can; if I don't respond to your point specifically, my apologies and rest assured I've definitely seen it.


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.

Another issue with this is that fighters as they are can very easily focus fire on a single target, and relatively minor performance increases get *way* out of hand when multiplied like this, in a way that ship-specific buffs simply don't. It's easier to keep it under control with a few fleetwide skills that give a large bonus when there's not too many carriers in the fleet; this *works*, and per-ship fighter boosts are trouble.

As for carrier-officer-skills, hmm. I do understand what you mean, though I wonder if it's a question of perception or actual reality. If you've got 8 officers (or even 10), there's a solid chance that your "first line" - all you can deploy to start a fight - consists only of ships with officers. In that case, the presence of officers is not the limiting factor, the DP cost of the ship is - so you're better off putting an officer on a carrier, even for a relatively smaller boost, just to strengthen your initial and critical deployment.

And it does feel like a lot of the skills have reasonable applicability to carriers - Helmsmanship, Systems Expertise (depending), Point Defense (also depending), Missile Spec (some carriers have heavy missile armaments), Field Modulation, Ballistic Mastery (ok, a bit of a stretch, but the Heron would benefit a good bit from that one), Gunnery Implants (for range of standoff weapons, and the EW bonus). Combat Endurance (currently Reliability Engineering) is probably the biggest one since it actually buffs fighters directly by bumping up their CR.

I should try to find some time to playtest this specifically. It *feels* like a combination of these would boost a carrier more than it sounds like it would, but I'm not fully certain. But, after all, a combat ship can be made much stronger without any skills that directly boost its offense, so the same seems like it might hold for carriers - with, of course, the crucial difference that a dedicated carrier is less likely to need defensive skills, but... well. It seems worth looking at.

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.

Hmm, I don't think that's related; I wouldn't expect one fighter bay to be something you build skills around.


Now if RCE has a significant special ability, like its explosions partially ignoring shields

It kind of does, though! By wrapping around the target. That gives me an idea; perhaps making the additional explosions progressively stronger could be good - both to emphasize the short-range preference for this weapon, and to improve its "going around shields" aspect.


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.

Ah, that tracks. I can see reducing the OP cost some, for example.


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)

This is a really, really good idea - I'm just about sold in adding charges to the teleporter and changing the supply cost back to 15.


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.

I'm not sure how excessively good they actually are if you don't consider the Falcon (P). Which, to be fair, *is* a ship, and it's a troublesome one balance-wise, but it's also fun. Still, it's definitely not a ship on whose existence I'd want to base any evauluation of missile effectiveness. Beyond that, Sabots still only do mostly temporary damage, and e.g. removing the EMP component would make it possible to make firing them mostly a waste by just turning shields off.

Just to jump in about sabots, they are still the best missile, and it's been said a million times, the situation is damned if you shield damned if you don't. So I agree with rubi, nerf it's effectiveness against armor/hull. If you want a good anti shield missile, then it also shouldn't be great against not-shields

Right - I have a feeling that if they *don't* have some impact in either case, they might swing too far the other way. ([size=8]Plus, if we're being honest, I just like the EMP effect on 'em.[/size])


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 Elite effect especially seems extremely underwhelming, probably amounting to less than 2000 additional capacity on even an Onslaught.

Ah, that's an error in the notes - I think I'd typed them out before the effect got doubled by the time I'd written the blog post. It's +2/+20.

Visually, though, I'd be happier if installing two of them would have the rifts arc in opposite directions around the target, rather than both going in the same direction.

Let me make a note about that.

No, the only other Omega weapon that I think needs a buff is the Rift Beam - there are some setups where you can get it to actually perform its job as a point-defense weapon... but there aren't very many of them, it doesn't fill any roles other than point-defense, and even as point-defense you're probably better off with a regular Heavy Burst Laser. At a minimum I'd suggest increasing its range to somewhere around 600-800; make it capable of doing its job without needing to be in a turret slot right at the very front edge of the ship it's mounted on.

Hmm, a bit of a range increase might not be a bad idea, yeah.

Giving them some benefit from the skills of the carrier's captain makes as much sense as having a single "Field Modulation" skill that provides benefits to both shields and phase cloaks ...

The key difference being that it's impossible to make use of both shields and phase cloak bonuses (some kind of mod-ship excepted, perhaps).


So, the post!

My complaint is about the value of having carriers vs. just getting more combat ships. They're already seen as underperforming right now, and officers not being worth putting on them means they'll fall off even harder than now. Also it makes carriers seem like they're just less important. Second-class. Filler. Those kind of adjectives.

"Seen as underperforming" I think is a key point. I think they're in a pretty good place power-wise; to me the main question here is of "feel" in that it would feel pretty nice to have an officer'ed carrier feel like it's part of your core force. On the other hand, having unofficered carriers make better support ships - since they lose less from not having an officer - is also a reasonable niche. And fundamentally, carriers - especially dedicated carriers - are support ships.


I don't think more fighter-specific skills are really desirable, for the same reason that the phase and shield skills were merged. But it'd be nice if they got a partial benefit from the existing combat skills.

In the scenario where 'normal' combat skills also benefit fighters, I don't think the notion that players would feel compelled to use fleet or battle carriers checks out. Consider: when a skill gives bonuses for both ballistic and energy weapons, we don't say the player feels compelled to use midline ships. The carriers would be trading off combat ship traits (guns, but also things like making use of its personal armor, shields and speed) that benefit from skills, for fighters that benefit from the same skills.

Players might feel compelled to use midline ships if energy mounts were both uncommon and offered way more power per ordnance point, though. Which is what we've got with carriers. Though, it's a question of how the ships in question are balanced. Are they balanced around having the fighters be boosted, or baseline? If it's the former, then what you're saying makes sense, but it runs into the problems I mentioned earlier with fighters being boosted and how that stacks up too quickly. (Also, if you haven't read it, please see my point earlier in this post about fleetwide skills and carriers!)

So I guess to sum up my thoughts on carriers (which, sigh, it feels like I forget some aspect of it every time it comes up, and have to re-remember over the course of a few posts): fleetwides with max effect at a low number of bays seem like a *much* better way of boosting fighters because of how fighters work with regard to force concentration. In fact, it seems like the only safe way of doing it. The other stuff, while still a consideration, isn't actually as much of one as this.

The only thing I had to presume was perfect accuracy (like the HVD) but the rest of the stats are known. I really like the sound of the triple shot: it sounds like a true cannon. 

It's not perfect accuracy, but it's *very* good. And, yeah! That was actually one of the main goals, to make it sound/feel like an high-impact weapon, rather than an inaccurate long-range plinker. I feel like it lost that feel that it had originally, along the way. (And, yeah, it can get accurate with Gunnery Implants, but then it also gets into "oppressive long-range HE weapon" territory. Which is in general why GI's recoil bonus got half of it moved onto Armored Weapon Mounts, to help keep recoil a more relevant balancing stat for weapons...)


I suggest replacing Assault Package with 2 hullmods: one super-buffs flux capacity, the other super-buffs hull. In exchange they neuter all of the ship's logistics stats and have a high enough OP cost that most civilian ships can't fit both.

I don't think I'd want to reduce their logistics support capacity! The ideal for me is to feel like you can use your logistics train in combat under certain conditions, not repurpose it from its main role entirely.


First, Alex this update looks amazing and almost a major update in it’s own right.
The skill rework looks *mwah* magnificent, the less variable weapons load out for all ships will be great if it works like it did for redacted.
The new low tech ship and rugged constructed hullmod is exactly what low tech frigates have been missing.
Max level officer retraining, cheaper cargo pod stabilisation, patrol distractions, defend assignments, thumper burst changes, HSA rework are all awesome and amazing and aren’t the only small but great changes so thank you.

Thank you! :D


Question, why Scarab OP reduced?

It felt a little too strong to me. I don't think it's a major change; we're talking -50 flux dissipation - which, ok, it matters, but its base dissipation is so high that it's not going to feel that nearly as much as most frigates.

With carriers, I actually think how they are is pretty good. They’re frankly, boring to use, they can be fun to watch but I don’t think personal skills are necessary for that. I suspect why some people really want them is because they used to be really strong and they have fundamental advantages over weapons with much longer ranges and don’t produce flux or have limited missiles.
Not really having any reason to add officers to them is a bit of a problem though. A possible idea is a officer only skill that gives the fleet wide skill effects onto just their ship and remove that ship’s fighter bays from the fleet wide skill count. That will also help if we just want 1 carrier or all carriers. Which could actually be fine if the reduce weapon variability means more consistent point defence. Then 4 other skills can then be filled by the likes of system expertise, helmsmanship and ballistic mastery.
Otherwise I think if someone wants to focus on fighters that may be better suited for mods.

Now that gives me an idea, hmmmmm! As I mentioned earlier, fleetwide fighter bonuses seem like the only way to go for fighters. But what if *those* were, say, doubled by the presence of an officer on the ship? That'd certainly make you feel like putting an officer on a carrier was worthwhile, without getting into all the problems of personal skills boosting them. Really liking this, actually! Would have to tweak the specific skill numbers some, of course.


Maybe im off base here but i have strong opinions on this:
On the Hull Restoration skill and similar effects: To me, this just seems way too stacked in terms of usefulness, it basically nullifies ship losses, removes d mods on obtained ships and even gives you a significant CR boost. With how easy it is to also scoop up salvageable ships thanks to story points, overall i feel like its too easy and cheap to obtain and repair ships compared to 0.91 which was the polar opposite.
As far as I am concerned, this is easy: the cost of Hull Restoration is not getting the skills that actually improve your fleet's performance. In a choice between, say, Automated Ships and Hull Restoration, I will definitely go with Automated Ships.

That's part of it! But also, it would enable you to play in a way that generates more ship losses, which should open up some qualitatively different strategies.

That said, maybe it'll end up being too strong; I guess we'll see. I definitely want to have the top-tier skills be very high-impact and playstyle-changing/defining, though!


Alex, where is my perfect play AI?

(That'd be an ironic way to ruin the game...)


They interesting thing would be to expand the list.  Have administrators with specific abilities, like boosted volatiles production specifically, or something that reduces specific penalties, or similar.  Basically, just more specific, so you're trying to find the right administrator for each of your worlds.

Thinking along vaguely similar lines, here.


Quote
Auxiliary Support: removed

Boooooooo.

Fair enough :)


Maybe the assault/escort package could be preserved to change their role to an emergency option by increasing deployment cost. For me civilian ships never really made sense as part of my regular combat force. But I have sometimes resorted to deploying them when I'm about to lose a fight, as distractions. That was actually fun, it felt like a "really giving it my all" sort of thing. Hullmods that support and expand that would be great. Maybe they increase deployment cost so much you can only deploy a civ ships once, in an emergency, but then in acts like an SO ship.

Hmm - I'm not sure that this is a case that it works to design something like this around. If a battle's gone so far off the rails that you're about to bring in civilians... chances are this isn't a case you've specifically outfitted them for, at the expense of logistics hullmods, right?


Radical idea:  Turn all the dedicated logistics ships into carriers and greatly expand cargo for current carriers that are expected to spend most OP on good fighters and deck crew.  Currently, most carriers feel like dedicated logistics/civilian ships that haul fighters instead of cargo.

Probably a bit too radical! But, points for outside-the-box thinking.


While we're on the same step here what does bar_events.csv's tags imply? Can I enter in faction id to make them require certain faction id just like the person_missions.csv?

Same as person_missions. I think you're mostly on point about how these work, but a detailed discussion feels like a bit much for this thread. Would you mind reposting it in Modding? Someone else might be able to help out with that, too, but I'll see if I can find the time to break it down at some point.

A lot of this (possibly all?), you can answer by opening up PersonMissionSpec in an IDE and then seeing where the getters for the various properties are used.
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ubuntufreakdragon

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #126 on: November 07, 2021, 10:55:16 AM »

There are a few this I want on top:
AI core wish list:
I think an integrated AI Core should decrease the multiplier for max CR compared to a free one, an integrated Alpha Radiant should be at 40% without other skills.
I would like to use an integrated AI in my fleet to create a stable point.

You shouldn't be limited in the amount of admins you can hire and not forced to use alpha cores to settle more than 5 worlds, may be at the cost of extra admins costing more money making this a soft cap.
electronic warefare shouzld give you bit more for lerger ships, as you can't field as much of them e.g. 1,1,2,2.

economy wish list:
A system wide stability bonus for military bases.
No longer a perma fuel shortage at Syndria.
moving domain area stable point constructs from one place to another.
lower cost increase of improving an industry, +2 instead of *2, atm. it's close to a hard cap of 3 improvements per colony.
a few random AI colonies in the outer systems.
A raid option to disrupt a military base to screw expeditions this way without the going hostile of tac bomb.
More ships in the hightech package.

logistics wish list:
limit repairs for fleet, instead of stop repairs to repair enough to prevent accidents and allow save usage of emergency burn/traverse jump, so ships are only repaired to ~5%CR.
fleet wide bonus of solar shielding.
Having many fast ships(burn level) in a fleet should decrease the terrain movement penalties for the fleet.
rebalance of tech tier logistic stats, my idea would be:
High Tech high maintenance, low crew //high degree of automatization
Low Tech high fuel cost, low maintenance //inefficient but robust systems
midline high crew demand, low fuel //many systems to man
« Last Edit: November 07, 2021, 11:13:51 AM by ubuntufreakdragon »
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Wyvern

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #127 on: November 07, 2021, 10:55:58 AM »

Giving them some benefit from the skills of the carrier's captain makes as much sense as having a single "Field Modulation" skill that provides benefits to both shields and phase cloaks ...

The key difference being that it's impossible to make use of both shields and phase cloak bonuses (some kind of mod-ship excepted, perhaps).
But a skill that adds bonus damage to both shipboard weapons and fighter weapons is exactly the same there: one bonus or the other applies, but never both at once. I mean, if we go by that logic, the existing "Target Analysis" skill is triple-dipping! After all, its bonus applies to ballistic weapons and energy weapons and missile weapons, and there are ships that can use all three of those at the same time!

Say you have a HSCV (Hypothetical Spherical-Cow-in-a-Vacuum) battlecarrier that gets half its firepower from directly mounted guns, and half its firepower from fighters. With no officers involved, this is great! With officers involved, suddenly it needs to be re-balanced, because the officer skills are boosting just the 'guns' half of that, and now you have to choose 'what level of officer do I balance this ship around?'

...Now, the argument you've made about concentration of firepower being an issue. That one I can understand, even if I don't use fighters that way, and if that pushes towards keeping fighters as more of a fleet asset than a ship asset... well, then I'm not entirely happy with having to spend carrier OP on them, but so be it.

Hm, maybe what the HSCV needs is a built-in hullmod that reduces fighter roam range by... let's say 50%, and then also makes (some) officer skill bonuses apply to its fighters?
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #128 on: November 07, 2021, 11:03:49 AM »

Now if RCE has a significant special ability, like its explosions partially ignoring shields

It kind of does, though! By wrapping around the target. That gives me an idea; perhaps making the additional explosions progressively stronger could be good - both to emphasize the short-range preference for this weapon, and to improve its "going around shields" aspect.
The problem with wrap-around is it needs to wrap-around a lot to even have a chance to blast targets around the shields.  There were multiple times when it would appear the explosions snaked around the shield, but the shield still managed to absorb it.  It was rare for a blast to snake around shields of even weaker ships with junk shields.  Explosions wrapping around shields enough to bypass them happened rarely enough that it simply could not be counted on.  And at the range when it would have a chance to do it, I would be better off simply outgunning the enemy (and max their flux) with non-stop plasma cannon barrages.

Also, at the range where RCE would get a meaty-hit for a glorious chain-reaction, a tachyon lance getting a similar hit would be shutting down the enemy with mass EMP and take a big chunk off of armor or hull, good against a very dangerous enemy (or generally better than mildly more damage from RCE).

Explosions getting stronger sounds like an interesting idea.  When my ships get killed by RCE from angry enemy Tesseract, it was always long range snipes, very similar to lance kills from SIM Paragon.  Hit-and-run is risky when I underestimate Omega range or mobility and my ship eats a RCE blast at near max range.  A range where explosions do not proc much.

* * *

I like the idea of teleport charges on Hyperion.  It gives a reason to use non-SO Hyperion.  I have no reason not to use SO on Hyperion because it plays just like it did from before 0.95.  Non-SO Hyperion is a pain to use, enough that I rather use Afflictor or Fury instead.

Phase Teleporter getting charges is reminiscent of Fast Missile Racks going from unlimited to getting (three) charges in late 0.65 to prevent unlimited Salamander long-range cheese kills even after the damage nerf from 500 to 100.

* * *

No longer a perma fuel shortage at Syndria.
My game had perma-volatile shortage at Sindria, and making volatile runs from Umbra to Sindria was almost as profitable as drug or supply runs with various black markets elsewhere.

Speaking of shortages, maybe finding a tap and lamp will have a better use than causing perma-shortages in core worlds that try to use those you sell to them.  Right now, if I find one of those (Pather magnets), my first thought is to sell it to a core world and cripple it (thanks 10 demand of blue heavy metal or volatiles), then sell lots of commodities whenever I please for profit.
« Last Edit: November 07, 2021, 11:20:03 AM by Megas »
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #129 on: November 07, 2021, 11:26:58 AM »

But a skill that adds bonus damage to both shipboard weapons and fighter weapons is exactly the same there: one bonus or the other applies, but never both at once. I mean, if we go by that logic, the existing "Target Analysis" skill is triple-dipping! After all, its bonus applies to ballistic weapons and energy weapons and missile weapons, and there are ships that can use all three of those at the same time!

Say you have a HSCV (Hypothetical Spherical-Cow-in-a-Vacuum) battlecarrier that gets half its firepower from directly mounted guns, and half its firepower from fighters. With no officers involved, this is great! With officers involved, suddenly it needs to be re-balanced, because the officer skills are boosting just the 'guns' half of that, and now you have to choose 'what level of officer do I balance this ship around?'

...Now, the argument you've made about concentration of firepower being an issue. That one I can understand, even if I don't use fighters that way, and if that pushes towards keeping fighters as more of a fleet asset than a ship asset... well, then I'm not entirely happy with having to spend carrier OP on them, but so be it.

Hm, maybe what the HSCV needs is a built-in hullmod that reduces fighter roam range by... let's say 50%, and then also makes (some) officer skill bonuses apply to its fighters?

Yeah, you're right. I think was just coming at it with an unstated and unexamined assumption that the battlecarrier-type ship is balanced (as much as it's possible to do it) without fighters-being-boosted in mind. Which, now that I think of it, was likely rooted in not wanting to boost fighters for force-concentration reasons (even though this would make for somewhat smoother individual balance for battlecarriers, if all of their aspects were boosted simultaneously.) But, yeah, without that, I think you (and Histidine) are absolutely right.

Sorry it took me a bit to get all this re-straightened-out in my head and get to the actually-pivotal force concentration point :) I appreciate the thoughts and feedback!

And, the idea about a hullmod reducing roam range and making some bonuses apply to fighters - I think that's a very interesting idea. It seems like it'd be tough to make it come out right, though, given the possible range of effects skills can have. And having to flag certain skill effects as "fighter-applicable for this hullmod" and others as not, and conveying this information somehow... that seems awfully messy for essentially implementing a hullmod. But the general concept - trading off roam range for power - I think is good.


No longer a perma fuel shortage at Syndria.
My game had perma-volatile shortage at Sindria, and making volatile runs from Umbra to Sindria was almost as profitable as drug or supply runs with various black markets elsewhere.

(Per the patch notes, this is resolved by adding the Fullerne Spool at Eventide.)
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #130 on: November 07, 2021, 11:35:23 AM »

Giving them some benefit from the skills of the carrier's captain makes as much sense as having a single "Field Modulation" skill that provides benefits to both shields and phase cloaks ...

The key difference being that it's impossible to make use of both shields and phase cloak bonuses (some kind of mod-ship excepted, perhaps).
But a skill that adds bonus damage to both shipboard weapons and fighter weapons is exactly the same there: one bonus or the other applies, but never both at once. I mean, if we go by that logic, the existing "Target Analysis" skill is triple-dipping! After all, its bonus applies to ballistic weapons and energy weapons and missile weapons, and there are ships that can use all three of those at the same time!

Say you have a HSCV (Hypothetical Spherical-Cow-in-a-Vacuum) battlecarrier that gets half its firepower from directly mounted guns, and half its firepower from fighters. With no officers involved, this is great! With officers involved, suddenly it needs to be re-balanced, because the officer skills are boosting just the 'guns' half of that, and now you have to choose 'what level of officer do I balance this ship around?'

...Now, the argument you've made about concentration of firepower being an issue. That one I can understand, even if I don't use fighters that way, and if that pushes towards keeping fighters as more of a fleet asset than a ship asset... well, then I'm not entirely happy with having to spend carrier OP on them, but so be it.

Hm, maybe what the HSCV needs is a built-in hullmod that reduces fighter roam range by... let's say 50%, and then also makes (some) officer skill bonuses apply to its fighters?
Same thing about concentration of fighters can be said for homing missiles.  It is a reason why I have been writing that, as of 0.95, some missiles are being better fighters than real fighters, in part because of longevity (four minutes of continuous firing of missiles instead of one or two minutes of unskilled fighter spam) and in part because the motherships (like Apogee or Conquest) are still generally armed warships with stats of their weight class, more than a dedicated carrier (or carrier-wannabe Gryphon) with stats comparable to a civilian minus the civilian debuff hullmod.

(Per the patch notes, this is resolved by adding the Fullerne Spool at Eventide.)
What happens after the player steals it?  I have been playing kleptomaniacs and stealing rare items as soon as my fleet is able to (a bit late in a game).

If the player can cause a perma-shortage by stealing an item, then a good late-game strategy is to steal that item!  Even better if doing so causes a Pather cell tormenting that planet to dissolve (when I do not want to kill core worlds).

I suppose if it occurs sufficiently late, it does not matter since the item did its job for at least half of a playthrough that is not prolonged by Ordos grinding or other endgame activity.  (I still want to steal that spool to cause a perma-shortage if that is the result.)
« Last Edit: November 07, 2021, 11:48:13 AM by Megas »
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SafariJohn

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #131 on: November 07, 2021, 12:07:16 PM »

And, the idea about a hullmod reducing roam range and making some bonuses apply to fighters - I think that's a very interesting idea. It seems like it'd be tough to make it come out right, though, given the possible range of effects skills can have. And having to flag certain skill effects as "fighter-applicable for this hullmod" and others as not, and conveying this information somehow... that seems awfully messy for essentially implementing a hullmod. But the general concept - trading off roam range for power - I think is good.

Basically you'd be creating 2 categories: fleet carriers and officer carriers. Maybe go the other way? Slash all fighter roam ranges and add a "Fleet Carrier" hullmod that puts them back to long range? Hrmm, that seems sketchy, too.



RE civ ships in combat: I am not sure hullmods are really the way to do it.

With hullmods, either you are building your civilian ships to always be deployed in combat, or never be deployed in combat. Theoretically you can refit them in space right before a battle, but nobody does that.

The idea of super-buffing civilian ships for a desperate battle seems more like a story point ability, but that is not great either.
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SCC

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #132 on: November 07, 2021, 12:14:09 PM »

And, the idea about a hullmod reducing roam range and making some bonuses apply to fighters - I think that's a very interesting idea. It seems like it'd be tough to make it come out right, though, given the possible range of effects skills can have. And having to flag certain skill effects as "fighter-applicable for this hullmod" and others as not, and conveying this information somehow... that seems awfully messy for essentially implementing a hullmod. But the general concept - trading off roam range for power - I think is good.
Make the carrier skills reduce roaming range. Explain that it's because the officer is taking a hands-on approach and you can't really do that without any communications, now can you? Well, assuming you're going back to carrier skills. If not, make it a part of "affects ships with officers" skill? Making it a hullmod is also an option, but possibly less desirable.

ubuntufreakdragon

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #133 on: November 07, 2021, 12:14:48 PM »

No longer a perma fuel shortage at Syndria.
My game had perma-volatile shortage at Sindria, and making volatile runs from Umbra to Sindria was almost as profitable as drug or supply runs with various black markets elsewhere.

(Per the patch notes, this is resolved by adding the Fullerne Spool at Eventide.)
Well if that shortage I mean would have been created by a volatile shortage, I wouldn't have complained about it in first place, I caused by an high command consuming more fuel then a fuel production with synchrotron can produce, without admin boost.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #134 on: November 07, 2021, 12:29:57 PM »

Same thing about concentration of fighters can be said for homing missiles.

Hmm, I don't think that's true! The ranges are so much greater for fighters, and ability to force-concentrate is more than linearly improved by higher range. In addition, missiles are *much* easier shoot down en masse by AoE point defense. It just doesn't begin to compare. I mean, yes, compared to shorter ranged weapons, missiles have a greater ability to focus-fire something, but fighters are in an entirely different league when it comes to that.


What happens after the player steals it?to (a bit late in a game).

What you'd expect!


Make the carrier skills reduce roaming range. Explain that it's because the officer is taking a hands-on approach and you can't really do that without any communications, now can you? Well, assuming you're going back to carrier skills. If not, make it a part of "affects ships with officers" skill? Making it a hullmod is also an option, but possibly less desirable.

Hmm, I don't think skills giving an unavoidable debuff to something is great.

Well if that shortage I mean would have been created by a volatile shortage, I wouldn't have complained about it in first place, I caused by an high command consuming more fuel then a fuel production with synchrotron can produce, without admin boost.

Ah - does Andrada not have Industrial Planning in 0.95a? He does now, so that'd explain that aspect of it.


Basically you'd be creating 2 categories: fleet carriers and officer carriers. Maybe go the other way? Slash all fighter roam ranges and add a "Fleet Carrier" hullmod that puts them back to long range? Hrmm, that seems sketchy, too.

Yeah. To be honest, I'm pretty into the "officer presence enhances fleetwide fighter skill effects" idea - that seems to resolve everything very neatly!
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