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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 248022 times)

SCC

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #300 on: November 13, 2021, 01:25:27 PM »

Now that's a straight up lie.
Dunno man. Hard to tell.

(I feel like maybe you mean these in a kind of jokey/bantering sort of way, but if that's the case, at least IMO - it's the internet, and it doesn't come across very well.)
Towards IonDragon, I was being facetious.
As for harpoons and reapers and Remnants, I felt significantly negatively with how most missiles that weren't sabots were useless at best, harmful-if-taken (in the sense they took OP that could have been spent on something else had any impact) at best and it does show. I shouldn't have called you a liar, and I did not think that perhaps in-dev changes (most significantly, Shield Modulation losing HE resistance) made it different for you, but in the version I get to play, yeah you just don't take anything but sabots in smalls and mediums, and hurricanes and hammer barrages in larges (if you can support them with sabots, of course) and you can see it does not make me happy.

Posted one Dealmaker nerf idea elsewhere:  Instead of adding to income, the Dealmaker can remove all tariffs from the player's colony.  (That way, player will not need to visit pirates next door to buy or sell stuff for the best prices.)

If a core world has it, tariffs are higher, maybe 50%.  Or it does nothing?
As far as I am concerned, Commerce-as-industry exists only to boost the income. If it does not perform any income-boosting function, it is not worth the industry slot and a place in my colony, like in 0.9.1. If dealmaker nerf will result in Commerce having fewer drawbacks, then it's acceptable. Otherwise, if commerce's +25% income (I don't use SPs on colonies) is less of an income increase than what a regular industry would do, it has no place in my colonies.

Phenir

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #301 on: November 13, 2021, 02:27:04 PM »

Does the AI change to make them avoid same and bigger ship's line of fires come with a change to autofire's "avoid shooting if ships might get in the line of fire" since they now actively avoid that?
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #302 on: November 13, 2021, 02:31:33 PM »

Towards IonDragon, I was being facetious.
As for harpoons and reapers and Remnants, I felt significantly negatively with how most missiles that weren't sabots were useless at best, harmful-if-taken (in the sense they took OP that could have been spent on something else had any impact) at best and it does show. I shouldn't have called you a liar, and I did not think that perhaps in-dev changes (most significantly, Shield Modulation losing HE resistance) made it different for you, but in the version I get to play, yeah you just don't take anything but sabots in smalls and mediums, and hurricanes and hammer barrages in larges (if you can support them with sabots, of course) and you can see it does not make me happy.

I mean, reasonable points to raise, but yeah, if it starts off like that, it's not going to lead to a meaningful discussion. All good, though; I appreciate the apology!

(Another change that I think makes a difference on my end is 60 DP Radiants - just, less overall pressure and more time for non-Sabot kinetics to do the job. All I can say is I had good success with Reapers (not mixed with Sabots, even - just with heavy kinetics on the new Eradicator, and on the rest of the fleet), and marginal success with Harpoons, though I did not spend too much time with the latter, and am assuming it could be improved with a more refined build and tactics. And, I wasn't even thinking about it, but the change to Shield Modulation seems like it'd be pretty massive here, given that I think all Remnants - at least Alpha Core'd ones - would have it.)
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DaShiv

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #303 on: November 13, 2021, 04:36:06 PM »

I did, actually, edit my game files to the new Cryoblaster damage - without changing its flux cost - and it seems to be at least mostly fine?

Usable, definitely. Optimal... Maybe not? I'll admit to primarily using it on Tempests, which will be losing HEF next patch... but even on non-HEF ships it performed acceptably.

Keep in mind that due to Cryoblaster's particular damage profile, even with no direct nerfs in 0.951 it'd still be losing 40% off of most of its hull damage against Al-core Remnants with Elite Damage Control ("hull damage over 500 points in a single hit has the portion above 500 reduced by 40%"), so Cryoblasters might become relegated to taking out non-Remnant trash such as human faction fleets.

Assuming current 1400 damage Cryoblaster, target with Elite Damage Control, and ignoring attacker bonuses:

Heavy Blaster:
500 vs shield
500 vs armor
500 vs hull

Cryoblaster:
350 vs shield
350 vs armor
1040 vs hull

In this situation, Cryoblaster's competitiveness becomes very questionable depending on how long it takes to chew through target shields/armor to reach hull and how effectively the target's shields can continue to be suppressed. Still great vs trash without Elite Damage Control, of course.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #304 on: November 13, 2021, 04:38:42 PM »

Cheaper Atropos is welcome.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #305 on: November 13, 2021, 04:42:36 PM »

Elite damage control doesn't seem that bad for cryoblaster. Still double the DPS of heavy blaster into hull even in the worst case. It has the same efficiency as the HB into shields so I think it's pretty much a wash there, I wouldn't say the HB or cryoblaster are really going to be effective against remnant shields. I want to test it, but I think 1600->1400 will be pretty reasonable.
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FooF

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #306 on: November 13, 2021, 05:18:07 PM »

I wrote this huge post about missile balance, posted it in the wrong thread, then decided to do some testing myself and found myself disagreeing with myself so there's that... :P

Long story short: Harpoons absolutely need to do the damage they do. I took their damage down but gave them better guidance and found that even when they landed it was like "big deal." Slower, more powerful Atropos basically never hit and you felt like you were wasting them. Harpoons vs. Atropos is a non-issue. They're just opposite sides of the same coin: one does slightly more damage with better guidance but with less ammo. The other is more ubiquitous, a little harder to land but with more ammo to compensate. I'm not sure if we need both but the Atropos is more of a fighter weapon at this point so as long as it works there, I'm fine with it.

I think the Atropos was originally intended to be between the Harpoon and Reaper (wasn't it 2000 damage?) but 2000 damage Atropos on Daggers/Tridents would be insane. I'd prefer ship-mounted Atropos be 2000 damage and Fighter-mounted Atropos stay as-is but the game would have to tell you that somehow and that's more effort than it's worth. However, at the end of the day, we're talking about a missile system confined to Small Mounts. It's a blip on the balance radar, all things considered. If there were Medium Atropos pods or Hurricanes fired Atropos at the split, maybe it'd be worth debating but as it is, it's no big deal to me.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #307 on: November 13, 2021, 07:08:27 PM »

I think the Atropos was originally intended to be between the Harpoon and Reaper (wasn't it 2000 damage?) but 2000 damage Atropos on Daggers/Tridents would be insane. I'd prefer ship-mounted Atropos be 2000 damage and Fighter-mounted Atropos stay as-is but the game would have to tell you that somehow and that's more effort than it's worth. However, at the end of the day, we're talking about a missile system confined to Small Mounts. It's a blip on the balance radar, all things considered. If there were Medium Atropos pods or Hurricanes fired Atropos at the split, maybe it'd be worth debating but as it is, it's no big deal to me.
The fast 2k damage Atropos from 0.7.2 was the best Atropos (even at 3 and 6 OP), and one of the few that did not need old Missile Specialization 10 to be good, and that old overpowered version of Missile Specialization 10 has been gone for a long time.

I would certainly like the old 2k Atropos return to ships while the current Atropos is used by the fighters.

But it seems Atropos is taking the place of old singleton Harpoons while the latter is becoming a 2 OP budget rack.  At least that is better than ignoring Atropos for a Hammer rack and doing better if even only one of the Hammers hit.

As for communicating the difference, it should not be any different than with various energy weapons (High Delay) for fighters, except with damage instead of fire rate... or fighter version of Swarmers that are unlimited but only shoot one or two instead of four.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #308 on: November 13, 2021, 08:13:02 PM »

I'd suggest add an ammo count to it. Keep the current DPS for a few seconds then let it fall off under sustained fire. It will make the other choices stronger by comparison and increase the scrutiny of Expanded Magazines hullmod.

Hmm, I'll definitely think about that! That sounds like it could be a way to keep the general character of the weapon while reducing how oppressive it can be over sustained periods.


Keep in mind that due to Cryoblaster's particular damage profile, even with no direct nerfs in 0.951 it'd still be losing 40% off of most of its hull damage against Al-core Remnants with Elite Damage Control ("hull damage over 500 points in a single hit has the portion above 500 reduced by 40%"), so Cryoblasters might become relegated to taking out non-Remnant trash such as human faction fleets.
Elite damage control doesn't seem that bad for cryoblaster. Still double the DPS of heavy blaster into hull even in the worst case. It has the same efficiency as the HB into shields so I think it's pretty much a wash there, I wouldn't say the HB or cryoblaster are really going to be effective against remnant shields. I want to test it, but I think 1600->1400 will be pretty reasonable.

Definitely worth noting here: the patch notes are missing a bit about the elite Damage Control effect applying at most once every 2 seconds. So vs a single Cryoblaster, it'd apply to every other shot. Vs a pair, it'd apply to a quarter of the shots, and so on.
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THEASD

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #309 on: November 13, 2021, 09:28:42 PM »

suddenly noticed a bug in 0.95:
picking skills for admin in OfficerManagerEvent.createAdmin() doesn't check skills' "player_only" tag, will it be fixed in 0.951?
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Grievous69

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #310 on: November 14, 2021, 01:25:01 AM »

Huh didn't expect those missile changes. Seems cool but it's kinda funny to me that there now exists two versions of the same missile, with one having a literal one missile more, I understand why for gameplay reasons and bonuses but still. Glad for Atropos changes, still sad there's not a medium version that fires two at once. There's so many options for small slots, but then you get to larger options and you only have Reapers as torpedoes.

Is HVD really a problem? I understand it's a comfortable pick on most setups and safe for AI but I really don't think it outshines other options. It takes a long time to do meaningful damage to shields compared to any other kinetic gun. I mean the Mauler changes might make it even more feasible but if it gets nerfed what are we supposed to use at long range? The primary reason I use HVDs is because of AI, not because it's overperforming or something.
« Last Edit: November 14, 2021, 02:04:41 AM by Grievous69 »
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TaLaR

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #311 on: November 14, 2021, 01:44:58 AM »

Is HVD really a problem? I understand it's a comfortable pick on most setups and safe for AI but I really don't think it outshines other options. It takes a long time to do meaningful damage to shields compared to any other kinetic gun. I mean the Mauler changes might make it even more feasible but if it gets nerfed what are we supposed to use at long range? The primary reason I use HVDs is because of AI, not because it's overperforming or something.

Yeah, I never put HVD on player ship variants, except maybe a beams Paragon. It's a mistake-proof AI weapon, but player can do better.

Mauler changes are a big nerf - HE burst is much easier to counter than HE pressure by shield flickering, and AI already does that at high flux.
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SafariJohn

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #312 on: November 14, 2021, 05:17:47 AM »

Why does anyone think HVD should be nerfed? ??? I have never seen a super-strong build that spams HVDs.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #313 on: November 14, 2021, 06:07:09 AM »

Why does anyone think HVD should be nerfed? ??? I have never seen a super-strong build that spams HVDs.
I only use them on four lance Paragon, which is not good enough against Radiants.  Against Ordos, DPS of HVDs are too low, and I use heavy needlers instead.  And since Ordos-and-Radiant killing is the bar to aim for, loadouts that do not work well against them get phased out in the end.

If anything, HVD is too weak.  Not enough DPS and efficiency.  It is good earlier in the game against weaker and more cowardly human opponents, but not against the advancing wall of doom of Ordos late in the game.
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IonDragonX

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #314 on: November 14, 2021, 07:10:10 AM »

Why does anyone think HVD should be nerfed? ??? I have never seen a super-strong build that spams HVDs.
Well I would have spammed them on some ships but they are OP expensive.
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