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Author Topic: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 249050 times)

FooF

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #345 on: November 15, 2021, 10:47:00 AM »

@Hiruma Kai

For some reason I had 4000 damage in my head but I thought it was 2000 HE not 4000 HE.

All your points are valid but there are still other levers to pull. Maybe it’s a 1000 damage torpedo with an extra 1000 damage toward armor (to bring the shield cracking down a smidge). If you spam them, it takes 10 or so to overload a generic Cruiser and another 5-6 to defeat it. Meanwhile, a combination of Sabots and Hammers do the same thing in half the ammo. That’s just running down the well-worn path of generalist vs. specialist.

Alternatively, you factor in an EMP payload. If you had a 1000 damage dumb-fire but it also carried a potent disabling effect, you’d have a pseudo-Sabot, pseudo-Harpoon that isn’t as good as either in their respective niches but still generally effective. You could also do a guided version but again, you don’t want to overlap roles too much.

OP cost can also be considered. They might just cost more for the same amount of ammo/damage and that makes it prohibitively expensive to fill a ship up with them. Long-reload times would also blunt spamming them in such a way that they’re too optimal.

Harder to balance, sure, but not impossible.
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JUDGE! slowpersun

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #346 on: November 15, 2021, 11:26:05 AM »

Will slipstreams affect colony accessibility? I mean, if you get favorable slipstreams it seems like our accessibility bonus for "proximity to other colonies" should go up, and if the slipstreams are useless the bonus/penalty should remain as is now.

Thoughts?

I don't believe this was clearly answered, so some speculation may ensue.  However, calculating how slipstreams affect the accessibility stat might be as simple as just measuring distance to nearest active slipstream and proportionally increasing accessibility, or as complicated as just not bothering.  Thus, having accessibility fluctuate twice cycle might lead to weird results.  If anything, it prolly won't affect accessibility at all, just maybe profitability of industries and the speed at which trade fleets arrive (so shorter shortages, basically).
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #347 on: November 15, 2021, 11:30:28 AM »

Will slipstreams affect colony accessibility? I mean, if you get favorable slipstreams it seems like our accessibility bonus for "proximity to other colonies" should go up, and if the slipstreams are useless the bonus/penalty should remain as is now.

They won't! They're too transient and I think that'd just amount to a random, unpredictable-feeling boost that complicates things without a good reason for it.
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AcaMetis

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #348 on: November 15, 2021, 12:30:35 PM »

Will slipstreams affect colony accessibility? I mean, if you get favorable slipstreams it seems like our accessibility bonus for "proximity to other colonies" should go up, and if the slipstreams are useless the bonus/penalty should remain as is now.

They won't! They're too transient and I think that'd just amount to a random, unpredictable-feeling boost that complicates things without a good reason for it.
In-universe, maybe explain it as traders being skittish about using slipstreams because they're frequently used by pirates to set ambushes, something the player might have personal experience with at that point?
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Zakaluka

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #349 on: November 15, 2021, 01:06:06 PM »

makes sense. thanks for answering.

Removed Colony Mangement, Space Operations, Planetary Operations


Does this include the same for administrators, or just the player's skills?

If the former, will there be any new way to get back that accessibility / stability?
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SCC

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #350 on: November 15, 2021, 01:13:02 PM »

This includes administrators.

Mortrag

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #351 on: November 15, 2021, 01:48:00 PM »

All the changes are interesting and can't wait to try it out. Is there a chance that the update will be released before the new year?
I mean there's a chance but that's not really saying anything. If it's any consolation this should be the majority of patch notes, and since Alex has entered the playtesting phase, it should be pretty Soon™-ish. I'd say there's a 80% chance of the release happening this year.

I'm not so optimistic, first quarter of 2022 seems more likely.

Nonetheless, very interesting changes, great work Alex.
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Malorn

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #352 on: November 15, 2021, 11:35:39 PM »

I swear every time I read these changelogs, it's such a difference from other development group. I read a line and think "Yup, that's an improvement that makes sense".

So many low hanging fruit are ignored by many game companies, it's really great that Alex seems capable of actually understanding the game he create, and how it feels to play it.

Just feels really good to see something like that.
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Vanshilar

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #353 on: November 16, 2021, 01:02:54 AM »

  • Point Defense:
    • Reduced bonus damage to fighters to +50% (was: 100%)
    • Elite effect: increased PD range bonus to 200 (was: 100)

Hmm does this affect the base range of PD weapons (i.e. thus affected by ITU etc.)? Thinking this means Devastator would have a base range of 1100 and Heavy Machine Gun would have a base range of 650 (almost that of Heavy Needler), plus the light (dual) machine guns would have their base range increased to 500, which makes them almost useful as just regular weapons in their own right (albeit still short-ranged)...spicy.

  • Hybrid (and other multi-type) weapons can now also be placed in a one-size-larger slot of their type like other weapons
    • For example, a small hybrid weapon can be placed in a medium hybrid slot (but not in a medium energy slot)

Just wanted to note, small hybrids (like the minipulser) can already be placed into medium energy slots, and same with medium hybrids (like cryoblaster) into large energy slots. They can't be placed into ballistic slots of a larger size though. Not sure if that was intentional or not (though they say they count as energy in terms of stat modifiers).

  • High Scatter Amplifier:
    • Added 10% damage bonus
    • Now reduces base beam range to 500/600/700 on frigates/destroyers/larger ships
    • (Previously: reduced range by half)

Similar question here as the PD one: Does this also affect Advanced Optics? Since I *believe* the current HSA affects AO as well (so that AO only gives a bonus of 100 range instead of 200). Obviously the difference here is that if it does affect AO, then a cruiser using HSA would have its beam range reduced from 700*1.55 + 200 = 1285 to 700*1.55 = 1085.

Ship AI:

I read through this with interest because I think the biggest issue with the game right now is the AI. It gets many situations wrong, and in many cases, behaves counterintuitively. For me I would actually prefer improved AI over new features, although I know this varies by player (and "new and improved AI" doesn't really bring new players to the game, it's new features that do).

Generally what the player would like the AI to do (at least for front-line ships) is if it's at low flux, it should run in and fight, while if it's at high flux, it should back off and vent. But when a ship gets into trouble i.e. at high flux, I'll often see nearby ships at low flux continue to hang back. That's very much undesirable behavior. There seems to be something in the AI's "fight or flight" decision-making that says if it's close to an enemy ship, it'll rush in to get even closer (such as a Fury doing plasma burn to go nose-to-nose even though it's already in range of its shortest-ranged weapon), but if it's far enough away, it'll just hang back even at low flux -- even though other ships near it are rushing in. So I end up with ships basically nose-to-nose at high flux in the front, while ships in the back will be at low flux but make no move to head in and fight; the forward ships commit "too much" while the rearward ships commit "not enough".

I don't know if it's missiles or something else that cause this sort of behavior. It's basically unreproducible, but it happens fairly frequently -- I can give plenty of screenshots of it happening, but it's hard to tell when it's going to happen in advance to document it to diagnose what went wrong with the AI.

Something else that is fairly reproducible though is that apparently, if an Odyssey has the plasma cannon equipped, it'll be less likely to go in and fight, and prefer to just stay away. Again, this is opposite of desirable behavior (a ship with more weapons should be more willing to fight, not less). I'm not sure if it's a quirk with broadside behavior, or if it has something to do with the AI script you fixed up (about large ships not chasing after small ships). But this is pretty repeatable.

I posted a video of this behavior here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iImQCs4oLwo

What you can see is that if the Odyssey has a plasma cannon, it'll stay away. But if I remove the plasma cannon, making no other changes (leaving the weapon slot empty and the 30 OP unused), it'll go in and fight. This is with reckless officers, under full assault, so they are supposed to be as aggressive as possible.

An example of the "closer ships rush in to fight, farther ships stay away" AI behavior can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QiaL46a4U8

I can send you a save file if it'll help you see what's going on, although the videos show the complete fleet setup. Hope the AI can be improved to not have these sorts of issues.

(As an aside: If that large energy slot is filled with a HIL, this 3-Odyssey, 6-Hyperion fleet has a pretty good chance of killing the 2-Ordos, 7-Radiant fleet without taking any losses, all under complete AFK, AI control other than the very beginning stages of the battle where the player sets up the fleet as shown in the video. The Odysseys do the bulk of the work in mulching any ships that get close, while the Hyperions run around killing small ships and distracting the enemy fleet, preventing it from surrounding the Odysseys. So it's very close to an "automated" Ordos-farming setup, and against a 2-Ordos, 7-Radiant fleet at that for the +500% XP bonus.)

One command that might be nice in the command UI is some sort of "back off" command to a specific ship. Usually when a ship is under heavy fire, I want it to back off, but I want other ships to go in. But for example if I set an "avoid" command to get it to back off, all the nearby ships would move away instead. Nor do I necessarily want the nearby ships to rush in headlong at that "avoid" ship (by commanding them to attack that ship to override the "avoid" command for them). I simply want a particular ship to temporarily get away from nearby enemy ships, so that it doesn't stay in and die.

Also, for some reason, the AI seems to not like using the cryoblaster, even when it should. A Fury will use it just fine, but on an Onslaught for example, the ship seems to prioritize using other weapons instead, so the cryoblaster ends up being rarely used for some reason. Not sure how the AI picks whether or not to use a given weapon in different circumstances -- but it seems to not like the cryoblaster.

  • Fixed issues with Hyperion's phase teleporter AI that:
    • Could cause it to teleport to unsafe locations
    • Could cause it to teleport away from danger too conservatively

This was sorely needed, since the Hyperion (or more generally: any ship which can teleport) should have the highest flux threshold at which it decides to bug out, since it can at any time near-instantly move to near-guaranteed safety with teleport.

-----

Some analysis on the cryoblaster change:

Versus hull (assuming residual armor from 100 to 0, meaning target ship originally had from 2000 to 0 base armor), heavy blasters currently do 417-500 DPS (i.e. 417 vs 100 residual armor, 500 vs 0 residual armor) while cryoblasters do 1280-1600 DPS, accounting for hit strength. Against Damage Control (elite), cryoblasters would do 968-1160 DPS instead. With cryoblasters being changed to 1400, they will now do 1089-1400 DPS, and 853-1040 DPS against Damage Control (elite). So instead of being 3.1x heavy blaster, they'll be somewhere between 2.1x heavy blaster and 2.7x heavy blaster, depending on how much of their damage gets eaten up by Damage Control (elite). So it'll be around a 14-34% nerf for them versus hull. This is shown graphically in the attachment. (For the cryoblasters, the top line represents without Damage Control (elite), while the bottom line represents against Damage Control (elite), so the actual average damage will be somewhere in between those two lines.)

Had it been 1250, then it would've done 947-1250 DPS, or 768-950 DPS vs Damage Control (elite), for a 24-40% nerf.

Against armor, however, the cryoblaster's (effective) hit strength drops from 400 to 350, compared with heavy blaster's 500. Right now, a "stock" heavy blaster against a "stock" Radiant (i.e. 1500 armor without considering the effect of skills) would take 9 shots to break through armor, assuming it hit the same square all the time. (Hitting different armor squares would increase the number of shots needed.) A cryoblaster would currently take 13 shots. After the nerf (to 1400), it would take 16 shots. So the cryoblaster would take almost twice as long to get through armor before it gets to do its massive hull damage.

So it will be interesting to see whether or not the cryoblaster will still be useful as anti-armor, or if it ends up being better to have something else dedicated to anti-armor. Currently, it's fine to just get by with cryoblasters despite it not being as good as heavy blasters for anti-armor, because the massive anti-hull damage is worth it. That may or may not be the case after the update.

[attachment deleted by admin]
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DaShiv

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #354 on: November 16, 2021, 02:26:56 AM »

  • Point Defense:
    • Reduced bonus damage to fighters to +50% (was: 100%)
    • Elite effect: increased PD range bonus to 200 (was: 100)

Hmm does this affect the base range of PD weapons (i.e. thus affected by ITU etc.)?

Almost certainly not - I believe nothing modifies base range unless it says so explicitly, and so far the only examples are Ballistic Rangefinder and new-HSA. I believe Elite Point Defense is more like "Advanced Optics for PD", where it's a flat bonus added after multiplicative bonuses to base range.

  • High Scatter Amplifier:
    • Added 10% damage bonus
    • Now reduces base beam range to 500/600/700 on frigates/destroyers/larger ships
    • (Previously: reduced range by half)

Similar question here as the PD one: Does this also affect Advanced Optics?

Again I'd think not:



The tooltip seems to pretty explicitly state that the hullmod modifies base range only, and other modifiers are applied normally afterwards.

Old-HSA reduced Advanced Optics (and all other bonuses, such as ITU) because it's a straight negative multiplier, and those seem to be applied last. I believe this is true for all negative range multipliers, such as from Unstable Injector, ECM penalty, SO beyond 450 range, etc. This is why old-HSA was absolutely crippling to attempt using - it was like SO with a maximum range of 0.
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Fenrir

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #355 on: November 16, 2021, 08:40:25 AM »

Looking very forward to playing the next patch and thanks a lot.

Just asking if these following terms which seems to be bugs were fix, didn't find them in the notes:
-Ships' fighter bay(s) with built-in wings but removed by converted fighter bay still count towards number-based skills
-objects(supply cages, probes, etc) occasionally spawn at center of stars
-objects(primarily pirate and pather bases) spawn in orbit of one star in a binary/trinary system can "fall into" the other star
(I might have missed them, plz remind me if I did)
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #356 on: November 16, 2021, 10:19:51 AM »

I swear every time I read these changelogs, it's such a difference from other development group. I read a line and think "Yup, that's an improvement that makes sense".

So many low hanging fruit are ignored by many game companies, it's really great that Alex seems capable of actually understanding the game he create, and how it feels to play it.

Just feels really good to see something like that.

Thank you for your kind words!


Hmm does this affect the base range of PD weapons (i.e. thus affected by ITU etc.)? Thinking this means Devastator would have a base range of 1100 and Heavy Machine Gun would have a base range of 650 (almost that of Heavy Needler), plus the light (dual) machine guns would have their base range increased to 500, which makes them almost useful as just regular weapons in their own right (albeit still short-ranged)...spicy.

Unless something explicitly says "base range" it does not affect the base range.

Just wanted to note, small hybrids (like the minipulser) can already be placed into medium energy slots, and same with medium hybrids (like cryoblaster) into large energy slots. They can't be placed into ballistic slots of a larger size though. Not sure if that was intentional or not (though they say they count as energy in terms of stat modifiers).

Yep, aware - thank you!


Generally what the player would like the AI to do (at least for front-line ships) is if it's at low flux, it should run in and fight, while if it's at high flux, it should back off and vent. But when a ship gets into trouble i.e. at high flux, I'll often see nearby ships at low flux continue to hang back. That's very much undesirable behavior.

It's more complicated than that; coming in when on low flux can still be a bad idea if it gets the ship into a possible crossfire. On the other hand, reckless officers don't care about that, so you should see more or less the behavior you want. What you're describing here, though, sounds like a reckless ship getting ahead of the line - because it doesn't care about crossfires/being flanked - and then non-reckless ships not moving in to support it when it gets in trouble - because they *do* care about that. If that's the case, then this sounds like it's working as intended.

I should say, though, before going further: in the videos you've posted, the AI behavior, specifically for the Odysseys, looks strange. Maybe it's something broadside-ship specific, though I haven't seen anything even similar to what you're observing. It's possible that a mod you're using is factoring in somehow, too. The Odyssey hanging back due to a plasma cannon being installed doesn't make any sense, and I'm not seeing it on my end, hmm.

There seems to be something in the AI's "fight or flight" decision-making that says if it's close to an enemy ship, it'll rush in to get even closer (such as a Fury doing plasma burn to go nose-to-nose even though it's already in range of its shortest-ranged weapon), but if it's far enough away, it'll just hang back even at low flux -- even though other ships near it are rushing in. So I end up with ships basically nose-to-nose at high flux in the front, while ships in the back will be at low flux but make no move to head in and fight; the forward ships commit "too much" while the rearward ships commit "not enough".

I don't know if it's missiles or something else that cause this sort of behavior. It's basically unreproducible, but it happens fairly frequently -- I can give plenty of screenshots of it happening, but it's hard to tell when it's going to happen in advance to document it to diagnose what went wrong with the AI.

This - the concept of "stay away if far away, close in if close" is not a thing in the vanilla AI. It would be fairly trivial for a mod to force it to behave this way by dynamically setting some AI flags on the ship, though... question is what the mod would have been trying to do to have it go so far off the rails. Again, possible that it's some specific vanilla issue that you're running into due to a combination of specific circumstances - but also again, it's not something I've seen at all until just now, and not in vanilla.

Something else that is fairly reproducible though is that apparently, if an Odyssey has the plasma cannon equipped, it'll be less likely to go in and fight, and prefer to just stay away. Again, this is opposite of desirable behavior (a ship with more weapons should be more willing to fight, not less). I'm not sure if it's a quirk with broadside behavior, or if it has something to do with the AI script you fixed up (about large ships not chasing after small ships). But this is pretty repeatable.

I posted a video of this behavior here:

What you can see is that if the Odyssey has a plasma cannon, it'll stay away. But if I remove the plasma cannon, making no other changes (leaving the weapon slot empty and the 30 OP unused), it'll go in and fight. This is with reckless officers, under full assault, so they are supposed to be as aggressive as possible.
An example of the "closer ships rush in to fight, farther ships stay away" AI behavior can be found here:

(Just: acknowledging that the behavior in those videos is indeed odd, even if I don't have an explanation for it.)

I can send you a save file if it'll help you see what's going on, although the videos show the complete fleet setup. Hope the AI can be improved to not have these sorts of issues.

Thank you for the offer! Do you happen to have a vanilla (or very close to it) setup where I might be able to see some of this? The second one - the 5-minute-something video - looks like it's mostly vanilla; here's hoping.

If that's the case - would you mind sending me the save (ideally, pre-fight where I can try to observe this)?

fractalsoftworks [at] gmail [dot] com


Looking very forward to playing the next patch and thanks a lot.

Thank you!

-Ships' fighter bay(s) with built-in wings but removed by converted fighter bay still count towards number-based skills

Are you sure? I don't remember this being an issue, and testing this just now it seems to work fine - I put that hullmod on a Tempest and its bays are then not counted.

-objects(supply cages, probes, etc) occasionally spawn at center of stars

This is a weird one that I haven't been able to fix; somehow recreating the Sector with the same seed puts those in the right orbit.

-objects(primarily pirate and pather bases) spawn in orbit of one star in a binary/trinary system can "fall into" the other star

Hmm, haven't seen this one - unless it's a sub-case of the previous one, in which case I *have* seen it and it's not fixed.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2021, 10:36:43 AM by Alex »
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #357 on: November 16, 2021, 10:47:18 AM »

My experience with plasma Odyssey piloted by (Steady) AI is it plasma burns into the middle of a mob and dies in a crossfire.  If I want to use Odyssey as an AI ship, I need to use mostly beams and missiles just so it will not burn into a mob like an idiot and die, but then it becomes more of a harasser than a beatstick.
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Fenrir

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #358 on: November 16, 2021, 12:00:11 PM »


-Ships' fighter bay(s) with built-in wings but removed by converted fighter bay still count towards number-based skills

Are you sure? I don't remember this being an issue, and testing this just now it seems to work fine - I put that hullmod on a Tempest and its bays are then not counted.
After a few investigation further into it I realized it was a mod compatibility problem and didn't exists in vanilla plz forgive me and just forget it.


-objects(primarily pirate and pather bases) spawn in orbit of one star in a binary/trinary system can "fall into" the other star

Hmm, haven't seen this one - unless it's a sub-case of the previous one, in which case I *have* seen it and it's not fixed.
Not quite, I believe it's that the object had an orbit intersecting with other stars. I think preventing the station spawning at the orbit of ONE OF the stars of a binary/trinary system (with 2 or more stars at center) and only allow it to spawn farther away orbiting the center of mass can eliminate the problem and also prevent it being in between the stars which can be very hard to reach. ps. [REDECATED]
Spoiler
Remnant stations and Hyper Shut
[close]
can also have a similar problem
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #359 on: November 16, 2021, 12:10:42 PM »

After a few investigation further into it I realized it was a mod compatibility problem and didn't exists in vanilla plz forgive me and just forget it.

Ah - no worries!

Not quite, I believe it's that the object had an orbit intersecting with other stars. I think preventing the station spawning at the orbit of ONE OF the stars of a binary/trinary system (with 2 or more stars at center) and only allow it to spawn farther away orbiting the center of mass can eliminate the problem and also prevent it being in between the stars which can be very hard to reach. ps. [REDECATED]
Spoiler
Remnant stations and Hyper Shut
[close]
can also have a similar problem

Yeah - the game, as far as I can remember, already does account for this sort of thing. For example, in binary/trinary systems with the stars near each other, things will *generally* orbit the center. So if that's not working somewhere, it's likely because of something specific that happened there and not a general problem, if that makes sense - so it'd help to see.

The Hypershunt sometimes being in the middle of a trinary and hard to reach is very much intentional, though!
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