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Author Topic: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 248984 times)

Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #810 on: December 19, 2021, 11:18:05 AM »

@ Alex: If all I needed Field Repairs for was to fix up new enemy ships I recover (especially automated ships), I would not care until I go back to base and outfit them properly.  But it really helps after I lose a bunch of my ships in a fight.  The enemy can kill my ships, but if none or very few get any d-mods (and Hull Restoration fixes the few my fleet does get, new acquisitions from the enemy notwithstanding), then after Field Repairs, my fleet is like a zombie pack or regenerator fleet.  They can die but will not stay dead for long.
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dacian

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #811 on: December 19, 2021, 12:52:47 PM »

In this hotfix 2, RC5 version, I killed a Pirate base (in Duzahk) pillaging (-1 stability) my system (Penelope's), then immediately went to a system a bit N from Westernesse. When I reached that system ... lo and behold, a new Pirate base starts pillaging my bases (-2 stability now) I don't think more than 10 days passed ...
So, this bug is not fixed yet?!?

Hmm. I suspect the bug is indeed fixed - that is, a new base isn't immediately spawning - but what happened is you got targeted by another, already existing base. And taking *that* one out should take care of it (well, unless there are more bases yet, and you get unlucky with their target selection again). If you wouldn't mind emailing me your save, though, I'd love to take a look and make sure this is actually the case! fractalsoftworks [at] gmail [dot] com
I have already overwritten that save. Indeed, it was another pirate base. I took it out.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #812 on: December 19, 2021, 12:59:29 PM »

Ah, ok - thank you for confirming! (I realize the actual behavior of this isn't the best; will think about this! Just, not something I want to muck with for the hotfix.)
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RustyCabbage

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #813 on: December 19, 2021, 01:12:44 PM »

Figure I may as well post some quick weapon/ship/skill thoughts (since they're the things I've actually tried out to a reasonable degree) before the last hotfix.

1. As mentioned elsewhere, the small Autocannon and more accessible recoil buffs kind of push Railguns out of their niche. I like the idea of dropping range to 600.
2. Light Assault Cannons do however feel much nicer and are much harder to weigh versus Light Mortars than previously
3. Looks like irpulse_fighter still uses 50 flux per shot rather than 40. Also as a small QOL change, could you adjust the chargeup stat from 0.33 to the Pulse Laser's 0.333333? 150 dps and 120 flux/sec look nicer than the current 152 / 121 :P
4. I still haven't played around too much with the new (Double) versions of Harpoon and Sabots, but at a glance I feel like it'd be nice to reduce the 10s refire delay to like 6 or so. Minor, gut feeling sorta thing.
5. It's rather strange but in some respects the lowly Thumper, especially with officer skills, manages to fare favorably even against high tier weapons like Cryoblasters. From what I've seen at least they have a lower time-to-kill than kinetic-HE combos with higher OP weapons, even against heavily shielded targets. They're a lot of fun so I don't really want to see a nerf for them, but they're probably worth looking at some more.

6. Mining Blaster could probably use some love as others have mentioned, but I don't have ideas that would make it more interesting.
7. New Proximity Charge Launchers are fantastic. Sorry I doubted :p And the new Pilums aren't too shabby, either. Great changes.
8. I am vaguely annoyed that Breach SRM Pods have +1s refire delay over Harpoon and Sabot Pods.
9. Still unsure how I feel about Sabot Pods. The reduced EMP is nice, but it's still kind of trivial to get overloads with them, and their damage against stripped armor still feels pretty significant, so I'm starting to wonder if it'd be merited to adjust the damage to like 200x4 or 150x6 or something.
10. Large missile changes just feel excellent all around.
11. Very happy for the Shock Repeater and Resonator efficiency buffs!
12. Disintegrator says that it counts as an Energy weapon for stat modifiers, but it always felt more like a ballistic to me. I dunno, food for thought.

13. New Burn Drive feels really, really nice, but it'd be good if there was a slight delay before it could be cancelled, so that double tapping it doesn't just waste the system. Definitely helps make the Legion and Onslaught a joy to pilot now.
14. Really happy with the recent DP shifts to the Brawler, Wolf and Omen. They're sorta exactly where I'd expect them to be. Wolf (P) got kind of left in the dust though, being significantly worse than the base hull but without the DP adjustment made to the Shade, Afflictor, Vanguard
15. Lasher is easily my favorite frigate at this point. It kind of already was, but even more so now :p
16. Manticore feels a ways above par with two Medium missile slots plus a Large plus a healthy amount of dissipation, even disregarding its system (which as an aside is very cool).
17. Either Eradicator flux seems high, or Falcon flux seems low in the current state. Too early to make complaints, but...
18. The Tempest's Termination Sequence feels weak at the moment but you've already addressed that, I think.
19. Not a huge fan of the way Ballistic Rangefinder has a 6/9/15 cost while High Scatter Amp and Advanced Optics have to suffer with 4/8/12/20 and 5/10/15/25, respectively. It seems like an unnecessary OP tax (or conversely, Ballistic Rangefinder is too cheap for what it provides :p). Also sad that the latter two are now incompatible with each other - it seemed like they cost was an appropriate price for the synergy between the two.

(I haven't played around much with Phase Ships yet, so no comment there)

20. Overall very happy with all the new skill changes. Current standouts for me among the new stuff would be Ordnance Expertise and Support Doctrine (20% DP reduction feels much too high, in my opinion. This applies to a lesser extent with Derelict Operations, but Support Doctrine also comes with huge increases in combat power.
21. Random QOL thing - swap the placement of Impact Mitigation and Damage Control so the three Support Doctrine skills are all beside each other.
22. Some of the "Affects: " strings seem a bit off now, like the nav rating Coordinated Maneuvers affects officered cruisers and capitals, and the difference between "fleet" (in Hull Restoration) and "all ships" (in Derelict Operations) is lost on me.

(okay, wasn't all that quick I suppose, but yeah)

Thaago

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #814 on: December 19, 2021, 01:20:11 PM »

I had more time to play, so some further thoughts in no particular order:

I'm doing a combat/leadership build right now - I had previously had points in navigation and 2 in industry to get the auto repairs and extra flux, but I was faced with a really tough bounty (that I tried like 6 times) and needed to swap to a more combat focused build to take it out. Ordinance Expertise is a good skill in general and probably great for battleships, but wasn't a huge help on the Hammerhead I was piloting compared to getting target analysis and ballistic mastery (I just didn't really need the flux with the weapon loadout I had - active venting was 'good enough'). I miss Field Repairs: it saves so many supplies and makes chain battling pirates/remnants a lot easier.

Ballistic Mastery is an excellent skill and I like that it feels quite different than energy mastery: less top end brawling benefit, but more tactical power with the range and speed.

Leadership + a destroyer and frigate group + support doctrine is very good. Crew training remains the best skill in the game. Coordinated Maneuvers is also very good once I had 3 officers so could max the bonus, and the command point regen lets me issue tons of orders. I only got Support Doctrine when I was retooling for the really hard fight, and it made a huge difference even though I only had 7 unofficered ships at the time (14 combat ships total at that point, like ~120 DP? It turned the fight from something I couldn't win to a hard but manageable victory). Every ship is operating at +30% speed, with unofficered/helmsman ships up to +40% (I note that CR increases the base speed of a ship on the ship screen - does that mean its multiplied by the 30% in combat from nav and helm? If so then thats a bit more, 32%/43% speed boost). My unofficered Hammerheads and Enforcers can go toe to toe with alpha core remnant destroyers, and my unofficered Omens/Tempests can last multi-capital fight without having CR problems - often without ticking down at all (and are _so_ fast as I put unstable injector on them too. I think my Omens and Tempests (without UI) are going ~325 with the 0 flux bonus). A pristine Enforcer for 7DP with damage control and combat endurance is a hell of a support ship.

The DP bonus from Support Doctrine rounding instead of being decimal is a bit odd, as especially for small ships the integer change can mess with their ratios (Omen:Centurion without is 6:4, with is 5:3). Its not a huge deal, but it stuck out to me as a thing to maybe exploit.

Wolfpack tactics applying to destroyers, even though its 10%, is really nice as I don't feel that its 'wasted' to promote officers from frigates to destroyers, and the PPT boost is great.

I feel no need to use cruisers at all because they are in general slow, though I want to play more with the Eradicator and Fury both to see how they are at those DP and to stiffen my fleet up a bit while maintaining mobility. Falcons are a possibility for mobility, but its been discussed that they lack punch.

I'm only level 10 and my officers aren't maxed out, so I haven't purchased either of the officer boosting skills in leadership yet. I almost certainly will, but unofficered ships being level 2.5ish makes getting more officers less of a priority.

I had a pair of condors which were functional and didn't need expanded deck crew with the skill and an officer (just level 1's I was training up), even with bombers (had 1 cobra + flash, 1 spark + talon), but they got run over by a big enemy fleet that I needed to be mobile to beat: onslaughts are scary to condors. I'm going to switch to unofficered Herons I think, mainly for the speed.

I recovered a Conquest with 1 D mod and am now piloting it: unfortunately the D mod is faulty power systems, which is bad enough I'm thinking about docking the thing and fishing for a new one with more D mods that aren't that. -20% flux (and sensor penalties) is so rough! Degraded engines is no longer a dealbreaker as it doesn't lower cruise speed.

I have yet to unlock any of the mysteries of slip streams, but I keep getting buzzed by so many false sensor contacts that tease me! I'm excited to figure out whats going on there, but I need to stop bounty hunting and go exploring I think if I want to learn more. I also haven't done any Galatia stuff yet, but have stumbled on 2 different events (1 exploration, 1 bar) that are pointing me there, so those hooks are working.

Manticore was fun, but its slow and vulnerable to swarms because of its mount layout so I got popped in it. I think it would make an efficient and strong artillery support ship though now that I have a wider fleet and better weapons so I might pick it up again (the DP:Missiles ratio is excellent: tournament bait right there). I think its dissipation might be too high tbh, which is a weird thing to say.

I haven't played with any phase ships yet either for me or for my fleet so no comments on if they are still good there, but as enemies they seem to be reasonable. They are annoying and have strong powers (the enemy Doom did pop two of my tempests with its mines before I focus fired it down, that was a few more D mods into my fleet, cost maybe 25k in amortized credits), but can't just retreat endlessly at warp speed so my 275 speed frigates can actually catch them.

Railguns: I'm still using them on any ship that doesn't have extra small slots - Hammerheads in particular. The single autocannon is now a useable alternative, but the shot speed and DPS of the railgun imo makes it still the premium small kinetic. The LDAC is for anti-big ship brawling only/midlow efficiency saturation of space, as even with skills its accuracy is too low for anti-frigate (or even destroyer!) shot to land with a good rate. Its weird to say, but between ordinance and flux dynamics ships are getting much less flux locked.

Quote
15. Lasher is easily my favorite frigate at this point. It kind of already was, but even more so now :p
Restored ones with free SO? They are such nasty little ships and so cheap! Crank the fleet aggression all the way up and just slam into things :D

[edit] Oh right, termination sequence! I know you're already looking at it so I'll just add that the AI occasionally fires it from really far away so that they self destruct before impact. Maybe because the enemy is fleeing?
« Last Edit: December 19, 2021, 02:47:20 PM by Thaago »
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ANGRYABOUTELVES

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #815 on: December 19, 2021, 03:06:59 PM »

I think the Scintilla should have a different ship system. Recall device doesn't work particularly well with any of the drone fighters, not even the Flash. It could have Targeting Feed instead, or even Fortress Shield to make it really hard to kill. I'm using use five gamma-cored Spark Scintillas as a way to get officered interceptor carriers without actually spending officers on them, and they're acceptable enough, but not really tier 5 skill material like an alpha core Radiant or 10 gamma core Glimmers is. They're not really doing anything that 5 Drovers couldn't.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2021, 03:09:31 PM by ANGRYABOUTELVES »
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prav

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #816 on: December 19, 2021, 05:00:04 PM »

Also as a small QOL change, could you adjust the chargeup stat from 0.33 to the Pulse Laser's 0.333333? 150 dps and 120 flux/sec look nicer than the current 152 / 121 :P

Dual Flak could also do with this treatment.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #817 on: December 19, 2021, 06:33:21 PM »

@RustyCabbage, Thaago: Thank you for the really detailed writeups! I appreciate it.

A few specific responses -

3. Looks like irpulse_fighter still uses 50 flux per shot rather than 40. Also as a small QOL change, could you adjust the chargeup stat from 0.33 to the Pulse Laser's 0.333333? 150 dps and 120 flux/sec look nicer than the current 152 / 121 :P

Ah - the fighter one, I didn't want to touch because it'd mean testing and tweaking a bunch of fighter flux stats. Just tweaked the numbers for the IR Pulse, though; good call :)

4. I still haven't played around too much with the new (Double) versions of Harpoon and Sabots, but at a glance I feel like it'd be nice to reduce the 10s refire delay to like 6 or so. Minor, gut feeling sorta thing.

Missile Spec halves that, though, and I'd want to keep them from feeling like you can basically fire them in one go - 10s is there because it feels like just about enough that you can't dump them into the same overload window.


13. New Burn Drive feels really, really nice, but it'd be good if there was a slight delay before it could be cancelled, so that double tapping it doesn't just waste the system. Definitely helps make the Legion and Onslaught a joy to pilot now.

Got a note about that! Not for the hotfix, but I'll take a look.

22. Some of the "Affects: " strings seem a bit off now, like the nav rating Coordinated Maneuvers affects officered cruisers and capitals, and the difference between "fleet" (in Hull Restoration) and "all ships" (in Derelict Operations) is lost on me.

Thank you, fixed that up. HR vs DO I suppose it's more of an under-the-hood difference...


(I note that CR increases the base speed of a ship on the ship screen - does that mean its multiplied by the 30% in combat from nav and helm? If so then thats a bit more, 32%/43% speed boost).

It's just a percentage change; afaik Helmsmanship also shows up in the refit screen.

My unofficered Hammerheads and Enforcers can go toe to toe with alpha core remnant destroyers, and my unofficered Omens/Tempests can last multi-capital fight without having CR problems - often without ticking down at all (and are _so_ fast as I put unstable injector on them too. I think my Omens and Tempests (without UI) are going ~325 with the 0 flux bonus). A pristine Enforcer for 7DP with damage control and combat endurance is a hell of a support ship.

Whoa, that's not bad! Hadn't thought of the Enforcer in that role, but then again a lot of my testing of Support Doctrine was with Vanguards, and this is kind of just that writ larger.

I recovered a Conquest with 1 D mod and am now piloting it: unfortunately the D mod is faulty power systems, which is bad enough I'm thinking about docking the thing and fishing for a new one with more D mods that aren't that. -20% flux (and sensor penalties) is so rough! Degraded engines is no longer a dealbreaker as it doesn't lower cruise speed.

(Let me tone that down to 15%, while I'm thinking about it...)

[edit] Oh right, termination sequence! I know you're already looking at it so I'll just add that the AI occasionally fires it from really far away so that they self destruct before impact. Maybe because the enemy is fleeing?

Ah yeah - there was indeed a bug with that where it wasn't considering how fast the target was moving away, compared to the expected eta for the missile.


I think the Scintilla should have a different ship system. Recall device doesn't work particularly well with any of the drone fighters, not even the Flash. It could have Targeting Feed instead, or even Fortress Shield to make it really hard to kill. I'm using use five gamma-cored Spark Scintillas as a way to get officered interceptor carriers without actually spending officers on them, and they're acceptable enough, but not really tier 5 skill material like an alpha core Radiant or 10 gamma core Glimmers is. They're not really doing anything that 5 Drovers couldn't.

Hmm, let me mull this over. Don't want to do anything drastic right now, butI see what you're saying.


Dual Flak could also do with this treatment.

Done!
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #818 on: December 19, 2021, 06:45:29 PM »

Alex, would it be too much if Neural Link or Neural Interface (Integrator's fine-ish) is to receive additional bonuses? Something to make it viable to players who aren't good at or don't like manual piloting for whatever reason.
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I'm not going to check but you should feel bad :( - Alex

Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #819 on: December 19, 2021, 08:49:29 PM »

I sometimes use the double Harpoon/Sabots instead of racks (on ships with many small missile mounts) because I do not trust the AI to not dump the entire rack on the first vulnerable (decoy) target it detects.  Cheaper OP cost too.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #820 on: December 20, 2021, 06:36:24 AM »

I tried Gryphon again, and with 800 range light autocannons (and Steady AI), it kept a fair distance away and launched hammers while other ships pounded away with guns.  Gryphon itself had moderate gun-power with three light autocannons with 800 range.  Worked like Champion-lite with more missiles and no large energy weapon.

I would take Gryphon over Eagle in my fleet.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2021, 06:38:05 AM by Megas »
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wsdude

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #821 on: December 20, 2021, 08:24:01 AM »

Ah, ok - thank you for confirming! (I realize the actual behavior of this isn't the best; will think about this! Just, not something I want to muck with for the hotfix.)

We getting 1 more quick patchfix?Saving it for my next playtrough.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2021, 10:07:03 AM by wsdude »
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Beakus McMunch

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #822 on: December 20, 2021, 08:32:58 AM »

In previous versions of the game there was an option in 'config/settings.json' to enable/disable the large flash on ship death, I think it was called 'enableWhiteout' or something like that but I can't find it in this version. Did it get removed or renamed?
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Hiruma Kai

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #823 on: December 20, 2021, 09:10:33 AM »

In previous versions of the game there was an option in 'config/settings.json' to enable/disable the large flash on ship death, I think it was called 'enableWhiteout' or something like that but I can't find it in this version. Did it get removed or renamed?

In config/settings.json, search for:
"enableShipExplosionWhiteout":true,
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Beakus McMunch

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Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #824 on: December 20, 2021, 09:19:21 AM »

In previous versions of the game there was an option in 'config/settings.json' to enable/disable the large flash on ship death, I think it was called 'enableWhiteout' or something like that but I can't find it in this version. Did it get removed or renamed?

In config/settings.json, search for:
"enableShipExplosionWhiteout":true,

Cheers, case sensitive search fooled me yet again  :P
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