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[Yunru]

In general, I do feel like the Q-map and the Intel map have been drifting ever closer to a merger with each update.

[shpooky]

It takes my fleet over 2 weeks to get crushed in a black hole.  They just sit there.  In a black hole.  At 0% combat.
It takes WEEKS.

Well, I have suggested adding time dilation to black holes on multiple occasions, dunno why it keeps getting ignored (except maybe because bounty fleets sometimes end up in black holes, but one would think that such a fleet would die eventually anyways and I dunno how player could easily kite bounty fleet into black hole on their own; but if bounty fleet dies, one would think player still gets credit).

i wouldn't assume ur getting ignored. i dont know much about alex, but i would assume he has other responsibilities other than star sector.
yes having fleets in blackholes die/go away or something else along those lines would be neat to have.
instead of just having them hang out in the black hole.
 i assume something is already planned for that (alex just hasn't gotten to doing it yet).
and improving the spawning of fleets and AI so that it avoids blackholes more effectively are probably also planned, but for the player i assume there will eventually be a instant death mechanic + some way to undo the fact that u just got sucked into a black hole(story points mechanic?) maybe something interesting happens? remember the game is still in development.

[Histidine]

How would breaking down supplies into multiple commodity types fix the issue where fleets can sit in black holes for extended periods of time?

The obvious solution to that issue is to make black holes kill the fleet faster, e.g. by doing direct damage to ships (like asteroid collisions but with the ability to be fatal).

[Thaago]

Yeah stellar hazards causing CR damage works well for more 'minor' things that wear on ships like the corona of a star or hyperspace lightning strike, while being inside of a black hole is a lot more extreme. If asteroids can deal direct damage, then black holes dealing it too would make sense.

[shpooky]

could the blackhole doing physical damage be modded in with the current release? and make it extremely high so that its essentially instant death

[Harmful Mechanic]

Mod Standardization/rating by FractalSoftworks: Please no. Having it be hard for players to tell at a glance if a youtube streamer is actually skilled at the game is just... not a concern compared to the utter storm of insanity that this would cause.

Agreed.

OP:
This would effectively destroy modding for the game as we know it. Too hard an authorial thumb on the scales, and I'd leave; so would most of the other modders who could actually meet an arbitrary quality standard. I'm not here to create an unpaid expansion for the game; I'm here as a hobbyist, doing what I want, when I want. If I'm not doing what I want, when I want, I charge money for that. Alex has my email; if he wants to hire me, I'm sure he'll let me know.

You are, of course, welcome to come join us in the modding pits, and see for yourself what kind of quality some of your ideas have by implementing them personally and taking feedback. Having to stand by a working implementation of your idea that may or may not function correctly is humbling; I recommend it.

Re: FS2:
Leaving aside the technical misunderstandings: more updates =/= better (an update every 3 days sounds absolutely awful and a good way to break mods too fast for an ecosystem to develop). A bigger team =/= better (and going by modern game development trends, its actually pretty clear that a bigger team is worse). And, most importantly: Alex in his current working mode, with his current team, is creating a really good game, and he's the one in charge. If he doesn't want to expand to a bigger team, well why should he? I have absolutely no idea what the sales numbers are after the recent surges from reviews, but I'm going to bet on 'better than enough' to keep going as its going.

This pretty well covers it for me too.

OP:
Another thing to note here is that most of these suggestions are excellent ways to lose your shirt, and your business, as well as your chances of ever making another game. Hiring lots of new people just before you launch your first product compounds the number of moving parts you need to track, and the number of places your time could get sucked up dealing with administrivia (because managing people is a skill, and not one you want to learn on-the-job at the most critical time for your first product launch). Constant updates would break mods so often lots of us would have to give up, or freeze our mods as-is; like a lot of your suggestions, you want contradictory things, and you just ignore the contradictions. That's what gets people's goats.

I don't think there's any danger of your advice being adopted, because the technical side has been handled ('you don't know what you're talking about' covers it nicely) and everyone with influence over the game's development is smarter than to listen uncritically.

So, I guess the entire point of posting is to say; I hope you get a chance to test some of these ideas out on your own projects, and that they go well enough that you can continue sleeping indoors.

[dgchessman2]

This would effectively destroy modding for the game as we know it. Too hard an authorial thumb on the scales, and I'd leave; so would most of the other modders who could actually meet an arbitrary quality standard. I'm not here to create an unpaid expansion for the game; I'm here as a hobbyist, doing what I want, when I want. If I'm not doing what I want, when I want, I charge money for that.

I don't think there's any danger of your advice being adopted, because the technical side has been handled ('you don't know what you're talking about' covers it nicely) and everyone with influence over the game's development is smarter than to listen uncritically.

So, I guess the entire point of posting is to say; I hope you get a chance to test some of these ideas out on your own projects, and that they go well enough that you can continue sleeping indoors.

Well!  Your enthusiasm is dully noted! ^_~

See, I've already SEEN implementation of things like difficulty scaling.  In a multiplayer environment, no less.  RogueWar Online has taken the Roguetech platform (which includes stacks of things to tweak before you start your game) and renders them all down to a single multiplier.  And that's how much you do, or don't, influence the overall starchart.

There's no suggestion here of a draconic thumb digging into people's eyesockets.  And while I'm glad... you're... glad... that I'm... glad.... that these suggestions might not be implemented or taken seriously, I SWEAR I put up a big huge banner that said something along the lines of 'If you're perfectly happy with how things are, PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST IN ITS ENTIRELY'.

You can say that your hobbyist contribution is 'No touchy, touchy!', but I see plenty of mods here that simply say "If you want to fold them in to the game, feel free".

I simply suggest that rather than spending time/money/creative effort trying to expand the game... you take a quarter out of your fiscal year and focus on folding in as much as you can.
Again, it's been done to great success before.  Lookin' at you, Rimworld.  And XCom.  And....

Lastly, hiring a single person to JUST MAKE UI isn't some sort of Wolf of Wallstreet hiring binge.  It's just... a single, focused individual.|
If Iron Gate can making something as fantastic as Valheim, based on 1990's graphics, with a team of 8 people... I'd like to think that an irresponsible hiring binge isn't required.

So yes.
It would destroy 'modding as we know it'

Because... and let's face it, folks... there's 35 people on this forum right now, and several thousand hanging out in Rimworld.

So, I'll say it again:
If you're perfectly happy to just keep cruisin' like this... I highly encourage and suggest it!  ^_^  Happy day!
I have an odd compulsion to vector a bit differently than what SEEMS to be the current vector.

And, oddly enough, I don't think that's unreasonable for a Suggestions forum!

[dgchessman2]

How would breaking down supplies into multiple commodity types fix the issue where fleets can sit in black holes for extended periods of time?

The obvious solution to that issue is to make black holes kill the fleet faster, e.g. by doing direct damage to ships (like asteroid collisions but with the ability to be fatal).

Less of a specific example, more of low hanging fruit.
I was literally parking my fleet in a Black Hole, just to see what happened.  And I chuckled.  But then... there was that little nagging again.
It breaks the game's own set of immersive rules.

I pointed out earlier that we only use weapon charges for a single battle, then auto-charge them back up.
If you took the 're-arm after a fleet conflict' aspect out of 'Supplies', and made it a new item called 'Confetti Poppers' or something, you could harness a situation in which weapons might be good for SOME situations, and not for others.  Right now you just..... carry enough supplies, and you don't have to worry about it.

And THAT gamestyle is always gonna be there!  That's fine!
But if I take a step back and go 'What would a junker fleet look like post-battle?' or 'How would an Imperial Navy fleet retool after a long engagement?', it has almost nothing to do with food.  Or... whatever supplies are.  Having a supply spike post battle smooths out other nuances... but it also destroys the opportunity to HAVE those nuances.

How about a scouting fleet that just.... runs away, every time you attack it?
It's got no guns.  It doesn't bother with ammo.  At all.  Just engines, radar, and fleet gantries.
WHY would that method of gameplay (for the AI or player) just not work right now?  Because if you got caught, the local speed boost just wouldn't translate.  And supplies are supplies... there's no bonus or penalty to leaving one or the other behind.

Or, another way to look at it:
Where are the support ships?
I mean, the real, honest-to-the-gods support FLEETS?

The baggage train for a huge warship is almost always several times its size.
That's why local fleets are so powerful.  Because they're close to dock, they don't have to bother with that.
Fleets typically provide fuel, food, and especially ammunition which takes up such a horrendous amount of space that it's frankly alarming that everyone thinks it's such a silly item to forget.
Other than fuel... ammo is a staggeringly huge, heavy, sensitive, time-intensive item.

And that's NOT getting all ultra-reality.  It's just... generalizing.

Rather than black holes, I think the Marines are a much better example.
You don't have your ship fleet go fight on the ground.
You carry a specialized item that only works for certain engagements.
You make a CHOICE to bring that item, or not.  But there's no escaping if you choose one or other.

I don't see folks complaining about how having to carry Marines is some sort of undue hardship.

So if there was an item that ONLY re-armed Large slots... and you were out of it... you'd still have Medium and Small (again, just an example)
Now you have an INTERESTING choice to make.  You armed the ships yourself.
Don't use Large Weapons if you aren't going to carry Large Ammo.
....or some variation thereof.

Using supplies WORKS.  It's FINE.
But the process of re-arming, or fleet planning just becomes reflexive.  You tune out. 
It becomes grindy.  You set your fleet view to 2x, hit the autopilot button, and do something else.

THAT isn't something I'd defend in a game.

[dgchessman2]

Another really easy one is the Fleet and Refit screens, along with the various tabs/stockpiles.

Stripping a vessel and storing it requires two screens, and several actions.
Arming it requires a screen AND usually several dry runs in the simulator.
How valuable would it be to just.... see the weapon shoot when you drag it and drop it into its slot?  Just for a second, you get a quick glance at the projectile speed, and all that other misc data.

The human mind can handle a FANTASTIC amount of data if you put it in the right format.
So is an animated ship that you drop weapons onto some insane jump from what it currently is?  I don't rightly know.

But I DO know that if would be one of those things that people playing would BRAG about.  How fantastic, and interactive it would be (on top of addressing, if not solving several issues).
What, Falling Frontier looks like a game that's got groundswell PURELY on its UI and aesthetic.  If you really look, the game itself appears to be TINY.  But the interactive aesthetic is SO fantastic that its got folks hooked and excited.

Zipping around in hyperspace, or dodging around fights, or the satisfactions of boosting juuuusssstttt at the right time to avoid somebody chasing me?  MAGICAL!
Figuring out what that blip on my HUD was that was talking about somebody invading... I don't even know?  That isn't working so great.  Nor are the 5 million tabs down there.

.....So.... I suggested a lot of UI work.
And, since it's so bloody important, and pointed out that putting a single dedicated person onto UI shouldn't be too insane if the game's vector really is towards a better place.

If we're just coasting... none of the Suggestions box really matters, does it?  **chuckles**

[Vanshilar]

I think the biggest issue here is that it seems like you are looking for more of an economic or logistics game, whereas this is a combat game. In other words the different mechanisms in this game are guiding the player toward combat, whereas the suggestions that you're making drive the player away from it.

Take for example needing different kind of resources to fight. That just means the player will need to spend more time in the campaign layer hunting down the correct type of resources they need for each fight. Or having a longer logistical train, which means spending time in the campaign map hunting down the right kinds of ships and (again) the right kinds of resources for each fight. That may be interesting to some people, but I don't think that's what the majority of players of Starsector wants to spend their time doing. Yes it might be more realistic, but the point of a game is to focus on the fun bits while the unfun bits are abstracted away.

So I think it'd be better for you to focus not on "here are some suggestions" but on "here are the reasons why I think they would make for a better game", keeping the game's focus on ship-to-ship combat in mind. Some of the suggestions (like making the weapon stat card be more informative, giving information such as projectile speed without the player having to dig into the game files) are on point, but some of the other suggestions move the player away from the core of the game.

[dgchessman2]

I think the biggest issue here is that it seems like you are looking for more of an economic or logistics game, whereas this is a combat game. In other words the different mechanisms in this game are guiding the player toward combat, whereas the suggestions that you're making drive the player away from it.

Take for example needing different kind of resources to fight. That just means the player will need to spend more time in the campaign layer hunting down the correct type of resources they need for each fight. Or having a longer logistical train, which means spending time in the campaign map hunting down the right kinds of ships and (again) the right kinds of resources for each fight. That may be interesting to some people, but I don't think that's what the majority of players of Starsector wants to spend their time doing. Yes it might be more realistic, but the point of a game is to focus on the fun bits while the unfun bits are abstracted away.

So I think it'd be better for you to focus not on "here are some suggestions" but on "here are the reasons why I think they would make for a better game", keeping the game's focus on ship-to-ship combat in mind. Some of the suggestions (like making the weapon stat card be more informative, giving information such as projectile speed without the player having to dig into the game files) are on point, but some of the other suggestions move the player away from the core of the game.

I think you're ABSOLUTELY right, for all the wrong reasons!  ^_~

Here's the description of Starsector taken from the website:

"Starsector is a single-player sandbox style space role-playing game with strategic elements.  That%u2019s quite a mouthful, though, so here%u2019s what it boils down to %u2013 fly around with your highly customizable fleet, explore, build stuff, blow stuff up, advance your character.  The goal is to give you lots of meaningful choices in a malleable world."

And, perhaps, therein lies the problem exactly!

Starsector:
Sandbox
RPG
Strategic
Fleet
Explore
Blow stuff up
Character

..... and some of those elements shine, and others just plain don't.

[Tartiflette]

Mod "standardization" and "official mods" sounds like the return of the Mod Mafia, but O so much worse. We had something like that, it was absolutely terrible and good riddance now that it's gone! You definitely don't want that ever again.

Besides, if you need a pretty UI, you can go find your mods on Nexus.

[SCC]

Weapon firing.gif idea has been surfacing now and again. Maybe with enough controversy it will stick?
I don't think all weapons, ships, fighters have to have a fourth-wall-breaking "what mod is this from" text on them.
Intel screen and map screen being two screens is mostly because that's how it started, it works, and merging them would be quite some work. Maybe it will happen in 1.0.
What throttle settings? Every setting I know of has only "go slow by holding S" and "max speed".

About supplies and management: as far as I am concerned, Starsector is a game about fighting enemy fleets with your fleet. Supplies make it so that it isn't always profitable to deploy your entire fleet, instead of just a couple of ships. You don't have to do it and it's strictly speaking harder than deploying all your ships, but it gives you an incentive to do so. This purpose of supplies works. I once suggested to Alex that he could add advanced supplies, which worked just like regular supplies, but were required for "better" (more meta) ships. I wouldn't want to juggle multiple types of stuff required for running ships, though, because not only it would be simply more of the same (you already just buy supplies if you need them and almost all planets sell them (but you will probably go to supply manufacturer anyway for cheaper prices), so all this results in is that sometimes you would have to cut your exploration expedition short, because while you got some supplies, they weren't of the right kind). SS is not an inventory management game.

Requirement for some repairs to repair a drydock is useless. If you're exploring, you aren't hauling a useless ship with you. If you're bounty hunting or doing some other fighting, you are going to and from colonies tor resupply and get more bounties all the time. There wouldn't be a difference in practice.

The good thing about actions being instantenous is that MY TIME is not wasted on them. It might give you some edge cases, like surveying in a hostile spaces, but if anything it's good you can spice surveying up this way. Similarly about instant repair: home turf advantage is nice.

Speaking of fetch quests, entire main storyline is essentially one long fetch quest. It makes it pretty easy to get through quickly, though, as you can do the entire thing with a single dram, at burn 20 the whole time. And, I guess, fetch quests are the least exclusive types of quests.

This is the first time I heard of official mods (though now that I think about it, some qualify), but I've never heard of devs being the ones to rate mods and whatnot, instead of the players doing it. Besides that, it doesn't seem like this is actually required for anything.


"Special Agents that still exist purely as text?
Wait... Diplomats aren't Vanilla?!?
Well, if they're mad at me I should just contact them and expl.... wait...... I can't contact them?!?  At ALL?"
lmao

It takes my fleet over 2 weeks to get crushed in a black hole.  They just sit there.  In a black hole.  At 0% combat.
It takes WEEKS.
But with a cargo hull full of goods and a well maintained fleet things turn into Pandorum 4 days outside of port when supplies run out, and by the time I make it back to my faction, I realize that the only way this run is going to be profitable is when I write 'Space Lord of the Flies' to try to recoup some of my losses.

I think this is a case of "people expect black holes to kill you and they don't" and not of supplies needing to be reworked.

Well, I have suggested adding time dilation to black holes on multiple occasions, dunno why it keeps getting ignored (except maybe because bounty fleets sometimes end up in black holes, but one would think that such a fleet would die eventually anyways and I dunno how player could easily kite bounty fleet into black hole on their own; but if bounty fleet dies, one would think player still gets credit).

i wouldn't assume ur getting ignored. i dont know much about alex, but i would assume he has other responsibilities other than star sector.
yes having fleets in blackholes die/go away or something else along those lines would be neat to have.
instead of just having them hang out in the black hole.
 i assume something is already planned for that (alex just hasn't gotten to doing it yet).

I assume Alex looks at the cost (having to make outside world run faster, when it sometimes genuinely cannot because it tanks the FPS) and the benefit (black holes are basically the same thing gameplaywise, but they are flashier) and goes "yeah nah I've got better things to do".

Stripping a vessel and storing it requires two screens, and several actions.

This is actually reasonable - strip & store button would be quite nice indeed.

Arming it requires a screen AND usually several dry runs in the simulator.

This, however, ignores how important arming a warship is. I mean, come on - it already has its own refit screen! You can automate it already (in the refit screen, there's the autofit button), but unless you're autofitting an optimised loadout you've designed previously, it's a good thing to encourage the players to fit the ship by hand. It's important.

Besides, if you need a pretty UI, you can go find your mods on Nexus.

To be fair, there are no mods that add Highfleet-tier visuals. Starsector has nowhere near bells and whistles.

[Yunru]

Arming it requires a screen AND usually several dry runs in the simulator.
How valuable would it be to just.... see the weapon shoot when you drag it and drop it into its slot?  Just for a second, you get a quick glance at the projectile speed, and all that other misc data.

How valuable? Not at all. None.
A shot of it firing isn't going to tell me how the ship as a whole performs in combat, which is what the dry runs are for, so I'm still going to need to do those.

It would look pretty, though?

I SWEAR I put up a big huge banner that said something along the lines of 'If you're perfectly happy with how things are, PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST IN ITS ENTIRELY'.

You did, but that sort of gatekeeping isn't for you to decide

[SafariJohn]

The UI for equipping individual ships is mostly fine IMO. Projectile speeds, etc. would be nice to see. Equipping multiple ships OTOH is a pain, especially if you just want to get decent builds on them and go.