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Author Topic: Derelict Operations v. Destroyed Ship Recovery mechanics. Needs fix.  (Read 4132 times)

FenMuir

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I used Derelict Operations (DO) in my latest playthrough of Starsector 0.95.1a. For those who don't know, DO reduces the deployment cost of a ship per D-Mod up to 5 D-Mods per ship. This means Moras can cost 11 DP and Legion 22 DP. This encourages the player to farm D-Mods on a small number of higher DP cost ships. You could deploy 16+ Moras or 7+ Legions, for example. Naturally since this is an end-tree skill, getting that many D-Mods on a ship wouldn't be excessively painful, but that isn't necessarily the case.

I found that story points are commonly required to recover ships after combat, especially if you only lost a single ship, but this could have just been bad dice rolls. This isn't a problem when not using DO, but it is a problem when you are. You may lose a large number of ships fighting a large enemy fleet, and recovering them can be story-point expensive if not impossible. The overall feeling I got from this was that the post-battle ship-recovery system (PBSRSystem) was designed to work directly against using DO or making often minimal use of it.

The target number of D-Mods would be 5 D-Mods. Ideally, the player would be able to add D-Mods from their colony when building the ship, since this would make losing ships and not having Story Points to retrieve them less painful.

I would really likely to see the PBSRSystem retooled to only require Story Points for recovering enemy ships.

As it stands, if I want to make an end-game derelict fleet, I just use the Command Console mod to give myself whatever story points I need to recover ships.

Now, all that said, if someone isn't using DO, this doesn't apply to them at all. This leads me to believe that maximizing use of DO was unintended when it was designed. I'm hoping systems will be tweaked to make it less annoying to use in the long term. As it stands, players are actively dissuaded from using DO via the annoyances suffered when attempting to maximize it, so they will either not use it or circumvent the PBSRSystem's requirements via mods like I did by just giving myself 100's of story points.

Then again, I've played the game long enough to be annoyed by mechanics. The new player experience will likely not be hindered until they've put in enough time to consider experimenting with niche gameplay styles.

Potential resolutions:
Player ships never need story points to be recovered during PDSRSystem.
Ships built at the player's colony via Custom Production can add be set to add 5 D-Mods.
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Hiruma Kai

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Re: Derelict Operations v. Destroyed Ship Recovery mechanics. Needs fix.
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2022, 04:54:56 PM »

There are a number of ways to ensure ships are always recoverable without story point expenditure (except in the case of a bug, which should be reported).

1) Simply put Reinforced Bulkhead on your ships.  This makes them always recoverable without a story point
2) Put an officer in command of the ship.  In 0.95.1a, all officered ships are always recoverable without a story point.
3) Spend a story point on a hullmod for the ship. Also in 0.95.1a, if a ship has a story point hullmod, it is always recoverable

From the patch notes:
"Ships with officers or AI cores in command, or with any s-mods, are (almost) always recoverable"
"Increased max number of recoverable ships to 24 normal/24 "difficult" recovery (was: 16 and 16)"

If you have under 24 losses, and you've done one of the methods, everything should be recoverable without a story point.

Edit: Thinking about it, the game probably needs to do a better job of explaining the later two options.  I'm not sure if the game even tells you that anywhere?  Is it only in the patch notes?

Edit 2: Looks like it only shows up in the tips file, which is kinda easy to miss to be honest.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2022, 05:47:10 PM by Hiruma Kai »
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Nightstrasza

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Re: Derelict Operations v. Destroyed Ship Recovery mechanics. Needs fix.
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2022, 05:09:06 PM »

That skill (and the previous version of it) encourages OOC suiciding ships on purpose, would be nice if the skill was changed, removed or if want to keep the arcade and OOC way of it, just let us press a button and bash the ship in the dock for d-mods so we don't have to lose on purpose and grind for hours.
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Nimiety

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Re: Derelict Operations v. Destroyed Ship Recovery mechanics. Needs fix.
« Reply #3 on: January 16, 2022, 09:25:03 PM »

The salvage yard and hard deadlines edict from Industrial Expansion (I think) are both great for derelict runs. Both boost your monthly budget at the cost of more dmods, which you actually want. The salvage yard can weld ships together too (dmodded to heck) and transfer dmods between hulls. perfect for the slightly obsessive compulsive to maximize their derekict ops skill.
You guys do scare me though.

Stick the salvage yard on a planet in your neighborhood high danger farming system and watch the budget go to the moon.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2022, 09:27:25 PM by Nimiety »
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SCC

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Re: Derelict Operations v. Destroyed Ship Recovery mechanics. Needs fix.
« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2022, 11:44:33 PM »

From the patch notes:
"Ships with officers or AI cores in command, or with any s-mods, are (almost) always recoverable"
"Increased max number of recoverable ships to 24 normal/24 "difficult" recovery (was: 16 and 16)"

If you have under 24 losses, and you've done one of the methods, everything should be recoverable without a story point.

Edit: Thinking about it, the game probably needs to do a better job of explaining the later two options.  I'm not sure if the game even tells you that anywhere?  Is it only in the patch notes?

Edit 2: Looks like it only shows up in the tips file, which is kinda easy to miss to be honest.
I would rather have this limit be done away with. It serves no other purpose than to deny you ships you might want to recover, but cannot because trash already filled out the slots. Especially now that with Support Doctrine and Derelict Operations you can deploy (and potentially lose) more ships than ever.

Locklave

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Re: Derelict Operations v. Destroyed Ship Recovery mechanics. Needs fix.
« Reply #5 on: January 17, 2022, 02:06:26 AM »

I support removing the recovery limit, I'm not even sure why it exist.
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Draba

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Re: Derelict Operations v. Destroyed Ship Recovery mechanics. Needs fix.
« Reply #6 on: January 17, 2022, 02:21:19 AM »

If you have under 24 losses, and you've done one of the methods, everything should be recoverable without a story point.
Oh, so that's what the "almost" in the "almost always" is.
Been looking for it but didn't know, thanks.
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Grievous69

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Re: Derelict Operations v. Destroyed Ship Recovery mechanics. Needs fix.
« Reply #7 on: January 17, 2022, 02:56:41 AM »

If you have under 24 losses, and you've done one of the methods, everything should be recoverable without a story point.
Oh, so that's what the "almost" in the "almost always" is.
Been looking for it but didn't know, thanks.
Unless you're joking, "almost" in this game means in 100% cases. I think the wording is way it is just so it doesn't sound weird I guess? "Here, use this hullmod and turn your ship into undead." Being unable to recover more than 24 ships is just a UI limitation since players are probably not expected to lose almost their whole fleet and somehow win the battle. Which actually happened to me when I fought the million credits bounty, lost everything except the Zigg because I used civilians as distractions in the end.
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Draba

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Re: Derelict Operations v. Destroyed Ship Recovery mechanics. Needs fix.
« Reply #8 on: January 17, 2022, 03:36:47 AM »

Unless you're joking, "almost" in this game means in 100% cases. I think the wording is way it is just so it doesn't sound weird I guess? "Here, use this hullmod and turn your ship into undead." Being unable to recover more than 24 ships is just a UI limitation since players are probably not expected to lose almost their whole fleet and somehow win the battle. Which actually happened to me when I fought the million credits bounty, lost everything except the Zigg because I used civilians as distractions in the end.
Wasn't joking, adding something like that to a tooltip causes needless confusion and I don't think any sensible dev would do that unless there are some rare exceptions.
When it was first added for a while I thought it refers to the case when the ship is blown into chunks.
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Grievous69

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Re: Derelict Operations v. Destroyed Ship Recovery mechanics. Needs fix.
« Reply #9 on: January 17, 2022, 03:40:52 AM »

When it was first added for a while I thought it refers to the case when the ship is blown into chunks.
To be fair I think this is still a thing when a specified ship DOESN'T have any of the mentioned ways to guarantee recovery. If it has even one, then you can pulverize it into a million pieces and it should still be recoverable.
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