Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

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

Pages: 1 ... 17 18 [19] 20 21 ... 27

Author Topic: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2  (Read 37960 times)

Amoebka

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1318
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #270 on: May 11, 2022, 03:17:55 AM »

I think this "delusional generalists" idea is truly great, and can be applied to all LG ships instead of just the Executor.
Imagine having Vigilances with AAF instead of FMR, or Brawlers with active flares instead of jets, or Sunder and Hammerhead swapping their systems. This would very clearly look stupid, but also might encourage players to try some hilarious homecooked builds. Certainly more interesting than "same ship but with worse numbers". A ship system is also a very noticeable change, that would make fighting LG feel more distinct, especially since special modifications have very hard to notice effects.
Logged

Ruddygreat

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 524
  • Seals :^)
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #271 on: May 11, 2022, 08:41:59 AM »

I think this "delusional generalists" idea is truly great, and can be applied to all LG ships instead of just the Executor.
Imagine having Vigilances with AAF instead of FMR, or Brawlers with active flares instead of jets, or Sunder and Hammerhead swapping their systems. This would very clearly look stupid, but also might encourage players to try some hilarious homecooked builds. Certainly more interesting than "same ship but with worse numbers". A ship system is also a very noticeable change, that would make fighting LG feel more distinct, especially since special modifications have very hard to notice effects.
swapping them outright would probably be too goofy (seriously, AAF for 3 smalls?), but swapping / shuffling the effects could be fun- stuff like +50% fire rate for energy weaps, +50%(is that the hef bonus? can't remember) damage for ballistics, maybe some kinda instant magazine reload as an equivalent for missile autoforge, that kinda thing.

and re: the executor, it definitely deserves something like HEF to buff it's fancy new overcompensation blasters G I G A C A N N O N S, going all in on them feels like it'd be more "dictator showing off his fancy new toys" than something like AAF + it'd encourage using energy weaps in the hybrid slots, making building the ship slightly more interesting.

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12118
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #272 on: May 11, 2022, 11:01:16 AM »

Previous versions of hulls could be resurrected for the Lion's Guard.  Old Hammerhead with small energy mounts instead of hybrid (and less OP).  Old Vigilance with more speed but with medium energy mount instead of hybrid.  Brawler with smaller shields and Accelerated Ammo Feeder (original) or Damper Field (between AAF and Jets)
Logged

DJBscout

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 3
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #273 on: May 11, 2022, 02:47:34 PM »

Okay, so I agree with what several other people have said, sure Mr. Big Lion himself is a megalomaniac, but he's also described as intelligent, and evidently was put in charge of a fleet. He was also sufficiently skilled to succeed at completely splitting off from the Hegemony, so he can't have been too bad as an admiral. He's not stupid, he's just a little out of touch with reality and convinced of the excellence of ALL his ideas.

This makes me think that the special diktat flavor isn't quite right. Sure, they should be a bit wacky and out-there, but just being hot garbage doesn't make sense. IMO, they should have a niche that they're really good at, or a type of ship they're really good at utterly dismantling. Ideally something linked to Andrada's experience, a type of fleet that maybe doesn't actually exist anymore(?). (EDIT: Maybe good at popping big heavily armored ships, from all the fights against the Hegemony, but because they have to be energy weapons "because they're so versatile!" Thus, to deliver enough energy to satisfy the supreme leader's desire for 420MJ/shot, they're massive. Slow to slew, can't even hit a maneuvering light cruiser reliably, short-ranged, and take forever to charge/cool down after shooting)

They should be sidegrades from the standard versions. You definitely pursued that thought process with the weapons, but seem to have dropped it with the ships. IMO, just like the weapons are good on the right ships, the ships should be good with the right weapons....the diktat/lion's guard just aren't the right weapons/ships for each other.

For example, that supreme executor D-mod. If the focus was on making the ship more survivable, especially for the crew, we should see that actually happen. The execution has *increased* crew casualties, which isn't just a misguided idea, its a box of short-circuiting gamma cores for an engineering team. The blast-proof insulated paneling could have benefits like:
  • reducing crew casualties (seeing as that was the entire point to begin with)
  • increasing ECM resistance (because the conduits are insulated?)
  • maybe giving the hull special resistance to Frag damage (seeing as all the flux conduits are now effectively spall liners?)

Stuff like that. Still has the drawbacks of lower flux dissipation, slowed repairs, maybe something else. Sure, bad idea to effectively blast-armor your conduits. And maybe the weight of all that conduit protection got taken out of the protection budget elsewhere, so it's a short-ranged capital that is very tough/survivable on the hull (reduced frag damage), but takes forever to repair and lacks armor plate. Great with the right mods, awful as configured.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2022, 03:02:26 PM by DJBscout »
Logged

CrashToDesktop

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3876
  • Quartermaster
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #274 on: May 11, 2022, 04:34:16 PM »

Are people more offended by the lore implications of the Lion's Guard "Special Modifications" hullmod, or it's actual gameplay effects? What about the at-cost Solar Shielding?
Logged
Quote from: Trylobot
I am officially an epoch.
Quote from: Thaago
Note: please sacrifice your goats responsibly, look up the proper pronunciation of Alex's name. We wouldn't want some other project receiving mystic power.

Embolism

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 511
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #275 on: May 11, 2022, 05:55:55 PM »

Are people more offended by the lore implications of the Lion's Guard "Special Modifications" hullmod, or it's actual gameplay effects? What about the at-cost Solar Shielding?

The at-cost Solar Shielding is what gets me. I don't mind the Special Modifications hullmod, but at-cost Solar Shielding just feels wrong.

If Solar Shielding was just part of Diktat ship design doctrine (and not built-in) that would be fine. But I would expect there to be some advantage if the same skilled engineers that invented the hullmod are designing it into the ship's nanoforge specs.

Otherwise why go the trouble of building it in instead of just slapping it on after-market? Having an OP discount for it being built-in (and permanent) just feels right.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2022, 05:57:37 PM by Embolism »
Logged

tomatopaste

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 306
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #276 on: May 11, 2022, 06:05:03 PM »

HEF may be better than AAF for Executor. Slightly less powerful than AAF, meshes well with Gigacannon et al (on paper at least), and fewer ships have it so it deserves some love.

Either way, a damage boosting system may well be the extra push Executor needs to cement it as a solid alternative to Pegasus (in player hands at least). It's not that FMR is bad with 2 large missiles, but compared to Pegasus with 4 it is guaranteed to feel underwhelming.

and re: the executor, it definitely deserves something like HEF to buff it's fancy new overcompensation blasters G I G A C A N N O N S, going all in on them feels like it'd be more "dictator showing off his fancy new toys" than something like AAF + it'd encourage using energy weaps in the hybrid slots, making building the ship slightly more interesting.

No; AAF.
If vanilla goes ahead without the change then I'm sure LazyLib will override it with AAF.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2022, 06:12:29 PM by tomatopaste »
Logged

Doctorhealsgood

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 516
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #277 on: May 11, 2022, 07:45:14 PM »

Just made an account to reply to this. Please if we are going this route for the Lion Guard ships make the Supreme Executor delusions loop back properly into something interesting even if it is unorthodox. The luddic path gets to SO, and SO can be scary. The G I G A C A N N O N? Glorious. Kinetic Blaster? Pretty neat. The ships however? A paintjob and forced solar shielding (I love solar shielding but still) and that's it. It doesn't even need to work properly together with the exclusive weapons themselves but it would be nice if there was something off about them in general that even if it isn't the most practical or useful it can be a fun meme. This is just boring if you ask me.
Logged
Quote from: Doctorhealsgood
Sometimes i feel like my brain has been hit by salamanders not gonna lie.

tomatopaste

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 306
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #278 on: May 11, 2022, 08:14:40 PM »

I like that a lot, it's strong (5 mediums with AAF is nothing to laugh at) but also makes it feel like whoever designed it is a bit of a moron in exactly the "our ships will be the best at everything!" way that I think Alex is going for.

Yes exactly, it's the same kind of unhinged that luddic path modifications have.

... and the Supreme Executor said "Give me a battleship that no mere admiral can best in battle. I will bestow upon it three gifts such that it will be the Hand and the Word of the Executor-in-Chief. First, It will have the greatest missile autoloaders, so that it may project the radiant firepower of a thousand Askonian Suns. Second, it will have two Gigacannons, so no lesser class of hull may dare enter its targeting arcs. Finally, and greatest of all, it will have Accelerated Ammo Feeder, so its authority may be absolute." And lo, the High Chief Engineer-General of the Sindrian Diktat Navy commissioned a prototype modification of the Pegasus-class Battleship that had no weakness apart from being batshit insane
Logged

UngaBunga

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 5
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #279 on: May 12, 2022, 02:01:29 AM »

Can't go wrong with more AAF ships. Seems like it would be balanced by the worse flux, too.
Logged

BigBeans

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 275
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #280 on: May 12, 2022, 04:05:10 AM »

I Kinda like the AAF idea, seems kinda fun.
Logged

Morrokain

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2143
  • Megalith Dreadnought - Archean Order
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #281 on: May 12, 2022, 03:51:19 PM »

Are people more offended by the lore implications of the Lion's Guard "Special Modifications" hullmod, or it's actual gameplay effects? What about the at-cost Solar Shielding?

For me, its the gameplay effects that essentially create cool-looking "gotcha" ships with an in-lore explanation. The lore/history will likely be lost on younger gamers anyway and that's all they will see and it just feels bad from that perspective. The lore can stay the same but the ships should at least be interesting and not a no-brainer "do not use this ever" if that makes sense. I think both can be done believably.

There are a lot of good ideas here. AAF at least changes the Executor but it doesn't solve the actual problem with non-capital ships. I'm interested in the malfunctions idea though. I think there is a lot of potential there but obviously I'm not familiar with the exact details of what that entails. It does kind of blend together with "ill-advised modifications" a bit from an initial analysis, but it at least has the right idea of not making the ships obviously worse just through stats.
Logged

SapphireSage

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 257
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #282 on: May 12, 2022, 10:42:38 PM »

Are people more offended by the lore implications of the Lion's Guard "Special Modifications" hullmod, or it's actual gameplay effects? What about the at-cost Solar Shielding?

I'd guess a lot of the new accounts here posting a big kerfuffle about the Lion's guard are offended that their favorite fashy dictator could *ever* do something that was maybe not optimal after receiving a few decades worth of uncritical praise. Never mind that the Hegemony lost way more tonnage to ambushes than anybody else, the Tri-tachyon needlessly sacrificed a Paragon and lost two wars despite that, and the League is more or less at the mercy of Kazeron's whims (I admit that I don't know too much about the League) and they've all done not the best overall and that makes helps make the factions and the sector feel very much alive.

This blog post is the part 2 of a lengthy story that Alex was excited to post about and share things with everyone and despite the cool things in the blog post everyone just honed in on one thing. Barely anything about PL's cool new laser missiles which make sense in context as they run counter to Low-techs reliance on PD to stop missiles and therefore the League has a missile doctrine that completely counters low-tech's reliance on PD, and therefore counters the Church and the Heg, the two main adversaries of the League. I think the DEMs are pretty trucking neat! And it'll be nice to see how another anti-shield missile that isn't the Sabots might perform, especially since it seems like its more about sustained shield suppression rather than Sabot's burst so hopefully it could be used to create a more reliable bigger opening for that big boom. Barely anyone, if anyone at all, wanted to theory craft cool possible builds with the Pegasus or wonder if they could smash anything destroyer sized or below with 4 hurricanes or thinking about how 4 of the new DEMs would look on that thing. No one really breathing a sigh of relief over the Tri-tach getting *less* fighter spammy than before. Or the Pirates getting separate versions of the Venture, which I'm personally not too excited about since it risks even brickier fleets but I guess I'll have to see how it goes.

Instead, everyone just honed in on The Diktat. Just "Diktat" this, and "Why do their ships gotta be worse than pirate and Pather ships that", and "My space grandma in the slums of Chicomoztoc can bake better ships than Andrada". Well good for your grandma then, but the other posts are just absolutely over blowing things I think. First off, the Diktat actually has a Corrupted Nanoforge. I know when you have lots of mods you can get used to everybody and their aforementioned space grandma having a Pristine Nanoforge where you can't fly 3 LY without tripping over one, but in vanilla only 2 factions have a Pristine and they happen to be the two biggest players in the Sector, the Hegemony and the Persean League. Neither Pirates and Pathers have a nanoforge which is why their ships are absolutely covered in D-mods.

Secondly, the Executor is a capital, and by all rights its actually a pretty decent one with a fair amount of firepower slapped forward ready to punch holes in hulls. Heck, I'd go so far as to say the added energy larges may even give it a bit of utility over the Pegasus, FMR only working for the two rear launchers aside, but I suppose a Ship system might be too integrated to change in so large a warship. Sure, it might have Solar Shielding at cost, but that's one of the cheaper logistic ones anyway and it's probably one of the best mods when fighting Remnants. And sure it might have Special Mods on it or whatever, but its a D-mod you can just pay to get rid of once you reach the post-money stage of the game. Its definitely Persean Leagues better than the Prometheus or Atlas Mk. IIs. The AAF idea, while it has merit, might be too good of a system for the Executor. As anyone that's taken an SO Hammerhead can tell you, you can rip right through *cruisers* pretty easily with just 2 Mediums and 2 lights, let alone 5 medium Ballistics backed up by 4 Med. Energy, 2 Large Energy, *and* 2 Large Missiles all itching to seal that deal. There's a reason the Atlas Mk. II is as fragile as it is and its cause its *got* AAF and is super dangerous if it isn't bothered. The rest of the ships are fine too, I mean an Eagle is still an Eagle and a Hammerhead is *still* a Hammerhead Solar Shielding or no. You can just get them more commonly elsewhere without antagonizing a faction squatting in a single star system.

Thirdly, its not as though they *are* completely incompetent because they got these two new honkin' guns! Guns that apparently are actually exclusive to LG fleets and not something you can stumble into at the Black market in Magec somehow and that's pretty impressive cause I've found Scarabs in some of the most remote smuggling rings, pretty ridiculous for a high priority *ship* Tri-Tachyon, let alone your guns. Guns that are also apparently pretty good when put on the right equipment even if that equipment isn't quite available to the Diktat. Its not exactly their fault that the ships are underfluxed for what they want to use, and besides that I'm willing to bet most, if not everyone here, has at some point made a ship that was overfluxed to a some degree even if its minor. Heck, I'd bet a fair amount of the long time posters here might even overflux their own piloted ships because they can deal with that via limiting use of the weapons in question by toggling auto-fire. Its not like a completely, unusable bad thing that they're using overfluxed guns, after all it'll probably hurt till they max themselves out, its just dependent on the degree to which the guns overflux them so that's a wait and see situation far as I'm concerned. If anything, the new guns and the Executor-class show that they've got direction and an idea of what they want to focus on, its just rigid in thought, is based on a refusal to adapt to their reality, and speaks more to someone wanting to use cool, new toys rather than designed weapons for a target foe like the League's DEM missiles.

I'm also not so sure what's going on with the quasi-Philip-worship going on where people talk about how its stated (in one sentence in the blog mind you) how he's "intelligent and charismatic" while completely skipping the part that states he's a narcissist. Narcissists if nothing else, tend to be extremely confident. A trait that tends to attract people to them, at least initially. They also tend to be very good a manipulating others especially when it helps them receive the admiration and attention they desire. As far as I'm concerned though, regardless of how smart he might be, if nothing else he just so happened to be lucky enough to be at the right places at the right time. After 80 years since their arrival the Heg decided to try out using hero worship, or cults of personalities, to try to unify their population and a Heg officer happened to defeat Loke after a few years of his reign, and that officer *happened* to be Andrada. Fast forward twenty years and the Askonia System decides they might want to join the Persean League. The Hegemony decides to send to an overwhelming force capable of threatening the *Perseans* to intervene and they decided to send Andrada after *twenty years* of hyping him up with their hero worship policy for that *one* battle. After Andrada may or may not have planet cracked a population center, the Heg called him to stand trial and he decided not to and the only thing that stopped him from being yet another named deserter bounty for an enterprising player to hunt down for the umpteenth million time was that he had a force big enough to subjugate a few planets in the system thanks to the force's uncritical admiration of this guy the Heg has been pumping up for a number of years. The only reason his planets have a shade of pink text to them instead of classic Pirate Red is because the Persean League decided if the Askonian council could no longer join them, then they (and likely the Tri-tach) may as well do what they can to prop up this dude that took over and recognized him as a polity, slightly because it was a symbolic bird-flipping to the Hegemony, but more likely to deny the Heg the resources for what would have been a total fuel monopoly in the sector (Heg also owns Nachiketa, a far cheaper source of bulk fuel than Askonia, incidentally. Having both Sindria *and* Nachiketa would basically be game over for the enemies of the Hegemony). Hence, why a Hegemony traitor admiral has mostly midline ships and shares a capital ship design with them rather than being "low-tech faction...version 2!" He's just a smaller piece in a much bigger game. If you want someone that actually pulled off some crazy good stuff in that time frame on their own merits without having to rely on multiple governments propping them up politically, you should take a look at Kanta instead. Kanta decided to flip the bird to the Hegemony on their own and throw their chips in with Loke, and when that didn't look like it was working out they took over and began building up a feared empire on their own. No given forces from the Heg to subjugate anyone with, no hero worship from the Heg to act as a base for their cult of personality, all the factions openly want to wipe her off the map so no protection from one of the two most powerful forces in the Sector, and her military is literally slabs of metal cobbled together with guns taped to them in space caves all in the same timeframe that Andrada lucked his way into subjugating Askonia out of fear of Hegemony reprisal from the Opis incident and she's still around and kicking. Unlike the propaganda surrounding Philip, Kanta *is* someone that *really* knows what they're doing and has forged the longest lasting pirate dynasty in the sector since the collapse thus far. Meanwhile, in the 20 years Philip's had Askonia all to himself the rebels based on Umbra are still around and kicking since his whole thing started. Not someone that strikes me as utterly efficient. Not to mention the sheer amount of all the corrupt officials you meet in the Sindrian bars just waiting to line their own pockets by illegally selling the one exclusive export (and the one of two really important ones) the Diktat has to line their own pockets on the cheap. Can't go to a Sindrian bar for a drink without bumping into some official wanting to rub your nose in all the lobsters they've got to sell you off the record.

TL;DR: The new Persean missiles are cool beans and make great lore sense in that they are designed to bypass low-tech's reliance on PD entirely.
Logged

Atlasreturns

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 5
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #283 on: May 13, 2022, 06:59:57 AM »

Instead, everyone just honed in on The Diktat.
Because I think the Diktat changes very heavily divert from the kind of changes other factions were getting. There isn't much to say about the other changes because they all look cool and feel justified.
But while every faction has a very distinct playstyle the Diktat, besides one ship with special weapons that can only be found in a small selected part of their navy, is the most default faction in the game.
To be honest I don't think the Diktat will even perform worse now. They mostly will use 80% of the same stuff in their navy they have used before, just with the addition of the Executor. And while the LG have their Special modifications it's just a small numbers change that won't affect the performance that much to be crucial. Which is in my opinion the issue because their most unique aspect will be nearly completely irrelevant during gameplay.
You can get a lot of information about a faction purely from viewing their ships and composition, even if you wouldn't have read any dev diaries or lore entries. But I don't think that holds true for the Diktat.
I think there were a lot of good ideas on how you can make the Diktat unique during gameplay while also keeping their backstory as of right now. Like guaranteed S mods or having different configurations than regular mid-line ships.
Logged

Doctorhealsgood

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 516
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #284 on: May 13, 2022, 08:35:55 AM »

Quote
Everyone just honed on the diktat

Don't get me wrong. I love the DEM (and the pegasus) a lot and are going to climb on top of my favourite missiles that i am probably always going to use in some capacity alongside the Pilum (I also love the new Pilum Catapult too!). I just didn't had anything really meaningful to say about the rest of the blog other than me liking the changes.

On the case of the Diktat i did had something to say and thus decided to make an account to say something about it as it did sit wrong with me. Again, don't get me wrong. I know that the Diktat is messed up all over the place. I just go there to buy tasty lobster (kinda wish i could go and eat some of my cargo even if it were to do nothing haha!), stock up on fuel (apparently sindrian fuel isn't such a good deal anymore, is that true?), and get credits from helping clean up the latest pirate activity incident (always fun).

Guess it comes up as wrong when your first post is about being upset about it.
Logged
Quote from: Doctorhealsgood
Sometimes i feel like my brain has been hit by salamanders not gonna lie.
Pages: 1 ... 17 18 [19] 20 21 ... 27