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

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Author Topic: Starsector 0.96a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 319106 times)

FooF

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Re: Starsector 0.96a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #45 on: February 01, 2023, 04:31:35 PM »

Now that I've had time to read these...

Squall stuff: I'm very much in favor of the change since anti-shield was what they were for and letting heavily armored ships just armor tank them seems ok. Was their targeting improved at all? ECCM package made them way better (though not quite as mandatory as the Hurricane).

HAG: "Halved recoil" Does this mean spread/shot, max spread, spread decay...? Max spread at 900 range (more likely 1260 or 1,440 with range extenders) can still get pretty inaccurate. I don't think it should be super-accurate at max range but I don't see the Mjolnir missing a lot of shots at equal range. Though, Mjolnir shot speed is 900 vs. the HAG's 800. I wonder if a bump in projectile speed would make any sort of difference. Either way, like I said earlier, the effective DPS of the weapon should go up significantly if it can put more rounds on target. It's not the best weapon against the heaviest armor but its way more versatile than the Hellbore.

Eagle: The Eagle thread prevails! Less DP, more flux, more speed, Missile Autoloader, Graviton buffs, IR Autolance, Ion Beam buffs, Burst Laser Buffs... I don't think any other ship got as much as direct/indirect attention as this guy. (Still won't be a world-beater but I think it will feel "solid" for most situations)

Jackhammer: Not gonna lie, that's pretty awesome but it looks like it will have low ammo.

Cyclone Reaper Launcher: The Twitter post makes me a believer. It really did need help and as a Capital killer, I think it will cement it near the top of the list.

"Update Conquest Sprite" - hmm...

Re: the Fury - I think it's fine. It has a ridiculous shield and can reliably use a Heavy Blaster along with a Medium Missile. Indirect buffs to other Medium Energies will help it as well. I think it can force a draw against most Cruisers and can absolutely ruin Destroyers because they can't compete with the shield. I guess I don't expect my Furies to try to hang with Heavy Cruisers or Capitals but they sure can take out the rest of the small fry.

"Added Planetkiller mission" - The Ghost of Maxios still haunts us.

"The Usurpers" - Who's usurping who?

Can't wait to watch an Invictus trade shots with a Station, or heck, trade shots with a fleet of pirates. It will get hard-countered by Paragons and Radiants but I really like that it exists.
« Last Edit: February 01, 2023, 04:34:41 PM by FooF »
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Dadada

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Re: Starsector 0.96a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #46 on: February 01, 2023, 04:42:08 PM »

Will anything be done about Doom mines? AI deems it as harmless so friendly ships get hurt even if it's easy to avoid them.
excerpt from the changelog:
Spoiler
Improved danger detection from mines

    Added a little extra radius where the AI considers them "dangerous"
    Aware of the presence of nearby enemy fighters and asteroids that might trigger the mine early
    Fixed issue that caused the AI to actually just ignore own mines that triggered by proximity and not timeout
    Fixed issue that caused the AI to ignore own mines that were drifting even slightly away from it
    The Doom friendly fire (especially self-friendly-fire) issues *should* be resolved
    The issue where the AI would continue to shield towards a phased Doom while getting hit by mines from behind should be resolved, as well
[close]
Browser text search: Control+E or Control+F, also F3


Imo: The firepower for 20DP feels lacking, the ship just feels very inefficient for 20DP. Sure, it is fast, can engage, disengage, pounce, punch down and possibly take punishment with the good shields but the firepower is just kinda meh for 20 dp. Maybe I am doing it wrong but if I focus on the 3 medium slots I get like 2 heavy blasters and medium missles for 20 dp, that ain't much I fear.

Hmm - possible counter point, if it could do all that *and* had heavy firepower, that'd be a bit much, wouldn't it? Also worth keeping in mind that the buffs to some energy weapons are possible indirect buffs to the Fury, too. Still, I'll definitely have another look at it.
It can also flank well with all dat speed! :D Well yeah, sure, it would be far too much if it could do all that and have heavy firepower, I just feel that DP wise for a military cruiser.... It feels like a poor choice for 20DP and I personally don't like a punch-down cruiser for 20DP. I also have to admit that everything being "balanced" might influence flavour and choices, sooo... Well, the energy weapon buffs sound juicy. :D All the new stuff looks awesome. :D

Welp, after the nerf 15->20DP in 0.95.1 I did a bit of testing with the fury, I do not remember the details but just found it to be very lackluster... Thank you for your replies.

>drover to receive a minor DP rollback?
This! +1
Well, yeah, there is the rework of reserve deployment...
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Nick XR

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Re: Starsector 0.96a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #47 on: February 01, 2023, 04:46:02 PM »

Quote
Changed starting Wolf variant to have the Pulse Laser on autofire (thanks, ZiggyD!)

The hero we need, but don't deserve.

This will make a HUGE difference in new player experience.  I can still remember wondering how the heck to play this game while trying to kill stuff with the gravitron beam and not "getting" when to use missiles.

Looks amazing!

SonnaBanana

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Re: Starsector 0.96a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #48 on: February 01, 2023, 04:46:33 PM »

Are skill changes still being considered? Mainly asking for CA and NL, even if EWM won't be simplified.
Loving both BPL and HBL changes, by the way.
« Last Edit: February 01, 2023, 04:49:16 PM by SonnaBanana »
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Zaizai

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Re: Starsector 0.96a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #49 on: February 01, 2023, 04:57:29 PM »

I really really like how some missile weapons have various sizes based on the mount. 
redundant as it may be, I think it would be amazing having some of the less "specialized" weapons have larger/smaller versions as well! 
a medium/large tactical laser comes to mind. 
Having different laser effects for different mount size is great and all, but sometimes I just need some fillers that don't consume much flux/points and don't look weird for that particular build. 
Maybe if not as a different weapons, how about enabling some weapons to receive some buffs when mounted on bigger mounts? maybe even scale up the sprite....For example I could be able to put a tac laser on the medium slot, then toggle a switch to enable it to perform as a medium sized weapon, paying increased points/flux in exchange of better stats. 
I get that there are certain weapons that would be OP and only work because they are in a small slot for example, but what about only selected weapons? maybe just the ones that are the "low cost" option since they are usually weaker.


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Amazigh

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Re: Starsector 0.96a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #50 on: February 01, 2023, 05:06:59 PM »

Regarding the Hephaestus and high armor: just did a quick test vs a simulation Onslaught...

...The flux cost is a factor here - it's around 2x the DPS for proportionally more flux...

I think any direct anti-armor improvement to the Hephaestus risks sidelining the Hellbore, except as a budget option.
As you said, this is without skills / armour hullmods / cr bonuses, and i think those might bias things towards the hellbore some more.
Maybe a small (5-10%) reduction in flux cost on the Heph would be good?

As things stand i see the hellbore as a nice cheap standard weapon, that i can use as my "standard" in my large ballistic slots, as nothing compares to it in anti-armour ability, and i can then quite easily use smaller mounts for anti-shield weapons / PD.
Then i can spend some more OP and swap the hellbore to something else if i want a different role (MKIX for shields, Devastator for PD, Gauss for sniping)
And when it comes to the hephaestus, i almost feel like in situations where i have the flux to spare and i'd think about using one... i'd rather take a Mjolnir, as despite the even higher flux cost, it offers better anti-shield performance as well as some nice EMP damage.


Although, maybe the Invictus/Retribution could be ships that can get good use out of the Hephaestus?
- Invictus using it's ability to be effective when "punching down" as a "defensive" anti-flanking gun in some of the side turrets.
- Retribution being able to exploit the high DPS by using it's generous selection of missiles to compensate for any loss in armour-cracking potential over the hellbore.
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Buggie

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Re: Starsector 0.96a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #51 on: February 01, 2023, 05:10:11 PM »

  • Added "no_autofit_unless_player" tag to hulls and variants

Does this go directly into the variant file? Like is it possible to easily make variants with s-mods now?

It can, yes. Or via variant.addTag(). I'm not sure what the connection is about variants with s-mods - you can already do that, yes? With an "sMods" JSON array. (Unless this is new in 0.96a...)


That thing never worked for me unless i added the ''no_autofit'' tag to a faction, they would still autofit the ships which seemed to remove the s-mods for some reason?
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Draba

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Re: Starsector 0.96a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #52 on: February 01, 2023, 05:18:20 PM »

While heph got some improvement on its recoil, there's still too few ships that can wheel it due to its high flux requirement. 120 is not enough to penetrate heavy armor well, and won't be dramatic if we talk about its hull burning capability. While yes hellbore cannot work alone on hull burning and require other meaning to finish off heavy targets, heph is not enough to be installed on a large ballistic and sacrifice hellbore's anti-armor. It needs more than just improving its recoil.
Let's wait until you try Atlas Mk.II with the reduced recoil :)
I think hellbore's silly slow projectiles and glacial turnrate (especially with armored weapon mounts) aren't considered with enough weight for these comparisons.
Been tinkering a lot with Atlas, Dominator and Onslaught mid hellbore vs heph. Overall heph always felt better, and the ships with heph usually did better based on the battle reports.
Having some reapers/hurricanes also changes a lot, the targets hellbore can consistently hit also hate both.

Let's wait and see what an accuracy increase does, I like that it leans into what makes heph different instead of just upping damage/hit.
IMO heph was already decent, just not a standout like squalls or HIL.
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Thaago

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Re: Starsector 0.96a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #53 on: February 01, 2023, 05:47:17 PM »

As long as I've had the flux, the heph has always been my choice over the hellbore. Hellbore rounds miss a lot. Its just that first part! Luckily with ordinance expertise big ships really can afford 480 flux for HE.
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Shogouki

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Re: Starsector 0.96a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #54 on: February 01, 2023, 05:49:49 PM »

Two questions though, does this fix the slowdown associated with battles when you have modded ships installed

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. There's a campaign after-battle slowdown with heavily modded games? I'm not actually 100% on what causes that, though.


I had heard some modders were thinking that it could be caused by modded assets not being unloaded after combat but unfortunately I have zero programming knowledge so I can't really contribute.  Many players seem to attest that when they've upgraded the game to Java 8 it has somehow alleviated the slowdown but I haven't yet tried to upgrade my game yet.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.96a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #55 on: February 01, 2023, 05:57:09 PM »

Would it be possible for the drover to receive a minor DP rollback? Between the dp nerf, RD getting stomped on, and fighter skill limits, paying 15 dp for the drover is just gross. I think it learned its lesson now. One wonders when reading the drover description why the Domain didn't quietly cancel the production contract for it.

I think with the fixes to bugs for Reserve Deployment it might be in a better place. Might still be overpriced, but at least it should be better than it is now.


HAG: "Halved recoil" Does this mean spread/shot, max spread, spread decay...? Max spread at 900 range (more likely 1260 or 1,440 with range extenders) can still get pretty inaccurate. I don't think it should be super-accurate at max range but I don't see the Mjolnir missing a lot of shots at equal range. Though, Mjolnir shot speed is 900 vs. the HAG's 800. I wonder if a bump in projectile speed would make any sort of difference. Either way, like I said earlier, the effective DPS of the weapon should go up significantly if it can put more rounds on target. It's not the best weapon against the heaviest armor but its way more versatile than the Hellbore.

Halved all of these - just halving the per-shot wouldn't do much, I don't think.


Jackhammer: Not gonna lie, that's pretty awesome but it looks like it will have low ammo.

(9 ammo, btw, and 9 OP.)



Are skill changes still being considered? Mainly asking for CA and NL, even if EWM won't be simplified.
Loving both BPL and HBL changes, by the way.

Not for this release; I'll probably look at Neural Link again at some point, though. And possibly Cybernetic Augmentation. Energy Weapon Mastery, I'm quite happy with.


I get that there are certain weapons that would be OP and only work because they are in a small slot for example, but what about only selected weapons? maybe just the ones that are the "low cost" option since they are usually weaker.

I think at that point you might as well have different-size versions of that weapon, it'd be simpler than adding a bunch of rules! I don't really want to have too many "same but different size" weapons - it makes slot variety more meaningful and interesting. Basically, if you do too much of this, you take away from the things that make ships unique, so it needs to be approached carefully.

As you said, this is without skills / armour hullmods / cr bonuses, and i think those might bias things towards the hellbore some more.

Interesting point! A quick, non-rigorous test with max skills on both sides (and 70% CR) shows the Hephaestus with some relative improvement in that same test - 13 seconds vs 10 to start damaging an Onslaught's hull.


Although, maybe the Invictus/Retribution could be ships that can get good use out of the Hephaestus?
- Invictus using it's ability to be effective when "punching down" as a "defensive" anti-flanking gun in some of the side turrets.
- Retribution being able to exploit the high DPS by using it's generous selection of missiles to compensate for any loss in armour-cracking potential over the hellbore.

Hey, that's a good point, I wasn't thinking about the new ships! And the Retribution's comparatively high flux dissipation won't hurt here, either. Neither will the Invictus' lack of shields, which makes it much more ok to over-flux.


That thing never worked for me unless i added the ''no_autofit'' tag to a faction, they would still autofit the ships which seemed to remove the s-mods for some reason?

Ah - this probably belongs in another thread, but yeah, I'd expect the fleet inflator code to nuke s-mods. It treats existing variants as "roughly the shape the actual ship should have once it's done with it" and not "this is the actual ship", if that makes sense. The ships don't "exist" prior to the inflator running is another way to think about it.


I had heard some modders were thinking that it could be caused by modded assets not being unloaded after combat but unfortunately I have zero programming knowledge so I can't really contribute.  Many players seem to attest that when they've upgraded the game to Java 8 it has somehow alleviated the slowdown but I haven't yet tried to upgrade my game yet.

Ah, ty! The game doesn't do that (unloading assets) at any point. It could be that past a certain amount of stuff loaded, it runs into GC limitations for Java 7, though honestly that seems unlikely - at least, in the absence of some other problems. It makes sense that the default GC for Java 8 might work around it, though.


As long as I've had the flux, the heph has always been my choice over the hellbore. Hellbore rounds miss a lot. Its just that first part! Luckily with ordinance expertise big ships really can afford 480 flux for HE.

(I do think the +flux dissipation of OE is overtuned a bit. Not by a factor of 2, but maybe 3 dissipation per 2 OP might be more reasonable - it's one of my next things to look at. It's nice that it enables more builds, but I'm not sure it needs the full current bonus to do that...)
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Originem

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Re: Starsector 0.96a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #56 on: February 01, 2023, 06:05:06 PM »

Great! So, are there any functions that could change UI interface?
Or something like CampaignUIPlugin that only for additional UI rendering? Currently I use everyframeplugin which I think is somewhat unstrict
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Starsector 0.96a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #57 on: February 01, 2023, 06:16:54 PM »

Will Tech-Mining be using Event System for .96?
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Sundog

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Re: Starsector 0.96a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #58 on: February 01, 2023, 06:22:22 PM »

Shogouki

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Re: Starsector 0.96a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #59 on: February 01, 2023, 06:28:21 PM »


Ah, ty! The game doesn't do that (unloading assets) at any point. It could be that past a certain amount of stuff loaded, it runs into GC limitations for Java 7, though honestly that seems unlikely - at least, in the absence of some other problems. It makes sense that the default GC for Java 8 might work around it, though.


Ahh ok, thanks!  I might have misread or misunderstood their hypothesis.  I'm hoping that upgrading my game to Java 8 will help because I really do love this game with lots of mods!  I just wish there was a list somewhere of which files from Oracle I need to download and use.

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