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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: Blog Posts  (Read 337507 times)

Vandala

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #405 on: April 23, 2012, 12:45:05 PM »

I agree on that.

that is why i think that if such a system was ever to be included in starfarer, i think it should be purely informative E.g.:

The Onslaught - >ship name< - is under fire by the Aurora - >ship name< - .

Obviously it could be reworded, but its just a simple example of the sort of thing i would like to see.
Starfarer doesn't need it. Ships have health bars and armor damage is visible on ships graphics. Health is also shown on the map screen in combat, fighters in wings that are destroyed also show up as blacked out.

Hyph_K31

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #406 on: April 23, 2012, 01:06:58 PM »

Yes, but you might not necessarily know that a ship has come under fire until it has gone Ka-boom, or you see it being attacked.

The reason I suggested these combat reports was so that you can get a general idea of whats going on around the entire map, without needing to pause the game/whatever to check the map and "stuff"


On another note, I have just discovered the joys of a fleet of tempests.
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BillyRueben

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #407 on: April 23, 2012, 01:18:24 PM »

The problem with that is when you do see that ship "X" has come under fire from ship "Y", you'll just end up checking the map anyway to see if you need to change ship "X's" orders.
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Hyph_K31

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #408 on: April 23, 2012, 01:27:01 PM »

But at least you would know that you might need to change orders, or come to the rescue :P

As apposed to facepalming when ship X explodes
« Last Edit: April 23, 2012, 01:48:42 PM by Hyph_K31 »
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Sunfire

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #409 on: April 23, 2012, 01:38:25 PM »

But at least you would know that you might need to :P

As apposed to facepalming when ship X explodes

That happens to me a lot
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BillyRueben

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #410 on: April 23, 2012, 01:55:40 PM »

But at least you would know that you might need to change orders, or come to the rescue :P

As apposed to facepalming when ship X explodes

Maybe, although it seems to me that when a ship mismatch occurs, once the first shots have been fired you are already screwed.
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Thaago

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #411 on: April 23, 2012, 02:03:33 PM »


Maybe, although it seems to me that when a ship mismatch occurs, once the first shots have been fired you are already screwed.

This is often true but not always. Something I've noticed is that the AI hates to take damage disengaging from the enemy, so faster, weaker ships will often stick around slower, bigger ships and get blown up instead of running. A well placed order can help get them to actually disengage (although sometimes even direct orders can't get them away).
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BillyRueben

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #412 on: April 23, 2012, 02:32:30 PM »

I guess I'd just prefer to keep UI clutter away. I don't want to be staring at "I'M UNDER ATTACK!" from my ships when I'd rather be watching my Paragon shoot rainbow lasers of love at baddies.
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Temjin

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #413 on: April 23, 2012, 03:49:39 PM »

But at least you would know that you might need to change orders, or come to the rescue :P

As apposed to facepalming when ship X explodes

Maybe, although it seems to me that when a ship mismatch occurs, once the first shots have been fired you are already screwed.

I deal with mostly faster ships (frigates, fighters, faster cruisers and destroyers), so if they survive the initial volley (which most usually do) it'd be great to know if that wing of Wasps was dumb enough to wander into the flak range of that Venture.
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JP161

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #414 on: April 23, 2012, 03:53:07 PM »

I guess I'd just prefer to keep UI clutter away. I don't want to be staring at "I'M UNDER ATTACK!" from my ships when I'd rather be watching my Paragon shoot rainbow lasers of love at baddies.
Nurse!

I want same pills he's having!

Err, yeah, anyway...
Those particular messages would quickly become as jarring as the ones in Gratuitous Space Battles... At first I loved them, they made the battle feel more 'alive'. Until you got the same thing over and over and over and over and over again.

Has there been any word on how much (if at all) the combat UI is going to change before release? Especially later on with bigger fleets I find myself giving command over to the second-in-command of my flagship and concentrate on ordering, or at least observing, my fleet. The current UI doesn't really lend itself to that too well, one ship at a time and overall it's quite hard to keep track on two cruiser fights on different cap points, couple more fighter/frigate capping..

Having a few picture-in-picture view screens or a bit more robust system could make that a more fluent experience.

These pills ain't having any effect!
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Vandala

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #415 on: April 23, 2012, 04:45:39 PM »

Has there been any word on how much (if at all) the combat UI is going to change before release? Especially later on with bigger fleets I find myself giving command over to the second-in-command of my flagship and concentrate on ordering, or at least observing, my fleet. The current UI doesn't really lend itself to that too well, one ship at a time and overall it's quite hard to keep track on two cruiser fights on different cap points, couple more fighter/frigate capping..

Having a few picture-in-picture view screens or a bit more robust system could make that a more fluent experience.

These pills ain't having any effect!

The right modifications on your ships can work wonders, try more and different combinations. Eventually you'll see that the AI for the most part doesn't need babysitting.

JP161

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #416 on: April 24, 2012, 02:21:55 AM »

I meant I like to watch the little things go by their business firing and dodging etc., only occasionally giving orders to modify that behavior. ;)

As it is currently, it's quite easy to miss the best parts of the battle unless you keep constantly pausing the game and checking what happens where. If you'd have these screens in either the main tactical screen or at command map overlay, you could keep an eye out on few key ships. A nice side effect for seeing the combat happen, would be the ability to intervene if necessary.

Maybe I'm just not explaining it well enough... ???
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Hyph_K31

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #417 on: April 24, 2012, 08:07:49 AM »

Maybe instead of the list style that GSB used, it would be better to have to single bar somewhere in the combat UI, that shows the most recent activities of your ships.
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Occams_Razor

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #418 on: April 24, 2012, 02:43:35 PM »

I think I have a question about balance changes:

With all the balance changes and discussion of relative power in each patch, I'm curious if everything is going to need to be rebalanced when the sandbox-campaign opens up? Concerns a fleet-commander might have will likely change the relative importance of everything from the obvious (cargo space, fuel use) to the maybe-not-so-obvious (shield strength minimizes repair resource use, survivability maybe more important than damage output, etc), to things we won't see until play-testing, no?
« Last Edit: April 24, 2012, 02:47:49 PM by Occams_Razor »
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Alex

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #419 on: April 24, 2012, 03:11:44 PM »

With all the balance changes and discussion of relative power in each patch, I'm curious if everything is going to need to be rebalanced when the sandbox-campaign opens up? Concerns a fleet-commander might have will likely change the relative importance of everything from the obvious (cargo space, fuel use) to the maybe-not-so-obvious (shield strength minimizes repair resource use, survivability maybe more important than damage output, etc), to things we won't see until play-testing, no?

To some degree. I do think that most of the changes being made now will be good ones in the long run, though, because they're not as much made for some kind of high-level idea of "balance", but rather to improve how combat plays out overall.

Some stuff, no doubt, will have to be rebalanced multiple times - but that's just part of having playable alpha releases.
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