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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: The Phillip Paradox  (Read 3312 times)

Grievous69

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Re: The Phillip Paradox
« Reply #15 on: May 14, 2023, 12:19:12 PM »

Yoooooo, this is totally beside the topic but thank you for reminding me about Pat & Mat. I had DVDs of that as a kid and watched it so many times, art style was certaingly something else.

Also it was called completely differently in my country, to the point where I forgot how it was actually called at some point.
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KDR_11k

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Re: The Phillip Paradox
« Reply #16 on: May 14, 2023, 03:45:26 PM »

I would expect a multi planet military dictatorship to behave in a competent manner, as most large open dictatorships IRL do.

Eh, don't all these factions have some sort of ideological or organizational problem that keeps them from being the right path forward for the sector? The Hegemony has a strict doctrine that keeps them from thinking outside the box, Tri-Tach is so obsessed with personal power and wealth they keep screwing each other over, the Church just hates all technology, now Sindria is the kind of dictatorship where the leader has some stupid ideas about military design. I mean, we've seen plenty of real world examples where dictators (or even just career politicians) believed they knew better than the actual experts and overruled them, producing stupid designs in the process. I'd actually expect the High Hegemon to have similar problems but I guess the Hegemony are more of the "worship the past" type that wouldn't ever deviate from what the Domain did.

I don't expect cartoonish incompetence but some sort of severe flaw for each faction would be fitting. Like, say, Tri-Tach could waste ship space on fancy upper class luxuries in their ships. And yeah, the League's ships could have some sort of command rivalry or inconsistent design styles.
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SafariJohn

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Re: The Phillip Paradox
« Reply #17 on: May 14, 2023, 04:49:16 PM »

TriTachyon is wasteful and impatient - jumped the gun in AI War 1 and yoloed in AI War 2.

Hegemony is overcautious and arrogant - they could have taken over but instead dilly-dallied around making everyone mad.

League is indulgent and jealous - you can do whatever you want unless Kazeron doesn't like it; who would want to join that?

Diktat is illegitimate and oppressive - maybe blew up Opis, definitely made a lot of people mad between now and then.

Church is dogmatic and reactionary - barely any heavy industry or initiative; AI War 1, AI War 2, and Mazalot revolt were all started by someone else.
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Candesce

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Re: The Phillip Paradox
« Reply #18 on: May 14, 2023, 05:14:15 PM »

Some of the regular bar-room missions specific to each faction do a pretty good job of characterizing them and their flaws in the background.

The Hegemony has issues stemming from a centralized logistics system that fails to adequately provision their stations; you can regularly find quartermasters in bars who've been shipped the wrong stuff.

The Persean League is *** corrupt, and everyone skims off the top; nobody actually believes they're all in it together, and so you can often buy supplies under the table - anywhere but Kazeron itself, anyway.

Tri-Tach corpos are always hungry, looking for another edge in boardroom wars, so the PC can get loans with very few questions asked - because Tri-Tach doesn't reward consistency or reliability when it could reward winning lotto tickets instead.

The Luddic Church doesn't tax certain transactions by farmers, which I'm sure isn't used at all as a combination reward and stick for proper behavior in the background. /s. The recent event where the PC is targeted by a Pather assassin and most of the Church's concern is over whether or not the PC did anything to "deserve" it is pretty notable, too.

But the Diktat taking the cake for incompetence is just what personalist dictatorships do. I'm sure readers can think of any number of real-life examples without me needing to get political and point them out.
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eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef

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Re: The Phillip Paradox
« Reply #19 on: May 14, 2023, 07:13:16 PM »

Quote
Sindria is the kind of dictatorship where the leader has some stupid ideas about military design. I mean, we've seen plenty of real world examples where dictators (or even just career politicians) believed they knew better than the actual experts and overruled them, producing stupid designs in the process
Quote
But the Diktat taking the cake for incompetence is just what personalist dictatorships do.

Both of these are exemplified in the Gigacannon. It's a competently designed weapon but is niche, and its overuse will only drag down the Diktat. This is due to the Diktat's secrecy and unwillingness to work with third parties (except when it's required such as with Try-Tachion) which is inherent with its political ideology. Had they worked with third parties, they would either change the weapon design, or change where it is applied.
With actual combat and war, the weapon would eventually be phased out of roles where it's not useful and remain in the few roles where it is.
The same holds true for the executor conversion. Compared to the old Pegasus hull, it's a downgrade as the large missile slots were better. However, it's still competently designed (if you ignore the hullmod), and it has use cases in prolonged combat where the old Pegasus would fail.

A flat downgrade with no redeeming qualities because funny lobster man said so, is too silly. It would be on par with Hegemony Onslaughts starting with lowered combat readiness due to their logistics issues.
« Last Edit: May 14, 2023, 07:14:53 PM by eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef »
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xenoargh

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Re: The Phillip Paradox
« Reply #20 on: May 14, 2023, 09:03:13 PM »

Maybe, instead of a perma-debuff... something that's more of a tradeoff?

Seems like this just turns Andrada's fleet into a running gag, rather than a viable sidegrade faction.

IDK, I'm speaking from the perspective of somebody whose modded game has all-unique ships for the Diktat, so my perspective may be a bit skewed. I think the Diktak's interesting, in the sense that they're basically the oil-sheik faction, and I went with the idea that they were using Hegemony-adjacent tech, but weren't totally incompetent... just, uh... enthusiastic for the Leader's ideas:
Spoiler
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SCC

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Re: The Phillip Paradox
« Reply #21 on: May 14, 2023, 10:56:54 PM »

Quote
Sindria is the kind of dictatorship where the leader has some stupid ideas about military design. I mean, we've seen plenty of real world examples where dictators (or even just career politicians) believed they knew better than the actual experts and overruled them, producing stupid designs in the process
Quote
But the Diktat taking the cake for incompetence is just what personalist dictatorships do.
This is due to the Diktat's secrecy and unwillingness to work with third parties (except when it's required such as with Try-Tachion) which is inherent with its political ideology.
The other side of the coin is that working with insiders requires working with insiders. Giving a lot of money to an outside party is no issue, they will have no influence on the internal politics, they are still outsiders. However, if you want to create something and can't rely on someone from your clique (who you already trust), but have to work with someone unvetted and lend them a significant chunk of power, then you are upsetting the existing balance of power just for the sake of getting some less-important-than-staying-in-power weapons. Why would you finance your own opposition, risk so much for some stupid luxury? It's safer to just work with outsiders.

Lucky33

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Re: The Phillip Paradox
« Reply #22 on: May 14, 2023, 11:51:04 PM »

Actually I'm more concerned of the continuity. Previously it was supposedly impossible to design and build new stuff at all. And now we have Gigacannon. Plus Executor but not as itself but as an example of:

"Modifying starship designs at the forge-level is a feat only available to major polities willing to invest heavily in employing what amounts to a highly trained specialist class of engineer-technicians"

So there is a "specialist class of engineer-technicians". And what prevented them from designing good stuff all those years? Implemented idea of the certain dictator was bad. OK. There are all the good ideas? I mean we are talking centuries here yet Paragon is of Domain origin as all the AI ships. From the looks of it the bleeding edge of technology is somehow localized in Pathers and Pirates.

Am I only one who have trouble with the suspension of disbelief?
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BaBosa

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Re: The Phillip Paradox
« Reply #23 on: May 15, 2023, 12:03:41 AM »

The executor is mostly a copy and the kinetic blaster is based off the heavy blaster so they’re not doing much more than what pirates have done. The gigacannon is new but it’s not very good which is probably why it hadn’t already been developed by someone else.
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Lucky33

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Re: The Phillip Paradox
« Reply #24 on: May 15, 2023, 12:13:51 AM »

The executor is mostly a copy and the kinetic blaster is based off the heavy blaster so they’re not doing much more than what pirates have done. The gigacannon is new but it’s not very good which is probably why it hadn’t already been developed by someone else.

"weapon system integrates elements of SUPER ALABASTER technology to harness previously unutilized anti-shield effect"

Can we, you know, utilize something else? Like converging Large mounts on the Onslaught? Like all of them? I mean we have a highly trained specialist class of engineer-technicians after all. So why not? And while we are at it I'd like to have a 500 per shot HE damage ballistic gun for a medium mount, please.
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CapnHector

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Re: The Phillip Paradox
« Reply #25 on: May 15, 2023, 12:29:01 AM »

Imagine sector engineers being actually competent and engineering safeties in such a way that we do not have to spend OP on a system to override them in order to make a super combat ship
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BaBosa

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Re: The Phillip Paradox
« Reply #26 on: May 15, 2023, 01:50:40 AM »

The executor is mostly a copy and the kinetic blaster is based off the heavy blaster so they’re not doing much more than what pirates have done. The gigacannon is new but it’s not very good which is probably why it hadn’t already been developed by someone else.

"weapon system integrates elements of SUPER ALABASTER technology to harness previously unutilized anti-shield effect"

Can we, you know, utilize something else? Like converging Large mounts on the Onslaught? Like all of them? I mean we have a highly trained specialist class of engineer-technicians after all. So why not? And while we are at it I'd like to have a 500 per shot HE damage ballistic gun for a medium mount, please.
Given that the kinetic blaster has an efficiency of 1.4 when some ballistic kinetics have an efficiency of 0.8 shows how it might have been unutilized because it wasn't really attractive especially when the pulse laser, also a medium energy weapon, has an efficiency of 0.8 which is only slightly worse than the kinetic blaster against shields.
The kinetic blaster does just manage to have the best anti shield efficiency among energy weapons and has pretty good DPS as well, but it's not a huge difference so it is pretty easy to see why no one else really bothered.
We also already know modifications can be made because of the pirates and the pathers, they are worse but it can still be done. It just looks like most don't bother because the old stuff seems to be almost always better and at least almost as good compared to new things. They can't just magic up a 500 per shot HE gun and whatever prevented the original designers from converging large mounts on the Onslaught, probably completely stumps the current special engineers.
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Princess_of_Evil

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Re: The Phillip Paradox
« Reply #27 on: May 15, 2023, 05:24:17 AM »

I would much rather have the Diktat D-mod turn into something similar to 17th.
Quote
Yes, sure, flux vents got worse and the ship overheats easier, but covering hot pipes does help with crew survivability, and extra metal in corridors does make the ship more resistant against shrapnel.
(same flux stats, but -10% crew casualties, and +5% hull)
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Lucky33

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Re: The Phillip Paradox
« Reply #28 on: May 15, 2023, 06:25:11 AM »

The executor is mostly a copy and the kinetic blaster is based off the heavy blaster so they’re not doing much more than what pirates have done. The gigacannon is new but it’s not very good which is probably why it hadn’t already been developed by someone else.

"weapon system integrates elements of SUPER ALABASTER technology to harness previously unutilized anti-shield effect"

Can we, you know, utilize something else? Like converging Large mounts on the Onslaught? Like all of them? I mean we have a highly trained specialist class of engineer-technicians after all. So why not? And while we are at it I'd like to have a 500 per shot HE damage ballistic gun for a medium mount, please.
Given that the kinetic blaster has an efficiency of 1.4 when some ballistic kinetics have an efficiency of 0.8 shows how it might have been unutilized because it wasn't really attractive especially when the pulse laser, also a medium energy weapon, has an efficiency of 0.8 which is only slightly worse than the kinetic blaster against shields.
The kinetic blaster does just manage to have the best anti shield efficiency among energy weapons and has pretty good DPS as well, but it's not a huge difference so it is pretty easy to see why no one else really bothered.
We also already know modifications can be made because of the pirates and the pathers, they are worse but it can still be done. It just looks like most don't bother because the old stuff seems to be almost always better and at least almost as good compared to new things. They can't just magic up a 500 per shot HE gun and whatever prevented the original designers from converging large mounts on the Onslaught, probably completely stumps the current special engineers.

I think that you have missed the point entirely. "Previously unutilized" means that no domain era blueprints exists. However, Diktat is getting them in numbers. Meaning that it is possible to manufacture something new in large quantities without having domain era blueprints. Even if it is energy weapon.

And now we back to the basics of Starsector balance that is build upon the idea of carefully introduced flaws. Like inability to bring all the guns on a single target. Or using subpar shield generators. Most of the ships are flawed on purpose. And the sole explanation for this is that you can't just build whatever you want and have to deal with the blueprints and all the ideas of the domain era designers no matter how bad they look like from the modern military perspective.

But it just happened that you don't.

You call it magic? I'm ok with that. As long as I get my ships and my guns. Like certain dictator did.
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BaBosa

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Re: The Phillip Paradox
« Reply #29 on: May 15, 2023, 07:06:15 PM »

Spoiler
The executor is mostly a copy and the kinetic blaster is based off the heavy blaster so they’re not doing much more than what pirates have done. The gigacannon is new but it’s not very good which is probably why it hadn’t already been developed by someone else.

"weapon system integrates elements of SUPER ALABASTER technology to harness previously unutilized anti-shield effect"

Can we, you know, utilize something else? Like converging Large mounts on the Onslaught? Like all of them? I mean we have a highly trained specialist class of engineer-technicians after all. So why not? And while we are at it I'd like to have a 500 per shot HE damage ballistic gun for a medium mount, please.
Given that the kinetic blaster has an efficiency of 1.4 when some ballistic kinetics have an efficiency of 0.8 shows how it might have been unutilized because it wasn't really attractive especially when the pulse laser, also a medium energy weapon, has an efficiency of 0.8 which is only slightly worse than the kinetic blaster against shields.
The kinetic blaster does just manage to have the best anti shield efficiency among energy weapons and has pretty good DPS as well, but it's not a huge difference so it is pretty easy to see why no one else really bothered.
We also already know modifications can be made because of the pirates and the pathers, they are worse but it can still be done. It just looks like most don't bother because the old stuff seems to be almost always better and at least almost as good compared to new things. They can't just magic up a 500 per shot HE gun and whatever prevented the original designers from converging large mounts on the Onslaught, probably completely stumps the current special engineers.

I think that you have missed the point entirely. "Previously unutilized" means that no domain era blueprints exists. However, Diktat is getting them in numbers. Meaning that it is possible to manufacture something new in large quantities without having domain era blueprints. Even if it is energy weapon.

And now we back to the basics of Starsector balance that is build upon the idea of carefully introduced flaws. Like inability to bring all the guns on a single target. Or using subpar shield generators. Most of the ships are flawed on purpose. And the sole explanation for this is that you can't just build whatever you want and have to deal with the blueprints and all the ideas of the domain era designers no matter how bad they look like from the modern military perspective.

But it just happened that you don't.

You call it magic? I'm ok with that. As long as I get my ships and my guns. Like certain dictator did.
[close]
There has always been some innovation. The pirates like I keep mentioning and you keep ignoring but also Tritak is doing some. It's just really expensive presumably and the factions that can do it already have good big ships. The Paragon doesn't need any improvement and the Onslaught was made pre-collapse so any issues with its weapon layouts can be presumed to have a reason that can't be overcome by current engineers like I just said.
They probably could improve the smaller ships but TT already has good frigates, Heg won't change and I suspect the league and independents don't want to spend the money.
As for the player, it would take decades to attract good enough engineers and set them to work to make a better ship than the current ones.
As for why not make a ship that is just a bunch of missiles or some other optimized build, at some point game balance has to override what makes sense otherwise you get everything becoming pretty similar and boring.
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