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[Lawrence Master-blaster]

Being rewarded for skill is a large part of gaming.

Depends what kind of gaming. RPGs(which Starsector at least partially is) really only reward game knowledge.

[Grievous69]

Being rewarded for skill is a large part of gaming.

Depends what kind of gaming. RPGs(which Starsector at least partially is) really only reward game knowledge.

Ehh no. Just take a look at the popular RPG titles and you'll see that skill is also a big part.

[TaLaR]

Depends what kind of gaming. RPGs(which Starsector at least partially is) really only reward game knowledge.

Wouldn't say that. Afflictor piloting is more about precise execution. Because difference between safely killing a capital and committing mutual suicide due to death explosion is sometimes half Afflictor's hull length or so.

Even with more traditional capitals optimal use of shield-flickering to selectively armor tank and/or let near-misses (would hit shield, but not hull) miss can get quite intense.

Sure, you need to know what to do, but you also need to be capable of actually carrying it out.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

Ehh no. Just take a look at the popular RPG titles and you'll see that skill is also a big part.

You mean the popular action RPGs?

[Grievous69]

Oh right my bad, I forgot Starsector was a turn based game.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

No, but it's RTWP, which is like turn based but better(and no less RPG)

Wouldn't say that. Afflictor piloting is more about precise execution. Because difference between safely killing a capital and committing mutual suicide due to death explosion is sometimes half Afflictor's hull length or so.

Sure, but the point is you don't have to do that at all. You can "finish the game" without ever manually piloting a ship.

[Princess_of_Evil]

Oh right my bad, I forgot Starsector was a turn based game.

No, it's a zero-player game, like auto chess.

[Gothars]

I agree that combat skills contribute disproportionally to how fun the game is. And I think this

That said, I don't think giving the player a few free points in the combat tree(and ONLY in combat tree) from quests, etc. would be bad.

would be a fine remedy.

[KDR_11k]

Personally I'd suggest letting the player pick a "co-pilot" officer and use that officer's combat skills instead of their own. That way a player with a non-combat build still gets to participate in the combat gameplay with the downsides of having effectively one fewer officers and not as many (elite) skills on the flagship as a combat build would have.

Combat is definitely the core of Starsector's gameplay to me, it's the most developed part and I don't think I've seen any game do large ship action combat better.

[Grievous69]

My suggestion before was splitting the officer combat skills from the player ones. Since people tend to agree that the game switched from "strong player - few officers" to "mediocre player - many officers", just give the player stronger skills. That way you won't feel outranked by a mere officer (and there's dozens of them in big fights), and you can get even more out of skillful piloting.

It never felt right that officers can get Combat capstone skills before the player can. So just make all skills good enough to be capstone worthy. Now Combat is just a line of skills you can pick in any order.

[Gothars]

Personally I'd suggest letting the player pick a "co-pilot" officer and use that officer's combat skills instead of their own.

My suggestion before was splitting the officer combat skills from the player ones.

To split it off completely also means that you can't really specialize your character for combat anymore, all characters will be equallly great at it. Which would be a shame, role-playing wise.

What I like about having some "combat-only skillpoints" is that they'd either prevent you from totally falling behind in combat when focusing on other skills (combat is really no fun anymore when that happens), or being super competent in combat while still fairly good at other stuff. You could still specialize.

[Grievous69]

You misunderstood me. By "splitting" I meant officers have all the personal skills that exist in the game now. Skill system remains the same but the Combat tree now has upgraded variations of current skills that only the player can have, nobody else. This way you prevent ridiculously buffing Remnants and high end bounties.

[kenwth81]

Contradict with why combat skills was nerfed to begin with. Combat skills was too strong and people need many combat skills to stay relevant.
Now they need to pick and choose.

People with crappy piloting skill need a better fleet.  People with astronomical combat abilities shouldn't.
Pick strong main character skills or strong party skills. You shouldn't have both... That is balanced.

For meaningful choice you have to be willing to make sacrifices.

[Grievous69]

Yeah you know what's funny. Combat skills getting nerfed because a couple of skilled players could solo fleets with some ships. Now we're on the other end where people show off their death fleet by just pressing autopilot and watching the pretty explosions. This to me sounds even more lame than the original problem.

[SCC]

I don't remember Alex making the decision to increase the baseline officer number from 4 to 8 being in response to any particular player complaint. It certainly came out of the left field to me.