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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: Automated Ships Rework  (Read 1839 times)

Gothars

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Re: Automated Ships Rework
« Reply #15 on: June 05, 2023, 05:34:15 AM »

The weirdest thing about [Redacted] ships is that nobody in the core worlds minds them in your fleet, despite fighting two wars about them. If they became illegal, they could generally be a bit stronger imho, to compensate for that weakness.


The way I use Exploratorium drones is as cheap, temporary combat strength boosts during exploration, that you discard before going home. I wouldn't mind if they became even cheaper to restore, maintain and repair them, to strengthen that ad-hock role.

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Megas

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Re: Automated Ships Rework
« Reply #16 on: June 05, 2023, 07:19:59 AM »

I like to see smaller Derelicts made useful like Rampart.  Rampart can pull its weight.  The smaller Derelicts, not so much.  I would not mind Berserker if it was as usable as Vanguard, which also costs 6 DP.

Sentry is outclassed by Lumen as a missile ship.  At least Lumen is fast and can kite like a Timid to distract enemies too dumb to target other ships.  Sentry is too slow for that, and it only has exactly enough OP (at 15) to mount three Gorgons and nothing else without s-mods.  Lumen can fit four Gorgons plus Expanded Missile Racks.  Both of them are 1 DP per Gorgon mounted.

The weirdest thing about [Redacted] ships is that nobody in the core worlds minds them in your fleet, despite fighting two wars about them. If they became illegal, they could generally be a bit stronger imho, to compensate for that weakness.
The easiest way to do that is to raise the DP pool so people can afford to use more ships with alpha cores.  (Or just lower the DP multiplier for cores; automated ships without cores are comparable to unskilled human ships.)  Also, make cores count for DP again.
« Last Edit: June 05, 2023, 07:24:31 AM by Megas »
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CapnHector

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Re: Automated Ships Rework
« Reply #17 on: June 05, 2023, 09:50:54 AM »

Is it even an issue that Derelicts have so little OP by default? What would make them harder, safety overrides? Even then, they would have no shields (or bad shields) and be rather vulnerable.

Did you ever try making a Derelict fleet? You can see my sig for one. Now for the Rampart, when you have filled your large slots you have spent already about 60 of your 120 OP when you have put weapons in those if you choose relatively budget ones. Goes up to maybe 80 if you also want to put weapons in side slots. Now try also putting in Heavy Armor, Reinforced Bulkheads, Integrated Targeting Unit, Expanded Missile Racks, ECCM and flux stats to actually use the weapons and you see the problem. Exact same for Berserker and the smaller drones, by the time you fill your weapon slots you have already used most of your OP, and armor ships really want hullmods.

If the player ever had to face 2x Devastator Locust Heavy Armor RB Ramparts instead of random crap loadouts it would already be a terror, but now imagine them with a 2x Mjolnir Squall build and the flux stats to use those. Sure, not Nova level terror, but remember the ship also has the DP of a Venture.
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xenoargh

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Re: Automated Ships Rework
« Reply #18 on: June 05, 2023, 11:30:58 AM »

@Gothars:  I agree, it's odd. [REDACTED] in a fleet should cause, at the very least, inspections. One would think that having such things implies that one's been into forbidden areas, doing forbidden things, and should generate a pretty strong negative response from Hegemony and Luddite fleets, as well as driving Pathers crazy. Moreover, inspections that find AI in charge of these ships should cause pretty major diplomatic difficulties. If I'm understanding correctly, some new penalty's been introduced making AI ships less affordable when given AI for balance reasons? That seems like the wrong way to handle this. The problem with having [REDACTED] in your fleets should be that most Factions react badly to this, for obvious reasons, starting with, "you've freed them to continue their mission".

On Derelicts: IMO, they should be the shieldless armor-tank ships you want to use as meat-shields. As it stands, a lot of them are neither fish nor fowl; fairly weak with shields, weak without them. The only ones getting much praise are disposable missile carriers, and frankly every time I read that that meta remains the most-viable option, I cringe; it's Carrier spam all over again, taking away player-centric combat. I presume that's what players are finding Fun, but I don't like that much.

At any rate, to get to the point where they'd be generally useful, they'd need considerably more armor, so that the bigger ones can shrug off some serious hits. Perhaps they need extra-special auto-repair systems, so that they're really, really hard to stun-lock. I think making them the missile platform of choice is a mistake, though; they should be ships you plan to dump into the enemy's center of mass while you sneak more fragile direct-damage player-ships onto flanks, etc.
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Megas

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Re: Automated Ships Rework
« Reply #19 on: June 05, 2023, 02:32:44 PM »

If automated ships causes factions to react badly, then Automated Ships should not be a skill to pay for.  Just give the DP pool from Automated Ships skill for free and let player deal with consequences from NPCs for using automated ships.
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TauCetiRedGuard

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Re: Automated Ships Rework
« Reply #20 on: June 05, 2023, 02:46:57 PM »

If automated ships causes factions to react badly, then Automated Ships should not be a skill to pay for.  Just give the DP pool from Automated Ships skill for free and let player deal with consequences from NPCs for using automated ships.
I feel that making automated ships a reward for a quest/questline would serve as an appropriate way to balance for removing it from the skill list. As an example make the technology cache quest grant the ability to command derelicts, something like having old Tri-Tach research notes on using them as auxiliary craft during AIW1. I would lock the ability to command remnants behind [HEGEMONY REDACTED] or maybe Red Planet.
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Arcagnello

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Re: Automated Ships Rework
« Reply #21 on: June 05, 2023, 02:47:09 PM »

As an avid user of [Redacted] ships myself, having their presence in my fleet altering the way various factions treat me would be something very nice to experience and play in and around with.

I'd like the Hegemony patrols to uh- be kind of flabbergasted at the sight of a fleet rolling around with the supposedly eradicated enemies of the AI wars, with whatever Alex and the other Devs could come up with.

As per the OP, you can already have a formidable contingent of [Redacted] in your fleet by stacking all the various methods of getting more Combat Readiness; do we really need to fit more than over 100, 120 Deployments Points worth of uber-stronk ships in our fleet, controlled by officers that not only are excluded from our own officer count but that also rock the Elite Status on all the Skills they have?

It would, for example, be a lot more interesting if you were compelled to install special hullmods on your non-autonomous ships while in combat to keep the AI controlled ones in check and in optimal condition, not having it would, as a fun theory, result in your own remnant ships incuring malfuctions or, more hilariously, decide to uh, ignore the Identify Friend Or Foe subsystems and just fire upon anything with those filthy carbon based lifeforms inside them from time to time....
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Megas

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Re: Automated Ships Rework
« Reply #22 on: June 06, 2023, 04:54:21 AM »

As per the OP, you can already have a formidable contingent of [Redacted] in your fleet by stacking all the various methods of getting more Combat Readiness; do we really need to fit more than over 100, 120 Deployments Points worth of uber-stronk ships in our fleet, controlled by officers that not only are excluded from our own officer count but that also rock the Elite Status on all the Skills they have?
If I am paying for a capstone, and cores do not count to DP pool, then yes.  Superhuman officers means alpha core, which is 30 DP worth of ships without CR loss (because alpha is x4 cost to DP pool).  Even Betas would be 40 DP without CR loss, and those are comparable to level 6 human officers with extra elite skills.

And one problem with automated ships is player cannot build new AI ships (no blueprints) to replace clunkers with pristine ones (and player will recover clunkers from the enemy).  Remnant ships are more expensive than normal to Restore, and Hull Restoration will take much too long to remove d-mods if player recovers a whole fleet of clunkers.  I guess that is a case for Derelict Ops. who want all the d-mods.

I feel that making automated ships a reward for a quest/questline would serve as an appropriate way to balance for removing it from the skill list.
NPCs' reactions should be balancing enough if they make the player's life miserable enough.  Especially if the reaction is nearly par with an atrocity if caught.
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Lawrence Master-blaster

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Re: Automated Ships Rework
« Reply #23 on: June 06, 2023, 05:40:48 AM »

The weirdest thing about [Redacted] ships is that nobody in the core worlds minds them in your fleet, despite fighting two wars about them. If they became illegal, they could generally be a bit stronger imho, to compensate for that weakness.

If they became illegal they would become largely useless for the player. Or it would be another reason to just nuke entirety of Hegemony(because apparently killing over a billion people has no consequences)

If you want to contextualize usage of AI ships within the game world, you could make it so you have to pay for a "license" for Hegemony to turn a blind eye on it(or tie it to a quest, i.e. giving them the Planet Killer) Then you could combine it with instant-detection like the Ziggurat, since presumably the player would be the only one with such a "license".
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Megas

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Re: Automated Ships Rework
« Reply #24 on: June 06, 2023, 06:13:20 AM »

Not just Hegemony, but the Ludds too, especially Pathers.  Maybe more factions who agreed with the AI ban as well.
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Doctorhealsgood

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Re: Automated Ships Rework
« Reply #25 on: June 06, 2023, 08:39:03 PM »

The weirdest thing about [Redacted] ships is that nobody in the core worlds minds them in your fleet, despite fighting two wars about them. If they became illegal, they could generally be a bit stronger imho, to compensate for that weakness.

If they became illegal they would become largely useless for the player. Or it would be another reason to just nuke entirety of Hegemony(because apparently killing over a billion people has no consequences)

If you want to contextualize usage of AI ships within the game world, you could make it so you have to pay for a "license" for Hegemony to turn a blind eye on it(or tie it to a quest, i.e. giving them the Planet Killer) Then you could combine it with instant-detection like the Ziggurat, since presumably the player would be the only one with such a "license".
No transponder ID for using droneships? Might as well remove the skill. They are in no way ziggy tier.
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