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Author Topic: Hypershunt Taps  (Read 3231 times)

Amoebka

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Re: Hypershunt Taps
« Reply #15 on: September 10, 2023, 11:19:41 AM »

Is it really that big of a deal?
Well, if you want to use the items you find, you will be sitting on -4 stability and -60% accessibility on all your colonies the entire game. And have them raided/sabotaged every so often.
Finding 30 items when exploring and then using 3 of them doesn't feel very good either.
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Megas

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Re: Hypershunt Taps
« Reply #16 on: September 10, 2023, 11:38:11 AM »

Finding 30 items when exploring and then using 3 of them doesn't feel very good either.
Yes.  Worst of all, the items I need most (synchrotron and pristine nanoforges) for my military can be stolen from the core worlds.  Even if I find them in salvage (unlikely in case of pristine nanoforge), I still want to steal them from my competitors/enemies to lower their fleet quality and market share (and bump my income slightly).

I do not really need to find colony items in the fringe when I can steal everything I need from the core worlds and limited to few colonies (without alpha cores).  I do want to find blueprint packs because stealing blueprints from core worlds becomes far more tedious when common junk dominates blueprint loot because I have not yet found low/mid/high/missile/pirate packs.
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Arghy

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Re: Hypershunt Taps
« Reply #17 on: September 10, 2023, 11:52:55 AM »

The hostile event bar is an amazing concept but it definitely needs some work. I finally got late game and with gate travel i can quickly bounce around to find hostile stations but the problem is there isn't nearly enough to keep the bar down. The answer is mods because some of them will add accessibility and stability buildings that will allow you to function at the end of the bar. I feel the military bases really need a rework too because askonia is the best example to follow. If you invest in heavy military infrastructure then anything less than a dedicated raid shouldn't be an issue at all.

The problem is there isn't enough choices, it's not thematic and doesn't feel good to give the pathers what they want and to give into kanta. If each stage of the bar represented stations that could be destroyed then it'd be really fun assaulting what would basically be high threat pather and pirate systems once a year to trim the bar down. The nebulous -4 stability doesn't make sense either, it should be represented by hostile fleets not invisible ill will.
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Aeson

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Re: Hypershunt Taps
« Reply #18 on: September 10, 2023, 11:57:58 AM »

It comes too late, even if colonies themselves take too long to take off.
Agreed, and as long as you more or less have to have a size-6 colony before you can actually use it I don't know that there's really any way that that'll change  even though you could theroetically rush finding and restoring a Hypershunt.

I already use two forges and a synchrotron on three of my five worlds (which I need to feed Military Base or High Command, the big resource hogs), so that leaves two worlds left for other items.
Six or seven colonies is well within reach using only the player character and hired administrators, and up to eleven without income penalties except during shortages is workable with enough care - colonies administered by hirelings are neither affected by nor count towards the mismanagement penalty, a fully-developed world can have up to +17 stability (+6 base, +2 Domain-era Comm Relay, +1 domestic goods, +1 luxury goods, +1 Ground Defenses, +2 Military Base or High Command, +3 Star Fortress, +1 Population & Infrastructure "improvements"), and pirate hostile activity only cares about the largest most stable colony while other stability-related penalties only come into play at less than 5 stability, so one hireling governing a size-6 planet neuters passive pirate hostile activity while the player character administers all other size-6 worlds and the other two hirelings manage developing worlds until the player character's mismanagement penalty becomes too high to add another size-6 world without reducing stability below 5, giving up to five colonies administered by the player character even with Commerce and Free Port or up to eight with neither Commerce nor Free Port. Dropping the Population & Infrastructure "improvements" and swapping the Domain-era Comm Relay for a Makeshift Comm Relay costs you a planet, but that still leaves you with four to seven colonies managed by the player character plus the three administered by hirelings before PC-governed colony stability drops unacceptably low.

Tap should give +4 interest like everything else.
Honestly, considering how thin the margins are on most industries when they're not being boosted by something, I'm not sure that it'd really be worth using even at +4 interest if you're trying to avoid generating Path cells; roughly doubling the gross income of an existing industry or increasing the colony income multiplier by 50 points looks far more appealing to me than adding another barely-profitable industry to the planet.
« Last Edit: September 10, 2023, 12:01:25 PM by Aeson »
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Megas

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Re: Hypershunt Taps
« Reply #19 on: September 10, 2023, 01:03:37 PM »

Player takes penalties when he goes over the limit.  Six for -2 stability is acceptable if necessary, but I would not want Commerce on those worlds.  Seven at -4 is doable but is too much stability loss for comfort.

I prefer stability to stay at 10 for individual colony defenses (fleet size and quality).  I also would like extra stability to offset trade disruptions (which will happen).  I may take a bit less like 8 or 9 if I have both Commerce and Free Port.  That is enough to absorb a temporary loss of stability from trade disruptions or similar.

Much as I want to attempt to shove as many improvements as I can, I avoid improvements unless I absolutely need them because of 2^n costs.  (I used one last game to boost volatiles production on a five resource arid planet.)

One reason I like to stay at five worlds is I have the option of building a temporary colony on a whim (tech mining for example) without hurting stability too much of my main worlds.
« Last Edit: September 10, 2023, 01:08:22 PM by Megas »
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Aeson

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Re: Hypershunt Taps
« Reply #20 on: September 10, 2023, 01:15:44 PM »

Player takes penalties when he goes over the limit.
Seeing as you go from +2 stability at one colony to +0 at two, you take a penalty whenever you're at more than one PC-managed colony. If you don't want to take a penalty, you're limited to four colonies.
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Megas

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Re: Hypershunt Taps
« Reply #21 on: September 10, 2023, 01:23:34 PM »

Player takes penalties when he goes over the limit.
Seeing as you go from +2 stability at one colony to +0 at two, you take a penalty whenever you're at more than one PC-managed colony. If you don't want to take a penalty, you're limited to four colonies.
Not really.  Four worlds total is +2 for your one personal world and +0 for the other three governed by human admins.
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Nettle

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Re: Hypershunt Taps
« Reply #22 on: September 10, 2023, 02:11:05 PM »

Well, if you want to use the items you find, you will be sitting on -4 stability and -60% accessibility on all your colonies the entire game. And have them raided/sabotaged every so often.

But why would I want to sit at extreme hostilities impact, if I could destroy Pather base supplying the cells once in a while, or just bribe them?
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Terethall

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Re: Hypershunt Taps
« Reply #23 on: September 10, 2023, 03:35:06 PM »

Are you guys having issues with hostile activity? It's so easy to pay off pirates and pathers; the only reason to deal with it would be RP reasons or self-imposed challenges. If anything imo it's too easy to ignore by purchasing permanent pirate protection and paying pathers biannually.

Mostly it just feels weird to have an item (hypershunt tap) that feels so pointless, get like three of them per sector gen, but never the catalytic cores needed to make them even a little useful. Every other colony item works to at least some extent independently of what other colony items drop in your run. Even fusion lamps scale their effect with volatiles and work decently well out of the box off of core world imports. Thank you to those who confirmed that there's nothing I was missing that would let it work (in a way that benefits me) without a catalytic core.
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