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[Alex]

Thank you for the kind words, everyone!

Just to clarify, Java 17 or modded Java 23 would not help much if the best my decade old system can go for is 4GB RAM in vmparams? (I could go 6GB, but a lot of folks say that I should keep half of my 8GB free (technically 7.5GB due to Nvidia 970's peculiarities)

It would likely help a lot, it's just straight up *faster*. Ram is not everything here, not by a long shot.

Enemy fleets I'm actually interested in simulating, to test my fleet composition, roughly in order of importance:

 - Special Omega-Ordo bounty
 - Double Ordo(as approximation of the above that's a lot easier to find)
 - Single Ordo(for getting cores)
 - Doritos
 - Ziggy
 - Guardian(for my exploration fleet)
 - Maximum power Mothership spawn(for my exploration fleet)
 - Star Fortresses

... Even a single Ordo cannot be properly simulated because the enemy fleet size seems to cap at 240 DP, and I need to beat about 20 of them first to collect all the AI cores needed to know how to beat them.

100% intentional.

(Edit: I feel like I should elaborate here - the simulator is purposefully not geared towards large-scale fleet combat, and does not include the very-high-end/special enemies. Easy enough to add those in with some text edits, though.)

I did not expect you to tackle the sim at this time Alex, but the changes sound really great! I see myself spending way to much time in there, and finally optimizing my fleet for specific factions. Codex next? It could use the same meta-progression unlock mechanics. Gotta Scan 'Em All!

Haha! Definitely thinking about the Codex, too.

Kinda tangentially related, but simulator enhancements make me think of this: It could be a nice immersion/QoL option to have an after-battle dialog option that pretends that the last battle was actually just a simulation. That would prevent the "need" for a reload when your fleet gets wiped, and enable you to either try again (this time for real!) or turn tail. It would of course cost a Story Point (0%).

Your forces have been defeated in the last encounter.

You decide to....

   1. Proceed

   2. Shut down the simulation. Good thing you ran it, now you know what not to do. [1 SP, 0% XP]

The main problem with this - and I agree the idea is nice in principle - is that it would be such a pain to implement. So many things cue off battles that undoing all of this is impractical; the most reasonable way of actually doing it is saving the state prior to the battle and then restoring it. I.E., reloading

... this is making me think of allowing reloads in iron mode as a 1 SP, 0% bonus XP option, though. A bit meta, but kind of tempted!

Will Guardian tie into some more quests or lore in the future? I think it's a bit odd to leave it out, especially since it now spawns in generic derelict bounty fleets now (unless it was removed and I missed it).

I'm not sure if it needs it, really; there are already Implications. But we'll see.

Oh will you be able to simulate stations? Would be nice if you could.

No, but it's easy to add in with a text edit, if you want!

Instead, one thought I had was that being able to use blueprint ships in the simulator would be really helpful for the player if they want to test the new blueprint they just found and decide if they want to actually build it or not.  Being able to fight blueprint ships also means you can try fighting your own faction for fun.  If you don't want this to be something that just instantly unlocks the moment the player finds a random cartridge in some backwards ruins, it could require the player own a Heavy Industry building first to become available.

Hmm, that "makes sense", but I'd talked about the downside of using blueprints for unlocks in the blog post - it doesn't really count as "encountering" the ship; having a Heavy Industry or some such doesn't actually change that.

So I'd say this actually goes against the grain of the design; I don't want the simulator to mess with the normal flow of the game in this scenario, which would involve actually building the ship. "You don't have to because of the simulator" would just be a downside imo.

[gG_pilot]

I have spend about half of my time with game in the simulator so I thing that effort make it better is worth it.

I would be glad if the mod  "Combat report" is integrated to main game, or at least gets some Partnership status, so numbers are more precise and has better layout.

Second thing, I would like to have an option to easy edit and re-run setting.
I mean, I have set my opponent fleet, and my fleet  but I want remove one my ship and edit second ship then re-run.
Make such design of the simulator that minimum number if clicks is required for re-run previous.

Oh, and one  little nitpick - allow map mouse side buttons. It is in windows API for about 15 years.

[SCC]

I'm not sure if it needs it, really; there are already Implications. But we'll see.

It's more that I don't think there's a reason for it to keep its missile autoforge hullmod, nor be unrecoverable. It isn't even stronger than a Radiant, much less phase ships. Except for low-tech fleets, I suppose.

[Alex]

I'm not sure if it needs it, really; there are already Implications. But we'll see.

It's more that I don't think there's a reason for it to keep its missile autoforge hullmod, nor be unrecoverable. It isn't even stronger than a Radiant, much less phase ships. Except for low-tech fleets, I suppose.

Yep, I agree - I've got a TODO item to have a look at it; if it goes that way it'd also likely lose the no_sim tag. It could also go in the direction of becoming stronger/more special in some way, though.

[FooF]

@Alex

Probably overlooked in the flood of posts but I’d love to hear your thoughts on the below suggestion.

If it's not too much work, I'd love to see a few additional options as it pertains to enemy sim behavior (maybe under the Aggression menu):

- Play Dead: Ships are stationary and do absolutely nothing. Useful for weapons testing against armor.
- Shields Only: Identical to Play Dead with the exception that ships will try to defend themselves with shields. Useful for testing loadouts against various shield efficiencies.
- Defend: Ships are stationary but will rotate to face you and have full access to all their weapons, fighters, and shields. Useful for testing your ship's overall effectiveness in a controlled head-on fight.

As "spirited" as some of our balance discussions get, some standardized tools for weapons/balance testing would be most welcome. I guess you could also create some "test dummies" that perform the same function but I figured modifying ship behavior would be easier.

[SCC]

Yep, I agree - I've got a TODO item to have a look at it; if it goes that way it'd also likely lose the no_sim tag. It could also go in the direction of becoming stronger/more special in some way, though.

I fought ordos with a Radiant and I fought ordos with a Guardian.

Spoiler

[close]

If I don't use Guardian's infinite missile reload, it doesn't strike me as very strong. In comparison to Radiant, it's slower (yes, really!), hard to control and fragile. Its long range is pretty neat, though. I don't think Guardian has to be as strong, though. Missile Autoforge really should go, but with ATC I'm more on the fence. I think the issue would be with slower enemies not exhibiting a proper amount of aggressiveness to catch up with Guardian. It is the best match up for Guardian. Remnants can catch up to Guardian perfectly fine, though. I'm not sure if that is enough to warrant removing ATC.

As is (except for missiles), it plays somewhat like a super Conquest. It provides good firepower, but anything more than a duel is going to prove an issue for Guardian. I don't think I would mind getting a Guardian upgrade, it's more that currently I don't think it's all that special.

[Doctorhealsgood]

Just give it a souped up version of our autoloader?

[prav]

Increase the base mobility a bit and swap the system for standard Autoforge. It's a bit heavy on the frigate murder-ability anyway.

[GrayingGamer]

Unlocking the various hulls/variants in the simulator could be its own little mini-game. I see steam achievements (hopefully).

I do think looking into an actual arena mode of some sort (as I've seen suggested elsewhere) is a very good idea - the game's chief feature is the fleet battles, so it would make sense to make a side-game that just focuses on that.

[Jon]

 Both the streamlined and advanced versions of the simulator UI looks great, also cheers on the performance improvements!

 As for unlocking ships, one way it could happen is it triggers when you "meet" a fleet in the open, as in the screen when you can open a comm-link and whatnot. That way you can just walk away from friendlies afterwards. Enemies factions such as the [REDACTED] still benefit from this given how they usually interact with the player, you "talk" with them first, then proceed to combat.

 This can be used to separately unlock certain sub-factions such as the Lion Guard, Tri-Tach phase fleets,[SUPER REDACTED] and what-not, you either meet them at break-points in the story, in exploration or seek them out in rare deserter bounties anyway.

 I think it wouldn't be a meta-progression hassle to go through because merely approaching a fleet is a non-issue with the player themselves being intercepted by many fleets through a normal playthrough, and this only needing to be done once per save-file.

[Malamo999]

is the next update 0.97.1a or 0.98a?

I have the same question. I'm particularly excited to try out Starsector on my Steam Deck, where any increase in FPS lowers power draw thus increasing battery life, sometimes by hours. Even if that was the only change in the next update, I'd be happy! haha

[–Phase–]

Not sure if anyone has suggested this yet, but it would be great if you could use the simulator to test out weapons you don't actually have in your inventory. That way, you can test out any configuration without needing to hunt down the weapons first, then once you've found a loadout that works, you can then proceed to actually finding those weapons and putting them on your ship.

[Tranquility]

Super excited to see the new Simulator changes (and Java 17) coming with the next update! Hopefully this means that other, seemingly-outdated stuff like the Codex menu will be cleaned up as well in future updates. Thus, I wouldn't be surprised if an updated Codex ended up leveraging the same unlock-ships-by-destroying-them mechanism as the new Simulator - though maybe to a much lesser extent; an improved UI would probably be fine enough by itself.

Also, I imagine the switch to Java 17 will be a godsend for both modders (gaining all the new Java language features from Java 8 all the way to Java 17) and mod users (better out-of-the-box performance overall, especially when running with multiple mods). Just this alone would probably ensure this game and its modding community continues to live on for several more years, if not decades, after its release. So, I wanted to give my thanks to you, Alex, for making this switch, and to Himemiko for helping out with that switch (even though I never actually used Java 23 yet; I just stayed with base Java 7 once I updated to 0.97a)!

[Nettle]

Amazing! This is a MASSIVE improvement on the simulator. I'll echo some of the doubts about core officers requiring physical cores in your storage though. I doubt I'll use it often unless I'm specifically going for it, since I don't have the habit of carrying cores around with me, and whatever cores I stash away, I use up as soon as possible for sales/colonies/automated ships.

[Fenrir]

Does this mean all sub-factions are getting their own flags?