Thank you, everyone!
Very insightful post, thanks! Having used the simulator a bunch in my last run to try out new things (instead of just picking the same old builds I always go for), I can definitely appreciate the enhancements. I do think a couple of alternate ways to get access to ships might be neat (not to scope creep what's intentionally a small feature, just throwing them out there):
- Getting a commission/certain amount of rep from a faction could give you that faction's entire list (helps to address the "friendlies" problem)
- Bounty missions you get from story quests or maybe even bars could come with them
- Maybe the Sensors skill lets you pick them up from derelicts
All in all, looking forward to toying around with it, and seeing my list grow like a trophy case.
Hi, and welcome to the forum, by the way
Hmm, I could see doing something like that, but I also don't want to make the whole mechanic too involved, it's just not meant to be that big a deal. And one could see, for example, if getting a commission unlocked all the ships, how someone might feel compelled to speedrun doing that for all the factions, I don't know.
Meta-mechanics come with a huge load of baggage in terms of incentivizing weird and un-fun player behavior. Maybe there's a good way of doing it, but I want to keep it pretty lean.
...what about the mothership?
Ah, crap - made a note, I have to double-check what actually happens here. It should *not* be available, but at a guess, it probably currently is. Thank you for mentioning it
Edit: wanted to mention, Java upgrade sounds good! Yes it's good for 32-bit compatibility, in case people are still using it; I myself play on a desktop that is over a decade old (though it's 64-bit), so there are probably quite a few people who are managing to squeak along on older computers.
Cool! Yeah, I know some people play Starsector on, ah, some flavor of root vegetable and I wouldn't want to nuke 32-bit support unless there was significant upside to it.
Makes total sense! The performance even through the emulator on J7 is pretty good; better than my 7 year old desktop "we totally support openGL we swear" AMD rx 580 graphics card can do for sure. So I don't think this is high priority.
Thank you for understanding
And, that's cool about the emulator performance, it kind of blows my mind how good these things have gotten.
That info on the data carrying over between saves, could we get something like this for custom ship loadouts in the future? I've always found it bothersome that my favorite loadouts needs to be made from scratch again per save game, loving the changes and the move to Java 17 has me just as excited.
I've got a note to maybe look at that at some point; it gets annoyingly complicated with modded weapons (which may or may not be loaded, if this exists outside the context of a save) and other such. Which, I mean - on the surface some similar concerns here, but imo more straightforward to handle.
Very excited for both the Sim changes and the Java upgrade (moreso the Java 
)
Haha, fair
I'm pretty excited about the Java, too! I'm sure I'll get used to it, but it's just so buttery smooth right now in comparison.
Needing AI cores on hand to simulate AI core officers seemed a bit 
from a gameplay perspective, though it does make sense that whatever onboard computers you (presumably) use to run the simulator cannot easily simulate a dozen+ alpha core level AIs. And a simple config option can turn it off, so no problem either which way.
*thumbs up*
Integrating a gameplay side (AI cores "piloting" simulations of Remnants) into what is a QoL improvement is something I really really really dig !
Cool! I want to go easy with that sort of thing in general (and hence the setting to turn it off), but this is one place where it felt worthwile to make an exception.
