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[Megas]

Wolfpack Tactics! Crew Training is also pretty good if you don't need a particular combat skill for a particular job (like EWM or Defensive Systems), and it helps it fits every ship you are going to pilot, anyway.

Those are in the Leadership tree, not Combat, which sort of makes Brain's point.

[BigBrainEnergy]

"It is the strongest." Really? Based on what, your anecdotal experience? Nice. In my experience that's not true. I guess I win, right? No further explanation needed

Cap'n Hector's various "5 ships vs 5 ordos" videos (Legions, Onslaughts, Paragons, , Draba's various fleet comp vs 6 ordos videos, Rainy's (on Discord) ordo hunting escapades, Legionhead's (also on Discord) ordo hunting fleet (I don't know if he ended up getting 5 points in industry or not) and yes, even my own experiences after playing the game for quite some time.

Arguments to the contrary would be Vanshilar's fights against 5 ordos, Sinigir's 3740 DP fight and my Radiant fleet vs 5 ordos fight.

There is a lot more content of a certain kind.

Right, but we've over been over why 5 ordo fleets are NOT considered for balancing. As if that wasn't enough, last time I checked both capn hector and vanshilar are in agreement that getting combat skills and manually piloting a flagship is in fact, very strong.

This is overall a terrible argument. Should I just spam videos of me using a flagship odyssey to beat 5 ordos and start using that as "proof" that combat skills are overpowered?

The reason they make these videos is probably the same reason I like them... because a player showing off their piloting skills is less impressive/interesting to me than showing off a well designed fleet with good loadouts.

[Megas]

The reason they make these videos is probably the same reason I like them... because a player showing off their piloting skills is less impressive/interesting to me than showing off a well designed fleet with good loadouts.

For me, it is the opposite.  I like to see flagship smash the enemy like a good old arcade shump.  Something like SCC's solo phase ship builds or his recent Radiant flagship, or TaLaR's Afflictor shenanigans.

[Hiruma Kai]

Which comes back to my original question to the posters in the thread: Is the game too hard, too easy, or about right in difficulty?

Too easy for no flagship playstyles.

Thank you for answering the question.  Which is a good data point, especially coming from you, since I've got ample evidence you can play the flagship style fine.

You could for example instead of reducing officer and core levels, simply multiply the effects of skills on the flagship (and only the flagship) by a factor of 1.25, or 1.5 or even 2, in concept similar to how carrier skills get a 1.5 multiplier on officered ships.

One thing I'd been thinking about for a *while* is finding items that, when right-clicked, grant the player a unique combat or two. Something very limited - you wouldn't get amazing at combat off those alone - but it could be a fun way to approach this sort of thing.

Gameplay and design wise, this isn't that different from the pre-chosen character builds but limited to one path.   It just makes doing certain actions or quests feel mandatory on repeat playthroughs, which is not a bad thing as long as its entertaining to do.  On the plus side, unique skills to the player are really handy balancing levers, since they don't impact anything else.

And, yeah, it's a fair point about officers having too many elite skills; that definitely got a little out of hand. I've pulled it back a bit with CyberAug going from +2 elites to +1, but 3/6 elites is still a lot.

I feel like you've chosen a harder balancing path by coupling the player to NPCs and end game challenges so tightly in terms of skills.  Your balance levers are elite skills number and maximum level for the officers.  Whereas in a more decoupled system, where perhaps officers and AI cores alike only ever get 1 elite skills, period, you also get the lever of changing elite power itself like you did in the recent release.  In such a system, AI cores could remove all the elite skills (not even 1 - they are alien in a sense) and just get a bonus Hypercognition skill, like they do with Administration where you actually did break the player/officer/core symmetry.  Or maybe instead of selecting elites, you pick an AI Hypercognition specialization.  Defense, Offense, Support.  Something like that.  Make them orthogonal to people, they're non-human, let the "skills" reflect that.  It also gives you something you can use tune end game difficulty very easily without changing anything else, and potentially adds variety to encounters.  Instead of just having all the skills, now an Offensive Radiant with very different and large bonuses will feel very different to a Support Radiant and a bit of variety at the end.  Right now an Alpha Core Radiant is an Alpha Core Radiant, because you haven't left yourself the option of customizing, simply applying the same 90% of all elite skills - which mirrors player flagship power.

Personally, since I almost never pick the +2 officer skill, you could probably drop the elite skill from Officer Training and people would still take it. +1 base skill on 8 officers isn't bad, especially compared to most fleet wides.  As for Cybernetic Augmentation, you could double the damage reduction for the flagship as well and remove the +1 elite skill and call it a day.  Again, this isn't that different from simply giving the player's flagship larger bonuses - here it is just more and different bonuses.  So easier to balance.

And if no flagship playstyles are truly true strong, this is a sensible way to go - weaken a few fleetwides.  Even if they are not truly strong, well, then you've got levers to adjust that are orthogonal - you can weaken or strengthen end game threats (hypercognition), weaken or strengthen flagship (elite skills), and weaken or strengthen no flaship style (fleet wides) relatively independently.

[Megas]

If unique skills become a thing, maybe make Industrial Planning one of them (and add a new Industry skill to take its place).  The +1 to commodities is very convenient when not using AI cores.  (With AI cores, player does not need to govern colonies at all, just get more alpha cores.)

[BigBrainEnergy]

@ BigBrainEnergy:  I am thinking about endgame when it is Ordos hunting time.  Before that part, when hunting human fleets, I can manage without Leadership, without s-mods, and without officers optimized for a specific ship.  Once I need to fight Ordos, I need to select ships for a final fleet, put s-mods on them, and raise officers with specific skills for those ships.  In other words, locking in the fleet.  I did not need to do this in older releases.  (Well, there was no skill respec before, but in the releases with max level, it was mostly a choice between getting colony skills or not and getting carrier skills or not.  In releases with soft cap, it was possible to grind to level 70+ and get practically everything.)

I only started playing in 0.95 when "locking in" a fleet was already the norm, so I can't really say whether it was better or worse before.

Industry is nice before endgame, but it would be nice if it was more useful for endgame too like the other three trees.  I liked endgame in older releases, but endgame in modern releases is too much work to build for (if I do not cheat) unless I opt for solo Omega Ziggurat, which is blocked by technically non-hostile enemies (if I do not want to destroy rep) that have became more common in crises.  (Before crises, I could spend a story point to flee at worst if I got stopped by a quest fleet that refused to take no for an answer and threatened combat.  I cannot flee from invaders coming to wreck my colonies or scanning or destroying traffic in my systems as I pass by.)

I think derelict ops is a powerful skill, but I find d-mods yucky so I pass on it pretty much every time. With hull restoration the 15% cr basically nets you 1 skill per officer by removing the need for combat endurance, which I think would be better off replaced by granting a third s-mod in place of botb. Given that s-mods are more limited than officer skills that seems more valuable, especially with how good some s-mod bonuses are.

The reason they make these videos is probably the same reason I like them... because a player showing off their piloting skills is less impressive/interesting to me than showing off a well designed fleet with good loadouts.

For me, it is the opposite.  I like to see flagship smash the enemy like a good old arcade shump.  Something like SCC's solo phase ship builds or his recent Radiant flagship, or TaLaR's Afflictor shenanigans.

That's exactly where personal preference influences playstyle and by extension, skill selection.

And, yeah, it's a fair point about officers having too many elite skills; that definitely got a little out of hand. I've pulled it back a bit with CyberAug going from +2 elites to +1, but 3/6 elites is still a lot.

I feel like you've chosen a harder balancing path by coupling the player to NPCs and end game challenges so tightly in terms of skills.  Your balance levers are elite skills number and maximum level for the officers.  Whereas in a more decoupled system, where perhaps officers and AI cores alike only ever get 1 elite skills, period, you also get the lever of changing elite power itself like you did in the recent release.  In such a system, AI cores could remove all the elite skills (not even 1 - they are alien in a sense) and just get a bonus Hypercognition skill, like they do with Administration where you actually did break the player/officer/core symmetry.  Or maybe instead of selecting elites, you pick an AI Hypercognition specialization.  Defense, Offense, Support.  Something like that.  Make them orthogonal to people, they're non-human, let the "skills" reflect that.  It also gives you something you can use tune end game difficulty very easily without changing anything else, and potentially adds variety to encounters.  Instead of just having all the skills, now an Offensive Radiant with very different and large bonuses will feel very different to a Support Radiant and a bit of variety at the end.  Right now an Alpha Core Radiant is an Alpha Core Radiant, because you haven't left yourself the option of customizing, simply applying the same 90% of all elite skills - which mirrors player flagship power.

Personally, since I almost never pick the +2 officer skill, you could probably drop the elite skill from Officer Training and people would still take it. +1 base skill on 8 officers isn't bad, especially compared to most fleet wides.  As for Cybernetic Augmentation, you could double the damage reduction for the flagship as well and remove the +1 elite skill and call it a day.  Again, this isn't that different from simply giving the player's flagship larger bonuses - here it is just more and different bonuses.  So easier to balance.

It does make sense to drag down the number of elite skills officers get when that is supposed to be the main balancing lever here. Officer training would still be a decent pick without the bonus elite skill. For cybernetic augmentation Alex did say the damage reduction isn't buffed for the flagship because that can get out of hand, but if you remove the extra elite skill for officers I think it's fair to allow the skill to get a little crazy for the flagship.

Stripping elite skills from the AI cores and giving them hypercognition instead is pretty clever. I'm not sold on specializing into different types, but you could just have a generic +5% damage dealt -5% damage taken +5% flux cap +5% dissipation. Then make it 10% for betas and 15% for alphas.

[Megas]

I only started playing in 0.95 when "locking in" a fleet was already the norm, so I can't really say whether it was better or worse before.

I started at 0.53 (I think), the last version where there were no skills, and fleet DP was locked at 100 FP, more than ten years ago.  Only one system, Corvus, and no hyperspace.

Officers came in 0.7a.  While they were impactful (enough to make carriers obsolete), they were still significantly less powerful than a player with nearly every combat skill, and combat skills were a lot more powerful.  Fleet skills were still useful for having a fleet at all, and a fleet will haul goodies for cash (and massive xp in 0.65a).

Automated ships came sometime around 0.8, I guess.  And Brilliant (with a fighter bay) was the biggest Remnant at the time; Radiant came a bit later.  Sparks were overpowered with two full-powered burst PDs.  They were not playable, had to wait until about 0.9 for Automated Ships skill.

Combat skills were significantly nerfed in 0.8a.  Also, a level cap may have been added around this time, not sure about that (not digging up old release notes to confirm).

Elite skills and s-mods are relatively recent, at least 0.9a, or later.

Officers have steadily gotten stronger over the releases, and player needs to spend some points in Combat to maintain parity with officers (there is only two in Tech and Industry each, after all), and more with AI cores.

[SCC]

Right, but we've over been over why 5 ordo fleets are NOT considered for balancing.

If those playstyles weren't strong, there would be no videos of pushing them to the extreme. A very strong strategy that when pushed to its limits is probably also a stronger strategy when playing casually. We are all seasoned Starsector players here, so just because we can, say, defeat a Remnant ordo without using any skills, it doesn't mean it's a viable strategy for a casual player. In fact, I need to go back to a different post.

For those that think Combat skills are not worthy, give them an actual shot and pilot your ship, even someone that sucks at the game mechanically can at least do a much better job of clicking the left mouse button to fire the missiles at a more appropriate time than AI would do.

Piloting ships doesn't have to be merely theoretically possible, it has to be good enough to be worth a try. Casual players are unlikely to attempt challenges or try everything in the game out. They will try to solve problems efficiently. And if, in the short term, it's better not to learn to pilot, then they will not pilot.

As if that wasn't enough, last time I checked both capn hector and vanshilar are in agreement that getting combat skills and manually piloting a flagship is in fact, very strong.

And I disagree that manually piloting a flagship is strong enough to be called "very strong" (unless no flagship playstyle would be called "extremely strong").

This is overall a terrible argument. Should I just spam videos of me using a flagship odyssey to beat 5 ordos and start using that as "proof" that combat skills are overpowered?

If you can, yes, please do this. It's disappointing how the strongest piloting options right now are either phase ships or Radiant and I would love to see an alternative.

The reason they make these videos is probably the same reason I like them... because a player showing off their piloting skills is less impressive/interesting to me than showing off a well designed fleet with good loadouts.

One is harder than the other, though. I also think it's fine to like loadout building and ordering the fleet more than piloting, but what you like and what is good aren't necessarily the same things.

Those are in the Leadership tree, not Combat, which sort of makes Brain's point.

It was my reaction to him not picking WT as the obvious "early game non-flagship skill impactful for your flagship" skill.

One thing I'd been thinking about for a *while* is finding items that, when right-clicked, grant the player a unique combat or two. Something very limited - you wouldn't get amazing at combat off those alone - but it could be a fun way to approach this sort of thing.

Gameplay and design wise, this isn't that different from the pre-chosen character builds but limited to one path.   It just makes doing certain actions or quests feel mandatory on repeat playthroughs, which is not a bad thing as long as its entertaining to do.  On the plus side, unique skills to the player are really handy balancing levers, since they don't impact anything else.

What if combat skills were items you can find in the game world and put them in slots to make them active, and combat skills would be replaced with simply increasing the number of slots you get? You could also move Cyber Aug to combat. But let's better not run into another skill overhaul...

Right now an Alpha Core Radiant is an Alpha Core Radiant, because you haven't left yourself the option of customizing, simply applying the same 90% of all elite skills - which mirrors player flagship power.

That's how it works for the majority of ships in the game, innit?

And if no flagship playstyles are truly true strong, this is a sensible way to go - weaken a few fleetwides.

I focused on officers, because I consider officers in their base, unupgraded power, to be strong enough to make every other playstyle niche. As if you started with 2 skills spent in Leadership already.

(I got tired of editing quotes)
Re: officer elites:
I wasn't sure how people felt about it, so I didn't touch upon it. I would go for a slightly different approach, of taking away base elites, instead of those from skills. It isn't unprecedented for skills to unlock new mechanics or improve existing ones to make them play differently.

Re: hypercognition but no elites for the AI:
It doesn't sound bad per se, but I cannot think of an appropriate effect to make up for the loss of elite skills.

[Alex]

meybe ur just 2 dumb 2 notice
...
lol nerd

Please consider this an official warning, and remember to treat other posters with respect.

[BigBrainEnergy]

Thinking further on it, if you reduce the default officer level to 4 and remove the extra elite skill from officer training, then both officer skills add the same number of skills to your fleet. Officer management would add 2 officers with 4 skills each, while officer training would add 1 skill to 8 officers. I guess officer management would also add 2 elite skills, so it's not perfect parity, but still kind of neat.

[Megas]

If you can, yes, please do this. It's disappointing how the strongest piloting options right now are either phase ships or Radiant and I would love to see an alternative.

And it was not like this in old releases.  In old releases, player could solo multiple fleets with any capital or even with Dominator (and Aurora if the enemy did not have a Paragon).  And small ships could solo a mid-sized pirate fleet or taking out a capital.  Today, that seems limited to specific ships (like phase ships) with specific skill choices.  It seems more limited now.

Today, if I want to use a conventional ship like an Onslaught, there is a limit to how much I can wreck single-handedly.  Killing a 350k human bounty with two Neural Linked Onslaughts alone was harder than soloing it with Ziggurat.

[BigBrainEnergy]

Re: officer elites:
I wasn't sure how people felt about it, so I didn't touch upon it. I would go for a slightly different approach, of taking away base elites, instead of those from skills. It isn't unprecedented for skills to unlock new mechanics or improve existing ones to make them play differently.

I think officer training could stand to be nerfed a bit compared to officer management (though not urgently), and it makes sense that if officers are too strong that you could take cybernetic and shift some of the skill's power away from the officers and towards the player. The natural direction to take both of these thoughts is to remove the bonus elite skills, leaving officers with only the 1 they have naturally. It also helps elite skills fulfill their original purpose.

Throw in what Alex mentioned about some unique player skill from an item and I think things could get pretty interesting.

[Megas]

I think derelict ops is a powerful skill, but I find d-mods yucky so I pass on it pretty much every time. With hull restoration the 15% cr basically nets you 1 skill per officer by removing the need for combat endurance, which I think would be better off replaced by granting a third s-mod in place of botb. Given that s-mods are more limited than officer skills that seems more valuable, especially with how good some s-mod bonuses are.

D-mods are yucky, I cannot stand them.  I doubt I will ever take Derelict Operations unless it is so overpowered that I feel no choice but to take it.  (There was one release that give defense buffs instead of DP reduction, and it was absurd on few ships.)  Though, I guess if I want a critical mass build that is not impacted much by d-mods, then Derelict Ops is good for that.

Since I do not take Leadership, I feel the need to take Combat Endurance on everyone for more PPT, especially for the frigates I need for point capping.  Of course, without Leadership, that means no Crew Training for more CR, no Wolfpack for more PPT for small ships.  I need Combat Endurance on everyone for the +15% CR too, along with HR's +15% to get 100% CR, assuming normal ships.

[SCC]

Thinking further on it, if you reduce the default officer level to 4 and remove the extra elite skill from officer training, then both officer skills add the same number of skills to your fleet. Officer management would add 2 officers with 4 skills each, while officer training would add 1 skill to 8 officers. I guess officer management would also add 2 elite skills, so it's not perfect parity, but still kind of neat.

I think officer training could stand to be nerfed a bit compared to officer management (though not urgently), and it makes sense that if officers are too strong that you could take cybernetic and shift some of the skill's power away from the officers and towards the player. The natural direction to take both of these thoughts is to remove the bonus elite skills, leaving officers with only the 1 they have naturally. It also helps elite skills fulfill their original purpose.

Throw in what Alex mentioned about some unique player skill from an item and I think things could get pretty interesting.

I didn't think about combining -1 level and -1 elite, though I suppose it's a way to nerf them more than just -1 level and less than -2 levels. But then there's the issue with OT and OM. OM really is less often picked, though I would say it's because the base officer count is so big that you run out of ships first. Retaining 1 base elite skill and getting rid of OT +1 elite seems like a good argument for keeping 1 base elite skill (to nerf OT without taking away too many elite skills).

[Alex]

And if no flagship playstyles are truly true strong, this is a sensible way to go - weaken a few fleetwides.

I focused on officers, because I consider officers in their base, unupgraded power, to be strong enough to make every other playstyle niche.

I wonder if we're all talking about the same thing here. "Officers" is not a playstyle - they're just good, and you're better off using them pretty much no matter what. The one exception is if you want to solo everything in your flagship, but that's more of a self-imposed challenge.

So what you're saying - that officers in their base state are good enough - seems like more of an agument that you're totally free to invest all the points you want into personal combat skills and fight alongside the officers, no?

Gameplay and design wise, this isn't that different from the pre-chosen character builds but limited to one path.   It just makes doing certain actions or quests feel mandatory on repeat playthroughs, which is not a bad thing as long as its entertaining to do.  On the plus side, unique skills to the player are really handy balancing levers, since they don't impact anything else.

Yeah - I'm not so sure about tying it to missions vs maybe specific challenges (for a just-now made up example, imagine if defeating the Ziggurat gave you a unique skill instead of... the Ziggurat). But we'll see. One potential downside here is that these skills would have to be designed very carefully, so they don't push you too hard towards a specific ship type. It'd also possibly feel a little bit bad to get it if you're not piloting your ship - a reward you get no real benefit from - but... arguably that's almost the point. Hmm.

I feel like you've chosen a harder balancing path by coupling the player to NPCs and end game challenges so tightly in terms of skills.  Your balance levers are elite skills number and maximum level for the officers.  Whereas in a more decoupled system, where perhaps officers and AI cores alike only ever get 1 elite skills, period, you also get the lever of changing elite power itself like you did in the recent release.  In such a system, AI cores could remove all the elite skills (not even 1 - they are alien in a sense) and just get a bonus Hypercognition skill, like they do with Administration where you actually did break the player/officer/core symmetry.  Or maybe instead of selecting elites, you pick an AI Hypercognition specialization.  Defense, Offense, Support.  Something like that.  Make them orthogonal to people, they're non-human, let the "skills" reflect that.  It also gives you something you can use tune end game difficulty very easily without changing anything else, and potentially adds variety to encounters.  Instead of just having all the skills, now an Offensive Radiant with very different and large bonuses will feel very different to a Support Radiant and a bit of variety at the end.  Right now an Alpha Core Radiant is an Alpha Core Radiant, because you haven't left yourself the option of customizing, simply applying the same 90% of all elite skills - which mirrors player flagship power.

Hmm, I see what you mean, yeah. But!

The argument for using regular elite skills is the player can more easily grasp what they're dealing with. The Defense/Offense/Support Radiant idea sounds cool, but how would you even know what you're dealing with, as a player? Where do you see these effects? Most likely you just experience the Radiant wrecking you in a different way, while looking the same at a glance. As it stands now, at best you'd notice an "Offense hypercognition" or whatever skill when you target it, and still wonder what the heck it does.

I think it's probably better for AI cores to be just a straight power boost, and for generating variety and interesting things, to rely on stuff that's more directly visible, like weapons and ship systems.

You're right that it makes the Remnants more difficult to balance, but two points help mitigate that. One, AI core level is not set in stone and *could* change if it needed to, as can their skill selection. (For example, see: Radiants never getting elite Systems Expertise.) And two, the actual target difficulty of the Remnants is pretty flexible. If they got, I don't know, 50% tougher (in whatever sense) - maybe that'd be too much, but maybe not. As long as a single Ordo isn't too hard to take down, they're basically fine. When/if they have an explicit role in the endgame, they'd need to be fine-tuned, but that's a point for later consideration!

Personally, since I almost never pick the +2 officer skill, you could probably drop the elite skill from Officer Training and people would still take it. +1 base skill on 8 officers isn't bad, especially compared to most fleet wides.  As for Cybernetic Augmentation, you could double the damage reduction for the flagship as well and remove the +1 elite skill and call it a day.  Again, this isn't that different from simply giving the player's flagship larger bonuses - here it is just more and different bonuses.  So easier to balance.

And if no flagship playstyles are truly true strong, this is a sensible way to go - weaken a few fleetwides.  Even if they are not truly strong, well, then you've got levers to adjust that are orthogonal - you can weaken or strengthen end game threats (hypercognition), weaken or strengthen flagship (elite skills), and weaken or strengthen no flaship style (fleet wides) relatively independently.

That makes sense, yeah. I'd want to be careful with CyberAug - I think too much damage reduction stacking can get pretty wild - but aside from that.