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[Alexey Skywalker]

Hi Lukas, wanted to give some hopefully usefull feedback regarding the Strikecraft XO.

I have been trying to make fleets with lots of carriers as of late, so naturally I tried to use the Strikecraft XO...However I have come to the conclusion that the best course of action is to just use any other XO for better results.

Strikecraft XO is one dimensional only buffing fighters (with a couple buff to their carriers that only affect fighters in some way). There are no buff or interesting  abilities for carriers, ships that happen to have fighters nearby or the fleet as a whole (or even some form of debuff to enemy fleets like the smallcraft XO has)

As such,Strikecraft XO cant compete with any of the others XO that buff all the ships(or most) in the fleet in some way. Having the Strikecraft XO feels like having a pure ballistic/energy/missile XO that only buffs the weapons and nothing else.  I feel that a rework where the focus is on the carriers instead while having only a couple buff to fighters would do wonders. I am also thinking on something that allows you define your carrier style, either going battlecarriers or pure utilitarian carriers (with buff to other ships/fleet, maybe in the form of speed, better PD, coordinated maneuvers/ecm/Eccm, etc)

On the topic of fighters buff, something I notice is that there is too much focus on top speed, which is kind of a trap because there are a lot of fighters that in order to do their damage they have to orbit an enemy ship, and too much speed without a buff to maneuverability can make them miss a lot of shots.

Another detail about fighter buff, is that maybe would be a good idea to add 1 skill to the other XOs, Techinal could have 1 to buff their shields/flux, while warfare could boost their durability, so fighter buffs are not so concentrated into 1 guy (like how missiles buffs are in both the warfare and tactical XO)

Hope this was constructive, keep up the good work

[majk]

Review after 2 playthroughs:

I love the way this mod looks. The visual part is great and looks like a part of the game.

The variety of officers is big enough to do many different builds and at the same time it's not too big to be overwhelming.

The gameplay however is a mixed bag and the most jarring is spreading skills from one skillset to different officers
Examples:
1: Take Derelict Operations from Improvisation, it lost part of its skill power and it was shoved into Pirate skill Provisional Replacements.
2: Piracy officer has a bunch of logistic skills that could be replaced with something more fitting being a pirate and those skills could be shoved into Starfaring.
3: The main draw of Improvisation is using a bunch of cheap scrap buckets to play with but it has 2 exclusive last skills and Derelict Fortifications just gives some buffs you can easily live without, it's all about Direlict Operations and to make it worse it's the other skill that reduces penalties from dmods.
4: Starfaring and Piracy share important logistic skills and swapping officers costs 20% cr (Does changing ships make the whole fleet blow up?).

On the other hand Officers with Automation, Technical and Starfaring are borderline op and make the game so much easier.

I like the idea of the mod and the way it's looks but at the moment it feels very frustrating to play.

[Lukas04]

Review after 2 playthroughs:

I love the way this mod looks. The visual part is great and looks like a part of the game.

The variety of officers is big enough to do many different builds and at the same time it's not too big to be overwhelming.

The gameplay however is a mixed bag and the most jarring is spreading skills from one skillset to different officers
Examples:
1: Take Derelict Operations from Improvisation, it lost part of its skill power and it was shoved into Pirate skill Provisional Replacements.
2: Piracy officer has a bunch of logistic skills that could be replaced with something more fitting being a pirate and those skills could be shoved into Starfaring.
3: The main draw of Improvisation is using a bunch of cheap scrap buckets to play with but it has 2 exclusive last skills and Derelict Fortifications just gives some buffs you can easily live without, it's all about Direlict Operations and to make it worse it's the other skill that reduces penalties from dmods.
4: Starfaring and Piracy share important logistic skills and swapping officers costs 20% cr (Does changing ships make the whole fleet blow up?).

On the other hand Officers with Automation, Technical and Starfaring are borderline op and make the game so much easier.

I like the idea of the mod and the way it's looks but at the moment it feels very frustrating to play.

1. Its lost some of the power, and while the logistics bonus is massive, its by far the least important aspect of Derelict Operations
2. I think a logistics tree that is focused on taking the spoils of your enemy and stealth is perfectly fitting for the tree. Its by design a counterpart to Starfarings more passive logistics.
3. Derelict Operations is definitly better in most cases, but ive seen people have a lot of fun with Derelict Fortification builds too.
4. Read the Tooltips. You only get damage from changing XOs if your not near friendly colonies. "Combat Readiness" is more than just damage, its, well, how ready the fleet is for combat. The CR reduction exists for the same reason the base game reduces your CR if modify a hull away from a colony, to avoid micromanagement and because a large changeup in fleet protocols just makes the fleet unfit for combat til its finished. 

[Brainwright]

One thing I would complain about is that no officer I've seen seems to offer the speed bonus to capturing objectives for manned ships.  Kinda hurts to have it no where except for automated ships in Automation.

[Phenir]

3: The main draw of Improvisation is using a bunch of cheap scrap buckets to play with but it has 2 exclusive last skills and Derelict Fortifications just gives some buffs you can easily live without, it's all about Direlict Operations and to make it worse it's the other skill that reduces penalties from dmods.

If it works the way I think it does, fortifications is strong for hull tanking. Even onslaught only has 100ish armor rating once armor is stripped and I think fortifications still adds 50 armor at that point. It's generally about 10-20% less damage taken to hull (excluding really big hits like torpedos). With other skills in the tree, you have +35% hull as well. Pair it with warfare's +150 armor and deflective plating and your capital ships just refuse to die.

[Sqiurmo]

Any way to uninstall this mod mid-save?

[J2Greene]

Hello Mr. Lukas04,

For the last skill from Warfare (Overwhelming Force), I think, a better name would be Irresistible Force (to go with the Immovable Object)?

[Shinr]

Hello Mr. Lukas04,

For the last skill from Warfare (Overwhelming Force), I think, a better name would be Irresistible Force (to go with the Immovable Object)?

Unstoppable Force is the usual term I hear when compared with/mentioned along with Immovable Object.

[Loyso]

It feels like tactical and Warfare officers should be mutually exclusive, just like pirate and logi are. Tey largely provide similar bonuses (weapon range and DMG, missiles, armor/hull), and stacking those bonuses with each other AND with officer skills... My legion with Hellbores proceded to snipe lashers and outrange Paragon which feels a tiny bit overtuned.
I absolutely love this mod and pray to Ludd daily that Alex would include it into vanilla, but damn, some of those interactions are out of this world!

[Havoc]

hi, do exists Hull Restoration in this mod?

[Reshy]

So playing around a bit more with the hull restoration replacement I want to summarize my thoughts and why I think it should be changed:

• Hull Restoration is the economic way to restore ships, making it most useful early game and less useful late game when you get hundreds of thousands of credits in income each month.
• Mods often add ways to more cheaply remove damage mods later on, for example Ship Mastery's 25% discount and Industrial Evolution's Restoration Docks, which are more relevant late game.
• Destroying 240dp worth of enemy ships is only feasible to do once you already have a large fleet of well made ships designed to efficiently farm a particular faction's ships. which is more relevant late game.
• The requirement to destroy enemy fleets to remove d-mods is contrary to the salvaging mechanic of beating enemy fleets, you have to give up salvaging anything if you want any hope to restore the ships you care about else it all gets lost in the noise.
• The value you gain from the perk is completely random, from taking a d-mod off a junker ship you have mothballed that costs 10k to a dreadnought that costs 10 million.
• The perk's themes are mismatched with the rest of the Starfarer role as exploration isn't combat-focused and better belongs in the Piracy tree which is combat focused.
• The DP requirement makes it unusable early game when you have a small fleet and can't easily take fights with 240dp fleets and punishes for the early game trading/exploration as you will face significantly fewer fleets and DP values.
• Stripping away the d-mod protection of the original perk means playing a faster, more loose and risky fleet is actively punished, forcing a much much greater priority on few large ships and punishing usage of smallcraft when combined with the prior point.

Overall I do think the perk needs some serious revisions since it doesn't achieve any of it's design goals as is.  It's not good early game, it's not good late game, it's not good on small fleets, it's not good on large fleets.  It's only useful on capital ship only fleets that just play super duper safely and don't take any risks at all.  The base game of starsector already prioritizes this to an intense degree and I don't think this is helping that problem at all.

[Phenir]

hi, do exists Hull Restoration in this mod?

Starfaring XO has hull restoration but uses dp destroyed instead of time.

Mods often add ways to more cheaply remove damage mods later on, for example Ship Mastery's 25% discount and Industrial Evolution's Restoration Docks, which are more relevant late game.

Other mods are irrelevant. Any given mod should not be balanced around another mod unless it's specifically made for that mod, which second-in-command is not made for any other mod.

Destroying 240dp worth of enemy ships is only feasible to do once you already have a large fleet of well made ships designed to efficiently farm a particular faction's ships. which is more relevant late game.

The DP requirement makes it unusable early game when you have a small fleet and can't easily take fights with 240dp fleets and punishes for the early game trading/exploration as you will face significantly fewer fleets and DP values.

You don't need to destroy 240 dp at once. The mod keeps track of how much dp you have destroyed and carries it through to further engagements. In other words, destroying two 120 dp fleets is the same as destroying one 240 dp fleet.

Stripping away the d-mod protection of the original perk means playing a faster, more loose and risky fleet is actively punished, forcing a much much greater priority on few large ships and punishing usage of smallcraft when combined with the prior point.

It still has dmod protection though?

[Reshy]

Mods often add ways to more cheaply remove damage mods later on, for example Ship Mastery's 25% discount and Industrial Evolution's Restoration Docks, which are more relevant late game.

Other mods are irrelevant. Any given mod should not be balanced around another mod unless it's specifically made for that mod, which second-in-command is not made for any other mod.

Sure, but it shows a general trend of mods making it generally easier to remove D-mods, while SIC does the opposite.

Destroying 240dp worth of enemy ships is only feasible to do once you already have a large fleet of well made ships designed to efficiently farm a particular faction's ships. which is more relevant late game.

The DP requirement makes it unusable early game when you have a small fleet and can't easily take fights with 240dp fleets and punishes for the early game trading/exploration as you will face significantly fewer fleets and DP values.

You don't need to destroy 240 dp at once. The mod keeps track of how much dp you have destroyed and carries it through to further engagements. In other words, destroying two 120 dp fleets is the same as destroying one 240 dp fleet.

I think you missed the point of what I'm saying, destroying 240dp of ships is a lot more involved and risky early game than it is end game when you can be fighting fleets that have DP in the thousands.  Starfaring is supposed to be trade/exploration based, not combat based so it's something you pick up early game and not you know, late game.  Problem is that skill exclusively gets it's value the later you get it.

Stripping away the d-mod protection of the original perk means playing a faster, more loose and risky fleet is actively punished, forcing a much much greater priority on few large ships and punishing usage of smallcraft when combined with the prior point.

It still has dmod protection though?
[/quote]
It's been heavily reduced by orders of magnitude.  The chances of you getting a D-Mod on a frigate in vanilla with the skill is about 1 in 10 (90%), in SIC it's about 1 in 3 (60%).  With capital ships it's even worse going from only having a 1 in 4 chance (75%) to get a d-mod to less to 1 in 2 (30%).  These are orders of magnitude of difference, these aren't """"slight"""" nerfs, they're major glaring nerfs.

[Hereticpurge]

Hi I love the mod.  However I've been having an issue where playing modded after a few battles and an hour or 2 the game slows down to a crawl in the menus and campaign.  I hooked up a profiler to the JVM process to track down what was causing the slow down and I narrowed it down to this mod. 

Specifically this section is causing the issue in SkillPanelReplacerScript.kt
var innerPanels = corePanels.map { it.getChildrenCopy().find { children -> ReflectionUtils.hasMethodOfName("canReassign", children) }}

More specifically this line of code looping over all the panels and doing a reflective check for a method.
ReflectionUtils.hasMethodOfName("canReassign", children)

I'm a java dev but I'm not familiar with the starsector API so I'm not sure about options for fixing this but I thought you should know that its happening.

When loading a save around cycle 10~ this call is taking up 25% of the cpu time of the entire program.  After an hour or two and / or a few battles this same call balloons to 78% of cpu time and just keeps getting worse until the program is restarted.  I suspect the panels aren't getting flushed properly somewhere and the list of panels is just getting larger and larger taking more cpu time as the program runs.

*Edit*  I should add that this issue is specific to having menus open.  Escape / Planet interaction / etc.

[Lukas04]

Mods often add ways to more cheaply remove damage mods later on, for example Ship Mastery's 25% discount and Industrial Evolution's Restoration Docks, which are more relevant late game.

Other mods are irrelevant. Any given mod should not be balanced around another mod unless it's specifically made for that mod, which second-in-command is not made for any other mod.

Sure, but it shows a general trend of mods making it generally easier to remove D-mods, while SIC does the opposite.

Destroying 240dp worth of enemy ships is only feasible to do once you already have a large fleet of well made ships designed to efficiently farm a particular faction's ships. which is more relevant late game.

The DP requirement makes it unusable early game when you have a small fleet and can't easily take fights with 240dp fleets and punishes for the early game trading/exploration as you will face significantly fewer fleets and DP values.

You don't need to destroy 240 dp at once. The mod keeps track of how much dp you have destroyed and carries it through to further engagements. In other words, destroying two 120 dp fleets is the same as destroying one 240 dp fleet.

I think you missed the point of what I'm saying, destroying 240dp of ships is a lot more involved and risky early game than it is end game when you can be fighting fleets that have DP in the thousands.  Starfaring is supposed to be trade/exploration based, not combat based so it's something you pick up early game and not you know, late game.  Problem is that skill exclusively gets it's value the later you get it.

Stripping away the d-mod protection of the original perk means playing a faster, more loose and risky fleet is actively punished, forcing a much much greater priority on few large ships and punishing usage of smallcraft when combined with the prior point.

It still has dmod protection though?

It's been heavily reduced by orders of magnitude.  The chances of you getting a D-Mod on a frigate in vanilla with the skill is about 1 in 10 (90%), in SIC it's about 1 in 3 (60%).  With capital ships it's even worse going from only having a 1 in 4 chance (75%) to get a d-mod to less to 1 in 2 (30%).  These are orders of magnitude of difference, these aren't """"slight"""" nerfs, they're major glaring nerfs.
[/quote]

Hull Restoration in Vanilla is between 75% and 90% dmod chance, based on deployment points. So its not quite 1/10. It is still better, but i think Continious Repairs is more than close enough.
That said, with SiC i want Dmods to be more of a factor, and i dont want this skill to be an instant grab that guarantees that you want to pick the aptitude. I think it works quite well in keeping the amount of dmods you gain to a sane level, but not just making them no longer a factor like Hull Restoration does.

Hi I love the mod.  However I've been having an issue where playing modded after a few battles and an hour or 2 the game slows down to a crawl in the menus and campaign.  I hooked up a profiler to the JVM process to track down what was causing the slow down and I narrowed it down to this mod. 

Specifically this section is causing the issue in SkillPanelReplacerScript.kt
var innerPanels = corePanels.map { it.getChildrenCopy().find { children -> ReflectionUtils.hasMethodOfName("canReassign", children) }}

More specifically this line of code looping over all the panels and doing a reflective check for a method.
ReflectionUtils.hasMethodOfName("canReassign", children)

I'm a java dev but I'm not familiar with the starsector API so I'm not sure about options for fixing this but I thought you should know that its happening.

When loading a save around cycle 10~ this call is taking up 25% of the cpu time of the entire program.  After an hour or two and / or a few battles this same call balloons to 78% of cpu time and just keeps getting worse until the program is restarted.  I suspect the panels aren't getting flushed properly somewhere and the list of panels is just getting larger and larger taking more cpu time as the program runs.

*Edit*  I should add that this issue is specific to having menus open.  Escape / Planet interaction / etc.

The reflection calls are pretty expensive, though i wouldnt expect that specific one to cause that many issues. Still, added a check for a specific tab for the next version, so it should no longer run outside of the Character screen when i get to updating it.