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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: [0.95a] Shadowyards Reconstruction Authority 0.9.5-rc4(4/12/21)  (Read 1115366 times)

LiquidStang

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Re: (0.6.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.4.3
« Reply #510 on: January 07, 2014, 09:10:38 AM »

Best mod I've seen so far.
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CopperCoyote

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Re: (0.6.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.4.3
« Reply #511 on: January 07, 2014, 09:41:08 PM »

Well, it's definitely something to think about.  To be honest, it's not so much the variety of classes as it is that every major (combat) role has been filled.  By the Cruisers, which was not really my intention when I started out--if Blackrocks strength are their Frigates then I'd intended Shadowyards to be their Destroyers.

In order to fix things I'd probably have to jostle things around at least a little; the Elysium would be a good place to start as it basically doesn't function at all like it's supposed to and I could probably make it more a utility ship without much issue from the players.  But I'm afraid that I would likely need to actually remove or re-purpose quite a bit more than just that in order to resolve these issues.  If I approach this again I'll probably try to consider each ships utility a bit more; SHI probably shouldn't be too weak tactically but their edge really should be more in strategic and logistics assets.

One of my favorite things about SHI is it's lighter supply usage. It is really nice when taking a new system in Exeralin for example. It also allows for bigger fleets with limited leadership points. I don't think it'd be problematic to have a good spread of combat roles for cruisers once the campaign portion is more fleshed out. Just make it so you only see them in Anar. The Scylla and Tartarus are both good combat cruisers, but they both have trouble with smaller ships. The Charybdis does ok against smaller ships, but It's biggest strength is as a support ship. The Elysium is neat on paper, but in practice i have a really hard time using it, and I don't let the NPCs use it so if you rework it as a support ship it'd be fine (IMO).

The Morningstar is a good all around destroyer. It is similar to the Medusa in that it is good against frigates and destroyers (but it uses range instead of mobility to avoid harm). The Sargasso is a decent carrier. I really like that it can mount a dual flak. If the NPCs turned on it's buff and left it on then it'd be better (I think). The tender ships are generally good too. There are plenty of roles left in the destroyer department though. There could be one that can punch up, like the Hammerhead (except high tech). I think a missile destroyer to take advantage of all the good SHI missiles would be fun too. The quick use phase SHI systems are pretty fun . A dedicated mine layer (like the mines on the Shamash) would be very good for a strategic feel. Area denial is basically only accomplished by nebulae at this point. Maybe have the mines slow down as if in a nebula so they stick around.

I don't feel like it's too far from being a destroyer-centric faction. Sure it could have more destroyer variety, but if their focus is on exploration and low logistical cost defense (like the Neriad info implies) then it may be ok as is. I personally would want big lumbering cruisers (like Tartarus) protecting my great big manufacturing basket if someone hostile comes knocking. I think the easiest way to think of new ship designs would be to play with only SHI destroyers and smaller and see if there are any gaps you need covered.
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MShadowy

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Re: (0.6.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.4.3
« Reply #512 on: January 08, 2014, 10:11:39 AM »

Well, yeah, that's probably a good way to think about it.  Not necessarily different roles, but cheaper to deploy and keep in the field, in addition to areas of specialization that aren't necessarily filled by larger or smaller craft.

Thanks, that was actually really helpful and gives me some ideas on how to approach these issues I've been having.
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MShadowy

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Re: (0.6.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.4.3
« Reply #513 on: January 15, 2014, 12:59:16 PM »

Alright, general status update.  I'm currently doing some quick sketch commissions as I find myself rather needing money.  I should be back on the mod sometime next week; I am taking the day off as I rather overdid it yesterday, like an idiot, but oh well.

I have done a bit of preliminary work on some more ships (including another redesign of the Thresher and some preliminary revisions to the Elysium), but nothing really ready to show yet.
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MShadowy

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Re: (0.6.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.4.3
« Reply #514 on: February 18, 2014, 12:14:47 PM »

Well, feel free to share; I'm hardly adverse to people lending a hand.
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Nanao-kun

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Re: (0.6.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.4.3
« Reply #515 on: February 20, 2014, 04:13:41 PM »

What exactly does the Sargasso's Fighter Control Relay do?
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Punch Clock Horrors

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Re: (0.6.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.4.3
« Reply #516 on: February 20, 2014, 04:18:12 PM »

I've noticed that there isn't a whole lot of fighters available to the faction, maybe expanding that line would work?
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MShadowy

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Re: (0.6.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.4.3
« Reply #517 on: April 07, 2014, 04:21:58 PM »

Alright, finally a new dev version is up.


Rather preliminary list of changes:

New support Fighter, the Kobold.
Entirely reworked Elysium Light Cruiser; new appearance and weapons layout, new built in weapon (lightning shotgun kinda thing), and a new ship system (engine inhibitor thing).
The Skinwalker now has a pair of auxiliary drone bits.  Because it's totally a protagonist fighter, you know.
The Rakshasha now has a short range displacer system.
Played a bit with the maintenance costs of the destroyers, shouldn't be so absurdly cheap or quick to repair any more.
Graphics for all hullmods, and a new intrinsic hullmod that isn't quite working right yet.

There's probably more, but I'm a bit tired at the moment.  This has not even been balanced so let me know what you think.

ToDo:

Visual effects for engine killer ship system.
Getting lightning bolts to spawn from missed shots on the Elysiums main gun.
Fixing the Harmonic Shield Conduits hullmod to work correctly.
Making medium sized torpedo launcher, and making small and medium sized rocket launchers.
Write descriptions for various ship systems.
General balance fixes and adjustments.
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Sabaton

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Re: (0.6.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.4.3
« Reply #518 on: April 08, 2014, 03:49:04 AM »

Good to see you're still kicking! 
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CopperCoyote

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Re: (0.6.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.4.3
« Reply #519 on: April 08, 2014, 03:10:44 PM »

I've given the Elysium a go. I love the new pandora array. I felt like laughing maniacally like a sith lord or something because it looks really good when it fires. I forgot to look at the stats, but the DPS feels a little low. It's flux usage was low too though.

The engine knock-out system is currently amazingly powerful. Because it skips everything but engines the only ships it doesn't flame out every time are the 360 shield ones. It's name is so long it truncates and takes 2 lines on my computer (I run it windowed and at a smaller resolution(bigger than 1024X768 though)). When it starts on the second line there's only 2 letters there so it's pretty obvious it's been truncated. I forgot to write down where it stops.

I like the way the Elysium looks now too. The way there are two lobes connected in the center and it's new color reminds me of a shelled pecan. With more turrets on one side i can make it more optimized for one side and not feel bad about it(I'm a little irrational sometimes). Is the olive color indicative of a new sub-faction?

I only fought the kobolds if the simulator, but they seem like they'd do well in a big fight with lots of ships. Spamming to overwhelm PD FTW. They even fire their rockets at frigates so they won't be impeded if you use the engage order. On the down side they probably wouldn't be able to be pinch bombers like thunders can. I bet a nice synergy would happen with neriads by having kobolds spew rockets to force the shields up then the shrikes overloading them for devastating amounts of damage. I forgot to test the other fighters.

I was wondering: why does the new hullmod have diminishing effects for larger hulls?

I really like the torpedos, and i'm quite giddy for the medium mount.

The ship CR usage felt in line with the latest version of Starsector. I'd actually forgotten that I should keep an eye on it until shortly before i quit playing.

Once I've gotten a bit higher level i'll start fights with the bigger factions and see how things go.
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MShadowy

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Re: (0.6.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.4.3
« Reply #520 on: April 08, 2014, 06:47:00 PM »

Alright, next dev version is ready.  The Harmonic Shields hullmod is working now; it feels a bit strong to me, so let me know what you think.


I'll have the medium torpedo mount and rocket launchers put into the next version.

Also, many thanks to Dark Revenant and Debido for their invaluable help with coding.
« Last Edit: April 08, 2014, 08:45:10 PM by MShadowy »
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Nanao-kun

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Re: (0.6.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.4.3
« Reply #521 on: April 08, 2014, 10:18:05 PM »

The Chaingang CEPC is PD right? It's role isn't defined in descriptions.
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Doogie

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Re: (0.6.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.4.3
« Reply #522 on: April 09, 2014, 10:10:15 AM »

The Chaingang CEPC is PD right? It's role isn't defined in descriptions.

No, it's more a "anything it fires at dies" role.
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MShadowy

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Re: (0.6.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.4.3
« Reply #523 on: April 09, 2014, 11:12:26 AM »

The Chaingang CEPC is PD right? It's role isn't defined in descriptions.

No, it's more a "anything it fires at dies" role.

I suppose, though it is generally meant more as a general Point Defense/CIWS type of weapon.  Updated the description with the weapons role.

-snip-

As always, many thanks for your in depth analysis.

I'll make some adjustments to the Pandora arrays stats, though I feel like the damage is about right.  Probably could use some tweaking, for sure.  As for the Engine knock out system, yeah, it's working perfectly (thanks, again, to Dark Revenant for his aid); the name of the system fully is "Remote Engine Inhibitor System" so I've shortened to the acronym, REIS.

As for the more olive color, that's due to a though about ship customization; Revenant has been considering an idea using multiplicative layers and decorative weapon slots to allow for customizable paint styles.  Given their generally pale hulls, SHI's ships would be well suited, but in order to avoid colors combining badly I would have to desaturate the cyan color first, which I ended up doing with the new Elysium, hence the change in color.

I'm going to throw together a mission containing the Kobolds to test how well they work in an actual combat situation more readily, though they should still be present in the campaign as well.

As for the hullmod having diminishing returns... well larger ships have a higher base flux dissipation.  Seeing as the hull mod increases flux dissipation by a percentage of that value, the percentage being derived from a formula which is currently ( 100 * (1 + s + ( h / m) ), a Capital ship with the same passive dissipation improvements as a Frigate would receive a substantially greater bonus given the scale differences already present.

In any case, thanks again for your time; you should be pleased to note that the Mid sized tusk launchers will be in the next dev release for certain.  Cheers.
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HELMUT

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Re: (0.6.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.4.3
« Reply #524 on: April 10, 2014, 12:54:26 PM »

What exactly does the Sargasso's Fighter Control Relay do?

+1, always wanted to know what that thing was supposed to do.

Anyway i recently played a carrier based fleet with SHI. I found them a bit... Underwhelming. At least at the start.

The Neriad is a good multi-role craft, and it's also bloody fast, perfect ship to grab strategic points at the star of the battle. It's not worth a Thunder wing in my opinion though, the ion cannon on the vanilla fighter is incredibly annoying, also the Harpoon hit harder than the Shrike. The Neriad may have one more fighter in their wings but their assault gun tend to miss quite a lot. A good support ship but definitely not the backbone of the fleet.

The Skinwalker is a pretty good heavy fighter. The particle cannon is what really make it scary as it is much better to intercept other fighters than the Neriad assault gun. The missiles are a good addon but not the main reason i choose to field those in number.

The Raksasha is a decent craft even though it clearly lack the punch of other bombers. The good point of the Tusk torpedo is that it never miss its target but that's all, it can't wreck big ships like Piranhas or Daggers can. It's not bad but not great either.

I didn't had much occasion to try the Kobold as i had some trouble getting this fighter. But for the few times i tried it, it seemed to be a different Rakshasha. Couldn't find if the Splinter launcher was kinetic or explosive. I'm not sure what to say about this one.

Currently SHI lack a proper interceptor in my opinion. For now their fleets seems to rely on TTs Wasps to do this job. Another thing that hurt them a lot, all of their fighters use missiles and come back to their carrier to reload when they fire it. It can be very problematic when you try to swarm the enemy fleet and keep their PD busy to open the way to bombers. Also if your fleet lack enough fighter bays to re-arm them fast enough, fighters will engage the enemy by "wave" rather than together, and getting shredded by concentrated PD fire.

These weakness are a bit smoothened by the Charybdis, as it is probably the best battlecarrier in the game. But Sargassos alone can't support the rest of the fleet as a Charybdis can.

Also on a completly different note, will you plan one day at developping those red/white stripped ships? (pic probably NSWF)

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