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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: Starsector 0.6a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 553422 times)

Shoat

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Re: Starsector 0.6a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #255 on: May 30, 2013, 02:37:19 PM »

My other concern was is adding a damage buff really a good trade off for the range buff?(this may be me just missin my former builds which used the range buff. But it still feels like and awkward trade off.)

It's a simple case of range being the by far most powerful stat for weapons and that that beacon was simply way too strong and was now nerfed to "only" provide a damage buff (which is still good, but not end-all like the range buff was).

Also, some custom weapons from mods behaved really awkward when their range was artifically extended beyond what the modder had intended, so that may also have influenced this decision.
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joey4track

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Re: Starsector 0.6a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #256 on: May 30, 2013, 06:32:10 PM »

I have to agree that it would be nice to have economy and fuel use before any other features.
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flashydragon

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Re: Starsector 0.6a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #257 on: May 31, 2013, 12:34:36 AM »

And although it was rather thrilling the first couple times, after a while I felt guilty for being so amazing. The real jackpot used to be when you were able to find an AI fleet limping around ... you could make his fleet surrender, and assimilate all of the ships. Shipgasm.

wait wait wait...that wasn't intended? :'( i uhh...i thought it was a way of getting a leg-up if you were doing poorly, just use that quick little shuttle to catch those dumb buffalo that weren't ready for combat and, presto, back in the game!

So...how exactly are we supposed to approach winning the campaign, when almost every reliable way of making credits is less effective, and supplies cost an arm and a leg? ???

Spoiler
MODS
[close]
...
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Gothars

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Re: Starsector 0.6a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #258 on: May 31, 2013, 02:15:34 AM »

So, is auto-resolve completely gone now?
Yeah.

So, what happens if I hit escape during a battle? Is there a way to shut down the game during a fight?



It's a simple case of range being the by far most powerful stat for weapons and that that beacon was simply way too strong and was now nerfed to "only" provide a damage buff (which is still good, but not end-all like the range buff was).

I wouldn't say that range is more powerful than damage. It can be, if it makes the difference between outranging the opponent or not. But if the difference was dramatic before, a percentage bonus often has no influence whatsoever. A damage bonus is more universal useful.

So...how exactly are we supposed to approach winning the campaign, when almost every reliable way of making credits is less effective, and supplies cost an arm and a leg? ???

Do you find it exceedingly difficult at the moment? Maybe while you have only your starting ship, but once you grow it is all smooth sailing. Usually you have much more money than you can spend within a few hours. I had much more fun with self-imposed limitations like "don't buy anything at stations".
« Last Edit: May 31, 2013, 02:22:55 AM by Gothars »
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The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

Arranging holidays in an embrace with the Starsector is priceless.

Thaago

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Re: Starsector 0.6a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #259 on: May 31, 2013, 09:01:12 AM »

My other concern was is adding a damage buff really a good trade off for the range buff?(this may be me just missin my former builds which used the range buff. But it still feels like and awkward trade off.)

It's a simple case of range being the by far most powerful stat for weapons and that that beacon was simply way too strong and was now nerfed to "only" provide a damage buff (which is still good, but not end-all like the range buff was).

Also, some custom weapons from mods behaved really awkward when their range was artifically extended beyond what the modder had intended, so that may also have influenced this decision.

Huh. You know, I'm of the completely opposite perspective: I saw the range bonus as nice, but the speed bonus to be about 10 times more useful. It doesn't matter if the opponent has you outranged if you can hop in and out at will? Different playstyles I guess.
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flashydragon

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Re: Starsector 0.6a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #260 on: May 31, 2013, 10:09:38 AM »

So, is auto-resolve completely gone now?
Yeah.

So, what happens if I hit escape during a battle? Is there a way to shut down the game during a fight?



It's a simple case of range being the by far most powerful stat for weapons and that that beacon was simply way too strong and was now nerfed to "only" provide a damage buff (which is still good, but not end-all like the range buff was).

I wouldn't say that range is more powerful than damage. It can be, if it makes the difference between outranging the opponent or not. But if the difference was dramatic before, a percentage bonus often has no influence whatsoever. A damage bonus is more universal useful.

So...how exactly are we supposed to approach winning the campaign, when almost every reliable way of making credits is less effective, and supplies cost an arm and a leg? ???

Do you find it exceedingly difficult at the moment? Maybe while you have only your starting ship, but once you grow it is all smooth sailing. Usually you have much more money than you can spend within a few hours. I had much more fun with self-imposed limitations like "don't buy anything at stations".

Well...at the risk of sounding like I'm bad at the game, yes. one wrong move, and it's SHUTTLE TIME BOYS. The game is basically unwinnable for me at that point, which is why I reload my save...buuuut if it's HC mode, then I basically have to start another game. oh, and to clear the air, I like the second-in-command option, I thought it was a great time-saver, but I'm much better than the computer, and I always play through important fights, because the computer would lose too much of my fleet and resources...

I like the large, tactical fleet battles much more than the small, dancing skirmishes of the early game...and it sounds like that's something I'll never see in .6  :'(.

Really, even after all this talk, it's possible that .6 could be balanced perfectly, and I'm just whinning uselessly. I just like winning at things I do, is that so bad? :P

Don't buy anything from stations... WTF :o
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.6a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #261 on: May 31, 2013, 10:49:41 AM »

So, is auto-resolve completely gone now?
Yeah.

So, what happens if I hit escape during a battle? Is there a way to shut down the game during a fight?

In hardcore mode, it asks you if you want to exit the game. In normal mode, it asks if you want to go back to the main menu. (The logic there is that in hardcore mode, you could "cheat" by exiting out from a battle only to reload the save, but you can already do that by killing the game from task manager. So, the game isn't going to try to fight that somehow, but will just rather let you exit mid-battle, since you may want to do that for other RL reasons - but in a way that discourages the aforementioned cheating.)


As far as the Sensor Array change: my feeling is that with a 25% range boost (50% for two!) it became a qualitative change in some cases. +10/20% damage is just universally good, but it's not going to change the way you play a ship, which I don't feel objectives should do.

There's an argument to be made here that Nav Buoys change how some capital ships play, but to that I say, one step at a time :)


Really, even after all this talk, it's possible that .6 could be balanced perfectly, and I'm just whinning uselessly. I just like winning at things I do, is that so bad? :P

It's perfectly normal! Possibly also bad. Ahem.

I'm not sure I need to go into how exploitable the pre-0.6a boarding mechanics are again. About supplies costing 20x more, though: I don't think that's nearly as drastic as it sounds, just because the current cost is so laughably small.

A bit of perspective - I seriously doubt 0.6a is going to be perfectly balanced, and am not even going to aim for that until all the core features are in :)

If some releases end up suffering a bit because features need to lean on other features that don't exist yet in order to work well, well... that's really just the breaks. As usual, I'll try to keep things playable and do what I can, but that only works to a point.
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Shield

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Re: Starsector 0.6a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #262 on: May 31, 2013, 02:22:06 PM »

Forget all the whining and imbalances, I just want to test out .6 already.

Negro needs his spaceship fix.
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Silver Silence

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Re: Starsector 0.6a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #263 on: May 31, 2013, 02:56:00 PM »

Negro needs his spaceship fix.

Inb4someonetakesgreatoffense.
I didn't, it made me giggle a little.


Not sure if I like the idea of having no auto-resolve. I don't like playing a big deathball fleet, they're slow and a logistical nightmare which is only going to become much more apparent in 0.6. Which means that I have 2-3 pirate frigates trying to engage a capital ship that could faceroll them with the helmsman asleep at the wheel. Will I really have to play "military checkpoints" and be stopped every few seconds by a swarm of angry 2-Hound pirate fleets and have to sit through every one? My ship actually loses most engagements involving more than a couple frigates (say, a Buffalo or three, or similar pirate destroyer) when autopiloted, because the AI's shield raising habits are something easily exploited. I never raise shields unless it's an angry red Reaper or pilum spam, or the fire of a mod weapon like the Hadron Accelerator of the IFed. The AI raises shields if guns are so much as pointed in their direction. This means I can pewpew for much longer as all my flux venting is dedicated to weaponry and is not constantly siphoned off by shields, therefore causing a ship's flux to max out faster, more so if shields are inefficient and take a lot of damage anyway. The Ascendancy mod taught me that. Ceni Six ships have shields, yet stock, the Ceni Six shields are almost a liability as many weapons are kinetic and as such, overload CSix shields blindingly fast. Many other ships simply lacked shields meaning you had to go man-mode and get to brawling. Many of my fits reflect this brawling now and are all built assuming shields are a luxury. High flux/s AND AI with shields up means 0 to overload in 10 seconds flat, thus I never let the AI pilot unless it's a pointlessly small fight. Like those 2-3 frigate fleets, where even the AI's cautious tendencies shouldn't affect the outcome. Now I'll need to practically babysit each fight, or just turn autopilot on and tab out, only to discover that a lucky AM Blaster shot overloaded the shields and as such, I'm now in a Hound instead of my stompy Conquest, Paragon or whatever mod faction's flagship I'm flying.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.6a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #264 on: May 31, 2013, 03:14:16 PM »

Negro needs his spaceship fix.

Don't go there.


@Silver Silence: All I can say is wait and see how it turns out. The scenarios you describe are implausible. I.E. a pair of Hounds wouldn't choose to engage a capital ship, and if you somehow managed to force the fight, you'd probably want to use a lighter ship instead of deploying a battleship/battlecruiser and taking the CR hit for little benefit.

Using autopilot doesn't play into this, if you're trying to finish a fight quickly I doubt you'd be using that in the first place.

Also, seriously - paragraphs, please :)
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Silver Silence

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Re: Starsector 0.6a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #265 on: May 31, 2013, 04:14:15 PM »

Negro needs his spaceship fix.

Don't go there.

Oh, he wasn't going anywhere. Just a turn of phrase.

@Silver Silence: All I can say is wait and see how it turns out. The scenarios you describe are implausible. I.E. a pair of Hounds wouldn't choose to engage a capital ship, and if you somehow managed to force the fight, you'd probably want to use a lighter ship instead of deploying a battleship/battlecruiser and taking the CR hit for little benefit.

Using autopilot doesn't play into this, if you're trying to finish a fight quickly I doubt you'd be using that in the first place.
Well, a Lasher, 1-2 Hounds and maybe a couple Talon or Piranha wings. FP-wise, the same weight as something like a Conquest, thus why I get the engagement. In terms of combat proficiency, not in remotely the same leagues.
Autopilot usually doesn't come into play, Autoresolve does it for me. At worst, I get oddly damaged armour. (Perfect chunks of armour missing, instead of an area being smashed as would happen in combat)
Also, seriously - paragraphs, please :)
Sorry, I couldn't figure out where to put a break because it was all on the same topic, aside from the Ascendancy storytime.
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Talkie Toaster

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Re: Starsector 0.6a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #266 on: May 31, 2013, 04:20:28 PM »

Huh. You know, I'm of the completely opposite perspective: I saw the range bonus as nice, but the speed bonus to be about 10 times more useful. It doesn't matter if the opponent has you outranged if you can hop in and out at will? Different playstyles I guess.
That only works to an extent, though- a +25 might make your cruiser able to control engagement with their cruisers, but it won't help you against destroyers or frigates. It also won't help destroyers against fighter craft or missiles, whereas a 25% range boost to all PD suddenly makes inter-fleet PD coverage more reliable. More so than a flat +10% damage boost, because with short-range PD you're effectively keeping 1.1 guns trained on the fighter wing, rather than 3 (yours, and the PD from the ships either side of you).

Plus, dancing in and out of range is negated if your opponent takes sensors instead. You have more control over when encounters occur (to an extent- objectives restrict it), but you're guaranteed to concede the first hit and have a longer, more vulnerable retreat, and the enemy can fit more ships into the fight than you can. It's especially true if they've got beam-based ships about, ITU+Optics*Sensors adds ~3-400 range. If you retreat and they chase, your +25 speed advantage thanks to the nav buoy still leaves you taking 6-8 extra seconds of fire before you disengage, during which you can't retaliate (assuming both ships have the same base speed).
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flashydragon

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Re: Starsector 0.6a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #267 on: June 01, 2013, 12:20:11 PM »

Negro needs his spaceship fix.

YEAHYEAHYEAHYEAHYEA- ;D oh, it's not that kind of forum, is it...

Well 5x20 is 100. now that I look at it, I guess it's not that steep...unless you actually are trying to field a large fleet, and then unless you do VERY well in combat (because I doubt the supply drop rates will stay the same), then you're going to be eating a lot more maintenance and repair costs :-\. Too much? can't tell, will definitely try it out when .6 is out.

And autopilot is for when I'm feeling lazy, or I'm playing that super cool fairy-mod. auto-RESOLVE however, is a different animal, and I really, really will miss it. it probably is the reason I get anywhere in this game ATM, because fights take ~2 seconds, instead of 120-180. Yes, the computer plays more poorly than I would, but it's quantity over quality after a certain point...(read: first onslaught acquired).
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Silver Silence

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Re: Starsector 0.6a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #268 on: June 01, 2013, 01:03:10 PM »

At the point you acquire your first capital of almost any kind, you can generally let the AI faceroll small fleets with almost any set up.

As for the Sensor Arrays, I think I still prefer the ranged bonuses to damage. Having two unskilled ships, the one with the longer range will typically win against the other because the former can start putting pressure on the other ship first. If you're just maneuvering into range and their first wave of Hellbores and Gauss Cannons and the like has already pushed you to 20-40% your max flux, that's a whole lot less time you get to spend firing on them.
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phyrex

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Re: Starsector 0.6a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #269 on: June 01, 2013, 01:07:28 PM »

At the point you acquire your first capital of almost any kind, you can generally let the AI faceroll small fleets with almost any set up.

As for the Sensor Arrays, I think I still prefer the ranged bonuses to damage. Having two unskilled ships, the one with the longer range will typically win against the other because the former can start putting pressure on the other ship first. If you're just maneuvering into range and their first wave of Hellbores and Gauss Cannons and the like has already pushed you to 20-40% your max flux, that's a whole lot less time you get to spend firing on them.

i think thats exactly to avoid this kind of situation that he changed it.
now back again, if you want a range advantage, you gotta gear for it first
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