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Author Topic: [0.95a] Kadur Remnant 3.2.3 - life support 2021-03-27  (Read 695933 times)

Vayra

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take it outside
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Kadur Remnant: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=6649
Vayra's Sector: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16058
Vayra's Ship Pack: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16059

im gonna push jangala into the sun i swear to god im gonna do it

ThePollie

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I think if I had to narrow my criticisms to just one point, it's that a lot of the ships just feel like downgrades.

The Eagle(K) is easily the most disappointing ship in the list. I usually get excited when I happen on a debris field from a recent battle and find a cruiser I can salvage out of it. Just not when it's an Eagle(K). In every aspect, it feels like an inferior Eagle. It's not as mobile, it's not as sustained, it's loadout is less varied, it's more vulnerable to engine-bound missiles and strike craft. Hell, I can't even find a build that lets it even fight another Eagle. It almost universally gets fluxed out at the start of the fight and gets all of its guns shot off. I've tried close assault rigs - most Eagles can just pop their jets and drive backwards, out of range and easily out-sustaining me. I've tried sniping builds, and again many can just cruise backwards, especially since Kadur ranged guns are hilariously inaccurate with any sort of volleying.  I never feel any real reason to choose this ship over virtually any other cruise I find.

If it were at least cheaper to deploy, I'd accept that more easily. It'd be a trashcan economy ship. ... But it's actively more expensive to use, even if it's only in the fuel department. It looks cool, it has ballistic mounts, and that's always a plus for me. Beyond that, I have virtually nothing good to say about this ship. The boost in armour and hull is meaningless, they're both objectively terrible defenses for nearly every ship, especially since you can't even use them without winding up de-gunned after two seconds. The burn drive is... there? I guess it's a novel tactic to burn toward vulnerable enemies, but considering how easily this ship is to out-flux and out-maneuver, I question how often I'd ever want to risk doing that. It's a bad escape tool, since you'll surely just get your engine sniped in the five hours it takes to force this turtle around to a safe vector, assuming you weren't already Salamandered six times.

It's a neat looking ship, like the base Eagle, but besides trying to use this thing as a 2400 range sniper-boat, it just feels like a noob-trap designed to screw the poor fool that thought to buy one.
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cjuicy

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That's why you run with escorts. An Eagle should never fight another Eagle alone, they're line ships through and through in all iterations. Eagle (K) works especially well in groups of 3 or more, with each covering the other's flanks and keeping up a constant field of fire. The only complaint I see much merit in is the lack of maneuverability, which Aug. Maneuvering Thrusters fixes quite well, along with actually paying attention to the battlefield. Astute players know when to pull out of a fight, and it would do you well to learn that before using a Kadur ship.
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ThePollie

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Yeah, I've tried escorts. Usually ends with the Eagle trying to pretend its a battleship, leading the escorts into an area densely packed with enemy ships, resulting in all three being slagged.

I am well aware of how to anticipate trouble and withdraw before I get cut off. It seems to be some sort of rule that any criticism has to be met with "well you just don't know how to play gooder yet". It's a ship with engines made of glass and no way to defend them. Turning quickly isn't the problem. Turning without having the engines instantly disabled by enemy fire is. Nearly every Eagle(K) I've lost has been to Salamanders or getting flared out by weapons fire and being stuck in one spot while the ship's laughably frail systems fail en masse.

While you can argue game balance logic, I seriously question why any military power would design ships so intolerably reliant on a single trait, and then at the same time make it the only part of the ship they devote zero defenses to. Honestly, the total immobility of Kadur ships hurt them the worst. Scy ships have even worse shields, but they at least have the mobility to not just have to sit there and die if anyone breathes on them.
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George S. Patton

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After following your behaviour for a while ,Pollie, whilst I do appreciate that you haven't had a great reception for whatever reason, could be your fault could be someone elses, this situation is gravely starting to sound like a YOU problem.

The game is difficult as *** for a traditional approach, but it's proven itself time and time again that it is far from impossible and even through some directions game-breakingly easy. Kadur has some balance outliers, a few on purpose, yet plays perfectly fine. I'd expect to see this thread on fire if it was beyond difficult or outright boring to play.

Not that I wish to attack you, but I do recommend asking for advice on how you are playing the game and doubling that should you have not applied it correctly. I feel your criticisms and statements fall short but only due to the fact that you aren't exploiting what you can (and should) to improve your experience, it's a gritty game that won't serve itself to you.
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MajorTheRed

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I played with this mod for some months now. I'm really happy with it, it bring lot of cool stuff to the vanilla. I especially love the alternative start, each one posing new challenges.

As for the balance thing of Kadur ships, I found them tricky to use, but it's fine. With a little bit of practice they make great harasser and even close-to-Safety-Overdrive ships thanks to their ship system. I had some great success with the destroyer, and the heavy cruiser makes a great line anchor (and is even quite a sight as a missile-cruiser).

So far I only struggle with their weapons, but with some practices they could be fun to use.
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Vayra

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After following your behaviour for a while ,Pollie, whilst I do appreciate that you haven't had a great reception for whatever reason, could be your fault could be someone elses, this situation is gravely starting to sound like a YOU problem.

The game is difficult as *** for a traditional approach, but it's proven itself time and time again that it is far from impossible and even through some directions game-breakingly easy. Kadur has some balance outliers, a few on purpose, yet plays perfectly fine. I'd expect to see this thread on fire if it was beyond difficult or outright boring to play.

Not that I wish to attack you, but I do recommend asking for advice on how you are playing the game and doubling that should you have not applied it correctly. I feel your criticisms and statements fall short but only due to the fact that you aren't exploiting what you can (and should) to improve your experience, it's a gritty game that won't serve itself to you.

Thanks George, loved your work in France.  :)
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Kadur Remnant: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=6649
Vayra's Sector: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16058
Vayra's Ship Pack: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16059

im gonna push jangala into the sun i swear to god im gonna do it

Flunky

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I find that Kadur weapons do have a nice niche, but don't seem to mesh that well with the larger Kadur ships - a more rearwardly-mobile ship can take advantage of their standoff ability, but there are too many ships that can quickly get in the faces of AI-piloted Kadur ships. The weapons are (sensibly so, given their other advantages) not good at the close-range punches that Kadur ship systems often are geared to do.

That said, I'm currently running with a 4 jezail / 2 heavy mortar Falchion that works decently well. The smaller Kadur ships still have enough maneuverability to take advantage of their top speed for skirmishing.
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MajorTheRed

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I did some test on my side to found interesting variant. In brief, I separated Kadur ships in two categories :
-the small "in your face" ships, Camel and Falchion. Their system allow to go close and personnal, yet conserve some manoeuvrability. They work well if you can put PD weapons with high PDS or kinetic damage like vulcan or machine guns.
-the second category are cruisers. They often have interesting speed but turn like a brick. They have to stay out of range and this is where Jezails weapons shines. It tried a Falcon (K) with two Maulers and two HVP and they work very well. Burn drive allow to redeploy quickly but in the end this ships are not made to close-in with the ennemy.
I think the tricky part of Kadur ships is that they are not intended to be played like their vanilla counterpart.
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Vayra

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I did some test on my side to found interesting variant. In brief, I separated Kadur ships in two categories :
-the small "in your face" ships, Camel and Falchion. Their system allow to go close and personnal, yet conserve some manoeuvrability. They work well if you can put PD weapons with high PDS or kinetic damage like vulcan or machine guns.
-the second category are cruisers. They often have interesting speed but turn like a brick. They have to stay out of range and this is where Jezails weapons shines. It tried a Falcon (K) with two Maulers and two HVP and they work very well. Burn drive allow to redeploy quickly but in the end this ships are not made to close-in with the ennemy.
I think the tricky part of Kadur ships is that they are not intended to be played like their vanilla counterpart.

This is very true - and why the hullmod description is so long! ;D I had to pop that in there as people in the Discord were getting confused by the different playstyle, heh. It's not so much that you have to stay out of range, it's that you only want to dive in when you're sure you can win. The weapon capabilities are tweaked for this, with long-range kinetics to pressure shielding, and close-range guns with lots of burst to crush your enemies quickly once you have an opening.

It is also worth noting that the (K) skins are intended to be downgrades from the standard ship models -- or sidegrades at best, depending on how much you value ballistic slots and straight-line speed. They're produced from the corrupted MPCs the Kadur were able to recover from the Domain star fortress they seized in c.00 and have degraded over the years along with the Kadur's manufacturing capabilities, so winning a fight against a base-model Eagle or Falcon in a (K) one should definitely be a difficult task.
« Last Edit: May 02, 2019, 01:29:56 PM by Vayra »
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Kadur Remnant: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=6649
Vayra's Sector: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16058
Vayra's Ship Pack: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16059

im gonna push jangala into the sun i swear to god im gonna do it

NNTeslaNN

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It Sphinx, but it pizza time

plz add as Anubis

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Flunky

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When fighting (and using but not piloting) larger Kadur ships myself, I find that AI ships that have enough shielding to shrug off the initial kinetics and enough speed to close in at the first clash of a battle (when the Kadur ships are still moving forward to engage) can end up a nightmare for those larger Kadur ships.

Makes it pretty easy to take down Kadur opponents if one has nice high-tech ships, or especially a good strike vessel in the player's hands. Just pounce 'em while your flux is low and bob's your uncle. (Not always that easy, of course.) Since high-tech seems to be a pretty popular option among players (I think?) that means Kadur seems weak.

It's a viable and interesting playing style linked to the ship system, but I don't really trust the AI to use it that well.

There's also the issue of how well they handle fighter spam, but arguably most factions are weak to fighter spam these days.
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ThePollie

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The game is difficult as *** for a traditional approach, but it's proven itself time and time again that it is far from impossible and even through some directions game-breakingly easy. Kadur has some balance outliers, a few on purpose, yet plays perfectly fine. I'd expect to see this thread on fire if it was beyond difficult or outright boring to play.

Not that I wish to attack you, but I do recommend asking for advice on how you are playing the game and doubling that should you have not applied it correctly. I feel your criticisms and statements fall short but only due to the fact that you aren't exploiting what you can (and should) to improve your experience, it's a gritty game that won't serve itself to you.

I wouldn't call the game difficult. CoD:MW on Insane was hard, but not difficult. I frankly wouldn't expect this thread to set aflame. Why would it? There are plenty of things in this world that are atrociously awful, but still fiercely defended by their communities. I wouldn't expect this to be any different. As for exploitation, unless this is some weird way of saying "git gud", I don't think cheesing the AI or abusing broken mechanics to be a viable playstyle. I shouldn't have to effectively cheat to make up for something's shortcomings.


After following your behaviour for a while ,Pollie, whilst I do appreciate that you haven't had a great reception for whatever reason, could be your fault could be someone elses, this situation is gravely starting to sound like a YOU problem.

That said - Still probably the most respectful response to criticism this community has ever and will likely ever give me.
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MajorTheRed

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Hey Vayra,

I tried another run starting with Kadur Remnant. I do love the difficulty associated with it, as always. This time I decided to play a true fanatic and "convince" Luddic worlds they were wrong, so I needed a strong fleet based on what I can buy from Requiem station and what I could scavenge amd see how far I could go. In short, probably one of my best runs, I managed to use some pretty nice combo for weapons and ship from Kadur Remnants:

-The most important thing, their ships have incredible synergy with there Vanilla counter-parts: an Falcon (K) + Eagle, Falchion + Hammerhead, Rukh + its vanilla buddy. It work incredibly well, the (K) ship is the hammer, the vanilla the Anvil thanks to better shield and flux handling.
-The Sphinx is a monster thanks to its ship system. Others ships put shield pressure, the Sphinx go close and deliver the killing blow (frontal Torpedoes launcher, but could probably work with assault chainguns). I like it so much I no longer use capitals when assaulting orbital station.
-Sirocco is great for raiding thans to its storage.
-Javelins missile are great with wings. So many targets on the field that PDs are unable to stop the incoming waves of bombers

I cannot say much about the weapons, I was unable to get enough of them.

A couple of comment/suggestions:
-The burn drive is interesting on the Eagle and Falcon (K), but the AI don't know how to use them and often ends ramming it in orbital station... Maybe they could benefit from little changes in AI hints, or from the same system than the Camel?
-The Kadur Remnant could probably benefit from a third world or system. So far they are not easy to deal with and feel isolated. I know it's probably what you intended but gameplay-wise it's easy to just forget them and deal with other factions which is a shame as their backstory is great IMO
-On the other hand, others factions are a little bit overcrowding both systems: too much factions in Mirage, and definitively too much pirates in general: 3 new markets, with military, and 2 Heavy Industries! Maybe it's tipping the balance a little bit too much for them? Especially considering the presence of the star fortress.

Anyway, these are just little details, 'cause overall the greatest thing the mod is giving new way to play the game with the start options. They add needed variety to the base game.

Thank you
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Vayra

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Hey Vayra,

I tried another run starting with Kadur Remnant. I do love the difficulty associated with it, as always. This time I decided to play a true fanatic and "convince" Luddic worlds they were wrong, so I needed a strong fleet based on what I can buy from Requiem station and what I could scavenge amd see how far I could go. In short, probably one of my best runs, I managed to use some pretty nice combo for weapons and ship from Kadur Remnants:

-The most important thing, their ships have incredible synergy with there Vanilla counter-parts: an Falcon (K) + Eagle, Falchion + Hammerhead, Rukh + its vanilla buddy. It work incredibly well, the (K) ship is the hammer, the vanilla the Anvil thanks to better shield and flux handling.
-The Sphinx is a monster thanks to its ship system. Others ships put shield pressure, the Sphinx go close and deliver the killing blow (frontal Torpedoes launcher, but could probably work with assault chainguns). I like it so much I no longer use capitals when assaulting orbital station.
-Sirocco is great for raiding thans to its storage.
-Javelins missile are great with wings. So many targets on the field that PDs are unable to stop the incoming waves of bombers

I cannot say much about the weapons, I was unable to get enough of them.

A couple of comment/suggestions:
-The burn drive is interesting on the Eagle and Falcon (K), but the AI don't know how to use them and often ends ramming it in orbital station... Maybe they could benefit from little changes in AI hints, or from the same system than the Camel?
-The Kadur Remnant could probably benefit from a third world or system. So far they are not easy to deal with and feel isolated. I know it's probably what you intended but gameplay-wise it's easy to just forget them and deal with other factions which is a shame as their backstory is great IMO
-On the other hand, others factions are a little bit overcrowding both systems: too much factions in Mirage, and definitively too much pirates in general: 3 new markets, with military, and 2 Heavy Industries! Maybe it's tipping the balance a little bit too much for them? Especially considering the presence of the star fortress.

Anyway, these are just little details, 'cause overall the greatest thing the mod is giving new way to play the game with the start options. They add needed variety to the base game.

Thank you

Thanks for the feedback, and I'm really glad you're enjoying the mod! I'll address some of your points here:

- I'm glad that that strategy works! All of the new ships I'm introducing to flesh out the Kadur are designed for that anvil/fleet anchor role. If it works well with vanilla, it should work well with their new toys as well, which will make them much more of a complete faction.  ;D
- The Sphinx is indeed an excellent assault craft -- try it with a ton of Assault Chainguns, Machine Guns of various sizes, and Safety Overrides! It's so strong in fact that it'll be getting a (small) nerf in the next update which will be releasing shortly after 0.9.1 -- a slight increase in supply cost/deployment points.
- I need to come up with some other logistics ships to support the Sirocco, heh, as it starts to get a bit silly in bigger fleets... So many of the same hull. I am happy you like it though. I find I often need something like it in my fleets -- a mid-sized logistics ship to carry both fuel and cargo for a smaller fleet of destroyers and frigates.
- Javelin is the old name  ;) Interstellar Imperium took it for their LRMs while I was away between 2013-2018, so I had to rename mine to Jerichos and Janissaries.

- Burn drive on the (K) hulls is meant to be a downgrade, but hmm, maybe I'll take a look at it and just give them a simply less powerful Maneuvering Jets or something.
- I don't think I'll be adding a third system, at least in the traditional (core, inhabited) sense, but I might look at doing more procgen content! I definitely want them to feel like a presence in the sector, but I don't really want to add any more "static" markets or otherwise compromise the feeling of them being a faction of exiles and refugees. The raider bases are an attempt at this currently, though that's still pretty barebones.  :)
- On "too many factions in Mirage", we'll have to agree to disagree, heh. I love big, chaotic systems, maybe because I remember when Corvus was all we had and every mod added a station or an exoplanet or a moon or something...

Thanks again for taking the time to write all this out! I'll definitely keep this stuff in mind while I'm working on the mod.
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Kadur Remnant: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=6649
Vayra's Sector: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16058
Vayra's Ship Pack: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16059

im gonna push jangala into the sun i swear to god im gonna do it
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