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Author Topic: Combat Readyness isn't fun..  (Read 151206 times)

ValkyriaL

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #270 on: September 24, 2013, 11:15:26 AM »

On supply costs - why is the death spiral a bad thing?

Aren't we allowed to lose at games anymore? What's wrong with dying and rolling up a new character, having learnt from the last one?

Damn straight! +100 points to you sir!

And one more point on top of those.

Only one? id add another 100. :o
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Megas

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #271 on: September 24, 2013, 11:23:54 AM »

The main problem with supplies is they are too expensive to purchase, and you need LOTS of them to keep your ships up and running.  If you are good enough, you can loot more than you need, sell, and profit greatly.  (Not sure if too many supplies in stock prevents supply fleets from depositing new stock.)  Conversely, if you do poorly, you are already dead and not know it, and there is no way to claw your way back up if you die early enough.  The game was unforgiving enough before 0.6, and it is worse.
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Thaago

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #272 on: September 24, 2013, 11:25:25 AM »

I actually agree that the high price of supplies at the moment is a problem - it makes the game both too hard and too easy. If you are a new player, the high cost of supplies sinks you. If you are an experienced player, the high cost of supplies makes it waaaaaay too easy to get money. Enemies dropping less supplies is a possible solution to the latter, muahahahah.
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Megas

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #273 on: September 24, 2013, 11:28:44 AM »

Salvage option gives much in supplies, and you need about a third of them to fix your ships, and you need a freighter to carry them all.  If you want to reduce loot, remove the salvage option.
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Thaago

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #274 on: September 24, 2013, 11:35:15 AM »

You could do that. Then again the option is supposed to give a meaningful choice between reward with long recovery (salvage), shorter recovery (stand down), and damaging the enemy (harry). Eliminating one of those seems a bit of a harsh solution, rather than just tweaking the values down a bit. Considering harry is broken though, maybe it would be a good idea... hmmm...

Also: if you are near any station, you don't need a freighter. You can carry massively more loot than the cargo size for a short time - just sell it before your CR degrades/it consumes itself.
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Voyager I

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #275 on: September 24, 2013, 11:40:06 AM »

On supply costs - why is the death spiral a bad thing?

Aren't we allowed to lose at games anymore? What's wrong with dying and rolling up a new character, having learnt from the last one?

Because as it stands, the death spiral is just one more newbie-slaying mechanic in a game that's already punishingly difficult to start out in.  Experienced players are riding the opposite end of the curve and starting capital ship museums in the abandoned storage facility because they have more money than they can spend.

Megas is expecting the game to be something it isn't, and frankly his idea of fun is still bad game design.  I guess it's lucky for him that the game is so mod-friendly.
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Megas

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #276 on: September 24, 2013, 11:41:55 AM »

Harry is only useful if need it for your big ships to catch other ships before they get off the ground, and depending what your fleet is, you can catch them again in another encounter.  Stand down is only an option if you did not fight too hard.  If you did, like say had a big epic battle with a big fleet, standing down is not even offered.  I take Salvage 99% of the time because of the loot.

Quote
Also: if you are near any station, you don't need a freighter. You can carry massively more loot than the cargo size for a short time - just sell it before your CR degrades/it consumes itself.
Freighters are useful for letting me fight more than one battle before I need to offload my spoils.
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Debido

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #277 on: September 24, 2013, 11:49:49 AM »

Ok, here is another potential piece of the puzzle in improving CR and may help new players.

At the moment if you go above your logistics capability you're penalised on CR and supply usage. How about instead you get a boost if you're under your logistics rating.

As a new user with a hound I start with between 20 and 44 logistics rating points depending on initial skills, and with the wolf use 3 points only. Let's start with a -1% deployment CR cost per LR rating, and +1% CR recovery per LR, -1% to CR recovery cost

Min. -14% CR Cost per deployment, + 14% to recovery rate + 14% less CR recovery supply cost
Max -41% CR per deployment + 41% to recovery rate + 41% less CR recovery supply cost

You can tweak these values as needed for balance. We could try to tweak it to be free as well. 2%

Min. -28% CR Cost per deployment, + 28% to recovery rate + 28% less CR recovery supply cost (not bad, nearly a third less)
Max -82% CR per deployment + 82% to recovery rate + 82% less CR recovery supply cost (this would avert a death spiral)

As the player grows their fleet they get less fleet logistic bonus and are eased into CR.

This would need to be play tested and tweaked, but I think it may help.

This bonus would certainly give an advantage to smaller fleets, but any small fleet still has the disadvantage of being small and unable to compete with larger ones. Another thought may be to give an extra 1 burn speed for each 10, 15 or 20 LR points unused. Or you get +1 burn at 10, +2 burn at 25, +3 burn at 40 (needs tweaking) So potentially an initial player could look at:

Min. +1 to burn speed, -14% CR Cost per deployment, + 14% to recovery rate + 14% less CR recovery supply cost
Max +4 to burn speed, -41% CR per deployment + 41% to recovery rate + 41% less CR recovery supply cost


What effect this may have on the game is
  • Slowly eased into the game
  • Smaller fleets are still competitive with larger fleets in terms of Return on Investment due to fast CR recovery and burn speed
  • Player keeps larger ships at still kept at abandoned storage until needed to take on defence fleets (bad, micromanagement to change fleet composition all the time)
  • Large enemy fleets will have more difficulty keeping up with your burn speed (good?)
  • Effectively sets most efficient fleet size ROI fleet as less than 100 point LR fleet (bad? disempowering?)

Thoughts? Comments?
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Debido

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #278 on: September 24, 2013, 12:02:31 PM »

On supply costs - why is the death spiral a bad thing?

Aren't we allowed to lose at games anymore? What's wrong with dying and rolling up a new character, having learnt from the last one?

Damn straight! +100 points to you sir!


And one more point on top of those.

Only one? id add another 100. :o

Alright you masochists, I have the perfect game for you - Prince of Persia! (The original) ;D

But seriously folks the most commercially successful games do not have a difficulty curve like the current 0.6, this has already been discussed in another thread. I want this game to be commercially successful so it can be improved upon, the development team can grow and eventually StarSector 2 can be released...IN 3D
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Uomoz

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #279 on: September 24, 2013, 12:05:06 PM »

On supply costs - why is the death spiral a bad thing?

Aren't we allowed to lose at games anymore? What's wrong with dying and rolling up a new character, having learnt from the last one?

Damn straight! +100 points to you sir!


And one more point on top of those.

Only one? id add another 100. :o

Alright you masochists, I have the perfect game for you - Prince of Persia! (The original) ;D

But seriously folks the most commercially successful games do not have a difficulty curve like the current 0.6, this has already been discussed in another thread. I want this game to be commercially successful so it can be improved upon, the development team can grow and eventually StarSector 2 can be released...IN 3D

I think that many players here don't really want what you can find in recents "commercially successful" games.
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Megas

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #280 on: September 24, 2013, 12:06:17 PM »

What is the gameplay of Starsector supposed to be about?  Combat?  RTS?  Until 0.6, Starsector was all about combat, and it was fun, despite problems.
Now, it is still mostly about combat, but the new mechanics make the early game harder, reduce effective choices later, and just makes things less fun overall.  Although 0.6 fixed some previous problems, it introduced more.  In my case, 0.6 is better only because the memory leak in 0.54 killed my games after a few battles late in the game.  Starsector can still have a top-notch campaign with good combat, like Star Control 2.  It is nowhere near there yet.
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ciago92

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #281 on: September 24, 2013, 12:10:03 PM »

Ok, here is another potential piece of the puzzle in improving CR and may help new players.

At the moment if you go above your logistics capability you're penalised on CR and supply usage. How about instead you get a boost if you're under your logistics rating.

As a new user with a hound I start with between 20 and 44 logistics rating points depending on initial skills, and with the wolf use 3 points only. Let's start with a -1% deployment CR cost per LR rating, and +1% CR recovery per LR, -1% to CR recovery cost

Min. -14% CR Cost per deployment, + 14% to recovery rate + 14% less CR recovery supply cost
Max -41% CR per deployment + 41% to recovery rate + 41% less CR recovery supply cost

You can tweak these values as needed for balance. We could try to tweak it to be free as well. 2%

Min. -28% CR Cost per deployment, + 28% to recovery rate + 28% less CR recovery supply cost (not bad, nearly a third less)
Max -82% CR per deployment + 82% to recovery rate + 82% less CR recovery supply cost (this would avert a death spiral)

As the player grows their fleet they get less fleet logistic bonus and are eased into CR.

This would need to be play tested and tweaked, but I think it may help.

This bonus would certainly give an advantage to smaller fleets, but any small fleet still has the disadvantage of being small and unable to compete with larger ones. Another thought may be to give an extra 1 burn speed for each 10, 15 or 20 LR points unused. Or you get +1 burn at 10, +2 burn at 25, +3 burn at 40 (needs tweaking) So potentially an initial player could look at:

Min. +1 to burn speed, -14% CR Cost per deployment, + 14% to recovery rate + 14% less CR recovery supply cost
Max +4 to burn speed, -41% CR per deployment + 41% to recovery rate + 41% less CR recovery supply cost


What effect this may have on the game is
  • Slowly eased into the game
  • Smaller fleets are still competitive with larger fleets in terms of Return on Investment due to fast CR recovery and burn speed
  • Player keeps larger ships at still kept at abandoned storage until needed to take on defence fleets (bad, micromanagement to change fleet composition all the time)
  • Large enemy fleets will have more difficulty keeping up with your burn speed (good?)
  • Effectively sets most efficient fleet size ROI fleet as less than 100 point LR fleet (bad? disempowering?)

Thoughts? Comments?

subject to balancing (definitely need hard caps so you're not at 100% less CR used etc), I think I would like to see this, at least as a mod or something. I do like the idea of having benefits from not maxing out your logistics capabilities. If LR is tied to skills, does that mean the PC is loafing about when using less than 100% of his LR?

I don't think "Player keeps larger ships at still kept at abandoned storage until needed to take on defence fleets" is actually bad. Adapting your playstyle to the situation at hand is very, very good.

I also would like to add my agreement to the voices saying learn from death rather than have your hand be held. As long as it's fun enough I have no issues losing and starting again. In this particular game, for newbies, I can definitely understand wanting their hands held though.

edit: I agree, while "commercially successful" games have their place, I'm rapidly becoming more and more of a PC gamer to get away from those types of games.
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mendonca

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #282 on: September 24, 2013, 12:15:04 PM »


I think that many players here don't really want what you can find in recents "commercially successful" games.

I also think 'the market' isn't as stupid as it get's credit for. Make a deep, difficult and challenging game - and if it is good it will do fine.

At the minute Alex has the benefit of having small overheads (at a guess a coupla litres homebrew vodka a day) so that means he can (within reason) define his own terms of success, as well.
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"I'm doing it, I'm making them purple! No one can stop me!"

Debido

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #283 on: September 24, 2013, 12:23:02 PM »


I think that many players here don't really want what you can find in recents "commercially successful" games.

I also think 'the market' isn't as stupid as it get's credit for. Make a deep, difficult and challenging game - and if it is good it will do fine.

At the minute Alex has the benefit of having small overheads (at a guess a coupla litres homebrew vodka a day) so that means he can (within reason) define his own terms of success, as well.

That's very true...though I can't speak for Alex, I do generally believe if he had the same sales figures as Rockstar's GTA5 at this point...he'd define that as success...oh gosh...let's not get philosophical about this and talk about the modern social pressures of materialism, money, popularity and success within your peers!
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Thaago

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #284 on: September 24, 2013, 12:29:01 PM »

...at a guess a coupla litres homebrew vodka a day...

Made my day. http://xkcd.com/323/

On topic... uh... I think combat is vastly improved in this version. CR needs a bit of tweaking. * shrug * * glug *
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