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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: [0.8a] Starsector+ 3.7.0  (Read 1325425 times)

MShadowy

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Re: [0.6.2a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 1.10.1 (Mayorate + Templars)
« Reply #285 on: September 09, 2014, 09:40:11 PM »

Iiiinteresting. I admit missiles aren't really my thing so I hadn't played with it much. Broken?

In an economy of scale way, yes.  On it's own a single Achilles is a nuisance; providing backup to a fleet it can be a rather serious one.  But it seems that once get enough of them together, say... ten, they become a completely unstoppable ball of missiles and death.
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JohnDoe

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Re: [0.6.2a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 1.10.1 (Mayorate + Templars)
« Reply #286 on: September 10, 2014, 04:34:44 AM »

Oh, the weapons are only supposed to show up at Askonia?

I've seen them every now and then in the Tri-Tach station, as well as various other stations. Only temporarily though, they seem to disappear when I come back a little later.

I thought the weapons weren't supposed to be on sale anywhere?

Ships and weapons will not be sold anywhere, but can be captured.
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HELMUT

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Re: [0.6.2a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 1.10.1 (Mayorate + Templars)
« Reply #287 on: September 10, 2014, 09:48:27 AM »



Okay, so let's talk a bit about the Achilles.

I think the Achilles is a balanced ship in Starsector, it only became broken in the tournament.

Some ships have great synergy and become stronger in number, it's even more apparent with missile boats. By destroying ships, you remove some of the firepower of the fleet, the purpose of the missile boat is to do this at a safe distance. Its biggest weakness? It can't do that fast enough if it's outnumbered, which will eventually happen in the campaign as you can't equal the size of some of the biggest AI fleets. But everything that can't outnumber your missiles boats is toasted.

I took advantage of that in the tournament by picking the Luddic Path with its -50% cost on low-tech ships. By doing that i ensured no one would ever be able to outnumber me, at least in the first round. The only thing that worried me were some weird fleets that could ignore the monstrous lrm spam. I thought about 4 possible weaknesses for my fleet.

1: Exigency and AA. The repulsors aren't that big deal because there's a cooldown between each use, the cooldown would be long enough for me to vaporize the target. Even the reflected Lrms would have been intercepted by my own Lrm curtain.

What really worried me was the ball-lightning PD that Exi use as it is incredibly efficient against swarm of stuffs, including missiles. I think DR said the ball lightning gun lacked the punch to destroy lrms instantly so i'm not sure but in theory Exi/AA should have been able to endure the storm long enough until my Achilles ran out of ammo and ends up defenseless. That would be a very gimmicky build though, very unlikely someone made that for the Tournament.

2: Phase ships. One of the big weakness of missile boats is the missile fuel, sometimes they chase around some frigate and ran out of juice and can't maneuver anymore and explode on contact with anything, including your own ships. That's one of the reason missile boats aren't that strong in campaign because they need the overly expensive ECCM package hull mode that ensure your missiles will hit something before they ran out of fuel and possibly destroy one of your ships, but even with ECCM it can happen.

That's why phase ships, frigates especially are terrifying to fight against when you use a lot of Lrms. A phase ships can't stay cloaked for a while, letting the Lrms buzz around until they run out of fuel. Imagine a bunch of Afflictors skulking around next to your missile boats, baiting the Lrms and waiting them to destroy their own fleet? it sounds gimmicky but it's the worst nightmare of a LRM based fleet.

3: Carriers. One of the other big weakness of the Achilles spam fleet is vision, they can't launch their Lrms if they can't see the enemy. A bunch of Condors hugging the edge of the map will never get mauled by missiles because they stay out of vision. Your fighters will still have to go past the thick LRM curtain but hey, that's what Talons are for right? This fleet isn't perfect for the tournament as the AI may or may not make stupid positioning decisions with its carriers, also my Achilles had pretty heavy flak weaponry just in case.

4: Phase and carriers. Blackrock's Serkets would have been atrocious to fight.

But yeah, even thought the Achilles fleet have weakness, it's still very, very strong against everything else. I think it's strength come more from the -50% cost from the Luddic Path than the Achilles itself. Hell, my cruisers were as cheap as destroyers! With the normal cost, i would have been able to field only 6 Achilles (maybe 5 if we count the crew and the Hound scout), much, much less threatening.

In any cases, i will change my fleet. But in the campaign? The Achilles is definitely fine.
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Dark.Revenant

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Re: [0.6.2a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 1.10.1 (Mayorate + Templars)
« Reply #288 on: September 10, 2014, 10:15:57 AM »

Actually, the issue comes down to the fact that they had capital-class strike firepower in a cruiser chassis.  Missiles are free damage, basically; if you have a lot of these things, most fleets will just melt.

The tournament showed that the ship is only balanced alone or in pairs; if you have many of them, they become exponentially more powerful.  Yes, having ten is insane but still possible in the campaign.  Ultimately, I'll be making a different artillery ship that doesn't punch outside its weight limit and doesn't rely entirely on missiles.

(Oh, and for the record, even when I created dedicated PD variants, every single fleet yet submitted was completely crushed; 90% losses on the enemy side, 0 achilles dead on your side, sometimes they don't even get the hound before they are completely vaporized by bursts of over 10,000 HE damage.  Even the templars were obliterated.  Sure, you might mass some other type of ship without the achilles, but that kind of one-sided massacre would never happen with any other ship.)
« Last Edit: September 10, 2014, 10:19:46 AM by Dark.Revenant »
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HELMUT

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Re: [0.6.2a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 1.10.1 (Mayorate + Templars)
« Reply #289 on: September 10, 2014, 12:27:09 PM »

I tried some stuffs in dev mod and... Destroyed the Cathedral fleet with 10 Achilles without losing a single one, ah ah, oups? Even though, i think it's possible to nerf it without making it useless.

Nerfing deployment cost to 18/19 from 16 would reduce the amount of Achilles available on the field. Switching 2 of the medium missiles mounts to small ones would also reduce the amount of lrms flying around.

Okay, i just tried it in campaign, with 8 Achilles on the field, i lost against the Hegemony SDF. While i may have wrecked most of their ships, i ended up running out of missiles and was basically defenseless against the 3 remaining enemy cruisers. That's the trick with missile boats, if your enemy survive the storm, you lose, hard.

In SS+, the storm is usually brutal but very short because Pilums and Trebuchets only have a base of 30 missiles. II's large Ballista however have 100 missiles, without this weapon, i wouldn't have lasted that long, maybe nerfing the ammo capacity of this one as well?

There's only two outcome with a missile based fleet, total victory or total defeat which is dictated by how long you can survive. By nerfing the deployment cost of the Achilles, it will limit the amount of Lrms, increase the longevity of the enemy fleet and the possibility to have your entire fleet wiped out in the end. Which would be fair i think.

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Dark.Revenant

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Re: [0.6.2a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 1.10.1 (Mayorate + Templars)
« Reply #290 on: September 10, 2014, 01:33:03 PM »

Either way, I've decided to put in its place a different low-tech standoff cruiser.  It won't have as many missile slots, which should avoid the issue.
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: [0.6.2a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 1.10.1 (Mayorate + Templars)
« Reply #291 on: September 10, 2014, 04:00:34 PM »

Without using something like netbeans or something like it, is it possible to "rip out" certain ships of your mods? I like the firepower that this ship brings to the low tech AI fleets and would like to keep it in a personal mod
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Dark.Revenant

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Re: [0.6.2a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 1.10.1 (Mayorate + Templars)
« Reply #292 on: September 10, 2014, 04:52:06 PM »

Without using something like netbeans or something like it, is it possible to "rip out" certain ships of your mods? I like the firepower that this ship brings to the low tech AI fleets and would like to keep it in a personal mod

Just copy the entry from ship-hulls csv and the hull file, sprite, and variants.
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Doogie

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Re: [0.6.2a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 1.10.1 (Mayorate + Templars)
« Reply #293 on: September 10, 2014, 05:01:19 PM »

You should still use that Achilles sprite for something. I personally think its quite beautiful.
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: [0.6.2a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 1.10.1 (Mayorate + Templars)
« Reply #294 on: September 10, 2014, 09:34:12 PM »

Without using something like netbeans or something like it, is it possible to "rip out" certain ships of your mods? I like the firepower that this ship brings to the low tech AI fleets and would like to keep it in a personal mod

Just copy the entry from ship-hulls csv and the hull file, sprite, and variants.
What about the system?
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Dark.Revenant

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[0.6.2a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 1.11
« Reply #295 on: September 29, 2014, 09:03:09 PM »

Introducing the final update before Starsector 0.65!  Remember to check out the grand update of Exigency Incorporated!

Alastor-class Frigate [2 Logistics]

Like a mini-eagle.

It has been said that the midline selection of frigates leaves much to be desired.  We've got the Hermes (a shuttle), the Brawler (slow and blocky), and the Vigilance (support-oriented and paper-thin), but nothing that's especially fun to fly.  In comes the Alastor, essentially a frigate-sized cross between the Hammerhead and the Eagle.  It doesn't have any medium slots, but it's fast and tough.  Sprite by HELMUT.




Version 1.11
  • Alastor-class Frigate added
  • Fortress Shield given a 1-second cooldown to avoid on-off spam
  • Even more vent AI changes
  • Station stock tweaks
  • Price updates
  • Achilles removed permanently
  • Randomizer updates
  • Improved automatic weapon grouper (improves AI and greatly improves your Random Battle experience)
  • Citadel, Exigency Incorporated, and Shadowyards Heavy Industries updates integrated
« Last Edit: September 29, 2014, 09:06:23 PM by Dark.Revenant »
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ORMtnMan

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Re: [0.6.2a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 1.11
« Reply #296 on: September 30, 2014, 01:28:47 PM »

I want to play this, but if I start a campaign... I probably will never finish my mod... So, forgive me if I resist for now.
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ROFLtheWAFL

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Re: [0.6.2a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 1.11
« Reply #297 on: September 30, 2014, 02:10:20 PM »

The starter variant for the Alastor doesn't seem to exist. Starting a campaign and picking the frigate option crashes the game. Checked the mod files, and as expected, there isn't a variant file for a starter Alastor.
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Dark.Revenant

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Re: [0.6.2a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 1.11
« Reply #298 on: September 30, 2014, 03:32:43 PM »

I forgot to move it from my mission variants.  Well, ***.
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Dark.Revenant

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« Last Edit: September 30, 2014, 05:19:39 PM by Dark.Revenant »
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