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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 1325008 times)

Luna

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Re: [0.65.1a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.3
« Reply #690 on: December 20, 2014, 06:04:04 PM »

Yeah. The Mauler's aim isn't that great. I end up having to past the ships I'm aiming at a bit, especially when I'm trying to hit a Torch that is facing me.
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Dark.Revenant

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Re: [0.65.1a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.3
« Reply #691 on: December 20, 2014, 06:27:56 PM »

The heavy mauler is one of the best armor-piercers in the entire game, mods included.  It was completely imbalanced when it was able to double as a sniper; there was basically no reason to ever use the assault chaingun.  Now, it's more of an actual close support weapon; the shots are too slow and inaccurate to snipe with consistently, but it still has great pressure at most ranges and really wrecks armor.

Without that nerf, it's worth more like 16 OP instead of 12 OP.
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Histidine

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Re: [0.65.1a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.3
« Reply #692 on: December 20, 2014, 06:47:05 PM »

Random tip: You can't do anything about the slower projectile speed, but the recoil effects are negated if you wait just a quarter second or so past the Mauler's reload time before firing again. Unfortunately the AI doesn't know to do this.
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Luna

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Re: [0.65.1a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.3
« Reply #693 on: December 23, 2014, 11:00:12 AM »

Oh, well, now I understand your reasoning behind it. :)
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Wyvern

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Re: [0.65.1a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.3
« Reply #694 on: December 23, 2014, 11:07:49 AM »

Hm.  I do not much like the mauler nerf, either.  I'd be more inclined to reduce its per-shot damage (and buff the assault chaingun) than to reduce the mauler's accuracy.

Similarly, I'd be inclined to reduce reaper damage (maybe 3k instead of 4k?) before nerfing its acceleration; I have enough trouble trying to land hits with the things as they are in vanilla.

As an aside, one balance adjustment I'd suggest is to dramatically reduce the reload rate of single-shot missiles; being able to fire twice in rapid succession with the +1 ammo perk from level 5 missile skill seems... unnecessary.
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Dark.Revenant

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Re: [0.65.1a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.3
« Reply #695 on: December 23, 2014, 02:31:34 PM »

Hm.  I do not much like the mauler nerf, either.  I'd be more inclined to reduce its per-shot damage (and buff the assault chaingun) than to reduce the mauler's accuracy.

Similarly, I'd be inclined to reduce reaper damage (maybe 3k instead of 4k?) before nerfing its acceleration; I have enough trouble trying to land hits with the things as they are in vanilla.

As an aside, one balance adjustment I'd suggest is to dramatically reduce the reload rate of single-shot missiles; being able to fire twice in rapid succession with the +1 ammo perk from level 5 missile skill seems... unnecessary.

The Heavy Mauler, to me, seems like it's meant to be a lighter analogue to the Hellbore cannon: slow shot speed, high damage.  I'm willing to try out improving its accuracy but the shot speed should remain where it is.  If the Heavy Mauler becomes a sniper weapon, even if the damage is reduced, it's still better than the HVD in most situations; it forces the target to keep the shield up and has dire consequences should they ever drop shields.  The HVD just doesn't have the same kick to it.

Reducing Reaper damage is not a good idea.  It's the benchmark torpedo; all other torpedoes scale off what the Reaper does.  However, its speed was just nuts; almost instantly as soon as it came out of the tube, it was screaming down range at 500 speed, making it as difficult to dodge as a ballistic projectile.  Suddenly, a Lasher with a couple Reapers on it was more threatening than the Dominator (D) with its Pilums, since you never knew when you'd hear that launch sound from off-screen and be smashed by 4,000 damage in the next second.  Dagger wings were pretty messed up as a result of this, as well.
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Wyvern

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Re: [0.65.1a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.3
« Reply #696 on: December 23, 2014, 04:21:47 PM »

Huh.  I really haven't had that sort of experience with Reapers - the only times they've given me any trouble is when I haven't actually looked at the enemy's armament and then messed up badly enough to overload in the main firing arc of an enemy onslaught - at which point the reapers really just make death come a bit faster.  (Fighting enemies with combat 10 takes some getting used to - it's a whole different ball park than the same ships sans skills.  I can kill these things fairly reliably now, but my early attempts often went poorly.)

Similarly, I haven't had the same experience with maulers in vanilla - defensively, I'd much rather face maulers than HVDs, since they do basically nothing to shields.  Sure, you have to keep shields up while in range, but that's no different than anything else, and offensively, you can get a lot farther with just kinetic weapons than you can with just explosive - you only need one gun with high per-hit damage to blast through armor, while shields constantly recover.
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Dark.Revenant

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Re: [0.65.1a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.3
« Reply #697 on: December 23, 2014, 05:16:34 PM »

Huh.  I really haven't had that sort of experience with Reapers - the only times they've given me any trouble is when I haven't actually looked at the enemy's armament and then messed up badly enough to overload in the main firing arc of an enemy onslaught - at which point the reapers really just make death come a bit faster.  (Fighting enemies with combat 10 takes some getting used to - it's a whole different ball park than the same ships sans skills.  I can kill these things fairly reliably now, but my early attempts often went poorly.)

Similarly, I haven't had the same experience with maulers in vanilla - defensively, I'd much rather face maulers than HVDs, since they do basically nothing to shields.  Sure, you have to keep shields up while in range, but that's no different than anything else, and offensively, you can get a lot farther with just kinetic weapons than you can with just explosive - you only need one gun with high per-hit damage to blast through armor, while shields constantly recover.

Yes, Reapers were avoidable even with the high speed.  However, the effort required to avoid them was disproportionately high.  Take, for example, a Harpoon Rack, which has 2,250 high explosive damage and costs 5 OP.  Personally I found avoiding three Harpoons to be somewhat more difficult, on average, than avoiding one Reaper.  But a Reaper is 4,000 high explosive damage and costs 2 OP.  It does almost double the damage, is harder to shoot down, and costs less than half has much OP to mount, while the only disadvantages are that it needs a straight line to hit something and it doesn't reach quite as far.  For the four-fold increase in damage efficiency, all you really had to pay was some effort in aiming the shot and the inability to mount it on side-facing hardpoints.  With the acceleration nerf, aiming it becomes harder and so the choice is a bit less clear-cut.

Against HVDs, you can turn shields off between shots.  A Mauler fires too quickly for that to be an option, so in a standoff scenario it actually builds flux more effectively than a HVD despite being four times less efficient.
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Wyvern

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Re: [0.65.1a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.3
« Reply #698 on: December 23, 2014, 06:16:08 PM »

Yes, Reapers were avoidable even with the high speed.  However, the effort required to avoid them was disproportionately high.  Take, for example, a Harpoon Rack, which has 2,250 high explosive damage and costs 5 OP.  Personally I found avoiding three Harpoons to be somewhat more difficult, on average, than avoiding one Reaper.  But a Reaper is 4,000 high explosive damage and costs 2 OP.  It does almost double the damage, is harder to shoot down, and costs less than half has much OP to mount, while the only disadvantages are that it needs a straight line to hit something and it doesn't reach quite as far.  For the four-fold increase in damage efficiency, all you really had to pay was some effort in aiming the shot and the inability to mount it on side-facing hardpoints.  With the acceleration nerf, aiming it becomes harder and so the choice is a bit less clear-cut.
Or you can compare the single-shot harpoon to the harpoon rack, for roughly a 2x efficiency increase... or you can compare the situation with skills in play, where the single-shot reaper offers 12k damage for 1OP, versus 4.5k for 4OP from harpoons... I think the right take-away here is that the single-shot reaper is underpriced at 2OP, *and* could use a decrease in its damage output.  As you point out, that does mess with comparative balance for modded-in torpedo variants... but at least the mods I'm using, there'd still be good arguments for using reapers (shadowyards and templar - the shadowyards torps are strongly homing but feature submunitions for much lower effective damage against armor, for example.)

Against HVDs, you can turn shields off between shots.  A Mauler fires too quickly for that to be an option, so in a standoff scenario it actually builds flux more effectively than a HVD despite being four times less efficient.
If you're in a standoff, versus just HVDs, coming from just one direction, and either have omni shields or are facing the (single) attacker, sure.  How often does that happen to you?  I've never had it happen to me - any situation that matches the rest of the criterion isn't a stand-off and I've been able to just close and kill.

Admittedly, some of this is just my play-style; I tend towards ships with strong shields and regard armor as a last-ditch defense I'd rather not rely on; I imagine I might have a different opinion on the balance of maulers vs. HVDs if I exclusively flew low-tech ships.
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Toxcity

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Re: [0.65.1a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.3
« Reply #699 on: December 23, 2014, 09:08:26 PM »

It may just be me, but I tend to keep my shield up with both Maulers and HVDs, considering that maulers do tons of damage, and HVDs have emp damage.

I actually buffed Atropos torpedoes; only Reapers were nerfed.  The reason is because they are very hard to avoid in vanilla, due to monstrous thruster stats.  While ship-mounted Reapers aren't so bad in that regard, daggers were just disgusting.

Would it be possible to have different versions of the reaper mount for fighters and ships (like the swarmer).
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angrytigerp

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Re: [0.65.1a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.3
« Reply #700 on: December 27, 2014, 03:09:56 PM »

How do non-integrated factions work into SS+ since 0.65., if at all? I remember in 0.62 you could have non-integrated mod factions in-game, and while they wouldn't have specific fleets and/or presence in the universe, you could still find and acquire their gear from random station sales (at least, I think I remember that being how it worked).

With two of the major factions not being up-to-date yet, I would like to expand my potential fleet makeups with more modders' works, but I'm just wondering how, if at all, they figure into SS+ now that the metagame has been stepped up as much as it has.
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Dark.Revenant

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Re: [0.65.1a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.3
« Reply #701 on: December 27, 2014, 04:15:37 PM »

As before, there is no integration; the additional factions will behave as if SS+ was not installed.
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angrytigerp

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Re: [0.65.1a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.3
« Reply #702 on: December 27, 2014, 04:40:19 PM »

As before, there is no integration; the additional factions will behave as if SS+ was not installed.

So they'll still have a presence in-game, insofar as the mod authors added (whatever system(s) the modder attributed to them, fleets, etc.), they just won't benefit from stuff like having trained commanders and such?
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Dark.Revenant

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Re: [0.65.1a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.3
« Reply #703 on: December 27, 2014, 05:19:07 PM »

As before, there is no integration; the additional factions will behave as if SS+ was not installed.

So they'll still have a presence in-game, insofar as the mod authors added (whatever system(s) the modder attributed to them, fleets, etc.), they just won't benefit from stuff like having trained commanders and such?

Correct.
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Plan9

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Re: [0.65.1a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.3
« Reply #704 on: January 01, 2015, 09:04:46 PM »

Whenever I try launching Starsector with this mod active the game crashes right at the end of the initial loading bar with the error "Fatal: Index: 0, Length: 0"
I have had a look at the log but I haven't been able to make much sense of what is causing the error.
I have attached the error from the log file to this post (because the log file in its entirety was too large to be attached). Any help would be much appreciated.


[attachment deleted by admin]
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