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Author Topic: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 257962 times)

Blips

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #285 on: October 21, 2014, 10:13:31 AM »

I'm going to wait a couple of days for the inevitable patch, but I'm pretty excited to get my hands on the new version  ;D
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Thaago

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #286 on: October 21, 2014, 10:13:58 AM »

Agh, I can't decide if I should play the new update now or wait for a hotfix if there is one. :)

I'd say go for it now - nothing is all that broken, though you can buy a few weapons you shouldn't be able to. No campaign crashes yet, though there was a mission problem.
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ahrenjb

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #287 on: October 21, 2014, 10:29:04 AM »

You have faceless green visor man to compensate!

It's not the same, man. It's just not the same.

Anyway, now that I've had a few hours to play around int the new version, I'm really happy with what I'm seeing. This update has added a lot of depth to the game, the universe feels much more alive, and it's clear that a framework has been laid out for much larger things to come. I haven't really figured out how to make money on trading yet, the tariffs seem to really hit hard. 30% on both ends? I haven't explored it all that thoroughly yet, but it doesn't seem easy.

From here, what major features have yet to be added? Will features be the focus of the next update, or can we start looking forward to new content and short mission chains?


NOTE: On the TPC being buyable bug, you can buy them, but they don't show up as equip-able in the refit screen. They should probably be removed from market, sure, but it's not a huge problem if you can't actually fit them to a ship.

On a personal note, I would like to see some small customization options for ships. Ability to change between skins depending on faction relationship is something I think would add a nice touch to the game, and could be handled in the ship refitting screen. You would only be able to apply skins for factions that you have a positive enough reputation with. Ship-specific upgrades is something else I'd like to see. Project Ironclads is one example of this in action, though that's a little extreme. We've got the precedent for this in place already with the (D) variants, but this could be expanded on. Soft and hard stats, mount types, even sizes could be a part of this. It would allow for a little extra depth without the creation of a whole new ship.
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j01

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #288 on: October 21, 2014, 10:30:34 AM »

I'd just like to comment about something that might be a bit old news to some, but new news to me, as of this version.

It's a lot of text that looks negative at first glance, so I'll just preface by mentioning that the end result of what I'm about to say is 100% praise, and the wall that follows is to put it all into perspective.

I haven't played this game since before the CR stuff went in, and I've put it off since I heard about it because I absolutely did not like the idea behind the mechanic. I've always been the type of person who most enjoys getting stuck into a game, immersing myself, and going very, very slowly, deliberately, and doing my best to cheat or circumvent the system in order to prolong my gameplay experience in every way possible. That might not make sense, but I'll put it this way- in Starsector, I really, really loved extremely long battles. A lot of times this meant getting the fastest ships and kiting around enemies that were way too big and tough, and that I shouldn't have normally been able to take on. Other times it meant investing everything in a fleet of the most durable and defensive ships possible with weapons that don't rely on ammo, and outlasting the enemies, often with the goal of defeating them in very long engagements where, as a result, I ended up winning without taking any hull or even armor damage. I'm the kind of person who doesn't use consumables in games where it's at all possible to win without them, even (especially) if it means extra grinding to make up or even far surpass the difference, which I greatly enjoy. I always go for unlimited attack methods and resources, even if it means they'd be far weaker than limited alternatives. My greatest joy in gaming is almost always the ability to play indefinitely without stopping, or with as few stops and extra steps of maintenance as possible. I hate item durability. I hate time limits. I hate escort quests where my success hinges on an uncontrollable factor that I can't grind to make up for.

As of this most recent update, I've finally tried the game again, fully expecting to be disappointed by all the new limiting factors both in combat and out.

I was very pleasantly surprised.

The CR system and the way supplies are required and used seems to work just exactly right. It's not even just that I don't mind them. I actually enjoy their inclusion in the game. It almost feels like some kind of rare balance has been struck, where those factors are implemented so smoothly with the gameplay that even I can't help but feel motivated by them, rather than bogged down.

CR drop during combat, especially after prior recent battles, and all that it entails, seems to only serve to make each new fight more tense. The handicaps and risks of rapidly dropping CR are gradual enough that it really just feels like a longer battle has all the more at stake, which is exhilarating. Suddenly, a grueling battle against already overwhelming odds (granted, I've only played as one or two frigates going up against bigger and deadlier forces so far) becomes all the more desperate when that CR timer ticks down and the alarm sounds.

It's difficult to describe, but if someone with my extreme preferences for non-limited gaming mechanics finds them compelling, then you guys must have done something very, very right, or at least are on the right track.

Also, The sound effects seem to have largely changed since the last time I played. I liked them fine before, but they're better by leaps and bounds now. Kudos all around.
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Thaago

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #289 on: October 21, 2014, 10:34:55 AM »

Right, the sounds! I forgot the sounds! They totally rock, and I'm digging the new menu screen music.
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Uomoz

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #290 on: October 21, 2014, 10:53:07 AM »

The new menu music is so fracking amazing.
« Last Edit: October 21, 2014, 11:19:51 AM by Uomoz »
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ciago92

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #291 on: October 21, 2014, 11:14:09 AM »

AH HA! I'm not going crazy. Pirate ships are flipping between 'acting as independents' or 'pirates' indentity tags. Alex!

Yeah, I've noticed that happening quite a bit - usually to smugglers.
I thought that was an intended mechanic.

I forget where the quote is, but I believe it's something to do with low stability meaning the independants are becoming pirates to make a little extra money or something. I definitely was not surprised when it happened in game, something had prepared me for it. now if only I could remember where I saw it mentioned. probably somewhere back like ten pages ago in this thread tbh
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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #292 on: October 21, 2014, 11:41:37 AM »

AH HA! I'm not going crazy. Pirate ships are flipping between 'acting as independents' or 'pirates' indentity tags. Alex!

Yeah, I've noticed that happening quite a bit - usually to smugglers.
I thought that was an intended mechanic.

I forget where the quote is, but I believe it's something to do with low stability meaning the independants are becoming pirates to make a little extra money or something. I definitely was not surprised when it happened in game, something had prepared me for it. now if only I could remember where I saw it mentioned. probably somewhere back like ten pages ago in this thread tbh

It's not a bug, its a feature!
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ahrenjb

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #293 on: October 21, 2014, 12:41:09 PM »

I also wanted to say, I really, REALLY like the new missile trails and behaviors. Winding missile paths and streams make them a pleasure to use, and I find myself using missile weaponry often now where before I usually forgot I even had them mounted.
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CrashToDesktop

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #294 on: October 21, 2014, 12:56:31 PM »

Those trails make missiles seem a lot more intimidating - I remember myself seeing some Swarmers come at me (at the time, I hadn't remembered that they'd been switched to HE from Frag damage) and I almost crapped myself at it - seeing 4 missiles converge on me like a Hurricane MIRV was downright terrifying in my Frigate.

As a site note, the Frag Bomb Bays are still available in the campaign.
« Last Edit: October 21, 2014, 12:58:15 PM by The Soldier »
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CopperCoyote

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #295 on: October 21, 2014, 02:04:29 PM »

Small little codex detail: the piranha description still says they use swarmers instead of LMG.

The hit you take to your standing from trading with the pirate station is really large. I wouldn't have noticed if i hadn't been about to starve, and the friendly bases were on the other side of the star.

The pirate targets seem to dry up pretty fast too. I don't know what the others are doing differently, but i'm having a hard time as a bounty hunter. Buying combat ships is tough due to the standing hit i took. Also hurray on marines being useful finally. Those stupid fees and tariffs also make it hard to turn a profit. For every scan i'm subject to it ends up negating the profit from at least one combat victory. Sometimes more.

The (D) ships' negative hull mods seem to be mostly -3 burnspeed. Is this intentional, or have i just gotten bad rolls? I had one at -1 and another that had flux problems (a cerebrus so it didn't matter too much). The loss of burnspeed renders them useless to me because i have to be able to catch the non penalized pirate ships. If i can't i'd starve for sure.

I love the missile trails. Makes it easier for me to predict their path, and try to dodge them. Also looks cool.

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #296 on: October 21, 2014, 02:10:53 PM »

Those trails make missiles seem a lot more intimidating - I remember myself seeing some Swarmers come at me (at the time, I hadn't remembered that they'd been switched to HE from Frag damage) and I almost crapped myself at it - seeing 4 missiles converge on me like a Hurricane MIRV was downright terrifying in my Frigate.

As a site note, the Frag Bomb Bays are still available in the campaign.

4x75 HE dmg! That's 4 homing mortar shots :o
If you're behind anything less than ~500 fully intact armour, you've got good cause to fear swarmers!!
IMO they're one of the candidates for the best frigate killer weapon in the game.

The flavour text certainly needs updating.

On a side-side-note, Cluster Bomb Bays are in the campaign too.
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PCCL

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #297 on: October 21, 2014, 02:25:10 PM »

looks like ppl are trying to keep great standing with all factions (except pirates)

haven't played much into it yet, but I wonder if siding with one faction at the cost of others might be something worth considering
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #298 on: October 21, 2014, 02:27:41 PM »

Going to try to respond to as much as I can, but if you said something nice and I don't respond to it specifically: thank you!

Two of the Hound skins have the "defective" paragraph in their description despite not actually being defective.

Fixed.

A few skins don't have descriptions (of their base hull).

Not sure what you mean.



Alright Alex, we give up. What do these mean in the ship_data.csv?

c   c/fp   c/l

You can ignore these, sort of like the 4/6/8% thing. Just some derived stats for credit costs of deployments, not used by the game.


-It's reallllly hard to be a a smuggler. Trading with the pirates at all sends your reputation through the ground REALLY quickly! It seems absolutely impossible to become friendly with almost any of the factions (enough to buy a ship that doesn't suck) if you are smuggling at all!

One note: if you destabilize other markets, you'll see better hardware (of that faction) on the black market. Not sure how viable that is to force to happen where you want it, but at least, if you want decent ships on the black market, go to somewhere unstable.

-For some strange reason, "pirate" is lowercase for everything. Probably something to do with the .faction.

Yeah, it's a bit awkward. Not sure exactly how to sort it out; uppercasing "pirate" is even more weird.

-I get scanned 2-3 times per system. Often once before I dock somewhere and once immediately after by the same faction (even if they are neutral/favorable!). If I tell them I don't want to pay, they'll simply wait a few seconds then try to scan me again! I mean, yeah it's fine to get scanned every once in awhile, but this is INSANE!!!

Noted.

My one wish for any future versions of this is to have a "pirate" start at the character selection screen. Right now it takes absolutely forever to make them friendly with you and they'll often try to attack you while you're doing that (which makes it even harder!).

Also noted.


It seems to me, and most people here and on the chat, that the engine's health is WAY too low! You so much as LOOK an an Onslaughts backside funny and he will flameout! And this isn't with Injectors on either! I think you might had inverted their health boost

Not sure what happened, exactly, but I've just tripled engine health, so that's around how it'll be in the bugfix release.


MissileRenderDataAPI does not seem to offer any way to grab the location of the loaded missiles, which is rather crucial for my purposes.  It would also save a huge amount of databasing legwork if it could also return the getProjectileSpecId of the loaded missiles, so I don't have to make yet another csv to cross-reference turrets to missiles.

Also, weapon.getBarrelSpriteAPI() creates a NPE, presumably when used on a weapon that lacks a barrel.  It should return null instead.

By the way, the main menu battle does not run renderInXCoords.  I don't know if this is by design or not.

All fixed.


There is some inconstant information on the page about the pricing:

Thank you - fixed (by removing said question from the FAQ).


Which also brings another question, anyone know the relationship caps for various actions? (smuggling, bounty hunting, trading etc)

There's an additional consideration here - for example, you can get to "cooperative" from bounty hunting, but only for taking down large fleets.


Is a tug from Asharu supposed to cost nearly 25,000 credits now?

Yes.



Spoiler
I'd just like to comment about something that might be a bit old news to some, but new news to me, as of this version.

It's a lot of text that looks negative at first glance, so I'll just preface by mentioning that the end result of what I'm about to say is 100% praise, and the wall that follows is to put it all into perspective.

I haven't played this game since before the CR stuff went in, and I've put it off since I heard about it because I absolutely did not like the idea behind the mechanic. I've always been the type of person who most enjoys getting stuck into a game, immersing myself, and going very, very slowly, deliberately, and doing my best to cheat or circumvent the system in order to prolong my gameplay experience in every way possible. That might not make sense, but I'll put it this way- in Starsector, I really, really loved extremely long battles. A lot of times this meant getting the fastest ships and kiting around enemies that were way too big and tough, and that I shouldn't have normally been able to take on. Other times it meant investing everything in a fleet of the most durable and defensive ships possible with weapons that don't rely on ammo, and outlasting the enemies, often with the goal of defeating them in very long engagements where, as a result, I ended up winning without taking any hull or even armor damage. I'm the kind of person who doesn't use consumables in games where it's at all possible to win without them, even (especially) if it means extra grinding to make up or even far surpass the difference, which I greatly enjoy. I always go for unlimited attack methods and resources, even if it means they'd be far weaker than limited alternatives. My greatest joy in gaming is almost always the ability to play indefinitely without stopping, or with as few stops and extra steps of maintenance as possible. I hate item durability. I hate time limits. I hate escort quests where my success hinges on an uncontrollable factor that I can't grind to make up for.

As of this most recent update, I've finally tried the game again, fully expecting to be disappointed by all the new limiting factors both in combat and out.

I was very pleasantly surprised.

The CR system and the way supplies are required and used seems to work just exactly right. It's not even just that I don't mind them. I actually enjoy their inclusion in the game. It almost feels like some kind of rare balance has been struck, where those factors are implemented so smoothly with the gameplay that even I can't help but feel motivated by them, rather than bogged down.

CR drop during combat, especially after prior recent battles, and all that it entails, seems to only serve to make each new fight more tense. The handicaps and risks of rapidly dropping CR are gradual enough that it really just feels like a longer battle has all the more at stake, which is exhilarating. Suddenly, a grueling battle against already overwhelming odds (granted, I've only played as one or two frigates going up against bigger and deadlier forces so far) becomes all the more desperate when that CR timer ticks down and the alarm sounds.

It's difficult to describe, but if someone with my extreme preferences for non-limited gaming mechanics finds them compelling, then you guys must have done something very, very right, or at least are on the right track.

Also, The sound effects seem to have largely changed since the last time I played. I liked them fine before, but they're better by leaps and bounds now. Kudos all around.
[close]

Thank you - glad that it managed to work out counter to your expectations :)


AH HA! I'm not going crazy. Pirate ships are flipping between 'acting as independents' or 'pirates' indentity tags. Alex!

Yeah, I've noticed that happening quite a bit - usually to smugglers.
I thought that was an intended mechanic.

I forget where the quote is, but I believe it's something to do with low stability meaning the independants are becoming pirates to make a little extra money or something. I definitely was not surprised when it happened in game, something had prepared me for it. now if only I could remember where I saw it mentioned. probably somewhere back like ten pages ago in this thread tbh

It's not a bug, its a feature!

Yeah, it's a feature. All pirates start as independents and eventually (if they're lucky enough) return to their home world with plunder. I mean, legally acquired goods. Pirate bases don't actually spawn any pirate fleets aside from the occasional smuggler.


The pirate targets seem to dry up pretty fast too. I don't know what the others are doing differently, but i'm having a hard time as a bounty hunter. Buying combat ships is tough due to the standing hit i took. Also hurray on marines being useful finally. Those stupid fees and tariffs also make it hard to turn a profit. For every scan i'm subject to it ends up negating the profit from at least one combat victory. Sometimes more.

Some of it is down to luck, but generally, you want to head for a system that 1) has a sizeable bounty and 2) has 20+ days left on that bounty. That way you can take full advantage. Oh, also, you want to make sure the bounty is triggered by pirates - for example, going to Valhalla to bounty-hunt when the targets are actually Tri-Tachyon patrols may not be advisable early on. You can tell who the main targets are from the bounty notice. (Taking out pirates will always work, but they might not actually *be* there.)

The (D) ships' negative hull mods seem to be mostly -3 burnspeed. Is this intentional, or have i just gotten bad rolls? I had one at -1 and another that had flux problems (a cerebrus so it didn't matter too much). The loss of burnspeed renders them useless to me because i have to be able to catch the non penalized pirate ships. If i can't i'd starve for sure.

The (D) ships are not random. The -3 is for frigates; the -1 is for larger ships. I'd say the only (D) ships that are player-useful, especially at the start, are ones that don't have degraded engines - but most of them do. They aren't meant to be something the player uses much - rather, they're there to make up the bulk of pirate fleets. It "makes sense" backstory-wise, and gameplay-wise, makes pirates better early-game targets.

On a side-side-note, Cluster Bomb Bays are in the campaign too.

Noted.


haven't played much into it yet, but I wonder if siding with one faction at the cost of others might be something worth considering

I'd say you have to, if you want to sustain a larger fleet by fighting.
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CrashToDesktop

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #299 on: October 21, 2014, 02:28:25 PM »

@gunnyfreak
It's certainly worth doing if you actually want a challenge other than Pirates - Might go after the Sindrian Diktat or the Ludd for some added difficulty.  Also, going after the Ludd will probably destabilize the ENTIRE SECTOR due to the freaking huge amounts of food they produce - very few stations out there are capable of meeting those demands.  Sindria, the capital of the Sindrian Diktat, is VERY much a hub of trade in the sector (I consistently see ~20 fleets loading and unloading cargo in Sindria), so attacking that might also disrupt a lot of trade.
« Last Edit: October 21, 2014, 02:30:57 PM by The Soldier »
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