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Author Topic: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 257847 times)

Gothars

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #435 on: October 27, 2014, 12:19:52 PM »

The "trade or hire personnel" and "buy and sell ships" are an an understatement now as a title name of what you get from accessing those station panels.

How so? The names seem like a accurate descriptions of those panels' function to me.
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The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

Arranging holidays in an embrace with the Starsector is priceless.

Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #436 on: October 27, 2014, 02:21:11 PM »

Just block market flooding transactions (with a message explaining why), much like blocking crew spacing.

EDIT:  On second thought, flooding a market of a faction the player planned to attack anyway would be a great way to declare war to the faction before blasting their ships.
« Last Edit: October 27, 2014, 03:07:01 PM by Megas »
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Zibywan

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #437 on: October 27, 2014, 02:46:29 PM »

One small nuisance I've noticed, and not seen mentioned by anyone else, is a refitting issue.

When I try to load a variant and have the needed parts in my supply pile the game elects to buy the parts from the market rather than use the ones I have in storage. Having to manually build every ship to use my collected weapons is only a minor inconvenience, but it is annoying.
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Play how you want, just don't try to force your playstyle on the other kids in the sandbox. Balance around the casual so the game can survive.

Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #438 on: October 27, 2014, 03:11:22 PM »

I think I finally made it to the endgame, and difficulty of skilled captains (with max Combat) spikes dramatically.  It is like a game with eight stages, stages 1-7 are easy to medium, but the final stage spikes to harder than the previous stages combined.  Some of the max level perks make captains very dangerous and difficult to kill (with a single small ship, at least).

EDIT:  Also, named pirate fleets at endgame are often renegade deserter fleets of other factions and only pirates in name.  They do not use (D) ships like real pirates, but other factions' ships, including capitals.
« Last Edit: October 27, 2014, 03:15:10 PM by Megas »
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #439 on: October 27, 2014, 03:31:04 PM »

Question:  Do enemy ships with skilled captains give more experience than the same ship without its captain?

Once they have Combat 10, their fleets are often no easier than defense fleets.  I only get about 60,000 XP, less than what the old Hegemony defense fleet would be worth today (50,000 * 2).  I feel like I need to exploit food shortages to power level to the 50s.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #440 on: October 27, 2014, 05:28:51 PM »

I agree that it would be nice to have some kind of "hey, you're flooding the market" warning, but I don't think a pop-up is a good idea. There's plenty of room on the screen where such a warning can be displayed without requiring a click to dismiss it. Like so:

Spoiler
[close]

I like the idea, and how that looks in the UI. Unfortunately, it's a bit involved (structurally, the food shortage event would have to have a way to control the UI like that; what if multiple events want to do this for different commodities; that particular area in the UI isn't empty in smaller resolutions; etc). I'll keep it in mind for the future, though.


When I try to load a variant and have the needed parts in my supply pile the game elects to buy the parts from the market rather than use the ones I have in storage. Having to manually build every ship to use my collected weapons is only a minor inconvenience, but it is annoying.

Oh? It's supposed to take from cargo, then from storage, and then anything paid. If it's not doing this, it's a bug - noted and will take a look.


Question:  Do enemy ships with skilled captains give more experience than the same ship without its captain?

Same XP at the moment.
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DeMatt

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #441 on: October 27, 2014, 06:46:16 PM »

I agree that it would be nice to have some kind of "hey, you're flooding the market" warning, but I don't think a pop-up is a good idea. There's plenty of room on the screen where such a warning can be displayed without requiring a click to dismiss it. Like so:

Spoiler
[close]

I like the idea, and how that looks in the UI. Unfortunately, it's a bit involved (structurally, the food shortage event would have to have a way to control the UI like that; what if multiple events want to do this for different commodities; that particular area in the UI isn't empty in smaller resolutions; etc). I'll keep it in mind for the future, though.
Maybe not tie it to the event at all?  Just relate "quantity of cargo" versus "size of market", and if the ratio is too large, pop up the warning "That amount of <cargo> you are <buying/selling> is enough to distort the market.  The authorities may look unkindly upon such activities... click here to dismiss."  Then the warning can apply to the possibility of provoking a glut (or a shortage) too.
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Sordid

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #442 on: October 27, 2014, 06:48:43 PM »

I like the idea, and how that looks in the UI. Unfortunately, it's a bit involved (structurally, the food shortage event would have to have a way to control the UI like that; what if multiple events want to do this for different commodities; that particular area in the UI isn't empty in smaller resolutions; etc). I'll keep it in mind for the future, though.

Oh, right. I forgot 4:3 is still a thing. Well I can't help you with any of the back-end stuff, but if that placement isn't suitable you could replace the faction logo with the warning instead, like so:

Spoiler
[close]

You have a smaller faction logo right above that area and another one in between the inventory grids, so nothing is lost if the warning does pop up (which presumably won't be often anyway). As for multiple commodities, there already is a handy list of commodities that you're selling right below the warning. Simply highlight the commodities the warning applies to in the same color as the warning, that should make it obvious to the player that that's what the warning is about.

Maybe not tie it to the event at all?  Just relate "quantity of cargo" versus "size of market", and if the ratio is too large, pop up the warning "That amount of <cargo> you are <buying/selling> is enough to distort the market.  The authorities may look unkindly upon such activities... click here to dismiss."  Then the warning can apply to the possibility of provoking a glut (or a shortage) too.

That's a cool idea. You could even have different levels of warnings, like a yellow one along the lines of "this may destabilize the market and draw the attention of the authorities" and a red one for "this will severely destabilize the market and draw the ire of the authorities".
« Last Edit: October 27, 2014, 06:53:04 PM by Sordid »
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #443 on: October 27, 2014, 07:11:27 PM »

Hmm, yeah, this is interesting. It would also be a good place to put warnings such as "selling hand weapons on the black market will severely destabilize the market", which is a thing but I'm willing to bet not many people know about it, because it's not explained anywhere, really.

For bonus points: where would multiple warnings coexist if they needed to? :)
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PCCL

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #444 on: October 27, 2014, 07:25:36 PM »

hmm, maybe a small triangle with exclamation mark in the grid itself? and when hovering over it'll display a short popup that says "selling too much of this will destablize the market" or "selling too much of this will catch the attention of authorities"

mockup below:
Spoiler
[close]
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mmm.... tartiflette

Sordid

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #445 on: October 27, 2014, 07:51:45 PM »

Hmm, yeah, this is interesting. It would also be a good place to put warnings such as "selling hand weapons on the black market will severely destabilize the market", which is a thing but I'm willing to bet not many people know about it, because it's not explained anywhere, really.

Oh that's cool, I didn't know about that! I'm totally going to do that just for fun. Is it possible to get a full-blown revolution going if you supply enough guns, with the government getting overturned and the planet joining another faction or going independent? That'd be really cool. Politics through gun-running. Hell yes.

Quote
For bonus points: where would multiple warnings coexist if they needed to? :)

I'd say the same place, really. You can have multiple warnings at once but you can only trigger one at a time (because you're moving goods one at a time between the inventory grids), so you can also display them one at a time as they come up. You do a destabilizing transaction, a sound plays and a warning pops up. You do another one, the sound plays again and the warning box flashes two or three times to let you know its contents have changed. Then you can cycle through the warnings with buttons.

Highlight items in the transaction list. Bright red for items related to the currently displayed warning, dull red for items related to the other warnings. Also add gunnyfreak's exclamation mark signs, bright and dull as with the list highlights, to allow the player to easily find the offending items in the inventory grid. Switch the warning box to the relevant warning when the player mouses over these items.

Spoiler
[close]

Edit: I'm starting to think my solution is a bit overengineered. Gunnyfreak's approach is much simpler and more elegant.
« Last Edit: October 27, 2014, 07:59:41 PM by Sordid »
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #446 on: October 27, 2014, 08:26:43 PM »

This is good: I like the idea of changing warnings in the flag area (relevant to last change in the transaction), and then adding more info to the tooltip makes sense. I'm not sure an exclamation mark on the icon is even necessary, unless perhaps the info is market-dependent and not specific to the commodity.

(Not saying I'll necessarily be able to get to this right off the bat, but still, good stuff. Thank you!)
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Histidine

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #447 on: October 27, 2014, 09:26:52 PM »

I may have missed it, but is there a reason units sold over the shortage amount can't just be dropped to the stable market price?
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Sordid

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #448 on: October 28, 2014, 07:00:23 AM »

This is good: I like the idea of changing warnings in the flag area (relevant to last change in the transaction), and then adding more info to the tooltip makes sense. I'm not sure an exclamation mark on the icon is even necessary, unless perhaps the info is market-dependent and not specific to the commodity.

(Not saying I'll necessarily be able to get to this right off the bat, but still, good stuff. Thank you!)

Well the flag area isn't actually a flag area, as far as I can tell. In the screenshot Gunnyfreak posted it's a piece of artwork. I'm guessing you put that big Diktat logo there as a placeholder because there is no artwork for Sindria yet. It did seem a bit weird that you had the same logo plastered three times on the same screen but I didn't realize why it was that way until now. But it's still something that can be occasionally and temporarily replaced by a warning, I think.

As for the exclamation marks, it's just a small QoL thing. It would be a bit inconvenient to be told by the list on the left that there's a problem with a commodity and then having to hunt through the inventory grid to find the commodity in question. The exclamation mark would let you find it very easily. Plus if you're going to include extra info in tooltips for certain commodities, it would be good to let the player know this or that commodity has some extra info they can view.

There's one other thing I wanted to mention in relation to this whole warning system. See, when I was learning the ropes of how shortages work and (accidentally) flooded a market that was suffering from a tiny shortage with a huge amount of goods and made an absolute killing, I thought to myself, cool, I've found an exploit that I can use to make massive profits. And then the investigation message popped up in my intel feed, basically a way for the game to say "oh no you didn't", and my thoughts immediately turned more along the lines of "oh crap, the dev had thought of this, I'm going to prison". Which was so cool! The warning system will make life easier for the player in the long run but it will also remove this jawdroppingly awesome moment when you think you've found a way to exploit the system and get away with it, and then thirty seconds later the game goes "nope, I know what you did, and there will be consequences". Just something to think about.

I may have missed it, but is there a reason units sold over the shortage amount can't just be dropped to the stable market price?

Gothars did address that:

I'd imagine that you're selling to the open market, i.e. to many different intermediary distributors. Which all jump at the opportunity to buy scarce goods, unaware that you're secretly selling to their competition at the same time.

Which, as I said, makes sense when selling to the open market, which is composed of many small entities that don't know what each other is doing. Not so much when selling to the military, which really shouldn't fall for this.
« Last Edit: October 28, 2014, 10:57:21 AM by Sordid »
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bills6693

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #449 on: October 28, 2014, 06:07:20 PM »

I agree that it would be nice to have some kind of "hey, you're flooding the market" warning, but I don't think a pop-up is a good idea. There's plenty of room on the screen where such a warning can be displayed without requiring a click to dismiss it. Like so:

Spoiler
[close]

I like the idea, and how that looks in the UI. Unfortunately, it's a bit involved (structurally, the food shortage event would have to have a way to control the UI like that; what if multiple events want to do this for different commodities; that particular area in the UI isn't empty in smaller resolutions; etc). I'll keep it in mind for the future, though.
What about if you just had a red box saying 'Warning' where the whole message is displayed now. On mouse-over, it would list all warnings being issued.

Hopefully in this way you would:

-Make sure there was always space no matter the resolution (as its only one box)
-Be able to have competing messages from different events (because they'd just appear one after the other, with one line break between each message)

I'd show you what I mean but I have no photo-editing ability. But it would be the same as you see an explanation when hovering over any other icon (such as the event icons at the top of that screen). You could even also have the F1 for more info, so it just displays a basic 'you're flooding the market, it won't go unnoticed' message and with F1 it explains exactly what that means (i.e. there is only the need for x amount of food to solve shortage, overselling will be noticed and investigated or whatever)
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