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Author Topic: [0.8.1a] The Knights Templar 0.9.8f  (Read 626865 times)

j01

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Re: [0.65.1a] The Knights Templar v0.9.3e
« Reply #180 on: November 28, 2014, 02:49:03 AM »

Paragons are supposed to be the epitome of domain design.

And the templar faction is meant to be far superior to anything the domain of man ever even dreamed of.

Like I said originally though, the problem is indeed with the balancing of how certain vanilla ships such as the paragon synergize with high character level benefits all stacking together.

I'd certainly like for the most optimally fitted paragon to still not be capable of taking on 3 optimally outfitted templar paladins (and any nearby jesuits+bulwarks) simultaneously without breaking a sweat, but it's the mod maker's prerogative if he wants to bother trying to balance his mod against vanilla content that is clearly not yet balanced, itself.

I don't think it would take much more than something like allowing templars the ability to deal some percentage based flux damage, and maybe some additional speed/maneuverability (high level character skills allow for enormous boosts in speed and maneuverability to even hulks like the paragon and onslaught, already, allowing even them to kite enemies to a degree), but I definitely wouldn't blame dark.revenant if he just chalked those factors up as unbalanced outliers that should be ignored until starsector devs officially address them.
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Dark.Revenant

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Re: [0.65.1a] The Knights Templar v0.9.3e
« Reply #181 on: November 28, 2014, 02:59:41 AM »

Pretty spot on, I'd say. A workable compromise however might be something along the lines of, say, the priwen burst dealing hard flux damage to fully shielded enemies within its blast radius of a percentage of the enemy ship's max flux.

This would make it very powerful against paragons with their deep flux reserves, giving templars a much needed edge against them and other ships with huge flux maxes and super efficient shields specifically, without making it overkill against other ships.
Percentage-based damage is really sloppy.  I'll try making Priwen Burst do kinetic damage, but I don't think this is going to solve the issue.

By the way, speaking about standing towards Templars. I've noticed the way to rise it surprisingly easily and without harming relations with other factions.
I'm using Debido's "RandomSector" mod which randomizes star's locations and adds them ability to move over time. This means that Templars homeworld is no longer on the edge of map and can be close to other stars. So the number of faction and pirate fleets sneaking back and forth in hyperspace near this system will be much bigger and you can get standing rewards for killing those pirates. And the thing is that such actions improve relations with Templars by the same amount as with any other faction. Even if there are no active crusades atm.
Something tells me it's not supposed to be this way.
It's impossible to remove that mechanic.  The Templars are not designed to work properly in RandomSector.

Is this really that much of an issue? Paragons are supposed to be the epitome of domain design. They are supposed to be super powerfull against other ships.
 Besides, finding/buying/equipping/maintaining a paragon is no easy task at first, but endgame you pretty much don't care.
 Most games have this issue, where they cease to be a challenge once you cruise through them and become god.
 
 And of course smaller ships are more vulnerable to brutes like the Paragon, size can matter. There's no shame if a paladin outright loses to one, its just a cruiser.
 As for the disco paragon build, thats an issue of vanilla, not your mod.
 But if you do want to fix it, might i suggest giving a ship the same system the Exi capital ships carrier has, the one that can teleport a ship close to it? Might seem cheesy, but it could do the trick.
I fail to see how recall teleport could help this situation.  Also, Paladins are cruisers only by designation; combat-wise, they are supposed to be stronger than Paragons.

I'd certainly like for the most optimally fitted paragon to still not be capable of taking on 3 optimally outfitted templar paladins (and any nearby jesuits+bulwarks) simultaneously without breaking a sweat, but it's the mod maker's prerogative if he wants to bother trying to balance his mod against vanilla content that is clearly not yet balanced, itself.

I don't think it would take much more than something like allowing templars the ability to deal some percentage based flux damage, and maybe some additional speed/maneuverability (high level character skills allow for enormous boosts in speed and maneuverability to even hulks like the paragon and onslaught, already, allowing even them to kite enemies to a degree), but I definitely wouldn't blame dark.revenant if he just chalked those factors up as unbalanced outliers that should be ignored until starsector devs officially address them.
As I've said before, if I just buff Templars to be able to kill the cheesiest unbalanced vanilla content, anyone actually playing the game legitimately (the majority, by far) will be unable to even touch the Templars, and thus won't experience their content.  It's not possible to have them both strong enough to kill BS player-skilled Paragons and also weak enough to be beatable with players that aren't running optimized capital ships with Combat 10, Technology 10.
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Cycerin

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Re: [0.65.1a] The Knights Templar v0.9.3e
« Reply #182 on: November 28, 2014, 04:12:24 AM »

Nothing beats a Paragon with the passive hard flux dissipation skill and more than 20 aptitude points. It's because Fortress Shield is only balanced by the fact that it slowly builds hard flux, and if you remove that, things get silly. You can break vanilla if you want, it's not something we can do anything about with this mod. For most players, Templars are seen as way too powerful.
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Ratheden

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Re: [0.65.1a] The Knights Templar v0.9.3e
« Reply #183 on: December 03, 2014, 03:14:35 AM »

I like to think I am on the low end of average players, and Templars seem like gods to me :)
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Histidine

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Re: [0.65.1a] The Knights Templar v0.9.3e
« Reply #184 on: December 04, 2014, 11:26:35 PM »

I noticed that factions like to spawn really big patrol fleets even when no crusades are going on, presumably to fight the low-level random Templar incursions.

Could the fleets (both Templars and their enemies) be tied to crusadeScale or another variable, to reduce the system load for us 32-bit dinosaurs?
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Dark.Revenant

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Re: [0.65.1a] The Knights Templar v0.9.3e
« Reply #185 on: December 05, 2014, 10:50:44 AM »

There is no point.  They're not spawning more fleets, just bigger ones.

The Templars, when no crusade is going on, spawn fewer ships than any faction in the game, mods included.
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Dark.Revenant

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[0.65.1a] The Knights Templar v0.9.3f
« Reply #186 on: December 08, 2014, 01:50:43 AM »

Lots of little updates and little improvements.  Enjoy!


Download The Knights Templar 0.9.3f
Download Mirror
(Requires LazyLib 2.0b)
(Requires ShaderLib Beta v1.02) (Updated!)
(Supported by Starsector+ 2.3) (Updated!)

We also recommend Version Checker 1.2 to notify you when an update is ready.

Note: This mod uses custom shader effects.  If you suffer performance issues, adjust or disable these effects in Templars/data/config/templarShaders.json


Change Log
Version 0.9.3f (December 8, 2014)
- Code review and cleanup
- Anamorphic flare shader updated; more colors!
- Ascalon now has storage space
- Ascalon should stock a better variety of ships and have more weapons available
- Ascalon stocks a lot of fuel and supplies now; tariff removed
- Non-crusade fleets can be a lot smaller, for an early game challenge
- Fixed bug: reputation no longer improves automatically
- Lattice Shields now offer 25% beam resistance
- Interdictor Drone hit points increased to 700 from 450, armor increased to 100 from 75
- Archbishop hit points increased to 17000 from 14000
- Lattice Shields are now influenced by stat mods, such as from player skills and CR bonuses
- Priwen Burst damage increased by 33%; damage type changed to Kinetic (EMP unchanged)
« Last Edit: December 08, 2014, 10:15:57 AM by Dark.Revenant »
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isaacssv552

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Re: [0.65.1a] The Knights Templar v0.9.3f
« Reply #187 on: December 09, 2014, 01:53:44 PM »

If you want Paladins to kill Paragons just give them the excelsior's reactor, a Paladin with an excelsior's reactor hull mod and max flux can instakill anything by venting.

On a more serious note, the templar variants have way more OP used than the hulls actually have, at least in the missions. I can never refit the templar ships without them losing up to 100 OP worth of weapons, vent, capacitors, and hullmods. I solved this by boosting the OP in the ship_data.csv file. I think I gave the Paladin 350 OP because thats about what the variants use and the same amount the Paragon has.

Otherwise this mod is amazing.
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Dark.Revenant

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Re: [0.65.1a] The Knights Templar v0.9.3f
« Reply #188 on: December 09, 2014, 03:02:20 PM »

The variants deliberately use way more OP/caps/vents than the hulls are rated for, because it simulates max commander stats (+30% OP, reduced weapon OP cost, etc).  Increasing the OP will make them almost impossible to kill in a SS+ campaign.
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isaacssv552

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Re: [0.65.1a] The Knights Templar v0.9.3f
« Reply #189 on: December 09, 2014, 04:43:53 PM »

I did notice that they started curb stomping the AI in crusades after I made the change, although it may have been my increases to the templar's fleet size that did it. I found them hard to kill in SS+ with the increased OP, though far from impossible, but decided that having large templar fleets wipe out player fleets without capitals made sense.

If the variants are accounting for the command bonuses would it be possible to give them an OP bonus in the missions so refitting them doesn't penalize the player?
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Dark.Revenant

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Re: [0.65.1a] The Knights Templar v0.9.3f
« Reply #190 on: December 09, 2014, 06:52:28 PM »

I did notice that they started curb stomping the AI in crusades after I made the change, although it may have been my increases to the templar's fleet size that did it. I found them hard to kill in SS+ with the increased OP, though far from impossible, but decided that having large templar fleets wipe out player fleets without capitals made sense.

If the variants are accounting for the command bonuses would it be possible to give them an OP bonus in the missions so refitting them doesn't penalize the player?

First of all, it's unfortunately not possible to give OP bonuses for missions.

Even so, the loadouts are designed specifically to work well for the given mission.  Smite, for example, is a great use case for the Joyeuse.  Massacre is a great place for the point-defense-oriented Rhon lasers on your partner ship.
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jupjupy

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Re: [0.65.1a] The Knights Templar v0.9.3f
« Reply #191 on: December 10, 2014, 12:26:35 AM »

First of all, it's unfortunately not possible to give OP bonuses for missions.

Didnt you have the Shield Bypass in SS+? Couldnt you stick a variant of that - locked to the player/AI for normal campaign, of course, and maybe made so you cant put it on any other ship - that provides a negative OP cost without any other effects?
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Dark.Revenant

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Re: [0.65.1a] The Knights Templar v0.9.3f
« Reply #192 on: December 10, 2014, 01:05:11 AM »

First of all, it's unfortunately not possible to give OP bonuses for missions.

Didnt you have the Shield Bypass in SS+? Couldnt you stick a variant of that - locked to the player/AI for normal campaign, of course, and maybe made so you cant put it on any other ship - that provides a negative OP cost without any other effects?

That's an exceptionally awkward solution.  Honestly, I like it as it is.  I can see why some people might be bothered by having custom loadouts being weaker, but I think it offsets the benefit you get from being able to select any combination of things you want.
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isaacssv552

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Re: [0.65.1a] The Knights Templar v0.9.3f
« Reply #193 on: December 10, 2014, 05:04:51 AM »

I personally find refitting to be almost as fun as actually fighting so penalties for refitting really irk me. However, if its not possible to boost the ships for the missions thats fine, I'll just continue boosting the OP amount.
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Archan31

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Re: [0.65.1a] The Knights Templar v0.9.3f
« Reply #194 on: December 11, 2014, 06:53:05 AM »

I'm having trouble getting reputation with the templars. I've tried assisting them in their crusades and i've tried killing pirates that are in a crusaded system. Also, I'm using an older version because 9.3f seems to crash my game. any help?
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