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Voyager I posted:1000 range is only exceptional for a small-mount weapon that can be fielded in bulk by Frigates (other small mounts can already push that range, but usually at prohibitively high OP costs). Medium ballistics and beams can already reach that far without factoring in that larger hulls get more powerful Integrated Targeting Units, and effective combat ranges only go up from there as ship sizes increase. It's going to be a huge game-changer for the Wolf, especially in the very early game 1 Wolf v 1 Hound battles, but it's not going to break the combat system in general and breaking 1000 range isn't unusual for most ships larger than frigates. It actually might make things worse for Frigates since now every single medium or high tech ship can project a 1000 range gently caress-off zone around themselves for 5 OP. You can get weapons which can hit out to 1000 units, but the only beam weapon currently that will do that is the high intensity laser which is extremely rare, and a pain in the arse when fielded by most ships. As a player you can certainly get your ships to be effective out to long ranges, and I frequently do with targeting units and such, but most of the AI fielded ships fight well within 1000 units. If the majority of beam weapons including the very common graviton beams, phase beams, and tactical lasers are 1000 units as standard, that is going to be a dramatic increase in beam effectiveness and it's going to mean a lot of ships are going to be packing weapons which you basically cannot evade. That's not compelling game design when you have no option to evade a weapon either strategically or tactically because it is both prolific and effective. I also again find ammo to be a very significant concern, if you're using a small and fast or undergunned ship to fight a large fleet you have to manage your shots to ensure you have enough ammo to fight everything. Again it's also the primary concern when considering what kind of ballistic weapon to mount, why would you bother with kinetics if you can overload everything with high explosives and destroy the ship during the first overload? Kinetics are important because trying to do that with explosives will cost you too much ammo to be effective. Ships will probably rarely run out of ammo, but I don't think that means ammo isn't significant, because the reason you don't run out of ammo is because you design your ships with that in mind. If you're making a standoff cruiser you arm with with energy weapons or you put the right kind of ballistics on it, and you don't use weapons that are scarce on ammo if you're concerned about running out of it. DatonKallandor posted:Also let's not pretend the shield-less ships were ever really viable. They were a bad gimmick at the best of times. Cerberus and Hounds are pretty excellent ships in the early game and their lack of shielding is the only thing I think that keeps them balanced, both pack a solid weapons package and are very fast, and also have excellent cargo capacity, both make very good starting ships because you can catch up to a lot of things, fight effectively, and carry a lot of loot home.
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Dec 5, 2014 20:19
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I usually put expanded mags/racks on my ships just to be sure. Guess my lashers and wolves have more OP to spend on other hull mods! And a lot of lashers are filled fully with dual mgs, so  .
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Dec 5, 2014 20:53
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I'm really digging how engaged the lead dev is on the forums over there. He looks like he does a good job of explaining and rationalising the reasons for the changes he wants to implement but is also not afraid to take constructive criticism on board and is receptive to alternative ideas, even to the point of telling a dude that's not pleased with the CR timer what line he needs to alter to remove them.
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Dec 5, 2014 23:40
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Unshielded ships are poo poo in a vacuum, deceptively powerful if you are forced to make the most use of them somehow. Properly kitted Hounds have always been powerful. The Cerberus and Buffalo II less so, but with the missile buff, the Buffalo II actually has a mean weapons package.
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Dec 6, 2014 00:37
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SHAOLIN FUCKFIEND posted:Unshielded ships are poo poo in a vacuum, deceptively powerful if you are forced to make the most use of them somehow. Properly kitted Hounds have always been powerful. The Cerberus and Buffalo II less so, but with the missile buff, the Buffalo II actually has a mean weapons package. Urgh, yeah, the buffalo II isn't a ship I would personally make use of, but good lord is it painful when you get one down to middling health and it blows its missile load all at once in your face. It's a ship that's much better in the hands of the AI because strategically it doesn't make a lot of sense in the hands of the player, but it's a great enemy ship.
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Dec 6, 2014 00:47
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Buffalo II's are a huge pain in the rear end when they blow all their missiles in desperation. Half the time the salamanders catch most of my fleet.
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Dec 6, 2014 01:20
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OwlFancier posted:You can get weapons which can hit out to 1000 units, but the only beam weapon currently that will do that is the high intensity laser which is extremely rare, and a pain in the arse when fielded by most ships. As a player you can certainly get your ships to be effective out to long ranges, and I frequently do with targeting units and such, but most of the AI fielded ships fight well within 1000 units. Agreed on all counts. I have to admit that I'm not optimistic about most of these changes, but I'll reserve judgment until I actually get to play with them. I'll also say that Alex has shown outstanding understanding in the past with respect to what makes good gameplay. I'll also add that I really liked the flavor of ballistic weapons and missiles having finite ammo, for what it's worth. That still stands if running out of ammo were virtually a moot point.
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Dec 6, 2014 01:25
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I don't see the problem with having long protracted battles between two large fleets. Its is fun as hell being in a target rich environment. You are no longer dance fighting on a one on one basis, you're now acting as part of a larger team that can cooperate as a force multiplier. Choices open up in the tactical gameplay. Do you call for a bomber strike on your target or change target or disengage and then re-engage on a different target already under fire or just keep engaging on a 1 on 1 like in the early game. Maybe you need to run interference or bait a ship into a trap. Currently for most part you get to choose when to fall back, I don't want that to be done for me by an arbitrary timer. The timer would change player behaviour to go for bigger ships even more so than now. It has already happen with the frigates where I definitely choose a destroyer over a frigate everytime aren't worth the trouble to bring in bigger fleets as you lose a chunk of your fleet to something you have no control over. The heart of the matter is that I don't like removing options from gameplay in an arbitrary manner. It might be "justified" by the lore but one you write the lore, two lore shouldn't supersede good gameplay.
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Dec 6, 2014 01:56
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That's broadly my feeling too, if you don't like long battles you don't have to play them, if a battle ends in a unwinnable standoff you don't have the stuff to beat that enemy yet. Also don't see the point in things like the energy weapon flux damage removal, that was a really good mechanic because it rewarded you for playing a knife edge game with your flux levels. I don't feel like the changes add anything to the combat but they do seem to be taking away a lot of interesting choices and options.
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Dec 6, 2014 02:19
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I don't mind the unlimited ammo for ballistics as such, but I think it's a little too far. Personally, I think having a large supply of ammo up front is best, followed by partial reloads in-battle (say between 1/10 and 1/5th of the full ammo). Basically, doing a full reload would take too long in battle, but you can keep the guns firing by quickly tossing some of the ammo into the loading mechanism. Alternatively, allow constant slower reloading after a few seconds pause of not firing. Gonna miss the flux bonus on energy weapons. I had so much fun pushing that as close to the limit as I could.
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Dec 6, 2014 02:40
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Yeah, I was thinking have an ammo pool somewhat smaller than it is right now, but have it replenish at like 10% of the max ammo consumption rate or something. This means that if you do run your ammo pool dry you can still put out damage, but at a severely reduced rate, and you'll have to back off and let your ammo regen for a while to significantly contribute.
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Dec 6, 2014 02:58
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SHAOLIN FUCKFIEND posted:Unshielded ships are poo poo in a vacuum, deceptively powerful if you are forced to make the most use of them somehow. Properly kitted Hounds have always been powerful. The Cerberus and Buffalo II less so, but with the missile buff, the Buffalo II actually has a mean weapons package. Its like... I dunno. A Voltorb in pokemon. Why on earth would you want Self Destruct on one of your own, but dear lord it sucks when you go up against it.
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Dec 6, 2014 03:07
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Brainbread posted:Its like... I dunno. A Voltorb in pokemon. Why on earth would you want Self Destruct on one of your own, but dear lord it sucks when you go up against it. It would be more worthwhile if the enemy had some concept of self preservation or risk assessment. As it stands the AI isn't nervous about engaging something that is liable to go apeshit and fart missiles out everywhere, unlike the player.
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Dec 6, 2014 03:08
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Yeah I would want to run a Buffalo II as a missile ship in my fleet if it didnt force me to micromanage a rallying spot for it every engagement to make it not kill itself off, I love suboptimal ships, especially if they can be situationally made super powerful I wish I could watch a compilation of all the times a cocksure frig pilot got totalled by a B-II's front AM Blaster 
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Dec 6, 2014 03:33
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oohhboy posted:I don't see the problem with having long protracted battles between two large fleets. Its is fun as hell being in a target rich environment. You are no longer dance fighting on a one on one basis, you're now acting as part of a larger team that can cooperate as a force multiplier. Choices open up in the tactical gameplay. Do you call for a bomber strike on your target or change target or disengage and then re-engage on a different target already under fire or just keep engaging on a 1 on 1 like in the early game. Maybe you need to run interference or bait a ship into a trap. Currently for most part you get to choose when to fall back, I don't want that to be done for me by an arbitrary timer. The problem is that CR-less ships aren't used for long protracted intense battles. They're used for cheesing fights against the AI. It is simply much better for the game as a whole to put a timer on that option. And it is just a soft timer - ships don't become anywhere close to instantly useless when the timer hits 0, and they generally don't do it all at the same time. What it means is less cheesing of the AI and more fights in which the side with the upper hand in terms of speed (high tech, low timer) is forced to apply that speed for offense.
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Dec 6, 2014 12:53
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DatonKallandor posted:The problem is that CR-less ships aren't used for long protracted intense battles. They're used for cheesing fights against the AI. It is simply much better for the game as a whole to put a timer on that option. And it is just a soft timer - ships don't become anywhere close to instantly useless when the timer hits 0, and they generally don't do it all at the same time. What it means is less cheesing of the AI and more fights in which the side with the upper hand in terms of speed (high tech, low timer) is forced to apply that speed for offense. I don't think you can really cheese anything in this game, you can do surprisingly well but a decent AI fleet loadout will pose a threat to anything but the most broken ships, and that's a problem with those ships, not with the entire concept of ships with no peak operating time. If the AI is too easy you could rectify that by ensuring they spawn with a more rounded fleet loadout that can threaten any kind of ship. Any large fleet will be able to do this by virtue of having enough of a spawn pool that they will get the equipment they need for any fight. If you remove the ability for weaker fleets to beat stronger fleets with some good piloting, what's the point in the game? Forcing a ship designed to be able to pick its fights and play cautiously to charge in before its timer runs out is just silly. I understand why the peak performance time exists on frigates, because otherwise you would be able to kite a larger fleet endlessly all the time, but if you don't have something that can chase down a cruiser or heavy destroyer, that's a flaw in your fleet loadout, not in the existence of cruisers.
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Dec 6, 2014 13:14
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Weaker fleets can still beat stronger fleets with a CR timer. The fact that frigates aren't obsolete right now, and in fact extremely good is proof of that. But you need to put a cap on just how much you can gently caress with things in a kiting high-tech ship. CR timers also don't mean your only option is "charge madly into enemy". It simply means endless kiting is not an option.
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Dec 6, 2014 13:32
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Endless kiting isn't really an option anyway, you need to engage enemy ships in bursts because they have shields, if you don't buckle down and get into a fight you won't get anywhere. You can endlessly kite and not die, but you also won't win doing that either. If anything the only problem with the current system is that the AI is too eager to just cruise after you taking shots from long range weapons when they obviously have no chance of catching you. The solution to that is to make the AI more aware of when to retreat (it retreats a bit too late with some designs so you can build up a lot of hard flux without getting into a proper fight) and teaching it how to maneuver a fleet to encircle a faster target, at the moment all the ships just blob up and chase you rather than trying to encircle you or set up a screening wall. Total war games do this with their units, or at least they do sometimes, a big army won't just blob up and chase you in a huddle, they'll form a long rank and push towards you, encircling you once they make contact. Another option would again be to make sure the AI has a balanced fleet loadout, the presence of a couple of specific ship types can make or break a kiting strategy because it's bloody hard to kite something small and fast with kinetic weapons, because it'll force you to keep your shields up, meaning the enemy can catch up to you in their big ships more easily and then wipe the floor with you. Same goes for anything with decent kinetic or EMP missiles. The issue is that those kinds of loadouts aren't a standard part of most small to medium size fleets, so you will often find the enemy doesn't have things to counter you. This could and should be easily fixed. So yeah, some tweaks to the AI to make it aware of when it's been taking hits and not making any headway so it can retreat earlier in that instance, as well as better formation control for AI fleets would probably solve 90% of the occasions where kiting seems a bit too easy to me. Even if it doesn't make them win all the time, I don't think there's anything wrong with giving victory to a player who can focus down one ship at a time in an intelligent, rotating formation of ships maneuvering to block the escape of the player. I don't see the need to mess with the solid and appealing core mechanics of the game to fix what is pretty clearly a fleet generation and AI issue to me. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Dec 6, 2014 |
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Dec 6, 2014 13:55
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OwlFancier posted:Endless kiting isn't really an option anyway, you need to engage enemy ships in bursts because they have shields, if you don't buckle down and get into a fight you won't get anywhere. Sorry that's just plain not true. It is absolutely possible to kite endlessly with certain high-tech ships and skills while constantly getting kills. It was especially bad with the Hyperion before Frigates had CR timers, but there's still ships that can do it in bigger size classes.
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Dec 6, 2014 14:09
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Only against some fleets, I find. Against a proper mixed fleet I've yet to find anything that can really kite reliably, and most of the kills you get are still the AI basically suiciding onto you by falling into the very obvious trap of you plinking at it with a kinetic weapon until it starts to retreat at 90% flux, then hitting it with everything all at once and blowing it out of the water. Shields should, and do on properly set up ships, provide proof against overly defensive enemies. If they don't it's universally the fault of the AI not using them properly, which is eminently fixable because there are plenty of ships that do retreat properly against ships with more normal weapon loadouts. The AI just isn't programmed to treat long range high alpha ships with the kind of caution they should. I also don't think that some ships are retreating at the appropriate time given their flux capacity and speed. I don't think I've had chance to fly the hyperion because it's never spawned in my games yet, but if it's anything like the medusa in terms of stupidly OP bullshit, see my previous comment about some ships being the problem. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Dec 6, 2014 |
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Dec 6, 2014 14:20
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OwlFancier posted:Total war games do this with their units, or at least they do sometimes, a big army won't just blob up and chase you in a huddle, they'll form a long rank and push towards you, encircling you once they make contact. This may be the first time I've heard Total War's braindead tactical AI held as a standard to aspire to.
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Dec 6, 2014 16:02
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GruntyThrst posted:This may be the first time I've heard Total War's braindead tactical AI held as a standard to aspire to. Believe me I feel weird doing it but advancing in an annoyingly wide line is something TW is actually pretty good at doing. I lose more fights due to the enemy having more dudes than me and encircling me than I do anything else in that game. It'd be a lot easier if the enemy didn't quite consistently cockblock you with some trash units on the flanks.
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Dec 6, 2014 17:26
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With the changes to ballistic ammo, I wouldn't mind seeing SRMs and LRMs being given some degree of ammo regen. Harpoon MRMs and Salamanders are pretty much in the sweet spot as it is, but I find myself stripping out the other two if I ever grab a ship with them.
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Dec 7, 2014 12:41
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Hurricane and Pilum LRMs are going to regenerate one shot per 20 seconds according to the new patch feature list, so you're in luck. Apparently all ships are going to have CR timers, not just frigates, and it's that timer, not so much ammo capacity, that's going to determine when a ship is useless for further battle and needs to retreat.
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Dec 7, 2014 16:17
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I guess fast missile racks are getting reworked, too.
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Dec 8, 2014 06:39
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I'll definitely have to mod that functionality into some variety of medium-sized SRM launcher. There's a niche there for something reasonably swift but with less than a thousand units of total range. The Annihilator pods are kinda poo poo, and I've only seen them be useful against the asses of fixed-shield larger ships that have already had their armour stripped away. Something a bit closer to Battletech/MechWarrior SRMs (small numbers, short distance, unguided, little bit of spread but quick to fire and packs a decent punch) would be worthwhile, unless I'm dumb and completely missed something like that. The MRMs are definitely in a sweet spot as it stands. E: Okay, I guess the Annihilators are basically this? But they're kinda poo poo and slow. E2: Harpoon MRM pods are horrifying. Anticheese fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Dec 8, 2014 |
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Dec 8, 2014 06:48
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Anticheese posted:I'll definitely have to mod that functionality into some variety of medium-sized SRM launcher. There's a niche there for something reasonably swift but with less than a thousand units of total range. The Annihilator pods are kinda poo poo, and I've only seen them be useful against the asses of fixed-shield larger ships that have already had their armour stripped away. Annihilators, when you get to the Medium slot ones (with Expanded Missile Racks) are about 50/50 Offense/Defense. They choke up the space between you and the target with missiles that 1) Overload PD, 2) Block incoming shots from the target, and 3) Hit really hard if they they have to drop their shields. If you go with the missile skill, they are really effective. And terrifying.
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Dec 8, 2014 07:22
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Brainbread posted:Annihilators, when you get to the Medium slot ones (with Expanded Missile Racks) are about 50/50 Offense/Defense. They choke up the space between you and the target with missiles that 1) Overload PD, 2) Block incoming shots from the target, and 3) Hit really hard if they they have to drop their shields. Yeah, unless I'm using Reapers in conjunction with the +1 missile perk to kill cruisers/capital ships I almost always prefer using Annihilators. The small launchers are also pretty good if you link two or more as you can just poo poo out a ton of damage. Best thing is mounting four linked Annihilator launchers on an Enforcer; it's loving hilarious.
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Dec 8, 2014 16:51
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I'm more a fan of the Harpoon Pods. As soon as something overloads, lights out.  Though Annihilators are great for going after huge targets that put out tons of fire. Any extra bit of sacrificial shielding helps a lot in those situations.
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Dec 8, 2014 19:45
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Annihilators are less about killing things and more about managing pressure. A ship under annihilator fire has to keep their shields up, meaning they can't clear hard flux or vent, and the sheer volume of projectiles can overwhelm PD and screen for more dangerous weapons like torpedoes. The fact that they have pretty good range and ammo counts and no flux cost means it's pretty easy to maintain this pressure. (though annihilators were recently nerfed to fade out shortly after their maximum range rather than coasting on for a few thousand units). They can also be used defensively; a wall of annihilators creates a safe bubble for you to back off, collides with incoming projectiles, and is a big fat  to unshielded fighters. If you manage to catch a large ship in an exposed position you can also blow a big hole in them, but I feel like the real strength of Annihilators (and frankly, a lot of missile weapons) is being able to force the enemy to constantly play around them rather than the actual damage they can deal; if your Annihilators are making hull contact it means the enemy has already lost.Throw in the fact that they're quite cheap in terms of OP and I often have to force myself to try other missiles.
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Dec 8, 2014 22:29
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I love Annihilators, they were my favorite missile until the new patch changed the way the Fury works. They still make great screens for your more important missiles as well. A human player can manually target his PD at a Fury or Atropos in a cloud of Annihilators, the computer enemies cannot.
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Dec 8, 2014 23:13
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Nice BRDY freudian slip Pesci 
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Dec 8, 2014 23:24
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Alternatively burn piledrive into a ship with your onslaught with 4x reaper pods. All your other weapons barely matter in that setup. It's the kind of driving you'd expect from 40k orcs but hey. Then again they'd probably approve of onslaughts in general. 
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Dec 8, 2014 23:55
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Oh goddamn, you can tell when a crackhead ain't got his crack in a while. Because all he thinks or talks about is crack. What I'm saying is, the man that normally hands out the crackrock ain't on the corner and I'm getting antsy. scuba school sucks fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Dec 9, 2014 |
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Dec 9, 2014 00:48
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For whatever reason, none of the workarounds I can find for increasing the memory allocation to this game are working 
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Dec 10, 2014 06:38
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Starsector+ has updated:quote:Version 2.3
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Dec 11, 2014 10:29
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I'm finding a distinct lack of hull varieties for sale in 0.65. Anyone know what I've got to do to find Apogees and Conquests and Paragons and such in stock? I'm rocking an Onslaught, a Devastator, an Eagle, and a Heron with a huge fighter screen right now, but I'd like some more esoteric options for my fleets. I'm already on Cycle 208.
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Dec 17, 2014 02:09
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First Bass posted:For whatever reason, none of the workarounds I can find for increasing the memory allocation to this game are working Did you replace the 32 bit version of the java runtime that starsector uses?
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Dec 17, 2014 02:11
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Arrath posted:Did you replace the 32 bit version of the java runtime that starsector uses? I un-installed JRE7 and then re-installed it in a different directory, then changed the target directory in the batch file. Working fine now
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Dec 17, 2014 07:54
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I blew up my only Tempest earlier by forgetting to turn my shields on while point blank torpedoing a freighter. Given how rare it was I am rather unlikely to repeat this feat of stupidity. Does Tri-Tac only have three stations, only one with a military market in the latest version? Two in Magsec, one up near Ragnar? Makes finding real high-tech hulls and equipment very rare. Probably exactly as intended. My character is level ~45 or so and I have found precisely one plasma cannon, and one tempest hull. Wolves, Medusas galore, several Odysseys, Apogees, Auroras and Paragons, but no more tempests. Teledahn fucked around with this message at 09:19 on Dec 25, 2014 |
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Dec 24, 2014 21:26
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