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The Chad Jihad
Feb 24, 2007


I dunno I'm not a fan of Uomoz or his mod, new patch can't come soon enough

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SHAOLIN FUCKFIEND
Jan 21, 2008

New patch is going to be so loving huge.



Started going through the agonizing process of making normal maps for all the BR ships.

E: also if you dont like Uomoz' stuff, SS+ is a nice alternative. Make sure to get some integrated factions as well, especially Interstellar Imperium and Exigency. Interstellar Imperium is a highly polished mod and can pretty much fill the hole left by Kadur Theocracy.

SHAOLIN FUCKFIEND fucked around with this message at 12:52 on Jul 4, 2014

Brainbread
Apr 7, 2008

So much campaign stuff! It'll be nice to get back into the game once thats in.

On a different note, is anyone else comfortable with the amount of supplies that logistics take up? I was finding that getting anywhere with a fleet well... ended up eating through my savings, to the point where it took me forever to actually get to a mid-sized fleet, or just get something other than a bunch of frigates.

On my end, I've taken to halving the cost of Logistics. The repair costs are prohibitive, but that makes sense to me. Just combat got to the point of being... too expensive to be worth it sometimes. I would lose money by fielding ships.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Brainbread posted:

So much campaign stuff! It'll be nice to get back into the game once thats in.

On a different note, is anyone else comfortable with the amount of supplies that logistics take up? I was finding that getting anywhere with a fleet well... ended up eating through my savings, to the point where it took me forever to actually get to a mid-sized fleet, or just get something other than a bunch of frigates.

On my end, I've taken to halving the cost of Logistics. The repair costs are prohibitive, but that makes sense to me. Just combat got to the point of being... too expensive to be worth it sometimes. I would lose money by fielding ships.

That is sort of intentional I think.

High tech and/or powerful ships cost a lot just to field them, so you should consider bringing low tech and low power ships just because you don't want to have to field your top ships to deal with things that don't warrant them.

It's a major benefit of having a carrier, actually, because fighters mainly priced on the cost of their replacements, if you don't lose them, you don't have to pay much to field them, so even if you don't field the carrier itself, fielding all its fighters can clear a lot of low level threats with limited cost.

SHAOLIN FUCKFIEND
Jan 21, 2008

High tech ships mean you need to be very careful not to take hull damage or drop to 0% CR due to super long deployments, or repair gets very expensive. To compensate, high tech ships are usually good at retreating.

SSJ_naruto_2003
Oct 12, 2012



What are the best mods right now? Got bored of vanilla and waiting for updates.

FourOhFour
Oct 17, 2012

GreyPowerVan posted:

What are the best mods right now? Got bored of vanilla and waiting for updates.

I personally love Uomoz's Corvus as a whole.

If you don't want to play a total conversion though, I'd recommend picking up any mix of factions that seem interesting, and Blackrock Driveyards. Blackrock is great fun.

SHAOLIN FUCKFIEND
Jan 21, 2008





Game's sort of in a lull while we wait for the update, so me and DarkRevenant are doing a new faction mod together: the Knights Templar. It's basically the most scripted faction yet and designed as a super-power to challenge end-game players. You cannot join the faction or purchase anything from them, but they are capturable. This is complicated by the fact their ships have a tendency to become miniature supernovas once disabled.

Things the faction doesn't feature:
- Arc Shields
- Phase cloaks
- 0-flux speed boost

Things the faction DOES feature:
- Passive contour shields and active burst shields
-Contour shield covers entire ship, is 90% effective at 0% flux and 50% effective at 75% flux, then deactivates, and the active burst is more powerful the more flux you have, but can overload you at high flux. This active burst is the ship's right-click action.
- Insane ship systems and weapons
- A design that makes it extremely hard to cheese them by kiting or exhausting them in combat - fleet tactics, overwhelming power or extremely apt risk assessment is generally the best way to defeat them
- Various other crazy design features

I'm doing the sprites and sound, he's doing the scripting and writing, and we're collaborating on the design. We're not going to release anything until all the content is done, most likely, so it should coincide with the new Starsector version.

SHAOLIN FUCKFIEND fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Jul 16, 2014

Artificer
Apr 8, 2010

You're going to try ponies and you're. Going. To. LOVE. ME!!
Looks loving cool as hell.

If only the boarding mechanics make it so that captures so rarely succeed...

Beer4TheBeerGod
Aug 23, 2004
Exciting Lemon
When's the new patch supposed to be out?

mune
Sep 23, 2006
Hey all, I haven't played this game since its first build as Starfarer, where there wasn't much to do. I've heard it now be compared to Mount&Blade and the X Series and was wondering if there's a lot more to do now - e.g, set up trade routes, create passive income, etc.

Is that capability in the game?


VVVV Looks promising. I'll look for that update. Thanks a lot for the informative response.

mune fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Jul 21, 2014

Gobblecoque
Sep 6, 2011

mune posted:

Hey all, I haven't played this game since its first build as Starfarer, where there wasn't much to do. I've heard it now be compared to Mount&Blade and the X Series and was wondering if there's a lot more to do now - e.g, set up trade routes, create passive income, etc.

Is that capability in the game?

The next update is actually focusing on economy and creating market systems. You might want to read the developer's blog post about it.

Unreal_One
Aug 18, 2010

Now you know how I don't like to use the sit-down gun, but this morning we just don't have time for mucking about.

New blog post about how fleets will be generated!

Four new star systems, and sounds like a release could be on the way (which could mean anywhere from weeks to months)

Fleet composition will no longer be pre-determined, but rather procedurally generated using ship roles, which are based on both ship hull and variant.

Merchant fleets will be spawned by trade routes, and float around their destination for a few days.

Looks really cool, from the descriptions.

Unreal_One fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Jul 26, 2014

Flesh Forge
Jan 31, 2011

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY DOG
Content and some sort of metagame is really what Starsector needs very badly, so I'm glad to see this.

Tanith
Jul 17, 2005


Alpha, Beta, Gamma cores
Use them, lose them, salvage more
Kick off the next AI war
In the Persean Sector
Link has pictures, but this looks like everything we hoped for and dreamed about.

"Starsector dev blog posted:

Sometimes during development, you end up doing things you hadn’t initially planned on doing. Fleshing out player-faction relationships is one of those things. It was something I knew I’d have to look at eventually - the current system having two attitudes towards the player – “meh” and “shoot first and don’t ask questions”, with nothing in between, was definitely not going to hold up. Initially, though, it didn’t seem connected to the economy and events systems, which are the focus of the upcoming release. So, how did faction relationships get dragged into this?

With the introduction of trade and events, player actions carry more meaning than they did before. A successful trade run contributes to the stability of the markets involved; more so if the markets are small. Smuggling can be a hugely destabilizing force. A food shortage has long-term consequences, which depend on how severe it is, which in turn depends on whether the player got involved, and if so, how. Markets declare bounties when hostile fleets are doing damage to the economy, and so collecting on those bounties – by removing said fleets – has a real impact as well.

Not all of these are earth-shaking, and there’s still some work to do on making the consequences more pronounced and more clear. One way to do that that is to make other inhabitants of the world notice, and react to, your actions. It’s a clear way for the game to say “what you just did matters”. Provided that your standing with a faction has a tangible effect, it also increases how much it matters. We get improved clarity and increased impact – a win/win! Factions having more nuanced attitudes and responses to your actions also increases their believability.

This is all a long way of saying that if the player can do things that matter, it’s tough to separate that from NPCs having appropriate reactions, and if those reactions are limited to “attack” and “don’t attack”, that doesn’t provide enough expressiveness. (Put like that, this seems rather obvious… ahem, moving on.)

The New System
The core of the new system is, unsurprisingly, a range of reputation levels that describe a faction’s overall attitude towards you. From worst to best, they are: vengeful, hostile, inhospitable, suspicious, neutral, favorable, welcoming, friendly, and cooperative. Internally, the relationship is still represented as a single number, from -100 to 100. (Why have both? Discrete levels are useful when you want to say, for example, “hostile factions will attack you on sight”, and also describe what the number means. The number itself is useful for when the player wants to see the exact impact of their reputation-changing actions, e.g. “increased by 3″.)

The player’s relationship with a faction changes as a response to player actions. How it changes depends on the action, and this is where the system becomes more than just a scale with labels. An action can:

Change the reputation by a flat amount
Force the reputation to be at a certain level before applying the change. For example, attacking a faction will set your standing with it to “hostile” if it was higher than that to begin with.
Require that the reputation be above or below a certain level to even apply the change. For example, once a faction is vengeful, trying to improve your relationship will be difficult – most (or perhaps all) actions will have no effect. Likewise, a cooperative faction might overlook small transgressions.
Have a limit beyond which it will not change the reputation. For example, attacking faction fleets won’t take the relationship below “hostile”, unless you also win and pursue their fleeing ships. Retreating immediately without doing any damage will not take the relationship below “inhospitable”.
These last two points have some interesting consequences – you can let “easy” actions have an impact on standing. For example, trading with a faction will improve your standing with them (and reduce standing with their enemies, if they catch wind of it) – but t’s not going to take the standing above “favorable”.

Having an impact on standing makes trade more meaningful, and the limit is what makes it possible – by making it easier to balance. Otherwise, you might get trade as being the fastest way to unlock the rewards of high standing, or the fastest way to erase low standing (the latter isn’t possible because trade doesn’t improve the relationship if it’s already “inhospitable”). Worse, it might not be the fastest, but only the safest, leading to a grind.

It’s still possible to have other trade-related actions that can go beyond “favorable”, if that’s necessary for a trading-focused playstyle to be fun or rewarding.

These reputation limits and requirements are tools that make it possible to fine-tune the role of each action. Does it make sense that selling galoshes to the Sindrian Diktat would be what finally makes them trust you? Or that it would be the final drop before their enemies start attacking you on sight? Maybe these were very high-quality galoshes, so… yes. The important thing is the system has the flexibility to handle either answer, and so makes it easier to add content that interacts with it.

Another tool in the box is making reputation changes from the same action have diminishing returns. Trade actually makes use of this, too; the first few trade-reputation points with a faction are easier to gain, and then it levels out. The goal here isn’t to balance the long-term reputation gain from trade, as the limit sees to that. Instead, those first points let the player know quickly that trade has this effect, and the gain is distributed more evenly as the player levels up, instead of back-loading all of it to when the player has the capacity to trade in bulk. The same approach could easily be used to control long-term reputation gains for a different action too, though it seems to make more sense for an action that doesn’t already have a reputation limit.

Effects of Reputation
Adjusting the player’s reputation is all well and good, but it doesn’t mean anything unless it actually means something, if you know what I mean. Let’s take a look at what each level means in concrete, mechanical terms.

Favorable
Gain access to faction-specific military submarkets, where you can buy fuel, supplies, and weapons.

Welcoming
Higher-quality weapons available.

Friendly
Even higher-quality weapons available.

Cooperative
Best-quality weapons available.

hegemony_militaryThe Hegemony military market, reputation – favorable. Most weapons aren’t available yet.

Suspicious
No effect at this point; more of an indicator that maybe they don’t like you a whole lot.

Inhospitable
Markets will refuse to trade with you, except for pirates, who aren’t really a unified faction to begin with. Whether/how this applies to the black market and smuggling is TBD – that is to say, I’m in the process of working it out.

Hostile
Combat-capable fleets will attack you on sight. (This is the starting relationship with the pirates, and yes, they’ll still trade with you.)

Vengeful
You know things are bad when the pirates don’t want to trade with you. Right now, this category matters more for being impossible to get out of than being that much different from “hostile”. There’s some room for more targeted faction actions against you (posting a bounty? an organized effort to bring you to heel?), but it’s not concrete enough to really discuss.

Reputation levels may also have other effects in different areas of the game. For example, if your smuggling activity has resulted in an investigation, a positive reputation level results in a lower chance that you’ll be found responsible. I’d also expect that buying ships will follow along the same lines as buying weapons; also in the process of working it out.

Conclusion
The details of how these interactions work aren’t set in stone, and I’d be surprised if they didn’t change after playtesting. It’s also a system that’s going to work best when there are a lot of actions to choose from, and you’re not forced to, say, do the one specific thing that can get you out of “hostile” standing (currently: doing unpaid bounty work).

Looking at the actions, right now there actually isn’t even one that can take your standing up to “cooperative”. How will that be handled for the next release? One of two ways, most likely – either temporarily making some actions capable of going that far, or by rolling the rewards from “cooperative” into “friendly”.

That’s a minor bit of scaffolding, though, and all in all, Starsector is finally at a point where the amount of such scaffolding seems to be going down rather than up.

Kenshin
Jan 10, 2007
That stuff sounds great.

It also sounds like it'll be at least another month until we see the next build. :(

Tanith
Jul 17, 2005


Alpha, Beta, Gamma cores
Use them, lose them, salvage more
Kick off the next AI war
In the Persean Sector
I like the suggestions of multi-fleet battles. Honestly, if Alex just copied a page from Mount and Blade here and had engagements between fleets on the map take longer instead of breaking up instantly, that would probably be the best way to do it. Have the number of ships or the total logistics capability deployed in a battle alter how long it hangs around on the star map, maybe? I'm not sure how that would end up changing things, but it would be neat if you could have chase fleets of frigates to go speedbump someone and ensnare them while you trundle up with your onslaught or apogee.

Vayra
Aug 3, 2007
I wanted a big red title but I'm getting a small white one instead.
Hi guys, I just got a new computer/decided I hate all of my friends and remembered that video games exist. Reading the thread backlog now. Could anyone give me a quick update on what's changed in the last patch, especially w/r/t things I'll need to update to get the Kadur functional again? :v:

e: actually I forgot that I had that persistent save file inflation bug. That's most of what drove me away in the first place iirc; maybe I'll just start over more or less from scratch. :I

Vayra fucked around with this message at 02:15 on Aug 25, 2014

FadedReality
Sep 5, 2007

Okurrrr?
New blog post up on trading and smuggling. I really love the direction the game is going and can't wait for this patch to (FINALLY) drop.

mirarant
Dec 18, 2012

Post or die
Yeah the wait for the new version has been way too long but looks like the new features are going to expand the game massively.

Teledahn
May 14, 2009

What is that bear doing there?


This game is great and I cannot wait for it to get even better.

Rivensteel
Mar 30, 2010
I had a bunch of fun until I got a fast carriers with tugs and a critical mass of Thunder fighters to chase down all the enemy ships running away. Can't wait for the next release.

SHAOLIN FUCKFIEND
Jan 21, 2008

Bored waiting for the patch, but still thirsty for more Starsector? Play our new Crusades-themed faction mod!

They epitomize "outnumbered but not outgunned", as their basic gameplay design is based on a bunch of heavily scripted mechanics that defy standard Starsector conventions without breaking them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or9yA7gIK2k



SHAOLIN FUCKFIEND fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Sep 1, 2014

Thyrork
Apr 21, 2010

"COME PLAY MECHS M'LANCER."

Or at least use Retrograde Mini's to make cool mechs and fantasy stuff.

:awesomelon:
Slippery Tilde
So much great stuff in that Shaolin :magical: I love the thematic of the passive shield leading into high flux then a super attack with the Priwen Burst Shield.

Would you ever do a flipped perspective on them in the future? Make you part of the crusades and thus everyone hates you but advantage: you get to truck around being a space paladin and purging the weak? :black101: Would be very Enemy Starfighter if anything else. :haw:

SHAOLIN FUCKFIEND
Jan 21, 2008

Right now the thought is that they're pretty much an antagonist faction, enigmatic, powerful and basically hostile to everything. You can't really have access to their stuff because it's so powerful - even when you capture a ship in the campaign after boarding, the Excalibur Drive melts down and denies you the built-in hullmod with all those fancy bonuses. Who knows, though, the faction's Exerelin compatible.. for all that's worth, exerlin has been pretty much abandoned for a few months now.

You get to exact divine retribution in the missions, though.

Tanith
Jul 17, 2005


Alpha, Beta, Gamma cores
Use them, lose them, salvage more
Kick off the next AI war
In the Persean Sector
Well presumably the next patch will reignite a whole hell of a lot of interest what with being able to do more than just kill things. Having an actual economy and faction relationships built into the system will presumably make the whole experience more fulfilling.

Thyrork
Apr 21, 2010

"COME PLAY MECHS M'LANCER."

Or at least use Retrograde Mini's to make cool mechs and fantasy stuff.

:awesomelon:
Slippery Tilde

SHAOLIN FUCKFIEND posted:

Right now the thought is that they're pretty much an antagonist faction, enigmatic, powerful and basically hostile to everything. You can't really have access to their stuff because it's so powerful - even when you capture a ship in the campaign after boarding, the Excalibur Drive melts down and denies you the built-in hullmod with all those fancy bonuses. Who knows, though, the faction's Exerelin compatible.. for all that's worth, exerlin has been pretty much abandoned for a few months now.

You get to exact divine retribution in the missions, though.

Being resource starved and told "Murder everything until you draw your final breath in our glory, crusader." could be quirky fun! Ill take your missions and enjoy myself regardless. :black101:

As for a "real" campaign, im unreasonably glad to see you rolled in the whole "you broke it, now its not as good but at least you can fly the cool looking stuff!", instead of just outright denying it. If theres ever a research & development system baked into this game it could be great to see inferior reverse engineering be a thing with mods like this and more. :haw:

GruntyThrst
Oct 9, 2007

*clang*

Thyrork posted:

As for a "real" campaign, im unreasonably glad to see you rolled in the whole "you broke it, now its not as good but at least you can fly the cool looking stuff!", instead of just outright denying it. If theres ever a research & development system baked into this game it could be great to see inferior reverse engineering be a thing with mods like this and more. :haw:

It's the perfect flagship for a showoff freelancing legend, really. Nothing says "You should not gently caress with me" like someone who flies around in a carcass of a ship captured from the most fanatical and dangerous forces in the sector, instead of a fully functional vessel.

Cirofren
Jun 13, 2005


Pillbug
I feel like I've been waiting for this next patch since I paid for the game two years ago.

I've gotten most of what's to be had out of the build a fleet, refine a fleet, fight fleets game play and went through it all again when skills were added and a third time with a slew of mods.

Finally we are close to the Mount and Blade in Space fantasy I've been chasing.

Generation Internet
Jan 18, 2009

Where angels and generals fear to tread.

Cirofren posted:

I feel like I've been waiting for this next patch since I paid for the game two years ago.

I've gotten most of what's to be had out of the build a fleet, refine a fleet, fight fleets game play and went through it all again when skills were added and a third time with a slew of mods.

Finally we are close to the Mount and Blade in Space fantasy I've been chasing.

I'm in the same boat, but I can't even remember when I paid for it. That doesn't matter, though, since I can practically taste the M&B: Spaceband now.

Tanith
Jul 17, 2005


Alpha, Beta, Gamma cores
Use them, lose them, salvage more
Kick off the next AI war
In the Persean Sector
Someone hurry up and make a Khergit faction with forward-fixed antimatter lances, built-in unstable injectors and lots of turrets.

Brainbread
Apr 7, 2008

Tanith posted:

Someone hurry up and make a Khergit faction with forward-fixed antimatter lances, built-in unstable injectors and lots of turrets.

In Starsector, or add that to Mount and Blade? Cause its an awesome idea in both.

Also, there was a faction that was very Khergity a while back, called Lotus Conglomerate. By far were my favourite faction. Ballistics and Missiles, low armour, high speed and a lovely rust colour.

SHAOLIN FUCKFIEND
Jan 21, 2008

Lotus is extremely old school. IIRC they been abandoned since like 2012.

Strumpie
Dec 9, 2012

SHAOLIN FUCKFIEND posted:

Lotus is extremely old school. IIRC they been abandoned since like 2012.

If so, that means I've been playing this game for years and years without realising as it feels like I played with them not too long ago.

I haven't ever been frustrated with the pace of development either, weird.

SHAOLIN FUCKFIEND
Jan 21, 2008

Yeah, it's strange how you take a lot of features for granted now that just weren't there a year or two ago, like ship systems, built-in weapons, character skills, CR, etc.

I remember how poo poo the Onslaught was when it didn't have TPCs and couldn't Burn Drive... although the pre-ship systems Omen takes home the shitship award.

Brainbread
Apr 7, 2008

SHAOLIN FUCKFIEND posted:

Yeah, it's strange how you take a lot of features for granted now that just weren't there a year or two ago, like ship systems, built-in weapons, character skills, CR, etc.

I remember how poo poo the Onslaught was when it didn't have TPCs and couldn't Burn Drive... although the pre-ship systems Omen takes home the shitship award.

I remember a mod compilation that included them post-systems, and they just threw on a bunch of basic systems for the ships (ammo-reloader, burn drive, missile reloader etc) which gave them a bit more life. I just miss them because they're my rose-tinted favourite faction.

And yeah. A big change to me is just how viable some ships became from systems, or just how much they benefited from slight AI changes or loadout variations. I have lost count of how many times I've forgotten that Buffalos can be dangerous early game when they panic and fire all of their missiles.

Though with the Onslaught, I am pretty sure it had two large ballistic slots that were replaced by the TPC's, so that didn't change too too much.


Strumpie posted:

If so, that means I've been playing this game for years and years without realising as it feels like I played with them not too long ago.

I haven't ever been frustrated with the pace of development either, weird.

Wow. Same. I found out about this game in like... my 4th year of University, and got all my friends to play it. That was a whilllle ago. Probably the best $10 I've spent on a game.

SHAOLIN FUCKFIEND
Jan 21, 2008

Having 5 large ballistics was fun, but nothing you can mount (even disregarding that the TPCs are free) comes close to the range, burst damage and just sheer power of the TPC. Paragon getting Fortress Shields was still the bigger powerup though.

Four Score
Feb 27, 2014

by zen death robot
Lipstick Apathy
So whenever I play the vanilla "campaign" with Blackrock Driveyards, even though the ships will show up in menu displays and are available for simulations, none of the actual Blackrock content is anywhere to be found ingame. I have to play Uomoz's Sector Mod to play with those slick ships, which has led me to another problem where my saves won't load. This is specifically what happens from starsector.log:

code:
8184705 [Thread-5] INFO  com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager  - Loading C:\Program Files (x86)\Fractal Softworks\Starsector\starsector-core\..\saves\save_HoYinsen_1714720916499419080...
8206407 [Thread-5] INFO  com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager  - Error loading
8206407 [Thread-5] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.campaign.save.CampaignGameManager  - Java heap space
java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
Anyone know how to fix either of these?

Strumpie
Dec 9, 2012
Read the Uomoz's Sector OP/readme, this is a very well explained and required behaviour mentioned and explained in this very thread several times as well.
It's literally the third thing written in the OP if you have trouble finding it.

64 Bit Java is generally recommended as well.

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Teledahn
May 14, 2009

What is that bear doing there?


Strumpie posted:

64 Bit Java is generally recommended as well.

Uomoz Sector OP posted:

Also helps to put jre 64bit in the main Starsector folder

I may be being somewhat incompetent, but how do I find what I need to put in the Starsector folder?

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