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AtillatheBum
Oct 6, 2010

Justice ain't gonna dispense itself.
It also pays out like system bounties when you kill your factions' enemies' ships so if you are doing heavy fighting it can be very lucrative, which is good because it slowly tanks your rep over time with all the other factions so I'm glad it at least pays.

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Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

Insert name here posted:

How much does a commission pay out anyway? I've literally never bothered with getting commissioned ever but I'm considering trying to do a dedicated privateer run at some point.

95k a month at max level. I forget exactly how it scales below that, but it's a baseline lump sum + some multiplier of your current level.

Commissions are genuinely pretty nice; it does gradually degrade your relationship to other factions, but it's a very slow process, and it lets you get good hulls without colonies or blueprints, pays a monthly stipend, and as noted it prevents your commissioned faction from sending expeditions to attack your colonies.

(Also since expeditions will eventually ruin your reputation with most of the core factions anyways, there's effectively no "cost" for having a commission in the deep endgame, even if by then most of the upsides are trivial.)

Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Apr 7, 2021

AtillatheBum
Oct 6, 2010

Justice ain't gonna dispense itself.
Taking a commission is a good way to get an early colony going as the stipend can help balance your books early on and it means you won't have to deal with raids from that faction. Also I think killing remnant counts as fighting faction enemies so you can get a ton of rep and cash.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

It's unfortunate that one thing you cannot steal with raids, is more marines.

Gobblecoque
Sep 6, 2011

Bhodi posted:

Is there a decent standalone mod manager for this game? I should probably install some.

You don't really need one for Starsector, just download and plop mods in the mods folder. On the user end at least, installing mods is very easy.

Gobblecoque
Sep 6, 2011

OwlFancier posted:

It's unfortunate that one thing you cannot steal with raids, is more marines.

Ooh, busting a bunch of pirate marines out of some Hegemony prison would be cool as hell.

Demiurge4
Aug 10, 2011

I found it pretty boring when I did my pirate run, in hindsight I should have just made enemies with someone else. In my current run the pirates absolutely hate me, but I'm making up for it by making the Infernalis Legion, Luddic Church and Tri-tach like me. Every other faction will eventually be my mortal enemies.

FrickenMoron
May 6, 2009

Good game!
Any fun loadouts for the Radiant?

The 5 Plasma cannon one made me laugh but I dont think that's gonna fly.

AtillatheBum
Oct 6, 2010

Justice ain't gonna dispense itself.
Plasma cannons are so much flux it's insane. I finally made one fit on my Champion without it instantly maxing its own flux in two volleys, but honestly I think an Autopulse Laser with extended mags is better since you can also fit some real weapons into the forward mounts.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

They are more for capital ships with very large flux reserves.

Psycho Landlord
Oct 10, 2012

What are you gonna do, dance with me?

The only thing smaller than a cap you should ever put a Plasma Cannon on is an Apogee.

There are some people that swear by Plasma Sunders, and I think those people are insane.

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.
Woo, beat the Tesseract encounter. It really just came down to using the Ziggurat for damage plus a bunch of other tanky or evasive ships as a distraction -- you could probably do it with far less than the fleet I used just by swarming them with Harbies or something. These weapons look like a scream to experiment with, although I wish you could reverse engineer blueprints of them instead of being stuck with just what you can salvage. I need another Disintegrator for my Zig!

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Psycho Landlord posted:

The only thing smaller than a cap you should ever put a Plasma Cannon on is an Apogee.

There are some people that swear by Plasma Sunders, and I think those people are insane.

They do work on other ships it's just that they're kind of short ranged and flux intensive for what they are, so on smaller craft where efficiency is at a premium they can struggle, but a plasma cannon is still a plasma cannon and the sunder is built to get the most out of energy weapons so I can see it working.

They are definitely more of a "gently caress you I have flux reserves" weapon though. Basically the large slot equivalent of a blaster.

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.
They're OP by design of course, but Remnant ships have the flux stats to sustain continuous fire on a Plasma Cannon.

I know a lot of people were disappointed that the skill basically only allows you to run one of their Radiant battleships (and only at ~60% CR, and not player-piloted) but I've been more impressed with the cruiser-sized Brilliant. Still not "spend a whole skill point" impressed, but it's an absolute murder machine for an AI-controlled ship at that size.

e: If you could fly the drat thing yourself it might actually be worth it, "you get to fly a unique flagship" is infinitely more appealing than "you get one good ship or a couple of good frigates, I guess."

Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Apr 7, 2021

Mondian
Apr 24, 2007

AtillatheBum posted:

Plasma cannons are so much flux it's insane. I finally made one fit on my Champion without it instantly maxing its own flux in two volleys, but honestly I think an Autopulse Laser with extended mags is better since you can also fit some real weapons into the forward mounts.

I've been digging that setup on my flagship, but it seems like the AI can't quite understand how the autopulse works? When I was failing the zig fight with my regular fleet, it would consistently phase at the last second to avoid a tach lance or plasma cannon volleys, but it consistently just ate autopulse shots when it didn't have to. I also had problems fielding two paragons, when I didn't have the resources to outfit them properly, one with lances and one with autopulse. If the beam ship got in the autopulse ship's line of fire, the latter would just keep plugging away and happily dump the whole mag into its ally's shields instead of ceasing fire until it had a clear shot. Never saw this behavior with any other weapon

Frida Call Me
Sep 28, 2001

Boy, you gotta carry that weight
Carry that weight a long time

Mondian posted:

I've been digging that setup on my flagship, but it seems like the AI can't quite understand how the autopulse works? When I was failing the zig fight with my regular fleet, it would consistently phase at the last second to avoid a tach lance or plasma cannon volleys, but it consistently just ate autopulse shots when it didn't have to. I also had problems fielding two paragons, when I didn't have the resources to outfit them properly, one with lances and one with autopulse. If the beam ship got in the autopulse ship's line of fire, the latter would just keep plugging away and happily dump the whole mag into its ally's shields instead of ceasing fire until it had a clear shot. Never saw this behavior with any other weapon

Weird, are you running any mods? I put autopulses on my AI-Zig and it's been fine.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon
There’s a mod called “Commissioned Crews” that make commissions marginally more useful. Each faction gives your ships a unique buff while commissioned that lasts until you drop it. Persean League gives better fighters, Hegemony gives improved armor etc.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Ships will decide to take hits from weapons they do not consider sufficiently dangerous, so capitals will happily take small energy impacts on their armour because that is how the AI decides whether something is or isn't worth bothering with, and how they keep focused on more significant targets when they are being flanked. So yes they will avoid things like tachyon zaps or plasma shots, but autopulses and some other weapons are just not always considered significant enough for a large ship to worry about.

They should, however, avoid shooting your own ships with anything, the AI is almost invariably good at avoiding friendly fire, albeit often far less good about staying out of the loving way when you are trying to shoot things.

Real Cool Catfish
Jun 6, 2011
Commission happily paid me 95k space bux to do literally nothing each month at max level. So kind so kind.

Mondian
Apr 24, 2007

Frida Call Me posted:

Weird, are you running any mods? I put autopulses on my AI-Zig and it's been fine.

Nah no mods, playing vanilla til nex updates and I can pile all the poo poo on again.

Galaga Galaxian
Apr 23, 2009

What a childish tactic!
Don't you think you should put more thought into your battleplan?!


What happens when you drop a commission? Do you immediately lose a ton of rep? Also is your rep loss with the other factions permanent of the faction you’re commissioned with goes to war with them and you end up fighting them?

Like others I’ve never done a commission before. If only because everyone is jerks.

Frida Call Me
Sep 28, 2001

Boy, you gotta carry that weight
Carry that weight a long time

Mondian posted:

Nah no mods, playing vanilla til nex updates and I can pile all the poo poo on again.

Yeah I tried to get nex running with the RC10 release and just got a pile of errors. I'll try again when it updates for rc12.

Frida Call Me
Sep 28, 2001

Boy, you gotta carry that weight
Carry that weight a long time

Galaga Galaxian posted:

What happens when you drop a commission? Do you immediately lose a ton of rep? Also is your rep loss with the other factions permanent of the faction you’re commissioned with goes to war with them and you end up fighting them?

Like others I’ve never done a commission before. If only because everyone is jerks.

not a ton, only -10. it also reverts the reputation loss if the faction you drop is at war with other factions.

Dee Ehm
Apr 10, 2014


Considering making this colony a free port so I can start making fat stacks of drug money. How do you tell when it is or isn't a good idea, and if I make one colony a free port should I make them all free ports? I have three different colonies all in the one system.

cock hero flux
Apr 17, 2011



Dee Ehm posted:



Considering making this colony a free port so I can start making fat stacks of drug money. How do you tell when it is or isn't a good idea, and if I make one colony a free port should I make them all free ports?
any colony with Light Industry should be a freeport

it's a good idea as long as you have the military built up to defeat expeditions from most of the major factions and either don't care about being at war with them or can absorb the rep loss

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

Galaga Galaxian posted:

What happens when you drop a commission? Do you immediately lose a ton of rep? Also is your rep loss with the other factions permanent of the faction you’re commissioned with goes to war with them and you end up fighting them?

Like others I’ve never done a commission before. If only because everyone is jerks.

you lose a trivial amount of rep (like 10 points) and they make some threats that I have literally never seen fulfilled lol

the way rep loss with other factions after a war works is like this:

when war is declared: you lose exactly enough rep to drop you to -50

when war is ended: you gain back the amount of rep you lost minus 5

so it very gradually erodes your standing, but it takes a while

(this is also assuming you don't actively participate in the war, which will impact your reputation much more)

The Chad Jihad
Feb 24, 2007


If you are too late to stop an AI inspection fleet and crush them as they are leaving they will not drop any of their stolen AI cores. Incredibly not mad about this, I'm actually laughing

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

All ports free ports pirates friends for life yo ho ho me hearties.

SugarAddict
Oct 11, 2012
If you have nexerlin and an agent that has "find pirate base", you can send them to a planet that is affected by it and tell them to find it. With pather however they have to do "infiltrate pather" until they come up with a base.

Bold Robot
Jan 6, 2009

Be brave.



At one point, Decivilized had an effect on the colony’s stability, I think. Does it still?

raverrn
Apr 5, 2005

Unidentified spacecraft inbound from delta line.

All Silpheed squadrons scramble now!


Tuxedo Catfish posted:

They're OP by design of course, but Remnant ships have the flux stats to sustain continuous fire on a Plasma Cannon.

I know a lot of people were disappointed that the skill basically only allows you to run one of their Radiant battleships (and only at ~60% CR, and not player-piloted) but I've been more impressed with the cruiser-sized Brilliant. Still not "spend a whole skill point" impressed, but it's an absolute murder machine for an AI-controlled ship at that size.

e: If you could fly the drat thing yourself it might actually be worth it, "you get to fly a unique flagship" is infinitely more appealing than "you get one good ship or a couple of good frigates, I guess."

There's a glitch that will put your commander into the pilot slot of a Remnant ship. It has something to do with having a unpiloted Remnant machine and losing your ship in a battle.

Can confirm it's a really, really nice ride.

Frida Call Me
Sep 28, 2001

Boy, you gotta carry that weight
Carry that weight a long time

Bold Robot posted:

At one point, Decivilized had an effect on the colony’s stability, I think. Does it still?

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

I thought that the special effects of decivilizaed were an addition of... I want to say Unknown Skies, the one that adds more variety to the stuff you can find out in the fringe. Bonus colony growth but also a penalty to stability.

Galaga Galaxian
Apr 23, 2009

What a childish tactic!
Don't you think you should put more thought into your battleplan?!


Tuxedo Catfish posted:

(this is also assuming you don't actively participate in the war, which will impact your reputation much more)

See this is the lovely part. So actually participating in the fighting will permanently rank your rep?

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.
I think I might restart this save, despite how advanced it is, because at some point I must have sold a phase frigate blueprint to the Hegemony and now the miserable little fuckers are everywhere in their fleets. :cripes:

Galaga Galaxian posted:

See this is the lovely part. So actually participating in the fighting will permanently rank your rep?

I mean yeah, but attacking someone's fleets always does that, and usually it instantly sets you to -50 with no take-backsies first. :v:

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.
Does anyone have a list of the ships that each faction normally fields, or is that maybe something you could find in the games files?

e: found it in the faction files. apparently the Gremlin is a low-tech ship, which they get BP access to

Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Apr 8, 2021

Insert name here
Nov 10, 2009

Oh.
Oh Dear.
:ohdear:

Galaga Galaxian posted:

See this is the lovely part. So actually participating in the fighting will permanently rank your rep?
People don't take kindly to being shot at, surprisingly enough

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

Bold Robot posted:

At one point, Decivilized had an effect on the colony’s stability, I think. Does it still?

Yes, although the stability penalty diminishes the larger your colony grows. I don't know if it eventually goes away altogether, I didn't stick with that save long enough to find out.

Flavahbeast
Jul 21, 2001


OwlFancier posted:

I thought that the special effects of decivilizaed were an addition of... I want to say Unknown Skies, the one that adds more variety to the stuff you can find out in the fringe. Bonus colony growth but also a penalty to stability.

thats the way it works in my vanilla .95 campaign

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OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Galaga Galaxian posted:

See this is the lovely part. So actually participating in the fighting will permanently rank your rep?

As others have noted yes, if you start blowing up fleets belonging to a faction they won't appreciate it and the "well I was paid to do it" defence only goes so far, albeit still much further than any other excuse.

Flavahbeast posted:

thats the way it works in my vanilla .95 campaign

Ah then perhaps it is just that way normally, couldn't remember. Not sure if it still works like that as I haven't settled anywhere with decivilized subpops.

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