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Starsector

Started by Silent Disapproval Robot, May 10, 2016, 07:47:48 PM

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Silent Disapproval Robot

I watched a let's play video of this game and I think it looks like it could be a lot of fun.

Anyone have any experience with it?  I think I might go in for early access (even though I just bought a bunch of new games that I have barely touched....)


Jarhead0331

#1
I have had it for years....development is VERY slooooooooowwwwwwww.

It has a lot of potential, and is enjoyable in its present state, but it has a long way to go.

I find it very challenging...almost too challenging. I have been unable to make much progress.

I just took a quick peak into the forum and one of the first threads was this...

http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11041.0

Yeah...early access for over FOUR SIX years. Significant content updates once, maybe twice a year....
Grogheads Uber Alles
Semper Grog
"No beast is more alpha than JH." Gusington, 10/23/18


Silent Disapproval Robot

Thanks.  I think I'll give it a whirl.

jamus34

Reminds me of SPAZ (Space Pirates and Zombies)

Could be wrong but that's the vibe I got.
Insert witty comment here.

Huw the Poo

Quote from: Jarhead0331 on May 10, 2016, 08:33:53 PM
I have had it for years....development is VERY slooooooooowwwwwwww.

It has a lot of potential, and is enjoyable in its present state, but it has a long way to go.

Yeah, precisely this.  Development is absolutely glacial.  I bought it a long time ago and frankly my enthusiasm for it is gone.  Maybe I'll get a good game out of it one day, but I have zero hopes pinned on it to be honest.

Silent Disapproval Robot

Fiddled around with it a bit last night.  Man, there are a LOT of key commands!  I'm enjoying it so far but it does feel a little overwhelming once you start commanding fleets.  I think I need to remap a bunch of controls that seem like they'll get the most use. 

The combat reminds me a bit of Gratuitous Space Battles except that here you get direct control of your ships.  Sort of like a mix between GSB and Starfleet Command.




Jarhead0331

Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on May 11, 2016, 10:21:49 AM
Fiddled around with it a bit last night.  Man, there are a LOT of key commands!  I'm enjoying it so far but it does feel a little overwhelming once you start commanding fleets.  I think I need to remap a bunch of controls that seem like they'll get the most use. 

The combat reminds me a bit of Gratuitous Space Battles except that here you get direct control of your ships.  Sort of like a mix between GSB and Starfleet Command.

I have found it almost impossible to competently manage direct control of a ship (ie. control with newtonian physics, facing due to firing arcs, multiple weapon systems, flux, shields, etc.) while also managing control of a fleet.
Grogheads Uber Alles
Semper Grog
"No beast is more alpha than JH." Gusington, 10/23/18


Nefaro

Quote from: Jarhead0331 on May 10, 2016, 08:33:53 PM
I have had it for years....development is VERY slooooooooowwwwwwww.

It has a lot of potential, and is enjoyable in its present state, but it has a long way to go.

I find it very challenging...almost too challenging. I have been unable to make much progress.



I recall buying into this when it had a different name years ago.  Haven't looked into it in a long time since it was taking forever.

Still like the concept.  Just not sure if it's content will be done before I die.

Tpek

#8
Quote from: Nefaro on May 11, 2016, 03:47:53 PM
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on May 10, 2016, 08:33:53 PM
I have had it for years....development is VERY slooooooooowwwwwwww.

It has a lot of potential, and is enjoyable in its present state, but it has a long way to go.

I find it very challenging...almost too challenging. I have been unable to make much progress.


I recall buying into this when it had a different name years ago.  Haven't looked into it in a long time since it was taking forever.

Still like the concept.  Just not sure if it's content will be done before I die.

I think it was called Starfarer or something like that then.

EDIT: Accidentally wrote my line into the quote :P

Nefaro

Yep!  That was it.   

Was called Starfarer at the time.

Silent Disapproval Robot

The devs had been silent for quite a while but they've been on a bit of a tear for the last month.  Lots of updates and hotfixes. 

I love the idea of this game but god damn it's hard to control all the features in real time.


QuoteHotfix (RC19), April 21, 2017

Campaign

    Trading/refitting at market will stop your fleet
    Reduced speed of REDACTED frigates by 30
    Salvage and surveying will not be prevented by nearby fleets that are fleeing, maintaining contact, or standing down


Changes as of April 20, 2017

Campaign

    "Unidentified fleet" sensor contacts now use dashed gray/transparent circle indicator
    Hull Modspec items show a dimmed "display" area when hullmod is already known
    Changed markets to always have some hullmods for sale instead of a very small chance for each hullmod to be available
    Fleet screen: added "number of d-mods" indicator to each ship
    Made modspecs cheaper
    Bumped up XP for discovery and salvage
    Markets with fuel, supplies, and crew will have some on the open market even if there is unmet demand (i.e not required to use black market in this case)
    Reduced chance for phase ships to be found in smaller enemy fleets
    Small chance of a heavily-degraded Afflictor in pirate fleets (can easily be pressured/chased down by starter Wolf; runs out of peak time very quickly)
    Laid-in course now shown on map


Skills

    Added "reduces effect of d-mods" fleetwide effect to one of the industry skills
    Added "deployment cost reduction also applies to maintenance" industry skill effect
    Increased magnitude of "fewer d-mods on recovered ships" skill effect; now also affects own ships
    "Post-battle salvage" bonuses are now just overall salvage bonuses


Ships

    Paragon's Advanced Targeting Core modified to only add 50% range for PD weapons (still 100% for other weapons)
    Falcon: increased burn level to 9
    Tempest: increased Terminator drone speed, now armed with Ion Pulser


Miscellaneous

    Advanced combat tutorial: added mention of "hold fire" and "pull back fighters" controls
    Fleet command tutorial: revamped to match state of game; added "avoid" and "eliminate" order sections
    Stopped using roman numerals in ship names
    Logging on OS X: will now produce Contents/starsector.log, which gets overwritten with every game run


Bugfixing

    (Hopefully) fixed issue with possible repeated reputation drops from black-market trade on pirate markets
    Fixed Salamander missile AI not tracking phase ships the same way as normal missile AI
    Fixed bug where d-hull-modified deployment cost was only rounded for display and not consumption



Changes as of April 13, 2017

Campaign

    Planets with ruins will now have orbital junk, like regular markets (but no radio chatter)
    Person-bounty fleets now marked as "mission important" (i.e. will show indicator on map/campaign when visible)
    Can no longer scuttle, sell, or store the last ship in your fleet
    Control-clicking on a stack cargo to take or buy it will transfer just enough to fill up free capacity
        Another ctrl-click will take the rest, if desired
        Mostly meant to make topping off on fuel quick and easy
    Control-clicking cargo to sell/store/eject it will initially only transfer enough to put you at maximum capacity, if you're above it
        Another click will transfer the rest
    Added slight base demand for fuel and supply to all markets (makes supplies/fuel more generally available)
    Fuel:
        Reduced price to 25 credits (from 50)
        Roughly doubled amount available
        Increased proportion of fuel from salvage, battle salvage, and scuttling
        Reduced ship fuel capacity, generally by around half
            Cargo ships tend to have a bit more
            Carriers a bit less
        Overall goal is to encourage more casual exploration (cheaper, more abundant fuel) and open up a few more choices in fleet composition (how many/what types of tankers to use)
    Reduced cargo capacity somewhat, especially of combat ships above frigate level
        A fleet with many larger ships is more likely to want to bring freighters along
        A fleet with mostly frigates is largely unaffected compared to before
    Attempting to activate the transponder when doing so will make a faction hostile will bring up a confirmation dialog
    Scavenge ability:
        Chance of an accident starts low and increases with subsequent operations in same debris field
        As do the losses from an accident
    Updated sensor range calculation
        One fleet's sensor profile is added to another fleet's sensor range to get the detection range
        Skills/abilities/terrain etc still modify this combined range, as before
        Ships contribute 30/60/90/150 to sensor strength and profile, based on ship size
            Added to a base fleet strength/profile of 300
        Only the 5 ships with the highest profile and strength are used, can be different set for each
        Adjusted various related hullmods; of particular note:
            High Resolution Sensors give a flat +60 to sensor strength
            Phase Field sets the ship's profile to 0
        Maximum sensor range indicator (to detect your fleet) now also shown when mousing over another fleet
        Overall:
            Slightly increased detection ranges, most impactful for smaller fleets
            Easier-to-gauge impact of specific ships, since it's linear
    New inventory icons for fuel and supplies
    Added campaign tutorial:
        Introduces major gameplay elements and goes through active abilities
        High-level, involves doing a multi-stage mission to get out of new starting star system
        Can be skipped; if skipped starts player with similar resources/standing as if they did it
    New game creation:
        Added button to randomly generate a name
        Added button to randomly a pick portrait
        Re-did starting options
            Starting ship: Wolf or Wayfarer
            Second ship: Kite with officer, or Shepherd with heavy machinery
            Difficulty: normal or easy
            Tutorial: do or skip
        Easy difficulty now:
            Reduces damage taken by all ships on your side by 25%
            Increases sensor range by 500
            Increases all salvage (combat and non-combat) by 50%
    Added visual indicator for mission-important entities in campaign screen
    Added "survey planet" mission
    Turned off trade disruption condition for now (incentivizing the wrong things, current iteration not working design-wise)
    In-flight refit: adding weapons/hullmods will again reduce CR, but not below the malfunction threshold
        Still makes outfitting recovered ships mostly free as they can't start with more CR than that
        Prevents some potential exploits
    Improved fleet AI: computes better intercept point when pursuing another fleet
    Reduced use of Emergency Burn by AI fleets, especially during pursuit
    Running a salvage operation or scavenging will now bring your fleet to a stop
    Added UI indicators to debris fields to make them easier to spot
    Solar Shielding: modified description to mention that it also protects against hyperstorms
    Campaign music will now stop while surveying a planet or otherwise interacting with it
    Radar now shows hyperspace terrain (does not show any other kind of terrain)


Ships

    Shepherd:
        Added Salvage Gantry as built-in hullmod; +10% potential salvage
        Increased fuel capacity
    Paragon: reduced OP by 30, added built in "Advanced Targeting Core" - +100% weapon range


Miscellaneous

    Disabled buttons will now flash when they fail-to-be-activated using the shortcut key


Modding

    Added secondary faction color for fleet circle indicators
        "secondaryUIColor":[<color>],
        "secondarySegments":<integer>,
        Only used by the fleet/station/entity/etc circles, nothing else
    Ship tooltip: non-phase cloak right-click systems will show "Special" instead of "Defense" and the proper system name
    reportBattleFinished() now properly called when battle ends, both for autoresolve and player battles


Bugfixing:

    Fixed Wolf collision radius (was smaller than shields, could cause limited collision detection problems)
    Fixed another campaign-game level memory leak



Silent Disapproval Robot

Patch notes pt 2 (wouldn't all fit in one post)

QuoteChanges as of March 23, 2017

Campaign

    Added several salvage-related themes for procedurally-generated star systems (e.g. "ruins", etc)
    Added new mission to encourage/reward exploration
    Added "Distress Call" player ability; may result in friendly fleet arriving with some fuel or supplies
    May now receive distress calls while traveling through the Sector
    Ejecting cargo:
        Creates "cargo pods" that will drift away and be lost within a few days
        Can stabilize orbit of cargo pods for several months; costs supplies based on amount of cargo
            Only in-system, not in hyperspace
        Can put crew in cargo pods ("cryosleep" etc)
    Person bounties:
        Increased maximum concurrent to 5 (was: 3)
        Increased base reward to 30k (was: 20k)
        Added random component to reward
        Target fleets now hide out outside the core worlds area and tend to favor star systems that are also otherwise interesting
    Can click minimap in intel message detail to switch to map tab showing location that was on miniamp
    Surveying planets now generates a "Survey Data" commodity
        Ranges in quality from Class 1 through Class 5 depending on planetary conditions found
        High-class data is extremely valuable
    Added a "lay in course" feature
        To activate, "lay in course" from map
        Works across star systems, i.e. can lay in course for specific planet while in another system
            Will pick optimal jump-points and update next waypoint automatically
        Shows info re: where you're going (direction, fuel, distance, time)
        Can divert from it and then resume autopilot easily
    Planets that don't already have related jump points (i.e. gas giant gravity wells) get "nascent" gravity wells in hyperspace
    Transverse Jump ability:
        Jump into systems using nascent gravity wells
        Jump to hyperspace from anywhere in-system without using a jump-point (costs fuel and a bit of CR)
        Unlocked by level 3 Navigation skill
    Neutrino Detector ability (requires Sensors skill)
        Detect entities anywhere in-system
    Remote Survey ability
        Gain preliminary survey information for all nearby planets
        Unlocked by level 1 Surveying skill
    Rare Ore renamed to "Transplutonics"
    Increased maximum player fleet size to 30
    Improved scuttle dialog; scuttling now also yields heavy machinery
    Added stand-alone stations to the intel "planets" tab
        E.G: station around Jangala isn't included there since it's part of the Jangala market
        Kanta's Den *is* included since it's the main entity comprising its market
    Maxios and Killa - decivilized markets - now do not participate in the economy; can't be traded with
    Enemy fleet commanders now have access to fleet-level skills such as "Coordinated Maneuvers" and "Electronic Warfare"
        Number of enemy officers capped by the commander's Officer Management
        Likelihood and level/presence of these skills varies by faction; i.e. pirates are less likely to have them, and if they do they'll be lower level
        Officer skills for AI fleets are picked appropriately for carriers (while still using the same "select 1 skill" process the player uses)
    Added multiple special events that occur during salvage operations
    Debris fields generated by battles now sometimes yield recoverable (but badly damaged) ships
    Battles now generate derelict ships that slowly drift away, can be salvaged, and are eventually lost
    Adjusted fleet compositions so that beam-focused Wolf variants don't show up in smaller fleets as often



Ship recovery

    Destroyed and disabled ships have a high chance of being recoverable after combat
    Recoverable ships get permanent d-mods (Compromised Armor, Degraded Engines, etc)
    Deployment supply cost of ships reduced by 20% (multiplicative) per d-mod
    Enemy ships get more d-mods, own ships get 1 extra d-mod each time they're recovered
    Several ways to ensure ships are always recoverable:
        Reinforced Bulkheads (ship it's installed on)
        Damage Control skill (ship piloted by person w/ skill)
        Fleet Logistics skill (all ships piloted by officers in fleet)
    Ships with (D) mods can be restored at a market, for a high price based on the amount of damage (up to around 4x base with 4 d-mods)
        This includes both damaged ships and ships that normally have dmods, such as Luddic Path frigates with Ill-Advised Modifications


Ship autofit

    Pick a "target" variant from a configurable set and it will automatically create a fit using what's available
    Will use similar weapons if exact ones in target variant aren't available
    Multiple options (buy from market, allow black market purchases, etc)
    Replaces "manage variants" in refit screen
    "Select next ship with unspent ordnance points" button in refit screen
    Unspent ordnance points now also shown on ship list in refit screen
    Option to quickly spend any unspent points for a ship without fully refitting it

Will spend points on vents, capacitors, and some general-purpose hullmods

Refit screen

    "Add hullmod" dialog:
        Added tabs to filter hullmods by category (All, Offensive, Defensive, Engines, Special)
        Added "hide already installed hullmods" checkbox
        Added indicator to show which hullmods are already installed
        Improved overall readability and adjusted color scheme to be more in line with rest of game
    Made some miscellaneous visual improvements
    Added filters (by type and source) to weapon and fighter picker dialogs
        Improved readability of items in dialog
        Added "PD" indicator and weapon range to each item
    Weapon tooltip now shows EMP damage for MIRV-style weapons




Miscellaneous

    Added progress bar to game saving
    Windows will no longer think the application is not responding while loading or saving a game
    Ship ordnance points increased across the board by 0-20%, around 10% in most cases
        Some ships increased more or less of an increase for balance reasons; examples:
        Harbinger: 80 -> 95
        Apogee: 135 -> 140
    Ship refit now only degrades CR when something is removed. I.E. adding weapons or hullmods will not reduce CR unless something is removed to make room
        Mostly applicable for recovered ships - spending their free OP will not tank their CR
    Reduced deployment and maintenance cost of Buffalo Mk.2 to 4 supplies (was: 6)
    Fixed frame rate drop when opening interaction dialog that could occur at larger fleet sizes
    Removed CR reduction for hull damage taken in combat
    Added "enableUIStaticNoise" setting to data/config/settings.json to disable UI static noise overlay
    Weapons with recoil now retract their barrels while ship is venting
    Reduced game startup time
    Ships given the "Retreat" command will now turn to face pursuing enemy ships and perform more of a fighting retreat
    Added "Direct Retreat" command for a best-speed retreat
    Added workaround for issue with some recent versions of NVIDIA drivers causing game to not start
    "Harass" assignment: ships will now make sure to stay outside enemy weapon range


Officers:

    Now start with 2 skill selections at level 1
    Max out with 7 level 3 skills at levl 20
    Limited to 10 skills total


Skill overhaul

    Aptitudes and skills limited to 3 levels
    Both increased using "character points", player gains 1 per level
    Each skill level has a perk, skills generally do not have bonuses that increase with level
    Aptitudes no longer have a direct effect but only unlock higher levels for governed skills
    Combat skills more focused on defense and overall weaker than before
    All percentile reductions from skills are now multiplicative
    Combat skills:
        Combat Endurance
        Missile Specialization
        Ordnance Expertise
        Target Analysis
        Damage Control
        Impact Mitigation
        Defensive Systems
        Evasive Action
        Advanced Countermeasures
        Helmsmanship
    Leadership skills:
        Command & Control
        Officer Management
        Coordinated Maneuvers
        Fleet Logistics
        Fighter Doctrine
        Carrier Command
        Wing Commander
        Strike Commander
    Technology Skills:
        Gunnery Implants
        Power Grid Modulation
        Electronic Warfare
        Loadout Design
        Sensors
        Navigation
    Industry
        Safety Procedures
        Recovery Operations
        Field Repairs
        Surveying
        Salvaging
    Removed navigation requirement for using star jump-points
    Combat objectives:
        No longer give command points for capturing
        Starting command points set to 5
        Nav Buoy
            Gives +5% top speed
        Related skill: Coordinated Maneuvers
            +1-4% top speed per ship deployed, based on size
            10-20% maximum based on skill level
                Does not affect fighters
            Coordinated Maneuvers and Nav Buoy combined total limited by maximum (base 10% w/o skill)
        Sensor Array renamed to Sensor Jammer
            Gives +5% ECM rating
            Total value compared for each side, losing side's weapon range reduced by the difference
            Related skill: Electronic Warfare
            +1-4% ECM rating per ship deployed, based on size
            10-20% maximum range effect based on skill level
                Does not affect fighters
        Command points now regenerate at a rate of 1 every 120 seconds
            Comm Relay increases regeneration rate by 25%


New/adjusted hullmods:

    All percentile reductions applied by hullmods are now multiplicative
        Most already were; this is just cleanup to ensure consistency
        Goal is to avoid unreasonable stacking, i.e. -50% and -50% reducing a value to 0
    Flux Coil Adjunct, Flux Distributor:
        Cost 4/8/12/20 ordnance points
        Provide dissipation/capacity at 75% efficiency compared to vents and capacitors
        Available from the start
    Generally reduced penalties from d-mods
    ECCM Package: now also reduces weapon range penalty from losing Electronic Warfare
    Expanded Missile Racks:
        Now increases missile ammo by 100% (was: 75%)
        Ordnance point cost increased substantially
        One-shot Reaper torpedo launcher now has a 5 second cooldown
    Degraded Engines: reduced sensor signature penalty, reduced movement penalty
    Accelerated Shields: no longer available from start
    Expanded Magazines: no longer available from start
    Reinforced Bulkheads: available at campaign start
    Salvage Gantry: removed bonus to salvage from being deployed in combat, wasn't working right design-wise
    New hullmods:
        Expanded Deck Crew
        Recovery Shuttles
        Nav Relay
        ECM Package
        Operations Center


Ships

    Omen: added built-in ECM and ECCM Package
    Tempest: increased shield arc to 120 degrees (was 90)
    Apogee: replaced ship system with Active Flare Launcher (2x)
    Conquest:
        Added "Heavy Ballistics Integration" built-in hullmod: reduces large ballistic OP cost by 10
        Reduced OP by 30 (relative to higher, rebalanced value)
    Aurora: changed non-front-facing medium turret from energy to synergy
    Added Drover-class midline carrier, destroyer-sized with 2 fighter bays
    Added Legion-class low-tech battlecarrier


Weapons

    Sabot SRM:
        Now fires a spread of 5 warheads
        Each deals 200 kinetic and 400 EMP damage
            When hitting hull/armor, EMP damage may arc for another 400 EMP damage
    Hellbore Cannon:
        Halved rate of fire
        Reduced flux cost to 750/shot (was: 825)
        Adjusted visuals for muzzle flash, shot, and impact (more prominent)
        Overall: low dps, very high per-shot damage, very low flux cost
    Mjolnir: increased flux/shot to 500 (was: 400)
    Storm Needler:
        Reduced flux cost/shot to 65 (was: 75)
        Increased shot speed, added a bit of inaccuracy
        Removed windup time
        Reduced range to 700 (was: 800)
    Guardian PD: reduced OP cost to 18 (was: 22)


Combat

    Proximity Charge Launcher: projectile speed increased to 100 (from 50)
        Mainly for REDACTED reasons, not to improve it as a generic ship weapon
    Ship AI:
        Fixed some issues with AI being overly careful around enemy fighters
        Improved logic for spacing out larger ships
        Fixed issue with "eliminate" and "engage" ordered against stations


Modding

    Game will throw an error message when running with any version of Java other than 7
        allowAnyJavaVersion to override this
    Game will now fail to load on Windows if jarfile filename case doesn't match that of the actual jarfile
        On Linux, will crash while trying to load misnamed jarfile instead of
    Game now checks for duplicate ids in various csv files being loaded, e.g. rules, person_names, etc
        Will throw an error when found; helps prevent hard-to-track-down "duplicate rule id, so it's quietly not doing anything" bugs
    ALL_SHIPS_IN_FLEET skill effects do not apply to fighters
        Use ALL_FIGHTERS_IN_FLEET and/or SHIP_FIGHTERS instead
    MissionDefinitionAPI.getDefaultCommander(FleetSide side)
        Can be used to give fleet-affecting skills to mission sides
    Station weapons now render above all station modules
    Fixed issue where mods were unable to override colors in settings.json
    WeaponGroupAPI:
    WeaponAPI removeWeapon(int index);
        void addWeaponAPI(WeaponAPI weapon);
    Skills can unlock campaign abilities ("ABILITY_UNLOCK" effect type)
    Added several values to faction doctrine that configures how commander skills are generated
        Commander skills are skills such as officer management, electronic warfare, etc
    Added player level cap to settings.json; "playerMaxLevel"
    Mirv behavior spec: added "spreadInaccuracy" that applies even when evenSpread = true
    Edit Variants: added checkboxes to force maximum combat skill levels on each side of simulation
    Name of "defense" for hull in ship tooltip now properly uses name of right-click system if it's not phase cloak
    Built-in hullmods can now influence the OP cost of weapons


Bugfixing

    Fixed issue where post-combat salvage would only contain half the cargo that should have been looted from the enemy fleet (affected just cargo from trade fleets and such, not basic supplies/equipment/fuel drops)
    Fixed issue that caused black market weapons to not use the proper range of factions to pick from
    Fixed memory leak that was caused by opening the refit screen, exiting it, and then reloading a save without unpausing the game
    Added workaround for occasional issue with wrong aspect ratio on multiple-monitor systems

Jarhead0331

Yup. No updates for over a year. This one is juicy and you know what? I still completely suck at playing this.
Grogheads Uber Alles
Semper Grog
"No beast is more alpha than JH." Gusington, 10/23/18


spelk

Oh I bought this in 2011!

Still looks interesting enough, will have to dig out the download. Thanks for the reminder..

Silent Disapproval Robot

It took me three times just to win the fight in the tutorial.  I flew around in the main game for a bit, made some cash, and then died hard in my first engagement that used fleets instead of just 1 v 1.