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dis astranagant posted:Next round I go to Magec for shits and grins only for the independents to turn out inexplicably hostile and immediately skullfuck me with huge fleets for no apparent reason. gently caress independents. I think they might be cheaper.
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Nov 22, 2015 06:14
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Am I the only one that uses swarmers? I mean, dual 75x4 HE damage will crack open armor on almost anything smaller than a cruiser. I have a lasher with 5x LMGs and 2x swarmers called "gently caress Your Omni Shields" that I used until I got an afflictor. Then I realized I could just de-phase inside the ship, fire a reaper, and instantly re-phase and take no damage while completely ignoring their shields.
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Nov 22, 2015 06:19
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Galm posted:Am I the only one that uses swarmers? I mean, dual 75x4 HE damage will crack open armor on almost anything smaller than a cruiser. I have a lasher with 5x LMGs and 2x swarmers called "gently caress Your Omni Shields" that I used until I got an afflictor. Then I realized I could just de-phase inside the ship, fire a reaper, and instantly re-phase and take no damage while completely ignoring their shields. I would if I could get past the one or 2 tiny shitboats desperately trying not to die phase. Bonus points for open markets almost never carrying missiles besides singles.
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Nov 22, 2015 06:26
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Hostile phase frigates seem very easy to kill. They'll happily let you push them slowly backwards towards a corner of the map firing a tiny amount to keep them cloaked until they overload.
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Nov 22, 2015 06:29
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AI phase ships are more of an annoyance. They'll buzz around you and fire occasionally, whereas you're forced to get rid of all the other ships first before you can focus on it; but afterwards it's dogmeat. As for money, I lucked out and caught a hand-weapon price decrease and that Chicamo-whatever planet in the Aztlan system. The thing is that the planet doesn't have a military market so you'll have to smuggle it out. Then I did procurement contracts until I was swimming in dosh. I have like 200k leftover and have no idea what to do with it. As for procurement contracts; guns, drugs, and organs are the big money makers. I managed to find a nearly endless supply of weapons via smuggling (I deal with the minor rep hits with more procurement contracts). And I lapped up a bunch of drugs (600+) from some planet I'm trying to find again. As for organs, I've seen those go as high as 5k per unit in procurement contracts; but I can't find more than a token amount.
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Nov 22, 2015 06:45
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I've managed to scrape up a half-million credits through procurement in the far north system to fund a wolf pack, and then bounties. My problem now is that nobody is selling anything interesting, anywhere. So far, i've seen one ship for sale more powerful than an Enforcer, one single Medusa on the black market. I have the money to buy things now, but even finding just a heavy blaster requires scouring four systems to get one from the black market, and forget about a Tempest or a non-(D) Sunder or a plasma cannon. I guess the 'you are only ever allowed to have one friend' investigation mechanic and easier boarding might be meant to push you towards raiding everyone except your One Friend for the good poo poo, because there seems to be no other way to get fun toys anymore. Or possibly my market spawns are just weird.  Also, i still can't change my RAM allocation. The relevant line in vmparams says "-Xms1024m -Xmx1024m -Xss1024k", and altering any of those seems to result in the launcher failing to, well, launch. I'd like to maybe be able to do that again before mods start finishing the adaptation, anyone else have anything similar? Ceebees fucked around with this message at 06:48 on Nov 22, 2015 |
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Nov 22, 2015 06:46
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Yeah, phase frigates are poo poo solo. But when there's enough other stuff going on that you don't have time to pin them down, that's when they can become a real problem, assuming they're running some kind of strike weaponry. Phase frigates are also some of the only frigates that hold up as more than cannon fodder when you hit the cruisers-and-up stage.
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Nov 22, 2015 06:52
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Ceebees posted:I've managed to scrape up a half-million credits through procurement in the far north system to fund a wolf pack, and then bounties. My problem now is that nobody is selling anything interesting, anywhere. So far, i've seen one ship for sale more powerful than an Enforcer, one single Medusa on the black market. I have the money to buy things now, but even finding just a heavy blaster requires scouring four systems to get one from the black market, and forget about a Tempest or a non-(D) Sunder or a plasma cannon. I guess the 'you are only ever allowed to have one friend' investigation mechanic and easier boarding might be meant to push you towards raiding everyone except your One Friend for the good poo poo, because there seems to be no other way to get fun toys anymore. Can't even find a Tempest or Hyperion!
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Nov 22, 2015 06:58
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Galm posted:Am I the only one that uses swarmers? I mean, dual 75x4 HE damage will crack open armor on almost anything smaller than a cruiser. I have a lasher with 5x LMGs and 2x swarmers called "gently caress Your Omni Shields" that I used until I got an afflictor. Then I realized I could just de-phase inside the ship, fire a reaper, and instantly re-phase and take no damage while completely ignoring their shields. You're not alone. Swarmers rule.
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Nov 22, 2015 07:29
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Ceebees posted:Also, i still can't change my RAM allocation. The relevant line in vmparams says "-Xms1024m -Xmx1024m -Xss1024k", and altering any of those seems to result in the launcher failing to, well, launch. I'd like to maybe be able to do that again before mods start finishing the adaptation, anyone else have anything similar? I'm having the same issue. But I can't figure out how to play this game. I keep closing to extremely close range and then get overwhelmed and blown up. Practice makes perfect, I guess.
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Nov 22, 2015 08:34
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Cathair posted:Yeah, phase frigates are poo poo solo. But when there's enough other stuff going on that you don't have time to pin them down, that's when they can become a real problem, assuming they're running some kind of strike weaponry. Having just walked out of a major fleet battle with three phase frigates in the mix, I can attest to that. Your AI captains have no real clue how to deal with phase frigates, which means any time the phase frigates go in your dudes are thrown into a tizzy and can't focus properly on actually killing the other guys. Not only do the phase frigates survive forever, they can effectively shield the rest of the fleet from your own ships because of this, and if you go in personally to try and hunt them down they'll fade into their own fleet and force you back with firepower.
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Nov 22, 2015 09:15
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I would be smug if I had scalaron pulse launchers too.  This has been the unexpected MVP in my lineup lately.
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Nov 22, 2015 09:50
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Tomn posted:Having just walked out of a major fleet battle with three phase frigates in the mix, I can attest to that. Your AI captains have no real clue how to deal with phase frigates, which means any time the phase frigates go in your dudes are thrown into a tizzy and can't focus properly on actually killing the other guys. Not only do the phase frigates survive forever, they can effectively shield the rest of the fleet from your own ships because of this, and if you go in personally to try and hunt them down they'll fade into their own fleet and force you back with firepower. Exactly this. Phase frigates are pretty average against other frigates, however they are delicious against larger enemy ships. The best trick is unphasing inside their shields and dropping your load all over their face before rephasing. They are also incredible at harrassing enemies, so if you give one to the AI assign them as an escort and they will be very effective. The EMP phase frigate is especially good since it's special ability can really grief groups of smaller ships and nullify missile swarms. A cautious captain with speed and capacitor skills will be very good at keeping it alive (just give it some longer range burst weaponry instead of AM blasters). In fact, the AI (especially the enemy AI) is really quite good at using larger ships for cover when piloting a frigate. It's also good at luring you out of battle. Speed and weapon range (and by extension turn speed) are so important in combat now. And I also want to complain about lack of ships and equipment, especially at the start of the game. Never seen a Gryphon in the wild yet, much less for sale. EDIT: Tanith posted:I would be smug if I had scalaron pulse launchers too. Jinx fucked around with this message at 10:05 on Nov 22, 2015 |
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Nov 22, 2015 10:00
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Ceebees posted:
I set the first 2 params to -Xms6g -Xmx6g, left the last one(stack size) as it is and it works fine. You also have to change the jre folder for a 64 bit version.
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Nov 22, 2015 10:45
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Has anyone been using Sabot SRMs? I've slowly conditioned my brain into ignoring them, but they've been heavily buffed.Tanith posted:I would be smug if I had scalaron pulse launchers too. SPLs are disgusting but they've been heavily nerfed. Still amazing on a Buffalo. That's like the best possible officer/ship combo, holy poo poo. Didn't consider how viable you can make AI phase ships now. Also nice to see another Dickerson. We should introduce them.
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Nov 22, 2015 12:34
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AParadox posted:You also have to change the jre folder for a 64 bit version. This was it, sigh. I checked the version and everything, but somehow i forgot to consider that just because Alex upgraded to java 8 in the package doesn't mean it's the right kind of java 8. Ceebees fucked around with this message at 13:21 on Nov 22, 2015 |
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Nov 22, 2015 13:18
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1) Get a ship that can mount 2 small missiles 2) Mount hamerhead torpedoes. 3) Get the +1 missile skill and mount expanded missile racks. 4) poo poo out 8 fast moving hard hitting torpedoes at whatever you want dead right this instant.
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Nov 22, 2015 16:15
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Jinx posted:I found the new hammerhead torpedos to be much more effective in that kind of setup (especially with missile spec 10) then annihilator pods. I guessing annihilator pods give you more lasting power? I found the AI tends to fire them off too eagerly at too long a range.
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Nov 22, 2015 16:25
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Carcer posted:1) Get a ship that can mount 2 small missiles I dunno, I'm still finding it hard to justify ever taking hammerheads over reapers, which seem to be just as fast, do far more damage (even when you take into account the extra torpedo), and benefit more from missile spec. Still, I imagine the AI is a bit better with them; more room for error what with the extra torpedo.
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Nov 22, 2015 17:38
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Gobblecoque posted:I dunno, I'm still finding it hard to justify ever taking hammerheads over reapers, which seem to be just as fast, do far more damage (even when you take into account the extra torpedo), and benefit more from missile spec. Still, I imagine the AI is a bit better with them; more room for error what with the extra torpedo. Hammerheads kill most things dead with missile spec 10 already, so in most cases the extra damage of reapers is less useful than the extra ammo. They're great on frigates dedicated to capital ship hunting, everything else feels like overkill.
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Nov 22, 2015 17:47
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XCom demigod (seriously, the man beat the Long War mod on Ironman Impossible, and Firaxis liked it so much they asked him to do it again on their official Twitch channel) Beaglerush did an introductory video on Starsector. It's pretty neat for newcomers, or in general. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTCpVY80Bpc This update has brought the game a massive step closer to being 'complete'. The new features are real game-changers, and the AI now feels much more intelligent and less artificial now that you've got varying personality types on both your fleet and enemies.
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Nov 22, 2015 17:49
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I'm looking at the Monitor right now and drat. I forgot how much of a bad deal that thing is. 39k, when you can get an Enforcer (for a whopping 3 more supply cost) for 29k. I hope somebody brings that up to Alex because that price is ridiculous and I really love the concept of the Monitor - but it needs to cost less than an Enforcer to be even remotely worth it. Edit: Safety Overrides are hella fun. Managed to whip up a Hammerhead that easily beats an Onslaught loaded with junk that would have been considered garbage or at least low tier weapons in the previous patch. DatonKallandor fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Nov 22, 2015 |
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Nov 22, 2015 18:10
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It's incredibly frustrating to go after a bounty fleet only to find that it's nowhere to be found because it decided to go on a magical adventure of pursuing whatever random fleet happened to wander near. This has happened for the past half-dozen bounties I've gone after. Edit: and it's not like I'm delaying at all; I've been jumping into the system and immediately going to the target location.
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Nov 22, 2015 18:48
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Dominic White posted:XCom demigod (seriously, the man beat the Long War mod on Ironman Impossible, and Firaxis liked it so much they asked him to do it again on their official Twitch channel) Beaglerush did an introductory video on Starsector. It's pretty neat for newcomers, or in general. Hope he continues, nice to see some competent gameplay with commentary.
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Nov 22, 2015 18:57
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Yeah, I hope he does more of it too. Once he starts managing a fleet, his true colours should shine, too. He micromanages everything, but explains every step and line of reasoning in a way that doesn't make it feel tedious. He also has the devil's own luck. 30% chance to hit? That'll work out 9 times out of 10. 95 chance? Critical failure every time. The more unfair the situation, the more likely he is to come away without a scratch.
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Nov 22, 2015 19:02
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Dominic White posted:XCom demigod (seriously, the man beat the Long War mod on Ironman Impossible, and Firaxis liked it so much they asked him to do it again on their official Twitch channel) Beaglerush did an introductory video on Starsector. It's pretty neat for newcomers, or in general. All right, Beagle's into Starsector!  And he's been playing it since way back, too. Starfarer crew represent! Fake edit: Oh nooooo, he thinks Stabilized Shields reduces flux damage taken by shields 
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Nov 22, 2015 19:13
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Anyone else liking the implications in some markets, legal or not? Volturn and Sindria have the Refugee Population modifier which leads to a huge amount (6000 last time I checked) of recruits, and are also an excellent source of Harvested Organs on the black market 
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Nov 22, 2015 21:25
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Gobblecoque posted:I dunno, I'm still finding it hard to justify ever taking hammerheads over reapers, which seem to be just as fast, do far more damage (even when you take into account the extra torpedo), and benefit more from missile spec. Still, I imagine the AI is a bit better with them; more room for error what with the extra torpedo. Hammerheads are handy if you want to shoot frigates with them. With practice you can cripple a frigate with a hammer and then finish it off with guns. It also lets them double as overloaders for a beam-heavy design. Essentially there are situations where you don't need a reaper but do want something powerful and high explosive. I'm finding hammers more useful than reapers on my wolf at the moment, and you can still unload them if you need the damage.
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Nov 22, 2015 21:29
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I still haven't found any atropos torpedos in my game yet, so I can't do a good practical comparison. Sigh.
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Nov 22, 2015 21:56
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Medusa with 4 tac lasers and 2 graviton beams is basically long range cheating.
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Nov 22, 2015 22:12
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This is by far the least fun I've had with this game since I bought it years ago. I can barely get my foot into the door before I get blown the hell up by raiders. Hiding and farming money between Asharu and Jangala for half an hour is pretty much the only thing I can do before I get wrecked by something. Blegh.
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Nov 22, 2015 22:43
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Okay, a bit of research, Chicomoztoc (Aztlan) is the smuggling capital of the sector. Drugs, Weapons, and Harvested Organs; but they're only available on the black market. There's no patrols there at all from what I've seen, they generally stick to Coatl; so keep your transponder off and you'll generally only lose 2-3 points of relation. That's relatively easy to bring back up by doing more procurement missions for them (Color of the text indicates which faction is requesting it). If you don't have much money to start with, start by doing hand weapons or recreational drugs first. Those can be bought for ~200 credits apiece, usually less. Organs are where the real money is at, and those cost ~800-900 per unit. Remember that most procurement quests need 10-50-100 units. When wondering which procurement missions to take, always look at the price per unit. Drugs and hand-weapon missions will almost always turn a profit, but harvested organ missions will sometimes try to skin you - I wouldn't bother with less than 2k per unit unless there's a generous bonus for speedy delivery. Missions in red are given by pirates (You must have more than -75 relations to accept them) and generally pay more, but you need your transponder OFF while remaining undetected by patrols in order to complete the delivery. So avoid pirate procurement missions that lead to heavily trafficked areas such as the planets Jangala, Sindria, and Eochu Bres (Independent planets don't give a poo poo). As for fleet composition, I run with my single lasher, and shepherds; now shepherds are easier to detect and have 1 less burn than cerberuses (cerberi?) but they have the same 100 cargo storage and I find them more useful as backup with salamanders/swarmers and drones; not to mention they cost half as much a cerberus. Augmented engines on EVERYTHING; occasionally missions will spawn a pirate wave and they're pretty tough early on so you'll want to outrun them plus they need the speed for those 1-day missions. Carry plenty of fuel because you'll be emergency burning a lot in order to outrun pirates and make those fast delivery deadlines. Last thing is that you should remember which warp gate leads to which section. The difference in distance between the entering Hybrasil between Elada and Belar is substantial.
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Nov 22, 2015 22:53
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Someone asked about Sabots earlier: Perhaps I've been playing SS+ too much because I remember Sabots splitting into sub-munitions and overloading PD but the current version has Sabots hanging out for a bit before traveling at like 1,000 m/s toward the target. I've been putting them on my Wolf at the beginning (with a Heavy blaster) because a pair of them tend to overload (or nearly so) just about any frigate with shields. They rarely miss, too, though they tend to lazily drift toward targets at first and that's when they get shot down. Sometimes the delay between firing them and them taking off like rockets is infuriating because I want the damage "NAOW" but sometimes their lingering in space ends up being the difference between an overload and just hitting the shield. Personally, I do like them when I don't have much kinetic damage otherwise.
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Nov 22, 2015 22:56
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FooF posted:Someone asked about Sabots earlier: Fairly certain Alex swapped Sabots back to the single shot version with the update. Vaguely remember seeing a blog spot about it. I love running Sabots and a HE heavy loadout. If you can time it so that you close right as the Sabots go into the 2nd stage you can overload/melt just about anything.
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Nov 23, 2015 00:07
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Brainbread posted:This is by far the least fun I've had with this game since I bought it years ago. I can barely get my foot into the door before I get blown the hell up by raiders. Hiding and farming money between Asharu and Jangala for half an hour is pretty much the only thing I can do before I get wrecked by something. I feel like trying to jump straight into bounties, especially random bounties, is something of a sucker's game now. It's possible, but there's a lot of needless pain and hardship along the way. You'd do better to track down procurement missions - even if you're a wimp and only carry legal goods, it doesn't take long to stumble across a cherry contract paying out 500 credits per unit of supply or something similarly absurd. Once you have around 50K (which can sometimes take nothing more than a single very good mission), you can sink your earnings into a pair of good combat frigates and maybe a light carrier + fighter wing, which is plenty to handle the early named bounties with and which has a much better chance of handling roving pirate bands.
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Nov 23, 2015 00:10
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Or you can take out named bounties with a single Wolf by dancing at the edge of a Sunder D battlegroup's effective range and overloading them one by one with repeated fire and careful positioning! 
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Nov 23, 2015 00:12
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Anticheese posted:Or you can take out named bounties with a single Wolf by dancing at the edge of a Sunder D battlegroup's effective range and overloading them one by one with repeated fire and careful positioning! And then upgrade to a Medusa, the really big Wolf.
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Nov 23, 2015 00:58
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Loving the new patch. Been trying to get friendly with the Tri-Tach or anybody so that I can get an Afflictor, but it's hard finding pirates, oddly. I did however manage to find a guy buying 100 units of drugs for over 100k, and then about a week or so later, buying 200 for about 150k. The gently caress kind of parties is HE throwing (and yeah, exact same dude, got a rep boost from the first delivery).
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Nov 23, 2015 01:40
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Rorac posted:Loving the new patch. Been trying to get friendly with the Tri-Tach or anybody so that I can get an Afflictor, but it's hard finding pirates, oddly. I did however manage to find a guy buying 100 units of drugs for over 100k, and then about a week or so later, buying 200 for about 150k. The gently caress kind of parties is HE throwing (and yeah, exact same dude, got a rep boost from the first delivery). "eey, another shipment came in! eey don't judge me you guys, these orgies keep us in business!"
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Nov 23, 2015 01:46
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Thought I'd have an easy time chasing "pirate smugglers" but they had a Shade and 2 real Lashers  They flipped independent just long enough to get the Hegemony to wander off then charged right at me.
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Nov 23, 2015 02:00
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