|
Well, there have been a lot of Dev blogs talking about what changes are coming next: - Fighter/Carrier Revamp (+ a few more fighter squadrons) - Economy revamp - New Carrier - Exploration/Salvage (along with procedurally generated systems) - Planetary Surveys (with Outposts possible) Other changes: - Likely loss of the Crew mechanic (it's gone in Dev builds) - Potential change(s) in boarding - Easy-for-beginner drone fights and a potential "beginner system" - Radar UI in lower-right corner - Possible "rare" ships/items found via exploration and surveying And that's what I can remember. Basically, there's a ton of content already in the works and the Dev has said he's still working on [REDACTED] along with skill revamp. My guess is that patch notes will arrive within the month and a patch goes live in October. It is a slow and steady pace but each patch re-invents the game. So far, I haven't been disappointed by any of the patches and hotfixes come quickly after the drop.
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2016 22:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 10:20 |
|
|
autumn tends to be patchtime, we'll see depending on the scope of this though - if he's getting industry in there it might take longer.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2016 22:37
|
|
|
FooF posted:Well, there have been a lot of Dev blogs talking about what changes are coming next: So, there won't be crew members anymore, that need to be bought, or ranked up in skill? I found this to be interesting if underused. Seems like you'd need to pay salary for a crew for one thing. Why is it being removed? Lack of fun?
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2016 23:35
|
|
|
Count Roland posted:So, there won't be crew members anymore, that need to be bought, or ranked up in skill? Just removing crew levels I believe.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 00:00
|
|
|
Welp. I was doing pretty well, got a few cruisers, destroyers and fat stacks of money. I did something wrong and reloaded. The game then decided it couldn't load my save anymore. Idk what happened, perhaps it was because I added a mod to a game in progress (usually in games that isnt an issue) but it was fooked. Oh well, time to restart, add DynaSector, more mods. Instead of getting frustrated being alone with no money, no experience and no ships, I started as part of a faction with some ships and 250k cash to get me up and running. Immediately back into the good part of the game. Blackrock Industries owns. I love their ships. Especially that Asura.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 13:23
|
|
|
Cat Sidhe posted:Just removing crew levels I believe. That's a bit of a shame, i enjoyed the craft performance rewards for not getting shot to poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 13:51
|
|
|
edit: nevermind, game is fun.
Count Roland fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Sep 14, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 00:26
|
|
|
I always wished it was easier to group your ships by default so you could spend your command points on issuing orders. I want a couple of default battlegroups running about while I zoom around in a hound or something
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 01:50
|
|
|
The command point system has always felt like a solution looking for a problem. The enemy AI is pretty drat good at controlling its forces and countering your orders, so why not let the player give as many commands as you want?
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 09:02
|
|
|
As that would turn the game into something Alex does not want it to be... And more importantly, it would hamstring the AI while giving the player a MASSIVE power boost.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 09:07
|
|
|
Select multiple vessels, hit ctrl + (number), you have your battle groups. You can assign that whole battlegroup to defend one of its number, and then give the flagship (the one you're defending) the order to pursue an objective. There ya go.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 09:36
|
|
|
Carcer posted:The command point system has always felt like a solution looking for a problem. The enemy AI is pretty drat good at controlling its forces and countering your orders, so why not let the player give as many commands as you want? This would mean you would be actively penalized for engaging with the primary game mechanic of actually flying a ship around yourself, rather than spending battles optimally coordinating your fleet
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 15:58
|
|
|
UberJew posted:This would mean you would be actively penalized for engaging with the primary game mechanic of actually flying a ship around yourself, rather than spending battles optimally coordinating your fleet You can cause at any time and there’s only so many useful commands you can give, though.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 16:04
|
|
|
Platystemon posted:You can cause at any time and there’s only so many useful commands you can give, though. The dev is designing to avoid Hypothetical Optimal Player syndrome, where gameplay would be more optimized if you purposely had less fun. Just off the top of my head if you have infinite CP you probably shouldn't ever have a group of ships escort, you should always use destination or target commands on every ship individually to more efficiently deal with threats to a ship and you should track the flux and manage orders to pull them back when it is ideal on the fly and do all that while paused and flying your own ship so battles take basically forever. It's the same design principle behind making repetitive bulk trade routes unprofitable.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 16:20
|
|
|
I don't agree. Even if you could give infinite orders to ships you can't directly control exactly where it targets on the enemy ship or pick the moments it shoots or what it shoots with, all of which are far more important than telling a ship what to shoot. You're also still at the mercy of the captain AI for each ship, telling a cautious or neutral captain to attack doesn't mean he's going to do exactly what you want right this instant. I don't see why it would incentivize not controlling a ship. As I say above personal control over exactly what the guns are pointing at, where they fire and especially how the ship is facing is far more important in a battle than just being able to give general attack or defend orders that the ship might not respond to immediately as its caught in a firefight. I personally think the average player would do worse if they tried to micromanage. One of the great things the dev has managed is creating an AI that’s actually really good at playing the game, and if you tried to tell every ship what to do all the time you'd end up with a lot of dead ships as the enemy AI runs rings around you. edit: The trade thing I understand why its done, but its a massive newbie trap. You can see that just from how many people come in here asking why its so hard to make profit from trading.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 21:43
|
|
|
I haven't had problems running out of Command Points since Alex made it so that you can individually assign any number of ships to an order with a single point, anyway. 
Mordja fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Sep 14, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 21:46
|
|
|
I think this dev understands fun and balance better than 99% of game designers out there today, nothing is implemented without care and thought and anything bad is eventually fixed. The command point system is solving an issue of focus, it forces you to focus mostly on flying your ship rather than directing the battle by limiting your interaction.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 21:47
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:I think this dev understands fun and balance better than 99% of game designers out there today, nothing is implemented without care and thought and anything bad is eventually fixed. The command point system is solving an issue of focus, it forces you to focus mostly on flying your ship rather than directing the battle by limiting your interaction. This is really true and is kind of shocking. Is this guy some sort of genius, or are other games just not done as well? I see you over in the Cities Skylines thread, and while that game is neat, it could seriously use even a fraction of the thought put into SS. Or maybe the issue is that this one guy has complete control over a game, which is way different from a team and another planet from a big studio.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 22:01
|
|
|
Carcer posted:I don't agree. Even if you could give infinite orders to ships you can't directly control exactly where it targets on the enemy ship or pick the moments it shoots or what it shoots with, all of which are far more important than telling a ship what to shoot. You're also still at the mercy of the captain AI for each ship, telling a cautious or neutral captain to attack doesn't mean he's going to do exactly what you want right this instant. The average player (or below average like me) definitely would do worse, but the Hypothetical Optimal Player would do much better and also do so entirely while pausing and still simultaneously control his ship, resulting immensely long and dull combat encounters. Thus, it is removed as a strategy. The design principle is that good game design avoids putting perfect play at odds with engaging or rewarding gameplay. Roguelike food clocks are the classic example of this atelier morgan fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Sep 14, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 22:04
|
|
|
Carcer posted:I don't agree. Even if you could give infinite orders to ships you can't directly control exactly where it targets on the enemy ship or pick the moments it shoots or what it shoots with, all of which are far more important than telling a ship what to shoot. You're also still at the mercy of the captain AI for each ship, telling a cautious or neutral captain to attack doesn't mean he's going to do exactly what you want right this instant. It's set up this way because people did exactly what Uber Jew described; early on in development the Command Points system did not exist. The current system came in to play because it became quickly apparent that the players would very deliberately avoid fun and micromanage the ever living gently caress out of their ships, even though this actually did make them less effective (which led to complaints about the ships ai being broken because they wouldn't follow orders). Never underestimate how crazy people can get in their attempts to play "optimally" no matter how stupid or unfun or even unsuccessful the method. Incidentally the current meta for this optimization fetish is embodied by one of the fractal forums posters whose current model is the "single ship which can solo the entire simulator" method, i.e. because of the limits of fleet sizes the only ships worth taking into an actual fight are ships which can kill the entire simulator in one go or some other mind numbing, boring nonsense. Also gamey as gently caress. E: Also, the prior meta--which existed before combat readiness was introduced--was to get a Hyperion (because teleportation) and tediously, slowly solo an enemy fleet that way. MShadowy fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Sep 14, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 22:06
|
|
|
Count Roland posted:This is really true and is kind of shocking. Is this guy some sort of genius, or are other games just not done as well? I see you over in the Cities Skylines thread, and while that game is neat, it could seriously use even a fraction of the thought put into SS. Reading the dev diaries it seems to be entirely based on how he approaches a problem. He starts from the desired end behaviour and works backwards, and when he does work the other way (such as putting exploration mechanics in because, well, a space game should have exploration and that is part of its selling appeal) he constantly references the end behaviour and checks whether it's going to make sense. Such as with the surveying mechanic, he was careful to avoid having people hold out until they get a really good survey ship to survey something, so surveying doesn't impact what's on a planet, just what you know about, and surveying ability simply impacts what you can actually survey rather than how good your returns are. quote:An important consideration is that the survey mechanic should be influenced by outside factors – skills, hullmods, etc. Why? It’s a core mechanic, and “surveying” is very much a sci-fi staple, a cool thing to do, so it makes sense that players would want to be able to specialize in it. http://fractalsoftworks.com/2016/06/09/planetary-surveys/ I think more people should take that approach.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 22:10
|
|
|
MShadowy posted:It's set up this way because people did exactly what Uber Jew described; early on in development the Command Points system did not exist. The current system came in to play because it became quickly apparent that the players would very deliberately avoid fun and micromanage the ever living gently caress out of their ships, even though this actually did make them less effective (which led to complaints about the ships ai being broken because they wouldn't follow orders). Never underestimate how crazy people can get in their attempts to play "optimally" no matter how stupid or unfun or even unsuccessful the method. Lol, yeah, "Megas." He's the poster-child for min/maxing but such a voice is necessary because if there is something to exploit, he'll find it. You need players like that to keep you honest and even if limits are placed in a somewhat arbitrary manner, it's all to promote exciting combat and not spreadsheet victories. It's a good route to take. I've said this many times but Alpha Starsector is still quite a bit more fun than many full-fledged released games that cost $50-60. I don't know when Alex will view the game as "feature complete" but there still seems like a good ways to go and its only gotten better over the past few years.
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2016 00:48
|
|
|
The dev's guiding principle is "will this make the game more fun" and he sticks to it religiously every time he changes or adds something. I've been playing this game since 2011 and I don't think the dude has taken a single step backwards. Even poo poo that sounds kinda lame in the dev diaries ends up being the right call - this includes the removal of command points. I have total faith in the guy. In like five years when this game is done it's gonna be awesome.
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2016 01:42
|
|
|
Count Roland posted:Or maybe the issue is that this one guy has complete control over a game, which is way different from a team and another planet from a big studio. Two things I can say from experience: - Game developer executives (who have ultimate say in decisions because they own the company but probably don't play many games themselves) constantly say "this other successful game does X, so we have to do X too to be successful" regardless of how good of a fit it is for their game. - Game designers often have to work on games that they wouldn't play themselves and that they don't necessarily understand the appeal of, because you can't just up and quit every time your studio moves on to a new project and it isn't your cup of tea. Even if both parties have the best of intentions, they can end up putting things in a game that don't make sense for that game or improve things in any way.
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2016 02:03
|
|
|
Star sector development only works because, as Triarii has said, it's what the developer wants to make. He has an inherent understanding of what he wants to make, and how he wants it to work, and goddamn it it needs to be fun or else.! This is a labor of love, like raising a child, or some other sappy metaphor that no one really believes in. Alex is gonna make the game his way, with an eye towards making something purely for funs sake, instead for pure profit. He's making the game he wants to play, I assume. (Though one wonders how much he will play it once it is feature complete, or if he will never touch it again as he will see streaming java behind his eyes every time something happens.)
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2016 05:46
|
|
|
Tiandong Heavy Industries, and a bunch of Dark Revenant mods updated. Check your Version Checker heh.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2016 04:55
|
|
|
MShadowy posted:Incidentally the current meta for this optimization fetish is embodied by one of the fractal forums posters whose current model is the "single ship which can solo the entire simulator" method, i.e. because of the limits of fleet sizes the only ships worth taking into an actual fight are ships which can kill the entire simulator in one go or some other mind numbing, boring nonsense. Also gamey as gently caress. E: Also, the prior meta--which existed before combat readiness was introduced--was to get a Hyperion (because teleportation) and tediously, slowly solo an enemy fleet that way. I don’t know about that. Soloing can be pretty fun, and it’s definitely more fun that “deploy overwhelming force to end the battle ASAP and minimise the risk of losing a single ship”. Even if your margins aren’t as good when you overdeploy, it doesn’t matter if it means you can do twice as many bounties per unit of real time.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2016 05:32
|
|
|
Christ, I just played for 2 hours, only to have my progress wiped out by a crash. I figured the game would save each time you go to port, guess not. edit: What is the procedure for updating mods? Do I delete the current version, and replace it with the new? Or can I just put the updated version in the mod directory and that' that? Count Roland fucked around with this message at 09:15 on Sep 18, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2016 08:55
|
|
|
That's a feature this game sorely lacks. It doesn't do autosaves, and only uses one save-slot unless you specifically tell it to copy your save to another slot. It'd be a lot better if it also did multiple saves. Quicksave 1 through 5, which it rotates between. Same goes for auto-saves.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2016 16:33
|
|
|
Some rollback would be nice. I was hunting bounties and two of them were huddled around the same planet. I ended up having to basically play in slow motion because I couldn't get away without emergency burning IMMEDIATELY upon reload, then gunning it super hard to the nearest jump point. I must have died like a half dozen times before I even got to the point of deciding I couldn't win that fight, even.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2016 16:56
|
|
|
Platystemon posted:I don’t know about that. Soloing can be pretty fun, and it’s definitely more fun that “deploy overwhelming force to end the battle ASAP and minimise the risk of losing a single ship”. Even if your margins aren’t as good when you overdeploy, it doesn’t matter if it means you can do twice as many bounties per unit of real time. It's not that it can't be fun but that the reason for engaging in the behavior appears to have nothing to do with whether you enjoy it or not. I.E. because your AI ships are nearly certain to suffer damage, the possibility of losing a ship, the increased supply usage from deploying more vessels, and that you cannot over deploy against the very largest hostile units/multiple hostile units assisting each other, then the most optimal option is deploying a fleet killer battleship--or in the case of very large fleets, chain deploying fleet killer BBs--because your numbers go up more when the enemy has been defeated. That it is less ridiculous now--it's something someone would do just because they have fun with it--than it was before is a sign of how well the game design methodology Alex is employing works for him. Also, I kinda burned out on the solo warship thing and find it incredibly boring and tedious these days, which is why I described it like I did. Guess I got a little too vehement.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2016 18:06
|
|
|
By solo warship are we talking "let's see how big a fight I can pick with my single frigate and win to level up/get loot" or something else?
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2016 19:49
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:By solo warship are we talking "let's see how big a fight I can pick with my single frigate and win to level up/get loot" or something else? Single capital ships, not single frigates.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2016 20:03
|
|
|
I hope you guys are running full DA fleets, because DA owns bones.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 15:27
|
|
|
I've got SS+, DynaSector and Nexerelin . I've personally added Blackrock Drive Yards, Dassault-Mikoyan Engineering, Interstellar Imperium and Tiandong Heavy Industries and the Junk Pirates. Absolutely loving a playthrough with full Blackrock fleets. Not too interested in playing as Tian Dong (huhuhu) or the Pirates, but the Imperium looks cool too. I'll have to try Diable Avionics. e: Also this supposedly does autosaves: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9748.0 Iceshade fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Sep 19, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 16:09
|
|
|
Count Roland posted:Christ, I just played for 2 hours, only to have my progress wiped out by a crash. I figured the game would save each time you go to port, guess not. Delete current folder of mod, and replace with new. Overwriting can cause issues.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2016 04:00
|
|
|
Wellp, seems we're getting stations in the next release too. Neat stuff. More things to add as well. It's gonna be pretty neat, this is shaping up to be a ridiculously huge update.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2016 01:21
|
|
|
I wonder if we'll ever see stations of the sizes that we actually dock/trade with. Those seem to be big enough that a battleship could get lost inside it. That's more terrain than a station/ship you could fight traditionally.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2016 01:35
|
|
|
Wow, that's really cool.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2016 01:56
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 10:20 |
|
|
Whens the update releasing?
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2016 02:05
|
|
