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Post by pherdnut on Jan 25, 2016 23:08:42 GMT -5
If takeoff/landing burns fuel and risks encounters which burn yet more fuel why would my captain automatically launch from a planet by default upon successfully completing a planet-bound mission before even bothering to stop in at the market to replenish fuel?
No total crew death-count. It would be hilarious. Voyager Season 1's redshirt death toll can't keep up with my ships. Seriously, I don't care about weeks survived. I want to see how many thousands the USS Suicide has burned through after months with one of my longer-lived captains.
Pretty sure you guys have had some persistent off-by-1 issues in whatever lists/arrays/whatever governs reactions of the factions to mission completions. Sometimes the results make no sense whatsoever. It's seemed better in recent months but still every now and then I'm completely baffled by the faction reactions.
What's with the passive aggressive trade embargoes? Why do I need a political officer for something I could look up in our own world on the internet in mere minutes in spite of our decidedly less than FTL-civilization? Just put the UI feedback with the red flashing embargo light at the trade centers in already and give the political officer the ability to reduce ramifications of negative actions and boost the benefits of positive ones for mission impact.
Am I missing something on the explorer or does it basically move from easy to impossible beyond the early game?
Lvl Absurd (like 400+) aliens ships? What up with that? If that's not a bug could I at least use the escape ship when they board before they insta-murder my longest-lived captains?
All my custom ships have 0 torpedoes. Might be interesting if they could target systems for a slightly higher shot at hitting them but otherwise they're too volatile in my experience. They either do nothing for you or they one-shot ships you wanted to soften up for capture.
If there isn't a way to ignore pirates of factions you have a trade permit with that I'm missing, there really, really, REALLY ought to be one.
On that previous line of thought it always struck me as odd that there's ambiguity as to whether I'm avoiding or seeking out encounters. Shouldn't I be able to set the ones I want to have, want to avoid, and then let whatever combination of attributes/skills play out to determine what I run into? I mean, a pirate wants to find low-level ships with massively huge cargo bays and engine trouble while avoiding the local cops. That's not precisely the same thing an alien hunter wants to find/avoid.
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Post by johndramey on Jan 25, 2016 23:22:47 GMT -5
Yo, Welcome to the forums and thanks for stopping by. I'll try to address your questions/issues, but I'm far from an ST pro. If takeoff/landing burns fuel and risks encounters which burn yet more fuel why would my captain automatically launch from a planet by default upon successfully completing a planet-bound mission before even bothering to stop in at the market to replenish fuel? I believe the rationale behind this is that every interaction, be it turning in a contract or delivering some cargo, takes place in orbit. You land, tell X that you are ready to do Y, and then take off again to take care of business. No messing with local authorities that way! That's actually a good idea as a feature request. I don't think it can be added into ST, although I could be wrong, but it might be something doable for ST2! Do you mean the reactions to your actions? Those depend on a large number of things, such as your skills, the magnitude of your infraction, your standing, current political actions, etc. Cory and Andrew have pretty much got those bad boys down. Well, you don't need the political officer, she just makes your life a little easier if you plan on doing a lot of trading. You can easily check out the disputes page every time you land, like I do! If the player got a warning no matter what, it would remove a lot of the draw of having a political officer. Exploration definitely gets hard later, but rewards also move up as well. I've always treated exploration as a early game boost to get credits, as making a purpose built explorer requires a lot of skill investment. It's not impossible, however. The late game aliens can definitely be scary, but they are designed as a challenge for your late game captains. If they didn't pop up from time to time, you'd basically have invincible captains that could never be touched. Picture them as an "end boss" of sorts. I'm not a torper, either. I prefer guns. However, some people absolutely swear by them. You can get upgrades that up your accuracy with them, and your skills also have an influence on them. If you have a trade permit, you actually "surrender" to them and they won't hurt you. The flavor text actually says something to that effect. It is a little confusing at first, but it makes sense. Well, I think the idea is that you aren't trying to get into these encounters, rather your counterpart is forcing them onto you. Would it be nice to have a system like you laid out where you can have the game auto-resolve encounters you aren't interested in? Yeah, man, that would be a really great QoL improvement. However, I think it's not really in the scope of the game. Again, maybe possible with ST2? |
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Post by Cory Trese on Jan 25, 2016 23:38:48 GMT -5
If you have any specifics, I'd love to take a look. General stuff like "some off-by-1 issues" doesn't really help and is as easily explained by player confusion as it is by a bug. We've got about 100,000 monthly players and issues in ST RPG are universally reported in high volume to my e-mail.
My best Impossible Difficulty Explorer character is still rocking at year 357.40AE ... and I've received saved games past year 500 with amazing Explorers ... so that one might just be your strategy that's giving you that impression.
Always happy to fix bugs ... if they're the kind that can be fixed!
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Post by slayernz on Jan 26, 2016 2:02:43 GMT -5
With a trade permit, you can ignore them and they will automatically retreat and leave you alone. Of course, if you don't have a TP with that faction, they will try and attack. If you're good, they just become an annoyance, and it's like swatting flies.
It depends on the difficulty level you are playing, and the level your captain is. I think that if you're seeing level 400+, you're quite high and/or you're playing Crazy+ difficulty.
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Post by Cory Trese on Jan 26, 2016 2:09:56 GMT -5
With a trade permit, you can ignore them and they will automatically retreat and leave you alone. Of course, if you don't have a TP with that faction, they will try and attack. If you're good, they just become an annoyance, and it's like swatting flies. Great answer. So there is an easy way to ignore pirates of the factions you have a trade permit with. It would be crazy frustrating if you had to fight EVERY ship you ran into ... although I've seen Google Play videos of people who's play style seems to be just that. That play style does depend heavily on appreciating the nuances of Torpedoes and the multilevel approach to ST combat. |
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Post by Officer Genious on Jan 26, 2016 9:51:11 GMT -5
I've done torpedo-swearing captains. It's more difficult than guns, but rewarding. The trick is in high tactics-- torps are actually more likely to disable than mashing the gun button at medium range. It also relies heavily on stealth, which levels you quickly and makes life more difficult in general. Still doable.
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Post by pherdnut on Jan 26, 2016 10:18:56 GMT -5
With a trade permit, you can ignore them and they will automatically retreat and leave you alone. Of course, if you don't have a TP with that faction, they will try and attack. If you're good, they just become an annoyance, and it's like swatting flies. Great answer. So there is an easy way to ignore pirates of the factions you have a trade permit with. It would be crazy frustrating if you had to fight EVERY ship you ran into ... although I've seen Google Play videos of people who's play style seems to be just that. That play style does depend heavily on appreciating the nuances of Torpedoes and the multilevel approach to ST combat. I would just find long trips more enjoyable if I weren't stopped by pirates I don't want to attack for the rep penalty every 2-5 squares once I've managed to get trade permits with everybody. I'm always happy to see independent pirates even if it turns out they're double my level and I have to run away. Sometimes it's just bad luck. Other times it's stealth not being where it needs to be at I think but it definitely slows things down quite a bit sometimes when you're carrying some decent loot through certain regions of space. But mostly I'd just like to be able to ignore certain types of harmless encounters so that I'm not stopped constantly for stuff I'm always going to acknowledge or, ick, "surrender" in the case of Trade Permit blocked pirates. On the potential bug thing, I think I've usually spotted it when bounty targets fly a different faction flag. I'll bag somebody that's flying Rychart's flag for instance and it pisses Javat off for no discernible reason (factions for example - I'll try to note factions next time I spot an occurrence). But where it gets weird is that there's no positive or negative relationship between Rychart and Javat of any kind under conflicts and the planet is independent. I'm not sure if my strategy's gotten better or if faction rep penalties for bounty missions have been reduced but it doesn't really bug me as much as it used to. I'm pretty sure I've spotted it on false-flag-flying bounty targets recently, however. Having to check conflicts at every stop might bug me more because I'm primarily a web UI dev. If you have to check information that's not a secret repeatedly, why not just have it in the most useful spot possible? Can't we just assume one of my captain's flunkies does that for me in the minutes/hours(?) it takes to dock and we simply know before we gas up? To me it's as much of an oversight as checking lists of dozens of ships one at a time was. It's certainly not hard labor tapping a few buttons at every stop but it does reduce enjoyment marginally, IMO, and there's no need. But mostly these are nitpicks. Great game. Love that you guys have continued to tweak and refine it for as long as you have. If it ever gets a major overhaul I'd gladly pay more than 5 bucks for that and I don't mind dropping a few on new features/enhancements as they're made available to support it. Just keep it 2D please. It's nice to have something I like that doesn't burn through a Nexus 6P battery like XCOM does. Another feature add I'd love to see is actual icons appearing on the map based on rumors you've gathered. Maybe color-coded for age so you know whether whether the event is likely to disappear soon. That or regions of space getting names that can be applied to rumors. |
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Post by fallen on Jan 26, 2016 11:38:16 GMT -5
Love that you guys have continued to tweak and refine it for as long as you have. If it ever gets a major overhaul I'd gladly pay more than 5 bucks for that and I don't mind dropping a few on new features/enhancements as they're made available to support it. Just keep it 2D please. It's nice to have something I like that doesn't burn through a Nexus 6P battery like XCOM does. Thanks for the feedback and for your support. I hope you'll leave a review on the game to help support us. I am not sure if you caught the news about Star Traders 2, read all about it! |
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Post by Cory Trese on Jan 26, 2016 12:03:57 GMT -5
Great answer. So there is an easy way to ignore pirates of the factions you have a trade permit with. It would be crazy frustrating if you had to fight EVERY ship you ran into ... although I've seen Google Play videos of people who's play style seems to be just that. That play style does depend heavily on appreciating the nuances of Torpedoes and the multilevel approach to ST combat. I would just find long trips more enjoyable if I weren't stopped by pirates I don't want to attack for the rep penalty every 2-5 squares once I've managed to get trade permits with everybody. I'm always happy to see independent pirates even if it turns out they're double my level and I have to run away. Sometimes it's just bad luck. Other times it's stealth not being where it needs to be at I think but it definitely slows things down quite a bit sometimes when you're carrying some decent loot through certain regions of space. But mostly I'd just like to be able to ignore certain types of harmless encounters so that I'm not stopped constantly for stuff I'm always going to acknowledge or, ick, "surrender" in the case of Trade Permit blocked pirates. I'm afraid throwing out years of work on the balance in the encounter engine isn't something that we're able to do at this point. You pointed out a few of the numerous things you can do as a player to control your own encounter rate, and that's good. Increase Stealth, reduce ship Signature, hire Officers that reduce encounters, carry less Cargo, carry lower Signature Cargo, plot better routes, avoid more Rumors, install the right Upgrades, manage your Morale, keep the ship repaired ... that's at least the basic stuff. I think what you're probably missing is how deeply connected the game's progression (and your own progress) is tied to turn-difficult-encounters-experience. I can imagine if you aren't seeing that connection then removing those encounters might seem harmless. I ran 2 million turns this morning with Pirates turned off and the overall result was HORRIBLE. 35% game balance adjustment, 42% XP rate lost, 61% more Captain deaths. We've put half a decade into the math in the game and making big changes to it like you've suggested would cause an open rebellion among our fans and players. On the potential bug thing, I think I've usually spotted it when bounty targets fly a different faction flag. I'll bag somebody that's flying Rychart's flag for instance and it pisses Javat off for no discernible reason (factions for example - I'll try to note factions next time I spot an occurrence). But where it gets weird is that there's no positive or negative relationship between Rychart and Javat of any kind under conflicts and the planet is independent. I'm not sure if my strategy's gotten better or if faction rep penalties for bounty missions have been reduced but it doesn't really bug me as much as it used to. I'm pretty sure I've spotted it on false-flag-flying bounty targets recently, however. That's not a bug, that's how the game's political simulator works. That false-flag to sector owner to politics link is one of the most heavily tested parts of the game. Your strategy has improved, Reputation rules haven't changed since early 2013. Having to check conflicts at every stop might bug me more because I'm primarily a web UI dev. If you have to check information that's not a secret repeatedly, why not just have it in the most useful spot possible? Can't we just assume one of my captain's flunkies does that for me in the minutes/hours(?) it takes to dock and we simply know before we gas up? To me it's as much of an oversight as checking lists of dozens of ships one at a time was. It's certainly not hard labor tapping a few buttons at every stop but it does reduce enjoyment marginally, IMO, and there's no need. Definitely hire a flunky to check that for the Captain! They're available at the Palace, more details in the game's manual about how to find them. Another feature add I'd love to see is actual icons appearing on the map based on rumors you've gathered. Maybe color-coded for age so you know whether whether the event is likely to disappear soon. That or regions of space getting names that can be applied to rumors. That is available on the zoom map. Thanks! |
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Post by slayernz on Jan 26, 2016 21:15:24 GMT -5
I would just find long trips more enjoyable if I weren't stopped by pirates I don't want to attack for the rep penalty every 2-5 squares once I've managed to get trade permits with everybody. I'm always happy to see independent pirates even if it turns out they're double my level and I have to run away. Sometimes it's just bad luck. Other times it's stealth not being where it needs to be at I think but it definitely slows things down quite a bit sometimes when you're carrying some decent loot through certain regions of space. But mostly I'd just like to be able to ignore certain types of harmless encounters so that I'm not stopped constantly for stuff I'm always going to acknowledge or, ick, "surrender" in the case of Trade Permit blocked pirates. I think you're missing what was said. WITH trade permits, you CAN ignore pirates of that faction. There is no RP penalty and no hostile challenge. You're just able to move on. Should you automatically skip all of those encounters? No, because the encounter does happen. You can reduce encounters by any one of the ways Cory has mentioned including boosting stealth, reducing ship signature, etc. Even if you press Ignore and you don't have a trade permit, there is no penalty - you haven't surrendered, and are not going to be arrested/executed. You just have a chance that the encounter will become hostile. With high pilot/stealth, and a good Engine to Hull ratio, you can still retreat from the encounter easy enough. Political Officers! Get one. They tell you when there are trade embargoes or spy wars, so you know whether it is good or bad to trade a particular good. When you're in space and have an encounter, at the bottom of the encounter screen, you also see the faction conflict details. Basically if you see xx is in alliance with yy, then you know you're going to suffer negative RP with yy if you are hostile. Sometimes combat is unavoidable, but at least it's not a surprise. |
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Post by Cory Trese on Jan 27, 2016 10:08:52 GMT -5
If it is an issue of clicking, you can turn on an Option to move after combats.
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Post by Cory Trese on Jan 28, 2016 18:01:54 GMT -5
Aren't our forum members helpful? Thanks to slayernz Officer Genious and johndramey for answering these questions so well. And of course, thanks to pherdnut for posting the confusion and inviting people to help clear it up! |
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Post by johndramey on Jan 28, 2016 19:45:23 GMT -5
I aim to please!
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Post by Officer Genious on Jan 28, 2016 22:17:35 GMT -5
(Bows) Anything to help a fellow officer, someone's gotta run the quadrant mail service and we're the unlucky chumps to do it, am I right??
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