Stars in Shadow

Discussion regarding the Outsider webcomic, science, technology and science fiction.

Moderator: Outsider Moderators

User avatar
Arioch
Site Admin
Posts: 4486
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 4:19 am
Location: San Jose, CA
Contact:

Re: Stars in Shadow

Post by Arioch »

ShadowDragon8685 wrote:Also, I noticed that the colonist/refugee icons on the issue tracker at the right were different from the population icons. Do those have fullsize versions?
There are two sizes for population graphics: normal and "chibi" (smaller).
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:
Arioch wrote:
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:[e2] Is there any way to embark a sub-1pt number of colonists? I'm trying to move like 300,000 humans off an airless world so the Wrem can have it all to themselves. Do I just have to wait until they're near enough to a 1pt pop?
No and yes. But you don't really gain yourself anything by removing the humans.
Really? Huh. I thought they were, well, "taking up" space that the Wrem could be taking up?
Yes, but Human colonists have better yields than the Wrem, so it would be counter-productive to remove them. A planet's max population cap will never go up as a result of removing population.

ShadowDragon8685
Posts: 368
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2016 5:01 am

Re: Stars in Shadow

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

Arioch wrote:
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:Also, I noticed that the colonist/refugee icons on the issue tracker at the right were different from the population icons. Do those have fullsize versions?
There are two sizes for population graphics: normal and "chibi" (smaller).
Ah. Are the chibi versions downscaled from large, detailed images, or no? I'm guessing that the normal versions were downscaled from larger, full-page images?
Arioch wrote:Yes, but Human colonists have better yields than the Wrem, so it would be counter-productive to remove them. A planet's max population cap will never go up as a result of removing population.
Ahhh, I failed to understand that. I thought the humans being present was reducing the maximum population cap into which the Wren could could expand. Thanks, that's cleared that up.

I've been colonizing airless worlds from other, more human-friendly worlds in the systems, then moving the Wren onto them and moving the humans off. I guess that's kinda silly though.


[e]Also, on the topic of UI, it might be nice to be able to shade, or "tag" ships of different designs based on the same chassis. I've been making some Fleet Bases which are stuffed chock full of science labs, and others which are supporting ship construction. It might be nice to be able to tag one of them with like, a wrench, or a science icon.

Also, on that note, I think colonist and lab R&D needs a buff. Something like 65% of my R&D comes from orbital labs, and they're insanely good compared to land-based R&D. You might want to consider adding artifacts or something to some planets (the way some of them have Rich mineral yields,) to incentivize labs instead of, say, more factories.

[e2] Also, how the heck do I get more metal? I'm badly hurting for the stuff just from building a few ships and stations. I'm drowning in cash to the point I can fastrack any colony's startup just by rush-buying a few factories, and I've got tons of production, but my mineral income is anemic. What techs lead to tier3 mines?

ShadowDragon8685
Posts: 368
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2016 5:01 am

Re: Stars in Shadow

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

I just found a pretty massive bug, BTW. I was hyperspacing my fleet away from a system with Marauders in it, when I found some other Marauders who apparently wanted to exact tribute from me. I told them they could pound sand, and the other Marauders apparently went aggro on me and autoresolved a battle against my fleet, which went decidedly poorly for me.

[e]Here is the savegame taken just before it happens. The fleet in question is hyperspacing away from Azimir, which is at the far east of my hyperspace territory. Run one turn and the fleet is auto-destroyed in an autoresolved combat.

I'm gonna try and attack the fleet and prevail in manual combat.

[e2]Holy fuck! Those pirates tech up waaaay the hell too fast. How the sodding hell are they supporting a tech base like that? More importantly: why don't they own the galaxy?!

Their battleships are basically invincible. ONE of them could curbstomp my entire empire.
Last edited by ShadowDragon8685 on Sat Sep 17, 2016 8:54 pm, edited 3 times in total.

User avatar
dragoongfa
Posts: 1920
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: Stars in Shadow

Post by dragoongfa »

Are you plopping mines on only mineral rich worlds? Generally speaking unless you have multiple mineral rich worlds its best to plant a mine on every normal world.

ShadowDragon8685
Posts: 368
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2016 5:01 am

Re: Stars in Shadow

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

dragoongfa wrote:Are you plopping mines on only mineral rich worlds? Generally speaking unless you have multiple mineral rich worlds its best to plant a mine on every normal world.
I'm throwing at least one mine on every world that's not mineral-poor, but still, I'm starving for minerals. Especially now that I have to replace an entire fleet.

User avatar
dragoongfa
Posts: 1920
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: Stars in Shadow

Post by dragoongfa »

Personally I go with two approaches:

Full rush for mineral rich worlds where I go full ham with insta bought mines, I plop a farm only if its a medium and larger planet where the population will be a big net drain, otherwise I just let it there with only mines and a market (it helps with population morale).

A mine in every planet and I colonize small arid planets early to mine them out. This in case I don't have mineral rich worlds.

User avatar
Arioch
Site Admin
Posts: 4486
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 4:19 am
Location: San Jose, CA
Contact:

Re: Stars in Shadow

Post by Arioch »

ShadowDragon8685 wrote:Ah. Are the chibi versions downscaled from large, detailed images, or no? I'm guessing that the normal versions were downscaled from larger, full-page images?
No. If they were downsampled from the same image there wouldn't be a need to have two of them.
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:[e]Also, on the topic of UI, it might be nice to be able to shade, or "tag" ships of different designs based on the same chassis. I've been making some Fleet Bases which are stuffed chock full of science labs, and others which are supporting ship construction. It might be nice to be able to tag one of them with like, a wrench, or a science icon.
This is already on my list of user suggestions, and I think it's one that would be helpful. Maybe the ability to choose between several different markings schemes.

ShadowDragon8685
Posts: 368
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2016 5:01 am

Re: Stars in Shadow

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

Arioch wrote:
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:Ah. Are the chibi versions downscaled from large, detailed images, or no? I'm guessing that the normal versions were downscaled from larger, full-page images?
No. If they were downsampled from the same image there wouldn't be a need to have two of them.
I communicated poorly; I believed that they had been downsampled from two different images, is what I meant, the chibi one moreso than the other.
Arioch wrote:
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:[e]Also, on the topic of UI, it might be nice to be able to shade, or "tag" ships of different designs based on the same chassis. I've been making some Fleet Bases which are stuffed chock full of science labs, and others which are supporting ship construction. It might be nice to be able to tag one of them with like, a wrench, or a science icon.
This is already on my list of user suggestions, and I think it's one that would be helpful. Maybe the ability to choose between several different markings schemes.
If there's anyone who can make that look hella good, it'd be you. I've always wanted to see a Loroi fleet in a different livery than that which we've seen so far, but you mentioned in the Insider that you weren't planning to do that for fear of confusing the viewer.



Back to the topic of interspeciated habitats, though, I'm confused. I have a glacier planet with a mixed pop of humans and Yoral.
The human population cap on a glacier world of this size is 9m, but the Yoral pop cap is 12m. The population levelled off and stabalized, though, with 5,015,450 humans, and 3, 984,550 Yoral; 8,999,900 total, near-as-makes-no-difference to 9m. Shouldn't there be room for another 3m Yoral, who are not constrained by the habitation requirements of the humans, to grow and expand into? IE, shouldn't both pops keep expanding until either the human pop hits their 9m cap and the Yoral keep expanding until they fill up the rest of the 12m cap, or the total hits the 12m planet cap, whichever comes first?

User avatar
Arioch
Site Admin
Posts: 4486
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 4:19 am
Location: San Jose, CA
Contact:

Re: Stars in Shadow

Post by Arioch »

ShadowDragon8685 wrote:Back to the topic of interspeciated habitats, though, I'm confused. I have a glacier planet with a mixed pop of humans and Yoral.
The human population cap on a glacier world of this size is 9m, but the Yoral pop cap is 12m. The population levelled off and stabalized, though, with 5,015,450 humans, and 3, 984,550 Yoral; 8,999,900 total, near-as-makes-no-difference to 9m. Shouldn't there be room for another 3m Yoral, who are not constrained by the habitation requirements of the humans, to grow and expand into? IE, shouldn't both pops keep expanding until either the human pop hits their 9m cap and the Yoral keep expanding until they fill up the rest of the 12m cap, or the total hits the 12m planet cap, whichever comes first?
The population growth model is complicated, but essentially it is designed so that moving population may be positive but is never negative. Each race has a habitability rating for each biome on a planet. If you move a race that has a better rating than the current population for at least some of the biomes on that planet, the max population cap will increase by an appropriate amount. However, that cap increase is the same whether or not there are still other races with lower ratings on the planet. It's partly for simplicity and partly so that population management is a perk and not a hassle.

Sven talks more about the model in this thread:
http://stars-in-shadow.com/forum/viewto ... 3395#p3395

ShadowDragon8685
Posts: 368
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2016 5:01 am

Re: Stars in Shadow

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

Arioch wrote:
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:Back to the topic of interspeciated habitats, though, I'm confused. I have a glacier planet with a mixed pop of humans and Yoral.
The human population cap on a glacier world of this size is 9m, but the Yoral pop cap is 12m. The population levelled off and stabalized, though, with 5,015,450 humans, and 3, 984,550 Yoral; 8,999,900 total, near-as-makes-no-difference to 9m. Shouldn't there be room for another 3m Yoral, who are not constrained by the habitation requirements of the humans, to grow and expand into? IE, shouldn't both pops keep expanding until either the human pop hits their 9m cap and the Yoral keep expanding until they fill up the rest of the 12m cap, or the total hits the 12m planet cap, whichever comes first?
The population growth model is complicated, but essentially it is designed so that moving population may be positive but is never negative. Each race has a habitability rating for each biome on a planet. If you move a race that has a better rating than the current population for at least some of the biomes on that planet, the max population cap will increase by an appropriate amount. However, that cap increase is the same whether or not there are still other races with lower ratings on the planet. It's partly for simplicity and partly so that population management is a perk and not a hassle.

Sven talks more about the model in this thread:
http://stars-in-shadow.com/forum/viewto ... 3395#p3395

Okay, I get the simple bit - it should never be worth it to move a population off a world they're already inhabiting just to increase pop cap.
What I am sure of, though, is that the game is doing a very poor job of communicating the truthfulness of that. It looks like I have an underutilized planet that's locked down below its max population, showing as being 9/12, but with both human and Yoral pops listed as stabilized.

ShadowDragon8685
Posts: 368
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2016 5:01 am

Re: Stars in Shadow

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

Okay, I think I get it now. The population maximum cap is presuming all biomes are being exploited, right?

So, for example, I can have 2m humans on a small airless biome, and another 2m Wrem. But there's also a Vents biome on that planet, which I could, theoretically, fill up with another 2m of those chemisynthetic science-bugs, if I had any in my empire.

The UI could stand to better communicate this, breaking down the population by biome, both where they're living and what could live there.

It might also be nice to be able to queue up population imports; say for example, I have an ice/vents planet that only has humans on it. It'd be nice to tell it to resettle some Yoral to that planet, then pick from a list of ships and planets that have Yoral on them. If you pick a ship, the ship flies to that planet and offloads; if you pick a planet, then either a transport already in that system will be used, if available, or a ship will be pulled out of the transport pool, fly to the planet, collect your Yoral, fly them to the planet, and offload them.


Also: will the AI ever agree to a trade? The Ashdar Imperials somehow have 45K metal, but they won't sell me so much as 500 of it, at any price. Is there ever going to be a way to turn credits into metal? I have a titanic economy, but absolutely no way to turn that into a fleet, and I need a fleet.

ShadowDragon8685
Posts: 368
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2016 5:01 am

Re: Stars in Shadow

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

Another suggestion:
Code combat to check to see if the defender has only immobile defensive installations (IE, stations, planetary defenses.)

Then add a second check to evaluate the maximum range of the attacker's weapons vs. those of the defender's.

If the defender's weapons are all of lower maximum range, just autoresolve in favor of the attacker, please. My rightclick finger was worn out by the time I got done killing a level 3 planetary defense installation with adamantine armor, with a single Destroyer armed with an ion cannon. The defender had a ludicrous number of Primary Defensive Beams, but my ion cannon outranged them.

[e] Also, wow. The diplomacy system is really not in, is it?
The Yoral were on the verge of wiping the Phidi out and I stepped in to save them. I reconquered their homeworld and tried to give it back to them. They wouldn't accept it. Not even for free.

[e2] Another thing I'm noticing is that, well...
Combat is very Outsider-esque, in that missiles and starfighters are absolutely useless against anyone with enough of a brain to mount so much as one PD turret on every ship. You basically need an absurd numerical superiority to get missiles through, and if you have that kind of absurd numerical superiority (which you won't because you're gonna be starved for metal,) you'd be much better off just shooting them with any thing long-ranged, particularly Railguns.

User avatar
dragoongfa
Posts: 1920
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: Stars in Shadow

Post by dragoongfa »

Gameplay issue: Ground combat in need of balancing

I invaded a marauder planet, had 8 Battlemechs in 6 troopships and 2 Assault Cruisers. The opposition had around 20 of their infantry units. Battlemechs have 8 combat strength each while those infantry had 2 each. This means that they had 40 combat strength in total for the 64 of mine. Chances of success were 3%. I invaded they lost 5 Infantry and I lost 3 Battlemechs. I started bombarding again until I whittled their numbers down to 5 Infantry which was when the system finall gave me 97% of success.

I think that its obvious that the current system takes numerical superiority above combat strength which is just plainly wrong.

ShadowDragon8685
Posts: 368
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2016 5:01 am

Re: Stars in Shadow

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

dragoongfa wrote:Gameplay issue: Ground combat in need of balancing

I invaded a marauder planet, had 8 Battlemechs in 6 troopships and 2 Assault Cruisers. The opposition had around 20 of their infantry units. Battlemechs have 8 combat strength each while those infantry had 2 each. This means that they had 40 combat strength in total for the 64 of mine. Chances of success were 3%. I invaded they lost 5 Infantry and I lost 3 Battlemechs. I started bombarding again until I whittled their numbers down to 5 Infantry which was when the system finall gave me 97% of success.

I think that its obvious that the current system takes numerical superiority above combat strength which is just plainly wrong.
Not necessarily. Tanks, hovertanks and 'mechs can only be in so many places at once. If the enemy just has more boots on the ground than you do, they own that ground, even if your boots are giant and metal and can lay waste anywhere they look.

Invading a planet without bombing it to rubble is haaaaard.


[e]By the way, are you supposed to be able to control fighters like tiny ships? Because it said they were useful for point-defense, but they don't seem to be. Any time I took them into combat, they just made a beeline for an enemy ship and were promptly shot to ribbons. There doesn't seem to be any way to use them besides waiting until one of your capital ships has closed to point-blank range and absorbed the PD fire, then launching the fighters.

It seems like the only good use for carrier space is armor squadrons.

Tamri
Posts: 313
Joined: Tue Dec 15, 2015 8:55 pm

Re: Stars in Shadow

Post by Tamri »

dragoongfa wrote:Gameplay issue: Ground combat in need of balancing

I invaded a marauder planet, had 8 Battlemechs in 6 troopships and 2 Assault Cruisers. The opposition had around 20 of their infantry units. Battlemechs have 8 combat strength each while those infantry had 2 each. This means that they had 40 combat strength in total for the 64 of mine. Chances of success were 3%. I invaded they lost 5 Infantry and I lost 3 Battlemechs. I started bombarding again until I whittled their numbers down to 5 Infantry which was when the system finall gave me 97% of success.

I think that its obvious that the current system takes numerical superiority above combat strength which is just plainly wrong.
You can make the assumption that the defenders use the protection bonus. Well, sort of as a partisan crowd undermined your 3 Battlemechs on mines (or dumped into the pits with stakes), losing 5 units, which lured them into a trap. :D

User avatar
Arioch
Site Admin
Posts: 4486
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 4:19 am
Location: San Jose, CA
Contact:

Re: Stars in Shadow

Post by Arioch »

The defender gets a defensive bonus, especially if the attacker is invading an unfamiliar biome type (terrestrial vs. aquatic). There is also supposed to be a difference between using cargo transports and dedicated military transports (troops carried in cargo bays receive a penalty during invasion, while assault shuttles negate this penalty), but that bit hasn't been implemented yet.

The advantage an attacker has is that he can bombard. But taking a planet intact should require significant effort if it is defended.

ShadowDragon8685
Posts: 368
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2016 5:01 am

Re: Stars in Shadow

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

Are Marauders just supposed to be magic bullshit cheese along the lines of Skyrim-style scaling random encounters?

Because these Marauders, despite controlling only one planet - admittedly a nice planet, but still just one planet - are fielding a fleet of absurd OP battleships that each have three times as many heavy railguns as one of my battleships. No, 3.5 times as many, sorry.

There's also seven of the damn things. I would literally have to use two Liberty Stars (Dread Star with all railguns) to take out one of these fleets, and I'd probably lose a Liberty Star in the process.

[e] For that matter, can I start producing their hulls? A BB-class hull with seven Heavy mounts? Yes please!

[e2] Is there any plan in the works for being able to set your fleet's formation?
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a battle to commence, I would really rather my fleet start in a formation I choose, rather than spend three turns (possibly under fire) getting them into formation.

[e3] Another QoL improvement that would be nice: the ability to build transports directly into the transport pool.

[e4] Another QoL improvement that would be nice: the ability to change the design of Outposts/set up different space stations around, say, random gas giants/stars/whatever. That's good astral real estate going to waste with a nuclear reactor and a fuel depot!

User avatar
Arioch
Site Admin
Posts: 4486
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 4:19 am
Location: San Jose, CA
Contact:

Re: Stars in Shadow

Post by Arioch »

Currently the Marauders' fleets scale to rather silly proportions. This will be capped at some point; it doesn't make sense that pirates have the largest fleet in the galaxy.

Marauders use the same hulls that the playable Gremak do, so you can build anything they can build.

Formation configuration would be a significant bit of work (needing a new UI), so it's not coming any time very soon.

We will add an option to auto-send transports to the pool on construction.

I believe you can refit an Outpost if you later set up a colony on that planet. There's not currently much else to do with them.

ShadowDragon8685
Posts: 368
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2016 5:01 am

Re: Stars in Shadow

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

Arioch wrote:Currently the Marauders' fleets scale to rather silly proportions. This will be capped at some point; it doesn't make sense that pirates have the largest fleet in the galaxy.
It really doesn't, because at that point, you're not pirates, you're an evil empire. I'm gonna take these guys down, but holy crap, they're gonna be tough.
Marauders use the same hulls that the playable Gremak do, so you can build anything they can build.
Seriously? The Gremak are meant to have super-OP battleships, then, and any endgame fight against them is intentionally meant to be a war of attrition? They get seven heavy slots. I get... Two heavy slots. The relatively larger number of turrets I have is basically irrelevant, if all of those heavy slots are full of the single most powerful and longest-ranged regular weapon in the game, since my ships will be evaporating as they're trying to close to bring their Force Lances to bear. (The missile launchers are completely irrelevant, since point defenses completely shred them, and one or two getting through doesn't really matter since they don't do properly BOOM types of damage.)

Endgame combat is basically dominated by how many Railguns each side can bring to bear, hence my plan to hit the pirates with Liberty Stars.
Formation configuration would be a significant bit of work (needing a new UI), so it's not coming any time very soon.
I figured, I was just wondering if it was on the roadmap.
We will add an option to auto-send transports to the pool on construction.
Glad to hear it.
I believe you can refit an Outpost if you later set up a colony on that planet. There's not currently much else to do with them.
So... When are Gas Giants going to be colonizable? I want my aerostats. Anywhere to shove some more taxpaying bodies. :)

[e] Also, what are Viscids? Is there anything I can do with them, or should I have just bombed every living thing on this planet to dust to get rid of them before I took the planet over?

[e2] I should probably clarify, with the outpost question: after you get the improved solar panels tech, they don't need their nuclear reactor anymore. You could fit, say, a science lab in that slot.

User avatar
Arioch
Site Admin
Posts: 4486
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 4:19 am
Location: San Jose, CA
Contact:

Re: Stars in Shadow

Post by Arioch »

ShadowDragon8685 wrote:The Gremak are meant to have super-OP battleships, then, and any endgame fight against them is intentionally meant to be a war of attrition? They get seven heavy slots. I get... Two heavy slots.
The number of weapons per slot is variable, so most battleship-class hulls are roughly comparable even when the number of slots is not the same. The Ashdar don't have a true battleship; their battlecruiser has 4 heavy slots. The Ashdar monster ship is their assault carrier; unfortunately fighters are underpowered at the moment. However, since larger vessels are proportionately more expensive to build, having larger ships is not as big an advantage as you might think.
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:So... When are Gas Giants going to be colonizable? I want my aerostats. Anywhere to shove some more taxpaying bodies.
At some point we would like to add special resources, which would be one thing that might make gas giants valuable (we even have ideas for gas giant inhabitants), but we probably won't be able to do that before the end of Early Access.
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:[e] Also, what are Viscids? Is there anything I can do with them, or should I have just bombed every living thing on this planet to dust to get rid of them before I took the planet over?
Sure, you can feed them. They give you love. :D

Post Reply