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Re: Stars in Shadow

Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2016 4:59 pm
by Arioch
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:Is that going to be fixed at some point? It's really kind of frustrating, to queue up five transports costing 31 work each, on a two-shipyard world putting out over 200 work, and have them take five turns to finish, same as if I'd queued them on a 31 work world.
The one project per turn limit is deliberate, to prevent a variety of abuses, mainly relating to rush-buy and other one-time production boosts. You shouldn't be able to build an entire fleet in a single turn. Having to wait a full turn to build an inexpensive item at a high-production planet is not (in my opinion) a problem; I don't think it's unreasonable to have to wait 5 turns to build 5 transports (build your in expensive items at lower-production if the loss in efficiency bothers you). If you're building 100 transports in a row, then there's probably something wrong with game balance.

The auto-send-to-trade-pool function should make queuing transport production less of a hassle.

Re: Stars in Shadow

Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2016 9:29 pm
by ShadowDragon8685
Arioch wrote:
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:Is that going to be fixed at some point? It's really kind of frustrating, to queue up five transports costing 31 work each, on a two-shipyard world putting out over 200 work, and have them take five turns to finish, same as if I'd queued them on a 31 work world.
The one project per turn limit is deliberate, to prevent a variety of abuses, mainly relating to rush-buy and other one-time production boosts. You shouldn't be able to build an entire fleet in a single turn. Having to wait a full turn to build an inexpensive item at a high-production planet is not (in my opinion) a problem; I don't think it's unreasonable to have to wait 5 turns to build 5 transports (build your in expensive items at lower-production if the loss in efficiency bothers you). If you're building 100 transports in a row, then there's probably something wrong with game balance.
Nah, that's snowballing. Right now I've got an industrial-technological juggernaut going that would make the Galactic Empire think long and hard before sending any Star Destroyers my war. They'd want at least a few Death Stars, or my Liberty Stars would shrek their Star Destroyer fleets.


Also, here's an interesting, um, situation.
If you take a planet, the people on that planet get pretty annoyed with you, even if you managed a bloodless (relatively) capture. Perfectly reasonable.

What is less reasonable is that the people I send in from my own empire to take their place as I rotate the non-dissidents off the front (scattering them to the four winds, to ensure their species propagates and thrives,) then get annoyed because "I conquered their planet." Only I literally just gave them that planet. If anybody should be annoyed, it should be the natives on whom I just pulled a massive colonial switcheroo on. (Those guys should be suuuuuper salty.)

Re: Stars in Shadow

Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2016 10:59 pm
by Arioch
If they're of different races, that shouldn't happen, but if they're of the same race, then it's hard to avoid due to the way the game groups population.

Re: Stars in Shadow

Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2016 4:09 am
by ShadowDragon8685
Arioch wrote:If they're of different races, that shouldn't happen, but if they're of the same race, then it's hard to avoid due to the way the game groups population.
For the whole game, I've had exclusive control of the Wrem. I took over an iceball inhabited by the vent dwellers. Sent in Wrem to occupy the Airless Wastes, moved out the non-dissenting buggers to spread them to other vents. The Wrem got annoyed a turn later.

Nothing my markets can't handle, of course. I mean, what's a little invasion between friends when you're bringing in social welfare and Space Pokémon merchandise? Hell, if anything, the locals should be happy - their leadership cut off their access to the luxury goods of my people, I'm bringing the good times back and letting the roll! Lassiez les bon temps roullete!

Yep, I just double-checked. A pop of Yoral I just moved onto an inferno world on the turn I conquered it have the "You conquered our world!" penalty. The human pop I moved on has the "You liberated us!" happiness bonus, though.




By the way, I have to say that Othin dissidents are incredibly cute, for being horrible bug-monsters. They just look so... "Don't touch me!" Annoyed.

I mean, Yoral dissidents are literally ready to eat you, human dissidents are ready to straight-up shank a biatch and/or throw molotov cocktails and/or shank a biatch with a molotov cocktail, Teros put on their other spacesuit, Haduir ham it up like they're auditioning for a part on Game of Thrones and Phidi had to pawn their jewelry, but Othin just look put out by all of this malarky.

Re: Stars in Shadow

Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2016 6:47 pm
by ShadowDragon8685
Are Garden-type worlds categorically superior to Island type worlds? They have all the biome types that Islands have, plus that all-precious Forest type that's so beloved by so many races.

I just think Islands are nicer, is all.

Re: Stars in Shadow

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 1:02 pm
by nweismuller
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:Are Garden-type worlds categorically superior to Island type worlds? They have all the biome types that Islands have, plus that all-precious Forest type that's so beloved by so many races.

I just think Islands are nicer, is all.
Islands have larger biome zones for Reef, Ocean, and Vents. Under absolutely ideal conditions (access to shallow water dwellers, vents dwellers, and air-breathers for Gardens; only shallow water dwellers and vents dwellers are needed for Islands) their population cap works out to be the same. With shallow water dwellers alone (such as the Phidi), Island worlds support a higher base population cap than airbreathers alone on a Garden world, and Islands are unambigiously the best worlds for Phidi colonisation. Basically, what worlds are 'best' to colonise depend on who you're playing and what other species you have amalgamated into your empire.

Humans, Teros, and Haduir all prefer Gardens; Humans are marginally better on Glaciers than most other species, while Teros and Haduir handle Arid worlds well.

Yoral also prefer Gardens, but can cheerily get a lot more out of otherwise nearly uninhabitable worlds, and can pack a surprisingly high population on Glaciers, while dealing with Arid worlds as well as the Ashdar.

Phidi prefer Islands, while still being able to take equal advantage of Gardens as most airbreathers. In exchange, they're less able to take advantage of Arid worlds, and can't even do so until environment domes are researched. They also love Coral worlds just as much as Paradise worlds, if not more- I'm not in a position to check if they get a slight advantage in population on Corals compared to Paradise worlds.

Orthin actually do best on Iceball worlds that are of marginal value to anybody else, followed by Islands and then Gardens, which are less valuable to them than to any other playable race. Orthin are unusual in that they're the only race that doesn't get more population on its own out of Paradise worlds than they do out of simple Iceballs and Islands.

Gremak are unusual in that they actually get slightly more habitability on their own out of Gardens than most other races, and the most habitability of any single race out of Paradise worlds, but they synergise less well with other races to get the most out of Gardens or Paradises. (That is to say- an airbreather or shallow-water species alone on a Garden or Paradise world will support a lower population than Gremak alone; pairing Gremak with either an airbreather or shallow-water species on such a world will have a lower population cap than airbreathers and shallow-water species together, and airbreathers and shallow-water species together get no benefit from adding Gremak.) Islands are marginally worse than Gardens for Gremak, but they handle Islands and Corals better than any other airbreathers. They also, unfortunately, are less tolerant of Arid worlds than other airbreathers, who can generally get at least basic use out of Arids.

Re: Stars in Shadow

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 5:50 pm
by Arioch
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:Are Garden-type worlds categorically superior to Island type worlds? They have all the biome types that Islands have, plus that all-precious Forest type that's so beloved by so many races.

I just think Islands are nicer, is all.
For a terrestrial species, yes. Islands are pleasant, but don't have much living space.

For an aquatic species, Islands will be superior.

Re: Stars in Shadow

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 8:43 pm
by ShadowDragon8685
Found a nasty bug, Arioch. It's new, introduced by the patch that was just pushed, because I've done this before and it was fine.

It happened when I used the "Move Colonists" button on the planet's image at the bottom of the screen, and moused over a unit of armor - Mechs, specifically - to transfer them to another planet. The screen goes completely black, and this error code is thrown.

Code: Select all

Lua state\@Technology\RACES.lua:180: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value)
Lua state\@Technology\RACES.lua:180:tanks:
 Lua state\@Technology\RACES.lua:70:fun:
  Lua state\@@util\@memoize.lua:75:race_string_Singular:
   Lua state\@Technology\RACES.lua:88:fun:
    Lua state\@@util\@memoize.lua:75:race_string_Plural
The screen stays black whilst the cursor is over the 'mechs, but it does not break the game. I was able to click on the mechs, move the cursor off of them, and things went back to normal, then I moved them to the world I wanted to move them to normally.

Re: Stars in Shadow

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 10:05 pm
by Arioch
I'll repost this in the SIS forums so that Sven (the programmer) can see it. Just so you know, I don't fix bugs. Bug reports would be most helpful if posted in the SIS forums or the Steam forums where Sven can see them.

Re: Stars in Shadow

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 10:17 pm
by ShadowDragon8685
Arioch wrote:I'll repost this in the SIS forums so that Sven (the programmer) can see it. Just so you know, I don't fix bugs. Bug reports would be most helpful if posted in the SIS forums or the Steam forums where Sven can see them.

Yeah, I figured, but I didn't know if there was some kind of bug-reporter specifically, or if it was just forums, and I figured that you'd know what to do.



Also, you can't transport Pell? I mean, it wouldn't be easy, necessarily, but if they were willing to go - you know, so as not to be subject to extermination by rogue asteroid/death star - it shouldn't be more than a minor horticultural engineering challenge.

Re: Stars in Shadow

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 11:06 pm
by Arioch
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:
Arioch wrote:I'll repost this in the SIS forums so that Sven (the programmer) can see it. Just so you know, I don't fix bugs. Bug reports would be most helpful if posted in the SIS forums or the Steam forums where Sven can see them.
Yeah, I figured, but I didn't know if there was some kind of bug-reporter specifically, or if it was just forums, and I figured that you'd know what to do.
Sven thanks you for the bug report. He's posting a hotfix as we speak.
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:Also, you can't transport Pell? I mean, it wouldn't be easy, necessarily, but if they were willing to go - you know, so as not to be subject to extermination by rogue asteroid/death star - it shouldn't be more than a minor horticultural engineering challenge.
The idea is that they're not willing. We may change it if we think it doesn't play well.

Re: Stars in Shadow

Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2016 12:54 am
by dragoongfa
After several more hours of gameplay some battle suggestions:

1) Fighters and Missiles/Torpedoes are under-powered. A combination of increased speed and a nerf of the range of PD weapons will do for missile/torpedoes. A small ECM tech tree for fighters (increased chances in avoiding dmg) will work wonders in making fighters truly viable. In addition to this the anti-missile missiles should get a bonus against fighters.

2)Human Battleships are horribly outmatched by their Gremak and Yoral equivalents while on the other hand human Heavy Cruisers are overmatching a lot of their opposition in heavy firepower but lack flexibility in armament.

3)Destroyer and Light cruiser class upgrades. They are becoming horribly obsolete in mid to let game. They need some form of buffing for that stage. In the early stage and up to the early/mid heavy cruiser era they are godly in dancing around and killing stuff quickly.

EDIT: Yorals in general are overpowered in combat ships while everyone else are extremely underpowered in comparison. Might be because the various race traits haven't been implemented yet but I find it hard to imagine a scenario where a Yoral player wont roflstomp everything in sight.

Re: Stars in Shadow

Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2016 12:07 am
by fredgiblet
SiS is on sale on Steam right now.

Re: Stars in Shadow

Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2016 6:36 am
by zircher
And gladly bought. :-)

Re: Stars in Shadow

Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2016 7:51 am
by Tamri
I liked the game. Bugs is met only two, everything else was exactly. The most notable drawback for me is the research screen. It would either alter or add functionality, even if the mechanisms sorting of technologies, because as a general list it terribly inconvenient.

Re: Stars in Shadow

Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2016 11:39 pm
by dragoongfa
Finally got around to finishing a game as the Yoral, I still stand by that they are overpowered despite the subtle nerfs they get. Anyway, you guys need to put in some 'victory' splash screens. Also an A.I. surrender option if horribly outmatched would be awesome in order to expedite victory in an already decided war.

Re: Stars in Shadow

Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2016 5:41 pm
by ShadowDragon8685
Hey, do you have to move a species which is primarily garden-dwelling to a planet before you see the option to Garden terraform it?

Re: Stars in Shadow

Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2016 7:14 pm
by Arioch
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:Hey, do you have to move a species which is primarily garden-dwelling to a planet before you see the option to Garden terraform it?
I don't think so, but I do think that the terraforming options don't show up if there's a race on the planet that would be negatively affected by it.

Terraforming options are due for an overhaul.

Re: Stars in Shadow

Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2016 7:53 pm
by Southern Cross
So you can't replicate what happens in Man of Steel in the game, then? :lol: :mrgreen: :P :D

Re: Stars in Shadow

Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2016 9:03 pm
by Arioch
Nope, the game doesn't support making bad DC franchise movies.