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Post by qswitched on Aug 18, 2016 19:33:50 GMT
I'll have the missile intercepting addressed in the next build, via a 'flyby command' in orbital view.
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Post by Crazy Tom on Aug 18, 2016 22:59:52 GMT
SESSION 6: VESTA BUNGALOO TWO
Today we're going to go into battle with some custom ships: This strategy requires us to go into battle as naked as a newborn babe in order to get maximum delta-V so we can outrun enemy drones and missiles because: The game crashed just as I was about to land the coup de grace on my first play through, but on my second one: Issues I noticed: Ships still occasionally crash into their derelict mates when jinking. Ever time I open up the game, I find that the radiators have been removed from all my custom designs. It's quite annoying. Enemy AI doesn't try to outrun my missiles, only changes course to follow my cap ships. Gameplay tactics and strategy conclusions: Drones or nuclear sniper missiles are shit vs. a cutter. Nuclear snipers good for opening salvo, but then pretty useless. Speed is armor - unless you run outta missiles and drones. edit: If there was an option to name our ships, that would be great because the RFPN need a Gravitas Free Zone. Also, I can't help feel like there's something missing from the strategy and tactics. Even this most recent play-through involved some basic rock paper scissor tactics and brute force. Could there be an option to have a level begin not when the enemy has inserted into your defensive area, but when they're just leaving theirs? I want to see if I can cause them to expend too much deltaV dodging remote controlled missiles.
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Post by qswitched on Aug 19, 2016 2:02:15 GMT
Awesome! I don't think I've seen that sort of strategy before, very cool!
Most of the strategies I've seen go the laser route to deal with drones. I'm curious to see how your strategy holds up in the later missions. Later levels involve much less match-set-engage combats (this was emphasized by the AI's aggressiveness on that level).
The radiator issue sounds like a very recent bug, is it happening every time you start the game, or did it just happen after the last update? Also, can you send me the crash logs? Thanks!
Edit: Also you can rename your ships in tactical view next to where you can turn on the armor visualizer.
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Post by Crazy Tom on Aug 19, 2016 20:44:47 GMT
Awesome! I don't think I've seen that sort of strategy before, very cool! Most of the strategies I've seen go the laser route to deal with drones. I'm curious to see how your strategy holds up in the later missions. Later levels involve much less match-set-engage combats (this was emphasized by the AI's aggressiveness on that level). The radiator issue sounds like a very recent bug, is it happening every time you start the game, or did it just happen after the last update? Also, can you send me the crash logs? Thanks! Edit: Also you can rename your ships in tactical view next to where you can turn on the armor visualizer. What do you mean by match-set-engage? The radiator issue is happening every time I start the game. Crash logs sent. Another thing I would like to request: staging. I find that my sniper nuclear missiles's low acceleration is a real detriment during terminal guidance, where enemy ships will straight up get out the the way and the missiles acceleration will be too low to match course again. I'd like to build something with a high-efficiency/low-thrust booster, a a low-efficiency/high-thrust terminal stage. Another thing to consider is crew: specifically, losing all crew when a module is hit seems a bit weird considering all the ways this could be avoided: partial pressure suits for the crew in case of spontaneous decompression, airtight bulkheads, self sealing hull materials, and combinations thereof. Maybe make crew survival a part of the high score formulation? Or heave a system here some of the crew die immediately, then you have to decide which systems to keep fully functional because you don't have enough crew. After battle, the crew can do damage control and seal the breaches. Huh, there's another idea: hibernaculums. Special modules that allows a ship to rotate a portion of its crew through cold sleep (where they consume less life support). That way they have a bit more than they need, and can replace losses in combat without the full environmental load of having always awake extras. If we could make enemy orbits visible through planetoids, it would help greatly with plane change maneuvers. Edit: I would also like to suggest the inclusion of a manual burn input. The Red/Green/Blue sliders are good enough for most instances, but I'm doing 'On the Surface of Giants' and I need more fine control to set up a Hoffman transfer that ends in a close fly-by of Neptune that intersects the orbit of the propellant depot at the exact right moment. It's very difficult to do because I can't zoom in on the depot and manipulate the sliders for the my fleet at the same time. I would like a set of 'mini-handles' say at the bottom left of the screen that correspond to the movement sliders of the fleet I have selected. On the bottom right I would like a display with four fields: one for the time along the trajectory (so that I can have fine control over when the burns start) and three fields where I can input values for the R/G/B sliders. When I change a burn with the sliders, the displays register the chance, and vice versa. Edit 2: Sheeeeeeeeeeeettttttt. Nuclear engine module design defiantly needs a tutorial.
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Post by Crazy Tom on Aug 20, 2016 22:46:36 GMT
SESSION 7: INSERT RISING SUN JOKE HERE OK, today we're playing the Venus mission, and there have been some exiting developments: my radiators are no longer disappearing (Kudos to space-dev for being on top of that), and WE. HAVE. FLY-BY's! They're little orange crossed arrows on the strategic view, and they're fantastic. Props to space-dev. How do tehy work exactly through? I keep getting a lot of 'can't fly by in time' failures. Anyhow, I've tried my hand at some module design, but my beefed up nitrometrane nuclear and flak missiles cause the game to crash. The crash reports have been sent in and for now we're back to the original modules. Through in this case I modified my Flak star to have 11 flak launchers instead of four. Between that and the new fly-by command, we're going to be doing this Honoverse style: I've also got a modified solar lance that I've switched over the Hydrogen Deuteride and whose armor I've stripped for deltaV. It's going to be shooting down drones and sniping subsystems. A deutreride tanker tops off this fleets, because Venus has a gravity well as big as Nikki Minage's booty and it takes a disproportional amount of dV to do anything.
Now the enemy AI in this case is either a genius or an utter idiot. On one hand it's splitting its fleet into packets which makes them easy to pick of one by one with my concentrated force. On the other.... the dV I'm expending to intercept each craft is pretty significant so it might be trying to render me helpless. Considering that Venus is our port, this seems a bit weird. I feel like there should be some propellant deports at least that I should be able to dock with to replenish my propellant and that the enemy can shoot down to deny me that advantage.
Anyhow, flak missiles continue to be utter shit as first strike weapons, so I'm going back and adding some nukes.
In other news, the AI seems to be omniscient. It will change its orbit the moment I've planned an intercept maneuver. I'd prefer it if it only reacted to actual action - like when I begin a burn, it would totally be able to see where my fleet will end up and make whatever decision then based on my observed behavior. On the other hand, this does allow me to bluff the enemy into wasting its precious dV. Hold up.... now it's only hanging course after I start a burn. Hmm....
Now, the big IR laser can pick off systems, and marauders only really have the one flag coil gun, so that neuters them fast. On the other hand, my flight of nuclear snipers causes the game to crash, so I'm wondering if it's not my custom missiles that were the problem.
I've run the game several times and it crashes as my missiles are about to make contact e4ach time, so I'm going to leave it here for now, and try the direct fire route tomorrow.
Other ideas:
Squadrons: Within each fleet, I would like to put certain spacecraft together. Primarily, I want to be able to split up a massive missile fleet into several disks of 50. Say I have 150 missiles, with three disks of 50 missiles each and a inter-disk separation of 100 meters. I find that when a missile fleet gets too big, the edges won't have time to move into the middle to hit the target.
Assemblies: The step between module and spaceship, an assembly would be a set of modules that you can plot down into the assembler together. 45 crew modules for example are best cooled by a 6x4 Aluminum radiator, so I'd like to be able to select that crew module assembly with the radiator already included. It would also let me develop vernier assemblies that I can just select ad plot down wherever instead of adding the thrusters and propellant individually, and making room somewhere on the fuselage.
Manual and trajectory time advancement: Instead of the 10 minute/1hour/etc. Buttons could we have a DD:HH:MM input that we can input a time interval to run into? I've been experimenting with unmanned missile carriers and I find that often I build up enough speed to close the distance to the enemy in under 10 minutes, which prevents me from deploying the actual missile swarm. Another thing to do would be to let the player place points on teh trajectory and advance time to that point.
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Post by qswitched on Aug 21, 2016 21:04:12 GMT
Hm, must be different crashes you are running into, please send me the most recent crash logs for those too. Sorry about that, I'll try to fix the new crashes as soon as possible!
Flybys find a intercept using a single burn if possible with a fraction of the remaining delta-v. Generally, they work best if planned early, if planned later, it may be too late for them to turn around.
The AI doesn't know what you have planned for burns, that case was likely just the AI executing a maneuver independent of your plans.
The ideas are good, thank you. In particular I think for squadrons might make sense to always limit the "disk size" to 50 or something similar.
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Post by argonbalt on Aug 26, 2016 3:06:08 GMT
Okay, I have NO idea how you succeeded on Ceres. I can't get anything like a workable intercept worth my missiles against the enemy drones. We seriously need better tools for plotting maneuvers, and the game desperately needs to have an option for high- speed intercepts with the intercept tool that doesn't try to cancel out all the vectors first. Wow uh i had no problems with Ceres, i actually got it gold ranked on my first try. If you need help with anything i could give you some advice.
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aiyel
Junior Member
Posts: 83
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Post by aiyel on Aug 26, 2016 12:19:20 GMT
Okay, I have NO idea how you succeeded on Ceres. I can't get anything like a workable intercept worth my missiles against the enemy drones. We seriously need better tools for plotting maneuvers, and the game desperately needs to have an option for high- speed intercepts with the intercept tool that doesn't try to cancel out all the vectors first. Wow uh i had no problems with Ceres, i actually got it gold ranked on my first try. If you need help with anything i could give you some advice. I've passed it, and now it's not really a challenge. Vesta on the other hand....
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Post by Crazy Tom on Aug 27, 2016 0:29:52 GMT
I've passed it, and now it's not really a challenge. Vesta on the other hand.... It took me quite a few tries, but I figured out that with enough deltaV I could zig-zag to lose the enemy drones and missiles while preventing the enemy cap-fleet from changing course. This let me place volleys of nukes, flaks and drones at 10 minute intervals. Now, the missile crashes are being quite a pain right now, so while I wait for those to get patched, I'm going to put forth some more thoughts: Glacis Cone Modules - Since side armor doesn't do much and creates a LOT of mass to lug around, I've been asking for directional armor for a while. But now I have an idea boaut implementation: Could we create a module similar to the spacer, with height and diameter parameters, to control the area of the glacis cone and the angle of the armor. Then could the armor menu from the ship design screen be placed into this module's design screen? I know that modules can be armored, I just don't know if it supports multiple armor layers. Manual disk size and spacing controls for missiles. In the launcher module design screen, could there be a manual input where we can specify how many missile launched from that launcher will group in one disk, and what the separation between disks should be? I ask because disks of nuclear missiles need much larger separation than flak missiles so that the leading disk doesn't disable the warheads of the trailing disks when it detonates. Spinal weapons desperately need to be armored or placed into the core of the ship. Every time I face Marauders, their coil guns are the first thing to go. Could drone launchers recover drones? I ask because I would like to bring them back aboard and use my cap ship's more effective engines to alter their trajectory before refueling and sending them back out. Also, what are people's thoughts about allowing modules to use the same armoring menu as ships? If it's possible, it could lead to mass savings due to the lower surface areas of the modules compared to needing to wrap armor around the entire ship. It also creates bigger spacing between the outer and inner 'layers' of armor. Finally, I would like the ability to make 'tumbling pigeon' configured ships: In such a design, the ship can be spun up under to provide artificial gravity for the crew during long cruises. Meanwhile in combat, it can be spun down and the main engines used to impart lateral thrust for jinking in combat (it's also more maneuverable because it can roll much faster than it can turn, so the ships can thrust in a completely new direction much quicker than before). The heavy sloped armor module is constantly presented to the enemy while the crew systems and radiators are well protected at the rear. I wonder if the 'perpendicular' main engine can be accomplished by making a dedicated module that codes certain behaviors into the ship and allows this perpendicular mounting.
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aiyel
Junior Member
Posts: 83
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Post by aiyel on Aug 27, 2016 4:05:59 GMT
Finallly beat Vesta. Hiding behind the moon is a perfectly valid tactic, and not at all cowardice!
Now on to some tasty module desi- SWEET MERCIFUL CTHULHU INFORMATION OVERLOAD
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Post by Crazy Tom on Aug 27, 2016 19:20:10 GMT
I've beat Venus, but I'm not happy with it and I keep going back.
My biggest issue so far is the fact that the game considers an enemy ship a threat despite the fact that it's not no mobility (engine or reaction mass knocked out), and/or no weapons working. I think the game should have a 'mission kill' category for ships like that.
Other issues: Full homing for missiles wasted dV on forward thrust when I just want perpendicular thrust. I would like a 'move away from' order for my ships, so I can extend my engagement time if I wish it.
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aiyel
Junior Member
Posts: 83
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Post by aiyel on Aug 27, 2016 20:03:11 GMT
so my first module design (aside from a launcher for my KKVs) was a >1GT nuke. Which I stuck on a custom missile.
it's hilariously OP, and tons and tons of fun.
Trying to design my own NTR has resulted in bouts of gibbering madness, as has trying to make my own laser.
I got a coilgun launcher for my KKV missiles, but there doesn't seem to be a way to force it to override firing range (which isn't important because the payload is a missile with its own guidance and propulsion systems) so it flatly refuses to fire at distant targets even though the payload has 7Kps dV.
I find myself thinking ALL weapons need the 'ignore maximum range' button that lasers have because I can think of plenty of situations (like point defense) where a weapon with thousands of rounds of ammo might just want to tape down the trigger and hope for the best regardless of ultimate chances of victory.
Oh, and KKVs really are fun, but with most ships they're really only good as a first-strike weapon, where they core the hull right at the engine cluster then will just pass subsequent shots right through the same hole. they will, however, at an impact velocity of 5kps punch straight through pretty much anything the long way. My design's dV is high but the actual accel is kinda low. MIght be trading those out for a design that has a bit more acceleration, even if I just add a second engine.
Setting a ship or other object as a reference point, it might be beneficial to be able to toggle it to only show the course up through closest approach. This neptune mission, tagging the station turns my course projection into a plate of spaghetti and grinds my desktop to a halt, I shudder to think what it'd do to either laptop.
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Post by Crazy Tom on Sept 1, 2016 17:45:12 GMT
SESSION 8: BAD TO THE DRONE OK, so new build is out, lots of cool stuff, lots of new and interesting crashes - but hey! Progress! And I finally managed to beat Venus to my liking: And the key is drones. Lots and lots of drones. This is the Stinger Mk II: It's got a turreted 33mm cannon, powered by 2 RTGs and a 45 degree gimballed diamond nitromethane thruster. All securely wrapped up in a 2cm blanket of graphite to protect against pesky lasers. It sacrificed amost a third of its dV to do this, but that's not a problem because it can catch a ride on this: This unmanned carrier bus that gets it to an inch of intercept. Now, game tip: after launching drones, go back and break the bus' intercept, otherwise the bus will intercept the enemy and do absolutely nothing. This baby packs 60 Stinger II's, enough to chew through the entire Nipponese invasion force in one pass (if you make sure to pick off the cutter first, because those lasers are killer). You may notice it's got shit dV - that's because there not much point to doing a missile like fly-by. Venus' gravity makes it a drag. I just intercepted the enemy as they were sliding into a closer orbit. Just swap out the tank for something bigger if you need it. Of course it is unmanned, so it needs mother-ship. Mine was basically a crew compartment with enough power generation and radiators to do the bare minimum, and one measly RCS thruster to qualify it as a ship and let me select it. Suggestions: - Allow stations to be picked during fleet design when defending a planet against an invasion. It would save me the shenanigans of having to add thrusters to my stations so I can pick them. - Allow railguns to be armored as well. I have a spinal railgun that desperately needs it.
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Post by Crazy Tom on Sept 11, 2016 1:27:15 GMT
Well, I'm back at uni so I can't play as much as I used to ,m but I did muck about with 0.,6.1 today and here are some thoughts:
Friendly fire due to missile collisions is still very much a thing. I'm not sure exactly what's happening but sometimes when I launch all missiles my ship gets blown up. Not sure what could be causing them to detonate prematurely.
The Tumbler type design with two 90 degree gimballed thrusters allows it to avoid enemy fire like nobody's business. However, the AI will turn the ship sideways in order to chase down the enemy which negates a lot of the tumbler's advantages. Can the AI be tweaked to know that it should point the thrusteers back at an angle during such maneuvers so that the armored nose cone remains pointed at the enemy? It won't be as efficient to thrusts at an angle, but it will be safer.
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